by Jadyn Chase
All at once, Alex changed, too. He retracted into himself to become a man again. He stood over his enemy naked, but he didn’t seem to notice that. He locked his piercing gaze on the man’s face. “William?”
The stranger gave a weak smile. “Is that you, Alex?”
Alex collapsed on his knees and flung his arms around his brother. Neither seemed to be aware of their nakedness. They howled into each other’s necks laughing and sobbing.
I could only stand aside and stare at this incredible scene. It was all true. They really were dragons. I couldn’t deny it anymore even if I wanted to. They changed right in front of me.
Alex hopped to his feet and hauled his brother upright. He wiped tears off his cheeks and kept hugging William around the shoulders. They faced me, only for William to spin away in a flash. He did his best to cover himself with his arms, but I could still see his backside clear enough.
Alex showed no such scruples. He beamed at me through his tears. “Rosie, dear, this is my brother, William. This is Rosie Crockett from America.”
William stole a peek over his shoulder without turning around. “Pleased to make your acquaintance.”
I gulped to find my voice. “If this is William, then where’s Thomas?”
Alex’s smile evaporated. “Oh. Of course. That leaves his whereabouts unaccounted for.”
William turned partially around. “What about Thomas?”
“He’s running amok somewhere, too,” Alex told him. “We heard some reports about him and….” He spun around and scowled at his brother. “I say! When did you wake up in the pump chamber?”
“Why……just a short time ago,” William stammered. “I don’t remember exactly, but it wasn’t long.”
Alex turned to me. “We were in the Castle only a few hours ago and only two caskets were opened. We assumed they were mine and Thomas’s, but if William has woken up, too….”
“Only two caskets!” William started to turn around and changed his mind. He kept covering his chest and crotch to make sure I didn’t see anything. “When I woke up, all of the others were open. I must have been the last one.”
Alex wheeled around to confront me. “We must find them. They could be anywhere.”
“We can’t go anywhere like this,” William added. “How are we to get out of here?”
I looked them up and down. They both had nice, fit bodies and nice…. well, they just had nice bodies. I could stand here admiring them all day, but William had a point. “I’ll have to get you some clothes.”
“How?” Alex asked. “If you went anywhere, you would have to leave us here like this.”
I looked around. “You’re right and whoever owns this cottage could come back at any time.”
“What are we to do?” William asked.
I held up my hand. “You two stay here. Hide over in those bushes if you have to. Just stay hidden and, for the love of God, don’t go anywhere. I’ll run into town and get you something. I’ll be right back.”
I bolted before I could change my mind. I had to get clear of those two so I could think.
11
Alexander
I eased my way into the trees and sat down next to William. The leaves and broken branches sure didn’t make for a very pleasant place for a naked man to sit, I can tell you that much. Beggars can’t be choosers, though. At least no one could see us. If the owners returned to this cottage, we could cower in the undergrowth and remain hidden until Rosie returned.
William glanced up. “Rosie seems a nice enough lass.”
I nodded more to myself than to him. “She is. She’s very nice and she’s been very helpful getting me adjusted to this peculiar situation.”
“I’ll say it’s peculiar. What was all that nonsense about locking us in caskets under the Castle? Is it someone’s idea of a joke?”
My head shot up and I gaped at him before I realized. He had no idea what was going on or where or when he was. He didn’t know the first thing about this situation. It took me days to get marginally comfortable with my new environment. All of that lay ahead of him.
He stared at me in horror. “My God, Alex! What is it? Tell me immediately. Don’t spare me!”
My shoulders slumped. “I hate to be the bearer of bad news, old boy, but our family has a very serious problem. It appears we all fell asleep in the Great Armour Hall back in 1840 and we’ve all been sound asleep for two hundred years. The year now is 2019 and the world has advanced considerably since then. You’re going to see many strange and fantastical things. You must simply remember that these are all normal nowadays. It is we who are the oddities even without all this dragon business to complicate matters.”
He blinked once. “Are you daft?”
“I only wish I were. It appears someone—we don’t know yet who—put either a magical hex or a curse on our family. We can only guess at their motives. In any case, you and I and Thomas and James and Mother and Father all fell asleep. We’ve been perfectly preserved for two hundred years and we’re waking up as these dragon monsters. We change when threatened or injured. The rest of the time, we’re normal—or as normal as can be under the circumstances. You must be careful of your safety, old man.”
His hand flew to his head. “Dear God!”
I nodded. “Exactly. I’ve been extremely fortunate to meet Rosie and two young farm lads who have helped me considerably. They appear to be as interested in the mystery as we are and they are, as we speak, investigating to find answers to our plight.”
“That is indeed fortunate,” he murmured.
“You are indeed fortunate, too,” I remarked. “You are fortunate that we found each other before you could do much damage or get into trouble. We will keep you with us and endeavor to locate the others. We should be safer in numbers.”
“Once we get some decent clothes on, we should return to the Castle,” he suggested. “We’ll be safe there.”
I shook my head. “We cannot return to the Castle. It is no longer any noble’s residence. It is controlled by the Crown and they’ve turned it into a historical monument. Visitors flock there daily to look around. You would never recognize it.”
