Running Home – Chapter 10 (Penn and Sword series)

“Don’t move!” Penn commands.

Knot in my chest coiling, I do as I’m told. Breath held tight and sniffles snuffed. I remain as still as I can, refusing to move my chin an inch from my kneeling position. I can’t see Penn as he rummages over the desk and snatches at something.

“Where are you, Francis?” he intones. When he finally soft-steps into view, I find him through my sticky hair, holding the single glass lens to his eye and searching the ground.

I investigate as well, wanting to curl away, but remaining frozen. “Is it… Is it going to try to—”

Penn holds up a finger, focused on a spot just in front of my right knee.

Bethany’s gasping screams echo through me. I stiffen and close my eyes. All the beauty of the Phoenix Ivy vanishes, Penn’s world of whimsical magic souring into horror. “Please don’t let it—”

Penn shushes me, dropping in a low squat, still fixated on the same spot on the carpet. “What exactly are you doing, Francis?”

“Wha-what’s he doing?”

“He’s… turning in circles. Sniffing?”

I squint against fearful tears and can just make out the threads of the carpet shifting beneath tiny, invisible legs.

“Well, you’re not attacking. I suppose that’s a good thing. Perhaps our predator theory was wrong… What’s confusing you, tiny thing? What are you looking for?” Penn leans his nose close to the carpet. The circles cease and finally the carpet threads shift to the left. Away from me. Penn waddles after the tiny steps of the invisible creature. When he makes it to a shelf across the room, a good ten feet away, I allow myself to breathe normal.

Slowly, shakily, I fall back on bent legs and twist the hem of my shirt in my fingers. Every muscle feels drained of some vital essence. Too many new experiences striking my nervous system like a meat hammer in quick succession. Invisible bugs. Neon plants. An escaped horror creature.

But the jolt of adrenaline erases the sorrow. Clears my thoughts. The mystery of it all, the thing that drew me in, bubbles in my stomach. Don’t think about the diner, about mom and dad, about her. Don’t think about it. Don’t think about it. I shove the homesickness back into the mental icebox, locking it up tight.

I carefully follow Penn across the room to make sure he’s all right. He focuses his single lens on a low shelf of collected crystals and glinting stones. One in particular, a pulsing coral-pink and shale-like bit of earth, consumes his one-eyed stare. “Fan of the emberite, hm, Francis?”

My stomach squeezes, searching the rock for any miniscule movement. “Why did you name it?”

“Creatures may have softer feelings than us. But that doesn’t discount them. Every creature knows fear. And perhaps,” Penn smiles, pocketing the single lens, “Safety.”

And just like that, an inching furry worm shimmers into view. It looks like a caterpillar mixed with a fluffy rodent with blue-gray fur, no larger than a pinkie finger. I back away at once, spine zinging with panic. Penn doesn’t do the same. The magic-man only lets out a chuckle as the creature makes its way across the glowing rock until settling on its belly in a cozy crevice and relaxing its bluish antennae.

“I think the invisibility is a cloaking tactic.” Penn watches with wide, curious eyes. Like a kid at a zoo.

I slowly crouch down beside Penn, daring not to blink in case the insect creature launches off the rock for an attack. “Like a chameleon?”

“Precisely. Well, not precise either. He truly was invisible to our sight.”

“And you called that… emberite?”

“Correct. A source of heat and light energy from within the ground, rather than without, like a sun.” Penn wiggles his brows. “Nifty, eh?”

“And he likes it?”

“He was drawn to it. Of all the heat sources and lightbulbs here, you, me, the stove upstairs, he sought this one.”

“Does it need sunlight? Like, does it feed off of it? Like a plant?”

“We all feed off light, Acantha. No matter the world.”

“But why this rock specifically?”

Penn jumps to his feet and swishes his hair. “Why indeed? Which world produces emberite? I should know this.” He hurries his hands over books and scrolls and coal drawings along the walls, muttering about notes and how he needs a filing system.

I give furry Francis one last wary glance. I don’t want to leave the bug and let it escape. But I also don’t want to be alone with it either. My skin crawls, remembering tiny creeping legs. I follow Penn.

“Aha!” The red-vested magic-man points one of his long fingers to the open page of a book on the center desk. The edges are dusted coppery red, as if the paper has rusted. “The tunnel world! Oh, I love a good tunnel.” He pulls his wand from his sleeve and returns to the red door. “I haven’t been to the tunnel world since my young days! One of my first, actually. An entire plane made up of only tunnels. Can you believe it? No sky, no core. Just endless, endless rocky, mildewy, dirty tunnels. That’s why all the emberite. You’ll love it.”

Penn draws his key across the edges of the door again, crackles of energy sparking at each corner. “I’ll send you home, Francis. Don’t you worry. You and all your murder-happy friends, back where you came from!” His tattoos alight as well, though this time not down his arm, but from under his shirt, across his chest. Another world? I hurry to his side, stomach twisting yet again. With fear? Excitement?

But before Penn can complete the rectangle of snapping energy for another portal, a burst of red lightning sparks between his heart and the door. He shocks backward, falling to the carpet.

I drop to my knees. “Are you okay? What happened?”

Penn steadies then shakes himself upright, excited smile wiped clean. Cautiously, he eyes the door, knob singed and smoking. All the red energy has dissipated. Slowly, he finds his feet and unbuttons his shirt.

I almost turn away, unsure what he’s doing undressing in front of me. Until I see it. The black-ink tattoo roots bloom across his skin. A complicated network of diagonal, crisscrossing and bent lines. All stemming from the same origin just above his sternum. The ink is so dark and concentrated that the lines almost seem three dimensional, growing from his ribs to pierce through his skin.

Penn carefully presses a hand to the center, another zap of energy snapping over his fingertips. He calms his breaths, then searches the door, his key, his tattoo. Silent. No mutterings or questions like before. He’s stunned quiet.

I wait as long as I can, letting him recover before my nerves twitch through my legs. “Penn?”

“I…” he says, all animation drained. “I don’t understand.”

“What happened?”

Ignoring me, Penn snatches his key from the floor. “It’s supposed to be here.” He tries to draw the magic across the door again, and again the bright spark of lightning zaps between his tattoos and the door. Penn staggers backward, brows low. Not with pain, but annoyance. “Why can’t I get in? What could block me from making a port? There’s nothing on the tunnel world with that kind of power—” Realization slackens his jaw.

I search the door but find no sign of what could have happened. Just a red door, like before. “What? What does it mean?”

“Creepy-crawlies invading dreams, cloaked invisible, asking for home. And now a portal that won’t open.” Penn’s frown finally lands on me and the weight of it nearly knocks me over. “It’s gone.”

“Gone?” I grip my triangle necklace charm tight. “What’s gone?”

“Their home.” Eyes wide with disbelief, Penn shakes his head at the door. No longer searching. “Their home is gone.”

My stomach drops, the knot in my chest coiling. Tighter, tighter.

I know the speechless devastation on Penn’s face too well.