Running Home – Chapter 7 (Penn and Sword series)

“What are you DOING?!”

We all reach to stop Penn, who continues shoving his weird key down Bethany’s throat. But before Landon can land a raised punch, Penn tugs backward. He drops the stylus and covers Bethany’s sputtering mouth with both of his hands, muttering, “Don’t slip, don’t slip, don’t slip, don’t slip,” until finally cupping his hands together. “Gotcha!”

Penn whirls around on one knee, shouldering through everyone. “Move, move, move!”

Bethany coughs, rubbing at her throat, but upright and no longer thrashing. Harry cradles her back to the floor, asks if she’s all right.

Landon shouts after Penn. “What’d you do to her?”

I don’t blame him, put off by the forceful display as well.

Penn doesn’t answer, running up to the third floor. Whatever he did, it seemed to help. Bethany holds her throat but breathes more and more normally with each breath. Harry and Jordan help her sit up, checking her eyes and mouth over and over.

Penn’s wand lies at my knee. With Bethany finally breathing normally, I decide fast before anyone can stop me. I curl the device into one hand, squeeze Simon’s phone secured in my other to keep the ruthless rule-follower from calling 911, and whirl after Penn.

Upstairs, Penn’s bedroom door is already closed tight. And when I try to open it, the door swings to reveal an empty bed, empty desk, empty floor. Holding in a breath, I quickly close the door again and point the red-tipped device at the doorknob and lock. What do I think will happen? Red sparks? A manifesting key? After the last twenty-four hours, anything seems possible.

The wand sizzles, a single bolt of lightning lashing out from the tip. It zaps the lock in a crackling flash of light. Gasping loud, I waste no time pushing through the door. Not into an empty bedroom, but into reddish light and thick spiced air.

Penn mutters in the center of the red-glowing room from last night, struggling with an invisible mass in his hands, but I can’t focus on him. Not with this breathtaking impossibility manifested around me.

The ceiling extends high into a blurred crimson glow and unreachable shelves. Stone bricks make up the walls of the circular room, etched with markings and covered in creeping green-gray moss. A grand dark-stained wooden table fills the center, overflowing with melted, sweet-smelling candles, golden balancing scales, silver and blue-metal devices with unknown uses, stacks of metallic coins, buttons, and squarish notes. Rusty parchments and tomes pile high among a dozen mugs, teacups, and blue glass flutes half-filled with tea bags or milky brown drinks. Nibbled pastries litter the edges, crumbs tumbling to the overlapping shaggy, furred, or threaded carpets across the floor. An arched entry on the left opens to a staircase that spirals out of sight. Along every available inch of open stone wall, parchment and rough red papers hang from iron nails or brassy buttons. Scribbled with impossible coordinates, sketches of catalogued flora and fauna I’ve never seen or heard of, and dozens of glyphed, swishing, dotted languages I don’t recognize.

“Wow,” I exhale. Then inhale the thick air as if it gives me life. Whatever this spicy scent is, it’s stronger here inside the impossible study than what I sensed last night. It curls through my system with the buzzing force of an energy drink, tingling from my nose down to the arches of my feet.

Penn meanwhile notices none of my astonishment. He hurries with wavering balance onto a step stool, snatches a glass jar from a shelf, all while maneuvering whatever is in his hands to one fist. Hurriedly, he stuffs it inside the jar and smashes the lid on top. “Give me the key!” he shouts, free hand out to me.

I startle forward and hand him the stylus at once.

Penn points the device at the lid. More red crackles zip around the metallic edge and finally his shoulders relax. “Locked inside, you bugger.” Penn hops off the stool, then plops the jar down on the desk with a hand-waving flourish. “There you are,” he says, “the creepy-crawly.”

“Seriously?” I bend down and look into the jar from several angles. “I don’t… see anything.”

“Of course not. Francis wouldn’t want you to see him.”

“Francis?”

Penn sighs. “I know, I know, I shouldn’t name him. Getting attached, that’s always my problem. Here, let me see…” Penn jumps up on the stool again and snatches a pair of purple-lens goggles from a horned skull and wraps them around his ears. He dips low toward the jar then adjusts some knobs on the side of the headpiece. He shakes his head. “No, not dimensional.”

He grabs another pair of glasses from a drawer of dozens of empty frames and blinks back. A squint and a nose snort, but no luck. “If they aren’t from the dreams, what are they?” he mutters, sifting through another drawer for more lenses to try.

“Penn,” I start. “What… is this place?”

“…they still could be dream-made, but how would they have gotten to Earth?”

“This is just… impossible… Right? I mean, how can this be real?” I swallow hard, again trying to find the ceiling. A bird cage hangs above, black metal and empty of wings, but several emerald feathers poke over the edge. How is it hanging? The chain disappears into the cloudy glow above.

Penn tries a pair of dusty sunglasses to no effect. “I haven’t opened another portal. So, they would have had to come through another way…”

“Maybe I am dreaming,” I whisper, staring at the empty jar.

Penn grabs a circular piece of glass from a small jewelry box, closing one eye to look through it. He adjusts his stance several times, examining the jar from above, then crouching to search from below. Amid his mutterings and investigations, he says, “You’re not dreaming, Acantha Sword.”

