Icefire

  “Hi. Any news? Why the long face?”

  “Gwilanna won’t let me see Mom. She won’t even let me look through the window. It’s not fair. It’s been ages. And the dragons don’t like it either. They’re whispering a lot and acting funny.”

  David sat down beside her and lifted the teapot. “Dragons are always acting funny. Try not to fret. By six tonight you’ll have a bouncing baby brother, then we’ll be back to normal again. You must be looking forward to it, surely? I know Gwilanna can be a bit strict, but it’s important to maintain … security, I guess. I’m sure your mom’s doing absolutely fine. If she was in a hospital like a normal mom you wouldn’t be able to see her that often, would you?” He poured a cup of tea. It looked stewed and cold.

  “That’s yesterday’s,” Lucy told him. “See what happens when Mom isn’t here?”

  Unfazed, David whistled down the hall. A young male dragon flew in at once, carrying a postcard in its mouth. He dropped it at David’s place. David recognized the creature as the one he’d seen checking the plants for water. “Thank you. Where’s Gruffen? I thought he was door monitor?”

  The dragon wriggled its snout.

  “Gwillan and Gruffen take turns,” said Lucy. “Guarding the hall, I mean. Gwillan does lots of jobs for Mom. He’s a snuffler dragon. He dusts.”

  Without prompting, Gwillan bent his snout to a small patch of dust and “snuffled” it into his wide, flared nostrils.

  “Very impressive,” David told him and pushed the cold tea under Gwillan’s snout. “Warm that, will you?”

  “That’s not allowed!” Lucy protested as Gwillan, with one snort, brought the tea back to boiling — but left it covered in a layer of dust. The snuffler gulped and his cheeks turned a very deep shade of green. He nudged the postcard closer to David, then beat a warmish exit.

  “Serves you right,” said Lucy. “Who’s your postcard from?”

  David flipped it over. “Someone in Africa.”

  “Sophie! Let me see!”

  “Ah, ah. My girlfriend, remember? It’s personal. There might be intimate … thingies.”

  Before Lucy could issue her usual batch of insults, the telephone rang, drawing her away. Moments later she was back, looking even more disgruntled. “It’s her.”

  “Who, Sophie?”

  “No, the other one. She rang yesterday as well. I told her you were dead.”

  “What?”

  “Can I read the card now?”

  “No.” David batted her arm with it. “And don’t ever tell anyone I’m dead — unless I am.”

  “OK,” she chirped, and whipped the card off him anyway.

  Strangely, death was on Zanna’s mind, too. “Hang up and you’re history,” she threatened. “I want to know what’s going on. First I get a cryptic text message from you, then you’re giving me the big cold shoulder. Is your woman back on the scene or what?”

  David, perplexed by both of these questions, thought it best to avoid all references to Sophie. “Text?” he queried.

  “H-r-r-r,” Zanna spelled.

  “I didn’t send that.”

  “Yes, you did. It came from your number. Stop messing with me. What’s going on? Is everything OK? You promised you’d tell me about the egg.”

  At this, David’s brain began to go swimmy. Egg? How could anyone outside the family know about the egg?

  “What have they done to you?” Zanna pressed.

  David bit his lip. It was times like this he wished Liz was awake. She was so much better at this game than him. “I’ve gotta go, sorry.”

  “David, don’t you dare hang up! What have they done? Tell me or I’m going straight to Bergstrom.”

  Bergstrom. David remembered something about him. “Will you pass on a message for me?”

  “Maybe.” She sounded guarded now.

  “Tell him … I didn’t have time to write my essay.”

  He put the phone down and wandered back to the kitchen.

  “Have you finished with her yet?” Lucy asked hopefully.

  “You can’t finish something you haven’t started, Lucy.”

  Lucy wiggled her nose. It wasn’t quite the answer she’d been hoping for, but it seemed to do. “Sophie sends her love.” She pointed to a cluster of kisses on the card.

  “Hmm,” went David, glancing at the clock. “I think she misses us.”

  David wasn’t so sure. If anything, the card had been quite perfunctory. Not so much as a “wish you were here.” He felt a tug of disappointment and buried it fast. “Going to the bathroom, then I’m off, OK?”

  A-row, went Bonnington. He jumped down off the sink and started scratching in his litter box.

