Harry dropped his head, exhaling a long breath. Tears welled up in his eyes, but he pushed them back hard. He nodded and was surprised to feel Raleigh bump him and rub his big head against Harry’s arm. The dog was tall enough to look Harry in the eyes. Harry attempted a smile, and Raleigh took it as a sign to start dog kisses. His human friend was sad and the big dog wanted to make it better. Harry pushed him back. “Quit that, you big idiot… I haven’t come this far to drown in dog slobber.”
Chapter Eighteen
Story time at Lizzy’s library slipped up on her before she was ready for it. A night of restless dreams stole the sleep she had hoped for. One dream particularly troubled her. She had woken from it screaming and hoarse, a cold sweat dripping from her chin, her hair matted against her forehead. Driven from her dream and jumping from her bed, she thought she had seen a figure in her room formless and so black as to drain any trace of light from the place it stood. The vision only lasted for the time it took her screams to break forth and her eyes to blink; then it was gone. Try as she could she was not able to recall the dream that provoked her screams. So, red-eyed and yawning, she sat before her little dragonesque humans.
“Miss Lizzy, are you all right?” the red-haired girl with the now pale-blue teeth asked politely.
“Yes, Faith, I am fine.”
“She doesn’t look so fine,” Easton whispered to his towheaded buddy seated next to him.
“Miss Lizzy, before you start I have a question…” the new girl who sat on the back row shyly asked.
“What is it, Maggie?”
“Well, last night I had a really bad dream, and when I told my dream to Gracie, she said she had one just like it; then Molly and Easton and Chuck and Ryan all said they had had one just like it too!”
Lizzy’s mouth dropped open, her eyes widening. She tilted her head to the side and tried to smile, but what emerged was a very poor imitation. What finally made it past her lips was… “Oh, oh…” She involuntarily began to shake her head and tremble. The children saw it and a torrent of whispers began to whip through the air. Standing up, Maggie walked toward Lizzy, and the other children took their cue from Maggie and joined her. They formed a half circle around her, quietly looking at her as Lizzy shivered, speechless.
Finally, Easton put his small hand out toward her and said, “Miss Lizzy, it’s okay… we saw it too.” A childish murmur ran through the circle.
“You can tell us, Miss Lizzy, we understand. Dragon people grow up quicker than regular folks and understand dreams and things better than most. We love you, Miss Lizzy; it’s going to be okay…” Maggie said, nodding gently.
When Maggie stopped, Lizzy blinked and caught her breath. The children gathered close and began to hug each other and their teacher. Lizzy started crying and then Maggie and Gracie joined her.
Easton looked at the girls. “Now what are you crying for? You’re not the ones that…” Before he could finish his sentence and say burned down the barn, Maggie and Grace both tackled him, knocking him to the floor in a tangle of tennis shoes and sundresses.
Easton howled and started to sputter; then Grace’s hand found its way to his mouth and Maggie’s whisper to his ear. “No, Easton, she must not know that!”
Easton’s eyes widened in understanding and then narrowed in sheepish regret. “I’m sorry… I am sorry,” he tried to groan around the hand stuffed in his mouth.
Grace looked at Maggie. They were all at the bottom of a pile of twisting, shouting, crying children who had been tripped and fallen or who for the pure joy of the moment had jumped on the pile. “What are we going to tell her he was about to say?” Then she yelped as someone’s foot collided with her nose.
Maggie, quick to answer, looked at Easton with a threatening glare. “I jumped on him because he was going to say I liked him like a girlfriend, and you did too.”
“No, I didn’t!” Easton squealed as Gracie pinched him.
“Well, think of something else then, smarty pants!” Maggie growled back.
Easton grunted as somebody’s little behind pushed into his stomach.
“Okay, okay… we don’t have time for anything else… I like Gracie.” He turned bright red as he said it, which was quite a feat for someone with a dragonish-green tint to their skin.
Gracie blushed as well, and Maggie scowled. “No, you don’t; you like me, you big lizard!”
Easton paled under the threat and signaled his surrender with a sullen nod.
