The Crimson Brand

by Brian Knight

  She gazed down on the vivid colors of Clover Hill, the green of the grass and the mingled white and lavender of the wild clovers. This was her first spring in Dogwood, and though it would be a few more weeks until the abundant trees for which the town was named bloomed, clover was everywhere. While she stood, appreciating the view, a familiar figure appeared. A tall, black-haired figure.

  “What’s so interesting out there?”

  Penny turned, startled, and found Katie sitting up in bed and rubbing the sleep from her eyes. She yawned, stretched, then swung her feet down to the floor, where they quested blindly for her slippers.

  “It’s Zoe,” Penny said, and beckoned Katie to her side. A moment later they were sharing the window and watching their friend make her slow way toward the hollow.

  “Think we should go after her?” Katie watched Zoe’s progress with mild concern. “She shouldn’t be alone now.”

  “I don’t know.” Penny was as concerned as Katie, but when she was upset she liked to be alone. Zoe might resent their unwanted attention. She was about to say so when she saw something moving through the grass far off to Zoe’s right, flanking her. She pointed it out to Katie. “I think Ronan is keeping an eye on her.”

  “He hasn’t been around since last week,” Katie reminded her. “Do you think he knows about her grandma?” Even as she spoke, her eyes narrowed. She wiped the dust from the window with her sleeve and pressed her nose against the glass. “That’s not Ronan.”

  “What?” Penny could only make out a small Ronan-sized something parting the grass in tandem with Zoe. Then its path led it to a stunted, skeletal dogwood, and it clambered upward, swinging itself from limb to limb until it was near the top. It watched Zoe for a few moments, and when she paused to turn in its direction, it dropped back into the wild grass and clover.

  “That’s not Ronan,” Katie repeated.

  Rather than restate the obvious, Penny simply gaped.

  The thing that was not Ronan but that was clearly stalking Zoe was roughly humanoid. It stood a few feet high, had a spindly, hairless body and limbs, a large head, and huge hands and feet at the ends of its short legs and overly long arms. It moved like a monkey through the thinning grass, hunching forward and balancing on its fists as it ran.

  Penny stumbled away from the window and ran to her bed, kicking her shoes beneath it, then dropping to her stomach to retrieve them. She pulled them on and ran to the trapdoor to the hallway below without lacing them. She turned to see what was keeping Katie and found her rummaging through her overnight bag next to the guest bed.

  “Hurry, Kat! We gotta catch up!”

  “Chill out, Penny,” Katie urged, cringing as Penny stepped on one of her own shoelaces and nearly tumbled backward over the railing around the trapdoor. “Stop yelling, and close that thing before you fall through it and break your neck.”

  Penny regarded Katie, nearly weeping in frustration, but did manage to stop herself from shouting again. “Chill out? Did you see that … thing? We have to ….”

  Penny began dancing in place, frustrated beyond words.

  “We don’t have to catch up,” Katie said in soothing tones that made Penny want to scream again. She seemed to read this in Penny’s face and rolled her eyes. She at last found what she was looking for in her bag, and held it up. “I have an idea.”

  * * *

  Still slightly pink in the face over her moment of total panic, Penny entered Aurora Hollow via her wardrobe door, her wand ready in one hand, her mirror held tightly in the other. Zoe was still too far away to hear, but Penny figured she had only a few minutes to set Katie’s admittedly clever plan into action. She peered into the mirror and saw Katie staring back at her.

  “Ready?”

  “Yeah,” Katie said, then nodded firmly as if to convince herself that she was telling the truth. “Go!”

  Penny stuck her wand behind her ear for temporary safekeeping and removed Zoe’s wand from her waistband. She clutched it with the mirror in her left hand, retrieved her wand, then threw Zoe’s wand and the mirror into the air.

  They rose together in an ungraceful arc, broke apart at the summit of their flight, then paused in midair, slowly spinning in place as if dangling from invisible wires.

