by Rebecca Rupp
“Look at all this stuff,” said Sarah Emily, awed.
“This is great,” said Zachary enthusiastically. “Look up there — I think that’s a sword. We’ll have to come back. Let’s go see what’s behind the other door. Maybe this place has two attics. It’s big enough.”
But the other door was locked. Zachary rattled the doorknob and shoved the wooden panels —“Maybe it’s just stuck,” said Sarah Emily hopefully — but the door refused to budge.
“It’s locked,” said Zachary finally. “We can’t get in.”
“Maybe the Joneses have the key,” suggested Sarah Emily. “We could ask.”
Zachary’s eyes suddenly opened wide. “Wait a minute,” he said. “Don’t move, S. E. I’ll be right back.” He turned and raced down the stairs. In less than a minute, he was back, clutching something in his hand. He grinned triumphantly at Sarah Emily as he opened his fingers. There in his outstretched hand lay Aunt Mehitabel’s little iron key, with its curiously curlicued handle and attached paper tag. “We have a key,” he said.
Sarah Emily’s eyes widened too. “Do you suppose . . .,” she began.
Zachary nodded. “This must be the Tower Room.”
The key fit. It slid precisely into the lock and turned with a sharp click. Zachary tried the knob once more and this time the door, released, opened. In front of them was an iron ladder leading up to a trap door in the boards of the floor overhead.
“It is the Tower Room,” breathed Sarah Emily.
“Come on,” said Zachary. “I’ll go first. Let’s climb.”
Rung by rung, they mounted the iron ladder. Zachary pushed on the trap door —“It’s heavy,” he panted — and slowly thrust it open. It tilted back on its hinges and the children scrambled out onto the floor. They got to their feet and slowly looked around. “Wow!” Zachary said.
The children stood in a small octagonal room, completely circled by round windows that looked like portholes. They could see the entire island from the windows of the tower. To the north, at the far end of the island, a rocky hill rose up, topped with windblown trees.
“I’ll bet that’s Drake’s Hill,” Zachary said.
Sarah Emily turned away from the window.
“This was a kid’s room once,” she said. “A playroom. Look — the toys are still here.”
“Maybe it was Aunt Mehitabel’s,” Zachary said, “when she was little.”
On shelves along one wall, beneath the round windows, were rows of books and old-fashioned toys: a wooden doll with glossy painted hair, a jar of colored marbles, a folded checkerboard, a small blue china tea set with a chipped teapot. There was a collection of shells and chunks of coral. Two immense pink conch shells, too large for the shelves, were set on the floor below. There was a brass gong on a stand, with a little red wooden hammer hanging on a hook at its side. Sarah Emily gently unhooked the hammer and tapped the gong. It gave off a mellow bell-like chime.
“Look at this,” said Zachary from the other side of the room. “Wouldn’t you love to have a desk like this?” The desk closed with a wooden flap, fastened with a small metal hook. Opened, the flap folded down to form a flat writing surface. The back of the desk was lined with rows and rows of little cubbyholes —“They’re called pigeonholes,” Zachary said — filled with papers, packets, boxes, and jars. There was a neat row of bottles of colored inks.
“I didn’t know ink came in so many different colors,” said Sarah Emily. She began reading the labels on the little bottles one by one. “Lilac. Magenta. Emerald Green. Topaz. Aquamarine. Gold.”
Zachary was busily opening and closing the desk drawers.
“Nothing special here,” he said. “Just paper and envelopes and stuff. Let me try the big drawer at the bottom.”
The drawer smoothly slid open.
“It’s on little wheels,” Zachary said.
“What’s in it?” asked Sarah Emily.
The drawer was empty, except for a wooden box. Zachary lifted out the box and set it on the desktop. It was about the size of an ordinary shoebox, but much heavier, made out of dark polished wood. The top of the box was inlaid with a pattern of interlocking squares and rectangles, made of pieces of wood in different colors, from pale gold to chocolate brown to ebony. Sarah Emily ran her fingers slowly from piece to piece, tracing the patterns. “It’s beautiful,” she said. “How do you open it?”
