Fierce Winds and Fiery Dragons (Dusky Hollows: Book 1)

by Nan Sweet

  Chapter 5

  After the Halloween party, nothing exciting happened with the egg for a few weeks and once the dreams had faded, Ivy stopped paying attention to whose turn it was and whether the egg was safe. At least she tried very hard to put the worry far from her mind. If she failed, it was only because she couldn't get that strange creature out of her mind.

  So far, the egg had made the rounds, and usually ended up in the box at the feet of the person whose turn it was. Carrie was having a rough time, so Ivy tried to console her friend, not worry about some project she didn't sign up for anyway. And yet, that egg really bothered her.

  When the school bell rang, she and Carrie were still trying to find one of her gloves, which she was sure she'd put in her desk. They finally found it in her backpack pocket. Feeling sheepish, Ivy apologized to her friend.

  “It's okay. Do you have to be home right away? Maybe we can swing for a while.”

  “My mom works until five tonight. I can stay that long.”

  That was the great thing about living in town. They walked to school while the country kids had to ride the bus. Although secretly sometimes Ivy was jealous because the country kids raised lambs or calves and showed them at the fair. And they also showed up two hours late to school when it snowed because the buses couldn't drive that well in the snow, or they had early dismissal.

  The girls walked out of the classroom together to see David pulling the egg out of the egg box and pushing it into the top of his locker.

  “Hey, you're supposed to take that with you.” Ivy put her hands on her hips and then realized she probably looked like her mother and crossed them instead, which looked like her father. She sighed heavily.

  “You're so dumb. You have to turn in all the assignments. I'm doing my egg duty. My way.” The box didn't fit so David tucked it under his arm and left the building.

  Seeing the indignation in Ivy's eyes, Carrie said, “We'll tell Mrs. Huffity tomorrow morning. David won't get a free day.”

  “We can't wait. Do you know where Mrs. Huffity went?” Ivy wasn't the best at paying attention and didn't quite catch what Mrs. Huffity said to the girls when they were deep in the hunt for Ivy's gloves. But she knew one thing—if that egg was left alone in the school overnight, something horrible would happen to it.

  “She went to the office to talk to Mr. Joyce.” Carrie thought for a moment. “David's combination is taped to the top of his desk lid. Every time he lifts it, I can see it.”

  The girls looked at each other and then back at David's locker. Ivy frowned, “How much trouble do you think we'll get in?”

  “I don't care. I'm tired of doing what everyone tells me.” Carrie's eyes had a spark of anger and Ivy knew there was no sense discussing it with her, especially since Ivy wanted to break into the locker, too.

  Besides, it wasn't like they were going to take anything except the egg, which needed looking after. After writing down the combination, Carrie opened David's locker by herself, explaining, “There's no sense in both of us getting in trouble if the principal comes along. Just watch the halls.”

  But the halls stayed empty. With a triumphant grin, Carrie gently coaxed the egg to roll into her fingers. Now that the egg was without it's fleece-blanketed box, it looked lonely and strange.

  Carrie held it in her hands and her mouth fell open, a look of awe spreading across her face. “What if it's real? I mean, I feel it in my hands and I think it's moving a little.”

  Ivy watched. It did seem like the little egg was trembling in Carrie's hands. Although it was so big that it probably felt the cold and was reacting. After the strange dreams she'd had and the creature she'd seen at Barry's, she knew the egg was real.

  “Maybe it's cold. It's used to all those blankets. Maybe we should tuck it into our coats.” Ivy touched the egg and felt a strange thrumming under her fingertips. She could hear a strange noise almost like a single flute playing a very low note, but it was also an animal sound. She looked around, “Do you here that?”

  Carrie leaned closer to the egg, “I think it's coming from this. Here, you have that fleece with the pockets under your coat. You can wrap it in your winter coat and still be mostly warm.”

  Ivy's mother believed in layers. Sometimes Ivy took off her coat, but still wore her jacket in the school. It was purple and warm. Unzipping her coat, Ivy took the egg and tucked it inside, zipping the coat back up around it.

  “Can you keep it at your house?” Carrie's room was a mess, clothes in boxes for what her mom called a downsizing. Since her dad found another place to live, they were selling the house and moving to the single apartment building in town. Really it was more like a four-plex with four apartments in the one building, but it was close to the school. Her town didn't have many apartment buildings.

