Running Home – Chapter 9 (Penn and Sword)

On the other side of the door, wispy, quiet blackness stretches in all directions. Curiosity and dread fight for dominance in my stomach. I hold my sister’s necklace charm tight, searching for any discernable shapes in the rippling shadows.

“Wait!” Penn reaches into a tall, wood-carved wardrobe on our left before crossing the dark threshold. It seems almost part of the mossy stone-brick wall of his study. He rummages among piles of coats and scarves and shoes before pulling out a small, round brown basket.

He hands it to me. “There, perfect. Need to restock while we’re here.” Then Penn confidently crosses through the door, plopping his floppy witch’s hat on his mess of black hair.

Heart pattering against my ribs, I don’t step forward.

A few steps into the darkness, Penn turns back. “Acantha?”

My voice shakes. “Why is it so dark?”

Penn reaches a hand back through. “I know the way. Don’t be afraid.”

A small thought wiggles at the back of my head. Why do I trust him so readily? But I push doubt aside to follow my curiosity instead. Back prickling, I take his cool hand, grip the small basket tight, and step through the door with eyes wide open.

The darkness swallows us whole. The reddish light from the study spills behind our feet but fades with each step. Goosebumps raise up my arms and I shiver. Penn’s grip tightens. Together, we cross over soft ground. It feels like wet or freshly turned soil. Yet, I can’t smell anything akin to dirt or heady rain. Instead, the air is thin of scents, except for a slightly metallic, burning one hitting the back of my sinuses.

“Where are we?” I whisper.

Penn laughs, completely at ease. “I know it seems scary, but wait for it.”

“Wait for what?”

“Shhhh.”

I glance behind, Penn’s impossible door shrinking away with every step. “I think I want to go back—”

A burst of neon orange flutters outward at our feet. I scream in shock, clinging to Penn’s thin arm as he laughs into the sky. “There, look!”

The orange light splits into dozens of wings, like butterflies, soaring upward in spirals. Their sizzling light casts down around us, upon the spongy, blackened ground. I don’t know where to focus. But as the winged creatures soar higher, their light intensifies and casts outward in a gathering glow, spotlighting us under their dance.

Each fluttering light captures my breath, steals all thought. It takes several awestruck moments to remember how to speak. “What are they?”

Penn squeezes my hand. “I think the closest translation for you would be fire-moths. A creature burrowed in the ash of a dead forest. Awaiting that flash of life to begin the cycle.”

“What cycle?”

The moths rise higher, a high-pitched buzzing joining their intense glow. Their light carves paths through the shadow as if the sky is made of cloth. I reach through the air, feeling nothing, as the shadows sway from my touch.

Penn continues, “This world contains no water, only plasma, as a kick starter for life.”

“Plasma? Like… lightning?”

“The properties are similar, yes.”

“Similar? But not the same?”

“It’s all very complicated.”

“Are we safe? Is the air toxic? Why does it look so weird?”

Penn points a finger back toward the moths. “Watch them dance.”

My mind twists under the weight of all my questions. But I do as he says as the dancing moths’ patterns turn into infinity loops and cast sunset beams upon the ashen land. My fears fall away. Just when I think I understand their pattern, they turn in three lines and stream to the right, then the left. Their inner light lightens my anxious breaths.

“And then…” Penn whispers at my side.

As if hearing his cue, the fire-moths explode. I jolt in shock, but don’t take my eyes off their firework display. Tiny streams of orange and red and fuchsia cosmo-burst and crackle in the rippling black sky. Sudden starlight cascades across the void, dotting the strange cloth-like air like a paint spatter. And the metallic scent of this world finally bends, morphs past bitter, to a light, feathery floral aroma that tickles my nose.

I can’t help but smile.

From each star, a winding, lemon-yellow vine drops. Like a candy rope, hundreds of them grow downward toward the ash-dusted ground. Their energy buzzes, as if consumed with electricity. As they descend, light to shadow, the vines shiver and spark, creating a small glowing haven amid the surrounding darkness.

