Voices of Dragons

15

The dragons circled. The next morning, three of them flew just over the river, banking sharply when it looked like they might pass into human territory. The sight of them made people cringe, as if they wanted nothing more than to run and hide. Lock themselves behind castle walls. Like mice in view of soaring hawks.

Kay watched the news on TV. Several people, mostly firefighters, had been injured in the blaze that destroyed two of the four buildings in the administration complex. Only one was killed. Sheriff Jack Wyatt’s face appeared in newspapers and on TV screens all over the world, and the eulogies poured forth from people who never even knew him. It was because he was a cop. They could use words like hero without knowing anything about him.

The president went on TV to declare the attack an act of aggression. Several of the more shrill pundits called it war. These were the same ones who questioned why humanity had ever agreed to the Silver River Treaty in the first place, and argued that an international coalition should launch an assault to reclaim the vast territories so blithely handed over all those years ago. We could have wiped the dragons out then, they said, and we can do it now. The time of the dragons is over, was over millennia ago. This is the age of humans.

Kay watched the dragons from the living room window. She felt like her brain hadn’t turned back on yet. She couldn’t think of Artegal at all. She kept wondering what happened next, and her mind kept going blank.

Mom had taken sleeping pills. She was still asleep, curled up on her bed in her clothes. Kay had taken her shoes off, put a quilt over her. She didn’t know what else to do. The phone had been ringing all morning. She finally turned it off. And her cell phone and her mother’s.

A trio of news vans were parked on the street outside, and a crowd of reporters milled around them, everyone wanting interviews with the family of the first person killed by dragons since the treaty. Sixty years of tension stretched to the breaking point.

She scrolled through the missed calls on her cell phone and on the house phone, wondering who she should talk to and what she would say. She didn’t know how long her mother was going to be out of it, and she didn’t want to be in charge. She wanted to talk to her dad. Her parents may have been workaholics, both of them, always out doing their jobs. But they always answered their phones when she called. Her father had always taken her calls. She almost called him now, just to see. Maybe it had all been a mistake.

Kalbach had set up a rotation of deputies to stand guard outside the house and keep the reporters at bay. She could tell him if she needed anything. She could call any of the deputies. Some of them had already stopped by to deliver food, casseroles and salads, dishes covered in tin foil with instructions for heating. Kay wondered why. She wasn’t hungry. Kalbach said that was just what people did when something like this happened. When she was hungry, she wouldn’t have to think about what to eat, the food would be right there. It didn’t make sense to her.

Jon and Tam had called. She didn’t call back because she didn’t know what she’d say to them.

She finally lay on the sofa, wrapped herself in a blanket, watched the news, and waited for her mother to wake up. The world would start moving again when her mother woke up and told Kay what happened next.

Her father hadn’t hurt anyone. He hadn’t bothered anyone. He’d worked to keep the border safe. The dragons should have burned the air force base. They should have talked to people. They should have been talking all along, like her and Artegal, and none of this would have happened.

Now, none of them would talk with each other ever again.

That afternoon, the air force started bombing, almost as if they’d planned it and had been waiting for the opportunity. The excuse.

Kay could hear it. If she hadn’t known the cause, she might have thought it was thunder—a distant, roiling storm, part of dark clouds lurking on the horizon. But this was too steady to be thunder. She could almost time it. Jets flew overhead from Malmstrom, and thirty minutes later, rhythmic thunder echoed from the mountains. At night, the glow of fires burned on the distant, mountainous horizon.

The day after, many families not only kept their kids from school, but left town entirely, cars packed with essentials—computers, pets, clothing, whatever would fit. Everyone assumed that the dragons would retaliate again and that they’d come to Silver River first.

And the dragons did strike again, but not at Silver River.

