The Dragondain (24 page)

There were so many of
them
. That much was painfully clear, and more were rushing from the spiral staircase every minute. This was it.

Lily staggered backward, slipping on the slick stones. Attempting to regain her footing, she stepped on something, barely catching herself as she stepped on it a second time, and then a third. With dawning horror, she saw what it was—Ren’s lifeless hand. A cry filled the Dwelliperium then, a high-pitched keening. At first, Lily couldn’t figure out where it was coming from, but when she screamed the second time, she realized it was coming from her own throat.

Later, Lily would remember only bits and pieces. She remembered Rymee talking to her, but not who had begun the conversation. Rymee’s voice was strong, steady, forceful—the only calm in the storm. Lily remembered clinging to it, but not much of what was said. Together, using Lily’s peerin, they’d opened the secret door behind the bookcase. It had been a very hard thing to do. Rymee had needed to help in a way she hadn’t before, and it took a toll on her. Properly sealing the door had been different, too. Rymee did something . . . something that wouldn’t allow the door to work for Lily anymore. Rymee’s voice had been shaky after that, like she’d run a great distance. Lily remembered being mad that Rymee hadn’t explained what they were doing when they closed the door. She didn’t want to leave her friends this way. But it was too late. Rymee explained that it was for her own good . . . that whatever happened to the others, it wasn’t Lily’s fault.

Rymee had faded after that, leaving Lily alone behind the door. The last thing she’d said was that she’d come for her when it was safe. Lily would just have to wait in the darkness until then.

Her only light came from the moon coin. She unlatched the fob and used the silver light of the nine moons to light her way. Earth’s little circle remained dark. In the dim light, Lily descended stairs, though she wouldn’t remember them later. She remembered thinking she
had
to get home, that she couldn’t go anywhere else. She remembered a little bit about the bottom of the stairs, the narrow archway framed by two tall shields, breastplate, and helms—like sentinels, burnished and golden. She didn’t remember walking between them, or what lay beyond.

Later, she remembered how cold the floor felt. Curled up in a ball, spinning and spinning and spinning the inner ring of the moon coin, watching the little glowing moons go round and round, listening to the little clicks in her head. She remembered snapping the fob shut on Earth’s unlit circle, closing her eyes, and rocking back and forth as the silvery light of the moon coin faded. And then Lily was in total darkness.

How many hours passed after that, she never knew. She didn’t remember the sobbing, but the rocking, and the icy cold of the floor, she would always remember those. It felt like days before she was back in her own bed, wrapped in her riding cloak, wearing her helmet, greaves, vambraces, and boots—clutching the moon coin so hard it cut grooves in the palm of her hand.

Chapter Fifteen

Home Again, Home Again

J
asper
lay down on his bed for the fourth time in ten minutes, clasped his hands behind his head, and stared at the ceiling. The sun had been up for hours, and Lily had
promised
she would tell him everything as soon as she got back. He glanced at the bright sky outside his window. She had to be back. Had she gone to sleep? How could she sleep? Had something gone wrong? One thing was certain: they needed a better system, a signal to let each other know they had gotten back safely. Jasper fought down the urge to check her door again, to see if, in the last ten minutes, the door to her room had magically unlocked itself.

Someone knocked on Jasper’s door. He’d been listening for Lily’s knock, but this one was soft and noncommittal, whereas his sister’s was bold, sharp, and impatient.

Jasper crossed the room quickly and yanked open the door with more force than he’d intended. It was Lily. Her shoulders were quaking, her face filled with pain. Tears streamed down her face, and her arms hung at her sides like dead weights.

“Lily!” he said, motioning her in. But she just stood there, sobbing silently. “Lil, what’s the matter?” When Jasper stepped forward to take her arm, Lily wrapped her arms tightly around him.

Jasper had only seen Lily this upset once before: the first time she’d seen a horse die giving birth. She’d been eight years old then, and he had always thought the experience, though painful, had served to harden her.

Jasper put his arms around his sister and gave her a long, comforting hug. But each time he tried to disengage, Lily only tightened her grip, sobbing. He tried twice more before abandoning the idea, as he’d become rather attached to the act of breathing.

“It’s okay,” he tried instead. “You’re home now.” As Jasper repeated these words, he cast his eye up and down the corridor to make sure they were alone. They were. Slowly, he edged Lily into his room and closed the door.

