by Tad Williams
Mr. Walkwell made a sour face, but turned them toward the diner. “Very well. But remember, many people here are curious about our farm and we must keep our secrets. Your great-uncle has shown great trust by bringing you here.”
“If he’s got so much trust,” Tyler muttered, “why isn’t he telling us any of the secrets?”
Mr. Walkwell only snorted.
Almost every store around here was called Standard something or other, so Lucinda was glad to see that the diner was called Rosie’s, although someone hadn’t been able to resist putting up a cutout wooden sign in the shape of a coffee cup, which stood on the roof next to a sign that said, OUR COFFEE IS WAY ABOVE STANDARD!
Half a dozen or more people were in the coffee shop, most of them men in farmer’s caps, eating lunch, talking, or watching the television in the corner-some kind of local weather report. There was a long counter, as she expected, but instead of booths the rest of the place had a scatter of tables and chairs. Nothing much on the walls but a calendar and some hand-drawn posters for events at the local school. They didn’t have a waitress, either-you just told your order to the grumpy-looking guy that everyone seemed to call Rosie, although Lucinda couldn’t tell if that was a joke or not. He sure didn’t look like a Rosie.
Tyler apparently decided he was much more than just milkshake hungry and ordered himself a cheeseburger and fries, but Lucinda still felt queasy. They found a table and Mr. Walkwell sat staring silently. Lucinda was happy just to hold a glass of ice water to her forehead, soaking in the wonderful cool.
The food came and Tyler went into Full Scarf Mode, shoveling everything in like it would vanish in two minutes if he didn’t. He was just filling his mouth with the last chunk of his burger when Lucinda realized that three black-haired, brown-eyed kids, more or less her and Tyler’s age, were standing beside the table watching them.
The boy, who looked like he enjoyed a good meal himself, asked Tyler, “Dude, you eat fast. Are you from Europe or something? Haven’t you ever had a cheeseburger before?”
Tyler looked up, surprised. “I was hungry.”
The older of the two girls, a young teenager like Lucinda, wore a shirt that said BOYS LIE. “Then do you come from a part of America where they don’t have napkins?” she asked, grinning. Tyler stared at her for a moment, then dabbed away the ketchup smeared on his chin.
“Go away, you bad kids,” Mr. Walkwell said, frowning. “Go away.” The old man stared hard at them, but the trio didn’t retreat. For a long moment nobody said anything. Lucinda was afraid there was going to be some kind of fight.
“So what did you bring us?” the boy said at last.
“Steve!” the older girl said. “You are so rude!”
“Bring you?” Mr. Walkwell scowled. “I don’t bring you anything. I only bring things for good kids.”
“I helped my dad fix the bulk tank,” the boy called Steve said. “Alma washed the dishes. Carmen didn’t do anything-she just talked on the phone.”
“You are such a liar,” the older girl said. “I made all the beds this morning-even yours, Steve.”
Tyler looked at Lucinda. He was clearly just as mystified by this as she was.
“Okay, I look, I look,” Mr. Walkwell said. “Whose turn is it?”
“Mine,” said Steve.
Carmen shook her head. “Liar again. It’s Alma’s.”
Mr. Walkwell reached into the pocket of his battered old jacket, which he seemed to wear no matter how hot it was outside, and pulled out a fluffy ball of Kleenex. Alma, who was small and wore red corduroy pants, shyly held out a cupped hand and Mr. Walkwell put the bundle in it. She unwrapped it carefully to reveal a knobby branch with several small blossoms on it, all carved out of a single piece of pale wood.
“Oh,” said Alma, her eyes wide. “It’s beautiful.”
“Nothing, it is nothing.” Mr. Walkwell waved his hand as though he couldn’t stand to look at such a poor thing any longer. “Almond blossoms. We had them in my old country so I like them. Take it.”
“Thank you.” Alma backed up a few steps but continued to stare at the carving in her hands.
“So you’re the kids staying at Ordinary Farm,” Steve said, leaning on the table. He squinted at Tyler’s plate. “Hey, are you going to finish those french fries?”
“You are so rude!” his older sister said. “I’m Carmen Carrillo, this is my brother, Steve, Alma’s the youngest. We live on the next farm over, Cresta Sol-our parents own it. We heard there might be some kids visiting Ordinary Farm this summer. You should come over to our place sometime.”
