by Jill Nojack
She touched down gracefully, something she had had to practice because it didn't do for a queen to always be falling in the mud when landing, and walked over to greet Mr. Ross. "You're here to make sure the dragons really won't go for the gnomes, aren't you?"
"Well, I did promise them they'd be safe here. And the last thing this city needs is the gnomes returning to its gardens. There'd be a riot. Plus, the gnomes have insisted on sending a few delegates to check it out for themselves. I'm supposed to go get them when the dragons arrive."
"Go get them then, because I want to get these guys hidden before the local news crews figure out where they landed."
Ron took off in the direction of the small, ramshackle cabin where a gigantic statue of a gnome looked out across a large mess of a garden. The gnome city filled several acres now. Ron had had to purchase additional land throughout Ohio for similar areas as the business grew.
When he'd first prepared the garden, he'd supplied small huts for the gnomes, but they preferred to live underground and there was no changing them. They did use some of the buildings for meeting spots, but they tended to meet on the roof rather than inside. He'd quickly learned gnomes could generally be counted on to do exactly what you didn't want them to do.
He returned with three elder gnomes in tow just as the dragons touched down and folded their broad wings. It was a threatening sight, even though all of them but the black one were no larger than a horse and the smallest was pony-sized. Still, to a gnome, they would be gigantic. The gnomes stood stiff and silent, a surprisingly ungnomelike behavior.
Lizbet walked to Avenall and quietly explained why the gnomes were there. Avenall then turned and walked to each of his dragons in turn, laying his head against the side of theirs affectionately, murmuring to them as he did.
After he'd approached each of the dragons in this way, he turned and said in gnomish, "Please, brave gnomes, come forward. You have nothing to fear from these dragons."
Tanji asked, "Me, too?"
"Not the time, Tanj." Lizbet threw a cautioning glance in her direction.
"Yes, your queen-ness. You sure know how to rain all the heck over a girl's parade when you're being royal."
Lizbet rolled her eyes. Tanji smiled and rolled hers back. Then, Lizbet returned her attention to the gnomes. She'd believed Avenall when he told her that dragons would not harm anything that flew or walked on two legs unless they were threatened, but she couldn't help worrying. There were times she'd wanted to smoke a gnome or two herself just on principal. She wasn't as bothered by them as Eamon, but she definitely got why he disliked them so much. They were like bargain basement knock-offs of The Three Stooges except with more bodily noises.
Everyone, including Avenall, seemed to be holding his or her breath as the gnomes moved closer to the dragons. When the largest dragon, the one called Fein, lowered its head to sniff the gnome that stood in front of it, it was all she could do not to run forward, grab the little guy, and run away. But she held back. She had earlier realized she trusted Avenall with her own life. She would have to trust him with the lives of others as well.
When Fein merely continued sniffing, then shoved the gnome in a playful way with his snout, the gnomes loosened up and came forward in a clump. Before anyone had time to react, they'd clambered onto the back of the big dragon and were rooting through Avenall's saddle bags, laughing and having a great time.
Ron gave a wry smile. "Did not see that coming. But that's my usual reaction to gnomes."
"And probably also not the best decision I've ever seen them make," said Lizbet, as she noted the concern on Avenall's face.
"No problem. They've seen what they came to see. And now they can go home." Ron pulled a baggie full of sugar out of his pocket and sprinkled some on the ground. At first, only one gnome raised his head, nostrils twitching. Then the other two caught the scent and followed suit. They forgot about the contents of the saddle bags and slid off the dragon's back in a rush. They chased after the trail of sugar Ron left as he hustled back toward the gnome garden with the whooping, farting, fighting confusion of gnomes following, each bent on scooping up the sugar before his huddle-mate got to it.
"I owe him thanks," said Avenall.
Tanji blurted out, "You can thank me, and I'll let him know. He's my male parental unit."
"Avenall, this is my best friend, Tanji."
"I'm pleased to meet you Tanji. Please thank your malprental unit for me. You are both very kind."
"Sure. And there's no such thing as malprental, although now that you've said it, I'm thinking there should be. I like a fresh new word to play with, among other things fresh and new..."
To stop Tanji from working herself into full flirt mode complete with eyelash batting, Lizbet interrupted. "Yep. Tanji likes words. Especially ones nobody else ever uses or understands. Avenall, we need to get the dragons out of sight. Tanji can confuse you some other time."
"Yes. We must. As you say."
Tanji went to find her father as Lizbet opened the barn door. Avenall walked behind the dragons, silently herding them toward their new home.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
So Glad I Found You
There's nothing like a worksheet full of calculus problems to bring a girl back to reality. Lizbet chewed on the end of her pencil, then wrote her answer to the final question and set her pencil down to wait for the rest of the class to finish.
It was difficult to keep her unoccupied mind from the map she carried in her backpack. She reached under her desk, trying to get to it without drawing the teacher's attention. She slowly unzipped the front pocket and eased the map out, then brought it up to the surface of the desk where she flattened it and began to study it intently for the hundredth time over the past week. She turned it one way and then the other, trying to puzzle out Mona's location from the lines here and the squiggles there, but none of it said to her, "Here I am, come get me." By the time she saw the teacher heading for her, it was too late to hide it.
