by Patrick Ness
“Hot cocoa,” a woman’s voice said.
The woman sat behind a desk, watching over Grace as she typed, a sound that hadn’t woken her, but the smell of hot cocoa had.
“Where am I?” Grace asked.
“Fort Lewis,” the woman said. She was a friendly-seeming older lady, her hair pulled back tight in a bun, plus glasses that made Grace like her. “The cocoa’s for you. I thought you might want some when you woke up.”
“Where’s my father?” she asked. The secretary didn’t answer until Grace picked up the hot cocoa and took a sip. It wasn’t as sweet as Grace normally preferred, but it was warm and good in a shivery room.
“Army’s finest,” the secretary said, with a wry smile that Grace liked even more than the glasses. “Your father’s in with General Kraft. He asked if I would keep an eye on you. He said your name was Grace. Mine’s Mrs. Kelly, so together we make up the movie star.”
Grace took another sip of the cocoa. “I was named after my . . .” She stopped. She’d been named after her grandmother, the one she was supposed to be staying with right now. “Why did he bring me here?” she said, quietly, to herself.
“Well, he couldn’t very well leave you in the car,” Mrs. Kelly said. “If he had, I wouldn’t have been able to get you cocoa or take you down to the canteen for waffles, which is what I’m going to do right now.”
Mrs. Kelly rose from her typewriter just as a door opened behind her. Her father was coming out, another man—Grace guessed it must be General Kraft, a name that was suspiciously close to a really boring hour at school every Tuesday—with him.
“If there’s one of those things, Dernovich,” the general said, frowning.
“There could be more, general, I know,” her father replied. “I’ll get to the town that reported the first sightings.”
The general nodded. “Update me every hour.”
He went back into his office, and Grace’s father caught her eye. “You’re awake.”
“I was just going to take her down to the canteen for breakfast, Mr. Dernovich,” said Mrs. Kelly.
“Well, I think that’s swell,” her father said, looking at Grace. “We can all go.”
“Why aren’t I at Grandma’s?” Grace said, standing up now, yawning.
“I decided I wanted you with me,” he said, taking her hand. Then he lowered his voice so Mrs. Kelly couldn’t hear. “Plus, I know how boring it is at Grandma’s.”
He winked. She was scandalized, but her father was already leading her and Mrs. Kelly toward morning waffles.
The sun broke over the crater of Mount Rainier, finding a sleeping dragon. With a roar in her throat, the dragon woke.
She had never felt more alive. Ever. Not once.
She grinned to herself in the way only dragons can. Today would be a day where this world would learn it had to reckon with a new force. Today was the beginning of a new era here. One with her at the top.
But the second she took flight, the pain began.
Twenty-One
“I HAVE PENCILS, you know,” Darlene said.
“I find if you want to write dragon runes,” Kazimir replied, dipping the tip of the Spur of the Goddess into a small saucer of ink he’d found somewhere, “it’s best to use the tools of dragons themselves.”
“Dragon runes?” she asked. “You speak dragon?”
Kazimir looked at Sarah’s mother with a comically blank face. “I do,” he finally said.
“What an interesting world you all live in.” Darlene was at the stove making Kazimir and Sarah breakfast. She hadn’t allowed Sarah to help with that, but she’d let Sarah feed the hogs this morning.
Little steps, Sarah thought. She leaned over at the kitchen table now and whispered to Kazimir. “What are you doing? And where’d you get that ink?”
He looked to make sure Darlene’s back was turned, then showed Sarah a fresh wound on his palm. The black scab there matched the one that was already nearly healed on Kazimir’s chin. Everyone knew dragon wounds closed quickly, but it was amazing to see it in human form.
“It’s your blood?” she said.
He shushed her, still watching for Darlene. “I told her I made it from beets in her larder. Runes have to be written in dragon blood or they do not work.”
“Work for what?”
