The Conjuring Glass (3 page)

“It could use dusting, but I did wash the bedding for you.” Susan sat on the corner of one of two single-wide beds. “No one’s used it for years.”

A low cathedral ceiling arched above them, ten feet high at the peak. Cobwebs hung from the ceiling and wood plank walls like gaudy Halloween decorations. There were two small writing desks next to each bed, each with a lamp and low-backed chair, and a dresser at both ends of the room. The dresser closest to Penny’s freshly turned bed held a clutter of photographs and other odd items.

Small round windows faced each other from between the beds, like eyes made of starlight.

“If you don’t like it up here you can use the guest room,” Susan said. “It’s a bit plain, but …”

“No,” Penny said at once. “I love it.”

“I thought you might,” Susan said, flashing a knowing grin. She stood and stepped past Penny, stopping short of the waist-high railing around the attic door.

“You should get some sleep. I take Sundays off, so we’ll have the whole day tomorrow to get to know each other a little bit better.” A pause, then, “I bet you have a hundred questions for me.”

Penny nodded. She did.

“Good night, Little Red,” Susan said, and though it was strange hearing her old nickname from the lips of yet another stranger, it didn’t upset her as it had earlier coming from her crotchety sister.

“Good night.”

Penny fell back onto her amazingly cozy bed, the thick feather comforter feeling like a cloud after a day spent in cramped, uncomfortable seats. She pulled her knees up and slid her legs below the comforter, pulling it up to her chin as she settled back.

Comfortable as she was, Penny knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep. There were just too many thoughts, ideas, and feelings clamoring in her head. However, only seconds after laying her head on the pillow, her eyes slipped shut, and she dozed.

Penny had the old dream again that night, but this time there was more. She was running in the dark, down a beaten trail through tall and fragrant wild grass. Running toward something, or away from it. She didn’t know which; only knew she had to keep running. Run like she’d never run before.

Then something stepped from the grass and crouched in front of her, something canine, predatory. It was only a shadow under weak moonlight. But even as a shadow its posture was visibly tense, its tall ears twitching and its fur bushed out.

“I’ve been waiting for you,” it said, and Penny awoke with a scream locked behind her clamped teeth.

The dream faded as she rose to full consciousness, but the fear she’d awakened with remained, and it seemed like a long time before she slept again.

Home, Strange Home

Penny awoke Sunday morning with a jerk, arms thrown up and shielding her eyes against dawn’s bright light. The morning sun streamed through the window across from her, and in its glow, even the dust motes were golden. Yet, amid the morning’s bright blue and gold, a single image from her dream lingered.

She pulled her blanket over her face, closing her eyes and grasping at the dream image—the red-haired man with the scarred face—and a few moments later when the rest of her dream had faded as it always did, the redheaded man remained.

Penny threw off her blanket and scrambled to the edge of her bed, reaching blindly for her bag. She seized it, yanked the zipper open, and dug through her clothes until she had what she wanted.

The photograph of her mother and father bore signs of travel, creased through the middle and bent at the corners, but the faces smiling up at her were unmistakable. It showed a much younger version of her mom standing next to a tall man with wild red hair.

Penny’s hair.

Penny’s father, she had no doubt.

They stood close, his arm draped affectionately over her shoulder. They were a picture of perfect happiness, appearing to be very much in love. There was nothing in that timeless pose to suggest the heartache and abandonment to come.

She studied the man’s face, comparing it to her remembered image of the dream man. It took only a few moments to decide they were not the same person. Close, the hair in particular was almost identical, but the man from her dream was older, with a wider jaw and an intimidating gaze.

Then there was the scar. Her father’s face was smooth and unmarked.

It occurred to Penny that the dream man could be an older version of her father, but she banished the thought with a chuckle.

It was a dream
, she reminded herself.
Just a stupid dream
.

She walked across the room to put the snapshot on the dresser next to the framed pictures, and froze. It slipped from her fingers, seesawing to the floor at her feet.

Standing amid the clutter was a picture of a girl Penny recognized at once. It looked a lot like her, though taller, and with dark hair instead of red.

She lifted the framed picture with trembling fingers.

Her mother.

Penny dressed hastily and rushed downstairs, the framed picture in hand.

“Susan?” She checked the kitchen, then the living room, which she had only viewed fleetingly the night before, then passed the open door of the empty bathroom on her way to a large utility room with a door that led to the backyard.

Penny could not find her anywhere in the house.

Penny rushed to the front of the house and pushed through the unlatched front door, stopping short of the porch steps in surprise.

A boy sat on the top step, watching Susan argue with a man at the far end of the driveway. His dress was so stereotypical it was laughable. He wore a black Stetson too big for him. Tilted to one side, it disclosed a mop of unwashed hair and a mullet that hung past his shoulders. His white western style shirt and blue jeans were dirty, and the soles of his black cowboy boots thick with what could have been mud or cow crap. He held a pocketknife in his right hand, gouging the top step with it, digging out splinters of wood.

He turned at the sound of her footsteps, looking startled for a moment, then only irritated.

“Hush,” he said. “I’m
trying
to listen.”

“Stop that!” She pointed at his knife as its tip bit into wood again.

He ignored her, watching the arguing pair intently until they wandered too far away to hear, then turned to her again, folding the blade and sliding it into his pocket.