The box had no visible handle or latch, and it was sealed tightly shut. The children poked, prodded, and wiggled the box, turned it sideways and upside down, and — Zachary was frustrated — even shook it. But nothing happened. There seemed to be no way of opening it. Then, as they stared at each other, undecided about what to do next, they heard a faint voice calling their names from far below.
“Zachary! Sarah Emily! Where are you? It’s time for breakfast!”
“That’s Mother,” said Sarah Emily. “We’d better go.”
Zachary set the box back in the bottom desk drawer. “We’ll figure it out,” he said. “We’ll come back later.”
“Zachary!” Mother called again. “Sarah Emily!”
Hastily the children climbed through the trap door and scrambled down the iron ladder. Zachary closed the door to the Tower Room, locked it, and carefully put the key back in his pocket.
“I’m starving,” said Sarah Emily. “It feels like we’ve been up there for hours.”
“We’re right here!”Zachary shouted.“We’re coming!”
They hurried down the stairs toward the tempting smell of frying bacon.
The children sat on the veranda steps eating homemade doughnuts sprinkled with powdered sugar, made just that morning by Mrs. Jones.
“This is the most wonderful place on earth,” said Sarah Emily blissfully, licking her fingers.
They sat for a few minutes in stuffed silence. Bumblebees buzzed happily in the red rosebushes along the garden fence, and on the shore the waves rolled in and out, crashing against the rocks. From somewhere inside the house came the sound of Mrs. Jones singing “Amazing Grace” slightly off-key. Sarah Emily shaded her eyes with her hand and peered northward. There, small in the distance, the rocky hill topped with windblown trees was silhouetted against the sky.
“Drake’s Hill,” she said.
Zachary nodded. “It is Drake’s Hill,” he said. “I asked Mr. Jones. He said that’s what Aunt Mehitabel always called it.”
“When do we go explore it?” Sarah Emily pursued. “Like Aunt Mehitabel said in her note.”
Zachary jumped to his feet. “Right now,” he said. “As soon as we can get ready. It’s too nice a day to stay inside. It’s probably farther to that hill than it looks, though. We should take some provisions.”
“Doughnuts,” said Sarah Emily immediately.
“Water,” said Zachary practically. “Sweaters, in case it gets cold. Band-Aids. A compass, maybe.”
“We’d better tell Hannah,” said Sarah Emily. “Maybe she’ll want to go too.”
Hannah was in her bedroom with the door closed.
“Hannah doesn’t like anything anymore,” Sarah Emily had said to Mother when Hannah first started closing her door. “All she likes is that old Rosalie. And she’s always saying that I’m stupid.”
“You’re not stupid,” Mother had said, “and Hannah still loves you. She’s just growing up and that’s harder than it looks. Be patient.”
Now Sarah Emily patiently tapped on Hannah’s door and — when Hannah shouted, “What is it?”— explained the plan to explore Drake’s Hill. Hannah decided that she might as well go along. “I guess there’s nothing better to do,” Hannah said ungraciously, strapping on her sandals.
They told Mother where they were going. “That’s fine, darlings,” Mother said. “Don’t be gone too long —and, Hannah, take care of your younger brother and sister. I count on you to make sure no one gets hurt or does anything foolish.”
Mrs. Jones told them that it was about an hour’s walk to the hill. “There used to be a pat
h there, but Mr. Jones and I don’t go up that way these days; my knees aren’t up to it,” Mrs. Jones said. “You’ll need a snack to eat along the way.” Within the hour, the three children were ready to set out, carrying a picnic lunch — sandwiches, apples, raisin cookies, and a bottle of lemonade — in Zachary’s backpack. The pack also held a compass, a flashlight, Zachary’s Swiss Army knife (with six knife blades, a screwdriver, a corkscrew, and a tiny toothpick), a notebook and pencil, and — Hannah worried about her complexion — a bottle of sunscreen.
The day grew hotter as the sun rose higher, though the sea wind was cool. Gulls cried high in the sky, and in the grass beneath their feet, green grasshoppers leaped with a whirring of wings. The children headed straight for the hill. As they walked, a faint, worn track became visible. “There is a path,” said Sarah Emily.
“Heading right where we want to go,” said Zachary. “Let’s follow it.”
