The Bone Dragon (31 page)

It is morning. Bright daylight.

I hear the bedroom door creak open as I roll my head to the left. Amy peers in at me.

It’s a school day, I realise.

I sit up, yawning, feeling limp and wrung out. I ache, but oddly it’s my legs that are most sore. My legs and my arms. I try to remember the Dragon waking me for our dark moon adventure, try to remember what special thing we did that has left me so stiff and achy, but nothing comes. I remember my edge-of-dream vision of the Dragon launching itself into the air like the night it ate Sonny Rawlins’s bike. But then the next image that pops into my mind is a glimpse of my bike. For a second, I remember the feel of the handlebars shuddering against my palms as I bump over the tree roots at the bottom of the garden. The sound of crumbling concrete grinding under my weight as I turn on to the canal towpath. And I remember my heart pounding, pounding, pounding like when you’re being chased in a nightmare . . .

And a sudden thrill, like jumping through ice and soaring from the top of a mountain at the same time.

I frown, but even these vague memories are making me feel sick to my stomach somehow. I push the lingering images away.

When I move to stretch, I find myself wincing. Before the Dragon, I used to have nightmares all night long and wake up feeling like this: like I’ve been running all night from the things in my head, some of them memories and some just normal nightmares. Often they get mashed together, one nightmare running into another. It all drifts away like smoke after a fire has gone out when I wake.

‘Are you feeling OK, darling?’ Amy asks, perching on the edge of the bed and reaching to feel my forehead.

‘Think I had nightmares,’ I say around a huge yawn.

I’m tireder than when I went to bed last night. And grumpy. Because it’s been weeks, months even, since I’ve felt like this. It’s the first time I’ve slept badly since I summoned the Dragon with my wish.

‘Why don’t you come and have some breakfast, then we can talk about whether you should go to school today or not,’ Amy says, patting my knee. ‘How about some bacon and eggs to get you going?’

‘Please,’ I say around another yawn, stretching hugely like a cat – or a dragon, I think – as I go to brush my teeth.

Over breakfast, I realise that Amy is watching me eat, and then I realise that I’m stabbing my bacon. I sigh and start eating properly.

‘Do you want to go back to bed?’ Amy asks. ‘I’m happy to call Ms Winters . . .’

I shake my head. ‘Phee’s mum’s having more radiation stuff today. Lynne and I got a present for her. I need to take it.’

Amy’s smile is proud. For once, she doesn’t argue.

‘Everyone has the odd bad night, you know,’ she says as I put my plate and tea mug in the dishwasher. ‘It doesn’t mean you’re going to go back to having nightmares all the time, darling.’

I give her a tight little smile and drag myself off upstairs, wondering why last night of all nights the Dragon didn’t wake me. Especially after all that rubbish about it being the third dark moon: our dark moon. Maybe that was where my nightmares came from: too much mystery, too many hints at dark magic.

There’s a police car parked on the street when I arrive back from school. The front door opens before I’m even halfway up the path.

Paul has come home from work early. ‘Evie darling,’ he says, taking my bag from me.

There are people talking quietly in the living room.

‘Let’s get your coat off,’ Paul says.

I let him help me. He keeps a hand on my shoulder as we go into the living room. There are two police officers there, sitting on the sofa: a man and a woman.

‘Hello, Evie,’ the woman says. ‘Do you mind if we call you Evie?’

I shake my head.

‘Evie sweetheart,’ Amy says, coming forwards and towing me by the hand to the other sofa. She sits down so close her leg is pressed to mine, my hand pressed between hers. Paul perches on my other side. ‘Evie sweetheart, this is Sandy and Brian. They’ve . . . they’ve come to give us some . . . some news.’

She waits for me to ask. I don’t.

‘Evie, your . . . Fiona’s . . .’ Amy casts an uncomfortable look at the police officers and changes what she was going to say. ‘Your grandparents’ house burned down last night. They . . . they died in the fire.’

I turn to stare at the police officers. The woman nods regretfully at me. ‘We don’t think they suffered at all,’ she says. ‘They probably died from the smoke long before the fire got to them.’

I consider her silently. I have no idea if she is lying or not.

Paul squeezes my shoulder. ‘I’ll go and get you some hot chocolate, sweetheart, OK?’

I turn my gaze to the policeman. He doesn’t seem to know quite what to do with his face. I realise that he must be rather younger than the woman. Perhaps this is the first time he has gone to tell someone news like this.

‘It’ll take a while before we know for sure – there’s always an investigation after house fires involving fatalities – but preliminary indications are that someone left a cigarette burning on the edge of an ashtray on top of a stack of newspapers.’

I see a photo-flash of their living room, all the old, familiar furniture and ornaments.

‘It’s very common,’ the policewoman is saying. ‘You wouldn’t believe how many house fires start that way.’

I see the ashtray tipped at a precarious angle by the newspapers stacked underneath.

‘Unfortunately, they didn’t seem to have checked their smoke alarm lately. Lots of people don’t.’

I see the old alarm box on the wall by the kitchen door, right above the back of the armchair, within easy reach.