I flinch away from the vines dropping around us, all while Penn laughs. “Aren’t you a bunch of beauties? Oh, what a crop!” He lets go of me, poking at the yellow vines. Each of his fingers receives tiny citrus shocks, but he only chuckles.

I appraise the vines cautiously. “What are they?”

“I call her Phoenix Ivy.” Penn winks down at me. “A world of fire, and yet, life persists.”

I hold myself tight as if to shrink and avoid a shock. But Penn’s ease with the vines inspires me to reach a hand toward the closest, buzzing string. It sparks and spits. I cry out, nearly tripping. All at once, the vines shimmer and move in swaying waves, left to right. Tingling lengths brush over my shoulders like soft, humming fingers. I go still under their buzzing touch.

“Here you are, beautiful.” Penn runs his hands through the vines, matching their side-to-side dance. “Shower down!” His reverence and awe calm my tight chest, and I follow his gaze skyward.

The stars flash, split. And fiery droplets rain down.

Panic shoots through my core, and I drop to the ashes, covering my head. But the raindrops land warm and pulsing. Sticky, yet harmless. On my knees, I sit upright, catching orange teardrops in my palm to examine them. Each little circle shimmers and pulses, like tiny hearts the size of seeds.

Standing over me, Penn rips off his hat and opens his mouth to catch as many as he can on his tongue.

I shake my head, letting out a laugh of awe. I slowly place one droplet on my tongue and stiffen upright. The warm rain tastes of honey and lemon, and the thick liquid soothes down my throat, exactly like Penn’s tea.

Penn pulls out a small bottle from his pants pocket and uncaps it, holding it to a vine to capture the dripping orange goo. “One drop of this and you’ll be warm for days.” He flashes me a grin and a wink.

My chest warms. “This is insane.”

“Just new,” he corrects and pulls me up by the arm. “I know it’s overwhelming. When I traveled through my first portal, I was… well, I was beside myself. You have all these ideas of what other worlds could be. Other people, other cultures, other flora, fauna, atmospheres! You dream up all these impossible things.” He gestures around us, the vines now thoroughly doused and dripping with the viscous rain. Both our hair lays flat against our heads, and the air seems to flutter with aromas. “But when you finally see them, taste them, smell them… it’s unlike anything you could put into words.”

Heart expanding, I drink it in again. The lemon vines and the honey rain. The ashen ground absorbing the orange droplets. A world of shadow and neon life. Slowly, I run a finger over the closest, buzzing vine.

Penn grins. He seems to appraise me, waiting for a reaction.

I laugh, shaking my head at the neon impossibility around us. “This where you take all your first dates?”

Penn’s brow furrows. “Date?”

I laugh again, catching more honey rain on my tongue. “I love it,” I tell him, serious this time. Penn nods in acceptance.

For a long moment, we stand together in the neon rain, breathing in the floral honey scents and watching the bursting stars slowly shrink and drizzle out the last of their magic.

“This is the best part,” Penn says, voice low.

The vines settle their rain dance and sizzle once again with an inner light. Soon, they’ve absorbed the honey droplets. Tiny bolts of electric energy buzz across their yellow skins. Until the closest vine shivers, top to bottom. The electricity surges, and dozens of leaves pop out like triangular arrows. All crackling with the same strange energy. Then another vine, and another. All tremble and burst with leaves.

“Look close.” Penn holds one leaf between his fingertips, pulling the hanging vine toward us. “Each red vein fills with the honey until they change.”

Eyes wide to take it all in, I lean close just as the yellow leaf shudders and expands. When the leaf fills Penn’s palm, it takes on the orangish hue of the rain. It continues growing further, stretching each corner of its shape, sprouting new ones, turning into a red star.

“And this is when we pluck.”

