Ancient, Strange, and Lovely

by Susan Fletcher

  Not so much the lovefest with those two.

  A sweet old couple in a rusted-out Airstream trailer were giving out free coffee and cookies. I ate a peanut butter one and took another for later. When I got back, I noticed that the diaper under the critter was damp. I folded it, threw it in a trash can, and replaced it. The critter yawned, gazed up at me. I had a feeling he might have to go. I set him on the grass to one side of the car, out of sight of the coffee people. Right away, he produced a hill of those small, round, hard stools. Like goat poop.

  Sasha came up beside us, stared down at the pile. “Is that normal?” she asked.

  I looked at her. “Normal?”

  “Point taken,” she said. “All right, then. Vamoose.”

  I didn’t mean to sleep. Sasha was driving, doing me a colossal favor, and it seemed like the least I could do was keep her company. But the rumbling of the car began to percolate into my bones, making them feel heavy—and then the heaviness seeped into the rest of me. I tried to fight it off, but my eyelids wanted to slam, and my brain kept gapping, and a couple of times I woke with a start, my chin resting on my chest.

  I was way down deep when I heard the scream.

  “Mitts! Get the mitts!”

  I whiffed a stench of burning—a thick, acrid, petrochemical smell. Light flared against the windshield.

  “Hurry!” Sasha said. “It’s on fire!”

  I twisted around. Flames, on the ceiling behind me. And smoke. Lots of smoke. I undid my seat belt. Where was the critter? I groped through the sack on the backseat for the mitt, got the other one out of the glove box. Started slapping at the fire, trying to smother it.

  The flames died down, all but a few sparks. I clapped them between the mitts. Killed them.

  Where was the critter?

  I reached for him in my mind. Behind me, somewhere. Asleep.

  “He was floating,” Sasha said. “Like in the shed. He’s a menace!”

  I felt around on the backseat floor and found him there, right behind me. I scooped him up, set him in my lap. He blinked at me sleepily, then tucked his nose under his front talons and curled up tight.

  Smoke hung in the air. It stank. I rolled down my window. On the ceiling, where the fire had been, strips of charred cloth hung down. Behind them, burnt foam rubber.

  Oh, jeez!

  “Sasha, I am so sorry,” I said.

  She shrugged. But I could tell she was upset.

  I copped another ken. It was getting stronger now, the kenning, with a more complicated vibe than Stella’s. This had a surface level plus a deeper, low-frequency thing happening underneath. The critter seemed peaceful, though. I couldn’t imagine he would flame right now.

  But who knew what he would do, really?

  “I’ll pay to fix it,” I said. “They’ve got to be able to fix stuff like that.”

  Sasha shrugged again. “Yeah, well. Forget it. You’re going to need all the funds you’ve got.”

  23

  MOTHER SHIP

  BELLINGHAM, WASHINGTON

  It was midnight by the time we got to Bellingham. We chipped in cash for a cheap motel room and registered with made-up names. It was a gloomy, claustrophobic space with two saggy beds, two fake-wood nightstands, a fake-wood dresser, an ancient TV, and a funny smell I couldn’t place.

  Funny in a not-good way.

  We didn’t have much to take in. Sasha had stopped at a discount mall in Centralia and picked up some T-shirts, several packages of underwear, a replacement hairbrush, a couple of toothbrushes, and some toothpaste. She’d crammed them into a duffel, which she’d also found at the mall. She bought me a coat, too, since I’d left mine in Eugene. Not to be ungrateful, but the new coat was ugly. Kind of a yellowy-orangey quilty thing with grommets and little zippered pockets all over. It was warm, though. I’d give it that.

  She’d picked up a litter box and some kitty litter somewhere too. But the coolest stuff she’d bought, she’d found in a sporting goods store. A fire extinguisher. A fireproof blanket. A fishing net with a retractable handle. And she’d replaced the SolarSox.

  We’d been talking on the way up. And now we had a Plan. Foolproof, not so much. But better than no plan at all.

