“Yes, I do,” she said in a frigid tone, “and so do you!”
“Who? For heaven’s sake!”
The speaker answered solemnly, “Lizzy, your daughter by a witch, Harry.”
Harry gulped air like a freshly caught fish. “Wha…what?” he finally gasped. “That cannot be! I don’t even know any witches. I have never been with any witches, and I am pretty sure I would have noticed had I had a child with one. This is ridiculous!”
Harry turned to Sarah, who had stepped back further. His eyes locked on hers. The blood drained from his face. Sarah’s eyes narrowed, squinting at him; her slit-like pupils glared. Her face was conflicted with tears steaming and smoke curling. Harry’s heart hammered. He could hear it thundering in his ears. Sarah’s claws were curled like fists, and she had wrapped her bat-like wings around her like shields over a broken heart.
Harry was in shock. Minutes before, he and Sarah had been sharing the most tender, intimate moments, and then it was gone, ripped from them like bandages off a burn victim. Harry’s face fell, and his eyes closed. When he opened them, the look on Sarah’s face told him the verdict had been given, the judgment passed. Where love had been, empty coldness reigned. He caught himself thinking, She feels betrayed, but I didn’t do anything. This is impossible!
“How? Sword, why did you say this? I couldn’t! I didn’t! How?”
“Harry, I have access to her last blood test. I have your DNA on file as well. Have I ever led you wrong before?” Harry could hear the pleading in the sword’s voice.
Harry’s brow furrowed; he cocked his head back and thought about the question. His heart had begun to settle and he no longer breathed in gasps.
“How do you have access to Lizzy’s blood test, Sword?”
“Remember when she voluntarily cut her finger, and I was blocked from bonding with her? When I could not bond, I looked for a reason. That search led to a study of her DNA, and that is when I discovered… well, you know.”
Harry slipped down onto the ground and placed his head in his hands. “But how?”
Sarah, who had been listening intently to the whole interchange, growled, “Well, Harry, I don’t know much. I mean I am only a six-year-old girl, and a 1,244-year-old woman, and a dang, stinking dragon!” With that, a puff of smoke blew out her flared nostrils. “But last I checked, there was only one way for a man to have a child with a woman!”
“But Sarah, I didn’t!”
“Harry, you had to!” she shrieked.
“Don’t you think I would have remembered?” he shouted back. “Something like that would have left an impression!”
Sarah dragon’s response was to turn away and stomp rapidly into the forest, flames blowing from her mouth. Trees bent beneath her sway. Small tornados blew across the treetops. The sound of branches breaking and a dragon wailing and screeching filled the heated air.
Harry watched her leave and said, “I broke her heart. She thinks I betrayed her… but I didn’t! And all she can do is stomp away, throwing a fit.” Harry’s voice trembled, and his hands shook as he stared down the path Sarah had plowed.
“That could have gone much worse for you, Harry. You’re still breathing and have not been burned to a crisp.”
Harry pulled himself up and brushed the dirt and grass off his pants. He wished he could look the speaker sword in the eye instead of staring at the empty place Sarah had just vacated.
“And just how the hell would you know, Sword? You do not know women, dragons, or whatever any better than I do!”
“I beg your pardon. For your information, sir, one of my first partners was a woman. We got along superbly. I learned to understand her ways like deep ocean currents and cool sea breezes, unless of course they weren’t, and the rest of the time, I just nodded in the right places and said yes ma’am appropriately. And there was a special woman, much like me actually, an entity who was also created to aid the dragons and their riders, but, well, that’s a long story for another day.”
Harry could almost hear the melancholy in the sword’s voice, and in spite of the moment, said, “See what I mean, Sword!”
“Women are deep waters, Harry. Men are shallow shores. Your whole psyche is different, but a prolonged discussion on the differences between men and women and how to value them is not going to help you now.”
“So, what is?” Harry said, rubbing his temples in a vain attempt to push away the ache in his pounding head.
