The Conjuring Glass (16 page)

Not a bad plan
, Penny thought—but in this case, she knew it wouldn’t work.

The night of Friday, September 29
th
came, and with nine school-free days stretching out before them, Penny and Zoe snuck out of the house just before midnight.

More than anything else, they needed to practice their magic. The Birdman would come for them soon. They could only hope they would be ready when he did.

They felt none of the usual anticipation as they crested the slope to the wild stretch of land leading to Aurora Hollow, only a sense of hopelessness, almost a feeling of doom.

Zoe clutched the wand at her side, itching for the small comfort of firelight the old stone pit would at least offer, and dreading the first of a new series of practice sessions just as much. As much as they reviewed the spells they had learned, they could find nothing they considered a practical offensive spell in their current repertoire, only things that seemed moderately useful at best, and downright silly on the whole.

There was the modified fire spell Zoe had succeeded in casting on their last visit to the hollow, but it was too unsure. Zoe just didn’t know if she could pull it off when the time came.

Zoe had a hunch, a hope she’d shared with Penny, that they might be able to create the right spell, the magical equivalent of throwing rocks at The Birdman, but only if it was a simple one.

Penny was hopeful too, but not at all convinced.

They’d just have to see.

“I hope Ronan is there tonight. I bet he could help,” Zoe said.

“Yeah. Me too.”

Ronan’s frequent absences, days, sometimes as much as a week at a time, were nothing new to them—but they hadn’t seen him for almost a month. They thought he might come to visit them sometime to find out why they weren’t coming around, but he did not.

Penny was worried for him. The last time she’d seen him was just before the first kidnapping. What if The Birdman had attacked him, hurt him, or carried him off to wherever he kept the missing children?

From that, her thoughts turned back to the mysterious door, a door that didn’t belong there, but was there nonetheless. It had appeared about the same time Ronan had disappeared. There was a connection, she was sure, but didn’t know what it was.

Which one had put it there, Tovar or The Birdman, and why?

The question that concerned them most however was how to keep from joining the ranks of the missing.

They arrived at the drop to the hollow and descended in silence, Penny leading, and Zoe following closely with the wand held in her fist.

Ronan did not emerge from the mouth of his cave, or leap down from the upper branches of his favorite tree to greet them.

Neither did The Birdman.

Zoe lit the fire and they stood over it for a few minutes, feeding it with dead limbs they had scavenged on previous visits.

“Might as well start,” Penny said a few minutes later.

“Yeah,” Zoe said glumly, and began searching for a suitable target while Penny stood back and considered the door. Zoe returned a few minutes later dragging a length of deadwood behind her, which she set up against the vertical part of the bank a few feet away from the steep path.

Penny considered and rejected a half
‐
dozen booby trap plans as too complicated or too chancy, and decided to shelve that idea. There was no way to tell which direction he would come from anyway, if he flew in.

She turned her attention back to Zoe, and found her friend red-faced with concentration, wand pointing at her target.

“Any luck?”

For a moment, Zoe continued to glare at the dead tree trunk she’d placed against the stone and dirt, the wand shaking in her hand, then she lowered it and shook her head.

“Nothing,” she said sourly. “We might as well yell at it.”

“We’ll figure something out,” Penny offered in what she hoped was a confident tone.

Penny took a turn with the wand, only having the vaguest idea of what she wanted to do. After a few hours of switching off, they decided to call it a night. Frustrated as they were, they were just too tired to continue.

They came back the next morning, Susan relenting only after they had promised to check in every few hours. They took turns again: Penny with the wand, practicing every spell she knew and hoping to find some practical way to use one of them against The Birdman, and Zoe pouring over every word the book had shown them up to that point.

They returned to the house before lunch, left for the hollow again that afternoon, and snuck out again late that night.

They followed the same schedule the next day, and ended the third late night with no more progress than they had the first.

Reluctantly, Zoe agreed that they should focus more on using what they did know in new ways.

The next day, the first school-free Monday since the end of summer, marked the start of Harvest Days, and the return of Tovar The Red.

The Conjuring Glass

The House of Mirrors

Penny and Zoe rode into town Monday morning with Susan to watch the carnies and a few hired locals set up the fair. It was like something out of a book or movie: the entire town transforming into a carnival. Local businesses put up colorful bunting and moved displays of their merchandise onto the sidewalks. The bakery just down the sidewalk from Sullivan’s put a concession stand across the street in front of the park.

The park itself had already transformed. Usually sleepily empty, it bustled with a flurry of activity. Carnies setting up games, food stands, trinket stands, and rides.

The larger rides like the Ferris Wheel, the Octopus, the Zipper, and a single, short roller coaster sprawled over the park’s border and into the school playground.

Large trucks occupied almost every inch of curb along the park side of Main Street, some relieved of their cargo, others still bearing the skeletal frames and gantries of rides yet to be set up.

There were even a half-dozen tents, mostly devoted to animals and performers.

One had a large poster board propped on an easel beside the closed front flap with a life-sized photo of Tovar The Red. If Susan saw that, she gave no sign. She advised them to stick to the games, stay clear of the rides under construction, and told them to check in every hour, on the hour.

“Have fun, girls,” she said, and slipped them each a twenty. “If you have anything left, bring me some Elephant Ears from the concession stand.”

“Elephant Ears,” Penny repeated. Whatever they were, they sounded completely gross to Penny.

Susan patted her stomach. “Mmmm, good stuff, kiddo.”

Zoe seemed surprised by Susan’s casual display of generosity, and only stood there for a moment, staring at the money in her hand.

