by Zoe Chant
She turned to him, her shoulders set firmly. “I would really like to finish those sketches, if you think the cavern is safe. There’s something in those shadow drawings that keeps nagging at me.”
Would the rest of his life be filled with these sudden moments of upwelling love? He bent to kiss her, saying, “Before your landlord called for help, I was going to suggest that I go there to scout, then return. I need to return Joey’s car to him, then I want to check it again before I take you back.”
“It’s a deal,” she said.
He picked up his jacket and tie, started out, turned back to kiss her. She followed him a few steps, and when he turned yet again, there she was, for a third kiss.
Then she let him go.
ELEVEN
BIRD
Why couldn’t the world be as happy as she was?
It seemed awful to feel as if the sun had taken up residence inside her when Mr. Kleiner was so unhappy. But that was an old worry, one she knew she could not fix. She could only give him what she could.
Once Mikhail drove away, she threw herself into tidying. Not that there was much to do, after the previous day’s marathon cleaning. When she came to her blue dress, still lying where she’d dropped it, she thought of Doris and her promise.
A quick glance at the clock showed that it was 6:06. Doris was awake. She always left for school by seven.
Doris answered on the first ring. “We’re all at the Strand, waiting to hear the gossip! I’ve already ordered hot water for your tea.”
Tea! Bird realized she hadn’t had any yet, much less breakfast.
“There in ten,” she said, grabbed her purse, and headed out to get her bicycle. Ouch. She was sore in places she hadn’t been sore since . . . well, since. She grinned to herself as she eased her bike down the hill to the road. There is nothing like practice.
When she arrived, she found Doris, Godiva and Jen waiting for her, along with a little silver pot with steam rising from the spout.
Bird took out a homemade teabag of Zao Bei Jian and popped it into the water pot. “Hi,” she said, smiling around. “Sorry I didn’t say anything before, but I—”
“Never mind that,” Godiva cut in. “People talk when they’re ready. We all know that. Get to what’s important.” She leaned forward, black eyes snapping. “Have you kissed him yet? And I don’t mean an old auntie peck on the cheek. I mean a real kiss. Preferably with tongue?”
“There might have been kissing,” Bird said, and felt a blush rise.
Three pairs of eyes skewered her.
“With lots of tongue,” Bird whispered.
“Bird!” Godiva leaned forward. “Don’t tell me—have you already done the deed?”
“Godiva,” Jen whispered, looking scandalized. “We’re in a public place.”
“No one is paying the least attention to a bunch of commando bats.” Godiva rolled her eyes. “Between the four of us, that’s close to half a century without any nookie with another breathing human being—”
Bird nearly dropped the teapot. “Ooops.”
“—you might as well say we’ve been revirginated. And everybody wants to hear about their besties’ first time,” Godiva finished. “I know I sure did, a thousand years ago. So seeing as one of us finally seems to have gotten lucky, and with USDA Grade A Choice, I might add with sincere appreciation, I want to be first to congratulate you for how fast you moved, and to remind you that we deserve plenty of detail.”
“Last night,” Bird said calmly. “Twice. He’s got staying power.”
Godiva sighed like air escaping a gigantic balloon. “Details, Bird Worcester! How many humina-huminas did he give you?”
“Godiva!” It was Doris’s turn to be scandalized.
Godiva grinned. “Okay, I’ll back off. Some. At least tell us who first put the moves on who?”
Bird busied herself pouring tea. “I think it was mutual.”
“Was it the dress that did it?” Doris asked hopefully.
Bird hesitated. She didn’t like keeping a secret from her friends—but it was, at least, a secret that no one had any idea existed. Until she had a chance to find out from Mikhail what he wanted said about him, she’d say nothing about mates, much less dragons.
So she offered the answer that would give Doris the most pleasure, “Absolutely.”
Godiva crowed, and held up her hand to high-five Doris. “Nice work—both of you! So. Details about the night that led to it. You went to a reception—where?”
