“Never go out on the sand without water nearby,” Wilbert said soberly. “Stick with us, young fellow, and you’ll learn a thing or two.”
Like the fact that wizards couldn’t be trusted? Todd thought.
Unless, of course, he couldn’t trust the Newton Free Volunteers. Especially if they were taking him to see his father. Todd decided, for now, that he’d better keep his options open.
Eleven
Evan Mills looked with up with a start.
Rose Dafoe stood so suddenly that even the soldiers who were still eating reached for their weapons.
“Where’s Mary Lou?” she demanded.
“Rose, calm down,” her husband, Harold, hurriedly reassured her. “I’m sure she’s got to be around here somewhere.”
Mills wondered how Dafoe could be so certain of his daughter’s whereabouts when he refused to look up from the table.
“I will not calm down!” Rose Dafoe retorted. Her well- manicured hands pounded the table before her. “I want an answer!” Mills realized this was the first time he had ever seen the woman without a smile.
The soldiers looked at each other uneasily.
“Are all the children gone?” Joan Blake asked in a voice barely above a whisper.
“What’s happening here?” Carl Jackson demanded. “We don’t have to take this!” He rose to his feet as well, his hands balling into fists. It reminded Mills why nobody in the neighborhood ever talked to Jackson. He could be counted on to explode anywhere, at any time.
Two of the soldiers silently notched arrows in their bows and turned away from Mrs. Dafoe, pointing their shafts toward Jackson. Both soldiers looked much less uncertain than they had before.
“Carl,” Constance Smith said softly. “This might not be the best time to object.”
Jackson’s jaw tightened. He looked at the elderly Mrs. Smith as if he was about to attack her instead. His eyes flicked quickly to the soldiers and just as quickly away. He nodded curtly and returned to the table.
In her way, Mills thought, Old Lady Smith was probably the bravest among them. Heaven knew, Carl’s wife hadn’t said a thing. She stared at the table in front of her, or looked deep into the forest, as if she wanted to get as far away from here as possible. Mills hated to think how Jackson must treat his wife at home. For all their talk of being neighbors, what did any of them really know about the others’ personal lives?
Mrs. Smith turned to the soldiers. “But the children are gone, aren’t they? There are things that you aren’t telling us about.” The soldiers still did not reply.
Joan turned to Mills, a real panic in her pale blue eyes. He took her hand. It felt warmer than usual, and her palm was damp with perspiration. Evan had been pleased when Joan had stopped by more often over the course of this summer: a cup of coffee here, an afternoon picnic there. -They had found they enjoyed each other’s company. He had wanted them to get closer—but not because of something like this.
“Listen.” Mr. Dafoe finally looked up at the soldiers. “I can understand. You’ve got a job to do. I was in the big one, myself. World War Two. Not like that mess we’ve got in Southeast Asia, no. That was—” He paused and stared at the confused faces of the soldiers. “You don’t know about any of this, do you?” He looked around as if he expected an answer not only from the soldiers but also from the huts and the trees. “Where the hell are we?”
“We fight for Nunn,” said the same soldier who had spoken before. Apparently, now that the Captain had disappeared, this new fellow was to be the spokesman. “That is all we know. We fight, or we die.”
It sounded, Mills thought, as if the soldiers weren’t all that much better off than the rest of them.
“So they’re doing their job!” Jackson turned to Dafoe, his eyes narrow, his voice low. “Why are you always criticizing our boys over in Nam, anyways?”
Dafoe smiled apologetically. “I’m not criticizing anyone, Carl,” he said quickly. “I’m just trying to start some sort of dialogue.”
“Dialogue?” Jackson retorted with a snort. “Better be careful you don’t get us all killed.” He nodded to all the other neighbors, as if they were all lucky to be alive after Dafoe’s blunder. Dafoe looked as if he wanted to say something else, but turned his gaze back to the table instead. Jackson had an unerring sense of the best person to bully.
