by Valija Zinck
“ ‘What have you done?!’ I shouted. I was horrified. But he just smiled and took my hands.
“ ‘I’ve disguised myself.’
“I didn’t know if that was supposed to be a joke, and if it was one, I certainly wasn’t laughing. He pulled me to him and said, ‘I’ve taken the color out of my hair to make myself invisible.’
“ ‘Umm, Leo,’ I said gently, wondering if he’d lost his mind, ‘I’m sorry, but you’re not invisible. I can see you as clear as day. You’re standing right in front of me with a blue pullover on, and gray hair.’
“ ‘That’s not what I mean,’ he said softly. ‘It’s made me invisible to my kind. Of course, they’ll still be able to see me, but they won’t be able to feel me—they won’t be able to sense that I’m one of them.’
“ ‘What do you mean? Why are you afraid of them sensing you?’
“ ‘Trust me, Lucia, it’s better if I don’t tell you too much about it. Not right now, anyway. I want to spend my life with you, only with you. You’re what matters most to me … you’re my everything. I’m just going to become an ordinary man, we’ll move somewhere no one knows us, and we can lead a peaceful life.’
“So we moved here. We bought this little house and painted it red. Once a month, Leo painted his hair with his peculiar gray paste to hide the color, and to suppress the powers that his hair gave him. It stayed gray and he stayed undiscovered. But occasionally, if he was completely sure that none of the people he was afraid of were hanging around the area, he left the paste off and kept his hair red for a few hours. ‘I need to do that from time to time,’ he told me. ‘Otherwise I can’t develop—I’ll be stuck at the stage I’m at right now.’ He would go off into the swamp forest to discover new things—how to make stones float, for example.”
Penelope gazed at her mother, mesmerized, her eyes bright.
“And then you came along,” Mom said tenderly. “I was already so happy, but Penny, when you came into our lives, I felt as though the sun would never set again. Your eyes were clear and dark and your voice was as powerful as a storm. Leo was enchanted by you too. You didn’t have a single hair on your head, you were as bald as a coot, and he was bursting with curiosity about what color hair you were going to have.
“One evening, he said, ‘I need to go and spend some time on my practicing tomorrow. Will you be OK if I leave you alone with our Penny all day?’ That was fine by me, of course, so that night he left the ash paste off. It had been a month since he last applied it, and so the next morning his hair shone redder than the sun, and as he went out of the door, it looked like he was flying rather than walking. He nodded to me, blew me a kiss, and … well, that was the last time I ever saw him.” Penelope’s mother looked down at her sadly. “He wasn’t here by the time your first hair appeared. Your first flame-red wisps of hair.”
“What?!” Penelope exclaimed. She had been so captivated by the fairy tale of her parents’ marriage that this abrupt ending felt unbearable. “But where did he go? He can’t have just disappeared—that’s impossible!”
“That’s what I kept thinking at first: But this is impossible. It’s simply impossible. But the letter he wrote me after he’d been gone for a few months didn’t leave any room for misunderstanding.”
“What sort of letter?”
Penelope’s mother reached into her pocket and pulled out a worn piece of paper. She handed it to her daughter. “Even though I can’t bear to read it, I’ve never felt strong enough to throw it away,” she said softly.
Penelope read the letter.
When she had finished reading, she returned the letter to her mom. “What happened then?” she asked.
Her mother had slumped in her seat, but now she straightened up. She looked at Penelope and shrugged, slipping the letter into her pocket.
“I cried for months, I prayed, I thought I would surely die. But I didn’t die, because I had you to look after. You needed food and clean diapers and arms to hold you. Your laughter was balm for my broken heart. But the day your hair started to grow, I thought it was all over. It was as red as flames, and as beautiful as your father’s. I was filled with fear straightaway, because I knew you might have inherited more than just his hair color. So I took the big glass of ash paste out of Leo’s cupboard and painted it onto your hair. It turned as gray as stone, and I felt calmer again. Then when you were a little older, and the hearing-before-hearing started, I knew I was right—you hadn’t just inherited his hair color. Penny, believe me, I didn’t do it to try and stop you finding out that you had all these powers. I was just so terrified that you’d leave me, just like your father had.”
