by Bryan Fields
“We’ll worry about that later,” I told her. “For now, I think we should get you upstairs and into bed. Tomorrow will take care of itself.”
Miranda hugged Rose and kissed her on the cheek. “Thank you, Rose. Thank you for saving my planet, and I’m sorry for what happened to you. I can’t do anything to fix it, but I know someone who belongs to a support group for women who are in the same situation. I mean, they’re all Human, but it might help. Let me know and I’ll put the two of you in touch.”
Rose nodded. “I’ll think about it and let you know. And…you’re welcome.” She hugged Miranda back and managed a smile.
We bid good night to everyone and I walked them out while Rose made her way upstairs. I took a few minutes to stow the food and get the dirty clothes into the laundry room. Without the acceptance, I didn’t know what Rose was feeling, but I had a good idea. I was rummaging through the freezer to find the Chocolate Therapy ice cream when the doorbell rang. I figured it was a case of lost keys or last-minute bathroom needs, but I was wrong.
The woman on the porch was wearing a white linen dress that somehow managed to look more like an evening gown than a nightie. She had Rose’s pixie features, only sharper. Her eyes were darker, more intense, and her hair was every color of the rainbow, starting with red over her ears and progressing through the spectrum to a single strip of dark purple running down the middle of her hair.
“You must be David,” she said. “I am Arwydd. Where is my daughter?”
I stepped aside. “She’s upstairs, resting. She’s taking all of this pretty hard.”
“Of course she is,” Arwydd said. “No one has suffered this fate in living memory, possibly ever. There are no records of anyone ever having to kill a Caretaker.”
I led the way upstairs. “So, if this is unknown territory, there may be hope.”
She didn’t answer.
When we entered the bedroom, Rose was curled under the covers, facing away from the door. “I’m going to need to go to a lake tomorrow night. I want to wash the blood off. I’d rather bask in a lava pool, but there aren’t many of those around here.”
“Not a problem, dear. We’ll pick a good one and I’ll teleport us there.” Arwydd sat down on the edge of the bed, stroking Rose’s hair.
Rose rolled over and threw herself into her mother’s arms. “What am I going to do?” she sobbed. “I can’t go home. No one will bond with me. I’ll be all but shunned. I didn’t want to kill him, but there was no other choice, and now I’ll be paying for it forever.”
“Oh, I don’t know about all that,” Arwydd said. “I think you’re underestimating the significance of what you’ve done. You saved our world as well. The Caretakers’ Collective agrees that what you did was necessary and has approved your actions. The Council of Ancients wants you to come home to be honored for your sacrifice. Your nieces want to visit as soon as possible, and they’re all very proud of you.” She hooked her finger under Rose’s chin and tilted her head up until their eyes met. “You can always come home. That’s why they call it home. It’s the place you go where they have to take you in, no matter what. After all, ‘It’s love that makes a home, not walls’.”
Rose snuffled. “That’s good to know. All I could think of was being a childless outcast. I didn’t think anyone would understand why—.” She stopped in mid-sentence and sat up, eyes wide. “You said the Council wants to see me?”
“Yes, but that’s a little ways off. You have several appointments with the Crystalshaper’s Guild first. It will take them a year or so to finish your statue.” Arwydd smiled and pulled Rose close. “You, my daughter, are to be enshrined in the Hall of Undying Names. The Council has already issued the decree.”
Rose stared and shook her head. “Please tell me you’re kidding. I don’t want that. I didn’t do anything to deserve that. Tell them I decline.”
Arwydd patted her on the shoulder. “I know it’s too soon. The time dilation is merciless, and the truth is the statue will be ready long before you are. When the time comes, you’ll need to put on a brave face for a few hours. Once the official duties are out of the way, you’ll be free to go back to recovering at your own pace.”
Rose sighed. “As the Council bids, then. But first, I want you to do something for me. I want you to recreate the acceptance. I want to have David back.” Her voice dropped and she added, “I need him back. Can you help us?”