I perk up.

Penn plucks the lens from his eye. “Welcome to my home.”

Breathless, I shake my head in disbelief. “Who are you? How… is this physically possible?”

From behind, another voice gasps out as well. “What… did you do to your room?”

Simon stands in the doorway, mouth guppying for words. He clings to his lanyard of keys like a lifesaver while his eyes soak in the unimaginable room over and over, top to bottom, side to side. “Acantha,” he says, breathy and scared, “What’s going on?”

“Out!” Penn pushes me by the shoulder toward the door. “Out, out, out, both of you. Much to do. I don’t have time to explain.”

“Penn, wait!” I try to stop in the doorway, but Penn is already closing it. “You can’t just kick us out! We need to know what’s going on. We can’t just keep getting attacked.”

Penn quits his shoving and pauses. “True.” He joins us out in the hall and snaps the door shut. “You humans are fragile. Should check everyone over.” He takes off back down to the second floor. Simon and I share an uneasy glance, then follow.

Penn starts with Landon, holding up the green lens to one eye and patting down Landon’s arms and neck. “Yo, what the hell?” Landon slaps Penn off of him. “Personal bubble, dude.”

“The bugs don’t care about bubbles.” Penn moves on to Harry, still comforting Bethany on the floor. Penn musses the pre-med student’s hair, then brushes down his arms, checks the hood of his sweatshirt. Harry goes still but doesn’t stop the strange pat-down.

Jordan, on the other hand, leaps away from Penn before he can touch her. “Back off,” she barks. Penn scans her up and down with the lens, humming a sound of disappointment.

Bethany pats herself down, still shaking. She looks to Penn. “I think… they’re gone.”

“It would appear so,” Penn says, checking her over once with the lens. He then turns to me and Simon, scanning us both up and down. He catches Simon’s shoulder to turn him around.

“Hey!” Simon blurts, but before he can fight back, Penn spins him back forward.

Tongue tracing his bottom lip, Penn paces away, then back. He fixes me with a stare. “Why would they be hiding?”

I swallow. “You’re asking me?”

Penn continues, “They can already be invisible. So why hide?”

I open my mouth, but Jordan cuts me off. She marches into Penn’s vision and points at Bethany. “Who cares? They attacked Beth. Whatever they are, we exterminate them like the pieces of ew that they are.”

Penn assesses the blonde girl silently. Eyes flickering up and down. Once more. Jordan bristles, folding her arms and stepping away from him.

“Not the right question,” Penn says simply.

“What even are they?” Landon puts in.

“Bugs, obviously,” Penn says with a sigh. He taps his temples several times.

Simon raises a hand as if we’re in class. I motion for him to speak. “Shouldn’t we just call the police? Or animal control or something? Let them handle it?”

Penn closes his eyes and pinches his nose.

Bethany and Harry share a confused look but offer nothing else.

Cloaking mechanism. Attacking in dreams. “Maybe,” I say. Penn lifts his gray stare. “They’re not hiding at all.”

Penn squints.

“They attack us when we’re sleeping. Dreaming. What if, since none of us are asleep, they go after the next closest prey? Like the neighbors or something?”

Penn taps his chin, stormy eyes cast elsewhere. “So, they’re predators?”

“I mean, Bethany almost died.”

“Does killing ultimately mean murderous intent?”

“Was that attack just coincidentally a lethal one?”

Penn nods, spins around the group. Eyes each roomie with a studying stare. “Who has had the dreams of the creepies?”

I raise my hand. As do Simon, Beth, and ultimately Jordan with an eye roll.

Harry and Landon share a shrug.

“Interesting,” Penn says. Then spins around and hurries back up the stairs to the third floor.

Bethany finally stands and leans on Harry. “Well… I’m not tired.”

“Nope,” Landon agrees. “Alright, let’s go. Hot chocolates all around.”

Everyone makes their way downstairs, but I pause, glance after Penn.

Simon also lingers, shifting from foot to foot. Before I head up instead of down, he says, “That was weird.”

I nod. “I know.” Penn’s thin shoulders disappear back to his red-glow room. He snaps the door shut. “But at least she’s safe.” And there, on the topmost step… the key. Slipped from his pocket? Or left on purpose?

Simon crosses his arms. “Is she? Are any of us?”

Biting my lip, questions and fantasies spinning through my head, I can’t bring myself to answer. Penn must have left the key on purpose, right? I dash up the steps, snatch up the wand-shaped key, and hurry to the magical door.

“Acantha!” Simon calls after. We meet eyes down the steps. His frown deepens with concern and confusion. Fright. “Don’t… go in there. This is all too freaky. And dangerous. We don’t know who he is.”

I pause, hand already on the knob, key in place, heart thumping faster than ever. On the other side of this door is danger, yes. A mysterious man with strange tattoos and an impossible, magical room. Harboring one of the invisible dream intruders. I should be scared. The knot pressed into my sternum should tighten, coil, cut off every breath until I run and hide.

But the knot is gone. Replaced with a zinging anticipation. A fingertip buzzing need to return. To ask questions. To absorb all the strangeness within. No matter the danger.

To escape this sad life without my sister.

With an apologetic smile, I hurriedly open the door, slip inside, and shut out the mundane world.