The Dragons of Ordinary Farm

Chapter 30

“W ell,” said Gideon Goldring, wrapped in a clean bathrobe and looking like an ancient king as he stared down the length of the breakfast table, “I knew it was going to be a big morning, what with our guests heading back home today-but I didn’t expect things to be quite this exciting.”

The briefcase full of money was in his lap. Meseret’s egg sat in a nest of towels at the center of the table as if it was the main dish. The official story, constructed in haste, was that the she-dragon had sensed where her mate had taken the egg, broken out of the Sick Barn in fury, and recaptured it. The injury to her wing from the helicopter blade was now a battle wound from a scuffle with Alamu.

Lucinda didn’t like having to lie, especially about things this big. Unable to look at Uncle Gideon, she turned and looked at Colin Needle, who was also avoiding Gideon’s eye. Or perhaps it was the gaze of his mother, sitting at Gideon’s right hand, that he was avoiding. Whichever was the case, Colin had a pale, sickly look, and for the first time since Haneb had told her of Colin’s role in the theft of Meseret’s egg she felt sorry for the older boy. He had been stupid and reckless and arrogant, but she believed him when he said the farm was important to him.

Gideon looked at the briefcase again, then at the egg, and shook his head in disbelief. “My goodness. I can’t get over it. A dragon fight, attempted industrial espionage, and I slept through it all.” He turned to Ragnar. “How is Meseret?”

The blond-bearded man laughed in a hollow way. He was still wearing the same dirty, sweat-stained clothes from the night before. “She is sleeping. We’ve given her more medicine. The tractor man should have a loader and a trailer ready this afternoon-I’ll bring them back after I take the children to the train station. We’ll have her back in the barn by tonight.”

“And the damage?”

“We will be able fix everything, I think.” Mr. Walkwell was leaning in the doorway, dressed and looking almost normal again. He had not bothered to put his newspaper-stuffed boots back on: his hooves stuck out the bottom of his pant legs. “But it will take time to replace the things for animal medicine and put up new shelves in the Sick Barn. Most are ruined.”

Gideon suddenly laughed. “I was going to say it will take money we don’t have-but we do have it now.” He patted the briefcase. “Mercy me. As you can tell, I’m quite surprised by all this!”

“We all are, Gideon,” said Mrs. Needle with chilly sweetness. “We all are!”

Another long silence dropped over the table. Lucinda wondered how long it would be until Mrs. Needle squeezed the entire story out of Colin. She had drugged Lucinda and set a vicious, unnatural animal on Tyler-goodness only knew what else she could do. And she was Colin’s mother! No wonder he acted like he did. It turned Lucinda’s stomach.

“My only sadness,” Gideon said at last, “is that we have the egg back so we can study it, but we still we have no baby dragons and no idea of what the problem is.”

Something tickled Lucinda’s memory but stayed just out of reach.

“I wish you would let me take a hand, Gideon,” said Mrs. Needle. Her hand came to rest on Uncle Gideon’s arm like an ivory spider. “After all, Walkwell and the Norseman have failed three times now to keep an egg alive. There are charms that I know, herbs I could give her that ensure healthy births in cows and sheep and even poultry

…”

“There is nothing wrong with my care of these animals,” said Mr. Walkwell in a flat, angry voice.

Suddenly Lucinda remembered. “Wait! Maybe the egg isn’t dead!”

“What nonsense are you talking, child?” demanded Mrs. Needle. “Leave these things to your elders.”

“Just a moment, Patience,” Gideon said, shaking his arm loose from her clutch as he turned to Lucinda. “What do you mean?”

She told them how the dragon’s thoughts had seemed to stream through her mind as she rode her, most of them quite strange and alien, but some of them so clear that she felt sure she had understood Meseret’s meaning. “She was thinking about the egg-she didn’t think it was dead, just that it needed… something to start it moving.”

“Quickening, it is called,” said Mrs. Needle with a certain cold authority. “But what does that matter? The conceptus has been lifeless each time. There is no life to quicken.”

“It’s just… ” Now Lucinda was embarrassed. What had seemed so clear when she had touched the dragon’s thoughts now seemed strange and dubious when she had to explain it, especially with Mrs. Needle staring daggers at her. “It just felt like she thought there was something she was supposed to do. She thought about breathing on it-breathing fire. But there was something wrong with the shell. Meseret needs to eat something to make the shell… I don’t know, right. Some kind of dirt, or rocks, or… something.”

“Some kind of dirt?” Mrs. Needle summoned a tight smile. “Surely you misunderstood, Lucinda. After all, you were terrified-struggling for your life… ”

“Now, hold on, Patience,” said Gideon. “Animals eat all kinds of things to help themselves. Remember when we kept losing the first basilisks until we found out they needed rocks in their stomach to grind up the bones of their prey?” He turned to Lucinda and Tyler. “They eat mice and lizards and whatnot-just gulp ’em down, swallow ’em whole,” he informed them with a certain relish, then looked around the room. “Where’s Haneb? He’s the one that came with the dragons-if anyone’ll know, he will.”

