He said, voice low, “Panicked. Didn’t think of you.”
He was apologizing. This was dragon body language she’d never seen before. Almost like a dog with its tail between its legs.
Kay stopped. Her heart was still racing; she was still having trouble catching her breath. But she didn’t want to run away anymore. This wasn’t his fault. He’d been frightened—of course he had, they both had. Like he’d said, no one had ever done this before. They were still learning.
“Are you okay?” she asked, her voice shaking.
He drew a couple of deep, steadying breaths. Then he said, “That plane. Flew like a dragon.” And that was what terrified him. “What is it?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never seen anything like it. I could ask—my mom might know something. The bureau must be freaking.” She stood, brushed dirt off her hands, looked around. She had no idea where she was. North of home. That was all. “I have to get back. I have to get back right now.” She was miles from the border. This was completely different from being able to hop over the creek to get back home.
“The plane. Saw us. Yes?”
It hadn’t just seen them, it had followed them. “Yeah.”
“What will they do?” he said.
“I don’t know. It depends on if they figure out who I am. I have to go back and find out.” She was going to get in so much trouble. She could just feel it.
“We should stay away from the border,” he said. “For a little while.”
And how long was a little while? A lump stuck in her throat, because this felt so final. A real good-bye this time. She didn’t want to go, not knowing when she’d be able to come back. “Then…then I guess I’d better get going. Let’s get that stuff off you—”
He sat up, his neck curled, his usual pose. “Will carry you. As far as I can.”
After his panicking and flying blind, she may have hesitated ever riding him again. But she didn’t. It wasn’t his fault—they’d both been scared. Besides, she could either ride him or hike for hours with climbing gear slung on her back.
They didn’t fly again; Artegal carried her on foot. Compared to the headlong flight, it was slow going. The motion wasn’t a smooth glide, but rocking that almost made her sick. It took a lot more effort for him, and he was getting tired. She was going to be much later than expected getting home. If there was any kind of an uproar going on about the jet, her parents would be livid.
As soon as she recognized the lay of the land, the slope of hills, she tapped Artegal’s shoulder. “I can walk from here, I think,” she called.
But he went on farther, until she could hear the rushing water of the creek at the border. “Here,” he said.
The care he’d taken made her life a little easier and his harder. She smiled grimly. “Thanks.”
Quickly, because the sun was now fading into afternoon, she undid the knots of his harness and coiled the rope.
“You’ll walk back?”
“For a time,” he said. “Until I won’t be seen.”
“Be careful.”
“You too.”
He had turned to go when she said, “Artegal? What happens if we don’t see each other again?” For whatever reason, whatever the fallout after this new plane, and whatever its pilot said about seeing a girl riding a dragon.
Artegal thought for a moment. She might have expected denials, assurances that surely that wouldn’t happen, that this would blow over and they would see each other again. But he didn’t do that. That’s what a human being would have done.
“Then we will remember. Tell stories, so others know it’s possible for us to be friends. Keep the book safe. Pass it on, if it will help.”
She nodded, trying to convince herself that nothing would change. “Okay.”
Once again, they hiked away from each other. In moments, he was gone. She couldn’t even hear him anymore.
She focused on her own journey.
Even though she wasn’t across the border yet, she was close enough that she thought she was safe. She let her guard down, just a little.
Then she heard voices.
12
Human voices echoed through the trees ahead. Kay couldn’t make out what they were saying nor could she tell exactly where they were, but they were definitely looking for something. She dropped to a crouch at the base of a tree, hiding as well as she could, just in case.
She took a chance and found her cell phone. Muffling the sound, she checked for messages. One, from her mom, an hour ago.
“Kay, something’s happened, there might be trouble at the border, so I need you to get home right away. Call me as soon as you get this.”