“Who are you?” His attention turned fully to her for the first time, he sized her up and smiled. It was a look Penny recognized and hated, the smile of a bully singling out a promising new victim.

“I live here,” she said, hardly believing the words as they left her mouth, surprised that she was already coming to think of the place as home. “Who are
you
?”

“I’m Rooster,” he said, actually thumping his plump chest with a fist.

“My papa,” he pointed to the distant man, “owns this town, so you better watch how you talk to me!”

Penny began to laugh, was helpless not to.

Rooster flushed, taking a step toward her, and Penny matched it with a step of her own. Bullies at the group home had beaten her up more than once, and she had beaten up a few of them. But even if she lost, she never let them intimidate her. She’d discovered that if you let them push you around once they would continue to do it—but actually fighting was more of an effort than most of them liked to make.

Guys like this Rooster preferred easier targets.

“Tucker! Come on!”

Susan and Rooster’s dad stood in the driveway again, the latter’s face red with anger.

Rooster—Tucker—shot Penny one last sour look and turned to join him.

Penny walked to meet Susan, turning to watch Rooster and his ‘Papa’ disappear around the side of the house.

“Who are they?” She stopped beside Susan and turned in time to see them step through the strands of a barbed wire fence at the edge of the small backyard, into the wheat field on the other side.

“Ernest Price and his,” she paused, as if searching for the right word to describe Rooster.

“His son,” she said finally. “Ernest is a local big shot and resident pain in the …”

Susan censored herself again and regarded Penny.

Penny heard real venom in Susan’s voice, and understood she could come to feel the same way about Rooster as Susan did about his dad.

“He’s a farmer,” Susan said in a somewhat calmer tone. “But most of his money is in real estate. Ernest Price owns most of the land around Dogwood. He owns a lot of the land
in
Dogwood too.”

Susan took Penny by her arm and led her back toward the house.

“He owns the building my shop is in, and the lease runs out next year. He’s trying to strong-arm me into letting him farm up there,” she gestured to the rise of land behind them. “He farms the seventy back acres in exchange for my lease, but he wants it all.”

Susan sighed and released Penny’s arm as she climbed the steps to the house. She didn’t go inside, but sat on the porch swing, gesturing for Penny to do the same.

Penny slid a hand in her pocket, feeling the corner of the framed photograph, then withdrew her hand and sat down next to Susan.

“The field behind the house is yours then?” Penny was curious, but also concerned. If Susan and Ernest’s business brought them together on a regular basis, she was sure to see more of Rooster.

Susan faced Penny, a curious look of speculation on her face. Then, reluctantly, said, “No, not really.”

“Then he does own it.”

Smiling, Susan shook her head.

“Who then?”

“If I tell you a secret, can you keep it just between the two of us?”

Penny nodded, feeling touched at the unexpected confidence.

Susan looked right, then left, apparently checking to make sure Ernest and Rooster had not returned to make more trouble.

“You own it,” she said, then laughed aloud as Penny stumbled over her reply.

For several seconds Penny was incapable of speech. She swallowed hard to clear her throat, licked her suddenly dry lips, and tried again.

“I own it?”

“All of it,” Susan said, throwing her arms wide to indicate the house and all the land around it. “It’s all yours.”

The next day Susan returned to work, and Penny faced her first day alone at her new home. Though the past four months had been a flurry of activity with social workers and the other kids at the group home, she had somehow felt
more
alone there.

Here, at her new home, it was almost as if she’d found her mother again.

“Why don’t you come with me?” Susan asked a final time on the way to her car, an ancient Ford Falcon with chipped blue paint and a spider web crack in the rear windshield. “You can browse the books and check out the town.”

Penny considered it briefly, but decided she wasn’t ready to face Dogwood’s strange geography and new faces yet.

The field behind their house was off limits, but that was fine with Penny. She wasn’t ready for another run-in with Rooster or his dad.

The stretch of wild land in front of the house was wide open and inviting though. So as soon as Susan’s car vanished down the winding driveway, Penny started walking, replaying the previous day’s conversation with Susan in her mind again.

“It’s all yours,” Susan had said, and when Penny only continued to gape at her, Susan elaborated.

“This house, this land, has been in your family for generations.” Susan draped an arm casually over Penny’s shoulder.

Penny had to fight an urge to shrug the arm away. This kind of casual affection was a new thing for her. “How big is it?”

“Pretty big. You own as far as the eye can see behind the house, and in front,” she pointed into the distance past the driveway, “all the way up that hill to Little Canyon Creek. The creek is the property line…everything past that belongs to the state.”

Penny nodded, trying to hide her astonishment at finding out she owned the equivalent of a couple of city blocks. She pulled her mother’s photo from her pocket and held it out to Susan. “I found this.”

Susan nodded and took the picture from Penny’s hand, regarding it fondly. “The attic used to be her room. I stayed in one of the second
‐
floor rooms when I was about your age.”

“You lived here too?”

Susan nodded. “My parents died when I was fourteen. It was a bad spring. A lot of rain and flooding. There was a landslide on the highway west of town. Dad must have seen it too late. When he tried to stop their car, he lost control and went in the river.

“There was no one to take care of me after that, so your grandmother took me in.”