“He did not want to come in to breakfast,” said Ragnar.

Of course he didn’t, Lucinda thought. He’s afraid he’s in trouble.

“I will find him,” said Mr. Walkwell. It was a pleasure to see him turn and go out the door so swiftly, so gracefully, instead of limping like an accident victim. She hoped he would keep his boots off from now on-around the farm, anyway.

Mr. Walkwell returned in only a few minutes with Haneb beside him, looking as though he was trying to become half his ordinary size.

“Haneb, what are you cowering for, boy?” Gideon boomed. “We need your help. We want to know about what the dragons ate back in your country.” He turned to Lucinda and Tyler. “It’s part of Turkey now, but a long time ago Haneb’s people, the Hittites, had much of it to themselves.”

Haneb still looked startled and fearful. “Ate?”

“Yes, ate, confound it! Did they eat stones? Anything unusual like that?”

He kept his head down as he thought, his hair masking the scars on his face. He had worked hard to avoid Lucinda’s gaze. “No stones,” he said at last.

“Nothing strange at all?”

Haneb winced. “I am sorry, Master Gideon. I am thinking.” He frowned and looked as though he was about to burst into tears. “Sometimes they ate Earth-flax…,” he said at last.

“Earth-flax? What is it? Describe it!” Gideon demanded.

Haneb waved his hands. “It is like ordinary flax, but it grows in the rock, not in the ground. You can make cloth of it and the cloth cannot be burned.”

“By God, he’s got it!” shouted Gideon, making Haneb jump so badly that only Mr. Walkwell’s steadying hand kept him from falling over. “ Asbestos! My goodness, Lucinda, you’re right!”

“I am?”

“The mother dragons must eat it to make their eggs fire-resistant. Then they heat the eggs up. Some animals lay eggs and sit on ’em-dragons turn on their internal flamethrowers and quick-roast ’em!” Gideon smacked the table and scowled. “But what are we going to do now? How can we find out whether it can still be hatched? We don’t have any asbestos. We ripped it all out a few years ago. Had to, or the inspection boys would have been down on us from the county.” He shook his head. “I wish we’d saved some…”

“Meseret won’t breathe on anything for a while, anyway,” Ragnar pointed out. “The medicine has made her sleep.”

“Perhaps we could make a sort of flamethrower from pipes and the blacksmith bellows Mr. Walkwell uses to fix the wagon,” Colin said excitedly. He seemed to have forgotten that a short while ago his entire future had hung by a thread. “But we’d have to paint the egg with something that would work as well as asbestos… ”

A throat was loudly cleared. Everybody turned to see Sarah standing in the doorway with Pema, Azinza, and the cavegirl, Ooola, who had spent the last several days following them like a wide-eyed feral cat. Ooola caught sight of Tyler and smiled a brilliant smile at him.

Sarah’s round cheeks were flushed red, but if she was embarrassed to be the center of attention she still spoke strongly and plainly. “If you want something warmed but not burned, why not try talking to the people who do that every day? The girls and I will take some of that very nice paper made of hammered metal… ”

“Aluminum foil, it is called,” said Azinza with queenly condescension.

“Yes, aluminum foil, and we will wrap it around the egg as though it was a plump turkey. Then we will put it in the oven where we can make it just as hot as we choose for as long as we choose.” She shrugged. “If it does not offend any of you, that is.”

After a moment’s startled silence, Gideon laughed and clapped his hands. “Wonderful! Sarah, you are a genius. That is just what we will do. I should say about four hundred degrees… ”

“Perhaps three hundred,” Sarah said kindly. “It will take longer, but be safer.”

“As you say, as you say.” Gideon struggled up from his chair, waving a piece of waffle on the end of a fork. “To the kitchen!”

Tyler and Lucinda were packed but reluctant to leave, although it was beginning to get close to the time when they’d have to. They hung around the kitchen, as did most of the rest of the farm’s inhabitants, all finding excuses to make frequent visits to the scene of the experiment. Even Haneb worked up the courage to come watch. At last, about two hours after they had first put the shiny bundle into the oven, Sarah cracked the door, peered in, and said, “I think something moved!”

She and Ragnar, both wearing oven mitts, wrestled the egg out onto a bed of towels on the floor and began to peel off the aluminum foil. A spiderweb crack had formed on the top. As Lucinda and her brother stared, it bulged in the center, and then a piece of the shell popped loose and fell to the towel. She could just hear the cracking of the shell over everyone’s murmuring voices. She wondered if the heat was necessary to make the egg brittle enough for the baby to break it.

Another piece fell off, then another, and a moment later the whole top of the egg cracked loose and swung outward as though hinged. A head snaked out that was no bigger than a small dog’s, a tiny version of Meseret with a blunter snout, but with colors that were brighter than hers, horizontal stripes of black and gold. The infant dragon pulled itself awkwardly out of the wreckage of the eggshell and walked a few staggering steps on its wing-pinions before stopping to rest, its throat pulsing in and out, its striped tail coiled around it. The golden eyes looked blearily around, then seemed to focus on Lucinda. For a moment, she could almost feel its simple, wordless thought: ?