Lucinda looked to Mr. Walkwell, certain that he would want to end this conversation, but he was watching Alma instead, who held the carved almond blossoms up close to her face, peering intently. The old man was actually smiling a little. A joke, Lucinda thought, and now this-two Walkwell firsts in one day!
The door to the diner banged open loud enough to make Lucinda jump. The round man with the baseball cap from the gas station came inside, his clothes spotted with rain. “Hey, Walkwell,” he called. “Your big friend’s over at the store and I think he’s looking for you.”
Mr. Walkwell got to his feet and limped toward the door. “Ragnar? How did he come? In that machine of the inferno?”
“The truck, yes,” said Hartman, the gas station man, winking at the kids.
“You children stay here,” Mr. Walkwell told Tyler and Lucinda. “Don’t go away anywhere.” As he went out the door with Hartman, the round man was saying, “If you people at Ordinary Farm would just learn to carry cell phones ” The door banged shut. Rosie, the proprietor, glared at it for a moment, then turned back to his other customers, all of whom had watched this with much interest.
After a long moment’s silence, Steve said, “Hey, you seen any ghosts?”
Tyler almost dropped his milkshake, and Lucinda suddenly remembered the strange remark her brother had made on the way into town. “Wh-what do you mean?” he asked.
“Steve,” said Carmen, with a warning in her voice.
“I’m just asking!” The boy turned back to Tyler. “Our grandmother tells all these stories-she grew up here and she knows all these Indian legends. Crazy stuff, but kind of cool. Anyway, the Indians used to think the gateway to the underworld was on your land. Or something like that. The spirit world.”
“Really? Uh, cool. What else does your grandmother say about-” Tyler began, then the door banged mightily once more at the front of the coffee shop.
Mr. Walkwell leaned in the door and called, “Tyler, Lucinda, you come with me now. We must go.”
They left the cafe, the Carrillo kids trooping out behind them. Outside stood Ragnar, his long hair and beard stringy in the rain and his big face flushed. “The big… the big cow, she is about to give birth, I think. The young ones-they can drive back with me.”
“As you wish,” Mr. Walkwell said. “I am taking the wagon. If I am slow, I am slow. Anything that is meant to be… Heaven will make certain it happens when it should.”
“Bye!” said Carmen. “Come see us-we’re just over the ridge from you. Cresta Sol-there’s a big sun on the front gate.”
“Thank you, Mr. Walkwell!” Alma cried, still holding her carving as though it was a delicate living thing. “It’s beautiful.”
Ragnar might be built like some kind of football player, but he drove the ancient, rattling truck like somebody’s little old grandfather, hunched forward, both hands clutching the wheel until his hairy knuckles were white. The rain had mostly stopped, but a few drops still splattered the windshield.
“I thought we were in a hurry,” Tyler said as Ragnar maneuvered around a corner like the truck was loaded with explosives.
“Shut up, boy,” the farmhand said, but not unkindly. “I have not been doing this driving long.”
“Huh. I never would have guessed.” Tyler scowled when Lucinda kicked him. “Ow! It was a joke!”
“Is the… the dragon really having a baby?” she asked
. “Is that a problem?”
Ragnar shook his head. “She has had trouble with laying her eggs before-none of them have lived. Nobody knows about dragons. They are old and strange creatures.”
They drove for a little while in silence. “Hey, those kids said that Ordinary Farm was, like, the gateway to the spirit world or something,” Tyler said at last. It had obviously made a big impression on him.
The blond man snorted. “Those children say lots of things. Their grandmother is a tale-teller, so they are full of stories.” Ragnar squinted at the road. “There is a say ing in my old country: ‘The man who stands at a strange threshold should be cautious before he crosses it, and he should glance this way and that, because who knows beforehand what foes may sit waiting for him?’ ”
Her brother leaned toward her. “Well, that couldn’t make less sense, could it?” he whispered.
The farm seemed to be in an uproar as they pulled into the gravel driveway. Several farmhands were at the front door where Uncle Gideon was handing out orders. Their great-uncle was wearing a white lab coat, but he still had on his bedroom slippers and looked quite distracted.