  Ivy thought the egg was moving again. “Yes. We'd better hurry. Someone might wonder what we're doing here.” She felt guilty for stealing the egg from David's locker. She worried that everyone would know what she did if they saw the two girls in the hall.

  Carrie and Ivy walked to Ivy's house from school. The weather was cold and the sky was completely gray with a single cloud that blanketed the entire sky.

  While the girls walked home, Ivy tried to think of a reasonable explanation for having the egg. If she told her mom that she changed her mind, her mom might say something to one of the other parents, and it might get back to Mrs. Huffity. Carrie wanted to tell Mrs. Huffity the whole story, but knowing she'd done something wrong, Ivy wasn't eager to confess her part in it.

  At Ivy’s house they searched for something to keep the egg warm. Pulling an afghan throw that her great Aunt had knitted out of the closet, Ivy made a little nest. The two girls sat for while with the egg waiting for it to do something, but it didn't seem to be moving anymore. Carrie frowned, “I hope we didn't kill it when we took it out into the cold.”

  Thinking of the little creature dying in her dream, Ivy's face blanched, and she felt sick to her stomach, “Do you think we might have?”

  Carrie shrugged. “I don't know. I hope not. I have to get home before Mom freaks. I wish I could stay with you.”

  Ivy secretly wanted to have the egg to herself for a while. She wanted to talk to it and see if it answered back. But Carrie's feelings would be hurt so she said, “I know. Maybe you can call me tonight after my mom gets home?”

  Both girls knew that she wouldn't get to sleep over on a school night. After Carrie left, Ivy turned the lock to the door just the way her mom and dad told her to do when she was home alone. Most people in small towns didn't regularly lock their houses. But she was the only person in the house, her and the egg.

  Ivy closed the door to her room and sat next to the little nest she had made with the afghan and put her hand on the egg. It rocked a little and felt surprisingly warm. “Mrs. Huffity said you were a girl dragon. I should probably give you a name.”

  Ivy took off her glasses and rubbed her nose. Sometimes they made her face hurt. Setting them aside, she picked up the egg, afghan and all and set it on her lap using the wall as a back rest. “Dragons are fiercesome creatures. You should have a strong name.”

  A rasping sound near the window startled Ivy and she jumped a little. One of the beak-faced creatures came right into the room through the wall as if the wall didn't even exist. Now that she could get a good look at it, she could see that the creature had brown tufts of fur around it's face, although the beak looked cruel. She could imagine it pecking a hole right through the egg. She knew then her dream had been true. If she and Carrie had left the egg in David's locker, the creature would have found it.

  A minotaur was a man with a bull's head and a dwarf was like a little man with a thick beard who liked to mine. So that left a gollivant. Ivy pulled the egg closer lifting, her knees to protect it while the gollivant stalked across her bed on strange, furry legs sometimes going two-legged, sometimes on all four before stealthily dropping to the floor.

  “Stay away from
me.” Ivy's mouth felt dry and she could barely get the words out. She wished she could reach the teddy bear sitting on top of the bed, but it was too far away and the gollivant was in between. Still, it would make her feel better.

  The creature knew it was being talked to. With a tilt of its head, it squawked and lifted two wings as if to make itself larger. Ivy hadn't seen it fly yet, but she had no doubt that it could.

  “Shoo.” With the egg in her arms, Ivy lurched forward as if to attack and the creature jumped back. Another one flew through the wall, alighting on her dresser where its claws clicked as it tried to gain purchase. Giving up, it soared right over her head and landed next to her closet.

  Ivy pushed herself back from the wall with her arms full. She carefully stood. The two creatures squawked and hopped and Ivy hurried to the door with a fast walk. She closed the door behind her even though the creatures seemed to move through walls.

  It was a strange feeling to be frightened and alone and still be responsible for something. Funny that the word Mrs. Huffity wrote on the board regarding the egg was responsibility. Mrs. Huffity must have known how much trouble the egg would be. Why would she have her students care for something that important?

  Mrs. Huffity said that gollivants didn't hurt humans. Ivy turned on the television to a cartoon and turned up the volume, hoping that the gallivants would be scared by the sound. She laughed aloud every time anything happened. Every light in the living room was on. At first she sat at the edge of the couch with her awkward bundle and waited for something to happen. When nothing did, she curled up on the sofa encircling the egg and relaxed.

  Her mom came home first, a half hour before Dad. Chill air blasted into the house when the door opened. Ivy half expected the two creatures to be sneaking in with her mother, but nothing of the sort happened.

