by Tad Williams
She couldn’t have moved at that moment if she’d wanted to.
The dragon’s wings unfurled, slow and beautiful like a butterfly’s emerging from a cocoon. Then, his thin body suddenly whipping into the air, the monster came flying straight at them.
He was on them before they could even duck. For a moment Lucinda could hear nothing but her breathing and the rush of her blood, then something cracked past them like a snapped towel-a towel big as a missile. Alamu flew over their heads, his sand-colored wings rippling along their edges, then folded those wings so swiftly that he plummeted to the ground and landed with a thump that Lucinda felt in her bones. Now that he was between them and the greater safety of the barn, Alamu began walking toward them, his head held low.
Haneb, holding Lucinda’s hand in a painful grip, shoved her behind him and said, “Back! Go back into that canning shed!”
“What?” She looked over her shoulder and saw a small wooden shed a dozen yards away, built next to one of the farm’s many wells. The door was off. She couldn’t imagine it keeping the dragon off her for more than a few seconds.
“Go!” he cried. “Please, miss, but go slow!” And then he stepped forward and away from her, clapping his gloved hands with a muffled thump and calling out, “ Ha! Ha! Ha! ” to the dragon, over and over. Little shudders ran down the length of its neck. Now Alamu was watching only Haneb, a snake watching a hopelessly trapped mouse.
Lucinda backed into the doorway of the shed, but couldn’t bear to step inside where she wouldn’t be able to see what was happening. Haneb had stopped again and was standing utterly still as the dragon stalked toward him on its hind legs, head extended on a line with Haneb’s own. As Alamu breathed in and out, little flames danced around his nostrils.
The creature paused and sniffed delicately at the air all around the unmoving Haneb, who had dropped his hood somewhere in the excitement. Lucinda was terrified the monster would engulf the small man’s poor disfigured face in fire. Was this what had happened to him before? Were those dragon-scars?
Alamu’s long head moved closer on the supple neck, a yard of bone and teeth and muscle, the air in front of the nostrils rippling in the heat. The copper and black scales caught the light, glittering. The mouth opened, showing the curving fangs and a snaky black tongue.
From somewhere far away came a deep, flat ringing-a bell, but not quite like anything Lucinda had ever heard.
The dragon stopped, alert and listening A moment later it snorted and turned away, then began to run across the open space beside the Sick Barn, each step as heavy as the pounding of a sledgehammer, until suddenly it leaped into the air and sailed away from them again, tail lashing, a serpent wriggling across the sky.
Lucinda heard herself breathing out. Haneb had dropped down to sit on the ground and was staring at his hands as though he was astounded to discover he owned a pair. Lucinda ran from the shed, shading her eyes as she looked up. Alamu flew fast but the sky was big and clear: as he headed away over the house toward the reptile barn and the far pastures, she had a last view of the dragon, sunlight glowing through his translucent wings.
“Wow,” she breathed, then suddenly began to cry.
Chapter 15
Beating the Big Crab
“O h, Tyler, you really should have seen him!” Lucinda said as she climbed up next to him in the wagon. “It was the most… I was so scared! But he was beautiful too! Like a snake or a lizard-no, like a bat-I don’t know. And he was all shiny and he breathed fire and I was so scared I thought he was going to kill us-I was sure I’d die!”
It was the day after Lucinda’s dangerous adventure and she still hadn’t stopped talking about it. Tyler was getting a little tired of hearing the story over and over, and glad that she wouldn’t be able to talk about it at the Carrillos’ house. He was also grumpy because with the upset last night and all the attention given to Lucinda, he hadn’t found time to have a proper look at Octavio Tinker’s journal, or what remained of it.
Still, Tyler supposed, he’d feel a whole lot worse if his sister had been turned into dragon barbecue.
“And Haneb, he was sooo brave-did I tell you?”
“Yeah, you told me…”
“He stepped right out in front of it and he told me to go in the shed and hide. I thought he was going to get burned to bits! If it wasn’t for Mr. Walkwell ringing that bell, the dragon would probably have killed us both. Alamu, right, it’s Alamu!” Lucinda added breathlessly. “That’s the dragon’s name. Alamu.” She said it more like the name of some new boy in school than of something that had almost turned her into fried chicken. “He’s really scary-Alamu, I mean-and beautiful. But amazingly scary!”
