The Heart of the Phoenix

by Brian Knight

  I could be there in a second, and I could take dad with me.

  She could, and if something bad was happening back home now would be better than later, but they couldn’t just leave her mom with no one to look after her.

  Zoe didn’t know what had happened to her mother, but intuition warned her that any shocks to her sense of what was and wasn’t real could set her progress back. She was better now than Zoe ever remembered, and knowing that her husband and daughter also saw her ghosts had cheered her up, but seeing Zoe pull out a wand and open their room door in Oregon to a house in Washington might upset her equilibrium.

  So she would take the long way home, hard as it was, and calmed herself with a promise that she would pay that imposter Flanna back when they came face to face again.

  They were out the door and on the road before the sun rose, and her mom settled into the sleeper cab’s bed, snug and sleeping while Zoe took up the passenger seat next to her father.

  “Did you find a load?” Zoe yawned. Now that they were moving, her sense of urgency had retreated, and she felt her lack of sleep.

  “I did,” he said. “We pick it up in Baker City and drop it off in Eugene. Then we deadhead up to Dogwood.”

  Zoe had been with him long enough that last summer to pick up some of the trucker lingo. A deadhead trip meant driving the cab with no load, and no load meant no pay for the miles he drove. Owning his own truck made it possible for him to set his own schedule, but he was going to spend a lot of money on diesel getting her home, and wasn’t going to earn much of it back with such a short load.

  Zoe looked at her father and smiled. It was funny watching her friends in Dogwood meet him for the first time. He was so huge, and one of the most muscular men Zoe had ever seen, and he frightened new people with a word or a gesture, but they warmed to him quickly. Seeing tiny little Penny, Little Red, standing next to him was sort of comical. Together they looked like a sideshow act.

  I sure do love you, Zoe thought, and thought she heard a reply in her head.

  I love you too, kid.

  She looked over at him and saw him smiling.

  She took that image down into sleep.

  She awoke again to a thump that rocked the entire cab. She looked around, found her dad at the wheel, checking his side mirror, and then he set the cab’s air brake and released his seatbelt. A quick look at the bed showed her mother sound asleep. She was used to it.

  He exited the cab to hook up airbrake lines to the trailer he’d just coupled the cab with. So they were in Baker City, still a long way to go.

  Zoe decided to wake up and keep him company while he drove for as long as she could manage.

  She was sleeping again seconds later.

  She awoke somewhere in the mountains, stretched extravagantly, and yawned.

  “Good morning.” Her mother’s voice was high and loud with excitement, clearly well rested and digging the day. “Have some breakfast.”

  A bag of fast food breakfast muffins landed in Zoe’s lap, and the aroma woke up her hunger. She plowed through two of them and chased them with a cup of bitter, lukewarm coffee before she felt sufficiently fueled up for conversation.

  “Where are we?”

  “A few hours out of Eugene,” her dad said. “We’re making good time.”

  “I am so excited,” her mother said. “I haven’t seen her in months.”

  “She’s excited to see you too,” Reggie said. “She told me off for not bringing you sooner.”

  He nudged Zoe with an elbow.

  “She’s looking forward to meeting you too, says she’ll drop by Dogwood for a visit after you’re all settled in.”

  The drive to Eugene was over quickly, and after dropping the trailer off they parked near the depot and walked Dana to her bus. Before stepping on board, Dana looked back at Zoe.

  “You make up with your friend, sweetheart.” She turned to Reggie. “Don’t leave her until whatever is happening there is over.”

  She kissed Zoe on the cheek, then grabbed the front of Reggie’s shirt and pulled his face down to hers.

  Reggie received his own kiss gladly, then lifted her in a hug that made passers-by stare in alarm. He was used to that, he looked like a bear mauling a child when he hugged Dana.

  She giggled as he set her back down, and ran up the steps of the bus.

  Reggie and Zoe waited, and watched as the bus pulled away from the curb minutes later. As it entered traffic, they saw her face in one of the rear windows. She smiled, waved, and they waved back.

