by Brian Knight
All of the strange people and things in this world, in Penny’s life, were in her memories now, alien, yet familiar through the lens of Penny’s experiences. She would be able to acclimate to them quickly, but she’d have to be careful until she was comfortably integrated.
“Okay, tell her I’ll be right down.”
Flanna es’ Tynan Fuilrix rose and prepared herself to begin the deception.
To become Penny Sinclair.
Chapter 9
Family History
They huddled together against the wall of their cell, Penny snug between her father and Ronan, which was kind of like snuggling into a living, breathing rug. Ronan, never the most touchy-feely of people, was being a good sport about it though, even allowed her to nap away the last few hours of dawn, and when she awoke the cell was noonday bright, and her father was up and pacing.
When he saw Penny awake, he smiled and walked back to them.
“I’ve been wearing that chain for years,” he said. “It’s good to be able to pace again.”
“Why did she unchain us?” Ronan shifted a yawning Penny off his lap. “I’m happy to be off the leash, but I don’t trust acts of kindness coming from her.”
“Something big is coming,” Torin said. “The family is planning something big on the other side.”
“How did you find out? I didn’t think they were talking to you.”
“They don’t talk to me,” Torin said, sounding almost giddy. “But I hear the guards talking. There has been a lot going on since they caught that avian in the sepulcher last year.”
“Why do you seem so happy?” Ronan sounded annoyed with Torin. “We have friends on the other side, and they aren’t prepared for whatever’s coming.”
“I’m happy to have people to talk to again,” Torin said, but made an obvious attempt to subdue himself.
“Why didn’t you tell me, Ronan?”
Ronan and Torin turned to Penny and found her regarding her furry friend. They couldn’t read her expression through the mask, but her tone was hurt.
“About what?”
Penny wasn’t sure where to start at first, there were so many things he’d kept from her, but her father caught her eyes again, and she knew.
“My mother,” Penny pointed at Torin, “and him. Why didn’t you tell me?”
Ronan rose and stretched, his long spine crackling audibly, his long tail swishing back and forth from a hole in the seat of his tattered shorts. It caught Penny full in the face as he turned to speak to her.
“I was going to tell you everything I knew once I was able to bring your father back to you.”
“What was your plan?” Torin stopped his restless pacing to face Ronan.
“My plan was to get captured and thrown down here,” Ronan said. “I succeeded.”
“And after that?”
Ronan cleared his throat and faced one of the blank walls.
“It’s a work in progress.”
Torin rattled off something in a language Penny couldn’t understand, and Ronan replied in kind. It reminded her of the spell they’d used to make their bikes fly earlier that summer, something similar to Latin, Katie had said.
“Hello!” Penny rose and approached them, her hands clenching into fists. “If you’re going to fight at least do it in English!”
Torin and Ronan regarded each other in silence for a moment, then burst into simultaneous laughter. Torin stumbled forward, arms open wide, and they embraced, Ronan actually lifting the smaller man from the floor.
Ronan finally lowered Torin back to the floor.
“It is good to see you again, old friend,” Torin said. “Next best thing to being out of this hole.”
They disengaged, and Torin turned to regard her. He still had tears of laughter rolling down his cheeks, but his face grew serious as he looked at Penny.
“I’m happy to finally meet you, Penny, but how did you end up here? You shouldn’t even be in this world.”
Penny crossed her arms and prepared to balk.
“I’m not telling you anything until I get some answers.” Penny braced herself for Ronan’s usual evasion but was determined to get answers this time. “I want to know why you never told me about him, or my sister. I want to know why my mom’s body was left to rot in a cave, and why my aunt lied to me my whole life about it!”
She realized she was yelling, and decided she didn’t care.
Torin and Ronan waited while she vented her anger.
She heard muffled footsteps above, and looked up to see a man with short cropped black hair staring down at them. He shouted at her in the incomprehensible local language, then vanished, his footfalls diminishing until she couldn’t hear them anymore.
“What the hell did he want?” Penny poked a finger up at the ceiling, thrilled to have something new to be angry about. She’d been kidnapped in the middle of the night by her evil twin after finding her mother’s dead body in a cave, awoken with her hair cut off and some scuzzy leather mask covering her face to find her mentor, who turned out not to be a cute little woodland creature after all, but a giant humanoid/canine hybrid, and the father she assumed had abandoned her as a baby, had to assume because no one had ever told her about him, and now some jerk with a crew cut was chewing her out in a language that was almost, but not quite, a language that had been dead in her world for a few hundred years.
“He wants you to stop screaming,” Torin said.
“You’re scaring the upstairs neighbors,” Ronan said, giving her a wink.
Penny scowled, not ready to calm down.
“Well I suppose if we’re going to tell the tale, we should start at the beginning,” Ronan said. “You might as well sit down and get comfortable. This may take a while.”
Torin settled to the floor, sitting cross-legged and motioning for Penny to join him.
“Don’t worry,” Torin said. “Until the second part of your brilliant plan comes together, time is the one thing we have in plenty.”