She wouldn’t call until she was back in her Jeep and driving away from here. But she couldn’t do that until those people left. For whatever reason, it seemed the pilot who’d crashed hadn’t told anyone that he’d seen Kay and Artegal, but the pilot of this new plane must have reported it. And now, people were looking for her. Kay wasn’t used to hearing people this far out—no one came here, that was the point. Who were they? Military, police maybe? Her dad? She really didn’t want to see him right now. She didn’t want to have to explain all this. She hiked along the border until she couldn’t hear them anymore.
She found a narrow place with stepping stones where she could cross. Once she was on the right side of the border, nobody could say anything, even if someone caught her. But if she showed up with wet boots, people would ask questions.
Safely away from Dragon, she ran straight through the woods, back to the trailhead where she’d parked her car before the searchers could find her and ask what she was doing out here by herself.
She threw her car into gear and drove. A few miles away, about halfway to home, she pulled over, gripped the wheel, and caught her breath. Her heart was racing as if she’d been running. But she was safe. Nobody was looking for her.
When she was breathing a little more normally, she found her phone and called her mother. It rang once and went to voice mail.
“Hi, Mom. Sorry I didn’t get your call, but I’m on the way home right now. I’m okay.” She hoped that was good enough.
Back home, she left the climbing gear in the car. She didn’t want anyone asking about it.
Her mom was at the dining room table. Her laptop, papers, books—work—were spread all over it, and she was talking on her cell phone.
“Yes, of course I’ve seen the photos. They’re supposed to be classified, but I think everyone and their goddamn dog has seen them. CNN’ll probably have them next.” A pause. “No, I can’t explain them. If I could, I would. Clearly.” Another pause. She seemed to be arguing with someone. “I’m home because I’m sick of talking to the press. Look, in this day and age you can’t hide something like this. That jet crossed the border, and everyone knows it.”
She hung up without saying good-bye.
“Mom?”
“Oh, Kay, thank God.” Her mother looked exhausted. She ran a hand through her hair, which was loose, limp, in need of washing. “Are you okay? Deputy Kalbach saw your Jeep way north. Were you hiking? What were you doing? Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I went hiking. I’m fine. I saw the jet.” It wasn’t exactly a lie. Kay sighed a little because her mother seemed more concerned with the jet crossing than with what her daughter had been doing.
“Everybody saw the jet,” she said. “The last one may have been an accident, but this one was a blatant border violation. The air force should know better; they ought to know better.”
“Then why’d they do it?”
She smiled a thin, ironic smile. “I have some ideas, but they’re not politically correct and I’m not allowed to say them to the media.”
“That jet—it’s new, isn’t it? I haven’t seen anything like it before.”
“That’s right. I think since the dragons didn’t react to the crash last month, they’re testing the border. They’ve got this fancy new plane, and they think maybe the dragons won’t do anything a
bout it. But I can’t say that, because that means, or at least it suggests…never mind.” She shook her head, shrugging the subject away.
“That maybe the first crash wasn’t an accident,” Kay said softly. It made sense. Of course the press would figure it out. The military and government could deny it all they wanted. The pundits would still talk, and people would still make assumptions.
“Don’t go repeating that to anyone with a camera,” Mom said. “The official line they’re trying to feed people is ‘A navigation error caused the pilot to drift temporarily off course.’”
There was nothing drifting about that jet. Kay had been there; she’d seen it up close. But she couldn’t tell her mother that.
Kay sat at the table and looked over the mass of paperwork. When her mom didn’t send her away—Kay assumed this was all classified—she looked more closely. Emails showed on the laptop screen. The folders looked like case files, some of them old. Records of military patrols from the last sixty years. And photos, eight-by-ten, black-and-white printouts. Kind of blurry, as if they were taken from a distance at high speed. As if they were taken by a jet’s surveillance camera.
They showed a silvery-gray dragon and a tiny human perched on its back. Blurry, unidentifiable. Kay felt herself flush, skin burning to her ears. She shook the feeling away and tried to keep her heart from racing. Tried to act surprised.
