“And they’re still mad at me,” Penny said with a heavy sigh.

She was resting her head on her arms as they cushioned her from the hard, wooden back of the pew in front of her.

The handful of Spring Break days had passed with everyone giving her the cold shoulder. She had taken refuge in the library or the woods; she partly was hoping to catch a glimpse of the bigfoot again to get a better photo, but had zero luck.

The Lamberts had returned in a refreshed, happy mood that had quickly waned before the week finished. Aaliyah had been uncharacteristically subdued since the end of Spring Break, leaving Penny to get the brunt of the criticism and irritability.

The priest hummed from in front of her. There was no other comment.

“Well… I guess that’s all,” Penny said. “Anything about Aisling?”

“Unfortunately, no,” the priest said. “I admire how patient you’re being with this. It has gone beyond the length I estimated.”

“Yeah, by a month,” Penny said dryly. She sighed again. “I know advice isn’t really part of this, but what should I do about my friends? I’m having a really tough time getting a picture of the bigfoot, and they’re too mad to really focus on the footprint one.”

The priest twiddled his thumbs. There was something more anxious about it than absentminded.

“How are things with your friend Brooke,” he asked. “You didn’t mention her much during your story.”

“I didn’t mention her at all,” Penny said. “She was around sometimes, but didn’t hang out with me or anything like that. She keeps hanging around Aaliyah, and they make fun of me. Call me weird and a baby.” She scoffed. “I know they’re sending nudes. I’m not dumb. Everyone knows Aaliyah does it. And more with who knows.”

“Does she have that same teacher as Brooke?”

“She’s older, so no. I don’t think she was fostered with the Lamberts when she was fifth grade. Why?” She narrowed her green eyes at his noncommittal grunt answer. “Do you think I can get Brooke back to normal?” She slumped in her pew. “I miss having her as a friend. Maybe once she’s not in Mr. McBride’s class, she’ll want to be friends again. She is starting to freak out about the year ending. I could try being… I don’t know, sympathetic or whatever.”

“How is she freaking out,” the priest asked, tripping slightly on the youthful phrase.

“She keeps following Mr. McBride around all weepy and saying things about she needs him. Or something like that.”

“How does he react?”

“Sometimes annoyed. Sometimes friendly.” Penny leaned over the pew. “What’s with all the questions about Brooke? I’m having issues with the other guys now.”

There was a lapse of silence. If the church had been a proper, gothic style cathedral, it would have filled the silence with reverence and small echoes of unseen movement. Penny bounced her leg and opened her mouth to ask, again, if there was anything she could do, but the priest finally spoke.

“Are you familiar with the Cottingley Fairies,” he asked carefully. “I’ve learned about them since you showed me your photos.”

“Is it some kind of fairy study,” Penny asked.

He turned to face her. His weather face was concerned and mixed with something else Penny couldn’t put her finger on. It looked a bit like pity which raised her hackles.

“Penny… you’ve gone through much in so few years,” he said in a quiet, soothing tone. “Perhaps, using fantastical fibs is not the best way to relate to others?” He smiled sadly. “Or is it an elaborate way to create walls?”

“Wait… fibs?” Her eyes widened. “Lies? About what? What’s this have to do with my friends?” Her heart pounded. “Wh-what’s this have to do with that fairy study?” She threw herself back against her pew. “Y-you aren’t supposed to look when I’m doing confession!”

The priest hesitantly turned back to the front. “You’ve a wonderful imagination. God has a purpose for it, I’m sure of that, but God would not want you to use this gift in the manner that you’ve chosen.”

“I don’t—You think I’m lying too?” Her eyes stung, half from anger and half from the overwhelming feeling filling her chest. “You saw the photos!” She recoiled as he started to turn. “You can’t look!”

“Penny,” he said kindly, returning to facing forward, “you have a talent for taking pictures. That much has been made clear. I do not even see anything harmful with your pictures as long as you’re honest about them. You should try that with your friends instead of trying to force them to abandon sense.”

There was another long silence. Penny bit her lip to stop it from shaking.

“If that’s all,” the priest said, his tone now forced lightness, “how about five Hail—.”

Penny launched herself from the pew. She ignored the priest calling after her, ignored the pedestrian she ran into as she exited the church. Her eyes were blurry with hot tears that no amount of wiping stemmed.

