“Wow, thank you, Sarah. It’s delicious. I’ve always loved this kind of cheese. Has to be one of my favorites.”
As annoyed as I was at him for plastering me with his cursed pheromones earlier in the day, my heart grew two sizes and my eyes turned into stars as I watched him obligingly eating the meager dinner that my humble maternal grandmother had thrown together, just for us.
“Dred, eat a piece of cheese,” my grams said, shoving the plate of packaged sliced cheese at me.
Though I was questioning even bringing Hank to my grandmother’s home, the feel of all these things swaddled me up like a newborn baby and I didn’t give a single crap.
I was home. And it felt like a million bucks. My grams was as familiar to me as my own mother, and she was doting on me when she wasn’t doting on Hank—batting her eyelashes and smiling sweetly at him—and that annoyed me, but the feeling was quickly snuffed out by the sense of absolute comfort surrounding me. Despite the dinner that was comprised of possibly the most peasant food known to humans, it was heaven, for me. And, I told myself, at least the cheese wasn’t a piece of toast with Cheese Whiz spread on it.
Although, if my grandmother got that out and made it for me, I’d eat it and love it and feel like I was five. And be as happy as a spoiled kid.
“So, Sarah,” Hank said, suddenly, before my grams could tell me once more to eat another piece of cheese and regale me with stories of how Welsh we were (which she said with a -ch sound, not a -sh sound). “What do you know of the dragon sanctuary?”
I kicked Hank under the table and shook my head when he jumped and looked at me.
“Oh, the sanctuary,” grams said, her eyes two beady black pupils lost in a wealth of wrinkles. “That place. Never been there, myself, but I know a few folks who claim to have seen it.”
“But you never have?” Hank asked.
“No, no. Not myself. But I’m old enough to know that just because I haven’t seen something, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.”
Hank nodded, his brown eyes looking from my grandma to me. Grams had forced him out of his bomber jacket and shades the minute he walked in, and he had no choice but to obey in the face of such maternal strength.
I had to give him that—at least he knew the proper response to such a show of force from an older woman. He recognized her strength and status and assumed the proper role. I had to give credit where credit was due.
“But you know there’s a dragon sanctuary nearby, and that doesn’t alarm you?” He asked.
“Not at all. No, no. Dragons aren’t a threat to me or to Spring City,” she said. “They’re just animals. I suppose, if a mountain lion is a danger to the folks around here, then a dragon might be, but no one goes around wonderin’ if a mountain lion is going to pop out and get ‘em.”
“See,” I said to Hank, giving him a look that I hoped communicated that it was time for him to shut up and stop scaring my grandmother—who lived alone—with stories about dangerous supernatural creatures. I did wonder why my grandmother didn’t act more surprised or suspicious about the suggestion Hank was making that there were dragons around.
She probably thought he was nuts. She’d likely shoot me an apologetic look soon, as though I was being forced into the sad position of having to hang around with a special case like Hank—who believed in nutty ideas like that there were dragons living nearby.
“Dred wanted us to stay in a hotel tonight, but then she said her grandmother would be upset if she knew we’d stayed in a hotel instead of in her home,” Hank said. “And you know what, I’m glad we’re here.”
Grams chuckled. “Well, Dreddie does know that she’s not to waste money on a motel around here. I’m glad you’re here too.”
We finished and I helped my grandma clean up while I sent Hank outside so I could have some alone time with my grandma. He was a distraction for her.
“How’s things, grams?” I asked, taking a wet, clean plate from her and drying it in the dish towel.
She filled me in on the neighborhood gossip and warned me that if they didn’t get some rain soon, there was going to be a drought and they’d start rationing the irrigation water, which would screw up everything for the pastures and farms.
I nodded, listening, enjoying the simplicity of the problems that the good residents of Spring City enjoyed.
Although, if you asked them, they weren’t simple problems. They were life-or-death problems.