The news channels reported that fires had broken out at Vancouver, Duluth, and St. Petersburg. Her mother, red-eyed and silent, had woken up and come to the living room. Kay sat with her on the sofa, wrapped in blankets and watching reports, images of burning buildings, panicked people running, and fleeting footage—like ghosts flitting across the sky—of dragons. They’d come from the territory in the Rockies and in Siberia, crossing the Arctic Circle to strike all over the world. Terrorist attacks, some of the news shows called them. Buildings burned, people were injured, and by some miracle no one was killed. The strikes were quick. The dragons appeared, flying low, and sprayed the outskirts of the cities with flame-thrower breaths. The attacks seemed designed to frighten rather than inflict damage. People had thought the dragons had restricted themselves to limited territories. But this proved they could go anywhere, at least in the northern hemisphere. They could still shock.

No one could tell if the military’s bombing had any effect. The news channels interviewed lots of people in uniform, and they said things like “calculated risk” and “viable targets.” But the bombing only seemed to make the dragons more angry.

Kay started to understand about people bringing food. After she woke up and emerged from the bedroom, Mom looked in the fridge at all the casserole dishes and Tupperware, and for a long moment, she just stared. She took a breath that sounded a little like a sob. Then she retrieved a tray of lasagna, spooned out a couple of servings, and heated them in the microwave. They had food without having to think about it. Otherwise, they may not have eaten at all. With all the food that Dad’s coworkers, Mom’s coworkers, the neighbors, and even a couple of Kay’s teachers had brought over, they wouldn’t have to think about what to eat for a while. There was something comforting about that.

It had only been a day. Kay had to keep reminding herself of that.

Mom spent time on the phone that evening, some of her friends stopped by—and brought more food—and they spoke in hushed voices in the living room. Kay retreated to her bedroom. Right before she did, her mother called to her, gestured her closer.

“If you need to talk, if you need anything, you’ll tell me?” She squeezed Kay’s hand, rubbed her arm, like she hadn’t done since Kay was little.

“Okay,” Kay said, her voice soft. Her mom was acting weird, which wasn’t at all surprising, but Kay didn’t know how to behave. She almost said, What do I do? How do I act? I don’t know how to act. People kept looking at her with gazes of terrible pity, and Kay didn’t know how to respond.

She fled to her room. There, she retrieved Dracopolis from its hiding place under her bed. Lying on her bed, she turned the pages, studying them, the pictures, the vines and flowers that wound around the text. She had an urge to run her fingers over the lines, over the stiff parchment, but didn’t dare. She wished she could read it but didn’t know how much further she could get on her haphazard translation. The pictures showed towns being burned. Did the words tell why the dragons did it? If she could pick that apart, maybe she could understand what was happening now. The pictures, which had seemed so beautiful, so benign, now seemed as cryptic as the words. I should be angry, she thought. I should be angry at them.

She studied the manuscript, searching for some kind of wisdom. This had happened before; people and dragons had been through this before. But she couldn’t translate enough of it to learn what it said. She had only the pictures to study, and she couldn’t tell what she needed to know from the ornate drawings. Why would dragons do this? She couldn’t tell if they started burning towns before or after people started hunting them. It seemed important.

She should never have gone back to talk to Artegal. Then she could just be angry.

Kay knew she should call Jon and Tam, but she still didn’t have anything to say. Nothing at all. They’d say they were sorry, they’d ask if there was anything they could do, and Kay would just shake her head. But while she didn’t call them back, she left her phone on. They’d call again, maybe. She wouldn’t ignore them next time.

Turned out, Jon stopped by with Tam and Carson.

A soft knock came at her door, and Kay shoved the book under her pillow before her mother came in. “Kay. Do you feel like coming out for a few minutes? Your friends are here.”

She followed her mother back to the living room. There they stood, the three of them together, looking as round-eyed and lost as she felt.

They apparently didn’t expect her to say anything. Jon took a step toward her; she took one toward him. Then they were hugging. Tam put a hand on her shoulder, and Carson, looking sheepish and sad, stood with his hands shoved in his pockets.

