The Crimson Brand (41 page)

Penny glanced at the patches of night sky she could see through the hollow’s willow canopy.  “You mean like Mars or Jupiter?”

“No,” Ronan said, shaking his head.  “Those are only planets.  The worlds are much more than just different points in the same night sky.  They are everything … all the same, but all a little different, and all connected.”

“Are you talking about parallel universes?”  Penny had read enough science fiction and fantasy stories to know where he was going, even if she wasn’t quite ready to believe him.

“Not necessarily parallel, but universes, I suppose.”  He seemed to consider this for a moment, then dismissed it with a shrug.  “Close enough.”

Penny digested this for a moment, or attempted to, then gave up and nodded.  Sometimes with Ronan it was just best to take things on faith.

“The
real
me … well, you might find me a bit frightening.”  He grinned.  “When my body died my consciousness traveled back to the real me.  It took some time and not a little effort to rejoin you here, and I feared I would be too late.”

“Ohhh-kay,” she said, and reminded herself to take it on faith.  “So we went into that tunnel and rescued you for nothing?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” Ronan said.  “Had this body died with me still inside it anywhere other than here, I would have been lost.  Aurora Hollow is a thin place, a place where the worlds almost touch.  I never could have found my way back if you wonderful girls hadn’t brought me here.”

“Oh.”  Penny felt a chill overtake her at the statement.  It had been very close then.

“I owe you girls more than my life.  I owe you my existence.”

Penny had no words to reply.

“Your turn now,” Ronan prompted.  “Have you girls gotten into any new trouble?”

Penny nodded her assent.  “Yeah, you could say that.”

There wasn’t as much as Ronan had thought.  The only unpleasant surprise was Michael’s inclusion in the secret, but Ronan accepted it, if only because he didn’t have a choice.  His pleasure at Ellen’s decision to join them eclipsed his annoyance.

“And how about your other new friend?”  Ronan asked.

“Rocky!”  Penny called out, and what at first appeared to be a piece of the solid stone wall above his cave and leapt out, caught the end of a willow whip, and swung over the creek to land at Penny’s side.  The homunculus considered Ronan briefly before turning its large green eyes up to Penny.

Ronan goggled for a moment, then burst into fresh laughter.

“Don’t pay any attention to mean old Ronan, Rocky,” Penny said, patting Rocky’s head. 

Rocky closed his eyes, a satisfied grin stretching his wide, gray face, practically purring with contentment. 

Zoe and Ellen thought Rocky was adorable and treated him like a new pet, but Katie was not happy with Aurora Hollow’s newest resident.  Penny thought that Katie would come around eventually, maybe when a few months had passed without Rocky trying to strangle any of them, but in the meantime she seemed prepared to tolerate him for Penny’s sake.  She had, however, insisted that Penny put some clothes on him.

Katie needn’t have bothered with that demand.  Penny wasn’t about to let the little gray man run around naked all the time.  

Rocky stood before the still-laughing Ronan in a pair of shorts salvaged from Zoe’s old Raggedy Andy doll and a set of crisscrossing rope suspenders.  The Phoenix Key hung around his neck, the safest place Penny could think to keep it.

Relatively safe
, she amended silently. 

Her time in Aurora Hollow was a lot of things, amazing, magical, unpredictable, but safe was not one of those things.  Thinking about the old photograph album back in her room and the girls who had once called Aurora Hollow their own, all gone now, dead or scattered, Penny supposed it had never been safe.  Probably never would be.

But it was hers.  Hers, Zoe’s, Kat’s and Ellen’s, and they had saved it.

Penny knew their victory against the monstrous Turoc was not the end of the danger.  She knew there would be more trouble to come, and though she feared losing Zoe, they were still all together … The Phoenix Girls and Ronan.

That peaceful and happy moment was not the end, only a happy interlude, but Penny was willing to take happiness wherever she could find it.

The end … for now.

Brian Knight lives in Washington State with his family and the voices in his head. He has published over a dozen novels and novellas and two short story collections in the horror, dark fantasy, and crime genres. Several of his short stories have received honorable mentions in
Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror
.
The Crimson Brand
is his second book in
The Phoenix Girls
series.

Photo by Judi Key