“I have been pondering that and because, unlike you, I can multitask and consider a dozen things at once, I think I have discovered a way of determining whether you have lost or possibly had memories about a relationship with a witch stolen from you.”
“I am all for it. I have nothing to hide, and if I do, and discover I have hidden something from my own heart, well… it’s time for it to come out. So, what are you going to do?”
“I am going to comb through your memories. I am very familiar with many of them. But not all, and with your permission I can scan them and determine if anything is sealed, or missing. Once we have done that, well, we will see what happens.”
“Let’s get on with it. Please call Sarah. She needs to witness this and know I have not lied to her or hidden anything from her. I am as stunned to hear Lizzy is my biological daughter as she is.”
“I have already spoken with Sarah. Her response was, and I quote, ‘Even if he can’t remember what he did, it doesn’t change the fact he did it, and it is going to take me a while to work through that.’”
Harry groaned, “I don’t know what I can do to repair this.”
“She also informed me she would trust me to witness your memories for her and trust my judgment, unlike other people she knew.”
“Well, isn’t that just wonderful!” Harry barked. “Convicted before the court even convened! Executed before sentence is pronounced, and she is having a hard time with it? Even if I discover I had a physical relationship with a woman that produced a child, Sarah needs to realize that she was not—nor did I ever think she would be—a part of my life again. I mean, twelve hundred years is a pretty big obstacle to overcome. Death is usually kinda permanent, and for all I knew Sarah was dead and had been for a thousand years! And now… and now she has the audacity to throw that up in my face? When I am not even sure I am guilty, and that is really not the right word… this is nuts. Hurry up! Do what you have to do. I have to know what is going on. Lizzy is my daughter, but I remember the night she was literally dropped on my doorstep. She was just a few months old… I adopted her. I love her, but she is not my biological daught…” Harry’s eyes suddenly rolled back in his head. He took a deep breath and collapsed to the ground, unconscious.
“I know, my friend, I know… and I am truly sorry. If there were any other way, I swear to you I would take it, but this is a cup that cannot pass. Forgive me, Harry.”
***
The wood between time and worlds, where Harry and Sarah had been deposited after the barn fire, had no sun, but for the sake of travelers it had a morning and an evening. Harry woke around noon, his head pounding and his face hot. “Ooh dang! Sword, did you cut out half my brain or just wear boots and run up and down the halls till you wore a rut… argh!”
“It is a fairly rigorous procedure. I will give you that, but you will be grateful to know you have no memories, hidden or otherwise, that I can find, and believe me, I used a fine-tooth comb. You had quite a few cerebral tangles.”
“Oh, that’s all you did? Feels like you pulled out my hair from the inside out!” Harry winced. The light from the gorgeous, bright day hurt his eyes.
“You will be happy to know that not only did I not find any memories of a relationship with a witch, but I also, while given access, left you some gifts.”
“What do you mean—left me some gifts?” Harry growled suspiciously.
“Well, for one thing, you now have a photographic memory. You only need to look at something or read it once to have total recall. It’s like having your own sm
artphone in your head.”
“Hmmm… well, that’s not too bad, I guess, but you said ‘gifts,’ as in plural. I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop. Why all of a sudden do I seem to know where that phrase came from? First-floor people living in apartments without insulation could hear their neighbor take off one boot and then wait for the next one to hit the floor, usually right above the light fixture in their ceiling. That’s weird. But what else, Speaker? Why do I have this bad feeling?”
“Talk about ungrateful! Well, I just ought to take them all back and leave you ignorant and stumbling about.”
“Fine with me,” Harry groaned as he stood up and brushed the grass off his clothes. “Ignorance is bliss. What I don’t know doesn’t bother me, so I’m good with that.”
“Harry, you are acting like an ungrateful child on Christmas morning who wanted candy but got nice clothes instead. You’re going to need these gifts, and so in spite of your ungrateful attitude, I will continue to help you open your gifts.”
“Not a thing wrong with candy, Speaker, and what do you mean I’m going to need them? Why am I going to need them?”
