The Heart of the Phoenix (7 page)

“Erasmus,” Ronan growled in warning.

“Don’t you growl at me, Ronan. I told you how it was going to be. I said I’d teach them but I’m not keeping your secrets for you.” Erasmus rose and paced, his nest of dreadlocks dancing around his head in agitation. One of them swatted a long hanging willow limb out of his way as he rounded the fire pit. “You told me they were in trouble, that I was the only one who could teach them what they needed to know, and that means the truth about what’s coming.”

Ronan followed Erasmus’s progress across the hollow, but held his tongue.

“I agree with Erasmus,” Bowen said.

“You would,” Ronan grumbled.

“But why do we need a new teacher?” Penny had a bad feeling she knew what Ronan was about to say, and desperately wanted him to put her fears to rest.

“Because I’m leaving,” Ronan said, and turned his face away from the girls. “There’s something I have to do a long way away from here, and I may not return for a long time.”

“Why?” Ellen said. “You
just
got back.”

“Where?” Penny shouted.

Katie’s glare deepened, and Zoe stood in place looking like she’d been hit over the head.

“That is not for you to know,” Ronan said, then turned to regard Erasmus and Bowen. “And that is one secret you will keep for me.”

Ronan’s tone brooked no argument, and neither of his friends offered one. Bowen’s smile had vanished, he looked more serious now than Penny had ever seen him, and Erasmus ignored them all, staring into the dark somewhere past them with crossed arms. His blind act was so convincing Penny almost fell for it again, but she had only to recall the fight of a few minutes past to dispel his illusion of helplessness.

“I leave tonight,” Ronan continued, “and I would prefer to leave on good terms, knowing you’ll be in good hands until I return.”

Grudgingly, Penny stowed her wand in the back pocket of her jeans and knelt.

Zoe, Katie, and Ellen joined her, and Ronan trotted over to meet them.

“Do we really have to do what he says?” Katie whispered, but loudly enough for Erasmus to hear. One of his dreadlocks slithered out from beneath his top hat, gripped it around the rim, and tipped it to her in mock salute.

“Yes,” Ronan said, but smiled. “He’ll be able to teach you much more than I have. I’ve never used a wand.”

He moved closer to the girls and they crowded in around him.

“Bowen can help you too. He has no magic, but he can teach you other things you’ll need to know.”

“Bowen.” Zoe shook her head. “How long has he known about us?”

“All along. I felt it was safer for him to keep his cover, but Erasmus disagrees. He doesn’t like secrets. He thinks if you’re in, you should be all the way in.”

Penny said nothing, but her estimation of the strange little man rose.

“It’s time,” Ronan said, and held still as the girls took turns hugging him, even nuzzled Ellen’s hand when she stroked the top of his head.

“We’re going to miss you,” Katie said, her voice breaking on the last word. She cleared her throat, seeming to brace herself against tears; Penny noticed that Zoe was crying.

She felt tears on her own cheeks then, and wiped them away.

Ellen hadn’t known Ronan as long, but even she looked depressed by the news of his departure.

“I’ll miss you all too,” Ronan said, and then backed away, breaking free from the huddle. He turned away from them and faced Erasmus.

Erasmus, blind or not, stood and then bent as Ronan approached. “I’ve said it before and I’ll say it one more time… you’re a lunatic, and if you get yourself killed I will drag you back from the afterlife and kick your furry backside.”

Ronan barked laughter and put out a paw. One of Erasmus’s dreadlocks reached down, grasped the offered paw, and shook it.

Ronan turned to Bowen next. “You keep him in line and them out of trouble.”

“That’s a tall order old friend, but I’ll do my best.”

Ronan nodded, then turned his face back to Penny, Zoe, Katie, and Ellen. He winked, and then his body faded into a mist that settled to the ground and blew away in an errant breeze.

“Well,” Erasmus said, rising to his full if unimpressive height, “this has all been very edifying, but a body can only stand so much excitement in one night.”

He doffed his hat again, then removed one of his many wands from inside his jacket and gave it a shake. It lengthened and thickened, transforming into the red tipped cane Penny had seen him with earlier that day. He tapped the door with it, and Bowen stepped up to open it. Beyond the frame Penny could see the back room of Golden Arts. He gave the girls a cheery wave before stepping through, and Erasmus followed him without another word.

Penny found herself in the cavern again, walking down an empty stone corridor with nothing but the Phoenix Fire dancing in the palm of her outstretched left hand for light. She thought she could hear something further down the claustrophobic hallway, maybe a scuffing of shoes against stone, and followed it. The place was cold and smelled like damp earth. A slight breeze wafted down the cavern from the direction in which she walked, an exit to the outside world she hoped, and the small flame in her hand flickered, throwing the path ahead into full darkness. When the light returned, Penny was no longer alone.

Penny and the stranger made identical grabs for wands that neither had, then smiled when they recognized each other.

It was her doppelganger, identical in every way down to the clothing she wore and the haphazard fall of her hair.

“It’s you,” they said in unison, then laughed.

Penny continued on her way, walking toward the draft and the hoped-for exit, and this time the girl didn’t shy away, but fell in beside Penny and walked with her.

“What is this place?” The girl inspected the walls, the ground, the ceiling, just visible at the edges of the fire’s light. There was enough room for them to walk side by side, but not much more. “You keep bringing me here.”

“I don’t know,” Penny said. “And I didn’t bring you here.”

“Who else could have?” This was not a rhetorical question. Penny heard honest curiosity in her doppelganger’s voice. “I go where you go.”

“That’s right, you are me, right?”

“Yes,” the girl said simply.

“I don’t know where we are,” Penny said, and with a touch of frustration, “I’m trying to find my way out.”

“Oh, that’s easy.”