  The door to the motel room opened straight onto the parking lot, so we smuggled the critter in without a hitch. I set him down on the carpet, which was thin and splotched with ancient stains—origin unknown. I wasn’t going to work up a massive load of guilt if he had an accident. Though he actually seemed to be catching on. The last few times I’d taken him to the grass at rest stops, he got right with the program, and the diapers were staying dry in my lap.

  Superb.

  Now the critter looked around. He sniffed at the carpet stains. Which were apparently pretty interesting. Didn’t want to think too much about that. He pranced on over to the dresser, like he had springs on the bottoms of his feet. He stretched up and sniffed in the direction of the bags of food Sasha had set on top. Egg McSomethings. Yum. His tongue flicked out. He couldn’t quite reach the bags.

  You’d think, being a dragon, he’d just fly on up. But the thought didn’t seem to occur to him. Come to think of it, I’d never actually seen him fly on purpose—only when he was asleep. And those flimsy little wings of his, sort of twitching around? They looked, like, decorative. Not quite functional. Like a fancy hood ornament.

  “Hey, Bryn. You ever see one of these?” Sasha was squatting in front of a rusty metal box near the head of one of the beds. I went to look. The critter started to follow but got distracted by his tail. He pounced at it, missed, then hissed at it, snorting out blue smoke.

  Sasha frowned at him. “Hey there, Mr. L. We’re in nonsmoking. Just so you know.”

  The writing on the box said MAGIC FINGERS. Sasha pushed two fifty-centers into the slot. The bed began to hum and vibrate. Even the floor was vibrating. I lifted the critter onto the bed, and he began to knead the bedspread with his talons. He began to thrum.

  “Beam me up,” Sasha said. “He thinks it’s the mother ship.”

  The three of us sat on the bed, snacking on the McThingies, vibrating together. Sasha had talked the guy at the fast food place into giving us some extra processed cheese, which the critter gobbled up. When he was done, he sighed, stretched his wings, then folded them like paper fans. He leaned against me, pillowing his head on my leg, and kenned me a contented little hum.

  “You’re definitely the fave,” Sasha grumbled.

  “You jealous?” I tickled under the critter’s chin.

  “It’s a lizard,” she said. “Why would I be jealous?”

  After the critter fell asleep, I wrapped him up in the fireproof blanket and put him in the shower next to the litter box. The tiles were mungy, and the grout had some kind of mold growing on it. One good thing: it looked fireproof, with the glass door and the tiles going all the way up across the ceiling.

  “Excellent location for the Tylenol test,” Sasha whispered.

  She had a theory. It had to do with sleep. She’d read somewhere that sleeping drugs disrupted REM patterns. So maybe, she hypothesized, if we drugged the critter, it might disrupt something, some sleeping pattern connected with fire.

  I wasn’t nuts about her theory. First off, it seemed farfetched. Secondly, how did we know Tylenol PM wasn’t poisonous to dragons? I mean, parsley is poisonous to birds. And even if it wasn’t poisonous, how would we know how much to give him? What if he got really sick? What if he OD’d and died?

  But the deed was done. We’d put a quarter of a caplet in a hunk of McMeat, and he’d gobbled it right up.

  “The Tylenol still makes me nervous,” I said.

  “Bryn. You’re going to be riding on the ferry with Mr. Lizard. You’re going to be on it for three whole days. What if he flames? What will you do?”

  No idea. Not a clue.

  I tried to sleep while Sasha dug through Mom’s boxes, which she had brought in from the trunk. She picked out books and notebooks, stacking them on a ni
ghtstand, skimming through. After a while, she said, “Bryn? You awake?”

  I sighed, sat up.

  “Look at this.” She held up a sketchbook with pictures of dragons, or flying lizards, whatever. The paper was yellow and the ink was brown. It looked ancient.

  Where did Mom get this stuff?

  “It reminds me of something,” I said.

  “Yeah, like Mr. L.”

  “No, something else. But I can’t think of it.”

  “Bryn?”

  Something different in Sasha’s voice.

  “Yeah?”

  “Do your parents, like, read at night?”

  “What do you mean, read?”

  “I mean read. Not just watch TV.”