“Never you mind. There are bigger things to be thinking about. I need to write what I need to write before the dragon comes back for the Spur.”
“She won’t know we still have it. She might think Malcolm is carrying it, wherever he’s gone.”
“No, she will be able to smell it,” Kazimir said.
“My oatmeal?” Darlene said, bringing over two bowls.
“No, I meant—”
“I know what you meant.” She set down the bowls and returned to the stove. “I’m capable of making a joke.”
The scent coming from the bowl of oatmeal—cinnamon, little bit of honey—was enough to get the tears going again for Sarah. Nearly everything this woman did made that happen.
Her mother. But also not.
“So she’ll smell it,” Sarah said, wiping her eyes and looking at the claw he’d set down so he could eat (which he did making all sorts of fascinated faces as he swallowed his first ever oatmeal). “And she’ll come for it.”
“It . . . poses a danger to her.” He picked it up, added a bit to a rune he’d made on the paper. When he connected the last corner, Sarah was astonished to see it light up and disappear. “My blood still has a little magic in it,” he said, quietly.
Sarah shook her head in wonder. “There’s so much we still don’t know about dragons.”
“With good reason, Sarah Dewhurst,” he said, in a normal voice.
There was a clang at the counter. Darlene had dropped the oatmeal pot. “That name,” she said, looking into the sink.
“My name?” Sarah asked.
Darlene said, “I can’t, I just can’t . . .”
Sarah stood. “This was a mistake. I’m so sorry. We’ll leave you in peace—”
She was interrupted by Darlene taking a swift step over to her and wrapping her in her arms. “How can it be you?” Darlene spoke into her neck. “My God, it even smells like you. How?”
“I don’t really know either,” Sarah said, but boy, was her mother right about the smell. Every scent from her mother’s body was a lightning flash of memory: of being carried as a little girl, of being sung to sleep in bed, of being shown how to wean the pigs with her mother by her side.
It felt as if she were falling, into a past she’d held at arm’s length during the two desperate years when she and her father had been too busy trying to save the farm to ever properly grieve. But now, but this . . .
Keeping her in the hug, Darlene stepped over to a low bench built into the kitchen wall. She sat them both down, keeping Sarah close to her. “You were gone, my girl,” she whispered to Sarah. “Just gone.”
“So were you. I missed you so much sometimes I couldn’t breathe.”
And this was true. Sarah would often be caught unawares by something as small as, say, the smell of cinnamon this morning, or a random brush of her hair before bed, or when she found herself humming a song her mother liked, something from the forties, after the war, after her father had come home safe and sound. Then, for a moment, the world would tumble down, and there would be nothing between Sarah and her loss, just a naked, unfillable expanse that could never be crossed. Until now, until this. . . .
“Do you remember . . . ?” Darlene started. “But I don’t know how you could.”
“What?”
Darlene smiled. “My Sarah was afraid of geese, which makes sense really, they’re terrible creatures, but she, you, she once ran all the way home from town after one chased her in the grocer.”
“And you were on your bike behind me the whole time?” Sarah said. “And I wouldn’t even stop to let you pick me up?”
Darlene’s eyes were wide now. “It happened to you, too?”
Darlene leaned back and shook her head. “I don’t understand this, but . . .” She didn’t finish.
“Yeah,” Sarah said. “It’s a big but, isn’t it?”
They smiled at the feeble joke. Sarah took that moment to ask the question that had been burning on her since she arrived.
“How did Dad die?”
Starting out the night before had been a foolish decision, Malcolm had come to realize shortly after leaving the farm. There had been no cars at all for the first hour, and by then, it was so cold, he’d had to stop in the trees and make a fire just to stay alive. He considered going back, but he thought Kazimir would apply pressure to make him stay this time. He’d be right, too, and Malcolm would probably do it. He knew the most about the Mitera Thea after all, and he wanted so desperately to get back to Nelson it felt as if someone had sewn a large stone in his chest.
