The Heart of the Phoenix

by Brian Knight

  Flanna heard Zoe shouting her name from somewhere above, and pocketed her new small wand. She closed the secret door snuggly, so that only the smallest gap remained where the paneling had warped, and marched for the stairs to the utility room. She’d catalog the hidden magical items more thoroughly that night, if Erasmus didn’t drag them all out to another useless meeting in Aurora Hollow.

  * * *

  “What am I supposed to be doing?” Penny was moving past merely annoyed to extremely irritated. If there was a point to this exercise other than to feel like a dork, she didn’t know what it was.

  “You’re supposed to be relaxing,” Torin said.

  “And concentrating,” Ronan added.

  “Well, it’s not working,” Penny snapped.

  “Because you’re not relaxing,” Torin said in as close to a neutral tone as he could manage.

  “Or concentrating,” Ronan said, not bothering to hide his amusement.

  Penny bit her lips and continued trying to relax and concentrate at the same time.

  They had explained it to her in greater detail than she would have liked, and she understood what they wanted her to do, but the idea of trying to break into someone else’s mind sounded silly beyond belief.

  Only her sister had been able to do just that, a phenomenon known in her world called twin telepathy.

  Her sister Flanna’s constant intrusions into her mind had left her open, Ronan explained, which is how she was able to intrude into Rocky’s while he had been obsessing over trying to find her. Since she and Rocky already shared a limited ability to sense each other’s thought, the link was already there. But Rocky was in this world, and Flanna was in the other, which apparently made a difference.

  “If Flanna was able to get inside your head, you should be able to get inside hers,” her father had said, and would not be talked out of the idea. Exactly what he expected her to do once she’d accomplished this feat of long distance psychic hacking, she didn’t know.

  “But she knew what she was doing,” Penny said after failing to concentrate again. This time it was an itch at the tip of her nose demanding to be scratched that had distracted her.

  When three kitchen homunculi arrived with their daily meal, Torin called a time out to eat. Penny ate slowly and milked the break for as long as they would allow, but she was back at it again before the hour was over.

  Lying flat on the stone floor, her hands resting comfortably over her stomach, eyes closed, deep, long breaths. The itch attacked the tip of her nose again, but this time she ignored it and it went away. She concentrated on a mental image of her sister, and failed to actually contact her. After a while she began to grow sleepy, and her wandering mind drifted toward Rocky, wondering where he was, if he was hiding or if he’d been caught.

  A loud noise startled Penny, and her eyes snapped open...

  ...on the sight of a great medieval looking compound, which she stood atop of.

  This must be the citadel, she thought.

  Beyond the walls of the citadel was a sprawling city, an architectural hodgepodge that looked half old-world feudal, half alternate-Earth steampunk, which she supposed was exactly what it was.

  When she turned her head to take in more of the spectacle, she discovered herself clinging to the wall of a tower, the pinnacle of the strange city. To her left was an empty window framed in stone, and under her feet, her large gray feet, a narrow ledge.

  Rocky, is that you? she thought.

  The reply inside her own head, though not in her own voice... my girl? My Penny? Where is you my Penny?

  A large bird screeched high above her, and when she looked up, she saw it diving down toward her.

  Rocky took control of his body back from her and dodged the bird, it looked to Penny like a large buzzard, and when it came for him again, he pinned its body to the wall with one large hand. The buzzard lunged at him with its hooked beak, and Penny felt Rocky’s tentative one-handed grip on the wall begin to slip.

  She awoke with a gasp and a jerk, the way she’d awoken from dreams of falling, and found her father and Ronan staring down at her.

  “You know what, old friend?” Torin looked at Ronan with a wide grin. “I think she did it.”

  * * *

  The remaining few days of summer vacation were tense for Flanna, who did not know what to expect when her days of relative idleness ended and she would be forced into the company of hundreds of children she could never relate to. Penny’s shared memories of Dogwood School did not give her hope for a smooth transition or an easy time. She could speak and write in English well enough, but was bad at arithmetic, her tutors had long ago concluded that trying to teach her complex sums was wasted effort, and she knew virtually nothing of Old Earth’s history and science.

