Gretel lowered her head and blew what might have been a smoke ring of relief or the faintest puffle of disappointment.
“We need a new dragon,” Aunty Gwyneth mused. “One of the simple-minded, talkative ones.”
She cast her thought net about the house, and had her mind’s eye not been focused in the den, she might have detected a tremor of terror from the shelf above the shirt rail in the wardrobe. But she did not. She took a pin-sharp breath and gave Gretel an order. “Bring me the wishing dragon,” she said.
25
AUNTY GWYNETH TELLS A STORY
Once upon a time, there was a dragon. A noble dragon, a magnificent dragon. A creature to whom all species of animal bowed their heads in reverence and fear. I think you know the beast I am speaking of, wisher. You are, after all, a descendant of his — in the very crudest terms, of course. You, related to the great Gawain! I wonder what he would think of you now …?”
Aunty Gwyneth turned and scowled.
G’reth gulped and swallowed a plug of smoke. Under normal circumstances, this would not have caused any problems for him. But the fact that he was hanging upside down, tail knotted around a thin wire coat hanger, which in turn was hooked around the lightbulb holder swinging precariously left and right, had brought on a dreadful bout of coughing, which only added to his predicament — and his fear.
Aunty Gwyneth clicked her fingers.
Gretel, sitting on the ledge of the wardrobe, opened her throat and released a jet of fire. There was a smell of burning and the green ground wire in the core of the light cord sizzled red-hot and duly snapped. The cord lurched, jerking G’reth another millimeter or two toward the mass of rubble littering the floorboards. Though his wings were bound (by Aunty Gwyneth’s industrial-strength hairpins) he nevertheless managed to swing his head upward. All that remained of the electrical cord now was a strand from the outer sheath of white and the light blue neutral wire. With a whimpering hrrr? he looked toward Gretel. She blew a tart wisp of smoke and looked away.
“Of course, you will remember,” Aunty Gwyneth continued, “that Gawain was the last of dragonkind. By that I mean true dragonkind. Elizabeth’s pathetic little clay tenants do not count.”
Hrrr? went Gretel.
“Be silent,” said her keeper. “Find me a wood louse.”
Gretel saw one scuttling on the wall. Putting the spike of her tail underneath it, she flicked it into her mistress’s hand.
The sibyl let it wander around her palm. “Let me ask you,” she said, turning back to G’reth, “did you ever wonder just how Gawain came to be the only dragon left?”
Hrrrff, went G’reth, shaking his head.
“Then I will tell you,” she said, extending her finger toward his face and letting the louse scrabble loose on his snout. G’reth gulped and crossed his eyes. The louse jigged, then decided to explore an ear. G’reth immediately squirmed and bucked. The coat hanger bobbled ferociously on the socket. Suddenly, the floor seemed very large indeed.
With a crablike pinch of her fingers, Aunty Gwyneth steadied the wire. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you. If you fall, the shock will stiffen your clay. And if you’re solid when you hit that sharp-looking brick …”
G’reth peered dizzily at the brick and gulped.
“Of course, this business could be over in a moment if you told me what you know about the power of snow?”
At this point, G’reth found an unexpected ally. Hrrr! barked Gretel, pulling her hooded eyes into a frown.
“I beg your pardon?” Aunty Gwyneth screeched, her voice so shrill it sent the wood louse scurrying down G’reth’s ear canal and onward, deeper, into his throat. With a splutter he coughed it out; alive, but blackened. “Of course he knows. He is a wishing dragon. He is privy to the whispers of the universe itself. Do not dare to question me again. Burn the cord. Now!”
Gretel wiggled her snout and blew. The remaining pieces of sheathing dissolved, leaving just a shred of bare copper wire.
“Now, where were we?” Aunty Gwyneth asked calmly.
G’reth stared up at her with wild, wide eyes.
“Oh yes, the dragons’ demise. A heartbreaking business, if ever there was. It always brings a modest tear to my eye. I do trust you’re not the sensitive type? We wouldn’t want to douse your spark, now would we?”
On the ledge of the wardrobe, Gretel shuddered. Douse the wisher’s spark? Nothing could be worse for a dragon. Nothing.