These were good reasons.
But he had something to do here, even if it was a fool’s errand—as he had so little information to go on—and he would never get another chance. So he rose at dawn, and found a ride in the first ten minutes with, of all people, Hisao and Jason Inagawa. Jason grumped at having to make room in the truck’s front seat, but Malcolm gratefully climbed in.
“You didn’t get far,” Jason said.
“I will today,” Malcolm said, with a confidence he hoped was true.
“Where are you off to?” Hisao asked, his eyes fully black just above a swollen nose.
“Bellingham,” Malcolm said.
“Bellingham?” said Jason. “That’s a three-hour drive.”
“We’re just going into town,” Hisao told him.
“That’s perfectly good, thank you,” Malcolm said. He was feeling the loss of his bag now that he was in a truck again. It had been a constant companion on this trip, and without it, he felt a bit naked. He didn’t panic, though; he was trained to be resourceful, and he’d kept some cash with him, though it had triggered a worry: He reached into a pocket and pulled out some dollars. “Does this look like your money?”
Hisao and Jason both looked, then looked again. “Almost,” Jason said, then pointed at the portrait, “but who’s that?”
“Aaron Burr,” Malcolm said. “He was president.”
“Not here, he wasn’t,” Hisao said.
“The rest of it’s okay,” Jason said. “It’ll probably work for most places if they don’t look too close.”
They drove down a long road toward a small group of buildings that made the town of Frome. Malcolm recognized some of it from when he and Nelson drove through it. A church, a small grocery, a small post office, a school. This world’s, though, had a large feed store on the main corner, where the last one had a diner. Hisao pulled into it.
“This is where we stop,” Hisao said.
“Thank you,” Malcolm said, getting out. “I’ll find my way from here.”
“Are you really an assassin?” Jason asked.
Malcolm stepped away, letting them both out of the truck. They watched him, Hisao seeming as interested as Jason.
“I’ll be back,” Malcolm said. “I promise.”
“Back for what?” Hisao said.
“Watch out for her,” Malcolm continued. “The prophecy may come right in the end after all.”
With that, he zipped up his coat and headed out onto the main road to look for another ride. Hisao and Jason watched him go.
“Any of that make sense to you?” Jason asked.
“Nope,” said his father.
Sheriff Emmett Kelby was a bad man. His curse was that he was unable to revel in it. His badness came from a fury he could never quite explain, not from any joy at seeing others fear him. He felt no joy at all, not even in triumph. All he felt was the fury.
Which was something to behold. This town knew it. Especially those with darker skin. That Deputy Lopez, for example. A new hire after Kelby had been nearly blackmailed by the County Commissioner, but he was doing his level best to make sure Deputy Lopez was already exploring happier policing options in other counties. It’d be a cold day in hell before Kelby’s force got muddied up.
It was also true that he had never stopped at just Negroes and Mexicans (or wherever the hell Lopez was from) or the Japanese (and boy was that Hisao Inagawa going to regret offering to help start his squad car). The poor, the rich, the middle class, he’d found his fury boiling over at all of them. They hated him.
They were too afraid not to vote for him, however. Sheriff Kelby knew things that others might not want others to know. Even with that, it had been close. He’d only beaten that weakling Jack Stanton by a couple hundred votes. Victory was victory, though, and four years of Sheriff Kelby it was.
That ragtag group of fruits and vegetables out at the Dewhurst farm were going to find the prospect of Sheriff Kelby’s official power very uncomfortable indeed.
“Sheriff!” Deputy Curtis said in deep surprise as Kelby pushed his way through the front door of Frome’s sheriff’s office. Curtis leapt to his feet. “We didn’t think you were coming in today with the broken arm and all—”
“It ain’t bad,” Kelby said, barely referencing the cast he’d had put on his wrist last night at Good Samaritan over in Puyallup, where there was less of a chance of being recognized.
