“You look extremely beautiful, if not particularly robust,” he said.
“You look… What are you doing here?” she asked.
“As I said, I’ve come here for business.”
“You’re not here. This is just a dream. I passed out in the snow. I’ve hit my head and knocked myself senseless and now I’m dreaming about you.”
“Do you always dream about me?”
“If you’re a dream, you already know the answer to that.”
“I guess that proves I’m not.”
“You shouldn’t have come. You’re ruining everything.” She suddenly slapped him hard across the face. He just looked at her.
“I was always coming back,” he said.
“Not in time.” She grabbed his face and pulled him to her, smothering his mouth with her thick lips.
She kissed him deeply, and for a moment, he allowed himself to be kissed. Then he kissed her back. He was swallowed up in her kiss, in her smell, and in her taste for a several long moments. Her lips and her tongue and her breath were like molten happiness, and he felt a desire surging within him that no other woman had ever been able to ignite. Then he heard, through the thin walls of the building, people approaching, and with more regret than he could ever remember feeling, he pushed away and stood up, straightening the collar of his heavy coat. Mayor Korlann entered with the shapely form of a woman Staff vaguely remembered as the doctor who had come with the original settlers. The young office woman came in a second later carrying a metal cup filled with water. The doctor knelt down next to Iolanthe.
“Well, you seem to have everything in order,” said Staff, moving quickly to the door.
“Thank you, Mr. Staff,” said the mayor.
“I’m fine. I’m fine. Quit fussing over me,” Staff heard Iolanthe say, as he stepped out the door, and with suddenness he hadn’t noticed all day, felt the chilly air outside cut through his clothing and his skin and into his bones.
Making his way out of the confines of the militia base, Staff followed a section of the gravel road that seemed particularly familiar, though the buildings around it didn’t. He stepped through the large opening in what they now called the emergency wall, and which now divided the town of Port Dechantagne. Once on the other side, he found himself in a cobblestone Town Square. At its center was a small snow covered area surrounded by a small ornamental wrought-iron fence, brushed with white. The flagpole in the middle of this area was flying the red, white, and blue Accord Banner of Greater Brechalon. There were about twenty buildings around the perimeter of the square, and on the far right corner was a bakery with dining services, so he walked briskly across the pavement and was seated at one of the three indoor tables just before the luncheon rush. A sandy haired girl of about fifteen, wearing a white apron over a simple ivory colored dress stepped up to him.
“Today we have egg salad sandwiches on pumpernickel rye or fancy herb bread,” she said, setting a pewter tankard of water on the table.
“What kind of eggs?” asked Staff suspiciously.
“Bird or dinosaur. Whatever the lizzies brought in this morning. My Da says one’s as good as another.”
“Is the egg salad any good? I ate dinosaur meat when I was here last, but I’ve never eaten a dinosaur egg before.”
“Everything Mrs. Finkler makes is really good. The fancy herb bread is just like they make in Mirsanna. Hey, I remember you. You were on the ship that brought us here—the Minotaur. You were a captain.”
“Lieutenant,” he corrected her. “Now I’m just a mister. Mister Staff.”
“Yeah, Staff, that’s right. You were always telling my brother to quit climbing on the guns.”
“What’s your name?”
“Gaylene Dokkins.”
“Yes, I remember your father. He worked the powered saw.”
“That’s right. My Da says he literally built this town but Ma says that’s not right, because he didn’t hammer any of the wood together himself, he just cut it, so she says he ‘illiterately’ built this town.”
Staff laughed. “I take it that both your mother and father are doing well?”
“They’re right as rain, except for those two fingers that my Da cut off. The whole family is doing better than we ever did in Brech, fingers notwithstanding. I guess it’s lucky my Da decided to come and that he convinced my Ma to come too. At first he wasn’t going to because he said that Lady D was a beastly hag, but I recon he likes her well enough now.”
“Lady D?”
“That’s what we used to call her. Now we just call her the government. I guess that’s good, because otherwise people might think we were talking about Mrs. D who is very nice to everyone, even if my Da says she can’t decide which side of the street to walk on.”
Staff nodded and smiled. He wasn’t sure he followed the part about the street and Mrs. D, undoubtedly Mrs. Dechantagne, but he understood the part about the beastly hag. He was surprised to find that it at the same time insulted and satisfied him.
“I’ll try the sandwich with the fancy herb bread.”
“Right-O,” said Miss Dokkins and she walked back to the kitchen to deliver the order.
By this time all of the tables both inside and outside of the little café were full. Staff supposed that the food must be very good for people to sit out in the cold and eat, and he was not mistaken. When the young waitress returned with his meal, he found the thickly sliced savory bread filled with egg salad, seasoned with onion and garlic and dill and paprika. There was a large pickle and a small bowl of steaming lentils on the side. Everything was delicious.
As he ate, Staff examined first the people sitting at the other tables and then those walking down the street. It was an interesting mix. Though everyone was dressed warmly in the cold weather, a number of different styles could easily be distinguished. Some were dressed in typical Brech fashion, which called for highly ornate dresses for the women and simple but sharp suits for the men. Others wore the very simple monochromatic clothing that one associated with Freedonia. There was even a decidedly Mirsannan influence, most notably in the extensive use of silk and velvet. Yet there was something unmistakably Birmisian about all of the people too.