  “Oh, turn that thing off.”

  Ivy hit the power button on the remote. “Sorry.”

  “What's going on?” Pulling off her gloves and coat, Ivy's mom opened the closet door. Ivy gasped and stifled a scream when she saw one of the gallivants crawling down the side of the door as if it were a spider the size of a dog. Her mom didn't notice anything.

  “Do you have any letters from Mrs. Huffity?” Her mom shut the closet door, but the gallivant was already sitting on it's haunches in the hall staring at the egg with a hungry look.

  “No.” Mrs. Huffity sent letters home to be signed when one of the students got in trouble. Ivy had a letter for missing homework the first week in October, but that was the last time. Her mom had been checking her backpack ever since. Ivy still lost her papers every now and then, but most of the time she found them in the backpack pocket because her mom would tuck any homework she found in there.

  “Did you and Carrie fight?”

  Now Ivy was angry. “No! Why would you think that?”

  “You look guilty.”

  Guilty. Was that how her mom always knew when Ivy was in trouble at school? Ivy thought the truth was probably better than any other excuse she could come up with. Otherwise her mom would think she lost her homework again or that she really did have a fight with Carrie. She didn't want to get her friend in trouble, so she decided only to tell her own part of the story. “It was David's turn to take care of the egg. He left it at school, so I took it.”

  Ivy lifted the afghan so the gold-speckled green egg was visible. The gollivant that was hunched in the hall straightened up and started to move to the wall to get closer. Ivy immediately hid the egg again. But the creature still sniffed the air and seemed to know where it was.

  “Well, honey, as long as you bring it back tomorrow morning, no harm done.” Her mom laughed, “All that over an egg.”

  At the sound of her mom's voice, the gollivant disappeared, poof and it was gone. Ivy let out a huge sigh of relief. Sinking back into the couch Ivy realized that she was hungry. “What's for dinner?”

  “Meatloaf and baked potatoes. It will be a while. Do you want a cheese stick or an apple?”

  “Can I make oatmeal cookies?” Ivy asked.

  Unlacing her shoes, her mom said the same variation of what she always said, “You're better off eating healthy. Someday you'll thank me for it.” Her mom was still in her nurse's uniform. She had a name tag and hat and everything. As she spoke to Ivy, she unpinned the hat.

  Ivy wrinkled her nose at the suggestion. “Oatmeal is healthy. Maybe we can have sweets once a week, as a compromise?”

  “You had cake and ice cream at Barry's party.”

  “That was two weeks ago!” It was so unfair. Carrie's house was stocked with ice cream, chocolate, peanut butter cups, powdered doughnuts, and chocolate chip cookies. And the worst was that Ivy's mom had asked Carrie's mom not to give her sweets, so the only time she got anything at Carrie's was by sneaking it, which didn't happen often because Carrie got grounded the one time her father caught Ivy eating a brownie. And then he called Ivy's mother. Ivy didn't get grounded, just an excessively long lecture about fuel for the body and food for the mind.

  Ivy sighed. She didn't feel thankful, but at least her mom had scared off the predators waiting for her to forget the egg.

  After dinner it was Ivy's bath time. Sometimes she took showers, but she still liked baths a lot, too. As Ivy got her pajamas ready, she called out to her mother, “Mom, can eggs get wet?”

  Ivy had kept the afghan and egg with her the whole time. “Let me see it.”

  Her mom picked up the egg, looking at it and feeling the surface. “I don't see why not. Don't you take that blanket into the bathroom. It's the only thing I have from Aunt Hilda.”

  “I won't.”

  Ivy poured her favorite princess bubble bath into the tub and let it fill up. The egg was safely settled onto her towel. Once the tub was full, she'd step in and then put the egg in, too.

  The egg half-floated and Ivy started pushing it along the bubbles playing in the suds. As her fingers played along the smooth part of the shell, the egg rocked sending ripples through the water.

  For a moment Ivy was excited, but then she felt a bit of fear when she wondered if the creature inside was drowning. Of course her mom would say the egg was safe. She didn't believe it was real.

  Ivy lifted the egg out of the water, holding it in her hands while it rocked back and forth. Whispering that everything would be okay, Ivy thought of when she was sick and her mom sang to her. In a low voice, she sang all of her favorite songs, but instead of calming the creature inside the egg, it just rocked harder. Finally Ivy decided that she would have to put the egg outside the water. She was afraid of drowning it, and she had to wash her hair.