No, I’m not your mother, she tried her best to tell the newborn. You’ll meet her soon.

Someone put a hand on Lucinda’s shoulder. It was Gideon, his hair standing up again so that he looked like a scarecrow that had been out in the wind too long. He had his other hand on Tyler and an expression on his face so strange that it gave Lucinda shivers. “I have not treated the two of you as well as I should have,” he said. Everyone in the kitchen fell silent. Gideon cleared his throat and continued. “But this… the young dragon we thought we’d never see… it makes me realize… ”

As Gideon fell silent again, someone made a noise like a grunt of pain. Lucinda saw Colin Needle standing half in shadow, half in sunlight from one of the big windows, watching. He had his arms wrapped tightly around himself and even from across the kitchen Lucinda could almost feel his envy and unhappiness.

Tyler suddenly stood up and said, “Uncle Gideon, I… I almost forgot to tell you. I found something in the library. And I wonder if it’s anything you recognize.” He held out his hand.

Lucinda, as surprised as anyone else, stared at Tyler’s fingers as they opened to reveal a bit of sparkle. Gideon said, “What? What is it? In the library, you say?”

“Yes. Near the portrait of Octavio.”

Gideon took the shining thing from Tyler’s hand and stared at it intently. Everyone in the kitchens craned their necks to see. Gideon held up the golden locket on its s voice little more than a hoarse whisper. “Was it hidden somewhere?”

Tyler hesitated, looking like he wanted to get something just right. “No, not hidden. It was right out in the open. Like somebody

… wanted it to be found.”

It seemed that all his years had caught up with Gideon at once. His lip trembled and his eyes were wet with tears. “It’s… it’s hers!” he said. “The necklace I gave her. Grace, oh, my beautiful Grace.” He lifted the necklace with trembling hands and kissed it. “It’s a sign-she sent it to me through the Fault Line somehow. It means she’s still alive and she wants me to know it.” Tyler was squirming uncomfortably, but Gideon didn’t notice. “Bless you, boy. Oh, thank God, you’ve brought me the greatest treasure of all-my Grace is alive.” Gideon Goldring crouched down and took Tyler and Lucinda by the hand. Lucinda couldn’t even look at him. She was ashamed of all the lies they were telling him. After a moment she pulled away, and Tyler did too, but Gideon was oblivious.

“I fell in love with her when she was just a girl,” the old man said, his voice hoarse. “But I didn’t realize it. Only when she had grown up could I finally understand the feelings I had. But her grandfather-old Octavio-fought against us for so long. He didn’t want his hired hand marrying his granddaughter.” Gideon laughed. “That’s all I was to him! Just the young man he’d hired to help him grow crystals. It took years for him to accept me… accept us. And then, just when it finally seemed we would be happy, I lost her.

“I still don’t know what happened. I had left the farm for the evening and so had Octavio, who had gone off in his own car. The fool was too old to drive-we’d told him that a dozen times but he was too stubborn to listen. So we’d left Grace alone. When I came back late I found my grandfather-in-law’s car half off the driveway into the undergrowth, and Octavio himself lying beside it, dead of a heart attack. Grace was gone-I couldn’t find her anywhere. I don’t know whether she’d found her grandfather and just wandered off in a daze or it was just a terrible coincidence.

“Then Simos found her tracks in the dust of the silo-tracks that disappeared at the Fault Line. Worst of all, the Continuascope was just lying there, as if she had dropped it before she stepped into the Fault. Without it, she was lost with no hope of finding her way back

…”

Gideon fell silent again for a long moment, but she could hear his breath hitching. Lucinda, like others in the room, found herself shifting uncomfortably. The poor man!

“But now, thanks to you,” Gideon said suddenly, “I know for certain that she is still alive-that she’s trying to communicate with me!” He stood up, throwing his arms wide. “And we have a baby dragon! Tyler and Lucinda, bringing you two to Ordinary Farm just might be the best thing I have done in years!” He reached out and captured them again, pulling them into an uncomfortable, bony hug. The ancient bathrobe smelled like talcum powder and sweat. “Bless you both! Please come back to us soon-next summer for certain-and perhaps you could even visit us at the holidays.”

Ragnar seemed to take pity on the two of them being squeezed until Lucinda thought she would pass out. “They will miss their train, Gideon,” he reminded their host.

The old man loosened his grip. Behind him, Mrs. Needle was smiling, that smile of hers that never reached her eyes. “Oh yes,” the dark-haired woman said. “Do take care of yourselves until we see you two again. It is such a very dangerous world out there.”

That doesn’t sound like a warning, Lucinda thought. It sounds like a promise.

Mrs. Needle was making sure she and her brother knew they had an enemy, one who would not give up the farm without a fight.

“Oh, we’ll definitely remember to stay safe,” Lucinda said, then looked right into the frigid gray eyes and smiled back at Mrs. Needle. It was tentative at first, but after a moment it became much easier. And Lucinda’s smile didn’t reach as far as her own eyes, either.