The funeral was at the end of the week. He was buried in the city cemetery outside town, a modern stretch of lawn with flat marble blocks for headstones. Crowds seemed to fill the place—the whole town was there, an honor guard of people in sheriff’s department uniforms, along with state highway patrol and people from the air force base. There were news vans and swarms of reporters. Just another news item. Hero and victim of dragons Sheriff Jack Wyatt, laid to rest.

A pair of jets wailed overhead. They patrolled constantly now. The sky still smelled like smoke. A haze had settled in the air.

Kay and her mother clung to each other and stared at the casket and the mountain of flowers around it. She hardly listened as the governor read a graveside eulogy. Tireless public servant. Devoted husband and father. She felt everyone looking at them. She wanted to go home.

She had decided to believe that Jack Wyatt had gone on a trip. He was just away. He wasn’t in that box. She’d pretend he was, to go along with what everyone else thought. But as far as she was concerned, he was simply parked somewhere waiting to set his radar gun on her and pull her over for speeding. She could live with that.

Afterward, fortunately, no one expected her to say anything. All she had to do was stand there and look sufficiently sad while people told her how sorry they were. An amazing array of people. The governor and his wife. The vice president of the United States. There’d be plenty of pictures for the newspapers. The deputies guarded them viciously, and when Mom turned to Deputy Kalbach and Deputy Olsen with a pleading look in her eyes, they formed a barrier around Kay and her mom, hustled them to a waiting car, and took them home, to microwaved lasagna and a too-quiet house.

They thought—or Kay hoped—that they were finished with the constant press of visitors and condolences. But the next morning, a knock came at the front door. They were sitting on the sofa and glanced up. Kay had never seen her mother look so tired as she hauled herself to her feet, then to the front door. She cracked it open, and Kay craned around to see who it was.

An unfamiliar voice said, “Ma’am, I’m very sorry to bother you, but I was hoping I could speak to your daughter.”

Kay scrambled to her feet and went to join her mother in staring at the man outside their door. The current deputy on duty—Michaels—stood a little behind him, shrugging as if to ask whether he’d been right in letting the man through.

The newcomer wore a blue air force uniform and a round hat with a brim in front instead of the olive green jumpsuit this time, but she still recognized him as the pilot who had bailed out over the border. The one who had seen her riding Artegal. All she could do was stare.

Mom glanced at Kay, who didn’t know what to say. All she could think was that her secret was done, finished. It was all over now.

The pilot gave her a thin smile, but spoke to her mother. “Ma’am, I’m Captain Will Conner, the pilot who went down a few weeks ago.” He pointed a thumb over his shoulder to the forest. “I met your husband. Sheriff Wyatt’s the one who found me after I hauled ass across the border. I just wanted to say I’m sorry. I’d have liked to have known him better. But I’m mostly here to talk to your daughter, if that’s all right.”

Why had he come? Why didn’t he have the whole military there demanding that she tell everything she knew? He was being too nice; she didn’t trust him.

Mom glanced at Kay, clearly confused. “Why?”

Captain Conner looked apologetic. “May I come in?”

Kay’s mother opened the door a little wider. “I think I can make some coffee—I’m sorry, it’s been a rough few days.”

“I understand. I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t important.” He took off his hat as he stepped inside.

While Mom was in the kitchen, Captain Conner and Kay looked at each other.

“It really is you,” he said wonderingly. “I thought I recognized you in the picture from the funeral yesterday. But I wasn’t sure.”

She tried to ask him, pleading with her gaze, Why are you here, what are you doing, why are you finally blowing my cover? In reply, he seemed to be saying, We can do this the easy way or the hard way. Who was he kidding? There was no easy way. There was nothing easy about this. According to him—the way everyone would see it—she was friends with an enemy, an enemy that had killed her father, and she’d kept it secret all this time.

“Why didn’t you say anything earlier? Why didn’t you tell anyone about me?” she asked.

He shrugged and gave a wry look over his shoulder, out the window to the sheriff’s deputies and news vans. “I’m not sure. I almost didn’t believe it when I saw you. Thought I must have been going crazy, and why report a delusion? Then again, maybe I admired your guts. That’s test pilot guts, flying with that thing. Maybe I didn’t want to get you in trouble, one pilot to another.”

