The Crimson Brand

by Brian Knight

  Penny and Zoe leaned in over her shoulder for a look.

  Can we ask you questions?

  For a few seconds nothing happened. Katie’s scribbles stained the previously crisp page, and Penny felt a rising disappointment.

  “Maybe you should have used a pencil,” Zoe said, then yawned again.

  “No, look!” Katie pointed at the ink that had stood out sharply against the white page only a few seconds earlier. Now it had begun to fade, as if aging years before their eyes. A few seconds later it was gone, the page unblemished.

  A reply rose to the surface and lingered for a moment before vanishing.

  You can.

  “Excellent,” Katie said, gleefully regarding the newly blank page.

  “Yeah,” Zoe said, attempting to rub a little liveliness back into her sleepy eyes with the heels of her palms. “Very nice.”

  Katie either didn’t notice Zoe’s less-than-enthusiastic reply or was ignoring it.

  Zoe had all but fallen asleep the night before, and looked worse tonight. When Penny had asked about it at school she’d admitted she wasn’t getting much sleep. Between regular homework, late-night practice sessions at the hollow, and an early-morning alarm to wake her grandma up for medicine, she thought she was averaging four hours of sleep a night.

  Penny suggested she take a few nights off and immediately wished she hadn’t. The look Zoe shot at her was almost frightening.

  “No! What if something cool happens? I don’t want to miss anything!”

  The way it had been going, she could sleep through their nighttime sessions and not miss anything cool.

  This was at least different.

  Katie didn’t waste a second but scribbled a second question.

  Will you tell us how to make more wands?

  Again, the fresh ink shone wetly in the firelight, then faded and vanished, but there was no reply.

  Instead, the pages began to flutter, though there was no breeze in the hollow to move them, then turn rapidly. They stopped about a quarter of the way through the book, and the blank page facing them filled with writing. It was the same runic language they had seen every time they touched a blank page with their wands to receive a new lesson, but unlike before, the characters didn’t dance and rearrange themselves into English.

  Zoe began to laugh, and Katie shot her an irritated look.

  “Sorry,” Zoe said, and she did look it. She also looked ready to burst into fresh gales at the slightest provocation, loopy from sleep deprivation. “I’m just too tired to be upset.”

  “Why aren’t they changing, though?” Katie demanded. “We can’t read that!”

  This puzzled Penny too, but the answer, something she’d gleaned from the first page she’d read on passive magic, clicked in her brain: “Where in active magic, the practitioner introduces a new element or energy to actively change their environment, passive magic is subtler, working within the existing environment to assist natural processes ….”

  Penny reached between Zoe and Katie with her right arm extended and touched the page with the tip of her wand.

  “… or bring intended order from apparent disorder.”

  Instantly, the letters began their familiar dance, and a moment later the instructions lay before them in easy-to-read English.

  Zoe giggled.

  Katie crossed her arms over her chest and looked annoyed.

  “Let’s call it a night,” Penny suggested, deciding that now would be a good time for Katie and Zoe to separate. “It’s late and we’re all tired.”

  “Awesome idea,” Zoe said, yawning for a third time.

  “Yeah, sure,” Katie said, though not as enthusiastically as Zoe.

  Zoe stumbled to the door, pulled the black wand from her waistband, and opened the doorway to her bedroom. “You coming, Penny?”

  “Naw, I’ll catch a ride with Kat.” She’d been hoping for a chance to talk to Katie alone, and this was as good a time as any.

  “’K,” Zoe mumbled. “G’nite.”

  A moment later she was through the door.

  “Kat, there’s something I need to tell you.”

  Katie regarded her dubiously for a moment, then seated herself next to the fire pit. “Okay.”

  “Last week I found an old photo album in my basement ....”

  Penny kept it short, telling her about the old snapshots she’d found in the back of the album, some with her aunt in them, then about Ronan’s revelations later in the day.

  Katie nodded, even smiled a little, though it was clear that her stores of energy were running low, but she didn’t seem surprised.