“Well, then, where can we go?” He searched the woods without seeing anything. “Where in the world can we go? We’re homeless, landless, friendless.”
I laid my hand on his bare arm. “Not entirely. We have a few friends left, but our situation has radically changed. The next few weeks and months will be difficult, to say the least.”
He let his head collapse back against a tree. “Great God!”
I knew how he felt, so I didn’t say anything. I let the magnitude of our condition sink in while we waited. The sunshine made the air warm.
After a time, he stole another glance at me. “What do you plan to do with yourself in this new time? Where will you go? How will you support yourself without Father’s income?”
Now it was my turn to recline back and relax. “I have no earthly idea. The last week has been a whirlwind of confusion and danger. The precious few nights I’ve spent, I’ve spent at the lads’ farm or……”
He waited. “Or?”
Should I tell him about Rosie? Should I besmirch her by revealing that I spent the night in her bed? What benefit could that bring to either me or William?
Rosie didn’t want to continue the arrangement—not that there ever was one. To her, it was one night. She didn’t acknowledge that her behavior contributed to my impression that it meant more than that. I couldn’t decide if she willfully denied it or simply erased it from her awareness.
Either way, it all came to nothing. I would never spend another night in her bed or in her arms. If she didn’t feel the same way about me, that would be for the best. Better not to tell William or any other living soul what had happened.
I glanced over to discover William inspecting me. I never could keep a secret from him. “Is there anything you want to tell me, Alex—something about Rosie, perhaps?”
I shrugged. �
��There’s nothing to tell. She’s helping us. That’s all you really need to know.”
He squeezed my arm. “If you want to talk about it, I’m all ears.”
I snorted, but I didn’t say anything. I’m certain he would want to hear every sensuous detail, but I wouldn’t squeal—not on Rosie. She was too nice for that.
In a few moments, she returned and handed me a shirt and a pair of trousers. William cringed on the ground hugging his knees to his chest. She held out some things to him, but when he wouldn’t take them, she turned away smirking. “I’ll just go over there. You can call me when you’re ready.”
I ducked into the clothes. William did likewise. When we emerged from the bushes, William could face her like a man. He closed his eyes and bowed. “You have my eternal gratitude and I apologize for the unseemly manner of our introduction. I am at your service.”
She blushed. “You’re welcome. Now shall we head back to town?”
We followed her to the car. William hesitated to get into it.
“This is one of the strange advances you’re going to see in this time,” I informed him. “Imagine you’re in a cab.”
He blinked at the vehicle. “Without horses? What’s to stop it from running over a cliff?”
I almost laughed at him, but I stopped myself in time. Rosie smiled and let me do all the talking. “Watch,” I told him.
I climbed into the back seat and held the door open for him to do the same. When he did, Rosie shut us in and got behind the wheel. I don’t think William blinked once on his way back to town.
“Is this…..Is this Dover?” he whispered.
“This is the new Dover,” I told him.
Rosie drove to the shop and parked out front. I had to drag William out of the car, but at length, I got him inside where no harm could come to him. He slumped into a chair at the table. “I don’t want to believe it. I want everything to go back to the way it was.”
I patted his back, but before I could reply, Jake and Jackie arrived. William jumped to his feet.
I waved between them. “Jake and Jackie Whitlock, meet my brother William Ashworth Shelton. These are the lads I told you about.”
Jake and Jackie looked at each other and then at me. “William? Not Thomas?”
I shook my head. “We don’t know where Thomas is. He must be still at large.”
“He could be dead,” Jake interjected.
William gasped in horror. I held up my hand. “We don’t know that. For the time being, we should assume they’re all alive out there somewhere.”
Jackie’s mouth fell open. “All? How do you figure?”
Rosie spoke up from the other side of the room. “When William woke up, all the other caskets were empty. He’s the last one, which means his parents and his other brother are awake, too. We’ve got a major flying disaster on our hands.”
“We have to find them!” Jake blurted out. “We have to find a way to locate them and bring them in before they devastate the landscape.”
“I was thinking the same thing,” I told him. “The question is how.”
“We can’t wait for reports of sightings to come over the internet,” Jackie replied. “There must be a way to make them come to us. We need some sort of dragon bait.”
Jake hauled back his fist and punched his brother in the shoulder. “What—you mean like virgin sacrifices and all that shite? Use your brain, you muppet!”
“I am using it!” Jackie thundered back. “I weren’t talking about no virgin sacrifices, for Christ’s sake. That’s for the likes of you to come up with. I was thinking something that makes them think they’re loved ones are calling them in. If they’re out there, they must be in search of us as much as we’re in search of them.”
“Good thinking, Jackie,” I exclaimed.
“Right—good thinking,” he fired back. “The question is still how. We can’t exactly put an advert in the jolly morning paper saying, ‘Shelton family reunion! Come one, come all to the Great Armour Hall at Dover Castle.’ That would never work.”
The minute the words left his lips, he and Jake spun around to stare at each other. They stared at each other for a full sixty seconds. Then they whipped around to stare at Rosie. Then they attacked each other hooting and crowing with glee.