---

The rain outside distracted her from whatever it was the teacher was droning on about. She watched the raindrops slip down the window. Her mouth twitched at the will o’ the wisp bounding just inside the treeline.

“Penrose!” She straightened and faced forward. “Come do this problem, please.”

There were four different long division problems on the board. There was no way to know which the teacher had referred to. She hovered over the farthest left, eyeing the teacher for signs she was in the right spot.

“Look,” one of the boys yelled.

“Jeramiah, that’s—.”

“Mr. McBride is getting into a police car!”

Desks were shoved aside in the mad scramble as all the kids ran to the windows.

Mr. McBride was not being thrown in the back of a police car, but he was standing next to one talking to the two officers. He looked annoyed and panicky, keeping his arms tightly crossed and shifting his weight as he stood. After another minute–with the math teacher not even bothering to try to corral them–Mr. McBride climbed into the back of the police car, uncuffed, and freely.

“Okay, okay, back to math.” The teacher clapped to gain their attention. “In your seats.”

It was impossible for anybody then to focus on math after that, and the following classes were not much better, diverting into the teachers constantly shushing them and threatening demerits or other punishments as they buzzed to one another. Penny listened rather than participate in the wild rumors beginning to form. There was a sinking feeling in her stomach that deepened, especially whenever one rumor teased the English teacher had been caught dating a student, though names were not mentioned.

“I know our priest was asking parents about him,” a boy whispered in social studies. “He pulled my mom aside last Sunday to ask if I had him for English.”

“Mr. Walker,” Penny said, raising her hand, “I feel like I'm going to puke. Can I get the bathroom pass?”

After being told she was being gross, she was dismissed to the nurse’s office.

“I keep telling them the healthy lunches are poison,” the nurse said, irate. “Better off back with sloppy joes and hotdogs. Go lie down until it passes.”

Penny stared at the water stained ceiling. The office was fairly quiet with small sounds of the nurse’s pen scratching against paper and the random footsteps echoing from the hall.

She replayed over and over everything she had confessed to that priest. She told him all she had seen, heard, and her worries regarding Brooke and Mr. McBride. He pressed her for more information, and she’d been too stupid to think he was doing anything more than being an attentive listener.

She hadn't told him explicitly about the Realm, only showed him the pictures she had taken, and that was some relief.

Quick footsteps arrived on the other side of Penny’s curtain. “Kim! Did you hear about Tony?”

“Ssh! I have a patient,” the nurse hissed.

Penny rolled over in time with the newcomer’s steps as she joined the nurse at her desk. She watched their silhouettes on the curtain as they hunched together.

“Do you think he did it?”

“Probably,” the nurse said nonchalantly. “He zeros in on some wallflower girl every year. It always came across as fishing to me.”

“What about being nice because they're such sad-sacks?”

“No way. He gets too cold with them towards the end of the year. And then just stops talking to them completely once the new crop comes along. If he really cared, he'd check in on them. It's not like they switch schools or anything. It's easy enough to just ask how classes are going passing each other in the hall.”

“You think some foolish girl took the bait then?”

“Why not? He was bound to get at least one. He was so persistent. My bet is on that dreary looking girl that's been skipping after him all year. You know, the foster girl.”

“Poor thing never stood a chance.”

The two women started as Penny ripped back the curtain. She glowered at them as their embarrassment began to flush their faces. She said nothing and didn't wait around for them to apologize or defend themselves; she stormed from the office and quickly found herself outside the school.

It was too early to go back to the Lamberts, so she wandered off to the woods. She climbed up a tree and soaked in the sounds of the forest. Quiet tears slipped down her cheeks. 

It wasn’t exactly sadness she felt; it was more of a hopelessness than that. She had heard adults mutter about their rock bottom expectations of her and the other foster kids. There was a smouldering anger in her gut too as she replayed the conversation between the nurse and the other teacher. No one had even tried to stop Mr. McBride, and the way they spoke made it sound like Brooke was at fault.

Large, lumbering steps shook her tree. The bigfoot rooted below in the nearby bushes. She reached for her phone, stopped, and heaved a sigh as she sat straighter and watched.