Amy laughs nervously. ‘Paul had ours wired up to the mains only a month ago so I wouldn’t keep worrying about changing the batteries.’ She gives him a tight-lipped smile as he comes back in with a tray of steaming mugs and a plate of biscuits. ‘I didn’t think it was necessary at the time, but I guess I should have been more appreciative.’

The policewoman nods sagely. ‘It never hurts to be on the safe side, though battery-operated alarms are very reliable if people check them often enough.’

I look at her, but see the long fringe of the table lamp just dusting into the ash on Fiona’s parents’ coffee table.

‘Now, your parents . . . your adoptive parents, that is, have told me that your grandparents didn’t have any other family,’ the policewoman says, turning back to me. ‘We’re still trying to find out if they had a will or a lawyer, but we’ll be in touch as soon as we have all of that figured out to help you start the process of . . . well, sorting out the funeral and stuff if there aren’t already arrangements in place.’

But I’m barely listening as I stare into an image, frozen out of time, of our old sitting room: behind the lamp, I can see the old curtains, faded into yellowness, with the faintest trace of a pattern of meadow flowers. But now I see the flame take hold there and the pattern blazes out, suddenly bright, as if newly printed. Then it is swallowed by the advancing black as the fabric turns to ash, as the fire devours its way upwards, up and along . . .

‘Anyway, we’re here today to acquaint you with the process of what happens in these sorts of situations: to see if we can offer you any help in dealing with your loss,’ the policewoman says. ‘Brian’s going to tell you a bit about what we can offer, while you have your hot chocolate, if that’s OK with you . . .’

The policeman gulps and nods. ‘Uhm,’ he says, and clears his throat.

The policewoman’s smile turns frozen for a moment and I see her foot twitch as if she wants to kick him. ‘Just remember that you can interrupt any time you’d like to ask us questions: any questions you want. We’re here to try to make things just a little bit easier for you, Evie, so you stop us whenever you need to, OK?’

When Amy closes the door after the police officers, I sigh and push myself to my feet.

‘Is it OK if I go to my room for a bit?’ I ask Paul.

‘If that’s what will help,’ Paul says, giving me a kiss on the forehead.

‘Evie darling, are you sure you want to be alone?’ Amy asks as she comes back into the living room. ‘We could play a game, or watch something nice on TV. We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.’

I smile. ‘Maybe later. I just want to think for a little bit.’

Amy starts twisting her wedding ring: a sure sign that she thinks it’s a bad idea.

‘Let the girl have some peace, Amy,’ Paul says, getting up to put his arm around her waist. ‘You and I can go and make something nice for dinner, and Evie can have a little time to herself.’

Amy twists the ring anxiously in the opposite direction. This means she is about to give in. ‘You
will
call us if you’re upset, won’t you, darling?’

‘I’m not going upstairs to cry,’ I tell her. ‘I just need to think. I promise to come down and find you if I decide to do the weepy thing instead.’

Paul grins, but Amy starts plucking at the ring as if it’s a spinning top, turning it faster and faster. ‘Maybe I should just come upstairs with you for a moment,’ she frets, wrenching at the ring so violently Paul moves to capture her hand in his.

‘Our Evie’s perfectly capable of deciding what she needs,’ he says firmly. ‘And if that’s a couple of minutes’ respite from the two of us, then that seems quite reasonable to me.’ He jollies her shoulder with his. She makes an attempt to smile: although she fails, she does let Paul usher her into the kitchen and doesn’t call me back as I start up the stairs.

Although it is daylight, the Dragon’s head turns to follow me as I close the bedroom door behind me. Once I’m settled cross-legged on the bed, the Dragon leaps across to join me, sitting neatly down on my crossed ankles and smiling smugly up at me.

‘Was that why you never woke me up last night?’ I ask.

The Dragon doesn’t answer, but its smile deepens. A wisp of smoke curls up from its nostrils.

‘We’ve got to be careful,’ I whisper. ‘We’ve got to be very, very careful.’

I went up to bed too early tonight. Now I am tired of my audiobook, but it’s too early to go out with the Dragon. As I shuffle down the hall towards the stairs, thinking that a second helping of dessert is just what the situation calls for, something of the conversation below quiets my steps. I creep forward to crouch unseen on the top step.

‘Don’t get me wrong, Ben. I’m not saying that I don’t think it’s all worked out rather well. Lady Justice taking a hand and setting things to rights. Or at least as far to rights as they’re going to get.’

‘Purifying,’ Amy says quietly, with a thoughtful satisfaction that makes me start. I grip the banister with sweaty fingers.

‘Well, the world’s certainly a better place without such
scum
in it,’ Paul says, biting out the word. ‘And I’ll be damned if I apologise for feeling glad about the whole thing. Evie’s taking it OK so . . .’

‘I think she’s relieved,’ Amy says softly.

‘Well, she would be, wouldn’t she? Seeing as how they’re not all that far away in real terms. Well . . . weren’t that far away.’

‘Yes, but that’s exactly it. Why do you think the police aren’t even curious? Not a question about where any of us were . . .’