“Thank goodness,” he said as Ragnar and the kids got out. “Where’s Simos?”
“You know he will not go in the truck,” Ragnar told him. “He will be here soon. He told me what to do.”
“Then come on. She’s taking a long time to give birth. It’s hard to tell from external temperature, but I think she might have a fever.” From the distance came a noise like a broken foghorn-obviously the sound of an uncomfortable dragon. Gideon finally noticed Tyler and Lucinda. “You two run along. Mrs. Needle will give you something to do.”
“Can’t we come?” Tyler asked. “I want to see the dragon again.”
“No, you can’t. She’s not used to you and she’s in distress. Besides, she’s making a lot of noise and it might draw Alamu.”
“Draw a what?” Tyler asked.
“Alamu. Her mate.” Gideon frowned and flapped his hands at the children. “Blast it, I don’t have time to talk to you two right now. Go on inside.”
“So much for being on a farm,” Tyler grumbled to Lucinda as they went into the house.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“We’re supposed to see stuff like this, aren’t we? The miracle of life and all that garbage?”
“You heard Uncle Gideon, didn’t you? Hello-o! Angry male dragon roaming around!” She couldn’t believe her brother sometimes.
Tyler shook his head. “They’re never going to tell us anything. We’re going to have to find things out ourselves.”
“What are you talking about, Tyler?”
“Oh, never mind.” He turned and stomped up the stairs.
Brothers! Lucinda thought. She’d begged her parents to get a dog instead, but nobody ever listened to her.
Chapter 12
Farm Work
A fter several days of discomfort that kept the whole farm in a state of alert, Meseret finally laid an egg.
Lucinda snuck a quick peek at the dragon’s egg from the door of the Sick Barn. It looked like a partially deflated beach ball, a pale leathery sack big as the beanbag chair her brother spent most of his time in back at home, headphones on, sneakered feet on the wall, GameBoss Portable held only squinting inches in front of his eyes.
They’re sure making a lot of fuss over a big beanbag, she thought. It wasn’t that she didn’t care; there was just something about being around the dragon that upset her, something about the watchfulness in the creature’s huge red-gold eyes. Lucinda often found herself making excuses to avoid being near the dragon very long-not that anyone was urging her to stay. The Sick Barn was a busy place now and it was easy to get in the way: Uncle Gideon and Mr. Walkwell hardly left Meseret’s side for the first week. Apparently this was the third or fourth time Meseret had given birth and none of the other eggs had hatched, so everyone was worried.
The children spent most of their time that week with Mrs. Needle or Ragnar, doing chores and helping out, or trying to. Tyler hated doing the inside jobs, and he didn’t like Mrs. Needle at all. Lucinda had more mixed feelings about the Englishwoman. She remembered very little of the conversation they had shared, but she remembered feeling very grown-up and privileged to be spending time with someone so interesting and special. When Lucinda came in to the farm office one morning to ask a question and found Mrs. Needle winding her long black hair into a French pleat, it felt like stumbling onto a fairy creature in a patch of forest moonlight. Patience Needle was so pale, so lovely-and yet somehow as fierce as a panther and more than a little frightening. Lucinda didn’t really know what to think.
Being around Ragnar was entirely different. He was obviously fairly old, but he looked like a barbarian out of one of Tyler’s games, or some long-haired professional wrestler. Ragnar didn’t try to be tough or cool, although in his own weird way he really was cool.
“Where do you come from?” she asked him one morning, amused by his pronunciation of “jam jar” as “yam yar.”
“Denmark, you would call it. But I have not been there in a long time. Everything is different now, they tell me.” He shook his head, staring out past the field whose wire fence he was fixing, as though he could see Denmark just beyond. For all Lucinda knew, he could. (She had never been much good at geography.)
Tyler seemed glad of this opportunity to rest for a moment and wipe the sweat from his face. They had been working all afternoon restringing wire fences in the valley sun, and even though Ragnar did the lion’s share of the chores-Lucinda suspected this whole thing was more about babysitting them than getting any actual labor out of them-it was still hot and tiring work. “Why did you come?” Tyler asked. “Here, I mean.”
Ragnar laughed. “Things had gone sour for old Ragnar. I had little choice but to take Gideon’s kind offer.”
“I don’t get it,” Lucinda said.