  “Yeah.” We hardly ever watched TV.

  “Did they buy you lots of books when you were little?”

  I nodded. Remembering something Gandalf had said. She’s too smart for the rest of us. National Merit whatever. “Why?” I asked.

  She shrugged. “Mine think I read too much. ‘Too big for your britches. Miss Smarty-Pants.’”

  Wow. I didn’t know what to say.

  “Do you ever feel like you were switched at the hospital and wound up in the wrong family?”

  I shook my head. “Wrong planet, maybe. But the family fits.”

  Two hours later, I was wishing I had taken that Tylenol. Sasha was sound asleep, but I lay wide awake on the lumpy mattress, staring up at the rusty stains on the ceiling, thinking about our Plan.

  It would have to be the ferry. We’d figured out that much. In a car or a bus, I’d have to cross the border into Canada. There would be inspections. I’d need a passport. Which I didn’t have.

  With a plane, there’d still be way too many issues. No, the ferry seemed best, as far as Skagway. Tons of people going. I could get lost in the crowd. Plus, they had, like, pet accommodations. There’d been a ferry brochure in a rack where we registered, and that’s what it had said: pet accommodations.

  Sasha knew a guy who had moved to Skagway two years before. They texted sometimes. We figured he could maybe link us up with a bush pilot who could fly me to Anchorage. One who wouldn’t ask too many questions. She’d get hold of him somehow tomorrow. Ask him to meet me where the ferry docked in Skagway. She was pretty sure he would.

  I lay there listening to the night noises—the cars swishing by on the highway, a door slamming, a TV droning somewhere above. Trying not to think too much about the gaping suckholes in the plan.

  All at once, I dropped down into a hollow, aching place, and I couldn’t climb out again. I missed Stella, missed her there beside me, missed the comfort of our kenning conversations. It pierced me to think of her back there at Aunt Pen’s house. Waiting for me. Lonely. Lost.

  And Piper. How could I have left her without telling her a thing? Dropped off the face of the planet.

  I could call her now. I could use the motel phone. They’d never trace it back to me. Aunt Pen would have her hearing aid out. Maybe Piper would answer.

  I slipped out of bed, tiptoed past Sasha. I picked up the phone handset off the nightstand. Took it into the bathroom. Shut the door. Dialed Aunt Pen’s landline.

  Ring.

  Ring.

  Ring.

  I clicked off.

  What would I say to her, anyway?

  I’m alive. I’m okay.

  I could come home, but I’m not going to?

  I’m leaving you there, just to deal?

  No matter what I said, that’s what it would sound like. I wouldn’t blame her if that was what she thought. It would be true, but not what I really intended.

  Take care of Stella. Ken with her, if you can. Tell her I’ll come back to her. Soon. I will, Piper. I will come home.

  I swear to you, I will.

  24

  SPIFFY

  BELLINGHAM, WASHINGTON

  The next morning, when we were brushing our teeth, I caught Sasha looking at me funny in the mirror.

  “What?” I said.

  “Nothing.”

  “No, what?”

  Sasha spit, rinsed her toothbrush. The critter leaned against the backs of my legs. He’d made it through the night okay—no scorch marks on the shower. So maybe the Tylenol worked?

  “So what color would you call your eyes?” Sasha asked.

  “What?”

  “They’re not even hazel, right? They’re just full-out green.”

  I shifted uneasily. “What are you talking about?”

  “Well, I was reading last night.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “I’d actually read one of those books before. When I was in middle school, I think. It’s part of an old series about dragons. Dragons that float in their sleep. They flame when they want to come down.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “What I want to know is, how would the author know that? That dragons float?”

  I shrugged. “They’re all just guessing, right? Just making stuff up. And there’s a truckload of books out there about dragons. Somebody’s got to get it right.”

  Sasha shrugged, looked sidelong at me. “So, in this book, some people can talk to them telepathically. To dragons, and to birds.”

  Birds. I froze for a second, then reached for a plastic cup, filled it with water. Swished it around in my mouth.