“Let me ask you a question,” Aunty Gwyneth snarled. “Do you know how long it took for a pair of dragons to breed their young?”
G’reth glanced at the wire above. To his louse-free (and very attentive) ears it seemed to be creaking. He shook his head.
“They could mate only once every ninety-six years. Imagine that? Barren for almost a century. When the planet was young, this mattered nothing. The dragons bred rarely, but freely, without threat. But in time, another species arrived on their world. A species that could reproduce in less than nine moons. A plague that learned to steal dragons’ eggs until no young dragons flew from their nests. This scourge forced the old dragons into the mountains, to the cold high places, to every untamed wilderness the world could offer. And yet even here, the pestilence followed. Hunters came to flush them out. There was killing. There was burning. There were terrible tales. Dragons were accused of fearful atrocities. Men called them the serpents of evil. But a dragon’s fire was never intended to kill. It was an instrument of life, not a tool of destruction.
“And so it came to be that, in time, only twelve old dragons remained. They met in council and came to a decision: They would fight no more. They would fly to the most inaccessible of places and there they would simply wait to die. Their fires would return in peace to the earth, and the earth would be left to decide for herself what should be done about the pestilence called man.
“Gawain came to an island in the north. A sparsely populated place where he met the girl who would catch his tear when his frail life finally ebbed away. Did you know that his body turned instantly to stone when the fire tear landed in the girl’s sweet hands?”
G’reth shook his head and snuffled gently.
“Oh yes, a most unfortunate end. Because his fire was not returned to the core, he could never rejoin the layer of clay from which the Earth Mother had first created his kind. So he is between worlds, even today. Set in stone on a mountaintop. Oh dear me, your eyes are looking moist. I did warn you the story was moving, wisher. I do hope you’re not going to cry?”
Hrr-oo, went G’reth, and took a snotty breath.
Aunty Gwyneth gave him a gentle push. As his body swung back and forth, the hook of the coat hanger clicked ominously around the smooth light socket. “To cry would not do at all,” she said. “To shed what you laughingly call a fire tear would spell the end for you, oh yes. The tear would wriggle away through the boards and from there, straight into the earth, of course. You would be nothing before it reached the floor. So, if I were a clever wishing dragon, I would tell me everything you know. If you don’t, I will tell you how grief-stricken Guinevere was when her beloved Gawain turned into a boulder. It is the saddest story a dragon can hear. Or I could simply have Gretel burn the wire and you will be smashed to pieces anyway.”
Nnnphh, went G’reth, tightening his jaw.
“You have two minutes,” Aunty Gwyneth snapped. She stood up smartly and turned to Gretel. “Guard him closely. I need to speak with the girl and the tenant.” And prodding G’reth once more for spite, she left him swinging like a strung-up yo-yo.
Meanwhile, in the kitchen, David was still trying to calm Lucy down.
“But it’s Gwilanna,” she was saying.
“Yes, we’ve established that,” he said, peeling carrots into the sink. “I’m not thrilled about it either, Luce. But at least she’s here to help. You’re going to have a brother. Aren’t you pleased?”
“She’s coming!” Lucy dived into a chair.
“Ah, good,” said Aunty Gwyne
th, breezing in. “Preparing a meal, I see.”
“Shepherd’s pie for me and Lucy,” said David. “I’ve peeled you some mushrooms, of course.” He pointed to the countertop where a generous bowl of raw field mushrooms had been set out with a drink of tart lemon juice.
Aunty Gwyneth took one and nibbled the cap. “Too rubbery,” she complained. “But they will have to do.” She sat down next to Lucy, who winced. “Stop wriggling, child. You’re not a worm. You were at fault for bursting in. The delivery of an infant dragon child is a delicate business. I was forced to adopt my normal presence in order to better protect your mother.”
David dropped his hand on Lucy’s shoulder, hushing her before she could start to babble. “I think we understand that now, Gw — Aunty Gwyneth.”
Lucy pouted quietly and let out a sigh. “How long will Mom be asleep?”
“Until the full moon.”
“Tomorrow evening,” said David.