  “I was wondering about that,” Katie said. “Your family lived here and Aunt Tracy was their friend.”

  The book was shut away in its chest, hidden in the hole in the old ash’s trunk, but Katie held the wand in her lap and regarded it for a moment.

  “That’s all, really. I just thought you had a right to know before we told Zoe.”

  Katie looked troubled. “Ronan said that things ‘ended badly’ last time. Did he tell you what happened?”

  Penny had thought she might ask about that, and had prepared a response that was not a lie but slightly less than the whole truth.

  “My mom was in a car wreck and my … father,” Penny still had trouble speaking about him; she didn’t know anything about him and could only guess the worst from how everyone else in her life loathed the man. “My father left, and the rest of them just kind of went their own ways, I guess.”

  “But Dad says that our aunts,” and now Katie was struggling with her words, and Penny could see a bright blush blooming in her cheeks by the firelight. “Well, he says our aunts ran off, uh, together.”

  Penny shrugged. “Big deal, they were friends, weren’t they?”

  Katie rolled her eyes. “You know. Together.”

  For a moment Penny remained puzzled, then she got it.

  “Ohhh!”

  Katie plunged on quickly. Apparently Penny wasn’t the only one with news she’d wanted to share. “Yeah. I mean, that’s what he says. I don’t know if it’s true or not, but that’s why he’s still pissed. He didn’t approve.”

  Well then maybe he’s the reason she never came back, Penny almost said, but bit her tongue. She still had Susan’s caution about not trashing Katie’s father firmly in mind. She did have her doubts, though, and she wouldn’t be sharing them with Katie.

  Ronan had mentioned a traitor, someone inside the circle who had betrayed them, and though he’d refused to tell her who it was, she hadn’t been able to keep herself from speculating.

  They were not happy speculations.

  Not Susan, he had said as much. Penny deliberately turned her mind from the obvious choice, the one that meshed too neatly with her other suspicions, and focused on her favorite choice, the mystery girl Janet. Penny didn’t even know her last name yet. She seemed to have simply vanished fourteen years before, along with her aunt Nancy and Katie’s aunt Tracy.

  Until she learned more she wasn’t telling Katie or Zoe that part of Ronan’s story.

  Great, she thought. As if I didn’t have enough to worry about.

  She hadn’t finished researching her own family’s past: she had to find out if her mother and father actually had been married, and the tattoo nagged at her. Now she would have to search for the elusive Janet, and her and Katie’s aunts as well.

  Not for the first time, an inner voice cautioned her.

  You know there’s probably a reason Ronan isn’t telling you any of that stuff. Probably a very good reason.

  As always, Penny tried to push that voice to the back of her brain and ignore it.

  While she was silently distracted by these unhappy thoughts Katie had risen and approached the door.

  “Hey, Penny, we should go.” Her manic energy seemed to have burnt itself out for the night. She looked as tired as Penny suddenly felt. “It’s getting late.”

  “Yeah,” Penny said, bringing her attention to the
present once more. “How about we go to my room first and you can take the wand home tonight.”

  Katie nodded, smiling. “Maybe tomorrow I’ll be able to make my own.”

  * * *

  But it wasn’t as simple as Katie had hoped. According to the book, you couldn’t just pick up any old stick and do magic with it. They put the next night’s lessons on hold while Katie puzzled over the instructions, and after a quarter of an hour Zoe sat tottering on the edge of sleep next to the fire, and Penny had to jab her to wake her up.

  “You two fill me in tomorrow. I’ve got to get some … some …,” her mouth stretched in a huge yawn, “ … some sleep.”

  Katie threw a distracted wave in Zoe’s direction. “Yeah. G’nite.”

  Penny amused herself conjuring handfuls of her harmless fire and tossing them into the air while Katie’s back was turned and her nose almost pressed to the page of the book. The flames died a few seconds after leaving her hands but left bright streaks that lingered in the air.

  “Penny, what are you doing?” Katie shut the book in irritation. “You’re making it impossible to read.”