When Lily finally detached herself, she traded Jasper for a pillow. It took a long time before she could speak intelligibly. And when she did, the first thing she said was, “They’re dead. They’re all dead.” Much later she was able to say, “The children.” Over and over.

Lying face down, she began the difficult task of telling her tale in a coherent manner. Not wanting to interrupt, Jasper grabbed a pad of paper and jotted down as many notes as he could, hoping he could piece things together later. Despite the many breaks Lily needed, after about an hour, she reached the point of waking up in her own bed.

When she finished, she turned her head sideways on the pillow and looked at him for the first time. Jasper saw a lost look that he had never seen on her before.

“So,” he began carefully, “you didn’t actually
see
any of them die, not for certain.”

“Ren,” she said softly.

“But Nye was there, right? And he
is
a healer.”

“They were so outnumbered . . .”

“Yes. But you said yourself that Darce was holding her own against half a dozen of them. Falin was down, but you don’t know how badly he was injured. What if he was able to stand back up? They’re a tough lot. A single sword thrust to Falin’s leg . . . I can’t see him being taken down so easily. And who knows what Annora and Bree were cooking up? They were probably just getting started.”

Lily’s face tightened, and fresh tears streamed down her face. “But there were so many.”

“Look, I’m not saying that they’re
all
alive and well. It sounds bad. And I don’t mean to give you false hope, but you can’t say—
outright
—that they’re all dead. You just don’t know if that’s true.”

Lily stared at her brother. “We can’t go back to Dain,” she said hopelessly. “I left from Castle Fendragon. We’d never be able to get back to Bairne, where everyone lives. We’d be trapped with all the bad people.”

Jasper tapped his pencil on his notepad. “I’ve been thinking about that. We’ll have to use a crossover to get back to Dain. With Nimlinn’s help, we’ll learn a place and time and get back that way.

Lily pushed her head off the pillow and perched herself on her elbows. “That’s exactly how we’ll get back,” she said, rubbing her reddened nose on the back of her hand. “Mowra, the Rinn lunamancer—she’ll be able to predict the time and place of the next crossover with Dain. And if the Rinn have contacted Ember, she may be on Barreth already. Tavin and Dubb may even be there, if we’ve truly convinced them to help the Rinn and become Dainriders.”

“We need to be there when that happens, Lily. We need to go back to Dain with them, so we can get safely back to Bairne.”

Jasper was good at this kind of thinking. His arguments made sense and were almost always unassailable. It was one of his gifts. And just like that, he’d given Lily a small ray of hope that maybe the children of the Dragondain weren’t all dead. It was a very small ray, but Lily began to think it would be enough to get her through until she could learn the truth.

Jasper flipped a page on his notepad and began asking questions. In particular, he asked about Curse, Newlin, the boat, and Castle Fendragon. He especially wanted to know more about Lily being able to form a peerin. And he wanted to know how a peerin could open secret doors. Telling her story, Lily had once again left out a crucial part: Rymee. When Lily told Jasper her tale, she made it sound like Darce or Annora had known the location of the doors. As to unlocking the doors, Lily told things in such a way that Jasper would assume Annora or Bree had done it. The subterfuge was easy.

“Lily, if you can form a peerin—” Jasper began.

“—then we’re from Dain,” finished Lily.

“But wouldn’t that mean . . . I mean, what about Mom and Dad?”

“It means they aren’t telling us everything,” said Lily, reading Jasper’s thoughts. “We look too much like them not to be their children.”

“We look a lot like Ebb, too. I don’t think we can assume anything anymore.”

“There’s no way you can make me believe that they aren’t our parents.”

Jasper nodded. “I feel the same way. It’s just . . . it’s just hard to know
what
to believe.”

“I know.”

Lily and Jasper talked for a long time about what they should do next, and what Jasper should take with him the next time he went to the Moon Realm. Lily pushed hard for taking a camera and a flashlight. Jasper pushed hard for traveling light, but conceded that a camera was very tempting.

Finally, Lily announced she was going downstairs to get some breakfast. “I’ll be around. Here are all of my notes.” She pulled a pad of paper from her pocket and tossed it on the bed.