The soldiers lowered their bows, but all remained standing. After a moment, another three sat down to eat.
Furlong shifted uneasily from foot to foot and tried to smile. “Hey, why don’t we talk about something else?”
“And what would you like to talk about, Leo?” his wife asked in a way that implied anybody who would talk with her husband was an idiot.
“I don’t know,” Furlong said with a shrug. He looked over at Jackson. “Carl, you think the Packers have a chance this season?”
“Leo,” Mrs. Smith said softly, “I don’t think we’re ever going to see the Packers again.”
“What are you talking about?” Furlong asked, as if only now being confronted by the horror of the situation. “No football? Where the hell are we?”
“Well,” Mrs. Furlong retorted, “I suppose there’s some things to be thankful for.”
A couple of the neighbors attempted to laugh at Mrs. Furlong’s joke. It didn’t sound very sincere. Somehow Mills expected someone to suggest charades.
The soldiers stopped eating again. Mills looked around quickly. Had one of the neighbors done something to upset them again? But it wasn’t any of them. Nunn had returned.
“Where’s Mary Lou?” Rose Dafoe demanded as soon as she saw him. “Have you seen her?”
Nunn offered them the most reassuring of smiles. “Mary Lou is fine. She just took it upon herself to tour my home.” He shook his head at Rose’s expression of dismay. “Oh, don’t worry, we had a little talk about places she shouldn’t go. There are parts of my dwelling that are quite dangerous, I’m afraid.” He chuckled. “But she’s quite busy exploring.”
“Exploring what?” Jackson demanded.
Nunn waved merrily at the hut behind him. “You see, my home is much larger than it looks on the outside.”
“Nothing’s happened to her?” Rose demanded, still not convinced. “No, I wanted to assure you that she was safe. And to invite you to join her.”
He stepped aside and waved for the neighbors to precede him into the hut.
Those neighbors who were still sitting stood to join the others. Dafoe and his wife led the way, followed by the Furlongs and the Jacksons. Joan walked over to Mrs. Smith and asked if she might like a hand.
The soldiers stood their ground behind them. Why weren’t they following Nunn inside?
“Come now,” Nunn called to the few who hadn’t fallen into line. “You wouldn’t want to miss the tour.”
Mills followed Joan and Mrs. Smith as they joined the others. There was strength in numbers, he supposed, at least for now.
Besides, as far as he could see, Nunn was not giving them much choice.
The pain had stopped at last.
The Captain opened his eyes. He felt as if his insides had been pulled out and hastily stuffed back inside. Nauseous and weak. But still alive. And still able to think. Thank whatever gods there might be that Nunn had not chosen the Captain for some of the experiments he had seen.
He supposed he had always known that this would happen. As long as he had used Nunn’s power, and it had been a very long time, someday that power would turn against him. Nunn had been generous before today. The Captain had authority, the use of certain devices, and the first choice of all newcomers. That had been the bargain. The Captain had been looking forward to spending time with that young girl, Mary Lou, before Nunn began his experiments on her.
Instead, Nunn expected the Captain to give of himself.
He screamed again, pulling uselessly at his bonds. The fire had moved from his body to his head. He felt as though his skull might explode, spewing bits of brain like so many pieces of r
ipe melon.
The pain receded, and the Captain realized he wasn’t alone. No. No one else was in the darkened room.
There was someone sharing his mind. Someone whose thoughts had slowed, and stilled. Someone who was waking from the deepest of sleeps. Or returning from somewhere far away.
The Captain thought about what the wizard had told him as the creature of light had done its work. The Captain had taken a life without the wizard’s permission. Now he would have to bleed his own life away to give an existence back.
The Captain sensed another body, so stiff it almost felt brittle.
Somehow, though, his new form lifted his new head, then sat upright, swaying a bit as he recalled how to use his balance. His bony arms pushed him up from the forest floor. Awkwardly at first, as if he only remembered as he moved, he began to walk toward Nunn’s castle, and the Captain.
