The Heart of the Phoenix (9 page)

Erasmus followed in his wake wearing his usual grubby long coat and a baggy knitted cap to conceal his dreadlocks. The welding goggles were gone in favor of a pair of small rounded glasses with mirrored surfaces. The tip of his cane tapped the bottom box of a tall stack he seemed about to walk face-first into, and he changed course just in time to avoid the collision, the perfect imitation of a blind man.

Penny wondered if the act was for Michael’s sake, or if the strange little man simply refused to break character in public.

“You told us to hurry,” Katie snapped. “So we hurried.”

“Hi Michael,” Penny said, hoping to defuse the sibling tension before it got too thick. “What’s up?”

“That’s what I’d like to know.” He eyed them in turn, starting with his sister and ending with Ellen.

Ellen cringed away and inspected the toes of her shoes. She didn’t share Zoe’s debilitating crush on Katie’s older brother, but she clearly found him intimidating.

“I remember when you used to talk to us without growling,” Penny said.

“And I remember the time we saved your a...”

“Katie,” Michael interrupted, but his scowl softened.

Erasmus stood apart from them, ignoring the tense exchange. One of his dreadlocks squirmed free of his cap and tugged it down a little more firmly on his head before falling limp against his cheek in a good imitation of how hair was supposed to behave.

“Yeah, I remember that too.” Michael stepped forward and swept Katie into a one-armed hug, which she only resisted for a few seconds before returning. “I also remember when I didn’t have to worry about people trying to kidnap or kill you.”

“Those were the days,” Ellen said with a smile on her face and sunshine in her voice, catching them all by surprise.

Michael chuckled, then laughed.

Katie punched him playfully on the arm and said something that might have been
dork.

Erasmus coughed to remind everyone that he was still there.

Bowen joined them.

“All locked up,” Bowen said, almost bouncing with his usual good humor. “Let’s get started.”

* * *

Bowen led them to a smaller break room at the far end of the storeroom and a trio of folding chairs facing an old and sagging sofa. “Take a seat, girls. Get comfy.”

Penny and Ellen sank into the old cushions. Katie regarded the suspect sofa warily before joining them. The men sat in the folding chairs facing them, Michael in the middle, leaning toward them like a man contemplating the start of a hard interrogation; Erasmus and Bowen flanked him.

Michael just watched them for a long moment, his frown returning. Erasmus cleared his throat again and Bowen began to hum a tune that Penny almost recognized. She thought it might be Katy Perry.

“Sheriff Price has decided to resign,” Michael said. “Effective tomorrow.”

“Good,” Katie said, braving another frown Michael threw her way.

“The city council has decided to make me interim sheriff until the next election.”

Penny thought he sounded less than thrilled by the prospect.

“Good!” Bowen almost shouted. “No one better.”

“Congratulations,” the girls said in unison, Katie with obvious pride, Ellen with happy surprise, Penny with uncertainty. Michael didn’t seem to share in the excitement.

“I’m nervous as hell,” he said. “It’s been a weird year around here. A kidnapping carnival performer, a psychotic land developer and his firebug son, half of Main Street torched, and you guys.”

Katie rolled her eyes toward the ceiling. “Good guys, remember?”

“Yeah, I remember,” Michael said. “I understand that much, and I’m willing to leave you alone about it on two conditions.”

“What?” Penny wasn’t thrilled to be offered conditions to Michael’s temporary acceptance. She crossed her arms and waited.

Katie was glaring daggers at her formerly cool older brother. Even Ellen appeared ready for an argument.

Erasmus seemed almost unconcerned with Michael’s inclusion in this strange circle of trust, and Bowen was still grinning around at them all.

“First condition is that you let me know if something else weird or dangerous is going to happen. If I’m going to protect this town I need to know if some bug-eyed monster or crazy magician is trying to tear it down.”

Penny was rather relieved by the idea. They certainty could have used his help with Morgan Duke and his creepy kid that spring.

“Deal,” Penny said, intentionally avoiding Katie’s eyes just to be safe. Katie’s relationship with Michael had been a little strained since they’d included him in their little secret.

“Sounds like a good idea to me,” Ellen added helpfully.

“What else?” Katie said, not quite ready to share their acceptance.