“It was at the university,” Bird said. Her heart beat a little faster at the mention, but then she discovered that the old dread was completely gone. There was simply no room for it in all her happiness. “A reception for Mikhail’s book.”
Bird’s friends knew her past. At the mention of the university, all three women reacted characteristically: Jen looked down at her hands, Doris winced, and Godiva scowled. Then said, “I hope Finkface Skunkgibbon didn’t turn up. But he wouldn’t, if he wasn’t the guest of honor.”
“He did. But it turned out all right. Really,” Bird added as the other three looked skeptical.
“He apologized on bended knee for being a douchebag?” Godiva asked sarcastically.
“He hasn’t changed,” Bird said. “Which I find pretty sad. I learned something about him last night that makes me realize he never did love me. I wonder if he’s capable of love. No, that’s not fair, he loves the kids—in a way. The way his parents must have loved him, holding love for ransom.”
“I don’t get that,” Godiva said. “You don’t hold love for ransom.”
“I do,” Doris sighed. “I mean, I understand it. I don’t do it. But. You know how crazy my family is. Some of the crazy is due to a sort of similar thing—that ‘if you truly love me, you’ll change’ argument. I’ve always thought of as emotional blackmail. Maybe that’s why I never—but we’re not talking about me,” she said firmly. “Bird, I remember you once told us that your ex’s parents despised you for your middle-class origins.”
“They did. I’d thought I’d win them over when I gave them grandkids, but once the children were born—and they picked the names before I’d recovered in the delivery room—they did their best to edit me out of the family picture. It was clear when Bartholomew dumped me that they were overjoyed.”
“What is just what you’d expect from a pair of dickweasels who call their boy Bartholomew, and won’t even let him shorten the agony,” Godiva muttered. “Never mind. Go on, Bird.”
“I realized just now that I don’t think Bartholomew was ever attracted to me. I think it was solely my career that he was attracted to—and wanted to make his. Bartholomew was handsome, he was funny in that sarcastic way, but he could be charming, too. Everybody thought he would be the next Ernest Hemingway. But he picked me, a writer of children’s books about talking animals.”
“A writer who was winning awards right and left,” Godiva put in.
“Yes, but I didn’t see that. Those things never meant much after the first thrill of the phone call or the letter. I felt great being told, but I hated the public side of that stuff. He reveled in it. He stepped in as center of attention at those parties and receptions, which was such a relief to me. He flattered me into that big wedding, and managed to make it a media event . . .”
Bird shrugged. “I guess I should have seen what was coming, but I’d convinced myself I was in love with him. What I loved was the flattery. Which stopped as soon as we were married. Suddenly I should be writing political satire, not about kids like me who had trouble fitting in and who lived in the world of imagination. That was no longer clever enough—it wasn’t Hollywood material, it wasn’t noticed by the big awards . . .”
Bird sighed, looking back down the years. “My kids came along, but with each kid I gained a few pounds, which . . . oh, there’s no use in raking it all up. The short version is, I was a disappointment to him as a professional and I don’t think I was ever interesting to him as a woman. And somehow, it was always my fault.”
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Bird saw her friends’ angry sympathy on her behalf, and forestalled them. “No, you don’t have to say anything. It really doesn’t matter anymore. He doesn’t matter. What does matter is this: as soon as Mikhail spotted Bartholomew confronting me, he left the podium and backed me up, without drawing attention or making a scene. He was there, at my back. Mikhail protected me, in the way I wanted, as if that’s the way the world works. That was such an eye-opener for me. He also went with me this morning to help with Mr. Kleiner. Bartholomew would never have done that without first asking what was in it for him. But Mikhail cared about an old man he’d never met. Mr. Kleiner is so scared around new people these days, but he relaxed with Mikhail in a way I’ve never seen him do.”
Godiva whistled again, more softly. “You’ve known this man what, two days? He sounds almost too good to be true.”