  “We have some more stuff to talk about on our way north,” Reggie said.

  Zoe only nodded. She knew they did.

  * * *

  Zoe listened as they drove north, squashing the impulse to interrupt at almost every twist of his story. It was not long, and explained some of his knowledge of the Phoenix Girls, despite having only met them as a group twice, the first time when he’d been drawn to Dogwood as a younger man and had stumbled upon them at Aurora Hollow, the second time shortly before they’d disbanded.

  When the silence in the cab stretched out to an awkward length and she’d decided he was finished, she finally allowed herself to speak.

  “Mom was a Phoenix Girl?”

  “For a short time only,” he said. “Her talents were less controllable than the others, less safe. She introduced Janet to them, and when Janet joined, she quit. They were still friends, still a circle as she used to say, but they drifted apart.”

  Zoe considered this in silence.

  “It was her choice,” Reggie said. “She wanted to move on to something she could be a full part of, not just a bystander, so she left town after graduation, moved east until she ended up in Idaho. She got work at the casino on my reservation. That’s how I met her for the second time.”

  Zoe absorbed this new information, the reason for her mother’s breakdowns over the years, the last resulting in Zoe’s move to Dogwood and her introduction to the same secrets that had undone her mother.

  “Mom thought she was crazy because no one else remembered the things she did,” Zoe said, just to clarify it in her own head. “She thought she’d imagined all of it.”

  Her father nodded.

  “Why didn’t you tell me before?” Zoe was surprised by the force of her own anger. “I could have showed her... proved to her she wasn’t crazy!”

  “You will someday,” he said, and Zoe resisted the soothing effect of his voice. His deep tenor had always been able to calm her more quickly than words. “Just not today. She’s still just learning to trust her senses again.”

  “When then?” Zoe avoided shouting this time, but couldn’t entirely hide the anger in her voice.

  “When it’s best for her,” he said.

  Zoe had to remind herself that he had only just discovered her part in the secret that he had been keeping for years, and her anger retreated a little.

  It did not leave her though, and she didn’t want it to. She wanted it within easy reach when she saw Flanna again.

  * * *

  They stopped to fuel up outside of Portland, then crossed the border into Washington. Only a few more hours until they arrived, and she was starting to get antsy.

  A few hours later and her father began to show his own signs of anxiety.

  “I don’t get it,” Reggie said. “The exit should have been a mile back.”

  “We must have missed it,” Zoe said, even though she knew they had not. She had watched every mile of road since turning east in Aberdeen.

  He found a turn off and pulled over, then back the other way, driving slowly this time.

  “There!” Zoe pointed, then dropped her hand. “Or maybe not.”

  Reggie pulled onto the shoulder, set the brake.

  “Stay put, I’ll be right back.”

  He crossed the road on foot then inspected a sign, a familiar one Zoe now realized.

  Food, gas, services—one mile.

  It was the sign next to the exit for Dogwood.
/>
  But the exit was gone.

  He stepped off the road, into the ditch, and kicked his way through the tall grass where the road should have been.

  The road was gone.

  Reggie returned to the truck, turned around again, and parked at the turn off.

  “What are we doing?”

  “We’re going for a walk,” he said.

  They walked back to the sign, and Zoe followed him off road. They were still in sight of the highway when the sound of screeching tires called their attention back.

  A sporty little car had stopped on the shoulder next to the food, gas, services sign. The doors opened, and the last two people Zoe had expected to see climbed out.

  * * *

  They walked for an hour, but where there had once been a town was only empty country.

  Dogwood was gone.

  Chapter 16

  Reunion

  The moment seemed endless. Penny stood with the blackened leather mask in one hand, its magic destroyed by her Phoenix Fire, and felt fresh air on her face.

  Flanna stood a few yards away, actually backed up a step when Penny had peeled the mask off, her face caught in a cramp of grief, tears sliding down her cheeks.

  Is that what I look like when I cry?