This time Penny stopped dead in her tracks. The other girl continued a few steps beyond her before realizing she was now walking alone.

“How?”

“Where would you rather be?”

Penny opened her mouth to respond, but the doppelganger stopped her with an upraised hand. “Just think about it. This
is
your dream.”

“I don’t think it works that way,” Penny said, but saw almost instantly that she was wrong. When her doppelganger had asked her where she would rather be, she’d thought of Aurora Hollow, and that’s where they were now.

“I like this much better,” the girl said. “Where is this?”

“If you were me you’d know.” Penny didn’t know why, but the girl’s questions made her uneasy.

“You don’t trust me?” The girl laughed. “You know that says a lot about you, and none of it very good.”

Penny found that her wand was back in her hand, and the flame she’d been carrying was now burning in the stone pit. Her doppelganger surveyed the hollow by its flickering light. “You don’t think you know everything about yourself, do you? You keep a lot of secrets from yourself, and this place is just one of them.”

“You’re full of it,” Penny said, resisting the urge to point her reacquired wand at her doppelganger. “Tell me who you are.”

The girl held up her own wand, identical to Penny’s distinctively twisted and burned one. She didn’t point it at Penny, didn’t threaten her in any way, but her point was made. There was no attack Penny could launch that this girl could not protect herself from.

“You know who I am,” the girl said. “But you don’t know
everything
. I’ll come back when you’re ready to talk.”

The girl began to fade, and Penny took an instinctive step toward her.

But awoke in her own bed, sitting propped up against her stacked pillows, her wand in her hand and the Conjuring Glass in her lap. She looked down at her own reflection and waited for it to do something.  Wink, wave, or turn away.

Penny touched the glass tentatively with one finger, and when the reflection touched her back Penny pulled her hand back and stifled a scream. She had expected to feel the cold, smooth glass against her fingertip, but she’d felt the press of warm flesh.

Her reflection blinked, then spoke.

Penny heard the words in her mind, not aloud.

Do you believe me now
?

Penny realized she did.

* * *

“Where’s the tall one?” Erasmus sat cross-legged atop a stool, spinning slowly and poking the ground with his cane. Katie and Ellen stood at a distance, Katie with her arms crossed, glaring into the middle distance, Ellen slowly prying a rock from the ground with the toe of her shoe to pass the time.

“The
tall one
is somewhere in Northern California right now,” Penny said, stepping the rest of the way through her wardrobe door and into the hollow. She was tired from lack of sleep and feeling resentful of Erasmus’s new training schedule. Early mornings kept her afternoons open to help Susan with her deliveries, but she would still much rather have been sleeping in after yet another restless night.

“We told him,” Katie said through clenched teeth.

Erasmus stopped spinning and slid off his seat to face in Penny’s general direction. “We can wait for a little while then. How long until she arrives?”

“About three weeks,” Ellen snapped, finally freeing the stone she’d been working from the ground and launching it through the air. It plunged into the sluggish water of Clear Creek with what Ellen seemed to consider a wholly unsatisfactory splash. She moped her way over to one of the boulders ringing the fire pit, plopped down on it and practiced her grumpy face.

“She can’t just jaunt back here any time you want,” Penny said. “She has a life and parents who don’t know she’s a founding member of the Dogwood supernatural geek squad.”

Erasmus grunted irritation. “If she’s not going to take this seriously...”

“Can we just get started?”

“The short one is bossy, isn’t she?” Erasmus said.

* * *

Erasmus assessed them individually starting with Penny: elementals, offence, defense, and special strengths. He appeared only mildly impressed with Penny’s display of Phoenix Fire, admitting that he had never seen it in action before, but that he had expected something a little more impressive. He listened to the girl’s account of Katie’s ability to raise storms in lieu of a practical display, deciding that conjuring a storm above Aurora Hollow might attract attention. He was disappointed that Ellen hadn’t translated her affinity with air into anything worth showing off, but allowed that he might be able to help her out once they began training in earnest. He lamented Zoe’s absence again, disappointed that he couldn’t witness another display of her power over trees and earth, and when Rocky joined them, determined not to be overlooked, Erasmus encouraged him.

Rocky’s most basic talents involved punching things and turning into a big lump of rock with eyes.

When his evaluation was complete Penny thought he looked hopeful, though it was hard to read his mood when she couldn’t see his eyes. His dark glasses of the day before were gone, and he was currently sporting a pair of welder’s goggles and a tall, tasseled maroon fez in place of the black top hat. The same well-traveled black duster hung from his squat frame, and he seemed quite comfortable despite the day’s building heat.

“And how long have you been training?”

Penny took a moment to consider the adventures and terrors she’d experienced since moving to Dogwood and had to smile. Sometimes it felt like she’d been fighting for years.

“Just over a year,” Penny said.

“Just under a year,” Katie said.

“A few months,” Ellen said, then shrugged. “I got a late start.”

“Not unimpressive,” Erasmus allowed. “Of course with proper training and supervision…”

“No ripping on Ronan,” Penny said, and the briskness in her voice turned Erasmus’s head. “He’s a busy… whatever he is, and…” Penny floundered, not sure how to qualify.

“And we’re a handful,” Katie finished.

“So I’ve heard,” Erasmus said. His fez shifted slightly to one side as one of his long dreadlocks slipped free to scratch the side of his neck.

Ellen stepped closer to Katie and nudged her hard in the ribs, then nodded surreptitiously toward the strange little man.

Katie jumped in surprise, caught Ellen’s eye, then gave a little nod.

Penny watched the exchange with some interest.

“So… uh… who
are
you?” Katie injected as much sweetness into her voice as Penny had ever heard from her. “Ronan seems to like you, but he’s crazy and we don’t know you.”