Lizzy was startled at the girls’ actions and quickly tried to break up the fight. The other kids managed to get entangled in her way, buying the original tacklers time to stop Easton’s revelation. In the seconds it took to move her way through the pile of twisting children, Easton and the girls had a cover story. Lizzy picked up the two squirming girls and the red-faced little boy and marched them to the back of the library.
“What are you doing?” she yelled as she stood the three tussled warriors up against the library stacks.
Maggie and Grace began in unison, “Easton was going to say we were crying because he didn’t like us like a boyfriend. So we hit him!”
“No, I wasn’t!” Easton involuntarily barked, then realized he was in trouble as the girls drilled a hole through his forehead with their stares. His head dropped and he shifted his feet across the floor. “Okay,” he said so softly that Lizzy barely heard him. “Okay, they are right, Miss Lizzy… I was being a big old dragon turd.”
Little eyebrows arched as two sets of cold eyes narrowed at Easton. The boy continued, “I mean, I would never like either one of them. Especially as mean as they are; they have freckles and all they want to talk about is girl stuff and…” He stopped as he raised his head and saw the great wall of stone-faced glares facing him.
Lizzy sighed, “Easton, do you remember when I told you I was going to try and talk your mother out of spanking your butt for jumping off the roof?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Well, I have changed my mind. I am not. You will get what is coming to you.”
The girls started to giggle and ran into a similar impenetrable wall. “Girls, you were wrong to jump on Easton. That is not the way ladies act. And I do not care how many episodes of Bat Babes you watch, violence is not the answer. So, because you both attacked Easton, you will now and for the rest of the week have to sit with him, one on one side and one on the other.” The girls started to frown; then Easton snorted and they both started giggling. “And furthermore, you will also have to bring him his dessert and clean up after him. Do you understand the things I have tried to communicate?” Lizzy growled as she bent down and stared all three perps in the eyes.
“Yes, ma’am,” they said.
“Good. Now get back in that room before I borrow Dr. Dobson’s book on the strong-willed child and use it on your bottoms!”
They scampered away like a stampede of wild donkeys, but not before Easton rubbed his eye and said, “I sure am glad she didn’t spank us ’cause when Ryan kicked me in the eye, I think I detached my rectum.”
Lizzy choked, then turned her back on the children and staggered into the library stacks bent over laughing. She could barely breathe. “Easton, the word… hahhhaa… the word is retina… it’s retina, Easton…”
Finally, Lizzy had the children seated, with her three culprits lined up like neat little ducks on the first row. She nodded, making eye contact with the rest of her brood, and then when everyone settled, she began.
“I know that we are special. All of us. Ever since the events of last summer, we have been changed. The dragons changed all of us. The evil dragon tried to hurt us, and the good dragon who came from us, Sarah, saved us. My dad saved us, and some of your parents and the people you know saved us. Thomas saved us.” At the mention of Thomas’s name, heads bowed and tears began to flow. Lizzy’s voice softened. “We did not ask for what happened. We still don’t even know how it changed us. But we all know it did.” Several heads in the room nodded, many of their eyes glistene
d. “The dream we obviously shared last night tells us we have a lot in common. I don’t know what you dreamed, but mine was very, very scary. All I could see was a very dark figure, so dark it seemed to suck all the light and heat out of the air, leaving only a big black hole in the shape of a person. Did any of the rest of you see that?”
The room cracked with the spontaneous noise of fifteen children all talking at once and all shouting to be heard.
Lizzy stood up and quietly looked around the room. Her eyes met each child and the noise settled, finally ending in a quiet so rare a mouse stuck its nose out to see if the people were gone.
“One at a time starting on the front row,” Lizzy said, pointing to the first child.
“Miss Lizzy, I didn’t dream about any black hole… but I did dream. I dreamed about a big white dog that kept rolling in the grass, and I also saw Mr. Hank hollering at it.”
Lizzy smiled and shook her head, amazed. She had not yet told that part of the story to the children, but it seemed like some of them had read ahead.