“Of course you show up now,” she murmured to it. 

It raised its head, pausing, and then went back to searching. She waited until it moved on before descending.

The street lights were starting to flick on as she approached the Lambert house. It was later than when she usually arrived back, and she braced for the tirade that would come once she opened the door.

“It was you, wasn’t it?”

Penny froze as her heart missed a beat at the quiet address. It took a second to recognize it was Brooke’s voice, and another to find her in the darkening landscape. She was hovering by the hedge that separated their yards, her face obscured by her bangs and the growing dusk. The quaver in her voice was either tears or anger, and Penny could not decide which it was.

“What was—?”

“Don’t play dumb! You were jealous of Tony,” Brooke accused. “You’ve been weird about him forever, and you went blabbing, and now he’s in trouble!”

“Jealous?” Penny scoffed. “I was worried. He was a creep.”

“He was not!” Brooke choked on a sob. “H-he cared about me! He was the o-only one who did!”

“That’s not—.”

“Yes it is!” Brooke whimpered. “You ruined everything!”

She turned and ran for the Wilcox house before Penny could protest.

Penny teetered on the front step. The Wilcox couple did not like her coming around. It wouldn’t be a good idea to knock and ask for Brooke when they–and the Lamberts–were sitting down for dinner.

She walked in and immediately was assaulted with hysterics over how late she was, and dinner being on the table, and being ungrateful. The tantrum continued as she stood rooted to the stop, the exact words getting farther and farther as they turned to static.

“Penny,” Mrs. Lambert snapped. Her hands were on her hips, her eyes narrowed in intense dislike. “Are you listening to me? Answer me!”

Hot, burning rage rose from the pit in her stomach and up into her chest. She bristled as she soaked in the middle-aged woman’s glare. She grabbed the small, decorative table in the entryway full of family photos and threw it at Mrs. Lambert’s feet.

Mr. Lambert, Aaliyah, and Emily raced from the dining room to see what the commotion was; the two teenagers peeking around the corner with baited breath as the adults stared at the overturned table and the small girl. Mrs. Lambert looked shaken. Mr. Lambert was turning crimson but his mouth was unable to form words.

Penny huffed, fists balled up and shaking at her sides, her hackles still raised and teeth bared. She screamed–they flinched–and tore upstairs.

----------------------------------

Ah, the Cottingley Fairies. I remember learning about them as a pre-teen. It was a photographic hoax done by two cousins in England. They took 5 pictures of the younger cousin with "fairies" which were illistrated cutouts. I think the hoax was 1917-1922, but it wasn't until the 1980s (I think) that it was confirmed as a hoax. Since Penny tells the priest about the creatures in 2012, there isn't AI or even good editing on your phone, so this whole time his brain was breaking going "how?". And, since the teen phones in 2012 couldn't do videos, the pictures are stagnent making it easier to believe that Penny staged them.

There should be one more with Penny here. I was going to do a long chapter to wrap up this section, but I think it'd be too clunky.

I think this may be the last set! Locals only let me do so many at a time or it would give me an error, so here's all the random leftovers :)

A Tier half-transformed as a dracleon back in 2005.

Coronation, 2009

Prince Swift hs crowned and marked by blue fire!

I have made at least 2 attempts at drawing the Alan Parsons Project song "Snake Eyes"... this is one from 2011...

...And this one from 2013. I like aspects of both; maybe the layout of this one but mixed with the realism of the other? I need to study my cobra anatomy if I'm going to try again, hah.

Twila Sketch, unknown

Twila was a little shapeshifting dragon Ace picks up in the jousting book, but I've since replaced her with an owl :D Still a cool feathery dragon design!

And here's just an Ace with epic scarf. I just really like scarves. This was dated 2014!

Train in the Distance, 2014?

I'm not sure when I drew this, but it was when I first linked James to some backstory. Windmachine Guitar Duo has a song called "Train in the Distance" with lyrics that beautifully describe overcoming domestic violence, and since James was a newbie, he got it added to him. It also made me wonder how his speech impediment affected all that too. And who'd have known then Ace would get added to this family and go through it in his own way...

Ava Harley, 2016

Thanks to Tomodachi Life, I figured out James was going to have a daughter :D

And that's all that was in my file! Thanks for joining me on this exciting trip!