“Yes,” said Aunty Gwyneth, giving nothing away. “Until then, I expect you to cook and clean and do whatever needs to be done.” She rose to leave. “A heavy snowfall,” she said, glancing out of the window. “Arctic conditions. Most unpleasant. I hope it doesn’t force you to cancel with your publisher.”
“Publisher?” Lucy looked at David.
“I’m going to talk to an editor, that’s all.”
“About Snigger?”
“Snigger?” Aunty Gwyneth hacked up the word as though she had a touch of catarrh in her throat.
“He’s a squirrel,” said Lucy, “in David’s book. He’s doing another one soon — about bears.”
“Is he?” Aunty Gwyneth said coldly. She took a small mushroom and ate it whole.
“He might be,” said David, flicking a tap. A stream of cold water pattered into the sink. “Talking of bears, I didn’t remove that ice, by the way; it didn’t seem worth it, as it was snowing.”
“And it caught fire,” Lucy smiled.
“It did what?” Aunty Gwyneth stopped dead in her tracks.
“Ignore her,” said David. “It was an optical illusion: the sun reflecting off the surface, I think.” “But you said—?”
“Be quiet.” Aunty Gwyneth shushed Lucy at once. Narrowing her eyes, she took a long hard look through the window again. “Go outside and bring me a piece.”
“Of the ice? What for?”
Aunty Gwyneth stared at him hard.
“OK, OK, I’m going,” said David. And he hurried up the garden, leaving the kitchen tap still running and drying his hands on his jeans as he went.
Aunty Gwyneth turned to Lucy. “You saw this phenomenon?”
Lucy bit her lip.
“Oh, really, child! You must learn to pay attention.” Aunty Gwyneth frowned and had another small mushroom. As she chewed it, she picked up the photograph of Liz, playing in the snow as a little girl. “Tell me, what do you know about snow?”
“It comes from the sky,” Lucy answered faithfully.
Aunty Gwyneth was not impressed. “Don’t be insolent, girl! I know where it comes from. Where was this photograph taken?”
“On vacation.”
“Where?”
“In —” But Lucy’s words were drowned out by the clatter of the door and David stamping snow off his shoes.
Aunty Gwyneth threw the photo down. “Well?”
“It’s gone.”
“Don’t speak riddles, boy. Gone where?”
“Dunno. Just … gone. Melted, I guess. The snow from the sky must have been warmer than —”
“Hhh! The sink!” Lucy squealed suddenly.
A tide of water was creeping over the edge. As the leading wave splattered to the kitchen floor, David leaped forward and turned the tap. “Drat, the plug must be in,” he muttered. But all he dragged from the hole was a fistful of Brussels sprouts and carrot peelings.
“Oh!” went Aunty Gwyneth and swept away. “I am not to be disturbed!” she barked, and disappeared into her room. As she slammed the door, she snapped at Gretel: “Well, has he coughed? And I don’t mean smoke.”
Gretel shook her head. She had tried in vain, while her mistress was out, to reason with G’reth. If he told what he knew, he’d be freed, she’d said. But G’reth, pure as the fallen snow, had said he knew nothing. He was just a wishing dragon: born to serve.
And now he was born to die.
“I am tired of this,” Aunty Gwyneth said darkly. “Finish it. Burn the wire.”
G’reth cried out in distress. Every scale on his body fell flat with fear.
“Burn it!” Aunty Gwyneth shrieked.
Gretel huffed and puffed. Her claws made marks on the ledge.
“Do as I say, or you’re next,” hissed her keeper. And what choice did Gretel have after that? She made fire in the pit of her throat. Hrrrrrr!
With a zing, the light cord broke and G’reth went hurtling toward the floor. Gretel covered her ears and turned. She was not and never had been a wicked dragon, and to see one of her kind smashed to splinters was more than her pretty violet eyes could take. But at the vital moment, when there should have been a horrible chinkling of clay, no such chinkling was heard. Gretel whipped around. G’reth was doing a rigid kind of bungee jump, his spiky little topknot tapping and scraping the bare wooden boards. Aunty Gwyneth had caught the wire.
“It’s true. He knows nothing. Let him go.” She dropped G’reth into the wastepaper basket and once again headed out of the room.