“As I was saying, your next gift is the ability to speak the major languages of the world. German, French, Chinese, Spanish, Russian, Japanese, and several others. You are fluent in many and can understand and communicate in dozens more. It’s quite a gift, I must say.”
“No wonder my head hurts. But you still didn’t answer my question. What do you mean I am going to need them?”
“Next, you’ll discover that, like the discernment disc, you now have the ability to know when someone is lying, but even more, you’ll be able to discern when evil is present or has been present. Now you’re like a spiritual bloodhound, so to speak.”
“Dandy, just dandy,” Harry griped. “Since life is made of so many little white lies told to keep from offending others, and I now have a siren in my head that will flash like a cop car every time someone tells a fib! I won’t have any friends! And I can never attend a political rally again! Thank you very, very much! And you still haven’t answered my question—why do I need these souped-up brain gifts?”
“And last but not least…”
“I know! Spurs for Sarah, so when she is acting like a royal pain in the a—”
A loud “Ahem!” stopped Harry’s angry outburst, followed by an awkward silence. Harry considered turning around but sighed and said, “For a twenty-thousand-pound dragon, you sure can sneak up on a fella.”
The ground shuddered as Sarah plopped her massive body to the ground alarmingly close to Harry. “I wasn’t sneaking, thank you. Had you been paying attention instead of railing at the speaker, you would have realized I have been here for most of your gifting, and Speaker also let me hear while I walked back from my hike in the woods.”
“Did you get all the splinters out of your mouth? From taking out your anger on the trees?” When she didn’t answer, Harry turned around and was surprised to see tears streaming down the huge face of Sarah dragon.
“Aw, Sarah. I’m sorry.” He was about to say several things more, but instead, he just reached up, grabbed her face, and held her close. Hot tears soaked him, but he didn’t care.
As she sobbed, she gasped and tried to speak. “It’s… just that… It’s just that when you told me you had waited for me, my heart broke for you. And then… and then… to hear Speaker say you had a… a… a… a… daughter by a witch!”
“But I didn’t, Sarah. Speaker just cleared me! He said he could find no hidden memories, and believe me, he pulled my hair out from the inside looking!”
The princess dragon laughed and then sighed, “I know. I know. I also know that Lizzy is your biological daughter by a witch. How can that be, Harry?”
“I have no idea. None.”
“But I do,” she whispered so low that Harry stopped speaking and just stared.
The speaker interrupted. “Harry, many dragon people have the ability to stretch out and see into different realities. Time, as you have already discovered, is like a river. You can go up the river and you can also go down the river, and sometimes, you have to do one to do the other.”
A terrible thought formed in Harry’s mind, and he was fiercely opposing it. “No! No! It will not happen, it has not happened, I will not let it happen. It can’t happen.” He fell on his knees and wept. “I can’t do it! I just can’t.”
“Harry?” This time it was Sarah who spoke. Tenderly she reached toward him with her great claws and drew her wings around him. Her thoughts reached into his mind. My Love. My faithful, beautiful Love. No woman, Sarah laughed, even a dragon woman, could have wished for more than you have given me and saved for me for centuries. You have not failed me; you cannot fail me. It’s not in you. But Harry, if you don’t go wherever it is, whenever it is—and there is no word that can fit here—and do whatever you have to do, Lizzy, your wonderful, beautiful, greatly loved daughter, will never be.
Harry got up off his knees and rubbed his eyes and nose with the back of his hand. He didn’t know what to do or how to feel. As he and Sarah sat on the ground next to each other, the sword spoke.
Harry was trying not to think about what Sarah had just told him but was focusing on the speaker sword’s words. As he did, he thought, It sure would be nice to just see him as well as hear him. Then he laughed at the thought of legs sprouting out of the blade and arms and a head from the hilt. Sarah, who was tuned into Harry’s thoughts, also laughed and added a white hat and Texas handlebars to the avatar.