“What’s this?” She showed the picture to her mother.
Her mom took the picture away from her, put it with the others, and gathered them into a folder. “That’s even bigger news than the jet. Looks like someone’s been having a little fun across the border. Don’t tell anyone you saw these, okay?”
“Oh my gosh,” Kay said, and hoped it sounded convincing. “Who?”
“If I knew that, I’d send the FBI, the National Guard, and your father to arrest his ass. Unfortunately, we don’t have any way of identifying him. I don’t suppose you saw anything while you were out?”
Him. So they thought it was a guy. Kay almost sighed with relief. Instead, she had to lie fast. “No, I didn’t see anything.”
Brow furrowed, her mother studied the folder. “I just want to know how someone walks across the border and talks a dragon into letting him ride around on its back. Or maybe it was the dragon’s idea.”
“Maybe it was both,” Kay said, and flinched when her mother looked sharply at her. Blushing, she continued, hoping it sounded like innocent speculation. “Maybe they talked about it. Maybe they’re, you know, friends.”
After a pause, Mom said, her tone sardonic, “I suppose that would explain it.” She set the folder aside.
Kay felt as if she’d escaped a trap. “What are you going to do about it?”
“Until we figure out who it is, there’s not a whole lot we can do. Except keep better watch on the border. Obviously.”
Kay realized her mother probably had not had the best day ever. “I can cook dinner. Do you want me to make something?”
The look of relief and gratitude on her mom’s face startled her. Making dinner was such a little thing in the end.
“That’d be great,” she said. “God, I don’t even know if we have anything to cook, I haven’t been to the store in weeks.”
“There’s always pasta.”
Her mother smiled. Then her phone rang again. She took a deep breath and answered it. Kay could tell from the tension in her mom’s voice that she was barely keeping her temper in check.
“Yes, sir. No, we don’t have any more leads on who the trespasser is. Yes, I’ve considered that the suspect isn’t crossing the border, but is living over there. Well, sir, how do you propose investigating that possibility without violating the border?” Her voice had become shrill, and she took a breath before continuing. “I’m sorry, sir.”
Making dinner wasn’t enough, Kay thought, pouring a jar of pasta sauce into a pot to simmer on the stove. If she really wanted to help her mother, she’d tell. She’d tell her everything.
Then what would happen? Kay couldn’t imagine. And that was why, in the end, she kept quiet.
13
The next day at dawn, three dragons perched on a cliff ledge less than a mile from the border. The sentinels stood upright, wings tucked close, faces turned toward human lands, barely moving. One of them would shift a hind claw or stretch its neck for a moment. One was a deep ocean blue, shimmering to black and gray as the light shifted. One was green, the color of a cartoon dragon, like you’d expect a dragon to be, except the green turned lighter and lighter, almost becoming a creamy yellow on its legs and belly. The third was mottled brown, camouflaged like a lizard. CNN kept a box in the upper right corner of its broadcast showing the scene, just in case they did something. News crews returned and took over Silver River. Network commentators couldn’t say enough.
Kay kept watching the dragons, noticing how they were different from Artegal—this one a little stouter, this one’s tail a little shorter, this one larger. She wondered at how many different colors there were. In Dracopolis, the dragons had been drawn in at least a dozen colors, every pigment the artist had. Did a dragon inherit its color from its parents? Was it random? What did a dragon’s color say about it, if anything?
Jon called her early. “I’m not going to school. Mom and Dad want me to stay home. Just in case.”
“Just in case of what?” Kay said.
“I don’t know.” He sounded frustrated, not actually excited about getting a day off school. “It’s like they think it’s the end of the world or something.”
Maybe it was. But the dragons were just sitting there, watching. “Maybe the dragons just want to remind us they’re out there.”
“What do your parents say?”
“Mom’s pretty stressed out. She left really early. She started getting calls as soon as the dragons showed up.”