They strode along, single file because the old path was so narrow. Sarah Emily hummed as she walked. Zachary paused every once in a while to check directions on his compass. Hannah dabbed sunscreen on her nose. Soon Zachary and Sarah Emily were hungry again —“I can’t believe you two, after eating all those doughnuts,” said Hannah — so they paused, just at the foot of the hill, for a sandwich (peanut butter and Mrs. Jones’s homemade strawberry jam), a cookie, and a drink of lemonade. Zachary’s freckles began to come out in the sun. Sarah Emily crumpled the last sandwich wrapper and tucked it back into Zachary’s pack. “Let’s go to the very top,” she said, “and look for China.”
“Wrong direction and wrong ocean,” said Hannah. “Try France.”
“Or Greenland,” said Zachary. “Last one to the top is a rotten egg!” He grabbed the pack and began to run, bounding up the little path, winding in and out around scattered boulders.
Hannah and Sarah Emily — shouting “Hey!” and “Wait for me!”— dashed after him.
The hill was steeper than it looked. Soon the children were breathless, and one after another they slowed, panting, to a walk. They were hot, and the backs of Sarah Emily’s legs began to ache. They staggered up the last few feet and collapsed, laughing, against the huge heap of piled rocks that formed the very peak of Drake’s Hill. Zachary raised his fist in triumph. “Excelsior!” he shouted.
The view from the hill was spectacular. From their height, they could trace the coast of the island and gaze far out to sea. “I feel like I’ve just climbed Mount Everest,” said Hannah.
“Let’s get right up on top of these rocks,” said Zachary. “Then we’ll be able to see everything in both directions.”
They scrambled up the side of the great heap of gray boulders, scrabbling for footholds as they climbed. The rocks were piled like giant jumbled steps. There were short heaving climbs — Sarah Emily, whose legs were short, needed to be boosted by Zachary and Hannah — then expanses of level flatness, then more steep climbs. At the last flat step, as they approached the peak, they came to a smooth, sheer wall, higher than Hannah’s head, with not so much as a crack or a crevice in sight. “Let’s go back,” said Sarah Emily. “It’s too high.”
But Zachary refused to give up.
“Maybe we can get up from the other side,” he said.
The step — more like a rocky shelf — curved around to the right, almost like a walkway circling the very top of the hill. The children cautiously edged their way around it. Sarah Emily, who hated heights, refused to look down. On the north side of the rock face, the shelf suddenly widened out into a broad platform, high above and overlooking the empty sea.
“Look at that!” gasped Sarah Emily.
“A cave!” said Zachary.
At the back of the stone platform, a wide gaping opening led back into darkness.
“Let’s go inside,” said Zachary eagerly, but Sarah Emily hung back.
“Let’s not,” she said. “There could be anything in there. Bears or something. And besides, it smells funny.”
Zachary and Hannah sniffed the air. Near the cave entrance, there was a strange odor: the smell of charcoal and smoke, with a hint of something tangier, spicy, alien.
“Probably just old campfires,” said Zachary. “Maybe Mr. and Mrs. Jones used to come up here and roast marshmallows.” He peered blindly into the darkness, then turned to fumble in his backpack. “Just a minute,” he said. “I brought my flashlight.”
He switched it on and cautiously stepped forward into the cave. Sarah Emily and Hannah crowded behind him. The three children, clinging to each other, edged slowly inward. As they moved into the cave, the sound of the sea abruptly shut off, as though someone had thrown a massive switch. The cave floor seemed to slant downward into the hill, and inside, it felt enormous; there was a sense of soaring subterranean spaces. Zachary’s flashlight barely penetrated the gloom. “It didn’t look this big from the outside,” Sarah Emily whispered. Groping, they stretched out their arms, left and right, to the sides.
“Can anybody feel a wall anywhere?” Zachary asked softly. Nobody could.
“This place is simply huge,” said Hannah. “The whole inside of the hill must be hollow.”
“It feels endless,” said Sarah Emily nervously.
The children shuffled forward, feeling gingerly with their feet. “There could be deep holes,” said Sarah Emily. The strange sharp smell — smoke? sulfur? — got stronger.