The Sizemores were fairly hands off which Penny took full advantage of once Spring Break started. She went out every morning after a quiet breakfast, and only returned for a quick lunch and dinner. She spent most of the time wandering the woods that surrounded their neighborhood, sometimes alone and sometimes with Gage, Levi, and Colton. Destiny and Whitney were enamored with a stall at the farmers market full of knitted creatures, and had taken to hanging around there to learn how to crochet. Brooke stopped by to join them from time to time, but mainly bounced between the Wilcox house and tagging along after Aaliyah.

Penny would catch whispered words from them whenever she passed them; always started by Aaliyah and never anything kind. They typically fell in the area of calling her a baby or weird, and once, when she was rushing off to meet the boys on the sidewalk, she clearly heard Aaliyah call her a slut. Brooke had gasped at that rather than snigger, which was a small comfort.

It was too early for lunch at the Sizemore house, but her friends had already headed off to their lunches, leaving Penny to lay under the hedge that separated the Wilcox yard from the Lambert yard. She had her phone out and ready in case the gnome made an appearance.

“There she goes being a freak again,” Aaliyah mocked. “Ugh, ignore her. Let’s try that eyeshadow we just lifted.”

She hung out long after their voices disappeared. The gnome refused to show, so she headed in to eat the peanut butter sandwich that was growing stale on the counter. She was halfway through when Aaliyah’s voice sounded from the front hall. She tried to eat the peanut butter quicker.

Aaliyah sneered at Penny’s overstuffed mouth. “Gross.” She waved nonchalantly at the table. “See, Brooke, even pretty Penny looks ugly eating. Just keep that image in your mind.”

Brooke–wearing too much black eyeshadow–forced a giggle and followed Aaliyah to the fridge. Aaliyah showed her something on her phone as it chimed, both of the giggling madly–Brooke beet red and nervous. Aaliyah grabbed a bottle of water, and stalked from the kitchen.

“Come on, Brooke,” she ordered. “You can help me send a full-bodied reply.” She paused to give Penny a piteous head shake. “Poor you. Your baby brain has no idea what I’m talking about.”

Brooke laughed before Aaliyah at that comment, and scurried after the older girl without giving Penny another look.

She set the rest of her sandwich aside, poked at it a bit, and tossed it in the trash. She sent Colton–the most likely to check his phone–a message saying she would be at the library if they were looking for her.

The library was not very large. It was in an old, gray stone building that at one time must have served as a church going off the spires. The first floor was open and dedicated to children’s picture books, audiobooks, and cushy reading and sensory corners. The second floor was lined with old shelves filled with more mature books: nonfiction, biographies, politics.

Penny sat on a hard, wooden chair tucked in a corner of the second floor. She flipped through a thick book on the War of the Roses. A collection of mythology and two thin volumes of local folklore sat on the little table beside her.

From her private lessons with Aisling and Mother Mary Clare, she knew the War of the Roses to be the beginning of the split between the Realm and the rest of the world. England ended up an extremely influential country, and then empire, but without the line of true English kings. The Protector of the Realm became colloquial, if at all mentioned, while the true meaning slipped into secrecy.

Mother Mary Clare had said in one of their last meetings that the role of Protector of the Realm–the role of King–was still alive and well, but they ran out of time for Penny to ask more about that.

She lifted her head as the floor creaked. Colton was inching towards her, eyeing the shelves of books as if afraid they would fly off the shelves at him.

“Why d’you hang out in here,” Colton complained. “It’s all musty and stuffy.”

“And air conditioned, and full of reading material,” Penny said. She flipped a few pages before shutting the book and setting it on the others. “What’s the plan now? Back to the woods?”

Colton smirked. “My mom decided to go visit my mamaw at the home.” His smirk grew. “I know we’d done all the logistics for Saturday, but… ATVs?”

Gage and Levi were already waiting at Colton’s house. Colton’s older brother Garrett was standing between two mud-dried ATVs with an impish grin. He looked like a slightly older, thinner, and wirier Colton.

“We’ve got maybe two hours,” Garrett said. “Should be more than enough for a fast ride through the woods.” He winked. “Emphasis on fast.”

“There aren't helmets,” Levi asked warily.