  “You’ve read it a dozen times already, Kat,” Penny said, but threw the fireball she was holding into the crackling flames of the fire pit before Katie could see it. “It didn’t look that complicated to me.”

  “Well, good for you,” Katie snapped. “You do it then.”

  “Sorry, Kat,” Penny said. “I just don’t know what you’re worried about.”

  Katie kept her back turned and her arms folded, tapping the wand against her arm in her irritation.

  “Just try it,” Penny encouraged and, though she knew from experience the answers to the next question were almost infinite, added, “what could go wrong?”

  Katie chose not to answer this but ceased her distracting tapping. “Fine.”

  Katie held the wand over her head and closed her eyes in concentration, breathing deeply to steady herself. When she opened them again, a point of light flickered at the wand tip.

  Penny watched as it flared and swelled, then rose into the air. It illuminated the hollow more brightly than the fire but burned out after a few seconds.

  Penny thought this new trick would be useful, if they could make the light last a little longer.

  “See,” Penny said, even though she knew the tricky part was still to come. “You’ve got it.”

  Katie did seem a little calmer as she approached the ash. She stopped a few feet from it and searched the trunk up and down until she found the spot she wanted, a tiny knothole a few feet above her head. She pressed the tip of the wand into the hole, and Penny saw light spilling from it as Katie made the light come again. This time however she held her focus until the light spilling out around the tip of the wand grew almost blinding.

  Penny shielded her eyes and Katie squinted to cut the glare, but didn’t look away.

  The long seconds turned into a minute, then two, as Katie focused on the pure energy she was pouring into the big tree. Then, at last, the tree itself began to spill light from every crack and crevice.

  “You’re doing it!” Penny nearly shouted in amazement.

  Katie never even heard her. She was watching the tree’s upper limbs, waiting for the energy she was pouring into the ash to find the easiest way out. Whichever limb the pent up energy exited through ….

  Then brightness pierced the darkness over their heads, and Penny looked up to find Katie’s light shining through the tips of a half-dozen upper limbs. As if pruned from the tree, the glowing limbs fell, raining down into the clearing around them. When the last of them hit the ground, the light shining from the ash faded, and Penny turned her happy grin on Katie.

  But Katie was no longer standing at the base of the ash with the twisted old wand. She was collapsed on the ground between two bulging roots, her forehead smudged with dirt where it had struck the earth.

  She had fainted.

  Around them, the harvested ash wood continued to glow for a few moments, then the light faded from them, too.

  * * *

  Zoe was furious the next morning.

  “Why did you let me go home?” Zoe shoved her ugly old bike into the school’s bike rack between Penny’s and Katie’s. “Something cool finally happens and I sleep through it!”

  At least she seemed well rested this morning.

  “Hush,” Penny said, casting her glance around for potential eavesdroppers. “Stop yelling.”

  “Don’t worry,” Katie said, clicking the lock on her bike chain. “Next time you can do it.”

  Zoe’s frown lingered for a moment, then quivered a little around the edges. “You ate dirt, huh?”

  “Totally,” Katie said. She lifted her hair away from her temple and showed her bruise. “I told my mom I fell out of bed.”

  “You should have seen it.” Penny locked her bike next to Zoe’s.

  The flow of foot traffic past them was easing as first bell approached.

  “So, what now?” Zoe led them down the path to the entrance, looking over her shoulder at them. Katie kept an easy pace, but Penny had to quicken her stride to keep up.

  “We’ll start working on them tonight,” Penny said. “Later.”

  Inside, she went to her homeroom, Katie following Zoe down another hallway toward theirs.

  By lunchtime, Penny was ready for the day to be over. The intensity of Miss Riggs’s scrutiny seemed to have lessened, but the cumulative effect of all the unwanted attention was enough to shatter Penny’s already shaky concentration. Every time she tried to focus on her work, she could feel the teacher’s beady eyes boring through the top of her head.

