The Phoenix Girls: The Complete Trilogy

Chapter 3-1

Chapter 3

Susan

To Penny, who had only lived in apartments in San Francisco, the house on the hill looked like a mansion. It was two stories tall, topped by a peaked attic that towered above everything and regarded the wild countryside with a single round window like an eye.

Penny wondered how far she’d be able to see from that window. Their apartment in the city was on the ninth floor, but in a place where every building is tall, you can never see far. Penny determined to make an exploration into the attic, if just for the view.

She wondered if her mom, who had apparently grown up in this town, had ever viewed this same countryside from such a high place. As always, the thought of her mom brought her tears back to the surface, dousing her natural curiosity with grief.

Miss Riggs pulled parallel to a stone pathway that ran through a slightly overgrown lawn to the house’s front porch, and Penny grabbed her bag, pushing the door open and sliding out onto the dusty driveway.

The Bug was in motion again almost immediately, giving Penny barely enough time to shut the door and jump back a step. With a single, quick wink of her brake lights, Miss Riggs descended the winding driveway, and was gone.

Penny lingered for a moment on the first stone of a path through the grass, taking a longer, more thorough look at the house. Taking in the sense of this strange new place that was now, for good or bad, her home.

It was well aged, if not neglected, its dull white paint peeling in a few places. Shuttered windows were open on the ground floor, their curtains fluttering in the evening breeze. A light shone from one of the second floor rooms, and Penny saw the silhouette of a woman through the drawn curtains. Then the shape moved away, and for a moment Penny felt very alone.

Penny shifted her view upward and regarded the dark attic window. It really did look like an eye, she thought, dark and watchful. It felt as if someone was watching her from that high window. Watching and waiting.

Penny shivered, but the sudden chill came from a gust of cool wind blowing over the hill, not fright. A year ago, that watchful attic window and the unknown darkness behind it would have frightened her a bit, but not now. She had changed a lot in the last four months, she realized. There was no fear, but her curiosity came back strong. She wanted to look down on the world from that high, dark place.

It crossed her mind that this curiosity was a bit morbid, but Penny decided she didn’t care. She was allowed to have a few morbid thoughts.

Adjusting her view to the front door, Penny started down the walkway, toward a porch that spanned the entire width of the house, and two tall hedges that framed the steps. A porch swing swayed silently in the breeze, and wind chimes hung by the front door tinkled a discordant melody. The steps creaked beneath her as she climbed them.

Then she stood, bag in hand, facing a closed door that was far scarier than any dark attic could ever be. She felt more alone than ever, standing at the dividing line between her old life, and a new, unimaginable one.

Footsteps sounded from the other side of the door, and before Penny could lift a hand to wipe away her tears, it opened.

For a long moment they only stood and faced each other—Penny outside with the troubled ghost of her old life lingering at her heels—and the woman, her mom’s childhood friend, staring down in such stunned amazement that Penny was afraid she’d simply tell her to go away and slam the door in her face.

Would Miss Riggs have left her at the wrong house just out of spite?

Then the woman smiled and spoke.

“You look so much like her. It’s good to see you again, Penny. I’m Susan. Susan Taylor.” She held out a welcoming hand. “Come in.”

Penny did not take the offered hand, but she did step inside, and the caged feeling she feared did not come when Susan closed the door behind her. This place was not like the group home. This place was a real home.

She felt at peace in this house, and a strange familiarity—as if she had many pleasant, but forgotten, memories of it.