“Okay, so, scaredy cat and Gage will be with me,” Garrett said. He swung his leg over the ATV like it was a horse. “Levi, you hold onto me. Gage, you get behind Levi. We’ll sandwich him. Does that make you feel safe?”

Levi glared but made no objections. He slowly climbed on, stared at Garrett’s back with his hands hovering in the air before deciding on the shoulders, and inched up as Gage jumped on after him.

Penny scrambled on after Colton. She also opted to grab his shoulders.

“Don’t be afraid of holding on real tight,” Colton said cheekily. “I won’t tell anyone if you get scared.”

“You wish,” Penny teased.

They started off slow, easing from the yard out onto the well-worn trails in the woods. Garrett gradually gained speed; Colton doing the same behind him. Eventually, the five of them were whooping and hollering as the ATVs zoomed around the woods, jumping in the air on larger bumps.

They dismounted after a few laps. Colton took Gage with him as he and Garrett raced each other, doing bigger and bigger jumps. Penny roamed a clearing a safe distance from the tracks with Levi at her heels. He seemed less than enthused at how deep into the woods they were, and routinely smacked his arms or legs with a mumble about bugs.

“You are having fun, right,” Penny asked, moving her phone slowly towards a resting butterfly.

“...Yes,” Levi said. “When I'm not being eaten alive. Or afraid I'm going to break my neck.”

The butterfly took flight. Penny groaned and went after it, taking long and high steps to get through the weeds. She heard Levi taking similar steps–but with more grumbling–behind her. She shushed him as the butterfly lighted on a flower, holding her breath to inch closer.

Her heart gave a happy skip as she snapped the picture just before the butterfly floated off. She studied the little screen, her smile fading. There was a clump of dead, stringy moss in the bottom corner that threw the picture off.

“Or, it adds character,” she muttered.

“What was that?”

“The picture,” she said. She looked around the flower, grabbing for the moss but quickly recoiling. “That… is not moss….”

“What?” Levi looked at the clump. “Course it is. What else would it be?”

Penny pulled the clump from the brambles and held it to Levi. He hesitantly touched it with a single finger, ripped his hand back as if burned.

“It feels like wet dog fur,” Levi said, cringing. “Gross.”

She ignored him frantically wiping his hands on his shirt. She spied more clumps, a clear trail, and started following. The hair was few and far, but Penny was locked onto them too much to notice.

The trail ended.

She sighed in disappointment and turned back. Her green eyes caught an imprint in the mud, just below the leaves and undergrowth. Her heartbeat started quickening as she ripped the undergrowth aside. She gave a small gasp, scrambling to free her phone from her pocket.

It was a footprint, a clear footprint that was over two feet at least in length. She walked backwards with her phone out until the entire thing fit on the tiny screen, and clicked.

“Do you see—? Levi?” She spun around, finding herself alone. “Levi?”

It wasn’t difficult to find the hair and retrace her steps, but she didn’t see or hear Levi. She didn’t want to wander too far from the fur trail, but it seemed that was what happened with her friend.

“Levi,” Penny called out. “Levi! Can you hear me?”

“P-Penny?”

She exhaled and headed for his voice, calling out every few steps and urging him to stay put so they wouldn’t get more lost. She was confident she would still be able to get them back to the fur trail, and back to the others.

A pungent smell, like burnt hair and wet garbage, drifted before her, causing her to stop and gag. Her heart plummeted.

“Levi,” Penny called out again, “don’t move! I’m—.”

A roar similar to a gorilla’s ripped through the area. Penny ran towards the sound, thorns and branches tearing at her exposed arms, legs, and face.

“Penny! Penny, what was that?”

“It’s a bigfoot,” Penny yelled out. “Don’t move, Levi! I’m coming!”

The bigfoot roared again, sounding much closer to her than to Levi. She stopped and started rustling the trees around her. Footsteps stomped towards her, heavy enough she could feel them in her chest the closer they got. She hurried away, a crash coming from where she’d just stood.

“Levi,” Penny called out. “I’ve got the bigfoot! Don’t come over here! Run!”

The bigfoot looked to be twenty feet tall although Penny knew from her lessons that they rarely crested eight feet. It was a shaggy, brownish-green with a gorilla-like face; a more pronounced underbite caused its bottom fangs to poke out of its lip.