“Your ma told us you fell?” Curtis had doubt on his face.
Kelby winced internally. It was the stupidest lie, but it was all he could think of through the pain last night.
“I was breaking up a fight,” he said.
“A fight?” Curtis still looked surprised, but then Curtis always looked surprised. “Should I send some men out?”
“It was a private matter, deputy, and I’ll thank you to shut the hell up about it.”
“Yes, sir. Any word on the animal sighting, sir?”
“Do I look like I have any word on it, Curtis? Now, are you working or are you just planning on yanking my chain all morning in hopes of coming up a winner? Get me Fort Lewis on the phone. General Kraft’s office.”
“He the one who fought with your daddy?”
“You’re yanking chains, Curtis.”
“Sorry, sir. What reason should I give?”
Kelby ran a tongue over his top teeth. “Tell him, I know it sounds far-fetched, but I do believe we might have some treason going on right here in little old Frome.”
“He’s not dead,” Darlene said, surprised. “He left.”
“Dad left?”
“Well . . .” Darlene let her go, looking down at the dish towel in her hands. “I kind of drove him to it, too. Neither of us is faultless.”
“So he’s not dead?”
“No, child, what on earth makes you say . . .” She stopped, then said, “Oh. Because he is . . . in that other place.”
Sarah nodded, the tears coming again. “It all happened so fast. He was shot and he . . .”
Darlene hugged her again, had barely stopped, really. “Girl, I may not know exactly who you are or how you’re here, but it’s obvious you’ve been through something.”
“Something that will keep happening,” Kazimir said, writing again with the Spur. “Whether we like it or not.”
“The dragon will come back,” Darlene said, not a question, but as if she were trying it out to see if she could accept it.
“If she is not already on her way,” Kazimir said.
“Then we can’t be here,” Sarah said, wiping her cheeks. “We can’t put my mom in any kind of danger.”
“She is not technically your mother—” Kazimir stopped at the look Sarah shot him. “But you are incorrect. We must be here.”
“And what exactly do you propose to do in the face of something that huge?” Darlene said, frowning now. “How do you two tiny people think you stand a chance in the face of a dragon?”
“I have some surprises up my sleeves
,” Kazimir said, “as I believe the expression is.”
“You do?” Darlene said.
“You do?” Sarah echoed.
He lifted the Spur. “There are two things in this world that are pure dragon. Her. And this. Their connection is inevitable. I am looking for a way to use that against her.”
“How are you all so sure it’s a her?” Darlene asked. “Are there . . . anatomical differences you can see?”
“She was a woman in the other world,” Sarah said.
“I beg your pardon?”
“She was a human woman. When she crossed the boundary, that’s how she came out the other side. A great big dragon.”
Darlene just sat there with her mouth open for a moment. “I’m sorry, what?”
“Imagine being so essentially dragon,” Kazimir said, frowning, “you override reality itself.”
“Sounds like something only God could do,” Sarah said.
“Don’t blaspheme,” Darlene said, as if by reflex.
“Or a Goddess,” Kazimir said, almost under his breath.
“You neither,” said Darlene.
“Oh, trust me when I say I wish I did not believe it,” Kazimir said.
“Believe what?” Sarah asked.
Kazimir took a long breath, and Sarah could just feel the bad news coming. “You asked before about our Goddess,” he said.
“You said you destroyed her.”
“I did not. I said we took care of her before she destroyed us.”
“Took care of her how?”
Kazimir looked hesitant, like he knew she wasn’t going to like his answer. “Using all the dragon magic at hand, we trapped her in the body of a human, doomed to age and die.” He took a deep breath. “And be reborn as a woman each generation.”
The import of it hit Sarah like a falling brick. “Oh,” she said. “Hell.”
“Language, missy!” Darlene snapped, much angrier than at the blasphemy.
Kazimir looked at the claw again. “She will come for what is hers. I think we may have made a large mistake letting that assassin go.”