  Penny sighed in relief, then urged them forward with her wand as she began to climb the slope to the flat crown of Clover Hill. They obeyed her direction with only an occasional dip or meander in their gliding journey down the well-worn path. She reached the edge, wishing—not for the first time—that she’d had the good sense to be born with hair that blended a little better into the background, and watched the wand and mirror as they floated down the trail. When they were almost lost to sight, she let the wand fall and encouraged the mirror to rise a little higher, still low enough that the tall grass obscured it but high enough for Zoe to see when she arrived.

  With some good timing and luck, they would catch Zoe’s stalker by surprise, find out what it was and, more importantly, what it wanted.

  A few minutes later the top of Zoe’s head came into view, and the rest of her body quickly rose to join it as she crested the last rise.

  Her head hung, her face pointing down at the trail and obscured by a fall of long black hair, and just as Penny began to fear she’d miss the mirror entirely, maybe stepping on her wand in her distraction, she paused.

  Penny’s gaze darted from Zoe to the surrounding field, but she didn’t see their uninvited guest.

  After a startled step backward, Zoe bent and went to one knee, as if tying her shoelaces, and Penny saw her scoop the small mirror from the air before her. She bent close to it, hiding it behind her curtain of hair. After a few seconds Penny saw her slip the mirror into her pocket and part her hair with her empty hand to search for Penny. When she rose a moment later, Penny saw her wand clutched close to her leg.

  Penny readied herself. If Zoe followed Katie’s plan, it would happen quickly.

  Zoe faced Penny, too far away for Penny to read her expression or even tell if Zoe had spotted her, then she turned right and strode off the trail and into the grass, moving deliberately slowly.

  Penny crouched a little lower, aware that her vivid hair made her an easy target for anything with working eyes but unable to do anything about it.

  Zoe continued through the waist-high grass, her movements sharp, her posture tense. A few seconds later, the strange gray creature broke through the grass and onto the trail. It paused there and fidgeted for a moment in apparent indecision, hopping once in place to catch sight of Zoe. Then it turned, first one way then the other, and froze when it saw Penny.

  Penny’s breath caught in her throat. For a moment she thought she was going to faint. Her world went slightly foggy at the edges, and her legs began to wobble beneath her.

  She thought she knew what the little monster was now. She’d seen one like it only the week before, tiny enough to fit in the palm of one hand. She knew this one wasn’t hers. Hers had green eyes, her eyes; this one’s were gold with slits for pupils.

  The thing regarded her for a second, its strange face registering surprise, then its thick, pale lips pulled back in a snarl to reveal large teeth that looked as if they’d been chiseled from granite. It growled, a rough, high-pitched sound, like a dog on helium, and charged.

  The faint feeling retreated all at once, and her heart hammered in alarm. She remembered with some surprise that she was holding her wand, and pointed it at the charging monster.

  The little gray man bounded down the trail toward her in long strides and leaps, dodging the pummeling spells she sent toward it with ease. Her spells gouged divots in the dirt around the little monster. She demolished a small bush on its right and cracked a large rock just as the charging creature leapt over it. She grazed it once, chipping a sliver of stone from its shoulder, throwing it off stride for a moment but not stopping it. She tried a levitation spell, but the little monster was moving too quickly for her to catch it.

  Zoe called out somewhere
in the distance.

  Fighting her panic, Penny conjured a shield just as the thing closed the remaining distance. It bounced back, as if striking an invisible wall.

  It shook its head and growled, then faced her again. Its large eyes narrowed, and it snapped at the air between them with its rough stonelike teeth. Then it lowered its bald head and charged again. It struck the invisible barrier between them with enough force to push Penny a few inches down the hill. The shield shimmered momentarily in front of her, and her wand bucked in her hand.

  “Could use some help!” Penny cried out, bracing for another charge.

  The thing twittered madly in a strange, incomprehensible language, then charged again.

  Penny felt this impact all the way to her shoulder, and the shield fell as her wand flew out of her hand. Before she could regain her tottering balance, the little gray man plowed into her and they tumbled backward down the hill and into Aurora Hollow.

  She no longer felt ashamed of her earlier panic. It seemed justified now.