It eyed her with its dark, beady eyes, then slowly started towards her, arms swinging faster and faster as it picked up speed.

She raised her phone, hit the flash, and clicked.

The bigfoot roar, stumbling semi-blinded towards her, undeterred by the flash. She leapt aside, rolled behind a tree, and took another picture.

Penny’s mind flipped between trying to not get pummeled and what Aisling had told her when they covered these creatures. It had been the first one, shortly after learning about magic and the Realm years back, due to the prevalence of them. Huge but elusive, and very adaptable, it was a shorter list to name where they hadn’t been spotted.

She snapped a picture as she ducked a swing. Her heart was going so hard and fast she was shocked it hadn’t burned out.

They were omnivores, but really relished a good chunk of meat which went to explain their stink. They could sweat like humans, or at least mostly, and the raw, unwashed meat did a number on their body odor. Aisling had said a common theory was that the smell was to drive off predators.

“What predators,” Penny breathed, pressing her back to a tree. She peaked out at the bigfoot wildly swinging at the bushes only a few yards away. “That thing could fight a bear if it felt like it.”

Bigfoot didn’t pick fights with bears, not that she could remember learning. Hikers and hunters would have found bodies if they fought–and lost–against any large predator. Other animals wouldn’t find the smell as offensive either, seeing how they each had their own habits that were less than savory to humans.

Penny leapt out from her hiding spot. She jumped up in the air, screaming and waving her phone’s flashlight around. She held firm as the bigfoot charge, yelling and roaring madly. She jumped at it as it slowed; it abruptly stopped. She grabbed a branch and ran at it, still screaming, and swinging the whippy stick wildly. She lashed the bigfoot across the knee as it stumbled back, swinging again and again until it turned and hurried off with big, lumbering strides.

She collapsed, breathing hard, her legs shaking. She stared at the clump of trees where the bigfoot disappeared, gulped, and started bawling.

---

It was hard to know how long it took for Penny to collect herself and return to the guys. Garrett was visibly annoyed and quickly headed back to the house with Gage and a very distressed Levi. Colton didn’t allow her to talk, just ordered her to get on and took off.

Colton’s mom was scolding Garrett when they arrived; Gage and Levi had already fled the scene. Penny slipped off the back of the ATV and backed away. Colton backed off with her.

“Why’d you run off like that,” Colton asked. “Now we’re in trouble.”

“I was taking pictures—.”

“You scared Levi half to death with that bigfoot act,” Colton said coolly. He crossed his arms and narrowed his eyes at her. “It’s not hard to scare him. Why’d you do it?

“I wasn’t–No, look!” Penny pulled out her phone and went into her images. Her heart sank. The pictures were blurry, unrecognizable unless she really searched for individual features like hands or legs. “No…. Colton, wait, look! Th-that’s a han—.”

“Colton!”

He gave her one more glare before walking off to get his shouting.

Penny felt an ache in her middle. Her eyes welled up, and she took off running. She was long out of Colton’s neighborhood before she stopped to catch her breath. A terrible, sinking feeling rooted her to the cement sidewalk. 

There was nowhere for her to go.

With no options, she wandered around until long after the street lights came on before returning to the Sizemore house. Mrs. Sizemore’s car was gone; she most likely was off working a nightshift at the distribution center in the next town. A cold dinner was left on the table.

She climbed into bed. The shadows played across the ceiling. She stared, feeling a heavy pit in her stomach. Her eyes slid closed to stop the pricking in the corners. She thought she heard Aaliyah sob from the next room as she gulped down her own misery.

----------------------------------

The library is based on the old one in Dryden, NY. I never set a town for where Penny is since I'm nit that familiar with WV. Dryden is an offputting town with a decade of dark, grisly murders, so I figured pulling some from there for the town, and half the ATV trails works. The ATV trails and woods are a combo of Dryden and Virgil in NY and Dyersburg in TN. The neighborhood is based on Dyersburg and Smyrna, TN.

I had to put in a bigfoot. Almost every state as bigfoot stories. the WV tales are like the TN ones (both Appalacia based), so if Nellie had run into a bigfoot when in TN, it would be the same variety/subspecies as this guy.