Penelope took a deep breath. She felt as though she’d been holding her breath for the past half hour.
“And then?” she asked.
“And then nothing. That was that. He’s gone, and I hope he stays away—I want nothing more to do with him.” Her mother’s voice was now hard and brisk, as if she wanted the conversation to be over.
But Penelope hadn’t finished. “But what was all that with the letter?”
“How do you know about that letter? Oh, never mind, it doesn’t matter now. Leo sends me money for you every month, just like he promised,” her mother said, her voice full of bitterness. “The gray envelope always arrives on the seventh, and has banknotes stuffed into it—never a card or anything personal, just money. And this month he has obviously decided to play an especially funny joke and only sent five dollars. Oh, how we laughed!”
Strangely, Penelope felt uncomfortable with her mother’s anger. She was angry with her father, too, of course—she couldn’t believe how he’d abandoned them both—but in spite of that, she didn’t like to hear her mother speaking badly of him. It felt wrong, somehow.
“And you’ve never written back?”
“I haven’t got an address for him, and I wouldn’t write to him even if I did.” Her mother’s voice was tight and pained. She stood up.
Penelope was insistent. “But what about the postmark? Where are the letters stamped?”
“Somewhere called Blackslough. And now you should sleep, my darling. Let’s talk about this some more in the morning, shall we? I’m tired.”
“And the rain on my birthday,” Penelope said as her mom turned toward the door. “The rain that isn’t really wet—has that got something to do with Dad too?”
“I’ve no idea, Penelope. Really. Now please go to sleep!”
Penelope nodded and turned off the light, but her mind was spinning and she knew it would be ages before she fell asleep. She had a father who was alive—a father with red hair and special powers, a father who liked to laugh and who discovered new things, a father who lived in Blackslough and sent a letter every month in a gray envelope.
She needed to let it all sink in.
Early morning light flooded Penelope’s room. Awakened by the brightness, she jumped out of bed. It’s Mom’s first day home, she remembered as she washed her face. I’m going to get fresh rolls from the village to celebrate! She skipped downstairs. And I have a father now too. A father who’s alive! It’s so exciting I could ride up and down the hill three times.
She shook some cat food energetically into Coco’s bowl and put some fresh water next to it, then pulled on her blue sandals and opened the front door. The world outside shone so brightly that Penelope was dazzled. She blinked and glanced down, watching a gray-and-yellow cellar spider running up the steps and into the house. Coco, who was padding downstairs, didn’t notice the eight-legged visitor—she only had eyes for her overflowing food bowl.
Penelope fetched her bike from the shed and pushed it up the sand path between the fragrant herbs. She paused by the old beech tree and breathed in deeply. What a beautiful morning—so full of light, air, and birdsong. The empty road stretched uphill toward the village, threading its way through the taller green hills beyond, before disappearing into the forest way off in the distance.
Penelope hoisted her bike onto the pa
vement and began to pedal laboriously uphill. She hadn’t got very far when she heard a loud clattering, and the next moment a tractor appeared at the top of the hill—but it wasn’t just any tractor, she realized as it started to descend. It was the tractor—the green one that had soaked her through, the one she was nearly certain had knocked over her mother. Immediately, she rode to the side of the road and hopped off her bike. A fleeting shiver passed across the back of her neck as she caught sight of the driver, his gold-framed sunglasses flashing in the bright sunshine. Someone like me, she thought, all of a sudden, without really knowing what that meant. The tractor was roaring down the hill, far too fast, and it had nearly reached her … but something was wrong: Penelope noticed the driver was heading straight for her, even though she stood on the pavement. The engine roared, the wheels screamed—and suddenly the huge vehicle loomed over her. Penelope was frozen to the spot. She couldn’t scream, she couldn’t move, she couldn’t jump out of the tractor’s path. Her young life was already over. Finished, done. Squished by an enormous green machine, crushed under heavy twin tires. She screwed her eyes shut.