  Tracy West stood between them, a hand outstretched in a warding gesture.

  She’s afraid we’re going to fight, Penny realized.

  The day before they might have. Penny had been holding a grudge, and she would have welcomed a chance to vent some anger, but her anger with Flanna had guttered and died as they shared their mother’s dying memories. Now she just felt tired, hungry, and dirty. She wanted a shower, some food, a gallon of coffee, and Susan’s smiling face.

  But Susan was gone, along with Erasmus, Bowen, and Tracy’s own nephew, Michael. Gone or dead. She didn’t know which, and was afraid to ask.

  She felt a hand creep into hers, and saw her father step up beside her.

  “Flanna...”

  Flanna tossed her wand aside and ran at them, and for a second Penny thought she was being attacked. Flanna threw an arm around Penny, another around their father, and pulled them together in a tight embrace.

  “I’m sorry,” Flanna said. “I’m sorry about Zoe... I’m sorry about Susan.”

  “I know,” Penny said.

  “Flanna, where is Susan?” Torin pried Flanna free and took her by the shoulders. He knelt down to look her in the eyes, and wiped tears from her cheeks. “What did you do to her?”

  “I sent her away, with Erasmus, Michael, Mr. Price.” Flanna looked nervously at Tracy, as if looking for an ally in a crowd she expected to become hostile. “I don’t know where, I gave them a box, and when they opened it...”

  “You gave them a black star sapphire,” Tracy said. “It’s like a singularity at the core of a dark star. It pulls them out of the material world and leaves them in the unformed space. Where you sent Turoc last spring.”

  “But Turoc came back,” Penny said, excited. “We can bring them back too.”

  “Turoc left a bit of himself behind,” Tracy said. “Didn’t he, Flanna?”

  Flanna nodded, looking more miserable than ever. “A tooth. I found it, and the doorway relic you guys used to banish him. That was the only way Tynan could get him back.”

  “So there’s nothing we can do?” Penny felt her own tears now, wiped them angrily away.

  “I didn’t say that,” Tracy said. “It was my idea to send them there. I didn’t leave them hanging.”

  Tracy reached beneath her robe and pulled out a heart-shaped golden locket.

  “I put the black star enchantment on it myself.”

  “And you threw them a rope,” Ronan said.

  “No,” Tracy said. “I built them a waiting room.”

  “You can bring them back?” Penny and Flanna spoke in unison.

  Tracy smiled and opened her locket.

  * * *

  Aurora Hollow filled with light, Penny had to turn away and shield her eyes from the glare spilling out of Tracy’s locket. The gathered homunculi scattered into the trees, chirping and chattering in astonishment, except for Rocky, who moved close to Penny’s side and clutched at her leg. Torin shouted and brought his wand up, and Ronan leapt up and took a perch in the lower limbs of the big ash tree. His familiar perch sagged beneath his weight.

  In the confusion, Penny noticed Flanna was no longer at her side, and squinting her eyes against the light she searched. She found her sister standing in the wash of light, trying to simultaneously shield her eyes, and stare into it.

  A scream sounded, a woman’s, then others joined it.

  When the light finally faded and died the group was larger by seven.

  The first four were not a surprise, Susan, Erasmus, Michael, and Ernest Price. They blinked as the brightness faded, looked around, Susan with confusion, Michael with relief as he recognized his surroundings, Ernest with shock and fear. Erasmus was curled up on the ground, having a nap.

  The second group was a surprise to all but Tracy, who beamed with joy.

  Two men in navy blue flight uniforms, a pilot and co-pilot, and...

  Penny’s breath caught in her throat, she didn’t realize she was on the verge of fainting until her father caught her and held her up.

  Flanna looked on, stunned to silence.

  Mom, she thought, her first reaction to seeing the woman who had raised her for the first time in over two years.

  Not her mother, but her aunt, lost one day in a plane crash over the Pacific Ocean, her body never recovered.