“You were lucky, girl,” said Ragnar as he finished adjusting the horse’s harness. The yellow-haired man had carried her back to the house wrapped in a blanket after the dragon had flown away. Lucinda had been shivering so much her teeth clicked together. “Yes, Haneb was brave, but if Mr. Walkwell had not rung the feeding bell over at the reptile barn you still might have been killed.”
“But I wanted to ask you last night-how did Mr. Walkwell even know what was happening to us?”
“We have a tracking device on the male dragon,” announced Colin Needle. He had come out silently and stood in the doorway, listening. “I found it at a scientific supply company on the internet. We always have to know where he is, just because of things like what happened last night.”
“Aren’t you coming to the party, Colin?” Lucinda asked.
“No, I have a lot of important things to do.”
Tyler wondered what could be so important that it was worth skipping a party, especially when you lived on an isolated farm.
“It’s really too bad you can’t go,” Lucinda said. “It sounds like it’s going to be fun.”
For a moment Colin Needle showed something like genuine regret-he actually looked human. “It’s all right. The Carrillos… well, they don’t like me much.”
“Gee,” said Tyler. “I wonder why.”
“Be quiet!” Lucinda elbowed her brother hard. “Nobody likes you, Tyler Jenkins.”
Colin stood and watched as Ragnar flipped the reins and the horse started around the long gravel driveway. “Have a good time,” he said, then turned and walked back into the house.
“We can’t leave yet,” Ragnar said. “We are still waiting for Simos.”
“Mr. Walkwell’s going with us?” asked Tyler.
“He likes the Carrillo clan.” Ragnar grinned. “Ha, I will tell you one thing from yesterday that would make even the gods laugh. When the dragon came, Simos himself drove the truck to the reptile barn! I did not know he even knew how!” He turned to Tyler. “He did not waste time looking for me or Gideon-when he learned your sister was at the Sick Barn with Alamu he knew he had to go quickly.”
“Cool!” said Tyler. He wished he’d seen it-Mr. Walkwell forced to deal with the modern world.
“I hope it didn’t hurt his poor feet,” Lucinda said dreamily.
“Then when he came walking back,” Ragnar went on, chortling, “all he said was, ‘Someone go and get that stinking machine. Now I must bathe.’ Poor fellow!”
Mr. Walkwell appeared at last and they set off. Tyler made a few driving jokes, but the wiry old man only glared at him, maintaining a dignified silence. The wagon rolled along through the valley and over the dry hills on the far side until they finally reached the road to the Carrillos’ farm. Ragnar hopped down to unlatch the front gate, which was made of white-painted iron bars and had a smiling sun beneath the letters: CRESTA SOL DAIRY FARM. It seemed like the kind of thing you would see in simple colors stamped on a carton of milk. After a moment Tyler realized that it probably was just that-the logo for the Carrillo family’s dairy.
“What’s ‘Cresta Sol’ mean, anyway?” he asked. “It sounds like a toothpaste.”
“Maybe it’s Spanish for ‘My brother is very ignorant,’ ” Lucinda suggested.
The long driveway was
gravel, the huge front yard mostly dirt except for an old swing set. Two figures Tyler recognized from the diner ran toward them, the boy, Steve, and his older sister Carmen, laughing and shoving each other.
“Come on,” Steve said when they reached the wagon. “Alma’s making something so she’s being all artistic and she won’t come out, but we put the Ping-Pong table up in the backyard and I’ve already beaten Carmen like a hundred times straight.”
“Liar,” his sister said. “You only won the last time because I stepped on one of your dolls and almost broke my leg.”
“It’s not a doll,” Steve replied with dignity. “It’s a collectible action figure of Helldiver from Deep End.”
“ Deep End? You play that?” Tyler was more than interested.
“Play it? I totally own that puppy. Well, except the last level. Can’t get past the Grand Central Crustacean.”
“Oh, man, that was so hard. Took me forever.”
Steve’s eyes bugged out. “You did it? You beat the crab?”