“I don’t want you doing anything dangerous if there is trouble,” Michael said, looking directly at Katie. “Just tell me what’s going on and let me handle it.”

“And this is why I’ve called you here, girls.” Erasmus rose and began to pace the floor between chairs and couch. “I’m afraid Sheriff West has no idea just how out of his depth he will be when the Reds come.”

Bowen nodded silent agreement, seemed to shrink back into his chair.

“Who are the Reds?” Michael stood to tower over the shorter Erasmus. “And what do they want?”

“The Reds are the ones responsible for all the trouble you’ve had in Dogwood this past year. They’re also responsible for a lot of trouble you’ve had in the past.” Erasmus stopped pacing and turned his hidden eyes on Michael. Michael backed away a step, pushing his chair across the floor with a low scraping sound. “They guard their end of the gateway between the worlds...”

“Wait... what?” Michael dropped back into his seat.

“Gateway,” Katie said, waving her brother to silence.

“Between the worlds, apparently,” Ellen said. A lot of this was news to her, and despite the weirdness of the past few months she still had trouble swallowing it.

Penny kept quiet. She wanted to hear more about the Reds.

“Do you want to hear this or not?” Erasmus waited until five silent seconds had passed before continuing. “The Reds are royalty in their world, and they’ve guarded the gateway against intrusions from your kind for centuries.”

Penny remembered what the Birdman had called her the night they had sent him back through his magic gateway into that other world,
Little Princess Penny
, and shivered.

“Now, as I’ve said, they’re coming back.”

“Why?” Penny dreaded the answer, was afraid she already knew, but she had to hear it. She was sure his answer would be,
for you
.

Instead, Erasmus shrugged and said, “I don’t know.”

“The Phoenix Girls have guarded our side of the gateway for almost as long,” Bowen said, making his first contribution to the conversation. “I remember the last group. They didn’t know who I was, of course.”

“And who are you?” Michael seemed particularly annoyed by the old shopkeeper’s involvement in the current weirdness. Bowen was a familiar figure in town, and Michael seemed to think he should have stayed in the pigeon hole the town had put him in.

“A refugee, like my old friend here.” He patted Erasmus’s arm. “And Ronan.”

Michael stiffened in his chair. The girls had told him about Ronan, but Michael was convinced they were pulling his leg. He’d been asked to swallow a lot in the past few months, but a talking fox was simply too much.

Erasmus cleared his throat and continued.

“The only people in Dogwood who know about our special young friends are in this room and it needs to stay that way.”

Michael shrugged, then sighed. “I’m not telling anyone. Who would believe me?”

* * *

Penny stepped through the storeroom door into the hollow with Katie and Ellen close on her heels.

“Leave that door open,” Erasmus shouted through at them. “I’m not finished with you yet.”

“Are we in trouble again?” Elle asked.

“I’m never sure,” Katie said.

“I wanna know what he has to say,” Penny said.

“Do you now, missy?” Erasmus stepped through into the hollow, whacking his cane against the doorframe. It shrank instantly into the red-tipped wand. The single dreadlock swung freely against his cheek, reached up and tugged the knitted hat free of his head and stuffed it inside his jacket. “There isn’t much more to tell really.”

“We’ve been out of touch with the Reds for a long time,” Bowen said, following Erasmus through and closing the door behind himself. “They were very upset with Erasmus when he left their service, and I think they rather forgot they posted me here.”

There was a very long silence, during which Rocky detached himself from the stone wall above Ronan’s cave and joined them. Sometimes he reminded Penny of a bipedal dog, she had to do no more than appear in the hollow and he was at her side.

“You guys used to work for them,” Penny said in as casual a voice as she could manage. She felt her cheeks flush with anger at the revelation, and sensed a similar flare of anger in Rocky. She patted the top of his large head and he calmed, but his narrowed eyes remained on Erasmus and Bowen.

“So did Ronan,” Bowen said. “That was then and this is now.”

“And what’s changed?” Katie was giving them what Ellen called the
stink eye
.

“Everything,” Erasmus said. “There was a change in leadership. The old king died and the new king didn’t approve of your father’s marriage to one of the Phoenix Girls.”

Those words galvanized Penny, and for a moment she was unable to breathe.

