The Heart of the Phoenix (6 page)

Susan’s statement took Penny by surprise. She’d been closed mouthed about any plans to close.

Erasmus flinched back, as if horrified by Susan’s words.

“I hope you’ll reconsider, Miss Taylor. Good tenants are hard to come by, and Bowen tells me your shop is a Dogwood staple.”

“Old Cag Sullivan was a good friend,” Bowen said. “It would be a shame to see his old place close.”

Penny could see trouble brewing in the lines on Susan’s forehead and stepped in to rescue her.

“We should get back to our deliveries.” Penny grabbed Susan’s hand and tugged her back toward the street. “Bye.”

She waved at Bowen and Erasmus. Bowen smiled and waved back, and Erasmus swept off his hat and bowed in her direction.

* * *

When they arrived back home the day was just as overcast, only darkening slightly on the eastern horizon, and Penny was almost comatose with boredom.

“Any plans tonight?” Susan asked as they trudged up the steps to the front door. Susan deposited a large empty bin on the floor and fumbled for her keys. Penny stood behind her struggling with an identical empty bin.

“I don’t know,” Penny said. She’d planned on calling Katie or Ellen when they were finished with deliveries, but was now thinking longingly about her bed.

“Do you think I should re-open the shop?”

Penny hadn’t seen that question coming.

“I don’t know,” she said again, but felt she owed Susan more. “It sucks that there isn’t a bookstore here anymore, but you have to do what you want.”

Susan grunted a response and pushed the door open, letting Penny inside before she retrieved the big plastic bin and followed. They dragged the containers up to Susan’s second floor office, and Susan plopped down into the chair facing her computer.

“Pizza for dinner,” she said. “I don’t have the energy to cook.”

Penny grunted her assent, and Susan picked up her phone to order as Penny retreated out into the hall. She unfolded the lift stairs to her attic bedroom and trudged upward, thinking a nap before dinner would be the best thing in the world.

She saw the note outside her window, flapping around like an origami bat and butting its head against the glass. When it saw her, it turned around and showed her its back. The words
Read Me
were etched across the top of its wings in a black script. It turned to face her again and hovered, waiting.

Penny paused for a second, then went to the window and let it inside. She’d seen and experienced too many weird things in the past year to let a flying origami bat freak her out.

It whizzed inside, past her head and up to the ceiling, then circled the room like a hyperactive hummingbird. Its thin rice paper wings crackled with each beat. It finally landed on her writing desk. With a sigh and a look of longing toward her bed, Penny settled herself down in her chair.

When she reached for the paper bat, it fluttered toward her and landed on her open palm, then quickly unfolded itself on her hand.

Dear Penny.

Meet me at Aurora Hollow at midnight tonight. Bring Zoe, and don’t be late.

Penny reread the note, as if hoping to glean more information from the terse message. It was an unfamiliar scrawl, unsigned, and enchanted with a spell she’d never seen before. She wondered briefly if one of the old Phoenix Girls had returned, but put the hopeful notion away at once. The previous generation no longer had any memory of their old magic. Susan herself had been in that group and had no recollection of her past exploits, only a gaping hole in her memory that sometimes troubled her. If the old Phoenix Girls ever got their memories back Penny was sure Susan would have given her a sign by now. She would have to know what Penny and her friends had been up to.

A stranger and a magic user, and one who knew who she was.

Penny didn’t like it, but thought that if it were a new enemy, they would hardly reveal themselves by invitation.

The note began to refold itself, not into its previous bat shape, but into an ever-diminishing square. Smaller, smaller, and smaller, then it was gone and she was left staring at her empty palm.

Penny plopped down on her bed and closed her eyes. If she was going to be spending another late night at the hollow she definitely needed a nap first.

* * *

Penny stepped through her wardrobe door into the hollow with ten minutes to spare, lit a fire in the pit and searched the trees at the perimeter. Next she searched the granite wall and the mouth of Ronan’s cave and spotted Rocky’s blinking eyes in the stone just above it. She put a finger to her lips, and the eyes blinked closed. There was no sign of Ronan, if he was back in his cave he would have heard her arrival and come up to investigate.