Then there were the aborigines. Even if one were used to seeing lizardmen walking down the street, it still would have seemed strange to see them do so in the snow. Though Staff saw only about a dozen lizardmen as he was eating his lunch, while he saw at least a hundred human beings pass, it still seemed like they were thick. Most were just walking down the street, going from one place to another, in their slow plodding gate. One went into a storefront across the street, some kind of ladies’ shop, and exited carrying a package wrapped in brown paper with twine, with which it disappeared around the corner. Two others passed through the Town Square, from north to south, each carrying a large suitcase. Finally one lizardman wearing a ridiculous yellow skirt around its waist walked by hand in hand with a human child, bundled up in a heavy coat with a fur-edged hood.
“Would you happen to know where Pine Street is?” Staff asked the young waitress, when she returned to fill his water.
“Sure. That’s just right over there.” She nodded in the direction of the ladies’ shop on the far side of the Town Square. “Pine Street, over there, and Bay Street, over here, both go south out of the square. First Avenue goes east and west.”
“So where would I find number six Pine?”
“It’s just the next spot over, around the corner and across the street from Parnorsham’s Pfennig Store.”
Suddenly a great steel colored monster fell from the sky, landing with a loud whomp just outside of the window. It was a dragon, the size of a horse, with a twenty-foot wingspan, a long sinuous neck supporting a ferocious horned and whiskered head, and a long barbed tail that whipped the air. Staff jumped up, knocking his plate, and the spoon resting on it, off the table. Quite a few of the patrons in the café were startled too. But the teen-aged waitress stepped out the door to face the beast w
ith nothing more than a handful of dinnerware in one hand and a pitcher of water in the other. Staff felt more than saw the creature’s solidly steel colored eye catch his own as it idly flicked the air with a long forked tongue.
The young waitress stepped up close to the creature, far closer than Staff considered safe, and spoke to it. A moment later, she came back inside the bakery and walked back to the kitchen. The dragon made its way across the Town Square to the building that Miss Dokkins had identified as Parnorsham’s Pfennig store. It moved so gracefully that it seemed to just flow across the ground, like water in a river. Staff tried to think of the most graceful thing he had previously seen, a cat, a leaping deer, a ballet dancer, but none of them came close. The dragon stopped in front of the store, reached up with one hand, and tapped on the window. A man came out the door and began talking to the dragon.
Staff realized that he was still standing and looked around to see that the other patrons had all returned to their own seats. Most of those in the outside seats though were still watching the curious behavior of the steel-colored creature, just as he was. He sat down and bent to pick up his fallen plate and spoon. In the meantime, the man from the Pfennig store had returned with a package that he handed to the dragon. The beast turned and lithesomely walked back toward the bakery café. Staff had to stop himself from standing up again. It stopped right outside and again the man felt the strange metallic eyes on him.
Miss Dokkins stepped back out the door, this time carrying a small bundle wrapped in white cloth. For the first time, Staff realized that the dragon was carrying, in addition to its package from the Pfennig store, a lady’s purse. It was small and covered with beads and lace and was the type of accessory that a woman took to the theater or a dinner party, not one that she carried around during an average day. For most women it would not have been big enough, and in the hands of the dragon it looked ridiculously small. But the creature opened it and daintily extracted several banknotes, which it handed to the waitress, and in exchange, received the wrapped bundle.
A scant moment later the dragon took to the sky. It didn’t seem to tense up as it prepared to leap. For that matter, it didn’t seem to leap at all. One second it was there, and the next, it was gone, launched into the atmosphere like a shell fired from a battleship’s deck gun. Miss Dokkins stopped by several patrons in the outdoor seats, and then came inside to stand beside Staff.
“That’s seventy-five p,” she said.
“What did it want?” asked Staff, making no move to extract the money from his pocket.
“Hmm?”
“What did the dragon want?”
“Same as you, except no pickle” she said. “He always comes on egg salad day.”
Chapter Nine: Life among the Dechantagnes
Yuah Dechantagne reached the intersection of Bainbridge Clark Street and Seventh and One Half Avenue and looked up at the S.S. Arrow resting at the dock across the street. She stopped, unsure whether she should charge across the street and up the gangplank or wait where she was. Wiping the cold from her cheeks, she found them wet with tears.
“Good, you’re here,” said a voice beside her, and she turned to find Senta sitting on a crate only a few feet to her left.
“Senta, what a lovely dress.”
“Thanks. You too. He hasn’t come off the ship yet.”
“Come off…oh. Do you think I should...?”
“He’s coming down in a minute.”
“How do you know?”
“I just do.”
Yuah stood for several minutes looking at the ship. Was Senta right about his coming ashore soon? She wondered what would happen when he did. Then she saw him—tall, dressed in a black suit with a heavy frock coat and a black coachman hat. He carried a large suitcase in either hand as he descended the gangplank, at a slight angle to fit the luggage between the railings.