  Penny heard Zoe call to her as she tumbled to a stop at the bottom of the hill, bruised, dirty, and winded. The little gray man held on to her, chirping madly.

  She opened her mouth to call for help and felt blood gush down her chin. Before she could make a sound, the little gray man’s hands closed around her throat and began to squeeze. Penny tried fruitlessly to pry the long, gray fingers from her throat, but they were as strong as stone. She could not budge them.

  The little gray man thrust its ugly face close to hers and snarled.

  She flailed blindly in the dirt for her dropped wand but couldn’t find it. The hollow began to darken around her. She felt as if she were cradled in a dense fog.

  I’m dead, Penny thought, and the emotion that followed was neither fear nor sadness but anger.

  Rage at the creature for stealing her life.

  Her skin felt suddenly hot, very hot. Red hot. The animal sneer vanished from the monster’s face. Its eyes went round with surprise. Penny was viewing the gray man’s face through a bright, shimmering veil of fire.

  The stone fingers around her throat loosened, then released, and Penny drew in a deep, painful breath. Her throat felt swollen, pinched shut. For a moment she tottered on the edge of consciousness, the darkness of oblivion settling over her. Then the darkness lifted, the world came back into focus, and Penny could breathe again. She sat up, cringing at the aches and bruises that seemed to cover her from head to toe.

  The little gray man waved its long arms, trying to extinguish the flames covering its hands. It howled, not in pain but in frustration, and beat its hands in the dirt.

  As her strength returned, Penny’s fury swelled. The sheath of fire around her pulsed with each frantic beat of her heart. She forgot about Zoe. She forgot about Katie and Susan. There was only her rage and the creature.

  Penny rose, aches and pains forgotten, and cocked her arm like a big league pitcher winding up for a fastball. What she threw wasn’t a baseball but a fireball. It hit the gray man in the chest, splattering tongues of flame into the trees behind him. They burned for only a few seconds before dying out, but the flames covering the creature intensified.

  He ran in a tight, panicked circle, howled in terror, and scampered toward the hill.

  Zoe stood at the top on the path out of the hollow, her wand aimed down as the little gray man scrambled up the dirt steps. She blasted him to the ground.

  Penny saw the look of fear on Zoe’s face, not of the little gray man but of her, and her anger ebbed away. The shimmering orange heat-haze around her faded. The flames sank into her skin. She felt cold in their sudden absence.

  “I didn’t know you could do that,” Zoe said, looking from Penny to the groaning creature on the ground. She sounded petulant, angry.

  “Neither did I,” Penny said, and turned her attention back to the monster as well.

  It twittered and moaned, sounding like a cross between a monkey and a bird, and rolled in the dirt to smother the flames. Without Penny’s anger to feed them, they died out quickly. The little gray man rose into a crouch, its body still smoldering, and regarded its new attacker.

  Penny recognized ill intent in the thing’s expression, redoubled her search for the dropped wand, and found Katie, holding hers, in the open doorway leading to her room.

  Katie dashed past Penny as the thing charged toward the hill.

  “No you don’t!” A fork of purple lightning arched through the air from the tip of Katie’s wand and struck the little gray man in the back. It froze for a moment then fell, spread-eagle and twitching to the ground. A heavy smell of ozone filled the air, and their hair began to dance with static.

  Penny approached it cautiously, massaging her sore, swollen throat. Katie stayed at her side, wand pointed at the smoking body.

  “Is it dead?”

  Zoe skidded to a stop at the last step and braced herself against the trunk of a gnarled willow. “What is it?”

  Katie shook her head, then made a sound of protest when Penny took a step closer and nudged the thing with her foot.

  “Relax, Kat. I think you knocked it out.”

  Penny nudged it again, then rolled it onto its back.

  “Eww,” Katie groaned, keeping her wand pointed at it but averting her eyes.

  “It’s called a homuncu … something or other,” Penny remarked, wishing she hadn’t rolled the little monster onto its back, “and apparently it’s a boy.”