  The thing she looked forward to least was socializing with the other young people. She had almost no interaction with them in her own world, and the young people here had their own habits and customs that she was not familiar with. The person she least looked forward to meeting was Penny’s old enemy, Tucker “Rooster” Price, but even if she managed to avoid him in school she would be forced to endure his company before long. She had business with his father.

  Bad dreams disturbed her rest every night, though she could never remember her dreams when she awoke. All that was left of them when she opened her eyes in the dark was a sense of approaching doom.

  Her time with the Phoenix Girls and their friends, Erasmus, Reggie Parker, and Bowen, and even Katie’s older brother once, was a constant frustration, and her forced friendship with Zoe was a constant irritation. She needed a way to convince Zoe to go with her mother and father when they left Dogwood again, but it had to be subtle, she couldn’t just tell her to go away without arousing everyone’s suspicions more than she already had. Zoe herself seemed the most suspicious of all, never letting Flanna out of her sight if she could help it, asking if she was okay, what was wrong, what had she done to make Flanna mad.

  Flanna ignored and deflected as best she could, but her investigation into her family’s past and their association with the Phoenix Girls had come to a halt with Zoe’s constant presence. The Conjuring Glass and her mother’s school yearbook stayed beneath Penny’s bed where she had left them. Little did she know that the next photo in line, the one she’d put away when Zoe and Susan had come back from lunch in town on her first day in Dogwood, would have answered many of her questions and raised even more.

  It was the photo of her pregnant mother and Torin, her true father, had she but known.

  * * *

  Penny’s next few days consisted of eating, sleeping, and meditating, though her efforts only resulted in two more brief visions of what she could only credit as the world above through Rocky’s eyes. The second had been very worrying.

  The little gray man was thoroughly lost. Wandering through another of what Torin called the Servant Tunnels, designed as shortcuts through the citadel for the use of the house homunculi, Rocky had hit the end of one tunnel without realizing it, running face-first into a hanging tapestry in someone’s personal chamber. Penny had seen only a glimpse of the person in the room before her connection with Rocky broke. It was Tracy West, and Penny did not know if he had slipped back into the service tunnels unnoticed, or been discovered.

  She thought she might have dreamed of her sister a few times, but could never be sure if she was making the contact her father and Ronan hoped for, or if they were just dreams.

  In the times between meditation, when she was allowed eat, drink, or just stand up and stretch her legs, her father and Ronan filled her in on more of her family history, on both sides of the family. Her father insisted on telling the tale in chronological order, so she was still waiting to hear how it had ended with her mother dead and Flanna in her Uncle Tynan’s custody. She thought that he was dreading that part of the tale. In truth, she dreaded having to hear it. It was not a story that she looked forward to, but still one she needed to hear.

  Her fa
ther was emaciated from long imprisonment and a once-a-day diet of left over bread, dried-out cheese, and cold meat, and the diet was beginning to have an effect on Ronan as well. He was skinnier than the day she’d arrived, and when she mentioned it Torin laughed.

  “You should have seen him when he first showed up. I don’t know how he maintained such a muscular physique when he spent most of his time tranced out and living as an avatar in your world.”

  Penny was beginning to notice the change in her own body as well. She had always been skinny, but could now feel the ribs clearly beneath her shirt, and she spent most of every day ignoring hunger pains.

  Whenever the homunculi arrived with their food Penny was increasingly disappointed not to see a pair of green eyes staring out from any of the gray faces. She half expected to see Rocky drop down into their midst anytime now, though the hope diminished a little each day.

  There were no more visits from Tynan or Turoc, but Tracy did pay another visit.