In the early afternoon, back in her own room, Lily jumped at a loud knock on her door. It was Jasper’s knock, Lily could tell. But it seemed rushed. Lily scanned the room for anything embarrassing, then opened the door just a crack. Jasper looked bemused.

“What is it?” asked Lily.

Jasper’s eyes shifted to someone just out of sight. “Um,” he started, his eyes big, “it’s—it’s Gwen.”

Lily and Jasper often saw Gwen around the farm, but she rarely came into the big house, and when she did, she never went anywhere but the kitchen. Lily felt a flush of guilt. She must have forgotten something terribly important, some chore or task. “Let me get my shoes! Tell her I’ll be right down!” Lily spun about like a top, searching for her sneakers, only to remember a second later that her sneakers were on Barreth, resting on a funeral slab inside the Tomb of the Fallen.

“No, Lily,” said Jasper. “She’s . . . here.”

Lily, who was now hopping around with one farm boot on, dropped the other and stared. Jasper pushed open Lily’s big wooden door. Tarzanna, the house cat, who must have been on patrol just outside, darted in and began prowling the room. Lily made a questioning face at Jasper. He shrugged, flashing her a “you got me!” look.

An enormous bonsai tree centered on a thick slab of wood came first into view, followed by Gwen, walking with carefully measured steps. Lily would have expected anyone else Gwen’s age to struggle with such a large and awkward object, but not Gwen. Gwen’s arms were like the gnarled limbs of some mighty oak, her skin dark, wrinkled, and scarred. Lily had grown up with Gwen’s old-world clothing: her layers of earth-colored shawls, her forest-colored hooded cloaks. They had not seemed out of place until Lily started grade school. But as she watched Gwen step into the room now, she couldn’t stop thinking about how out of place the older woman looked here.

Gwen’s eyes darted about as though she was afraid of what she might see. Her eyes met Lily’s momentarily, and Gwen raised her eyebrows in apology before swinging her head toward some unheard sound. She craned her neck, peering into the dark corners of the room and scrutinizing the tops of curtains.

Finally, Lily found her voice. “Would you like to put that down?” She knew better than to offer Gwen assistance.

Gwen smiled and deposited the bonsai tree on the corner of Lily’s bed. Lily sat down next to it and stared. She had never seen this particular bonsai, which was quite odd, since she thought she was familiar with all the bonsai at Treling. Gwen, after all, had taught Lily how to make them, train them, and care for them. Gwen had given Lily her first set of tools. Lily glanced again at Jasper, who shook his head and mouthed, “I don’t know” as he closed her door.

When Lily turned around, Gwen was clearing a space on Lily’s dresser. Lily tried to think of something to say, but nothing would come out.

“I hope you don’t mind,” said Gwen in her thick accent, “but I’ve brought you a little something.”

“Um—” said Lily, but that was as far as she could get.

Slowly, Gwen turned to look at Lily. She was wringing her hands. Lily had never seen Gwen nervous before, not even when she had good reason to be, like when a mare wasn’t birthing right.

“I think,” Gwen began, “that this will help.”

“With what?” asked Lily, speaking more loudly than she had intended.

Gwen bit her lip, but she didn’t respond. Instead, she glanced about the room nervously. Tarzanna was inspecting the rumpled clothing on the floor, tentatively pawing at the larger piles. Gwen reached down and gave the cat a rough but affectionate scritch behind the ears.

“You keep your little paws to yourself. You hear?”

She rose to leave. Placing her hand on the doorknob, she suddenly froze, as if she would never move again.

“Gwen, are you all right?” Lily asked timidly.

“I always had a talent for them,” she said, still facing the door.

“Who?” asked Lily, feeling quite lost.

“Keep her close, Lily. It would be
best
if she were not seen.”

Then Gwen spun around, eyes wide. “I almost forgot!” she cried.

Startled, Lily sat bolt upright.

Gwen motioned toward the bonsai, “If you ever, EVER,” she began, a frightening expression on her face, “see any fruit on that tree, you take it quick and come running for me, girl. And don’t you stop for
anything!
Do you understand me?
Anything!”

Lily nodded quickly.

Gwen’s features softened, and she seemed to regret the strength of her outburst. Without another word, she opened the door and disappeared into the hallway.