The sword, also listening to their thoughts, offered, “You know, all you two had to do was ask. It is a great deal easier for me to materialize as an avatar than you might think.” And with that, a white-haired old man with a grey robe, who looked remarkably like Gandalf from The Lord of the Rings, appeared in front of them.
“Typical,” Harry said, rolling his eyes.
Sarah frowned and said, “No, that is not quite right. Try again, but be more like the old guy who played James Bond years ago.”
The sword changed again and asked with a pronounced Scottish brogue, “Is this more to your liking?” Sarah, grinning at the handsome avatar, was applauding the improvement when Harry interrupted.
“No, Speaker, it is not. Sarah won’t be able to concentrate on what you’re saying for staring at you like a German shepherd does a cat.” Harry nodded in Sarah’s direction. “See! She’s already drooling!”
Sarah, stung by the remark, quickly wiped her mouth with the back of her claw. She grinned sheepishly, aware of how close to home Harry’s finger-pointing had come. She thought about denying the accusation, then sighed and said, “Yeah, maybe you should try something or someone less attractive.”
The Scottish avatar frowned and rolled its eyes in disgust before it vanished to be replaced by a woman dressed in a skintight white bodysuit who looked remarkably like the actress from the movie Tomb Raider. Harry’s eyes lit up, and he was about to voice his approval when Sarah muttered, “I don’t think so! Keep trying!”
The sword said, “Look, we have got to get something going here. Okay, who was a trustworthy figure from American history that both of you highly opinionated, strong-willed knuckleheads could appreciate? Ah yes… I know.” Suddenly the face of the man that everyone in the United States knew and had absolute confidence in stared back at them. He was dressed as an eighteenth-century military officer, had white hair tied back in a ponytail, and had a large prominent nose. “How about this?”
Sarah looked at Harry. Harry looked back at Sarah and nodded. The speaker said, “Well then it’s settled. George Washington it is. But I still don’t have an answer about Lizzy.”
“Yet,” Harry replied.
“Right. I don’t have an answer to the first dilemma. I don’t know what to tell you or how to advise you.” Then, to shield his lie from his friends, he thought, It is a good thing Harry’s discernment gift does not work on me. Argh, I hate doing this to these two.
The speaker conti
nued speaking to Harry and Sarah, “But I do have some hope for Sarah’s situation. Guys, there is a way through this. I have dug through centuries of data.” The Washington avatar pointed toward Sarah and spoke quickly, “Sarah, your condition is rare, but not unprecedented. Situations where people accidentally discover they can shift into dragons but don’t know how to reverse it have happened before. With some training, you can learn to shift back and forth, and after a while, it will become second nature to you.”
Relieved, Sarah exhaled so heavily that smoke filled the place she and Harry were sitting.
“Really, Sarah?” Harry complained, standing up to fan the air.
The sword laughed at Harry’s discomfort; Sarah also laughed with nervous relief and, of course, released more smoke.
“Now Sarah, the hard part is you will have to go to school to learn not only to shift from dragon to person and back but to learn other dragon skills as well, and Harry…” Speaker said quietly, trying to break the hard news as easily as possible, “cannot go with you.”
Sarah’s troubled look caused Harry to reach over and touch her claw. He looked up at her and said, “It won’t be long, Sarah. It won’t last long.”
Sarah eyed the George Washington look-alike to confirm Harry’s words.
Speaker, understanding her unspoken question, answered, “It depends. At least six months, probably more like a year, maybe more.”
The words struck them like hammer blows. Their heads sagged and their bodies seemed to deflate. The speaker thought, I hate doing this to them, but I do not know any other way.
Sarah tried to comfort Harry by saying, “Harry, remember what they say—absence only makes the heart grow fonder.”
Harry looked up at her, seemed to strengthen, and nodded.
The speaker sword thought, Of someone else, my dear, of someone else.
Then he turned to Harry, pushing hurriedly on, and said, “Now Harry, you also have a task.”
Harry raised his hand to interrupt Speaker George. “Excuse me, sir.”
The Harry Ferguson Chronicles Box Set Page 24