She felt an impact, a sort of jarring sensation within her. But she hadn’t fallen—she was still standing. Was this how death felt? No, that was impossible—she felt exactly the same as she always did, only a little more scared. Penelope opened her eyes and blinked in disbelief: The tractor was teetering on two tires, leaning toward the opposite side of the road. It looked as though it was standing in midair, trying to decide whether to right itself or topple over onto its side. Suddenly, the road appeared to twitch, the tractor jolted, and the two hovering wheels slammed back down onto the road, shaking the ground. Penelope blinked again. What had happened? Had the road … moved? Abruptly, the road under the tractor started to snake downhill, like a conveyer belt.
What?!
Penelope watched as the road gathered speed. The man driving the tractor was revving the engine and turning the wheel wildly—but it wasn’t working. Before long, the tractor disappeared down the hill so fast that it looked like a piece of film on fast-forward.
A little frightened, Penelope hopped back on her bike and started pedaling uphill as fast as possible, glancing occasionally over her shoulder.
Penelope didn’t slow down until the tractor had been swallowed up by the forest. She stopped, dismounted, and took a deep breath, clinging on to the handlebars. What the heck’s going on here? she wondered dazedly.
“WELL, YOU DID SAY I SHOULD HAVE TAKEN THE GUY AROUND SOME OTHER BEND LAST TIME.”
Penelope spun round.
“BUT THERE WASN’T A BEND AVAILABLE, SO I THOUGHT PERHAPS AN UNEVEN SURFACE AND A BIT OF ACCELERATION MIGHT DO THE JOB INSTEAD.”
A voice like soft thunder boomed all around her—but where was it coming from? From near or far, from the ground or the village, she couldn’t tell. Or was it coming from inside her head?
“DON’T LOOK SO AFRAID. YOU WERE GOING SOMEWHERE, WEREN’T YOU? IF YOU STAND AROUND ON ME FOR MUCH LONGER, YOU MIGHT START TO TAKE ROOT.”
Penelope gasped as her feet jumped a little way off the ground. It felt as if someone had gently punched their soles. She looked at the ground beneath her, the paving slabs shimmering slightly in the morning light.
“Is that you?” whispered Penelope.
“WHO ELSE?” the road replied.
“But, but …”
“ ‘BUT, BUT’ NOTHING,” rumbled the road, and suddenly, Penelope and her bicycle were zooming forward of their own accord, as though the bike were on a conveyor belt. Penelope found herself zipping from the paving slabs onto the asphalt surface of the road, which whizzed under the wheels of her bike, carrying her into the village. But when she tried to stop at the baker’s, she lost her balance and fell face-first onto the road. A dull rumbling noise came from the road.
Quickly, Penelope scrambled to her feet, dusted herself off, and nodded to the lady who was just coming out of the baker’s, as if nothing untoward had happened. She hurried into the shop to buy the rolls. When she emerged again, she looked all around her before hesitantly placing a foot on the gray road.
“YOU DON’T NEED TO BE SO TIMID,” the thunderous voice intoned. “I’M USED TO PEOPLE TRAMPLING ON ME, DRIVING ON ME, ROLLING ON ME, DRILLING ON ME—YOU NAME IT. TO ME, YOUR FEET FEEL A BIT LIKE A SOOTHING MASSAGE.”
Penelope smiled shyly. “OK.” Nevertheless, she swung herself onto her bike more carefully than usual, and pedaled smoothly downhill. She was back at the beech tree in no time at all.
“Thank you,” she whispered as she left the road and stepped onto the sand track. “Thank you for the lift. And—for what you did with the tractor.”
“NO PROBLEM. SO, THEN, UNTIL TOMORROW, WHEN YOU GO TO SCHOOL. I THINK I’LL PROBABLY STILL BE HERE THEN.” The rumbling voice shook a little. Was the road laughing? “ALTHOUGH I SUPPOSE IT’S ALWAYS POSSIBLE THAT I MIGHT HAVE BEEN DIVERTED.”
“Um … OK.” Penelope was glad she was standing on the sand track, as the paving slabs in front of her were shaking with amusement.