Lily turned to the bonsai and stared at it for a long time. It looked familiar, and yet she couldn’t remember ever seeing it. After a time, she got up and replaced all the items on her dresser. She cleared away Ebb’s figurines and wrestled her bookcase far enough away from the wall that the bonsai would be well balanced. Carefully, Lily lifted the slab by the edges and set it into place. The bole of the tree was now level with her bed. She rearranged the figurines in the small space to the left of the tree. From her desk drawer, she removed a magnifying glass and perched on the edge of the bed to peer at the leaves. On the prowl, Tarzanna disappeared underneath the bed.

It was a broad tree, with many well-made limbs that by bonsai standards were quite long. It was perfectly clear to Lily that it had been trained and cared for its whole life, and that it was
old
, more than a hundred years old, maybe several hundred years old, which meant it had been handed down from one person to the next over centuries. Lily first examined the leaves, then the bark. She knew them well—she knew them very well.

It was the tree in front of Uncle Ebb’s house in miniature. And it was magnificent, possibly the greatest specimen of bonsai Lily had ever seen.

Someone knocked softly on Lily’s door, and she jumped. The knock came a second time, and she recognized it as her father’s. She scanned the room, checked her finger for the ring, made sure she wasn’t wearing her Moon Realm boots, and patted her throat to make sure the necklace wasn’t there before opening the door.

Lily’s father, Tay, was a thinker. He was familiar with disappointment, but slow to anger and quick to smile. Methodical, practical, efficient. These were good farmer traits, but he didn’t look like most of the other farmers Lily knew. His hands weren’t thickened by years of abuse, though he abused them terribly; his face was unweathered and smooth, though he had spent his whole life in the Pennsylvania sun and wind.

He was also very hard to surprise, which was why his expression grabbed Lily immediately. He walked into the room, his gaze bouncing back and forth from the tree to Lily’s face. She saw wonder there, and something else, too, like anger.

“I didn’t take it!” Lily blurted as her father crossed the room and stood before the tree.

“I know,” he said, barely above a whisper. He extended his hand, palm down, fingers open, a few inches above the tree. Lily had seen him do this with other plants. It had always given her the impression that he was talking to them, finding out if they needed anything. Her mother did it too. Lily had tried it herself a few times but hadn’t ever noticed anything special. When he turned to face her, his eyes were still full of wonder, but she could see the anger, or whatever it was, there too.

“I saw her bringing it in,” said Tay.

“I didn’t ask for it, either!” said Lily, her heart pounding. Was he angry? Was he really angry? He’s
never
angry.

Tarzanna slipped out from under the bed and padded over to the closet, flopped on her side, and reached her paw under the door, making deep rattling sounds in her throat.

Tay smiled. “I think Tarzanna’s found a mouse,” he said. He sat on the edge of the bed, next to Lily. His face turned sad all of a sudden, and he touched his hand to Lily’s cheek.

“You get so much older every day. How did you grow up so fast? You’re so very much older than just . . . yesterday.” Lily watched water well up on the lower lids of his eyes. He stood up then, keeping his back to her. “I’m sure Gwen has her reasons, Lily.” His voice cracked the tiniest bit when he said her name. He walked back into the hallway and turned, his face downcast and safely in shadow.

“I saw you riding Hello Kitty on the trail to Uncle’s house,” he said.

“I didn’t go into the house! I just went looking for lights! I didn’t get close!”

“I know. Just . . . be careful, Lily. Until your uncle comes back, his house, and the grounds on the egg, are off-limits. I’ve reprogrammed Rinnjinn. He won’t let either of you inside unless you’re with Mom or me.” Lily wanted more than anything to mean it when she said, “I won’t go in the house, Daddy.”

“It’s . . . important, Lily.”

And then Lily felt it coming. The promise. He was going to ask for the promise.
But he
never
asks for the promise, only Mom asks for the promise!
(Lily never kept those.) But he almost never asked, and she’d never
once
broken one to
him
.

“Do you promise, Lily? That you won’t go into the house?”

Lily felt her stomach tighten. “I promise, Daddy. I won’t go in the house,” she heard herself say. She really,
really
wanted to believe it was the truth, but she knew, deep down, that it would only be a matter of time before she
had
to go back into Uncle Ebb’s house.

Tay nodded. “That’s my girl,” he said, closing the door.

Lily felt a tear well up in her own eye. She
so
didn’t want to break that promise.

Come home, Uncle Ebb,
she thought.
Come home soon!