Of course I can.” Arwydd held her hand out to me. “David, you must consent to this as well. There will be no time limit; the acceptance will not fade or vanish. You are under no obligation to agree, but once done, it is done. Bearing these facts in mind, and of your own free will, do you accept Rose once more?”
I took Rose’s hand. “With all my heart.”
And just like that, we were reunited. I was also right about her wanting the ice cream. I kissed Rose’s fingers. “Thank you. It sucked having my head feel empty.”
Arwydd said, “Your bodies were still resonating in harmony. That makes repairing the acceptance much easier.”
Rose hung on to my hand as she stretched out under the covers. “Mother, could you do something for me? Could you read Tranquil Heart, Tranquil Paw to me? In English? I want David to hear it too.”
“Of course, my gem.” Arwydd pulled a heavy, leather-bound book out of the dimensional closet Dragons seem to carry around with them. She gestured for me to sit down as well and began reading.
“Dawn brought light and warmth to the Forest of Whispering Jade. The smell of orange-honey rolls blossomed out of Karira’s chimney, filling the forest with the scent of a brand new day…”
Rose fell asleep on page three and we left her sprawled in the bed. I closed the door to the bedroom and we went downstairs. I showed Arwydd to the exercise room and let her look around. “I’m sorry, but we don’t have a guest bedroom. I have a really comfortable airbed I can inflate and some extra pillows, if that sounds workable.”
“Thank you for the offer, but I made arrangements already.” She reached into Fibber McDragon’s Closet and pulled out a familiar-looking length of fabric. This one was satin and only ten feet or so long, but, just as Harmony had done with hers, Arwydd hung the cloth in the air and pulled one side of it back. Inside, I saw a vast cave illuminated by blue-white crystals set in the walls. The center of the cave was dominated by an immense depression in the floor, rimmed with smooth tiles of white marble. The inside of the bowl appeared to be polished obsidian (or possibly onyx), filled near to the brim with futon-sized embroidered pillows.
“Portable lair?” I asked.
“In a manner of speaking,” Arwydd said. “It’s an interplanar backdoor to my bedroom. All the comforts of home without ever having to leave. Rose and I can go fishing or hunting for highland deer when we need to.”
“Why doesn’t Rose use one of these? It would be a lot easier on the dining budget. I mean, I don’t mind. It’s not a problem. I was just wondering.”
“She can’t afford the materials is takes to construct the gateway. When she can, I’ll build her one.” Arwydd caught my look and shook her head. “I won’t charge her for labor, of course. She is family, after all.”
“Oh, well, that’s reasonable,” I said. I think I was successful at hiding the sarcasm. I showed her to the downstairs bathroom and went over how to run the television. I bid her good night and went back upstairs to Rose.
Chapter Ten
“It’s Love That Makes a Home”
I called in sick the next day, because while walking to the bathroom, I couldn’t bring my legs together. I looked like I was doing the Gangnam Style horse dance. Two painkillers and a hot shower later, I got some sweatpants on and went downstairs.
There was a note on the dining room table, letting me know Rose and her mother had gone back to their world for Rose’s first appointment with the folks carving her statue. Add time for some deep sea fishing for dinner and they should be back by noon. That was still four days, from Rose’s perspect
ive. Hopefully a few days back home would help.
Noon came and went. I fixed a sandwich, put on the television, and blissed out on my favorite British motoring show for a few hours. I had just promised myself I’d never try to drive across Botswana when I felt Rose return. She felt a bit lighter and happier and a great deal more relaxed than she had been.
“I brought you something,” she said. She handed me a wooden box bearing little resemblance to the ones we’d been sent to find. “Mother had it made for my one hundredth birthday.”
I opened the box and found a statue of Rose in her real form, carved out of a solid piece of deep purple amethyst. She had one claw raised, holding a book and peering over the top of it, obviously annoyed at being disturbed. “This is beautiful. Is it Dwarven work as well?”
“Yes.” Rose moved the box and cleared a space on the side table. “We took it to the crystalshapers and got them to agree to do my statue in that pose. I didn’t want it to show me as some kind of heroic figure. I wanted it to me the real me.”