“You know what I wonder?” said Zachary. “Where did this hill get its name anyway? Was the sea captain who built the house named Drake? How come it’s called Drake’s Hill?”
There was a sudden shifting sound from the back of the cave, a heavy sandpapery scraping noise. Then there came a soft hiss in the darkness — the sound of a lighted blowtorch, thought Zachary — and a red-and-yellow flare of flame. The interior of the cave leaped into light. Before the children’s astonished eyes, a vast expanse of gold flashed and glittered. There before them lay a long reptilian body, curled comfortably on the cave floor, with a coiled golden tail, ending in a flat arrowhead-shaped point. Two eyes — sharp slits of jade green — glared at them out of the darkness.
“It is called Drake’s Hill, young man,” said a deep, raspy voice, “because drake is an ancient and honorable name for dragon. The hill is named after me.”
The children clutched each other — so hard, Hannah said later, that her arm turned black and blue — and gaped unbelievingly at the dragon.
“A . . . dragon?” said Zachary, in a high, unfamiliar voice. Hannah could feel her knees trembling. Sarah Emily burst into tears.
There was a frozen pause. The dragon extended its golden neck to its greatest length and peered intently at the three children, down the length of its golden nose. It seemed to be studying a trio of particularly unpromising scientific specimens.
Suddenly, Hannah squared her shoulders, put her arm around Sarah Emily, and stepped forward.
“You’re scaring my little sister,” she said.
The dragon drew back and its voice softened.
“My dear young lady,” it said apologetically, “I never dreamed. . . . Nothing could be further from my intentions. . . .”
The golden head swiveled toward Sarah Emily.
“Despite my intimidating form,” it said, “I am quite peaceful. Consistently kindhearted. Almost invariably harmless.”
“It’s all right,” said Hannah. She gave Sarah Emily a squeeze. “He’s gentle. He won’t hurt you.”
“Please,” said the dragon, “don’t cry. I can’t bear to hear children cry.”
Sarah Emily sniffled and rubbed the back of her hand across her eyes.
“In all the fairy tales,” she said in a tearful voice, “dragons are always burning down villages. And kidnapping princesses and eating them.”
The dragon gave a sarcastic snort.
“Ridiculous,” it said. “Princesses!” It repeated the word with loathing. “No self-respecting dragon . . . ,” it began. Then it seemed to change its mind. The golden head drooped sadly. �
�Clearly,” the dragon said in a mournful voice, “I have been forgotten. Dragons used to be quite well known in your world, respectfully looked up to. Admired, even.” There was a resigned pause. “Of course, that was a long time ago. And your kind is ephemeral. One cannot expect of humans the prodigious memory exhibited by dragonkind.”
“I don’t understand,” said Sarah Emily. And then, in a whisper to Hannah, “What is he talking about?”
“Ephemeral means short-lived,” Hannah whispered back. “He’s saying that human beings don’t last very long. And prodigious means big. He means that dragons remember a lot better than we do.”
The dragon nodded. “Precisely,” it said. It seemed to reflect for a moment. “What year is it?” it finally asked.
The children told it, and the dragon frowned in thought, then scratched something with its claw on the cave floor. “Borrow from the nine,” it muttered. “Or was it carry four?” It studied its work a moment, then frustratedly crossed the scratchings out. “One hundred and seventeen years,” it said impressively. “I have been asleep for one hundred and seventeen years.” There was a brief pause. Then the dragon said, in less exalted tones, “Or maybe seventy-one. I was never very good at mathematics.”
“Do dragons always sleep that long?” asked Zachary.
The dragon gave him another long look down its golden nose. “There is no always about dragons, my dear boy. I cannot speak for my brother and sister here; they have been awake in more recent times. But I like my rest.”
“Brother and sister?” asked Hannah.
The dragon nodded. “We,” it said proudly, “are a tridrake.”
The children looked puzzled. “What?” whispered Sarah Emily.
“A tridrake,” the dragon repeated. “A three-headed dragon.”
Only then did the children notice that the dragon had two other necks, branching off on either side of the first neck, and two other heads, nestled on either shoulder, both with eyes closed, sound asleep.