  She hurriedly poured a dollop of shampoo on her hand and scrubbed her head, then she dunked herself in the water and scrubbed more. Sometimes she would turn on the water and put her head under the faucet, but today she was in too much of a hurry.

  Ivy pulled the stopper to drain the water. And hurriedly changed into her pajamas. The last half hour of the day she crawled into bed to read. Today she tucked the egg into the corner, making a nest so that it wouldn't fall into the crack between the bed and the wall. Reading aloud, she watched the rocking motion and wondered if the little dragon would hatch while in her care.

  When her mom called out that it was bedtime, she groaned because she was right in the middle of the chapter, but she closed The Princess and the Goblin. One night a week she could read a half hour past bedtime, and she'd already used her night.

  With the lights out, the room took on a sinister feeling, mostly because of the strange breathing that slowly seemed to fill the room. She could see bits of movement, but when she turned her head, nothing was there. Swallowing, Ivy crawled to the end of the bed and picked up the egg. Frightened noises seemed to be coming from inside.

  “It's okay, I won't let them hurt you.” Ivy spoke to the egg, her voice barely above a whisper.

  She felt something drop onto the bed covers, jiggling the mattress and screamed. Her dad ran up t
he stairs and threw open the door, turning on the light. “Are you okay?”

  The gollivant crawling toward Ivy stood up and turned around, looking right at her father who never even saw it. He seemed to look through it to Ivy. She said, “There's something in my room.”

  “You probably just had a bad dream. There's nothing here. Want me to check under the bed?”

  Ivy swallowed. She did want him to check under the bed. Not that she had asked him to since she was at least eight. I mean ten years old is old enough to know that there's nothing under the bed, but this one time, there just might be. Not that anyone else could see it.

  “Yes,” Ivy said.

  Lifting the covers from the foot of the bed, he knelt down. Ivy was afraid the gollivants might jump out and hurt him. He reached down under the bed. “Be careful, Daddy.”

  Her dad chuckled and then with his arm under the bed said, “Because the...fuzzy teddy bear might jump out and hurt you.” He said the words loud and fast, startling Ivy. She screamed again and jumped.

  “That's not funny.”

  “I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done that when you were already scared.”

  “Can I stay on the couch with you for a little while?”

  She was surprised when her dad said yes. “Just this once. It's snowing so you might not have to go to school tomorrow.”

  “Really?” And then, with egg in hand, Ivy ran to the window to watch the giant snow flakes falling. She shivered and jumped back from the window when something came running across the yard toward the house.

  More than once the creatures started crawling toward her until her dad said something or the television noise scared them and then they popped out. And her dad never even saw them.

  When her parents went to bed, Ivy had no choice but to return to her room. The snow had already started sticking and from what the weather man said, it was going to be a record snowfall. It hardly ever snowed in November and never like this. That's what her dad said, anyway. Everyone online was reporting it as a freak storm.

  Now she was alone and scared.

  Ivy pulled the egg under the covers with her. Five creatures were surrounding her bed. One was crawling along the ceiling as if gravity meant nothing until it was directly over her head. “I won't scream. I won't.” Ivy said over and over, willing the creature to go away.

  Staring at the ceiling, she froze, waiting for something to happen. The gollivant was staring at her with large yellow eyes. It moved a few inches sideways, still watching her. Its eyes flickered for a moment toward the egg. Pulling the egg into her arms, Ivy glared at the gollivant. “You'll have to go through me first.” She felt brave saying it, mimicking Carrie's favorite phrase when they were playing Stratego.

  And she was beginning to think that maybe the creatures couldn't do anything after all. They only seemed to hover and wait, at least until the one on the ceiling dropped onto the bed and seemed to go through the covers and land directly on the egg. She felt the creature’s fur on her arm. It was warm and soft, the kind of fur she would want to pet if it were attached to a cat or dog.

  A tug of war began with the egg in the middle, but Ivy had a decent hold on it no matter how hard the wiry little creature pulled. Two more dropped onto the bed, one put a foot on her head trying to reach it. With sudden inspiration she pulled her body around the egg and rolled over, the creature squawking and falling off the bed.

  Ivy never knew how long it lasted but she lost her fear of the creatures. They were furry and only cared about getting to the egg. They didn't use their beaks to peck at her. At some point the creatures gave up and somehow Ivy fell asleep in what was the longest night of her life. But as she slept fissures split along the egg, cracks appearing where once the side was smooth.