“And I hope you do not ‘get it,’ ” he told her, serious now. He bent and heaved up another bale of wire in one hand as if it was a roll of aluminum foil, and directed Tyler where to help steady it against the fence post. “But you are Gideon’s kin, which is for the good. Others around him are sometimes forced to pay a very high price indeed.” He laughed again but it almost sounded angry. After that he began banging huge metal staples into the post and it was too noisy for them to ask any other questions.
So many jobs! Feeding all the animals, doctoring them, repairing their cages and pens and tanks, as well as taking care of the farm’s vegetable garden and house and kitchen. Not to mention the huge variety of creatures-not just unicorns and dragons, but skittish, snarling wampus cats, hoop snakes, and even something called a hodag, a truculent creature that looked like a badger covered with crocodile skin and smelled like old cheese. Lucinda couldn’t begin to imagine how Uncle Gideon and his employees kept a place like this going with only a dozen or so employees, although Mr. Walkwell, for one, never actually seemed to stop working. Twice she had woken up in the middle of the night and gone out to the hall and the bathroom there only to spot him through the window, driving his wagon across to the Sick Barn or limping across the farm hauling bags of feed by moonlight. Didn’t he ever sleep? And how could somebody who was so obviously crippled, or at least severely limited in his mobility, work so hard? She had no idea what was wrong with his legs-she had asked Ragnar, but he only shook his head and said, “Mr. Walkwell has his own stories. They are not mine to tell.”
Some things Ragnar would talk about, though. He was happy to tell her about the Carrillo kids they had met at the store.
“They come from the farm next door,” he told them.
“The family has owned that land for a very long time. Those children’s great-grandfather loaned old Octavio workers to do repairs on the farmhouse, and helped him find people to do some of the other jobs on the place-Gideon did not bring me and the others until later, you see. So the Carrillo family does not know your uncle’s secrets but he likes
them and trusts them. Sometimes he even goes to their house for the Christian and American holy days.”
Lucinda wasn’t sure exactly what the last part meant-American holy days?-but she gathered that the Carrillo kids weren’t considered Official Enemies of the Farm or anything, so it made a little more sense that Mr. Walkwell carved things for them. Still, that was the last thing she ever would have imagined such a strange, grumpy man doing.
Lucinda and Tyler quickly settled into a routine. Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays they went with Ragnar and did repairs and other small chores around the farm in the morning, then came back in the afternoon to help the people working mostly inside. Lucinda ran errands around the house, helped Pema take care of the bed linens and other things, or helped Sarah and Azinza put things away in the pantry. Azinza looked like nothing less than a supermodel and made Lucinda feel like a dwarf. The African girl was at least six feet tall, with cropped hair and a profile like the most exquisite sculpture Lucinda had ever seen. Her skin was so dark it had almost a blue sheen to it; beside the beauteous Azinza, Mrs. Needle actually appeared quite ordinary.
Tyler mostly wound up helping old Caesar as he made his rounds replacing lightbulbs and broken coat hooks and hammering in nails that had worked their way out of the house’s ancient paneling.
“Caesar sings a lot,” Tyler told Lucinda one evening as they went down to dinner. “And he can tell you anything you want to know about polishing silver, that’s for sure. But when I ask him how he came to the farm, he just says, ‘I was in a worse place before, the good Lord knows,’ and he won’t say anything else. Why won’t any of them tell us anything? Did Uncle Gideon clone the people who live here too-is that the big secret?”
On the working-outside days they usually rode around with Ragnar, or Mr. Walkwell on the occasions he was free. Sometimes Haneb came with them too. Lucinda tried to thank him again for saving her from being hurt by the unicorn, but the slender man was so shy that even her gratitude seemed to pain him. She and Tyler usually helped feed the animals-hoop snakes and griffins both liked milk, Lucinda learned-and sometimes even groomed them. Once Lucinda got to currycomb a unicorn, which was one of the most exciting things she had ever done. Ragnar held its head (so that it wouldn’t spear her with its horn like an olive on a toothpick, Tyler explained in a loud stage whisper) while Lucinda brushed burrs out of its shaggy pale coat. Up close it smelled a little like a horse, but also a little like flowers and a little like something else-something prickly and odd, like electricity.