The Crimson Brand (4 page)

Penny forced her eyes open, blinking against the sun, risen higher since her last experiment with wakefulness and now stabbing its too-bright light all over. 

“Penny, hurry up.”

“Alright.”

She rubbed the last of the sleep from her eyes and flipped the mirror over.  Staring at her from inside was not her groggy reflection but Katie’s bright and cheerful one. 

“Kat, just because you’re a morning person doesn’t mean you have to try to turn me into one.”  Penny was tolerant, not one to judge another’s imperfections, but even she had her limits.

“Morning person?”  Katie sounded slightly offended.  “It’s almost noon!” 

She seemed to realize how loudly she was speaking and looked furtively over her shoulder. 

Penny checked her bedside clock and noticed that Zoe’s bed was empty.

“Ten thirty is not almost noon.”

But it was time to rise and shine … if she had to.

“I’m coming over today,” Katie said, then looked over her shoulder again to be sure no one was eavesdropping.

“Your dad changed his mind?”  Penny somehow doubted it.  A man who can nurse a fourteen-year-old grudge against a dead woman took his grudges seriously, and Katie’s continued glances over her shoulder confirmed her suspicions. 

“Are you kidding?”  Katie’s buoyant mood seemed to slip a notch, but she brightened again almost at once.  “Michael’s covering for me.”

“Michael?”  Penny knew Michael by face but had never spoken to him.  He was Katie’s brother, five years older and something of a town hero.  Star quarterback in a championship game against Oakville, a town to the west that Dogwood hadn’t been able to beat before he joined the team, or in the few years since he’d graduated.  The Dogwood varsity football team had one thing in common with Katie’s dad; it knew how to hold a grudge.  Oakwood was smaller, but seemed to contain the right genetic pool to produce good football players, and they consistently crushed Dogwood.

Instead of making his play for football stardom, however, Michael had joined the sheriff’s department as a deputy.  Katie didn’t hold that against him though.  Just because the sheriff was next to useless didn’t mean that Michael was.

“Kat, if you don’t start making sense I’m going back to sleep.”

“Dad thinks Michael’s going to Olympia today and that I’m going with him.”

Penny understood, and smiled.  “You’re going to be in so much trouble if you get caught.”

Katie gave Penny
the look
, a thing Penny had first experienced at Dogwood School last fall, when Katie had shared her father’s long-held grudge.  It was withering, and when directed at you it made you feel about a foot tall.  “Fine.  If you don’t want me to come over I can find something else to do.”

“No, I want you to come.  I just don’t want you to get grounded.”

“Oh come on, who’s going to tell him?”

Penny did a quick mental checklist of people she knew were coming to her birthday party, not that many really, and had to admit Katie had a point.  Still …

Penny shrugged.  “It’s a small town.”

Katie rolled her eyes.  “You don’t have to tell
me
that.” 

Despite the risk, Penny was happy Katie was coming over.  “I’ll see you later then.”

There was a muted knocking at Katie’s door, and she peered over her shoulder a final time.  “Gotta go.”

And just like that Penny was staring at her own reflection in the strange little oval of glass.  To her surprise, she was smiling. 

It was beginning to feel like a birthday.

*   *   *

Penny arrived downstairs to find Susan putting the finishing touches on her birthday breakfast.  Penny simply stood in the kitchen doorway for a moment, goggling at this unexpectedly domestic scene. 

“Susan, you’re late for work.”

Susan turned in surprise, a momentary look of guilt on her face, then she smiled.

“Look who’s awake!”  She scooped the last of the freshly cooked bacon onto a plate, then dropped her tongs into the sink and rushed toward Penny with open arms.  “No worries.  Jenny’s covering for me.”

Penny had to brace herself, the urge to retreat from Susan when she swooped in almost too strong to deny without her morning coffee.  She’d lived with Susan, her mother’s childhood friend and Penny’s godmother, for almost a year now, but she still wasn’t used to Susan’s open and outspoken affection.  Penny and her mother’s small household had been a quiet one, where love was an assumed thing, never openly exhibited.  With the late Diana Sinclair, public displays of affection were limited to hand holding when crossing a busy street and the occasional, almost businesslike,
love ya kiddo
. 