  She descended on her floating disk, and before she settled to the floor, two guards descended in her wake and flanked her. Her two companions were young, red-haired, dressed identically in black, boots, pants, shirts, with crimson vests bearing the seal of the House of Fuilrix. Penny realized with a small shock that they were most likely cousins.

  “Come with me, child,” Tracy said.

  Penny bristled at the word child, was ready to tell Katie’s aunt where to go, when the mouth of her mask sealed itself closed again, cutting off all speech.

  “What do you want with her?” Torin said, putting a restraining hand on her shoulder.

  Ronan moved between Tracy and Penny, the fur on his shoulders and neck bushing out. He growled, and crouched as if to spring at them.

  “Don’t worry,” Tracy said, and Penny thought she saw sympathy on the woman’s face. “I’m not going to harm her.”

  If anything, the sympathy angered Penny more than the sealing of her lips had. They did not need this traitor’s sympathy. She could see where the confrontation was leading though and had no desire to see her father and Ronan punished. She also thought she understood Tracy’s imposed silence.

  It was the same reason she was stuck in the mask; Tracy didn’t want these guards to look at her and see her sister’s face. If they thought she was Flanna, they might want to know what she’d done to end up in this cell. If she spoke they might recognize her voice.

  Penny shrugged out of Torin’s grip and ran to Ronan’s side, grabbing him by the bushed out fur of his neck and forcing his head around to face her. She couldn’t speak, but stared into his eyes, tried to convey with her own eyes that she would be okay and that he needed to back off.

  He stared back at her for several seconds, not really seeming to see her at first, then slowly calmed. His bushed out fur laid back down and his bunched muscles relaxed.

  Penny looked up at her father, who seemed to have accepted the situation, though his deep frown said he didn’t like it.

  “Be careful, Penny.”

  There was no reaction from the guards at the use of her name, it obviously meant nothing to them.

  Tracy stepped back to the very edge of her disk and motioned for Penny to step on. When Penny complied, Tracy put her arms around her and they began to rise. Moments later she was out of her cell and standing next to Tracy. The guards joined them, closed the barred cell door, and the four marched down a hallway that Penny quickly realized was not man-made, but a naturally formed corridor through the solid stone beneath the citadel. Torches lined the walls at regular intervals, seeming to throw more shadow than light.

  The cavern walls smoothed gradually to uniformity, and then to steps that led upward. The tunnel ended in a solid stone wall at the top of the steps, and standing before the stone was a narrow door in a free-standing frame, a lot like the doorway in Aurora Hollow, but not as plain.

  Penny knew why Rocky hadn’t been able to reach her. The prison was completely isolated from the citadel above. The only way in or out was through this door, and the only way through the door was with a wand.

  The guards stood aside, taking up posts on either side of the door. Tracy drew her wand, tapped the door, and it swung open on its own, a trick Penny couldn’t help but admire.

  “After you,” Tracy said, motioning her to step through.

  She did and found herself in a room she recognized from her last jaunt into Rocky’s mind as Tracy West’s personal chamber.

  My girl, Penny heard, though only in her head.

  She saw Rocky standing next to a desk stacked high with books, a huge half-melted candle, and an assortment of odd items. He bounced up and down on the balls on his feet, but did not run to her.

  A moment later the door clicked shut behind her, and she turned to face her friend’s aunt, the traitor.

  “I believe this belonged to you,” Tracy said, gesturing toward the gray man. “He wandered in here by accident looking for you. The eyes are a dead giveaway.”

  Tracy stepped past Penny and walked to the green-eyed gray man, patting him on his large, bald head.

  “He works for me now,” she said, and Penny felt like screaming. “He stays pretty busy, but I thought you would like a chance to see him.”

  Penny mastered the urge to run and pummel the woman before her. She crossed her arms over her chest and waited for Tracy to get to the point of this interview, whatever it might be.

  “King Tynan has left,” she said. “He’s taken a company to the Old World to resurrect the Traveling Reds.”