  Both Susan and Nancy saw Flanna standing alone, and both called out.

  “Penny!”

  Susan moved toward her, but Nancy was the quicker of the two, and did something to Flanna that Penny could never remember the woman she had called mother doing to her. She threw her arms around Flanna, sobbing openly.

  “She still thinks she’s Diana, dear,” Tracy said, bending to whisper into Penny’s ear. “And I’m afraid you really don’t look like yourself at the moment.

  “But you’re dead,” Susan said staring at Nancy. She clutched at her head and groaned, a thing Penny had seen before when she was confronted with those lost parts of her past that had been taken from her.

  Taken by Tracy West.

  The pilots seemed at a total loss. They regarded each other, the strangers around them.

  “Jackson, where in the heck did you land us?”

  Jackson shrugged. “I don’t remember landing at all. Weren’t we dead?” He looked to the others around them for some kind of confirmation. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure we died.”

  “Welcome back then,” Torin said, and smiled.

  “Perhaps,” Ronan said from his perch in the tree, “you should get them back to Susan’s house, Tracy.”

  The pilots looked up at the sound of his voice, but he scurried further up the trunk until he was hidden in darkness, avoiding the hysterics that surely would have resulted from them seeing a ten-foot tall bipedal fox.

  “Perhaps,” Tracy acknowledged. “I have something that belongs to Susan and Nancy at the house, and they’ll be needing it back.”

  One of the gray men wandered back into the hollow, and Torin shooed it discreetly back into the trees.

  “What is that... thing?” Jackson pointed to Rocky.

  “It’s a Furby,” Penny said, then added, a little lamely she thought, “without the fur.”

  Rocky grinned up at Jackson, and the pilot decided to sit down.

  Susan finally noticed Penny and did a double take between her and Flanna.

  “What is going on?” Susan asked, rubbing more vigorously at her temples.

  “I think we’d all like to know that,” Michael said, and when he saw Ernest Price trying to sneak quietly away into the trees, grabbed him by the arm and pulled him back. “Get back here, you bozo!”

  “Inside then,” Tracy said, and motioned to the door Flanna had left open.

  One by one, mo
st with more than a little trepidation, they filed through the impossible door and into Susan’s house.

  * * *

  Ronan stayed behind with the homunculi, and Tracy and Michael took the pilots and Ernest upstairs while Susan, Torin, Nancy, Flanna, and Penny waited in the living room.

  “I remember promising to kill you if you ever showed your face in town again,” Susan said to Torin. She was watching him with a sour look while she massaged her temples, Penny noticed Nancy doing the same. “Once this headache is gone I might just do it.”

  “She remembers me,” Torin said, and smiled. He was in too good a mood to let Susan spoil it.

  “So Tracy and Nancy finally tracked you down?”

  “Did they?” Nancy looked around, as if expecting a second Nancy to show herself at any minute.

  Penny decided not to try explaining. Tracy was the one who fouled their memories up, so she could sort them out.

  Flanna sat between Susan and Nancy on the couch, almost crushed between them, each with an arm around her, Torin lounged in Susan’s recliner, and Penny stood alone by the television, feeling awkward and ignored.

  “You know,” Nancy said, finally noticing Penny, “if you put a few pounds on and grew your hair out, you’d be the spitting image of Penny.”

  Susan looked Penny over again and nodded. “It’s kind of uncanny, actually.”

  “Is that so,” Penny muttered.

  Torin laughed, and Susan shot him another glare.

  Nancy had ignored Torin since their reunion in the hollow, as if looking at him caused her pain, but she finally turned to him.

  “Where have you been all these years, Torin?” she said, and turned away with a wince.

  “Did you miss me?” He seemed genuinely curious.

  Nancy considered for a short moment, then shook her head.

  “No, not really. I guess I used to love you, but...”

  “You’re just not feeling it,” Penny said, not surprised. Nancy had not liked Torin at all, and as good as Tracy apparently was at planting false memories, she could not duplicate her mother’s love for him.