Penny accepted her morning hug with good grace, even offering a clumsy return pat on Susan’s back.

“Honestly, Penny, you’re so spoiled,” Zoe said.  “She was about to bring you breakfast in bed.”

Penny tried to picture Susan climbing the ladder to her attic bedroom one-handed, with a heavily laden breakfast tray, complete with the usual morning cup of black coffee, balanced on the other, and was glad Susan hadn’t tried. 

“Actually I was hoping Zoe would take pity on me and volunteer,” Susan said, and when Penny reached for a plate of waffles on the counter next to the stove, Susan blocked her path.  “No you don’t.”

“Seriously?”  Penny asked when she tried to step around Susan and found herself blocked again.  “I can help.”

“You sit down,” Susan said, pointing at the table, where Penny’s coffee waited.

“Come on, Susan, I know how to feed myself.”

Zoe slipped behind her and hauled her back toward the table.  “Just go with it, Penny.  It’ll be over before you know it.”

So, you’re in on it too
, Penny thought, glaring as Zoe forced her into her seat. 

“Don’t be such a baby,” Zoe said, interpreting the look.  She pointed at the steaming coffee.  “You know that stunts your growth don’t you?”

“Ha-ha-ha,” Penny said, though without much feeling.  Zoe loved her short jokes.

Penny didn’t think quitting coffee would help her gain height.  She’d been born prematurely, an emergency roadside birth after an automobile accident, and was pretty sure she was forever doomed to a life of the vertically challenged.  Zoe, on the other hand, was a budding Amazon, the tallest girl in their grade.  Penny had tried her hand at tall jokes, to which Zoe was unfortunately immune.  They only made her smile smugly.

Before Penny had half-drained her cup, the table was set and Susan was lighting a single candle in the center of a stack of waffles. 

“Please don’t sing,” Penny begged.  It was bad enough she’d have to sit still for a round of “Happy Birthday to You” at the party.  She didn’t need it at breakfast. 

Susan watched her for a second, her smooth brow wrinkling as she frowned.  “Okay, Penny.  I better get to work anyway.”

She swooped in for a quick, one-armed goodbye hug and patted Zoe’s head before marching out of the kitchen.  A few seconds later the front door creaked open, then closed.

Zoe kicked her under the table.

“Ouch … what?”

“You are so rude!  What’s your problem?”

“I don’t ….”

Zoe interrupted her.  “She was just being nice and you hurt her feelings.”

“What … no!”  

“Yeah, you did,” Zoe said, but she sounded less angry than confused now.  “She tries really hard, and she’s so sweet to you.”

Penny said nothing, only stabbed at her waffles.  Suddenly she wasn’t very hungry.

Zoe finally dropped her penetrating stare from Penny’s face and started to eat.  “Aren’t you happy here?”

“Yes,” Penny said, finally looking at Zoe.  “I’m just not used to all the attention.”

“I could get used to it,” Zoe said and laid her fork onto her plate, as if her appetite had gone off to look for Penny’s.  “I could
so
get used to it.”

Penny’s face flushed with embarrassment, both for Zoe, whose disastrous birthday party was obviously still fresh in her memory, and for herself.  Zoe was right, she had been rude.  She didn’t want to hurt Susan.

“Well … what am I supposed to do?”

“You don’t have to do anything.  Just stop being so ...,” Zoe searched the kitchen’s ceiling, as if looking for the right word.  “So skittish.  Every time she hugs you, you look like you want to run away.  Just let her be nice … and try to be grateful.”

“I am grateful,” Penny protested again, now cutting even more furiously at her waffles.

“Then show her you are.”  Zoe spoke this last in a small voice, as if afraid of angering Penny again but determined to make her point.

Penny didn’t reply for several seconds, couldn’t reply.  She knew the right words, but saying them would be too embarrassing.  Thankfully, Zoe seemed as ready to change the subject as she was.

“Grandma said I could spend the night again if I wanted … if it’s okay with you and Susan.”

Penny thought this was Zoe’s way of asking how much trouble she was in.

“That would be great,” she said, and when Zoe looked at her again, she smiled.  “Guess who’s coming over later?”