  “This girl, like, summons birds—makes them come. Or sometimes sends them away to certain places. She can feel what they’re thinking.”

  I choked, spit out the water. “Really?” I said.

  “And this other book in there talks about the language of birds. It says that in mythology, when people understand the language of birds, it’s symbolic of sort of understanding and bonding with all of nature. If you can do that, you’re, like, an ecomensch.”

  “An ecomensch? Did it say that?”

  “Well, no. Not exactly. They didn’t have ‘eco’ way back in the old mythology times. At least, I don’t think so. But it’s like that John Muir quote? ‘When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.’ You’ve heard that, right?”

  I wiped my mouth with my hand. “No,” I said, “I haven’t.”

  “Yeah, well. In that novel? The one where dragons float? If people can do that thing with birds, they can do it with dragons too. They call them ‘dragon-sayers.’ And guess what color their eyes are? The people who can talk to birds—every single one.”

  I’d never read those books, but I’d known the answer for years.

  Turns out, there was a problem with the ferry.

  I sat on the bed with the critter in my lap while Sasha called about reservations. She started taking notes, but then she put the pencil down. “Twenty-one?” she said. “Honestly? Because—”

  She listened for a second, then, “That’s just faulty. Why not eighteen? Why not sixteen? Why not twelve?”

  Listened.

  “That is so flagrantly ageist,” she said. “It should be illegal. You should—”

  She pulled the phone away from her ear. Looked at it. Looked at me. Beeped off. “Twenty-one,” she said. “Someone in your party has to be at least twenty-one. You are so totally fragged.”

  We went back through the options. Car—no, we’d both need passports. Bus and train—no. I’d need a passport. Walking—same deal. A plane wouldn’t necessarily stop in Canada, so I wouldn’t need a passport. But commercial airplane security was brutal. Besides, if the police were looking for me, the airports would have my information. And I’d need a photo ID.

  “If we found the right private bush pilot, you might be okay,” Sasha said. “I hear those guys are sometimes pretty lax.”

  “How would we know the right one, though?”

  Sasha shrugged. “And the wrong one would report you.”

  The critter butted my hand. I scratched beneath his jaw.

  “Do you want to go home?” Sasha asked.

  The critter thrummed. The corners of his mouth turned
up in a kind of smile. He was warm. Warm-blooded, for sure.

  Did I want to go home?

  Yeah. I did. And if home were an option—my real home, with everybody in it—I might have gone.

  I sighed. “I’m not ready to give up. We might have to, eventually. But not yet.”

  “Okay, then,” Sasha said. “Maybe we’ll think of something.”

  It was the pet carrier that got us going again. If you thought of the critter as a pet—as opposed to a dangerous, probably illegal, and gravely endangered and/or mythological beast—there were certain things you were going to need. A carrier, for sure. A collar. A leash. So we called the front desk and got the address of the nearest pet store.

  I wanted to go, see what-all was there. But Sasha and the critter weren’t exactly simpatico, so I stayed at the motel and baby-sat.

  By now the drugs had worn off, and the critter was feeling frisky. He jumped off my lap and chased his tail for a while, then got a megaburst of energy and went pinballing around the room. I made like I was going to chase him; he zipped under the bed. I tiptoed into the bathroom and hid behind the door. Soon, I could hear him, walking, his little talons plucking at the carpet loops. He sent me a questioning ken. I kept my mind blank. Slowly, he neared the door.

  At the last second, I jumped out at him. “Boo!”

  He jumped straight up in the air, snorting smoke. Then he galloped to the foot of my bed, tunneled under the spread, and speed-burrowed all the way to the top. He poked out his head and looked back at me. He kenned: Fizzy. Buoyant.

  Laughing!

  “I return triumphant,” Sasha said, setting down a pet carrier and a bag full of stuff.

  The critter had settled down on the bed with his hairbrush. Sleepy again.

  “What’s in the bag?” I asked.

  She pulled out a collar. “For your medium-size dog,” she said. “Alternatively, a harness.” A harness appeared. Then came a leash. “Note the retractability feature.” She demonstrated. “And you’re going to love this.”