Bird hesitated a heartbeat, wondering if this mysterious mate thing was responsible for blindsiding her? No. She could see clearly—in fact, she saw more clearly now than she had. There was plenty still to learn about Mikhail, and she was eager to do it. What that mysterious bond seemed to give them, in equal shares, was intensity.
But it was much too soon to talk about that, she thought with regret as she sipped her tea. “I know it’s early days, but I’m enjoying every minute. Today we’re going back to finish sketching the caves. So I’d better get going. Low tide is at max pretty soon, and I know Doris has to get to school.”
She started to move away, but Godiva caught her arm. With a serious look, she said in a raspy undervoice, “He’s here for his investigation, I realize. But is he going to stick around after? You’re not heading for a world of hurt, are you?”
Bird stared down at her old friend, her heart banging against her ribs. She, always so careful, had actually managed not to think beyond the moment. “I . . . It’s too early to talk about the future. Like you said, I’ve known him two days.”
She forced a smile, feeling the sharp knife of contradiction. While it was technically true that she had only known him two days, at the same time she felt as if she had been waiting for him all her life.
But that didn’t answer Godiva’s question.
Bird tried for an easy tone. “Right now, a day at a time. And I’m loving every day,” she added, for that was the whole truth. “And whatever happens, I don’t believe he’d just leave. I can’t say what’s going to happen . . . but I know he’ll listen to me when it comes time to decide. There’s no more telling me what to do. Or me going along with it, just to keep the peace.”
Godiva patted her hand. “Go get ‘em.”
Bird sped through the cool morning breeze, laughing to herself at the way her life had been upended. She felt like the girl she’d once been, who had created stories about the secret lives of animals. That girl was now in her fifties, wearing a body that had faithfully walked through every day of those years. But she felt stronger and more vital than she ever had at twenty-five, when she’d been consumed by the pin-pricks of anxiety.
When she reached her cottage, she found Mikhail waiting, dressed in his safari jacket again, jeans and boots. He had his cane at his side, and his gear bag over his shoulder.
It was then that she remembered that she hadn’t had breakfast. Maybe he hadn’t either. Well, they could eat some leftover brown betty before they left. It would be the opposite of sensible, but that was no longer her first priority.
Warmth thrilled through her, as he held up a bag of Linette’s pastries with an air of triumph. “I trust you have not eaten yet?”
“Mikhail—I was just thinking the very same thing! But you most wonderfully were ahead of me.” She laughed inside, thinking that this was the best of both worlds: two days of indulging in Linette’s delicious pastries, and Linette rightly got paid for them. Only . . . a doubt crept in. She hoped Mikhail wasn’t living as precariously as she was.
She’d find out later, she knew. They still had so much to learn about each other. Like why he needed a cane when he moved with such easy grace. Bird reveled in knowing she could ask him anything, and he would answer.
Mikhail checked for onlookers. Then he let his dragon shimmer into being, the cane and the gear bag coruscating with the same glow as his body as it transformed. All vanished as his dragon took form. It was so magical to watch. Bird knew she would never tire of it.
She clambered onto his back behind the beautiful glowing whiskers. They shot effortlessly into the air, then spiraled down toward the beach to land directly outside the cave.
They walked inside eating their pastries. When they had gone far enough in for the light to fade, he retrieved the headlamp and the Maglite. As she accepted the sturdy flashlight, Bird relished how safe she felt, walking by his side.
“Let me take your hand,” he said when they reached the huge crack. “This rubble is precarious, and there’s also a ward that is meant to drive people away. I can prevent you from its effects.”
She closed her fingers around his, and together they clambered up the pile of jagged fallen stones.
“There it is,” Bird exclaimed. “The mural. Just the way I dreamed it earlier this morning.”
Mikhail looked her way, half in shadow. “Dreamed?”
“I didn’t have time to mention it, because Mr. Kleiner called. I realize it might sound weird, but I was dreaming about this mural, last night. And . . .”
Mikhail said, “Tell me what you see.”