“It looks perfect. If you don’t mind, I’ll put it up in my office.” I set the statue aside and took her hand. “How do you feel?”
“A little better. It still hurts, and it will for a while. My nieces were very outspoken about wanting me to stay over here, with you. They say you’re a good influence on me.” She crossed her arms, uncrossed them, and finally took my hand again. “I’ve been thinking about what Miranda said, about talking to someone. I think I’d like to do that.”
I gave her hand a squeeze. “I think you should. Support groups help a lot of people. My mother has been going to one for women with cancer for a year or so, and she says the group has done wonders for her.”
“I just don’t want to go alone. What if I forget to pretend I’m Human?”
I shrugged. “They might think you’re a little odd. Ask Miranda to go with you for a few meetings. I’ll be happy to go with you if you want me there, assuming the other women there don’t mind having a guy sitting in the corner.”
Rose gave me a smile. “I’ll ask. I’ll tell them what a kind, supportive, and loving male you are.”
“I’m also housebroken. You should mention that too.” I was chuckling when I said that, so it really wasn’t as snarky as it sounds.
As it turns out, Rose did say ‘housebroken’ when telling the support group about me. It got a good laugh, but they still asked that I not attend. Fair enough; the group was to help Rose, not me.
Arwydd left the gateway between our exercise room and her lair active, as Rose was needed on the other side every three or four days to consult on her statue. With a day passing over there for every hour that passed here, a year of detailed, exacting effort went by in two weeks of Earth time.
Rose was far from ready for the Council’s ceremony, but she kept her head high and her eyes dry through the whole thing. Humans have never been welcome in the Dragon’s capital city, Growl-Growl-Hiss-Growl-Snap Your Teeth Together, but Rose insisted on having Ember, Jake, Miranda, and I accompany her.
GrGrHssGrSnap was built in a lava and basalt caldera ringed by seven major volcanos, each well over twenty thousand feet tall, and spanning a total area larger than Yellowstone. The entire caldera exhibited every kind of geothermal activity you could think of, from open lava pools to limestone terraces, mud pots, and boiling mineral springs. In and among all this, the Dragons had built a city, by controlling and directing the flow of lava into the creation of artificial cave complexes. Over time, the complexes were added on to, built up, linked together, roofed over, and so on. So much so that the original floor of the caldera was between seven and ten thousand feet under the current, plateau-like surface. The Dragons lived in lairs buried within mile-high cliffs, many of which were topped with grasslands. Lava-stone pipes running down to the magma chamber miles below kept carefully preserved geothermal features active, even though they were essentially sitting on top of massive apartment buildings.
The Council of Ancients was one of the few spots in the city where you could still see the original floor of the caldera. Picture the Coliseum in Rome, but scaled up to seat Dragons, and without the arena floor. Instead, a good two miles of air surrounded by more seating, all the way down to the very Senatorial-looking meeting chamber of the Council of the Ancients. It really did look a great deal like the floor of the House of Representatives in Washington, but with couches the size of a city bus.
The Hall of Undying Names is next to the Council chamber, and was the only place in the city where flying was not permitted. From the outside, it resembled the Air Force Academy chapel, being very white with rows of spires running the length of it. Inside, illuminating crystals filled the cavernous space with light while simultaneously ensuring that no one had room to attempt a takeoff. Everyone walked, and the statues of the honored individuals were scaled to tower over and humble Dragon-sized spectators.
I think Jake summed it up well. “I feel like an extra in a Japanese monster movie.”
Rose’s statue was no exception. The ceremony preceding the unveiling seemed to go on forever, with dignitary after dignitary giving speeches—in Draconic, of course—thanking her for her sacrifice. While they were speaking, a row of Dragons in polished gold armor stood at attention, singing what I’m told was Rose’s entire family lineage. Draconic singing can best be compared to a concert of bagpipe drones (no chanter, just the drones), occasionally interrupted by a solo from a lighthouse foghorn.
