Choke

by Obert Skye

  “I had her locked up, and you let her go,” I said sadly. “You’re Whitey.”

  “Lies,” my father snapped.

  “Dad.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he insisted.

  I could tell by the way my father was talking that he was lying.

  “You tricked me into planting that stone.”

  “No, I did not.”

  “You knew I wouldn’t kill it when it was young,” I went on. “You don’t really want this to end. And you took the stone.”

  For a second my father was silent, and I thought he was going to tell me I was wrong. Instead he turned and began to frantically rant.

  “You don’t understand! These are dragons!” he pleaded. “They’re in our blood. I couldn’t find the stone on my own, and I had to see one again.”

  “So, you put on a bunch of white makeup, wear glasses and a robe, and talk like a different person?” I asked. “I should have figured it out myself. I guess I just never in my wildest dreams thought you would try to trick me. Kate recognized you.”

  My father’s body shook even harder.

  “It’s my fault,” I told him. “You kept yourself up here all those years to break the family cycle and I came along and messed things up. If you had never seen a dragon, you would have been fine. Well, not fine, but . . . well, you would have just been a misunderstood hermit.”

  “I must stop you,” he said.

  I looked around. “Stop me from what?”

  “You’re a Pillage,” he whispered. “And you’re going to destroy it all. The dragons are a protection and our gift.”

  “The dragons are our curse,” I reminded him. “Remember?”

  My father reached behind a chest of drawers and pulled out the same sword he had flashed me with in the hospital. I should have been frightened, but my mind was preoccupied with thinking about how he actually had visited me when I was in the hospital. I would have been touched, but he was already touched enough for the both of us.

  He held the sword halfway up and gazed at me. Even in the low light I could see the confusion and darkness in his eyes.

  “Dad,” I pleaded.

  He blinked and then dropped the sword. His body began to twitch as he let go of his emotions and started to sob. I stepped up and put my one good arm around him. I could feel Kate’s hand on my shoulder as she was doing her best to be supportive of me and my messed-up home life.

  “I told you I was sick,” my father said mournfully.

  “I thought you were talking about me,” I replied.

  “It’s not always about you,” Kate whispered. She needed to work on her support skills a little more.

  “Don’t worry,” I told my dad. “We’ll get you help.”

  As if on cue, Sheriff Pax climbed up into the dome. There was another officer and a woman with him.

  I was so glad he had taken my call seriously.

  Illustration from page 79 of The Grim Knot

  CHAPTER 28

  Flash

  The sun felt magnificent on my arms and neck. It was a clear day and the tiny bit of wind felt like a cool reminder that I was both alive and outdoors. From where I was sitting I could see forever, or at least all of the Hagen Valley and the mountains that surrounded it. I was sitting on top of the dome hammering the last pieces of roof for the repair. Wyatt and Kate were both helping me out.

  “After this, Scott wants us to start on the garage repairs,” I said.

  “Us?” Kate asked.

  I looked at her and smiled. She was so pretty. She was wearing jeans and a green T-shirt. Her dark red hair and blue eyes drove me crazy.

  “Would you two get a roof,” Wyatt said, trying to be funny.

  We both just stared at him.

  “What?” he asked. “That was pretty good. I mean we’re on a roof.”

  We laughed at him and I continued pounding nails.

  Kate picked up another piece of the copper roofing and as she moved it, light flashed off it, blinding me for a moment.

  I could see images in the flash of light.

  I could see my father. He was checked into the hospital in Kingsplot and was being taken care of by well-trained people like Nurse Agatha. I had visited him every day and he was making progress. He had filled me in on how he had tried to find the stone himself, and, when he couldn’t, a part of him began taking on the personality of Whitey. He claimed to not even remember letting the dragon out of the cage or any of our conversations. He had moved to the cavern through the hidden trap door in the dome and through a tunnel that ran all the way over and up to the back cavern. He was quick to say he would be all the way better soon, but part of me knew he would never be himself completely until there was no stone left.

  In that flash I also saw the stone.

  I had found it in a trunk in the dome where my father kept his possessions. It wasn’t a very good hiding place, but it was the best he could do in his state of mind. I took it out and placed it somewhere much better, hoping I wouldn’t have to see it for a long time, but knowing sooner or later I would. I was, after all, a Pillage.

  The reason Millie, Wane, and Scott had been missing was because they had taken Wane to the emergency room. While Lizzy had been tearing apart the dome roof they had all gotten scraped up and Wane had received a concussion from a falling board. None of them said a thing about dragons. We had all been through enough, and there didn’t seem to be any wisdom in making things worse. Thomas had been missing because he had actually gone out into the forest looking for me and Kate.

  Kate moved another piece of roof, and a second flash brought me out of my thoughts. I could clearly see every nail and plank we still needed to work on to completely repair the dome. It reminded me of my family and all the work that was still needed to repair my family and my father. For some reason the work didn’t scare me.

  “You’re not hammering,” Wyatt complained.

  Millie came out from beneath the dome and onto the

  seventh-floor terrace. She had a tray full of food and drinks.

  “Are you three hungry?” she hollered up. “I’ve got roasted steak and cheese sandwiches, pints of raspberry lemonade, and chocolate cheesecake salad.”

  “That’s the kind of salad I like,” Wyatt joked.

  I missed Lizzy. I missed the feeling of strength she gave me. But Lizzy had taught me something. In fact, I sort of felt like her, but in reverse—she had started out kind and beautiful and grown into an ugly evil creature. Me? I was trying to pull off just the opposite. Even bigger than that was the lesson I had learned from Professor Squall. Apparently there were some things I needed to learn from grown-ups.

  Kate smiled at me and handed me a sandwich.

  We ate near-perfect food on a near-perfect dome during a near-perfect day. Yes, I worried about my dad, and, yes, I still had a ton of makeup homework to do, but for the moment, my life was pretty close to perfect—quixotic even.