"Moore, what are you up to now?"
"Nothing, sir. I finished my worksheet and got bored, that's all. See?" She pushed the completed worksheet toward him. He reached for the cloth map instead.
"Give me the whatever-it-is. You know the rules. The only thing you do during the last ten minutes of class is get started on your homework. If you finish it, you just sit tight."
"Yes, sir. Sorry." Lizbet watched him move away with the precious cloth square, briefly looking curiously at it, then folding it and placing it on an empty space on his desk as he sat down to keep a watchful eye over the class again.
When the bell rang and she went to fetch the map, he handed it to her, asking, "What in the world can be so fascinating about a badly drawn picture of a pair of shoes in the woods?"
Lizbet couldn't help it. She reached out impulsively and hugged him. It made so much sense, and yet she hadn't seen it in the twist of lines the dryad had drawn. "Thank you, thank you, thank you!"
***
Lizbet zipped down the stairs and grabbed Tanji by the hand as she hit the landing next to her, tugging hard to make her friend speed up. "We gotta go. I know where Mona is. The answer was just stupid easy, which is why I couldn't get it, obviously."
The girls ran to the car. When they got there, Lizbet stopped to text James before she turned to Tanji and said, "Can you pick James up from in back of your shop? Your dad is dropping him off at the storage room there in about ten minutes. Then, meet me where we found Mona's shoes. I'm too hyped to sit still in the car. I'm gonna fly."
Lizbet closed her eyes, and the wings she'd inherited with her magic burst from her shoulder blades. Just as quickly, she looked toward the sky and followed her gaze upwards, then continued moving toward the stand of woods on the south side of town.
Tanji watched her go, then maneuvered her car out of the school parking lot. She loved her car, but it would be way cooler to fly.
***
Above the trees, a black, glinting shape swooped back
and forth. As Lizbet got closer, she saw that it was Avenall, again riding the largest dragon. She flew to them and called, "I know where she is!"
"Euphemia? I've been reaching..." Avenall stopped, afraid he would give too much away about his newly discovered powers, powers that needed to stay hidden. "I've been trying to see through the eyes of the forest creatures, but I've seen nothing to help me locate her."
"I know where she is now, so you can follow me in." Lizbet hung there for a moment, getting her bearings as she tried to interpret what she saw below her. When she figured it out, she zipped off toward a small clearing visible about a fourth of a mile into the small stand of woods.
***
"Hey guys, I got her," Lizbet called when she heard James and Tanji coming down the trail, breathing hard and moving fast. They entered the small clearing moments later and walked to where she stood near a tree that looked to them like every other tree. She leaned her head against the smooth bark and patted it soothingly like she would pat an upset friend's back during a hug.
James almost did a double-take when he saw Avenall standing next to her. Lizbet was right—there was no way this wasn't Arthur all fleshy again. It was like seeing someone come back from the dead. With an effort, he pulled his attention back to the reason he'd dropped everything and come running. "So, this is Mona?" he asked.
"Yep, it's her, I know it." Lizbet stopped cradling the tree and pointed to a scar in the bark. "Do you see this? It's perfectly round, and there's a different type of wood in there, filling the hole in. That sure looks like the shaft of an arrow to me. How about you?"
James leaned in closer for a better look. "Yeah, it does."
He turned toward the Arthur-elf again, feeling a little spooky déjà vu, when Avenall added, "And it has the bark of the willow, but the leaves of the oak. This tree could not exist in nature. It could only be a dryad."
"Okay, so we've found her—what do we do now?" Tanji blurted out. "I wouldn't have the first idea how to go about healing a tree, and I'm the best healer of all of us. Or if she changed back, I don't think I could help her fast enough to keep her from bleeding to death. Not if that arrow is through her heart like Avenall said it is. What good is knowing where she is if I can't heal her?"
Lizbet warned her with her eyes. "Tanj, go somewhere else if you're gonna freak out. Really. I mean it. You're not helping right now, and I bet Mona can hear you."
"You're right. Sorry. I need to get myself together. I'm going back to the car." Before she did, she walked over to the tree and wrapped her arms around the trunk for a moment. "I'm sorry, Mona. But I promise, we're so going to find a way to get you out of this."
Lizbet took James out of hearing range to talk. She hoped Mona wasn't listening in through the plant life in the surrounding woods. Neither she nor James sounded very optimistic. But that didn't mean they weren't going to figure it out one way or the other.
Lizbet made a quick call which involved a lot of head-nodding and soothing words. When she was done, she filled him in.
"Mom wants to come out and be with Mona since we're going to need time to figure this out. We have to be able to spread all our books around us, so pow-wowing in the woods isn't the best idea. You can go back with Tanji to get started, and I'll wait for my mom to get here."
James shook his head. "No way are you staying out here alone with someone running around shooting arrows at people."
Lizbet made a gesture toward Avenall, where he leaned against Fein's side. "You see the broad-shouldered elf and the threateningly large dragon, right? I'm not alone."