Zoe’s expression leapt from cautious to curious at once.  “Who?”

“Kat,” Penny said, feeling a little better about herself when Zoe broke into a grin.  “Michael’s bringing her over.”

Zoe’s chin dropped and her already deeply tanned skin flushed almost bright red. 

“He is so cute!”  Zoe flushed a little darker before turning her attention back to her breakfast, seeming determined to keep her mouth busy with breakfast until she could trust it not to say anything else embarrassing. 

Penny faced her own breakfast and found her appetite returned.  She’d forgotten to blow her candle out, and it was burning low, the wax spreading to fill the closest squares. 

I’ll make it up to Susan
, she resolved.

She blew out her candle and began to eat.

*   *   *

Michael West’s old Jeep climbed the steep driveway to Penny’s house just before noon, throwing up a rooster tail of dust in its wake.

“There she is,” Zoe said, standing on her tiptoes on the top step of the porch and shading her eyes.  A moment later she was shrinking back toward the wall and looking like she wanted very much to melt into it.  Penny took her place on the steps and walked down to meet Katie when her brother pulled to a stop. 

“Hi, Red!”  Michael grinned and waved from the driver’s seat.  “Hi, Zoe!”

Penny waved back and turned to see Zoe give a feeble little wave of her own.   There appeared to be something very interesting on the floor between her feet. 

He leaned close to Katie, spoke to her for a moment, then straightened up behind the wheel as she climbed out.  He made a loop at the end of the driveway and gave another wave as he drove away.

“Happy birthday!”  Katie shouted over the roar of the departing Jeep and ran to meet Penny.

The moment Michael’s Jeep was out of sight Zoe joined them, the bag with their book and wands hanging from her shoulder.  “We ready?”

Katie looked from Zoe to Penny and smiled.  “Yeah.  I’ve been ready.”

“And about time too,” said a voice from behind them, and they turned in unison to find Ronan scrambling out from under the porch.  “You’ve been away too long, young Miss West.”

He emerged and shook the dust off his fur, then ran on ahead of them, pausing only once to turn around and give them an impatient bark.

“Has he always been such a creeper,” Katie asked, “or just since I met him?”

Ronan shadowed the girls all the way to the hollow but kept his nagging to a minimum.  He stuck closest to Katie, extolled the virtues of self-confidence and positive thinking.  His pep talks had become increasingly manic, and when Katie’s father finally put his foot down and forbade her from coming to Penny’s house, Ronan had lost his temper and shouted in a language Penny had never heard before.  Even without knowing the language, Penny got the gist of his rant and was pretty sure it wasn’t nice. 

Now that Katie had returned, he seemed more determined than ever to help her get past her block.  Penny was intent on helping her as well.  Part of it was simply craving to learn more, to do more, but most of it was the growing certainty that Ronan was preparing them for something.  He had said as much after their fight with the Birdman.

This isn’t a game.  You have a serious purpose
.

He still wouldn’t tell them what that purpose was, but his changing demeanor brought his warning back to her mind.

Penny had been off in her own little world, not paying attention to where she was walking, and nearly tripped over Ronan.

He barked in irritation or humor, sometimes it was hard to tell the difference.  Zoe and Katie had drawn ahead of them while she was daydreaming. 

“How much longer until you have to be back?” 

“We have a few hours,” Penny said.  “Susan’s picking up stuff for the party after work.”

“Yes … your birthday party,” Ronan said.  “Happy birthday, Little Red.”

Penny groaned and rolled her eyes, but it was a show.  The nickname didn’t bother her like it used to.  She didn’t think she was fooling him, either; Ronan was very good at reading their moods.

“Do you still carry the mirror around with you?”

The question caught Penny by surprise.  She’d been expecting more of his grumbling about Katie’s lack of progress and her, Penny’s, responsibility to make things right with Katie’s father so she could resume her practice on a more regular basis.  The last time he took this line she’d reminded him, a bit shrilly as she recalled, that she’d never even met the man and that his grudge was against her dead mother and an aunt she’d never even knew existed until the previous summer.

That had shut him up.  Temporarily at least.