* * *
Flanna sat and ate her breakfast quietly while around her Susan, Reggie, and Dana talked about the old days. Dana had come out of her shell a little since arriving; the others could actually understand her contributions to the conversation without lip reading. Zoe seemed to hang on their every word, but it meant nothing to Flanna. The only old days she was interested in were the ones her father and godmother Tracy had told her about.
Flanna was more interested in the strange things all around her in her temporary home, the cook stove that used rings of red hot metal to cook their food, a machine that infused hot water with dried and ground beans to make a hot drink that was supposed to help wake you up, and a small box fastened to the wall that helped you talk to people far away were just a few of the strange things she’d encountered that morning.
In her world hot coals or open flames were used to cook, and though coffee was a costly rarity in her world, it wasn’t unheard of. It wasn’t made with electricity in her world, but by passing boiling water through a porous cloth containing the dried and crushed beans. Penny apparently had a taste for the stuff, and so Flanna had been forced to drink two cups of the bitter drink to keep up appearances. The phone was her biggest shock of the morning, startling her so badly when it had rang that she had nearly tipped over the table jumping from her seat.
“Chill out, Little Red,” Zoe said, stifling laughter. Then to Susan, “Time to switch her to decaf.”
Susan watched Penny warily for a moment as she rose to answer the phone. “Are you okay?”
Flanna nodded and returned to her seat. She could feel the blush spreading across her cheeks.
Susan rejoined them as Flanna finished her pancake, a confectionery she’d never had before, and liked quite a bit. Her first bite had been bland, but Susan had spread butter across it and covered it with a sweet, thick syrup. The eggs and bacon beside it were familiar enough to her to be comforting, the only familiar things in a strange place.
“Erasmus wants to mee
t at the shop to talk about promotion for the Grand Opening.” She walked behind Flanna and casually draped an arm over her shoulder in a brief squeeze. “Then lunch at Grumpy’s.”
Flanna went cold at Susan’s touch, one of the women responsible for her mother’s death, but resisted the urge to shrink away from her.
“Do you mind if we tag along?” Reggie nursed his coffee, and chased it with Zoe’s last piece of bacon while she wasn’t looking. Dana whispered something that might have been thief, then punched his arm. Zoe groped blindly for the last piece of bacon, her nose inches away from the Star Garnet entry of Minerals of the Northwest.
Susan observed this byplay with a grin, Flanna with growing irritation. She’d been prepared to find herself in the midst of tricksters and villains, but these people seemed, at first approximation, to be pleasant... nice. The large man was a little scary to look at, but he didn’t behave aggressively, and the small, silent woman next to him showed no fear of him at all.
Penny’s memories told her this was a pretty typical breakfast scene, except for Zoe’s parents, who had never been here before.
“You should all come,” Susan said. “Erasmus is treating.”
Zoe nodded vigorously, setting her book aside to focus on her remaining food. “I love their burgers.”
Penny’s memories stirred at the mention of Grumpy’s burgers, apparently she liked them too, but Flanna had other plans.
“I’d like to stay home,” Flanna said, exploring Penny’s usual excuses for wanting to stay behind. “My head hurts.”
“I’ll stay too,” Zoe said, her disappointment clear for all to see.
Flanna knew that Zoe had been away for a long time and had just come back to live with Penny, a potential complication to her plans. She wasn’t likely to get many hours away from Penny’s friend.
“No,” Flanna told her. “You go, I’ll see you when you come back.”
Ten minutes later Flanna watched from the porch as they piled into Susan’s van and disappeared down the driveway in a cloud of dust. She had half a day to herself now, and resolved to use it productively.
Penny’s memories of the house led Flanna from room to room. They were coming easier now, not like information read in a book and remembered later, but as actual experiences. She knew where the light switch in the spare bedroom was, flicked it up as if from habit, and wasn’t surprised by the bright flare of electric light. She was acclimating more quickly than she could have hoped.
She stepped into each room with Penny’s wand balanced on the palm of her hand, spoke a single word, and waited. Nothing happened until she reached the attic room again.
Her wand turned in her palm, pointing to the table next to the guest bed, where she found Zoe’s scrying mirror. Next it pointed to Penny’s... her bed stand. She found a matching mirror, and remembered how her sister had come to possess it.
The Birdman used them to spy on children, then kidnap them.
Flanna remembered when the rouge avian had appeared in the citadel. That had been the beginning of a whole lot of trouble for her family, trouble they had thought long behind them. Now she knew the other side of the story, and it was unexpected. The Phoenix Girls had not allied with the avians as her father had assumed, they had been defending themselves from him. Somehow one of the avian slavers had penetrated the citadel disguised as a member of the family and come through to this world through the sepulcher.
Flanna put the mirror back and resolved to tell her father when they next spoke. If he knew Penny hadn’t been conspiring with the enemy he would go easier on her. Maybe he wouldn’t be as mad.
She laid the wand out on her palm, spoke the word again, and it almost tipped from her hand pointing toward her bed.
There was nothing in the bed, so she dropped to her hands and knees and peered beneath it. She pulled out the cloak with her old clothes and wand wrapped in them, shoved blindly beneath the bed when she’d arrived earlier that morning, found a stack of books and pulled them out. Photo books, every page covered with pictures of people, a few of whom she recognized, but in no way magical. She searched again and found the large mirror, not just a simple scrying surface, but a much more powerful artifact. A Conjuring Glass, she thought. She’d have to test its properties when she had more time. Such a tool could be very useful.