The door creaked open again as she settled down to wait, and Katie stepped through. She seemed not at all surprised to see Penny waiting.

“You got one too?” Katie closed the door softly behind herself and sat close to Penny, her wand out and ready.

“If you mean a flying note, then yes.” Penny looked back at the door and smiled. “Is Ellen coming?”

“No idea,” Katie said. “I didn’t know what it was about and I didn’t want to drag you and Ellen into it if there was going to be trouble.”

Penny was about to point out how stupid that was, but decided not to. She had decided not to tell Katie or Ellen for that very reason. She had contacted Zoe, since the note asked for her by name, but she and Zoe had decided to meet the mysterious note-writer on their terms, not his, and so Zoe was nowhere to be seen.

Penny and Katie settled into a tense silence, waiting, and a few minutes later the door creaked open one more time, admitting Ellen to the hollow.

Ellen spotted them and seemed to relax a little. She closed the door almost prissily, winced when the latch clicked, and moved closer to the fire pit.

“Did one of you guys send that crazy note?” She sounded somewhere between annoyed and impressed.

Before either Penny or Katie could answer, a new voice spoke from the darkness.

“No, that would be me.”

The girls turned in unison, Ellen letting out a small scream as they saw a man-shaped figure standing on the other side of the creek. He was a lightless shadow figure, squat and stout, shapeless in what was a robe or long coat. The tall shadow of a hat perched on his head rang a small bell in Penny’s memory, which was silenced a moment later when she saw the wand in his hand.

“Where is Zoe? I was expecting her as well.”

“Zoe couldn’t make it,” Penny said.

“That is unfortunate,” the man said, then raised his wand and pointed it at her.

Penny dove to the side, noting that Katie had dropped down behind one of the larger boulders ringing the fire pit and Ellen had darted into the trees at the hollow’s perimeter. She felt the heat and wind of a spell that just missed her, heard the
whoosh
as it came close enough to blow her hair back, and she fired a spell back at the man.

It missed him by a few feet, she heard the crack as it hit the stone beside him, and she had a moment to hope Rocky had gotten out of the way when she fired. She landed a second later, her impact causing a flaring pain in the shoulder that Turoc, the terrifying humanoid snake they had fought only a few months before, had bitten. Her wand flew from her hand.

After a short, stunned moment she lifted her head and saw the man block a second spell, a bolt of electricity from Katie’s wand. It crackled across his shield, lighting him in a spectral blue glow, and Penny recognized him by its light. It was Erasmus, the strange man she’d met in town that day. His white cane was nowhere in sight now, and though he still wore his dark glasses, he wasn’t fighting like a blind man.

A sudden, strong gust of wind whipped past her, rustling the canopy of willow limbs that framed Aurora Hollow like a green curtain. It danced across the creek and pulled water into it like a miniature tsunami, buffeting the man. His long jacket whipped around him, covering his face for a moment, jerking the tall black hat from his head. The hair beneath it was a tangled nest of long and thick dreadlocks. They danced in the wind as he freed his arms from the entangling coat, but when the wind died a moment later they continued to dance. One dove down the back of his coat and emerged again a second later holding a second wand.

Erasmus shouted something indecipherable as Penny struggled to her feet and searched for her dropped wand, and something hit her hard enough to knock her flat again. Katie hit the ground beside her, and Ellen fell with a cry, deeper in the trees out of their sight.

Grunting with frustration, Penny conjured her special power, the thing Ronan once told her he had heard only in old legends but had never seen. The Phoenix Fire that had been a gift from their old, sentient book blazed to life in the palm of her right hand, warming her skin but not burning it, and she threw it at the man.

She watched as the wand held high by his living dreadlock began to aim, but Rocky disengaged himself from the rock wall behind him and tried to wrestle the wand away from it. The strange man’s full head of living hairy appendages attacked Rocky in turn and soon had him bound tightly and suspended over Erasmus’s head.

Penny’s Phoenix Fire hit the man before he could raise his other wand in defense, and he was soon sheathed in the bright but harmless flames, harmless at least until Penny decided to make them burn. The fire obeyed Penny’s will, burning only what she wanted it to burn, and though the man had come to their place and attacked them, Penny just couldn’t bring herself to do it.