She turned to the next child. “Sorry, Miss Lizzy, I didn’t dream anything that I remember.”
Lizzy then stopped going down the line and said, “If you dreamed last night any kind of dream, raise your hand.” Six children raised their hands. She had already interviewed one and wasn’t surprised that her three troublemakers all had their hands raised.
“Okay, Ryan, what did you dream?”
The lanky boy stood up. He was dressed like a miniature version of his father, who was a rodeo rider. “Well, ma’am, I dreamt I was wrestling with a big old baearr…” (pronounced baaarrre) “We were a tussling and I was a pummlin’ him, and then he started laughing and held me down and gave me a razzberry. Said his name was Brady, didn’t look like no baear I ever seen. Was a good feller; anyway, we made friends and he said that he’d see me again.”
Lizzy, who had been standing, sat down hard. Her face flushed as a wave of shock rolled across it. She was not as overwhelmed as she had been but was definitely startled. The hot flash turned cold and chills ran down her arms. She forced herself to continue. “Maggie, what did you dream?”
Maggie, who had apparently been trying to collect her memories from the night before, began slowly. “Miss Lizzy, I don’t remember everything I dreamed, but I do remember some parts of it. Some of it was scary but the best part of it was kinda… well, he was handsome…”
Lizzy smiled, puzzled. “Go on, Maggie.”
“Well, there was a dark hole in the room for sure, and it moved, and every time it changed places in the room everything it touched kinda wilted… like my grandma’s lettuce does when she steams it.”
Easton started pretending to gag; he did not like wilted lettuce… or anything else green. He immediately straightened up when two well-timed elbows struck either side of him.
Maggie scowled at Easton but did not pause. “But wherever the darkness went a man followed, and wherever he stood or touched the place the dark thingamajigger had touched, well… the wilted stuff perked right up. And then when the big black hole started to move toward the lady, the handsome man got in its way and smacked it, one right across the face… pow! And then it left the room.”
Lizzy was becoming more and more aware the dreams were a puzzle with each child adding a part. She didn’t know how to put them together yet, but she had more children to interview. “Thank you, Maggie.” The little warrior princess, mighty tackler of rowdy boys, sighed, relieved that her interview was over.
Lizzy was about to turn to the next child when she hesitated. Maggie looked like she was trying to hide something. “Maggie, was that all you dreamed?”
“Huh?” the little girl squeaked, caught.
Lizzy repeated herself in that calm adult tone mothers use to intimidate children into confessions. “Maggie, what else did you dream?”
Maggie was outmatched. A five-year-old has not learned the dubious ways of their adult counterparts and does not have the decades of experience to draw from when being evasive.
“Ahh…”
“Maggie, don’t dodge; this is important. What are you not telling me?”
Maggie started to crumble under the weight of Lizzy’s interrogation and would have capitulated if Gracie had not intervened.
“I know, Miss Lizzy, she told me a while ago,” Gracie said in the tattletale tone some children destined to be attorneys, used car salesmen, or IRS agents perfect. Before Lizzy could say, I want Maggie to tell me, Gracie blurted out, “She dreamed that the shiny man was Easton and that he kissed her.”
Easton, who had been sipping on a box of chocolate milk, snorted and sucked the liquid up his nose. Hacking, coughing, sneezing, and howling followed, and some of that was from Easton.
Lizzy had lost them again. As she grabbed Easton around the collar and hauled him into the bathroom to clean him up, her enhanced hearing picked up Maggie’s whisper to Grace. “Oh, thank you, Grace, thank you so much… she just can’t know who’s protecting her.”
Lizzy had been surprised too many times in the last hour to let the girls’ whisper slow her down. Her mind was racing as she grabbed the men’s restroom door handle and shoved Easton through the door. She followed after him as any mother would have. Then, illumination struck her. Easton knows what the girls know, they tried to stop him from blurting out something, and that started this whole commotion. Hmm, she thought, this little boy has a story to tell and I wonder… is waterboarding illegal in Texas? She laughed at herself. If only. And then her inner guilt meter rose and she had to admit she would never allow anyone to hurt that little boy; he hurt himself enough and didn’t need anyone’s help. But she could squeeze the little heathen till he croaked like a toad frog. Lizzy bent over, grabbed the paper towels, wet them, and began to clean the chocolate milk off his shirt. “Easton?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“What’s going on?”