But to me, who dealt with questions such as “How do I contain this demon without simply killing it?” or “How do I clean vampire blood and brains out of this shirt?”, issues about whose turn it was to use the irrigation water seemed practical and simple.
She asked me how my mom was and I told her that mom was fine, and living just like mom did, buying media and whatnot. Whatever it meant to buy media.
“Now don’t let me forget to send that pile of Scrooge comics home with you,” she said, pointing a gnarled, arthritic finger at me. “I’ll finish this up. Get out there and have a walk with that boy of yours.”
I hesitated. “Grandma. He’s not my boy. He’s my partner. We’re cops, sort of. OK?”
She chuckled. “Oh, I know.”
But she didn’t. That was my grandma for you—wise and full of herself to the point of believing she knew more than you.
That, or she didn’t care and just said “I know” to shut people up, which was very possible, considering how little she did seem to care about the concerns of the rest the world. If I was dating Hank, she’d be thrilled. If I wasn’t dating Hank, she’d be thrilled! Whatever I wanted was great, because life was long and you thought you’d probably not make it to eighty, and then look, there you were, eighty!
Outside, Hank had taken the best seat in the house—the rope swing that hung from the massive cottonwood that crowned my grandmother’s backyard. The tree was a beast of its own—the ground was warped and mutilated with massive tusk-like roots that pushed through the soil.
Hank swung lazily, staring out at the Big Horseshoe mountain. He didn’t hear me approach. Seeing him like that, carelessly swinging back and forth, his cheek leaning against the rough yellow rope, I felt like I saw myself. I’d spent hours in the same position, lost in thought, feeling small beneath the distant mountain range and the giant trees that threw the proportions of my grandma’s yard and house off.
“Hey,” I said. “You found my favorite part of the place.”
“Tough. I’m not moving. I was here first. You’ll have to fight me for it, Dred.”
“Now you sound like my cousins.”
“Oh yeah? Are they awesome?”
“No, they’re shits. And I mean that in the most loving way possible.”
“Sounds like a beautiful relationship.”
I laughed. “I do love them. This place is magical. It’s my safe-place.” I said, hearing a wistful tone come into my voice. “Nothing bad ever touched me here. So many times, I escaped here with my mom and sisters when shit was getting scary and real with my dad.”
Hank put his feet down and stood up. He looked at me. “What happened with your dad?”
I suddenly realized what I had been about to divulge. “Just the usual. Are you done with the swing? Did you try that ladder?” I jerked my thumb over my shoulder, pointing at the death-trap, rickety old ladder leaning against the enormous bottom branch of the cottonwood.
“No. And I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Oh, I know. That’s why you should do it.”
He got off the swing and held it out by the wooden seat to me. “Go for it.”
“Alright, I will,” I said, feeling the fire of the challenge rise up in me. “Think I’m afraid of that?”
“You should be. But I don’t think you know what’s good for you, Dred.”
I climbed up the ladder. It was fine. I’d been up that ladder hundreds of times. It was the most well-made ladder in the world. Probably constructed by actual Mormon pioneers. They knew how to build goo
d crap.
I reached the top of the ladder safe and sound and climbed out on the branch—a branch that was as large as most trees—preparing to jump off onto the swing.
At that moment, something hissed at me from further up the branch, startling me.
What the hell?
I fell, barely hanging onto the rope, swinging down until my legs dragged in the dirt.
21
Before I could recover and scramble to my feet, vines suddenly grew from the cottonwood’s large, misshapen root beneath me and wrapped around me, coiling around my legs, pulling me down and tightening against my body, compressing me like a boa constrictor.
“What’s happening? Hank!” I shouted, fighting against their grasp.
“I don’t know for sure, but I think this tree has it in for you!” He was at my side instantly, trying to help me up, prying the groping tentacles off my limbs.
Since I was on my stomach, I couldn’t see what was happening above me, but I heard the hissing of whatever creature had startled me as it chanted and spoke to the tree with its magic.
“That was a big fall, Dred. You ok?” Hank asked, his fingers grasping at the vines like he could stop them.