His new voice—or was it two voices together? —Formed words that surprised the Captain at the same time that he spoke them.
“My lawn,” his new voice muttered in a tone filled with equal parts of pain and anger. “What have they done to my lawn?”
Twelve
Mary Lou was too scared to call out again. Things were falling all around her: living things that hit the ground running and called out in high voices: voices that sometimes sounded like laughter, and sometimes like screams.
She whirled around, looking for some way to get past these pale creatures. Each one was only as tall as a two-year-old. But there were so many of them. They were everywhere.
These were the same sort of creature that the Captain had shot. Did they remember that? Did they blame her for the death of their brother?
As if to answer her, they began to leap about her in a circle, repeating one word over and over again.
It sounded like “Nunn? Nunn? Nunn?”
Mary Lou suddenly found her voice, the words rushing out of her. “No, I don’t want Nunn! I don’t want any of you! Now get away from me!”
She took a step forward, determined to break free of the circle. But how? Where once there were a dozen of the tiny, cavorting things, there now were over a hundred, and more were dropping around her from the trees: a downpour of creatures. The circle was tightening as their numbers grew, and she saw the wizened things look up at her and leer as they rushed past, their hairless heads with tight pale skin looking more like skulls than faces, the same singsong word chanted by all their almost human lips.
“Nunn? Nunn? Nunn?”
Mary Lou shifted her left foot forward. She would break through these things if she had to, push them aside. She had to get out of here.
“Nunn? Nunn? Nunn?”
One of the things ran across her toes.
Mary Lou jerked her foot back so quickly that she couldn’t quite keep her balance. She yelled as she twisted, falling toward the ground and the tiny dancing things.
They were quick. They jumped out of her way as she fell in the dirt. She waited for the circle to close, for them to run over her, tiny feet trampling her hands and feet and wrists and ankles, climbing across her arms and legs and back and head until the hundreds of bodies overwhelmed her, suffocating her beneath their weight.
But she didn’t feel anything. She didn’t hear anything, either. Her fall seemed to have ended the dance, and the chanting as well.
“Dobbit?” one of the high voices inquired.
Mary Lou was afraid to look, afraid that if she raised her head, she would see one of those things staring back and leering, eye-to-eye.
The things didn’t talk again. Silence surrounded her, replaced by the growing sounds of the forest. Maybe, Mary Lou thought, the things could have gone away as quickly as they had come.
She lifted her face from the dirt.
The things were still there, but they had moved a few feet away and were staring at her with closed mouths, their fierce smiles gone. The circle shuffled quietly as she watched, and the creatures opened a space in their ranks before her. Were they giving her permission to leave?
Mary Lou put her arms under her and pushed away from the ground. She saw something else in the space the creatures had left, something soft blue that seemed to glow in the center and shine on its darkened edges, like a neon sign reflected in the rain.
The blue glow widened and deepened, and from its center stepped a young man, close to Mary Lou’s age. He was dressed in robes of a darker blue, almost black, and his long hair was gathered behind his head with a ribbon of the same color. He seemed at that instant to be the most handsome man Mary Lou had ever seen.
“They don’t want to hurt you,” the young man said in a voice that was both calm and deep, perfectly suited to his looks. “That’s what they want me to tell you.”
Mary Lou found herself standing. She tried to brush some of the dirt from her blouse. It was quite hopeless; her clothes were ruined. She looked back up at the handsome face, not sure if this man was real.
“They?”
“The People,” the apparition replied with a smile. “That is what they like to call themselves.” He paused, his forehead creasing for an instant before he continued. “They are aware that you have escaped from Nunn. That, they imagine, would hurt the wizard.” He smiled again. “They are greatly in favor of anything that would hurt Nunn.”
It was Mary Lou’s turn to frown. “These—uh—people have told you this?”