“I’m sorry I won’t be there. I really wanted to see you.”
In case it was the end of the world, she thought. So they could be together. But surely things couldn’t be that bad.
“If they were going to do something, they’d have done it already,” she said, trying to convince herself.
“Maybe we can get together this evening, assuming my parents let me out of the house.”
Kay’s father hadn’t left yet. They had breakfast together—juice, toast, cereal—and she told him about Jon’s call.
“So, you going to let me stay home?” she finished.
Grinning, her father explained. “If the sheriff’s daughter doesn’t go to school, people will think the worst. It’ll be mass hysteria.”
She hadn’t looked at it like that. It was a little unfair, in her opinion. She pouted. “I’m not that important.”
Jack Wyatt got a funny look on his face, a kind of half smile, furrowed brow, and sad gaze. It lasted only a moment. It was gone before Kay could ask what was wrong.
Then he looked into his cereal bowl with his usual amused expression. “I guess you lost the parent lottery. Sorry, kiddo.”
“It shouldn’t matter that I’m your daughter. I should be able to do what I want to. Right?” Like speed on the highway, like stay out late with her boyfriend…
“Kay, after high school you can move away to where nobody knows you’re the sheriff’s daughter. Until then, you’re stuck with it. And if being the sheriff’s daughter means that maybe you can make a difference, like showing people there’s nothing to get in a panic over, don’t you think you ought to do it?”
This was a long-running argument, the unfairness of being Jack Wyatt’s daughter. If she really hated it that much, she supposed she could have run away from home. But she didn’t hate it that much.
She sighed. “I’ll just have to go out and be a role model then, won’t I?”
“That’s the spirit,” he said, smiling.
A lot of kids weren’t at school. Their parents apparently thought it was the end of the world. In first period, a third of the seats were empty, but class went on as usual.
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Tam showed up.
Kay said, “You couldn’t convince your mom it was the end of the world?”
“I didn’t think of it,” she grumbled. “I bet I could have. And you?”
Kay took on a fake-official tone of voice. “As the sheriff’s daughter, I’m a role model to the community.” She rolled her eyes.
“Wow. Sorry. So that’s why you never speed.”
In the cafeteria at lunchtime, the librarian had brought in a TV on a cart and turned it to the news. The room was quieter than usual, and not just because so many people were gone. Conversation was subdued.
The three dragons hadn’t moved.
Someone in a uniform came on the TV. Labeled General somebody-or-other, he’d just arrived at Malmstrom Air Force Base from the Pentagon to deal with the crisis. Kay couldn’t hear what he said.
The news didn’t say anything about photographs showing someone riding a dragon. Despite her mother’s fears, the pictures hadn’t leaked yet.
“All those drills we do,” Tam said, watching Kay watch the TV, “I never thought we might actually have to do it for real.”
Kay shook her head, tried to think positive. “We’re not there yet.”
For days, the dragon sentinels didn’t move. They might have been statues perched on the mountainside. Some people wondered if they were really the same dragons, if maybe new ones arrived to stand watch while no one was looking. But someone was looking at them constantly, and they didn’t move, didn’t eat. Dragons, somebody on one of the news shows said, were timeless. They’d reappeared after World War II, just as they’d always been, unchanging. They could sit on that mountain forever, looking down on Silver River. Kay noticed that much of what people said about dragons on TV wasn’t based on reality, but on old stories, half-baked legends, and old cultural memories rather than real knowledge. She kept wanting to argue with people.
The military issued a statement supposedly explaining the new jet and why it had crossed the border, and the international coalition issued a statement advising caution regarding the border, without outright condemning what had happened. The dragon territory border on the Taymyr Peninsula in Siberia had remained quiet. There was a press conference, which Kay watched live on TV because her mother was there and called, telling her to watch. Her mom sounded agitated on the phone—more so than usual—but she wouldn’t tell Kay what was wrong and hung up quickly.