“Don’t worry about me, get that thing, whatever it is. A brownie or a sprite. A dryad, maybe?”
I turned my head, trying to crane my neck around to see the creature on the branch. But it was no use—the grip of the vines already controlled me. It only made them stronger when I bucked against them. Still, I tried.
In the back of my mind, there was this small voice that observed dispassionately, coldly, and it was ticked that the place I had always felt safest had turned against me. It was an absolute rip off.
“Dammit Dred. My stylus is in my jacket, in your grandma’s house,” he said. “I’m as useless right now as a normal.”
“Me too—since I can’t move my hands, my own magic might not work. Let me try.” Honestly it was difficult to focus with the vines creeping over my body like serpents, then compressing me like a powerful snake. They had turned me on my side now, that’s how strong they were. I tried to find stillness and draw a breath even as the growing tentacles crept up my chest.
“Athena’s crown, I swear I saw this in a movie once. I’m going to try to concentrate, but shit shit shit, I’m panicking.” The vines crossed my chest, pressing hard around my ribs. “It’s like a corset.”
“No!” Hank said, almost grabbing the vines inching across my chest. He held back. “Not to be a dick, Dred, but if this thing hurts your breasts, I’m going to raise hell. They’re a work of art.”
I couldn’t help but laugh.
“You’re telling me you look at my breasts? You pervert.”
“Totally normal. Not perverted. They’re right there—impossible to not notice. Anyway, I’m a man, Dred. What can I say?”
I didn’t care, really. I’d sort through that later—it pecked at my peace, though, because if he was noticing me, that could be even more dangerous for us as a partnership. Suddenly his throwing himself across my lap didn’t seem like such an innocent mistake. “Shhh. I’m trying to cast a spell.”
The thing on the branch just kept chanting. The vines holding me down suddenly began to fatten, like a . . . well, like—as awful as it sounds—a dick becoming hard.
“There’s something incredibly sexual about this,” Hank said, his eyes widening as he saw it too.
He was still trying to pry the vines off my torso. I wasn’t sure he was making any progress, but the fact that he was trying made me feel less like it was hopeless.
“Thanks for noticing. This is real great, Hank. One more perverted comment from you and I’ll sic this also-perverted sprite on you.”
“It’s not turning me on, at all. In fact it’s making me pretty uncomfortable, making me want to destroy the evil bastard up there on that branch.” He turned to glower up at the branch. I still couldn’t see the creature, since I wasn’t one hundred percent in control of my body.
My breath was beginning to falter and I couldn’t fight against the crushing forces of the vines. It went without saying that I felt very robbed of my childhood, that the safe place I’d always loved and retreated to for peace was trying to kill me.
“I can’t do much here, Dred. I can’t—I can’t be this helpless as you’re being hurt. I’m sorry. I’ve got to leave you for a moment to get my stylus,” Hank said.
I moaned in response, because that was all I could do. I tried to draw a soft breath, to pull in calm and see the spell I wanted to cast, but all I could see was fire and, though it was trying to kill me, the last thing I wanted to do was light the cottonwood tree on fire.
The light was fading as my lungs struggled to draw in air. A vine was crawling up my neck.
This would be it. My neck had no way to resist the vines—not much skeleton there to fight constriction. It would squeeze, strangle me, and I’d suffocate. Maybe I’d get lucky and it would break my neck fast, and the suffering would end quickly.
What a way to go—encased by vines from some malevolent, little nature sprite. I didn’t even know why it had it in for me.
I felt the tears begin as moisture seeped from the corners of my eyes. Was it irony to be murdered by my favorite cottonwood in the purest location I’d ever known?
Suddenly the vines stopped growing. My attention focused. Was I delusional? Or had they truly ceased in their eerie growth? I felt along my body, searching for that horrible creeping sense across my skin. It was gone.
And then, just as subtly, they began to retreat. My breath came back, light filled my vision, and I began coughing as I sucked air hungrily back into my lungs.