Jake seized his brother by the face in both hands. He kissed Jackie on the lips with a loud, resounding smack. “Sheer genius! That’s what you are, my darling boy! Sheer bloody, perfect genius.”
“You can put that on me bloody tombstone, mate!” Jackie rejoined.
I blinked back and forth between them. “Would you lads mind sharing with the rest of us plebeians what is so absurdly genius?”
“The family reunion!” Jake cried. “It’s the perfect pretext. We put out a big advertising blitz announcing the Shelton family reunion. We include all the relevant dates, locations and times encoded into the advert.”
“But that’s ridiculous!” I countered. “We’ll get hundreds of Sheltons attending from all over England if we do that. Heavens, we might just get thousands.”
“Even better.” Jackie clapped his hands together and rubbed them with gusto. “The more the merrier. Your people are bound to come once they hear.”
“How can you be sure they’ll get the message?” Rosie asked. “If any of them has traveled out of the country, they might miss it, and you can be certain they won’t be using the internet.”
Jackie shook his head. “Don’t trouble me with details! We’ll just have to run the advert for long enough that anyone who can hear it, will hear it.”
“How long is that?”
The twins exchanged glances again. “I should think a fortnight should do the trick—three weeks at the most.”
“What—so long?” William exclaimed. “Can’t we do it now?”
“Not if we hope to get the message out.” Jake flung himself into a chair and got out his computer. He started tapping on it.
William bent over his shoulder. “What in the world are you doing?”
“It’s a computer,” Jake clipped over his shoulder. “Now kindly be quiet so I can think.”
I stood back and watched William take in the scene. After a week in this new world of ours, I experienced a pang of nostalgia. Computers and cars and electric lights all seemed so familiar to me now. I felt for William, just discovering them for the first time.
At last, Jake snapped his device closed. “There! It’s done.”
“What’s done?” William looked around him with large, frightened eyes.
Jake stood up. “I put out a notice on the Dover Castle Facebook page. We’re having a family reunion in three weeks time.”
“How are you going to do that?” Rosie asked. “You would have to book the Great Armour Hall through the Castle itself. You would have to arrange caterers and entertainment and tables and cutlery and….”
A genteel smile spread over Jake’s lips. He gazed back at her with a serene, placid countenance.
“Oh, no!” Rosie sliced her forefinger back and forth through the air. “No, you don’t! No way are you roping me into this.”
“Come on, Rosie,” Jackie chided. “You’re in for a penny, so you might as well be in for a pound.”
“So what?” She rounded on him baring her teeth. “You want me to organize a family reunion for everyone by the name of Shelton in the whole fucking British Isles? You’re out of your minds. Forget it! I’m not doing it.”
“You’re the only one who can do it,” Jackie murmured. “These two blighters can hardly cross the street. This one can’t set foot out of doors without getting jumped by randy women and this one can’t cross the street at all.”
She flew at him punching and slapping. She beat against his chest, but he didn’t budge. “You foul-mouthed little…..shit! I’ve been running all over creation babysitting these two monsters while you…..did I don’t know what! I’m not doing this. I’m not organizing any family fucking reunion. I have a business to run, for Christ’s sake
! When are you going to understand that?”
The twins stared at her. I stared at her. William stared at her. I would never ask Rosie to organize a reunion for the entire extended Shelton family. A team of trained butlers might be able to pull off a task like that, but not a single individual.
She delivered one more punishing clout to Jackie’s chest. Then she snarled again through gritted teeth and stormed out of the shop. She left the four of us blokes staring at each other in her wake.
As soon as the door slammed behind her, Jake snickered under his breath. “Brilliant, mate. Abso-bloody-lutely brilliant.”
Jackie wiggled in his shoes and grinned at all and sundry. “I was just pointing out the fact. Nothing more.”
“Leave her alone,” Jake told him. “She’ll come right in the end.”
“I beg to differ, gents,” William remarked. “It seems you offended her honor with your crass remarks. I don’t claim to understand the fairer sex in every particular, but I know enough to understand they rarely forgive an insult of that gravity. She will not come right in the end. You’ll be stuck organizing your own family reunion.”
I didn’t join their repartee. I kept my gaze on Rosie. When she ran out of the shop, she darted between honking cars to the other side of the road—the coastal esplanade they called Marine Parade. There she stopped and approached the parapet. While the twins and William discussed her, she leaned over the railing and thrust her face into the salt spray.
How well I understood that movement. How many times had I closed my eyes and let the surf’s natural cleansing power wash away my troubles? The only problem was that it couldn’t wash away my troubles or anyone else’s. That was the lesson I always learned from the surf and the sun and the waves. It couldn’t solve my problems and it wouldn’t solve Rosie’s.
I headed for the door and murmured over my shoulder. “Let me talk to her.”
12
Rosie
I didn’t want to talk to Alex. I didn’t want to see Alexander Lincoln Shelton again as long as I lived. I came out here to be alone, to get away from all that dragon-Shelton-time travel bullshit.