Before she even knew it, Yuah was moving toward him. He looked up and saw her for the first time, just as she launched herself the last few feet toward him. She held on around his shoulders, her feet completely off the ground, and buried her face in his neck. Tears began streaming again from her eyes. She felt his body shift as he dropped his luggage and put his arms around her tentatively.
“I didn’t know anyone would be here,” he said.
She tried to say something. She wasn’t sure what it was. It might have been “why didn’t you write to let me know you were coming”, or it might have been “I would always be here to meet you”, but all that came out of her mouth was a sob. He pulled her away by the shoulders and looked at her.
“It’s all right,” said Terrence. “I’m here. Everything’s fine.”
“I didn’t think you were coming back,” said Yuah.
“Where else would I go,” he said, which was not quite the reply she either expected or wanted, just then. “Where’s the baby?”
“He’s at home. I was going with Iolanthe to her office, and I heard… Your eyes are different.”
“Yes.”
“They’re still blue, but they’re different. They’re darker.”
“Yes. Sometimes it’s like looking at a stranger in the mirror. Is that Senta?”
“Oh, yes.”
Terrence took his wife’s hand and together they stepped across the street to where the girl sat, leaving his two suitcases where he had dropped them. Senta stood up to meet them, smoothing out her heavy blue velvet dress, covered in decorative tassels, braids, and gold buttons.
“Hello,” she said.
Terrence pulled the girl to him, hugging her with none of the hesitation that he had shown with his own wife. Yuah looked at his face and saw that his eyes were closed. He rested his chin on the top of the blue velvet hat, knocking it slightly askew. After a moment, he released Senta and stepped back to look at her.
“You look all grown up,” he said.
She beamed.
“Where’s your boyfriend?”
Senta pointed down the street to a group of lizardmen pulling luggage from a great pile and putting the individual pieces onto small carts. A pre-teen boy with brown hair was supervising them. He glanced in their direction and nodded his head, though he didn’t wave at them.
“He looks a little shifty,” said Terrence. “I’m not sure he’s good enough for you.”
“Oh, I know he’s not,” replied Senta. “But what are you going to do? Anyway, I’m off. I’ve got to see what’s up at home.”
She turned and walked down the street in the direction of the reptilian work crew. Terrence watched her for a moment with a peculiar look on his face.
“What is it?” asked Yuah.
“It’s just… it’s the first time I’ve seen her… with these eyes.”
“It’s the first time you’ve seen me, too.” She was starting to feel jealous.
“It’s a…” Terrence nodded and looked her in the eyes. He swallowed. “It’s the… It’s the lizardman city.”
Yuah felt herself melting.
“Oh, yes. She rescued you, didn’t she?”
“She was just a little girl,” his voice cracked.
Yuah pulled him to her and wrapped her arms around him protectively. She kissed him tenderly on the lips.
“Come on. Let’s get home. You need to see your son. More importantly, he needs to see you.”
“What about my suitcases?”
“We’ll have them delivered.”
Graham Dokkins promised to see to the luggage when they stopped to ask him. Then they walked back up the hill and south through the gate into the Town Square. Many people were out despite the cold weather. In addition to colonists about their daily business, there was the influx of travelers from the Arrow. Many of the longtime residents stopped and stared at the Dechantagnes, and for his part, Terrence stared right back at them.
“It’s so strange,” he said. “It looks so different. I mean I was right here when this square was dedicated, but it doesn’t look the way I pictured it.”
Yua
h took his hand and pulled him along. They went east down First Avenue, the street here still mostly covered with snow. The giant pine trees on either side created what seemed a dark and mysterious passage. Terrence stopped to look at a large house on the right side of the road. Thick pillars of smoke came out of two chimneys and the sounds of children’s laughter escaped the slightly opened windows.
“That’s a nice little place. Who lives there?”
“That’s the Bratihn’s.”
Terrence shifted uncomfortably. “How long has Lawrence been back?”
“About two months.”
A distant whistle sang out in a lonely “whoot-whoo”.
“The train?” marveled Terrence. “It’s here?”
“Not yet. I think Iolanthe said it was sixty miles away. They should have it here in a fortnight.”
“Imagine that. A train all the way from St. Ulixes.”
“Yes, your sister has spent almost all of your money subsidizing track construction.”
He laughed. “She knows what she’s doing.”
“Maybe,” she smiled and they continued, turning south once again on Maple Street.
After a few minute’s walk, they could see the massive façade of the Dechantagne house peaking through the trees. Yuah stopped and pointed to it.
“Does it look like you thought it would?”
“Yes, I suppose it does. It looks warm. Everything here looks better than I thought it would.”
“What did you expect it to look like?”
“I don’t know. Savage, I guess. Not civilized.” He looked down at her. “That’s a nice dress.”
“Thank you.”
“It looks expensive.”
“Oh, it is. We can hardly afford it.”
“That’s not what I meant. I’ve never seen you in an expensive dress or a fancy dress.
“You haven’t seen me at all since before our wedding day. The last time you saw me I was your servant, not your wife.”
The Drache Girl Page 13