Gretel sighed with relief. Spreading her wings for flight, she prepared to go down to aid the wisher. But just as the air began to lift her, she became aware of a faint, faint sound — dragon scales, rattling within the wardrobe. Alert now, she puttered to the doors. Using her back paws to cling to the cornice ledge, she leaned over and managed to wedge the door open. It was dusty and gloomy inside the wardrobe, but her sharp, superior vision was able to penetrate the dark with ease. What she saw, of course, was a listening dragon, its face buried deep in the cup of its paws, quaking in a corner behind a stack of sweaters. Gretel flexed her snout. She pulled back her head and stopped to think. A listening dragon? In her mistress’s room? She swung herself upright and glanced at the suitcase. But it must have heard …? She shuddered and popped a wobbly smoke ring, then looked thoughtfully around the room: at Liz, in slumber and completely unawares; at the dragon child, dancing in the glowing bronze egg; at G’reth, tortured and struggling in the basket; at the suitcase again; and finally at the snow drifting past the window. There were choices to be made here. Difficult choices. She took an orange rose from the back of her quiver, a flower her mistress knew nothing about, and one that Gretel had never thought to use. But glancing at G’reth again she knew it must be so. She glimpsed once more at the listening dragon. Then, silently, she closed the wardrobe door.
26
SOMETHING IN THE AIR
The following morning, David was ready on the dot at nine. Although his meeting at the publisher’s was not until eleven, the journey involved two changes of trains and he wanted to arrive in plenty of time. He showered and hurried downstairs. Henry had already left for work, and Gadzooks, as always, was enjoying the freedom of not having to pretend he was a lifeless object. He was sitting in the middle of the dining table, tapping his pencil against his snout and poring over something on his pad, when David crept up and peeped over his shoulder. “Planning a robbery, Zookie?”
Gadzooks immediately snatched up his papers. He shuffled them together and folded them away.
David threw him a searching look. “You’re edgy this morning. What were you drawing? It looked like some sort of … escape route.”
The telephone rang. Hrrr! went Gadzooks, and pointed to it.
“Yes, I can hear it,” David said and picked up the receiver. “Hello. Bacon residence.”
“At last! Where have you been?”
David frowned. He thought he knew that voice. “Is that Zanna?”
“Of course, it’s Zanna! I’ve been trying to reach you for abs
olutely ages. What’s up with your cell?”
David pulled it from his pocket. “Nothing. It’s fine. It isn’t switched on.”
“Oh, you don’t say. Quelle surprise. Feeling heavy, is it? It should be, with all the messages I’ve been leaving!”
David tried to reason this out. “Did you want something, Zanna?”
There was a squawk of incredulity somewhere down the line. “How about your head on a stick? Are you feeling OK?”
David touched the aforementioned head. It was still on his shoulders and its temperature was normal. “Yes, thanks. Gotta run. I’ve got a train to catch.”
“RAIN?” she screamed.
But David had already hung up. Flashing a glance at his watch he said, “Better pop next door before I leave.”
Hrrr, went Gadzooks, paddling his feet.
“You want to come?”
Hrrr!
David clicked his tongue. “You can’t go on your windowsill, you know that, don’t you?”
Hrr-ar! Gadzooks explained.
“The pen? You want to visit the pen?”
Hrr … ar! the dragon hurred a little slower.
“Oh, the den,” said David, grinning stupidly. His grasp of dragontongue was still not great. “OK, come on.” He tapped his shoulder.
Gadzooks was there in a flash.
As they made the short trip to the Pennykettles’ house, David asked again, “By the way, what were you drawing just now?”
For once, Gadzooks wasn’t paying attention. He was catching snowflakes in his paws, puzzling over their texture and shape. There was auma in the snow — as there was in all things — but it was fragile, fainter than a distant star. And it fizzled when the crystals turned to tears. He chewed the end of his pencil and pondered. He felt sure there was a real connection here, between the flaking ice and the fire of Gawain. It was, after all, the reason why G’reth had been horribly abused, and the motive for his business at number forty-two….
He was off the instant David opened the door. “Behave yourself,” David shouted after him and carried on into the kitchen. Bonnington was sitting on the drainboard as usual, staring out into the snow-filled morning. Lucy was in her favorite seat, halfheartedly munching a piece of toast.