“They’re telling me that now,” said the man, still smiling. Mary Lou very much liked the way he looked at her. “These People do not talk entirely with words. But I’ve been here long enough to understand them, if I concentrate a little.” He paused again. “They are sorry if they frightened you. Sometimes they are overcome with joy.”
Mary Lou wasn’t even thinking of the three-foot-high creatures anymore. “But who are you?”
This time the apparition’s frown looked truly perplexed. Somehow it made him look far older. “I’m afraid—I don’t know. I only know what the People tell me.”
“You’re dressed very nicely,” Mary Lou mentioned, almost half to herself. “You could almost be a prince—or something.”
As soon as she had said the words, Mary Lou felt she wanted to snatch them back. A prince? How could she say something so embarrassing? It was like something out of a fairy tale!
But, then again, this whole place held as strong a resemblance to a fairy tale as it did to anything else. Especially, she thought, the bad things that would happen early on in those tales, like the wolf eating Red Riding Hood’s grandmother, or Hansel and Gretel getting threatened with the witch’s oven. This prince (for she realized she already thought of him that way) had called Nunn a wizard. Where would you find a wizard except in a fairy tale?
“A prince?” The apparition continued to frown as he looked down at his fancy clothes. “Well, I suppose that explanation is as good as any other. If you would like me to be a prince, a prince I shall be.”
He looked back at Mary Lou and gave her a smile that made her embarrassment disappear, as if it had been blown away by the wind.
“But the People have apologized,” the prince said after a moment’s silence. “Do you accept this?”
“Well, yes,” Mary Lou said quickly, her thoughts suddenly pulled away from the prince. “I mean, there are so many strange things happening, it all can be a little frightening. I’ll try to understand them better. I think I can if you are around.”
“I shall be around whenever you need me,” the prince replied with the same wonderful smile. “At least so long as we are here. I’m not certain how far I can travel.” He shrugged and looked up at the sky, as if the clouds might hold the answer.
In a way, he was the one who seemed helpless. And Mary Lou very much wanted to help him. What could she say to him that didn’t sound too forward, or too foolish?
The prince waved to the hundreds of creatures quietly waiting. “But our hosts have some questions.”
“Questions?” Mary Lou remembered the prince had said these creatu
res spoke with more than words. She hadn’t heard any voice beside the prince’s. “Well, they can certainly ask them.”
The prince nodded. “You were a prisoner of Nunn?” he asked, his voice deeper, empty of emotion.
She nodded back.
“Did they capture you alone?”
“Oh, no,” she replied, “there were others, a lot of them. Almost my whole street.” She wondered if she should explain that. Would these creatures know about streets?
Apparently they did, or the exact words weren’t important, for the prince’s next question was, “Then the others are still prisoners?”
She nodded again. “As far as I know.”
She realized she was surprised that these “People” had to ask her these things. She guessed she had imagined that they had been following all of them through the trees, spying so that they would know everything. It made her feel better that they weren’t quite as all-seeing as she had thought.
“The People are not happy with this.” With that, the prince fell silent.
She looked at the handsome young man. He seemed to be looking somewhere beyond her, his face without expression. What were these so-called People getting at? And what did they do to the prince to make him act this way?
“You really don’t know who you are?” she found herself asking.
“I don’t even know what I am,” the prince said, his face once again lighting with that same self-deprecating smile. “I remember waking up one day and having the People all around me. Somehow they had brought me out of—wherever I was. They gave me a brand-new life.”
She should thank the People for that, she guessed. Mary Lou always judged too much by first impressions. Her parents were always telling her that. The prince—no matter what he looked like— might not be any more human than any of the People.
But Mary Lou really wanted to trust him and spend time to get to know him better. So she decided she would.
“We may be able to rescue some of them,” the prince said suddenly. “We may not.”
“You mean the neighbors?” Mary Lou suddenly felt guilty for not thinking about them before. “My parents are there. Is there something I should do?”
Dragon Sleeping (The Dragon Circle Trilogy Book 1) Page 11