With his thumb and forefinger, Penn twists the base of the leaf where it connects to the vine and breaks it off. The leaf pulses a sunset orange once, then settles. Carefully, he tears off a corner and presses it to his tongue. Whatever he tastes sends him into a spinning dance, making me laugh.

Mind buzzing with possibilities, I reach for the leaf. “Let me try!”

Penn tears off another corner for me, and I place it on my tongue the same as he did. The effect is immediate. The honey spreads over my tongue like a healing salve, yes, but the earthy body of the flavor, I can’t believe. Full and warm, buzzing on the tip of my tongue and all the way down my throat. Dozens of recipes fly through my mind. Phoenix cakes and Lemon Phoenix Chicken Thighs and Phoenix Ivy Salads and bubbling Ivy waters.

Penn snaps his sticky fingers. “Gather them up, quick. The cycle’s fast.”

We quickly pinch and twist the leaves from the closest vines, filling the basket with glowing tea leaves.

Penn takes my arm. “Have to hurry before they ash!”

At the top of the vines, hundreds of red, triangular leaves swell, then ignite. The flames lick down the vine lengths, incinerating the sweet-smelling magic. I freeze, transfixed, mouth dropped open. “Is that the ash? On the ground?”

“It’s their circle of life,” Penn says, gripping my hand and pulling me along. “This entire hill will be on fire soon. Run!”

I do, following him toward the rectangle door in the middle distance of the shadow world, but glancing back as much as I can to watch the spectacle. Flames crackle and hiss. Vines wither and fall. And as each does, the star of its origin shrinks and descends like a small, orange comet back to the ash.

From the portal threshold, I can see the last dozen stars cascade and burrow into the ground. Ready for the cycle to begin again.

Penn guides me back into his study and closes the red door with a soft click.

He smiles down at me, excitement twinkling in his stormy gaze and honey dripping down from his hair. “You’ve traveled to a new world, Acantha Sword. How does it feel?”

All I can do is stare at the basket. The leaves have settled, no longer pulsing. Star-shaped, drenched with red honey, dripping on the carpet. Again, recipes filter through my mind without thought. Tangy Phoenix tarts. Coiled Ivy vine and pesto. Phoenix marinara sauce and sausage. I can’t wait to get home and tell Eudora what I’ve discovered and invented—

My cheek-straining smile falls. Eudora… will never see the fire-moths. The bursting stars. The buzzing vines. She’ll never experience the lemon honey rain. Never step foot in another world, or her own, ever again. The knot in my chest returns, tightening against my sternum. I drop the basket and back away from it.

Penn jolts forward to save the leaves. “What’s wrong?”

I press a hand to my mouth. Keep the truth inside, locked down in the bottom of my skull, in the ice, forgotten. It has to be forgotten. I can’t deal with it. Not right now, not in the face of this magic and mystery and adventure.

But that’s the problem. None of this feels right. Not without my sister.

“She should be here,” I whisper before dropping to my knees.

“Who?” Penn shuffles closer. “What’s wrong? Was it too much? Are you allergic to the honey? You didn’t have a reaction before, so I thought this would be all right.”

The warring thoughts vie for control of my heart, pushing it to burst in my chest. I shouldn’t be excited about these leaves or the new world or Penn. Not without my sister. It’s wrong. We were supposed to have a life together, discover these magical qualities of the world at the same time. I hide in my hands before Penn can see the tears in my eyes.

“Acantha,” Penn says, “You have to calm down. You’re breathing funny. And not the good funny.”

I shake and hiss at my panicked sobs. “Quit it.”

But the icebox at the base of my skull opens and the frost melts. And despite the wondrous world behind that door, all I feel is the powerful need to run home.

A sharp cracking sound breaks the air behind us.

Penn and I both twist around, searching the desk. The jar holding the invisible insect sits still, with a single bent crack in the glass on one side. But the glass jar rocks, then shudders under an unseen force. Until it shatters outward into a dozen pieces.

The creepy-crawly freed.