“So my father was one of them... one of the Reds?” She had suspected as much, but the confirmation was a shock.

“Of course he was,” Erasmus snapped. “You didn’t get that ridiculously red hair from your mother.“

“Your father is the Fuilrix Prince,” Bowen said. “Ronan was his Shaman Familiar, and Erasmus was his teacher.”

“Who are you?” Ellen asked.

“Oh, no one much,” Bowen said with a dismissive wave of the hand.

“Bowen was a dissident. An historian and scholar who tweaked the Fuilrix’s noses a little too often and a little too hard,” Erasmus said, stifling a chuckle. “He was a bondsman to the family, their propagandist. He used their Guttenberg Press to print an unflattering history of the family and distributed hundreds of copies into the population.”

Katie stared at Bowen with a whole new respect.

Ellen laughed. “You’re a rebel.”

“So they sent you here?” Sounded like a reasonable solution,
if you don’t like it here then go over there
, but it wasn’t the response she would have expected from the Reds. They had imprisoned one of their own for marrying someone they didn’t approve of, and, according to Turoc, the giant serpentine monster the Reds had sent to take Aurora Hollow by force, had masterminded the death of her mother to achieve that goal. Reasonable solutions weren’t their style. They had apparently not known the woman they had killed was in fact Penny’s aunt, but neither had Penny at the time. She still had no idea where her mother was, and found it comforting that the Reds probably didn’t either.

“No,” Bowen said. “They threw me in a dark hole beneath their citadel, and I’d still be there if your father hadn’t interceded on my behalf.”

“No,” Erasmus said. “You’d be dead by now.”

“I stand corrected,” Bowen said, acknowledging Erasmus’s contribution with a nod. “Your father, Penny, convinced his father I could be of use here, as their eyes and ears in Dogwood.”

“So you’re a spy,” Penny said. “You spied on my mother and her friends.”

“I’m an exile,” Bowen said, an edge of defensiveness in his voice now. “And the price of my freedom was to assure them that the Phoenix Girls weren’t planning to cross the boundary and depose them.”

“That was a real fear for a long time,” Erasmus confirmed. “There’s a lot of history between the Reds and the Phoenix Girls that you’re not aware of.”

“Well I wish someone would fill us in,” Penny grumbled, then added, “since Ronan never got around to it.”

“That would be a nice change,” Katie agreed.

Ellen nodded. “Why did he keep us in the dark, anyway?”

“I don’t think the secrecy was his idea, but Ronan is nothing if not loyal.”

“Who swore him to secrecy?” Penny asked. As long as the answers were forthcoming, she decided to make the most of it.

“That, I can’t tell you,” Erasmus said.

“He never told you,” Ellen guessed.

“Sure he did,” Erasmus said. “I’m just not telling you.”

“Why not?” All three girls spoke in unison, equally incensed.

“That is the one secret I agreed to keep for him,” Erasmus said. “I think it’s necessary.”

Bowen nodded his agreement.

“As long as you’re answering questions,” Katie said, “whatever happened to my aunt? I know she was one of them but no one has seen her in years.”

“No idea,” Erasmus said.

“I don’t think my mother died in that plane crash,” Penny said. “I think it was my aunt pretending she was my mom.”

Penny had shared this theory with the others, though her only evidence was a tattoo in an old photo, a tattoo that her much younger mother had, but that Penny had never seen on the woman who had raised her, and Susan’s description of Diana Sinclair was as a friendly and outgoing woman. The woman Penny had grown up with had been secretive and withdrawn, a description Susan had given for Penny’s aunt Nancy.

Penny waited out a short silence, but Erasmus and Bowen didn’t have anything to say on the subject.

“Do you know where my mom is?”

“I don’t know,” Bowen said. “I’m not aware of any shenanigans.”

Bowen turned to Erasmus for elaboration.

“I suppose it’s possible, but I don’t know,” Erasmus said, sounding dubious. “I don’t know what happened to any of them after they parted company, except for Susan. Ronan may, but if so he’s never told me.”

“Susan was the only one who stayed in Dogwood,” Bowen said. “Your mother left with you, your aunt, and yours, Katie, left, and I haven’t heard anything about them, and Janet became a punk rock singer.”

“What?” the girls shouted in unison, and Ellen started to laugh.