“C’mon.” Penny grabbed her by the arm and dragged her across the street.

Their first stop was at the concession stand, where morbid curiosity alone compelled Penny to try what Susan called
Elephant Ears
.

“They’re called scones,” the girl at the stand said with obvious disapproval.

Penny found the scones, deep-fried batter with melted butter and powdered sugar, to be more than just
good stuff
. They were delicious. She shared them with Zoe as they wound in and out of completed stands and rides yet to be opened.

She kept her eyes open for Tovar’s wild shock of flame red hair, but did not see it. Every few minutes she looked back over her shoulder to see if Susan was watching from the store’s front window. Fortunately, with the influx of people visiting Dogwood for the fair, Susan was too busy monitoring customers.

Penny checked her watch—twenty minutes until it was time to check in.

“Wanna get tickets?”

They wound their way to the gazebo, now a ticket booth instead of a stage, and waited in line to spend the last of their cash. Zoe reminded Penny they needed to save enough to buy Susan’s Elephant Ears. After getting their tickets, they stopped at the concession stand again, then dropped Susan’s Elephant Ears at the shop.

The sheriff closed down Main Street; traffic detoured the three blocks from where the park began to where the school ended. Penny wondered briefly where the visitors were parking. The lane behind the Main Street shops had barely enough room for the people who worked along that stretch, let alone hundreds of visitors.

The growing flow of foot traffic seemed to be coming from the direction of the school, so she supposed they were using the school’s parking lot.

Susan was busy with a steady stream of customers at the cash register, but she acknowledged Penny with a smile and thumbs up when they took her scones to the break room.

On their way back across the crowded street Penny said, “Let’s check out his tent.”

“What if he’s in there?” Zoe asked, startled.

I hope he is
, Penny almost said, but she bit the reply back. A flash of anger filled her at the realization that Zoe, despite all of her rationalizations and belief, still thought Tovar was working with The Birdman.

For a moment Penny questioned her belief. Not a rational one, she knew, but purely emotional. She squashed the dissenting thoughts quickly.

Penny had kept her flier from the magic show hidden away in her dresser—not even Zoe knew she had it—and had compared it with the single photo of her father so many times there was now no doubt in her mind at all.

If Tovar was not her father, then maybe he was an uncle.

She refused to believe Tovar was the kidnapper.

“You have the wand, right?” Penny asked.

“Yeah,” Zoe said, indicating the inside pocket of the light jacket she wore against the cool and overcast autumn day.

The sea of bodies thinned as they neared Tovar’s tent, which stood at the very perimeter of the park, almost by itself. As Penny grasped the closed door flap meaning to have a peek inside, she tensed with the expectation of discovery by one of the carnival folk.

No one yelled at them to get away. No one tried to stop her as she lifted the flap and poked her head inside.

“What’s in there?” Zoe whispered, pressing in close for a look of her own. “Is he there?”

Penny withdrew with a sigh of disappointment.

“No. No one is in there. It’s empty.”

There was nothing. No stage, no seats, no changing room cordoned off at the far end of the large tent. Just darkness and empty space.

“We can check later,” Zoe offered, but Penny clearly heard the relief in her voice, and was suddenly angry with her friend.

Keeping her lips pressed tightly together, Penny marched away toward the other tents. Zoe had to hurry to keep up.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Penny said, but did not attempt to keep the coolness out of her voice.

They skirted the other tents, giving them no more than a cursory look, and started for the growing aisle of carnival booths.

“Hey!” Zoe grabbed Penny’s arm, trying to stop her, but Penny jerked free and moved a little faster.

“Penny!” Zoe almost shouted this, and a few heads turned to regard them.

Penny stopped and barked, “What?”

The expression on Zoe’s too pale face cooled Penny’s anger.

Penny followed Zoe’s pointing finger with her eyes and found what had startled, no, frightened her.

The House of Mirrors, which Penny had just passed.

A rope blocked the stairs to the latched door of the house, and a
closed
sign hung from it.

The false front on the House of Mirrors, which Penny had missed on her angry march past it, depicted a dark figure, some twenty feet tall, its head towering over them and staring down with eyes like black pearls floating in pools of blood.

A giant effigy of The Birdman.

Penny lost her residual anger in a flash of shock and fear. For a moment she couldn’t even move, half convinced the giant birdman would leap from the false front of the House of Mirrors and descend upon them.

Someone bumped Penny while passing by, and Zoe grabbed her arm to steady her.

They faced each other, Zoe very pale, Penny standing on legs that felt like rubber. What Penny said next shocked even her.

“Let’s go inside.”

There was really no way to sneak, so they walked around to the back of the double
‐
wide trailer as inconspicuously as they could.

Behind that last row of games, rides, and booths everything was still, almost silent. The busy babble of the Chehalis River competed with the noise of the park, but couldn’t overcome it. The short run of fence that surrounded the House of Mirrors had a single locked gate at the back. They climbed over it and up the steps to the back door with a sign that said Emergency Exit over it.

Penny thought it would have to be unlocked
—
fire codes or some other city code would necessitate it
—
and it was.

With a final quick look to either side, Penny opened the door and led Zoe inside.

The room they stepped into was not a part of the mirror maze, but a short and narrow hallway lined with doors. There were five doors set frame-to-frame lining each side, and one at the end. The doorknobs were old tarnished brass, each filigreed with designs and symbols neither of them could read. Looking at them for more than a few seconds made Penny’s eyes water and her head hurt. Beneath each doorknob was a large brass key plate.