“Once, yeah. But I was playing it on Easy.”
“Oh, man, I don’t care, you have got to come show me.”
Steve grabbed Tyler by the arm and dragged him toward the house just as a woman in jeans and a top that looked like a painter’s smock stepped out the door, so they all nearly collided. She was about the same age as Tyler and Lucinda’s mom, but she had long black hair pulled back in a ponytail and was a little shorter and a little more rounded.
“You two must be Tyler and Lucinda,” she said. “Steven, quit yanking on the guest’s arm.”
“The crab, Mom! He totally knows how to beat the crab in Deep End .”
“I only did it once,” Tyler protested.
“That does sound impressive.” She smiled. “However, Steven, no disappearing to play games right now. Stay outside and show our guests around-you can all play something together.” She turned to the new arrivals. “Hi, I’m Silvia Carrillo. Happy Fourth of July.”
“Thanks for inviting us,” Lucinda said.
“You want to play Ping-Pong? Or come in and get something to drink?” Carmen spread her hands out. She was wearing a grown-up-looking bracelet full of jingling silver charms. Tyler had to admit she was kind of pretty for a girl his sister’s age.
“Yes, everyone come in,” said Silvia Carrillo. “Simos, Ragnar, can I get you men a beer?”
“To take with me, please,” Ragnar said. He looked genuinely regretful. “I have work to do back at the farm, helping Gideon. I will come back tonight for everyone.”
“Working? On the Fourth?” Silvia laughed. “You are way too dedicated.”
Steve and Carmen took them on a quick tour of the house. They looked into Steve’s impressively neat room as they went by and both boys gazed longingly at the game station. The youngest girl, Alma, waved shyly from the room she shared with Carmen. “I’ll be out in a minute,” she called. “Hi, Lucinda, hi, Tyler. Happy Fourth of July.”
The Carrillos had more room than Tyler and Lucinda had at home with Mom, but their furniture was old and the television was small and the kids’ clothes looked like hand-me-downs. Still, they seemed pretty cheerful. Tyler wasn’t quite used to a family who joked without being mean and who seemed to have as much fun with each other as the Carrillos did.
At last they all trooped out to the covered patio in the backyard. At the edge of the patio a man in a bright white shirt, jeans, and sandals was tending a brick barbecue. He turned as the children arrived, smiled just enough to make his mustache twitch, then returned his attention to the coals.
“My dad’s not really as unsocial and rude as he looks,” Carmen said loudly. “He’s just more interested in his barbecue than in people. Right, Dad?”
“Wait just a few minutes too long and the coals cool off,” said Mr. Carrillo with his back to them. “Then the meat doesn’t cook right. That’s science.”
“Our father, Hector Carrillo,” said Steve. “Props for the mad barbecue genius.”
They drank lemonade and played Ping-Pong, and it was so normal and pleasant that for a while Tyler almost forgot about the mysteries of Ordinary Farm. Mr. Walkwell hobbled out to discuss the fine points of barbecue with Mr. Carrillo. The old man had said yes to red wine, and now he seemed to be enjoying himself. More Carrillo relatives arrived, aunts and uncles and cousins, everybody putting food on the picnic table until it seemed there wasn’t enough room left for people to sit and eat. Casserole dishes and salad bowls started to fill the Ping-Pong table too.
“Oh my God,” said Lucinda. “There’s enough food here for an army!”
“Yep,” Tyler said happily. “There sure is.”
A little old lady so short and round she might have been a Munchkin from the land of Oz, with hair the shade of red Lucinda was used to seeing on lead singers in punk bands, smiled and said, “I hope you brought your appetites, children.”
“This is Lucinda and Tyler, Grandma,” Carmen said. “From next door. This is my Grandma Paz.”
“Ah.” The tiny old lady now looked at them more carefully-maybe even a little suspiciously, Tyler thought. “You are the ones from the Tinker farm, yes?”
They both nodded.
She sighed. “So young! Well… enjoy yourselves.” She smiled sadly and headed back to the kitchen.
“Is it my imagination,” said Tyler quietly to his sister as they got into line to fill their dinner plates, “or was she acting like we were going on some kind of suicide mission?”