Soon they’d retreated entirely and I was able to get onto my hands and knees, coughing, as I turned to see what had happened.
I wasn’t prepared for what I saw.
22
My grandma stood near her backdoor, under the tiny awning, one hand extended, a delicate fury on her face, and her gnarled fingers pointing up at the tree. The other hand was reaching up, in a clawed shape, almost like she was casting two spells at once.
Wait.
Grams. Casting two spells at once?
The sprite that had attacked me was motionless, caught in a stasis spell.
“Dreddie! You alright?” my grandma called.
I’d only witnessed such fury in her eyes once before, when someone had given her shit for crying over her son who’d died in a freak accident when he was twenty-seven. Oh, that’s right, it was my own mother—impatiently getting after my grams for crying once again that her son had died.
Grams lashed out. Something that was pretty fair, if you thought about it.
“What—” I coughed “—the hell, Grams?”
“You OK?” she asked again.
“You’re a sorcerer?”
I didn’t even know what to say. Of course I wasn’t alright, I’d nearly been crushed to death by my favorite tree. Although, to be fair, the tree was under the nymph or dryad’s command, so it wasn’t fair to keep blaming the tree.
But it was such a betrayal!
“Let’s talk about that later, Dred. I need to decide if I should destroy this nymph now or let it live. We’ve been having a bit of a disagreement over the land.”
“You know this piece of crap?” I asked, flinging my hand toward the creature on the branch. It was frozen with its hands outstretched and its eyes wide, caught off guard by the magic containing it. “How long have you known it?”
“Oh, probably a while now. We don’t go for drives or have laughs together. We’ve been fighting over the land for forty years or so.” Grams finally lowered her hand and strolled over to me.
“Where’s Hank?” I dusted off, and ran my hands over my body, still haunted by the sensation of the vines molesting me.
That’s not a real fun sensation, being accosted by a plant.
As though he’d just been summoned, Hank came bounding off the concrete pad of the front porch on the othe
r side of the yard and ran past the kitchen window, his stylus in his hand, his black hair wild and his face grim.
“Forty years. Grams? And I question your use of ‘little disagreement.’ It almost just killed me.”
“But you’re OK now. What doesn’t kill us, makes us stronger.” She cocked her head to one side, and put a hand on her hip. “I’m so sorry, Dred.”
“Stronger my ass, Grams. This malevolent fairy of yours crossed a line. Who else has it hurt to get to you?” I felt like my world was upside down. My whole life I hadn’t known that my own grandma had the gift. I didn’t like the frustration welling up in me. I didn’t like the fact that I wanted to chew out my own grandmother. I’d never talked to her like I was doing at the moment, but I’d also never been accosted by a dryad with an ax-to-grind. “Please stop changing the subject. You have power. That explains a few things.”
“Oh Dred, are you telling me—do you have the gift?” Grams asked.
I let out a long sigh. The world was spinning. I’d always just thought I didn’t fit in, thought maybe I didn’t even belong to my family, proper. That maybe my mom had had a tryst at some point, and I was the mailman’s daughter. I’d made up story after story when I’d realized how little I matched my siblings. As a youth it had been just the usual things like not wanting to follow in the footsteps of my older sisters and carving my own rebellious path.
When I started seeing supernaturals, it took a turn. Maybe one day an amulet would show up and with it, a strange mentor type figure who would tell me that I’d been adopted, and my heritage was that I was supposed to reign over a kingdom or save all humanity. That kind of thing.
Not that I had delusions of greatness. It was more about making sense of how little I matched the family I’d been born into. Often, I’d felt like an outcast.
Hank slowed in his approach, opting to finish the final yards in a slow saunter as he pieced together what was going on. He gathered himself, adjusted his shirt, and ran his fingers through his hair. He stopped beside me.
“My grandma got it,” I said, just to fill him in. “And yes, Grams, I have ‘the gift.’” I made air quotes with my fingers.
Flames to Free (Dred Dixon Chronicles Book 1) Page 12