The breakfast table was already laid as Penelope walked into the dragon house, and as she unwrapped her package from the baker, the bread rolls smelled delicious. Her mother walked through the kitchen, humming, and planted a kiss on Penelope’s forehead. She smiled. She wished she could tell her mother about the strange experience on the road, but Granny Elizabeth was already at the table, and Penelope didn’t want to say anything while she was there.
After breakfast, Mrs. Gardener suggested a walk. Hopefully Granny will stay at home, thought Penelope, but today of all days, apparently, G.E. absolutely had to have some exercise.
They set off along the narrow path through the swamp forest, emerging into the spring-wet meadows. The sun blazed high in the sky, and the air was filled with the buzzing of flies and bumblebees. As Penelope tramped between her mother and G.E., she realized she was going to have to wait before she could talk to her mother in private.
After a while, they came to the stone circle, a ring of gray and reddish boulders that someone had arranged in the middle of the meadow. Penelope had often wondered how they’d got there, but nobody seemed to know anything about them. Except that today, all of a sudden, it seemed that her mother did know something, after all.
“Your father put these rocks here,” she admitted quietly as they drew to a halt in the center of the circle. “He transported them here himself. Don’t ask me how … all he’d tell me was that he’d asked for the stones, and they’d appeared.”
“Well, he left us a nice picnic spot, I’ll give him that,” muttered Granny Elizabeth, leaning against one of the boulders.
Penelope climbed up onto the smallest rock and looked at her mother, who was unfolding a blanket for their picnic. She felt so much closer to her now, she realized. They’d always gotten along, but because Mrs. Gardener had never talked about Penelope’s father, there had always been a hole in Penelope’s heart. This hole had made her feel distant from her mother at times. But now the emptiness was starting to fill up with stories about her father. Penelope loved the feeling that her heart was growing full, and she loved her father too. Or, at least, she loved one of her fathers.
Because she felt as though she had two fathers now: the one who had lived with her mother, who had laughed a lot and made such wonderful things happen … and the other father: the one who’d simply disappeared, who’d left them both for another woman. Penelope didn’t love the second father at all. She was angry with him, and whenever she dwelled on him, her thoughts grew narrow and gloomy.
“Penelope? Why don’t you sit down?” Her mom smiled up at her from the blanket she’d laid out on the grass. G.E. was already tucking into a sandwich.
As she joined the picnic, Penelope glared at the stone circle in sudden fury. One day, she would meet that second father and tell him exactly what she thought of him.
* * *
They carried on walking into the late afternoon, following a narrow path that r
an alongside a blackthorn hedge and then petered out across an uncultivated field. They continued across the field, their route starting to curve back toward home, and soon reached a small country lane that separated the field from a meadow. As the three of them crossed the lane, a great rattling and thundering rose up from the ground.
“BY THE WAY, IT’S BETTER IF YOU DON’T TELL ANYONE ELSE ABOUT ME.”
Penelope jumped in fright, recognizing the booming voice of the road. “What? Oh … well, OK,” she muttered.
“ ‘Well, OK’ what?” Mrs. Gardener turned to her daughter, confused. “Did you hear something just then?”
“Didn’t you hear anything?”
“No. Should we have?” asked Granny Elizabeth and her mother at the same time.
Penelope shook her head quickly. “No, no.” She hurriedly suggested a race, desperate for a distraction. “Whoever gets to the birch tree first is the winner!” Penelope started running across the meadow.
Her mother hesitated briefly, but then ran after her, and even Granny Elizabeth started to jog, though rather more slowly.
“Even if you can hear and see things we can’t,” Penelope’s mother called after her, “there’s one thing we can see that you can’t … and that’s your blazing red hair trailing out behind you like fire!” Her mother laughed as she gained on Penelope. Penelope laughed too. And—to Penelope’s surprise—Granny Elizabeth laughed as well.
But the next moment, her grandmother’s laughter died, replaced by a strangled “Aaaahhhhhhhh!”
Penelope stopped and turned. Granny Elizabeth had stopped and was pulling her right foot upward.
“What is it?” Mrs. Gardener asked, running back to her.