By the time Tyler had emptied his third plate he was seriously considering finding some place to lie down and die, but he knew he’d be dying happy.
What had been most surprising about the day was how comfortable Mr. Walkwell seemed. He drank his wine, teased the Carrillo children, and talked at least a little bit with almost everybody-it seemed like an entirely different person had come to the party in a Mr. Walkwell costume. Tyler even saw him flirt a little with Grandma Paz, which made the old lady whoop with laughter and cover her mouth with a chubby hand.
Little Alma had been standing near Mr. Walkwell for a long time, her hands behind her back. When he had finished talking to one of the Carrillo uncles, she stepped up and handed him a long something the size of a pencil case, wrapped in yellow tissue paper. Mr. Walkwell opened it up, but in such a way that Tyler couldn’t see what was in it. Mr. Walkwell looked at it for a moment, then looked at Alma, who was stepping from one foot to the other as though she wanted to run away. He said something quietly to her, laid his big brown hand on top of her head, then put the package into the pocket of his overalls. She blushed furiously but looked very happy.
“What’s that all about?” Tyler asked.
“She’s trying to learn now to carve wood like Mr. Walkwell,” Carmen said, “so she probably made him a present.”
“She’s getting pretty good,” Steve said. “She made me a T. rex out of soap, but I left it in the shower and now it’s kind of a half rex.”
“You must be very, very careful,” said Grandma Paz.
Tyler and Lucinda put down the dirty dishes they had carried into the kitchen.
“They’re doing fine, Mama,” Silvia Carrillo said.
“I don’t mean that.” The old woman shook her head. “I mean where they stay. That Tinker farm. rdquo; Silvia Carrillo said.
“I don’t mean that.” The old woman shook her head. “I mean where they stay. That Tinker farm. It is a dangerous place- tierra peligrosa .”
“Don’t start with the stories, Mama, please,” begged Mrs. Carrillo.
“Everybody knows! My own abuela, my grandma, she was Yaudanchi-an Indian. She told me the stories. Back then, when the Indians lived here, a man went to find his wife who died. He followed her track all the way to that place, that valley. He found a big hole in the ground that led to the underworld, the Place of the Spirits. When he got there he found all the ghosts of all the people that ever were.”
“Mama, quit trying to scare these poor children.”
“Not scare! Warn!” the old woman said stubbornly. “My abuela, she said that one day the ground would open up and all the world would fall into the Place of the Spirits! That the ghosts would come out, ghosts and monsters!”
“Oh, cool, Grandma’s telling a story,” Steve said, walking into the kitchen with a stack of salad bowls. “Carmen, come on!”
“Monsters?” asked Tyler. Lucinda looked really worried, but whether it was about the story or Tyler’s questions, he couldn’t tell. “What kind of monsters, exactly?”
But before the old lady could answer him, Mr. Carrillo popped his head through the door. “It’s just about dark,” he said. “Anybody want to see some fireworks?”
“You kids go,” said Mrs. Carrillo. “My mother and I are going to finish the dishes-and have a discussion about how to treat guests.”
Mr. Carrillo had a big family-sized box of fireworks-the kind that Lucinda and Tyler had always been told were too dangerous to use. As he and the other men set them up on the wide expanse of dirt in front of the house, Mrs. Carrillo emerged. She uncoiled the garden hose and handed it to Steve. “If any sparks go up, then you put them out,” she told him.
“But I want to do some of the fireworks!”
“Honey, there’s no wind and the things are fifty feet from the house,” protested Mr. Carrillo, but Silvia Carrillo was unmoved.
“Yes, that all sounds good until the house catches on fire,” she said. “Steve, you stand there with that hose.”
It was half an hour after the last True Volcano Blossom had sputtered out. Everyone had run out of things to do except sit around the back patio, stuffed and content, listening to the returning noise of the crickets and Mr. Walkwell blowing quiet tunes on a simple wooden flute-the gift, Tyler realized, that Alma had carved for him. He could tell because of the enraptured way Alma sat at his feet watching the old man play. The tune was so strange and the evening so warmly magical that he didn’t even notice the large approaching shape until Ragnar stepped from the driveway into the soft light of the back porch.