She searched the ground floor last: the kitchen, bathroom, then the utility room and the door to the basement. She decided to save it for later. She found nothing until she reached the living room, and that was where the biggest surprise of the day awaited her.
She found Susan’s memory tree with its crystal spheres, laser-engraved with the likenesses of a familiar group of girls.
She saw Susan’s smiling face, a woman she didn’t recognize at first, but after a moment Penny’s memories helpfully informed her it was Janet, former Phoenix Girl and current punk rock singer, whatever that was. She saw two with her mother, and...
“Tracy?” Her godmother had known the Phoenix Girls.
She held her wand over the silver tree and whispered, “Aperius.”
A fine mist poured from her wand tip and fell over the tree. All of the crystal spheres began to glow a blue so bright she had to squint to look at them directly.
Flanna waited for Penny’s memories to explain the magic behind the crystals, but there was nothing in her memories that could explain it. She remembered Susan’s unpleasant sister, June, bringing it during Penny’s birthday party last spring, remembered Susan telling Penny that it had been a gift from Tracy.
And that memory triggered others associated with her godmother.
Tracy had been one of the Phoenix Girls, from this world, not hers. Tracy was Katie’s aunt and had been in a relationship with her and Penny’s aunt, her mother’s twin sister, until the night when she and Penny were born, and had then vanished. None of her friends from this world had known where to, but Flanna did. She had gone, with Flanna and her father, to Galatania.
She came to protect me, Flanna thought.
But there was something she was missing. She had more of the story now than her father and Tracy had ever shared with her, but it was still incomplete.
Flanna opened her eyes, realized she’d been very close to falling asleep while lost in her sister’s memories. She refocused on the memory tree, cupped her godmother’s crystal in her left hand and lifted it gently from its branch. The bright blue blaze had dulled to no more than a faint glow, but the magic infusing it was still there.
Flanna replaced her godmother’s crystalline likeness and moved on to the smiling face of her mother. The face on the next crystal, the face of her aunt, was identical in every way except for her expression. She didn’t know how she knew which was which, but she did. She lifted the sphere from the hook on its silver branch, closed her fingers around it, and closed her eyes again.
Whatever secrets it held, it was not ready to give them up.
After a while she opened her eyes again and replaced her mother’s crystal.
I have to find out what these are, Flanna thought. Later.
She replaced the memory tree back on the table beside Susan’s chair and walked back upstairs. If there was anything for her to learn today, it was up in Penny’s room, under her bed in all of those photo books, and the Conjuring Glass.
* * *
The year was 1999, and Dogwood was preparing for the annual Harvest Days. The Traveling Reds followed the circus from town to town on its tour of the northwestern states, a tour that lasted almost two months, and this nearly week-long stay in this small Washington town was the reason why they spent two months of every year in this world pretending to be traveling performers.
Torin es’ Brom Fuilrix had done this tour three times with a rotating assortment of relatives, and though most considered it a duty that had to be performed, an obligation they owed their house, Torin rather enjoyed his trips to this strange world. There were three troupe leaders, teachers at the citadel who made the trip every year, and a lo
ttery to fill the remaining nine spots. No one volunteered to return, except Torin.
This year his older brother Tynan had drawn a spot in the troupe, and Torin had been determined to make him enjoy himself. His efforts seemed mostly to irritate his serious older brother. California and Oregon had been a trial for them both. Tynan did well enough in front of an audience, using his naturally gruff demeanor, a face made for scowls rather than smiles, to cultivate equal parts fear and fascination. He didn’t have to act, only perform, and Tynan was one of the most powerful Casters the Fuilrix family had ever produced. He lacked Torin’s easy charm though, his ability to take the eccentricities of this world and its people in stride. Tynan hated them all, and they could tell.
“This world is cursed with vapid and useless people,” Tynan had complained once. A group of people huddled outside the brother’s tent, some dressed in ridiculous parody of the Traveling Reds, several waiving autograph books or show schedules, clamoring for signatures. “What do they expect of us?”
Tynan spoke their native tongue, what their teacher Erasmus called Bastard Latin, though never in the hearing of King Brom. Torin, peeking through the tent flap at the swelling crowd, replied in English, “We’re somewhat famous here. They want our autographs.”
“What?”
“They want us to sign their pieces of paper.”
“Why?” Tynan watched the closed tent flap with distrust, his hand resting close to the handle of the wand in his robe’s pocket. “What would they do with our autographs?”
“I don’t know,” Torin conceded. “Their customs are strange, but I’ve given mine perhaps a hundred times and they haven’t killed me yet.”
“You give your true name?” Outrage was clear in Tynan’s voice, but even at the best of times, Tynan’s outrage lay barely concealed beneath a thin layer of cold courtesy.
“Do you think I’m a fool?” Torin asked, grateful when his brother chose not to answer. Tynan had always thought him a fool. “To them I am only Torin the Red, just as you are Tynan the Red.”