  Its eyes fluttered open. It regarded the canopy of green above it in confusion for a moment, then bared its teeth as it saw Penny standing above it. It grabbed feebly for her ankle, and she jumped back to avoid it, bumping into Katie, who was close on her heels.

  Before it could rise again, long green whips snaked down from the surrounding willows and twisted around the little gray man’s wrists and ankles, binding him. They hoisted him into the air and more slithered down, wrapping it from waist to knees, binding its legs together. The willows hoisted it higher into the air until he hung above Penny and Katie, chattering down at them in his alien language and looking like a gargoyle in a grass skirt.

  Zoe stood at the bottom of the trail, both hands pressed to the narrow trunk of the nearest willow.

  “That’s a good trick to know,” Penny croaked, still massaging her throat.

  Zoe’s eyes moved from the gray man above them to Penny, but she said nothing.

  Penny watched the creature for a moment, worried it might tear free from the limbs, but as strong as it was, they were stronger. It thrashed about over their heads, straining at the willow whips; they wound tighter around him in response.

  Zoe passed Penny while she regarded the struggling monster, dropped her wand to the dirt, and sat at the water’s edge. She seemed to have lost all interest now that the immediate danger had passed.

  “What did you call that thing?” Katie gave the dangling little gray man a quick, furtive glance.

  “Ho-mun-cu-lus,” Penny said, enunciating to make sure she got the name right. She began to tell them about the egg Ronan had given her for her birthday and the baby homunculus that had hatched from it.

  “Tell us later,” Katie said, lunging forward and grabbing Penny by the wrist to drag her toward the door. “I saw something when I was looking for Ronan in the Conjuring Glass. I think he’s in trouble.”

  * * *

  They stood in her room. Penny could see the outline of the big mirror under the sheet Katie had thrown over it.

  “The House of Mirrors?” Penny could hardly believe what she was hearing. She hadn’t thought much about the place since leaving it to burn the previous fall. She had no idea the place was still around and standing. “You’re sure, Kat?”

  “Yeah,” Katie said, amazement clear in her voice. “I think all the mirrors in there were linked to the Conjuring Glass, like ours. I saw what was left of the place through a piece of broken mirror.”

  “And Ronan was there?”

  “No.” Katie waved a
n impatient hand, perhaps indicating that Penny should shut up and let her finish. “But I think he was there. I was looking for Ronan, and the Conjuring Glass took me there. I think it’s in the junkyard.”

  “The junkyard!” Penny nearly shouted, and Katie slapped a hand over her mouth.

  “Can you not scream?” Katie gave the trapdoor a quick nervous glance, as if expecting Susan to bust in on them at any moment to ask what all the shouting was about.

  Penny slapped Katie’s hand away but continued in a lower voice.

  “Of course … that’s where Ronan has been going, and that creep’s son was guarding it ….”

  “To keep people away from the House of Mirrors,” Katie finished. “I figured that out. Tovar must have had other stuff in there like the mirrors and those doorknobs. Ronan was trying to get them all before someone else did.”

  “But who was Joseph Duke guarding them for?” It was too much information, too much weirdness to sort out all at once, so Penny decided for the time being to focus on the one small bit of weirdness at a time. “So where was Ronan?”

  “I don’t know,” Katie said, sounding as flustered as Penny felt. “A cave, I think. Somewhere underground. I didn’t see him. There was a watch and something else. But there was blood in the dirt. A lot of blood.”

  Penny’s blood ran cold. Ronan hurt. Ronan bleeding. Ronan vulnerable and in danger, something she had not truly believed was possible.

  “We have to find him, Kat.” She barely heard her own words. There was no strength behind them. “We have to help him.”

  Katie nodded. Her face had gone ashen, her eyes large, and there was a perceptible tremor in her shoulders, but she agreed without hesitation.

  Penny sat on the edge of her bed and pulled aside the sheet covering the mirror. The Conjuring Glass reflected her face for a moment, then a swirl of gray mist obscured it. She concentrated on seeing Ronan, but when the mist cleared the glass showed only darkness.