Far from panicking, Erasmus stilled, then removed his dark glasses. He looked at Penny, and she found herself gaping open mouthed at the strange eyes those glasses had concealed.

For what seemed like an eternity Penny knew only restful blackness, and then she found herself facing Katie and Ellen with her wand raised.

“Penny!” Katie screamed. “What are you doing?”

“What?” Penny was frozen in shock and could offer no resistance when Ellen magically disarmed her.

“You attacked us!” Katie looked on the edge of fury. Ellen just looked stunned.

“Don’t be angry with her,” Erasmus said, reminding Penny that they had been in something of a close fight with the strange little man before she had apparently lost her mind and switched sides. “She was out of her mind for a moment, so I just slipped in and took it over.”

They all turned to face him, and Penny saw that her Phoenix Fire had gone out. Rocky stood nearby, seemly as stunned and surprised as she was. He shook his over-large stone head and looked around in confusion.

Erasmus was now suspended several feet off the ground, firmly cocooned in a hundred hanging willow limbs. Zoe stood not far away, her open palm pressed against one of the trees.

Controlling trees was one of Zoe’s special gifts, though it took all of her concentration to do it, which left her vulnerable. She relaxed her concentration then and joined the others, leaving Erasmus to dangle harmlessly.

Penny noticed his glasses were back in place.

“You told me she didn’t come,” Erasmus said in a comical offence.

“I lied,” Penny said.

“Never trust a Red,” the strange man grumbled.

“She’s not a Red,” came a familiar voice from the mouth of Ronan’s cave. A second later Ronan emerged and surveyed the scene.

“You’re right, Ronan,” came a second familiar voice, this from thin air close to Ronan.

“Bowen?” Penny said.

“Who?” the other girls said.

Rocky, still dazed, prodded the invisible man beside Ronan with a finger, then backed off a step.

Penny didn’t see Erasmus draw yet another wand from inside his jacket until the tentacle-like dreadlock brandished it in the direction of the invisible man, and the form of Bowen, the owner of Golden Arts, appeared.

“Can you see me now?” Bowen looked at each of the girls in turn and smiled at the surprise on Zoe’s face. “Ah, very good!”

Katie trained her wand on Bowen, then Erasmus, and then Bowen again. She seemed unsure of who she should attack next. “Would someone please tell us what’s going on?”

“Point that thing somewhere else, would you,” Bowen said, inching surreptitiously to the side.

“Relax girls,” Ronan said. “My friend up there just wanted to see what you’re made of, and Bowen has been curious for a long time.”

Katie lowered her wand, and Penny and Ellen followed suit. Zoe kept one hand pressed to the tree from which Erasmus dangled. “You know this guy?”

“Indeed,” Ronan said. “Girls, I’d like you to meet my old friend, Erasmus.”

The girls remained silent, glaring at Ronan.

“Yes, yes, it’s excellent to meet you all,” Erasmus snarled. “Now would you kindly let me down?”

* * *

An uncomfortable silence followed as Erasmus, Bowen, and Ronan seated themselves on one side of the guttering fire and surveyed the girls, Ronan with pride and humor, Bowen with frank amazement, and Erasmus with a grimace.

Penny, Zoe, Katie, and Ellen stood facing them with varying expressions of exasperation, waiting for an explanation.

“Well?” Penny asked, and the others stepped away from her as flames erupted from her hands and began to snake up her arms. She shook them out distractedly.

“Does she do that a lot?” Erasmus asked, his irritation giving grudging way to curiosity.

“Sometimes,” Katie said, taking another step away from her. “But only when she’s angry.”

“Well I needed to know if you were any good. I’m not going to teach you if you don’t have any talent.”

“Teach us?” Penny and Zoe said.

Katie let out a sharp bark of laughter. “We don’t need him to teach us anything.”

Ellen nodded agreement with Katie. “We have you to teach us.”

“Now girls,” Bowen said, “Erasmus is the best. He’s taught two generations of Reds.”

Erasmus spat on the ground at the mention of the Reds.

“Who are the Reds?” Penny had heard Susan mention them before, and her impression wasn’t a good one.

“Your kin,” Erasmus said, frowning at her.