She stepped up to the mural, scanning closely before she turned, her shoes crunching the rubble, and surveyed the chamber as she played the flashlight over it. “What a relief. That little quake caused more cracks to appear over there, and there, but the mural is untouched.”
Mikhail said, low-voiced, “It’s possible it’s deliberate. I mentioned the ward over the crevasse back there. But there are more in here. Several more.”
“What exactly are wards?”
“Think of them as energy on the mythic plane. This ward here is protective, but its energy, if you will—”
“It’s okay if you use the word magic,” she said. “I’ve always believed in magic. Even when I tried not to.”
His smile lit his face. “There are many hidden powers in the world, and ‘magic’ is as good a name for some of them as any. So. There is magic protecting this mural, but not a kind I am familiar with. What disturbs me is that I can’t tell how old it is, or who laid it. The only thing that tells me for certain is that it was laid by someone very powerful, or very meticulous. Or both.”
“Is that a bad or good thing?” she asked, stepping closer to him. She loved how he treated her like a partner, and answered her questions. But at the same time she felt very much out of her league.
Mikhail stepped up to the mural. “So I wonder if what we seek lies behind it?”
“What exactly are we seeking?”
“I don’t know. But it resonates on the mythic plane. Here.” He took her hands. “Can you sense it? Close off your regular senses and listen inwardly.”
She was mostly conscious of his grip, so warm and strong. His standing there so close sent shimmers of that light and heat into her core.
Down, girl! She scolded herself. Not now.
She shut away her body’s reaction to Mikhail’s presence, and tried to listen. Sniffed. Then squinted. What was she was supposed to be getting?
She heard the far-off boom and hiss of the waves on the shoreline, smelled brine and wet rock. Felt the small stones under her shoes. She listened harder, then became aware of a faint sweet chime on a steady note.
She opened her eyes, looking at him in wonder. “It sounds like someone struck a crystal glass. Is that it?”
“Yes!” He bent down and swiftly kissed her. “My marvelous Bird—you are truly sensitive. Later on I want to demonstrate more thoroughly just how wonderful you are.”
She gave a breathless laugh of anticipation, then let go his hands. The sound vanished. It was apparently something she could only hear, or rather perce
ive—because she was fairly certain that sound had not actually come in through her ears—through him. “So it’s something magical. Can you tell what direction it’s coming from?”
“No. It’s definitely not this mural, which has a protective ward. But that sound, which indicates there is something else hidden here, is what I’m after. Which is why I’d paid so little attention to the mural.”
She nodded, accepting that. But she couldn’t look away from the mural. “What is it that you see that I’m not seeing? I don’t recognize the style of these silhouette figures.”
“They are obscuring what I believe is a variant of the Chinese Seal Script, a very old calligraphic style.” He pointed to what looked like curlicues to Bird. “Which might have told me something if they hadn’t been painted over.”
She had no idea what might be script and what not. What drew her eye were the patterns. “Look.” She carefully extended a forefinger, not quite touching the rough stone. “Each group of shadow figures is doing some kind of activity, but the way the figures are oriented, the eye is drawn that way.”
She wound her hand in a clockwise circle.
“And if you step back—this is what I kept seeing in my dream—the groups are oriented in the clockwise circle as well. If you let your eye go from figure to figure, the way they are looking, and interacting. In the dream, it was as if the figures were pushing these chalky ones, because I think they were going this way, before they were painted over.”
She reversed the gesture, starting at the top right, going down, then left, then up. “But it’s not—I don’t think it’s a true circle.”
Mikhail leaned forward. “I admit I haven’t looked at the figures. I keep being distracted by parts of words. It’s as if they’ve bled from behind the shadow figures.”
“Yes! They were kind of flickering in my dream. No, more like wiggling,” Bird exclaimed softly, the sibilants in her voice echoing. “You know dreams, they don’t make a lot of sense in the light of day. But the wiggling . . . goes . . . like this. Not in a circle so much as a spiral.”