James wasn't sure he trusted Arthur's shade as easily as Lizbet did, but the guy had traveled all the way across the ocean to save Mona. James decided he should stop being overprotective. "Yeah, yeah, you made your point. Avenall, you sticking around?"
"I'll stay as long as my queen has need of me. I have no knowledge to add to your search for healing."
"Yeah, okay. But Lizzie, meet us back there as soon as you can, right?"
"You bet. I'm just glad Mona's not going to be alone out here this evening."
James hurried back down the trail, tossing ideas around with Myrddin's memories as he walked.
***
Sheila arrived burdened down by a heavy camping backpack. She greeted her daughter and smiled cautiously at the elf and dragon who stood at the edge of the clearing, then asked her daughter for help.
The two of them set up the backpacking tent she'd strapped onto the pack and stowed her winter sleeping bag inside it. She'd also brought a small camp stove, a lantern, some snacks, a stack of books, and her laptop.
The mouth of the tent faced Mona's tree. They'd set it up only a few feet away. "Okay, that's a lot of stuff. So, you're planning on staying longer than a few hours?" Lizbet said when they had her mom's tent stabilized.
Sheila pulled a bottle of clear liquid from her pack, removed the bubble wrap she'd wrapped it in to cushion it, and held it up for her daughter to see. "Don't worry about me. You remember this, don't you?"
"Yep. Protection spell from James when he thought the gnomes might go after Bobby again. You put it on the doors and windows at night."
"Yes, that's what it is. But I didn't use much of it because the gnomes didn't even try to get up to anything after they helped when the fae Morgan possessed you. So, I'm going to use it to keep Mona and I safe tonight. That way, you can go home and not worry about us. I couldn't get in touch with your father, so you and Bobby are staying at the Ross's."
"Mom, you know whoever shot Mona could still be out here. Plus, there's no guarantee that potion will still be good." She realized she was acting like James had with her. That kind of thing probably wasn't going to fly with her mother, either.
"That's easy enough to test." Sheila flicked her hand to indicate her daughter should back up, then she walked slowly around the tree and her tent, pouring a small stream of the potion onto the cold ground to make a circle. It glowed a cool blue among the leaves. When she was done, she read a few words from the side of the bottle and the glow disappeared. After it did, she said, "Go ahead, see if you can get in without being invited."
Lizbet tried to walk over the line of blue, but her foot stopped where the circle began. Then she tried to hit through it with a broken branch. Once again, the circle stopped it.
"Okay, so physical stuff can't get through," she said. "I'm going for the big guns now. I'm going to try something James taught me. Go stand by Mona. I want to see if this blows the tent over."
Lizbet stood back a few feet and rubbed her hands together for a moment, then separated them quickly, pushing her palms toward the barrier in one smooth movement. Within seconds, she lost her balance backwards, catching herself and dropping to a sitting position with a look of surprise. "Whoa! It blew my own spell back at me."
"Satisfied now, my careful daughter?"
"Yep. I'm good. Particularly since I'm leaving you with a dragon." Lizbet stood up, brushing leaves off the back of her jeans. She waved as she turned to leave. "Night, mom. Night, Mona. Night Avenall."
Sheila turned, and Avenall bowed his head to her in respect, then hunkered down next to the dragon with earphones in his ears, nodding his head to the beat of his music.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Figure It Out
Lizbet opened her eyes and looked at the clock. It was only 4:30, but she'd woken up every hour or so since going to bed, her mind busy with the problem of Mona. They hadn't made any progress earlier that night. She couldn't sleep, and she was tired of trying.
She sat up and slipped her legs over the side of the bed, feeling around for her slippers. She didn't want to wake Bobby as he slept soundly on a cot beside her in the Ross's guest room. The kid was seriously cute when he was sleeping. All those red curls framing his face made him look like an angel. Not that she would ever admit that to anyone.
She silently traveled down the hall to Tanji's room, hoping to sneak her book of spells away for study, but neither Tanji nor
the book were there.
She went downstairs and found Tanji sitting at the kitchen table. The ancient spell book was open before her, and Tanji ran her finger down one of the pages, mouthing the words of the dead language as she read.
"I'd stop speaking what you're reading if I were you. You might accidentally perform the spell. Your dad won't put up with any more storms inside the house."
Tanji looked up, surprised. "Shhh. Keep it down, wouldja? There's a great sorceress at work here."
Lizbet slipped into the chair next to her and moved it in close so that she could read over her shoulder. "Spells for immobilizing people? That's a good idea. I mean, if it could freeze her up so that she wouldn't bleed, then there would be plenty of time to heal her, right?"
"Yeah, it makes sense, but it would only paralyze her and keep the essential processes working, so her heart would still beat and the blood would still flow. Which means no solution yet. I've been at it for hours, not including the ones before bedtime, and I'm beginning to feel defeated."
"Yeah, well, join the club. It was a complete accident how I even found out where Mona is. If Mr. Winslow hadn't caught me staring at the map trying to figure it out, she'd still be out there alone. I'm scared we won't have enough time. How long is a freaking fortnight, anyway?"
Tanji picked up her phone and typed the question into search. "Fourteen days, according to the masterminds of the interwebs. How long does that leave us to come up with a solution?"