Lizzy could see the little boy start to squirm. And started to apply the pressure… “I know you and the girls didn’t start your fight because you liked one of them and not the other.”
Easton gulped uncomfortably and looked up at Lizzy, then immediately down at the floor.
“Did you, Easton?”
“Did I what, Miss Lizzy?” he replied with angelic innocence. Whether heavenly or fallen angel yet to be determined.
“You didn’t start the fight with the girls about girlfriends, did you?”
“I didn’t start the fight, Miss Lizzy; Maggie did.”
“Easton, you know what I mean… Now tell me what were you going to say? Why do the girls not want you to say it, and what do you think you are protecting me from?”
Easton’s eyes began to water and he started to sniffle. Lizzy felt sorry for the booger head but wasn’t going to back off at a few tears.
“Easton…? What are you protecting me from?” she asked softly.
Easton responded in a voice so soft that even with her enhanced hearing Lizzy almost missed it.
“Your mama.”
Chapter Nineteen
Belle Rodum’s cohorts the rübezahl and the draugr stood silently beside her as the rain, the rübezahl’s contribution, poured over her, soaking her. The cold water ran down her face and into her clothes, causing her to shiver miserably. The cold combined with the draugr’s gift of seeding hearts with horrific visions created an atmosphere of depression she hated. Belle respected the rübezahl; he was a creature of darkness but he was a natural being. The draugr, on the other hand, was despicable. It was filthy and invaded the mind as well as heaping destruction on the body. Belle would not turn her back on it. She had heard rumors of its kind being dream casters—horrible dreams, visions of anguish—and as she stood next to it, she felt the aura of fear breaking against her like a dark surf. It was an effort to keep anxiety at bay. The thing radiated horror.
Belle was not a sweet person; she was a killer. But she was not a soul robber. She was a witch with an ancient bloodline. They killed for powe
r and even on occasion for pleasure, but not like this creature.
The only thing that kept her on task was the burning thought of crushing in utter humiliation the dragon rider who had dared to interfere. She had prepared for the fight by setting ambushes—hidden spikes covered with spells and curses, razor-sharp with jagged barbs intended to impale and hold their victims. She made several of the lesser evils that served her labor through the early part of the night, ringing the mansion that lay directly before her with the hidden barbs. She didn’t usually make such thorough preparations, but she didn’t usually fight a dragon rider either.
****
Harry didn’t like the rain that pelted his armor; it didn’t feel right. According to Raleigh, it didn’t smell right either. It had a sickly, putrid odor. Raleigh was sniffing and sneezed a few times. Harry was concerned about that because any smelly thing that Raleigh didn’t want to wallow in was probably toxic.
Brady reached over and touched Harry, passing on his thoughts. “This rain is cursed. It is full of spells and reeks of witchcraft. We are expected.”
Harry frowned. “Of course we are. We’re up against a witch with prescient insight. Shame John Timothy failed to mention that in our mission brief… he said that Belle Rodum would probably have help this time and that is why you guys are here. He failed to mention that the skies were against us and it would rain sewage and that the grounds would be booby-trapped.”
Harry’s thoughts were interrupted by Raleigh’s whines. “Bad, bad men here… Raleigh want to go home. Bad mans… hurt Raleigh.”
Drawing close to the dog, Harry knelt down and wrapped his arms around the huge, wet beast and whispered, “Raleigh strong. Raleigh fight hard. Raleigh is best dog in the whole world. And I will not let anything happen to you. Harry cannot beat mean men by himself. Harry must save a bunch of people from mean mans. Raleigh protect Harry, Harry protect Raleigh… fight hard, save many people. Then Raleigh get to wallow in big doo-doo mound and eat lots of bones.”
The Harry Ferguson Chronicles Box Set Page 34