  Penny maintained her defiant pose, adding a tapping foot for effect.

  “Am I boring you, Penny?” She seemed unoffended by Penny’s show, even smiled at her. “I’ll get to the point then. The Traveling Reds have rejoined the fair circuit for the first time in fourteen years, and will arrive in Dogwood for the Harvest Days fair. He has left me here, my sudden arrival in Dogwood would raise too many questions.”

  Penny glared at her.

  “Would you like something to drink? I’ll free your mouth if you promise not to misuse it.” She touched a carafe on her cluttered desk with the point of her wand, and steam issued from the spout. It smelled like coffee.

  Penny thought for a moment, then nodded. She could swallow her anger for long enough to drink a cup.

  Tracy removed two pottery cups from a drawer of her desk and filled them. Penny managed a sullen thanks as she accepted hers. It was coffee. Penny restrained herself from gulping it down. She didn’t know when, or if, she’d ever get another cup, so she wanted to take enough time to enjoy it.

  “I left something behind in Dogwood. I had counted on you to discover and use it, but you didn’t.” Her tone edged toward exasperation. She sighed, sipped at her cup, and continued. “It was very important to my plans that you do it, so now we have a problem.”

  “Why is it my problem?” Penny knew she was edging close to insolence, but couldn’t help herself.

  “Because it is,” Tracy said. “Trust me.”

  “My mother trusted you. My aunt trusted you.” Penny was satisfied to see Tracy wince at the mention of Nancy Sinclair. “They all trusted you.”

  “Yes, they did,” Tracy said. She regained her composure, showing not a hint of a guilty conscience. “I know Torin and Ronan are helping you to contact Flanna. Tynan doesn’t think you’re powerful enough to do it, but I have faith in you. When you contact her, tell her to take my crystal from the memory tree and smash it.”

  Penny stood dumbfounded.

  “Finish your drink, Penny. I need to escort you back to your cell. We both have work to do.”

  Penny didn’t know how to respond, so didn’t try. She drank, and when the cup was empty Tracy resealed the mouth of her mask.

  The guards stopped them on their way back, searched Penny, and flanked Tracy as she escorted Penny back to her cell.

  “We’ll speak again, child,” Tracy said before unsealing her mask’s mouth and departing.

  Then she was alone with her f
ather and Ronan.

  “What was that about?” Torin took her by the shoulders and looked her over, as if to confirm she was unharmed.

  Penny told them, and from the looks they shot each other, they were just as bewildered by the request as Penny was.

  Her meditations that day were as fruitless as the previous, but she did dream of Flanna that night.

  * * *

  Flanna stood in the bathroom, brushing out her hair in front of the mirror and worrying about the coming day. Her first clue that she was still asleep and dreaming was when Zoe drifted in behind her and began fussing with her own long black hair. Zoe had always stood much taller than her, but that morning she was so tall that her head bumped the ceiling, and she had to bend down to look into the mirror. Her second clue was when her brush grew fingers and began to pull painfully at her tangles.

  “Ouch!” Flanna yanked the brush free and threw it into the sink, where it wiggled and curled the fingers that had grown to replace the bristles. When she looked back up at the mirror, Zoe was no longer behind her, and the face staring back at her was not her own.

  “You did this to me!” the thing in the mirror shouted, then pounded the glass with its fists. The glass wavered and bent beneath the blows, but didn’t shatter. “Look at me!”

  Flanna looked, could not stop looking.

  The girl in the mirror was dressed in rags and wearing a leather mask that hugged the contours of her face. There were holes for her nostrils, her mouth, and her eyes. Green eyes, the color of Flanna’s.

  “You have to smash it,” the girl screamed, and pounded the glass of the mirror again. Cracks appeared beneath her fists, and when she struck again the cracks spread. “I gotta get out of here!”

  Smash!

  Flanna screamed and threw her hands in front of her face as shards of broken glass rained down around her, then screamed again when a pair of hands took her by the shoulders.