At long last, the pomp and circumstance ended and the swirling white fog surrounding the statue dispersed. Rose’s statue was a perfect replica of the one sitting in my office, down to the annoyed glare as she peered over the top of her book, looking down at us. It was indeed quite different from the other statues, which were all very proud and heroic. Rose’s statue was met with a resounding intake of breath, followed by silence.
Then, we heard heavy, slow thumps coming from scattered locations in the chamber. I couldn’t figure out what it was until I saw some of the Ancients slapping their tails on the floor. Draconic applause, I realized. More Dragons joined in, shaking the floor and making us poor Humans cover our ears.
Rose stepped up to give her speech. It was short, sweet, and met with resounding applause. She’d spent two days working on it, and it went something like this:
“Thank you for this honor. It was most unexpected, and I must say, undeserved. The only memorial I would ask of you is that you love your children, encourage them in following their dreams, and treat them as the treasures they are. Do this, and my sacrifice is well justified. Thank you.”
Thankfully, there were no receptions or cocktail parties to attend. We joined Rose’s family for a private dinner in a meadow surrounding a deep blue hot spring. The other Humans and I were eating fire-grilled red deer tenderloin when Ember said, “You know, if we had some spears or lances, we could spit some deer chunks on them and introduce the Dragons to fondue.”
“What kind of cheese goes with gnome?” Jake asked.
I chuckled. “Swiss, of course. What else would you have in Zurich?” It took a moment for the pun to register, whereupon I was promptly pelted with pinecones. It was worth it.
The ceremony surrounding Rose’s statue seemed to finally allay her fears about being rejected by her people, but it didn’t do much to help her heal. She started keeping a journal as part of her support group activities, and judging from the amount of time she spent writing, it must have been helping as well.
Arwydd moved her dimensional portal into the laundry room and hid it behind the door. Rose started going over to go hunting for dinner with her mother every other day. She had fun hunting, got a good meal, and received much-needed support from her family.
As helpful as her family was, however, no one had any idea how to respond to her condition. All too often, she would encounter a well-meaning relative who insisted on speaking to her as though she were a broken doll. Others went on about her heroism in facing such an awful burden. She learned to
smile and carry on, at least until she was alone.
A month after we returned from our grand adventure, our neighbor Mary called and asked Rose an interesting question. “Could you watch my kids for me tomorrow? I got called in for jury duty. It’s only three; most of the parents were able to make arrangements. It’ll be Martin, you know his parents, right, and the twins, Kelly and Kylie. They’re easy to entertain since they’ll watch anything with a princess in it. Oh, please say you’ll do it? I’ll beg if you want.”
I felt Rose’s stomach knot up for a moment, but she nodded. “No need for begging. I’ll be glad to help out. Bring them over any time.” She hung up and sighed.
“Are you going to be all right?” I asked.
She shrugged. “I think so. I wanted to say ‘No’. Even being around my nieces hurts. But, she’s our friend, and I can’t turn her down. I do like Martin, and two little girls who like princesses can’t be too bad. At least I know a lot of stories can tell them.”
“As long as the princesses in your stories don’t wind up being eaten, you should be fine.”
We already knew Martin’s parents, Charles and Vicki, and Mary made sure to introduce Rose to Bob and Susan, Kelly and Kylie’s folks. We’d met briefly when Rose was running for our HOA board, but this time they were paying a bit more attention. The fact that Charles and Vicki trusted us helped a bit.
The twins announced that the day should begin with a tea party, complete with sandwiches and cakes. Rose agreed, provided the girls helped with the cooking and cleanup. It hadn’t occurred to Rose that tea parties were usually pretend, so she set about helping the girls make orange water-scented shortbread and finger sandwiches.
Martin watched from the sidelines and spent his time drawing dragons. His ‘Dragon Angels’ book had just been picked up by an agent in New York and they were working on finding an illustrator. Martin was spending his free time sketching details he remembered from his time in Rose’s world, and that left little time for tea parties.