“His name is Artegal,” she said. She’d never been able to tell anyone before. He nodded, conceding the point.

He’d kept her secret. Not that it mattered now, when there was probably going to be a war. Dragons burned towns, and then people went after them with swords. Or vice versa. That was the way it had always been.

“The thing is, Miss Wyatt, the situation has changed.”

“So you’re going to tell them now. Now that you know who I am,” she said. She sounded angry, on the verge of tears. She focused on keeping control of herself.

“Right now, you’re the only person who has any real contact with them. I wanted to make sure you understood that, if you hadn’t already figured it out.”

“Why does it even matter? It’s not going to change anything.”

“Don’t be so sure, unless you want this to blow up into an all-out war.”

“No, but—”

“I was under the impression the military wants an all-out war,” Mom said, standing by the kitchen with two mugs of coffee in her hand. “That you crashed your plane across the border on purpose to see what the dragons would do. That people like Branigan wanted to go to war this whole time. ‘Like poking a wasp nest’ is what Jack said. And now you want to talk? And what does Kay have to do with this?”

When he didn’t answer, when he didn’t deny it, Kay grew frightened. Her gut turned cold, which shocked her because she thought she was numb. Mom stood there, the coffee mugs trembling slightly in her hands, a lost, accusing shadow in her eyes.

Conner ducked his gaze and actually looked sheepish. “Ma’am, I know you’ll never believe me, but I wasn’t privy to all the details of that mission. My plane was rigged to malfunction, and I wasn’t told. I didn’t know. I was the plausible deniability. And I can’t say I’m at all happy about being used like that.”

Mom’s voice was quiet, but harsh, filled with bitterness.

“I have a feeling Branigan’s going to get a little more out of his war than he bargained for.”

“I think you’re right.” He turned to Kay. “Planes have nicknames. The B-17 was the Flying Fortress. The P-51 Mustang. The B-26 Marauder. This new one, the F-22. You know what the guys are calling it?”

She shook her head.

“The Dragonslayer,” he said.

If the military had been preparing for a war, what could she do to change anything? Maybe it was inevitable. The two sides had been stalemated for decades. It was just her father’s stupid luck to be the first person to get caught in the middle of it. Kay couldn’t do anything to stop it. Telling someone sooner about her and Artegal wouldn’t have stopped it. Talking to Artegal now wouldn’t bring her father back. She didn’t want to do anything.

“What’s going to happen?” she asked.

“I don’t know. I’m sorry to bother you all. I’ll go,” the pilot said. He pulled a business card from a front jacket pocket and handed it to Kay. “Let me know when you’re ready to talk. I think you can help.”

He let himself out the front door.

“What was he talking about?” Mom said, staring after him. “What does he think you’ve done?”

“Can we—can we sit down?” Kay said.

In a moment, they were both seated at the kitchen table. Mom kept one of the mugs of coffee, gripping it with both hands and breathing in the steam. Kay studied her worriedly, not knowing how to start.

“Are you angry at them?” Kay asked. “For doing it—for starting the fires?” She couldn’t say exactly what, couldn’t mention Dad. Didn’t want to make it real.

“What? The dragons?” Mom thought for a moment, her gaze distant. “I don’t know. Right now I think I’m angry at him. Why’d he have to…why’d he have to be so goddamn brave? He should have known better, he should have known—”

Her voice choked, and she looked away, her mussed hair falling in front of her face. Kay put her other hand over her mother’s, and they sat like that, clutching their hands together. Mom was crying quietly. Kay’s own eyes were stinging, and she gritted her teeth to keep from crying. They were both working so hard to keep from sobbing she wondered what would happen when they couldn’t hold it in anymore.

After some time, seconds or minutes, Mom sat back, let go of Kay, scrubbed her face, and smiled like she was okay—a fake, stiff smile.

And Kay said, “Mom, I have to tell you something.”