  “TGIF,” Zoe said as they crossed the street toward their usual lunch destination. She stopped a half-block shy of Sullivan’s, and Penny walked straight into her back.

  “Who’s that,” Zoe said, as though she hadn’t noticed the collision.

  Penny glanced around and saw the object of Zoe’s attention. She also understood Zoe’s unease. The guy made her want to walk the other way, too.

  Leaning against Susan’s storefront, next to the open front door, was the creepiest man Penny had ever seen: tall and gangly, with a belly that drooped beneath the hem of a dirty T-shirt; a long, greasy head of hair with a teacup-sized bald spot in the back; a scraggly beard; and tiny dark eyes that seemed to watch them keenly.

  He smiled, folded his arms across his chest, and looked away.

  “Come on,” Penny said in a low voice, angry that she’d let him spook her so suddenly and completely. Penny led Zoe the rest of the way, keeping her eyes determinately on the Golden Arts sign hanging on the next door. Before they reached the door, however, another man stepped out of Sullivan’s and spoke.

  “Joseph, quit loitering out here and find something to do.” The man was middle-aged and plump, his bald head deeply tanned. Penny stopped this time, and Zoe walked into her. The man looked tidy and professional in his crisp, spotless black suit, like a banker or lawyer. “Go on down to the café now and get some lunch, son. I’ll meet you there.”

  The man had a slight Southern accent rather at odds with his appearance. Penny had expected a British accent or maybe a yawning Massachusetts drawl.

  Joseph nodded once at his father and eyed the girls again before he pushed away from the wall and strode off in the other direction, toward Grumpy’s, the restaurant favored by Zoe’s grandma and her troupe of blue-haired town elders.

  “Well, hello, girls.” The man’s eyes twinkled down at them.

  Penny was momentarily stymied by his unexpected friendliness. “Uh … hello, sir.”

  “Susan said you’d be coming along soon.” He moved aside and waved them in, looking more like a doorman than a customer. “I’m afraid I’ve monopolized her time this morning, but you’ll have her all to yourselves in a few more minutes.”

  Penny looked at Zoe, and Zoe looked at her, eyebrows raised.

  “After you.”

  Penny passed beneath the bald man�
��s indulgent smile and into Sullivan’s, and Zoe followed.

  “Hi, girls.” Jenny stood behind the register, ringing up the first in a short line of midday customers. She waved at them before returning her attention to a man with a stack of invoice books.

  They found their usual seats on the reading-corner couch, but it took them a moment to realize that the expected supply of lunchtime pastries was missing.

  “Looks like we’ll have to fend for ourselves today,” Zoe said.

  Penny thought she could survive without their daily doughnuts. Susan always fretted that she should be feeding them something a little healthier than dough and sugar anyway, but she was curious about the bald man who had so completely distracted Susan from her normal midday errands. Also, she wasn’t sure that Susan could survive without her usual maple bar.

  They watched the man as he moved—with a speed and grace that was a little surprising for someone his size—down the main aisle and around displays and customers toward the back rooms of the shop. He lingered at the Of Regional Interest shelf on the back wall and flipped through a large Grays Harbor County photo book with apparent lively interest.

  A few moments later, Susan emerged from the back room with two steaming mugs of coffee and an ear-to-ear grin.

  “Oh, my,” Zoe said as the bald man greeted Susan and relieved her of the cups. “Does Susan have a new boyfriend?”

  “I guess she does,” Penny said, glancing toward the register counter to catch Jenny’s eye.

  Jenny was seeing her current customer off when she noticed Penny. Seeming to guess at Penny’s unspoken question, she glanced at the large man chatting with Susan, then back to Penny. She gave a slight shrug, as if to answer Penny’s unspoken question: Yeah, he’s a bit old for her, but she seems to like him.

  The big man in the banker’s suit seemed to be the ‘boyfriend’ that Jenny had alluded to at Penny’s birthday party and Susan had admitted to the next morning.

  “She has the love look in her eyes.” Zoe winked, then giggled when Penny elbowed her in the side.