  “Yuck,” went Lucy, and pinched her nose — though it wasn’t clear which of them, cat or tenant, this gesture was intended for.

  Upstairs, while David was performing his ablutions, he tried to rehearse what he wanted to say to Dilys Whutton. But every time he pictured the interview scene, his thoughts were swiftly derailed by a lot of busy hurring in the Dragons’ Den next door. “What’s going on in there, do you know?” He turned to the puffler dragon on the tank. The puffler shrugged. It wasn’t its business to know of goings-on. Its duty was to puffle, which was just what it did, sending out a cloud of sweet-smelling jasmine as soon as David had flushed. David washed his hands and went next door.

  At the first creak of hinges the hurring stopped, then rose to the gentle background level that generally warmed the house so well. David peered around the shelves. Those dragons that weren’t just lifeless lumps blinked or blew smoke rings or stretched their wings. His gaze came last to Liz’s workbench. “Now, then. What are you all up to?”

  G’reth, Gadzooks, and the guard dragon, Gruffen, all shuffled their feet and gave an innocent cough. Gadzooks put his notepad behind his back.

  “You shouldn’t be on there,” David told them. “Guinevere mustn’t be disturbed, you know.” On the stand immediately behind the bench, Liz’s special dragon was sleeping deeply. David looked to the opposite side where the dragon Liz had made in the image of Gawain was hunched in a corner, also fast asleep.

  Suddenly, the peace was broken by a strident shout downstairs: Aunty Gwyneth calling for Gretel. All three dragons tensed their scales. “Stay out of trouble,” David told them, and went to see what the fuss was about.

  Aunty Gwyneth collared him in the hall. “Where is Gretel?”

  “Dunno. Haven’t seen her. In the garden, collecting seeds, I guess. I’m going to the publisher’s. See you later.”

  Aunty Gwyneth stopped him with a talonlike grip. “There is an atmosphere in this house today. I hear whisperings. Murmurs of insurrection. I hope this is none of your doing?”

  “Insurrection?” David looked puzzled.

  “Rebellion,” Aunty Gwyneth growled. Her eyes sharpened as if they could slice him in two.

  David flapped a hand. “Oh, it’s just the dragons. Lucy said they were acting funny. They’re restless. Missing Liz, probably.”

  “Yes,” said Aunty Gwyneth, “I suppose they are. Very well. You may go. You will return by three. Are there adequate mushrooms in the fridge?”

  “I peeled a whole bagful late last night. Lucy, I’m going! See you later, OK?”

  “Good luck!” she cried, running through from the kitchen.

  “The boy does not need luck,” said Aunty Gwyneth, picking a piece of fluff off his jacket, “merely the proper kind of … guidance.”

  This made David squirm. Guidance? What did the old crone mean by that? It wasn’t like her to offer friendly advice. Fearing she might try to peck him on the cheek, he grabbed his overcoat and hurried away.

  As soon as he was gone, Lucy asked politely, “Aunty Gwyneth, may I see Mom now, please?”

  “You may not” was the harsh reply. “You will go into the garden and search for Gretel. There is an urgent task required of her.”

  “But it’s snowing.”

  “Then wear a hat.”

  L
ucy sighed and pulled on her boots. “I want to see my mom!” she shouted. But her words fell on hollow ears as usual.

  Gretel, as it turned out, was closer at hand than anyone imagined. She was actually on the fridge top, near to the back where no one could see. In front of her stood the listening dragon, a glazed kind of look in its spectacled eyes. One flower — a mixture of buttercup and chives — had been enough to bring it under Gretel’s control. Gretel, like her mistress, had sensed the growing unrest in the house and was cleverly fine-tuning the listener’s ears, hoping to pinpoint the source of the revolt. She found it exactly where she thought she would: on the bench in the Dragons’ Den. Three of them: G’reth, the silly little guard dragon, Gruffen, and the soppy-eyed writing dragon, Gadzooks, all tuning in to the dragon in the wardrobe, the one they were calling Grace. They were conspiring, plotting their revenge for the way G’reth had been made to suffer. Gretel blew a smoke ring in despair. Pennykettle dragons! Did they have nothing but soot for brains? They would all be quenched for this; tails used as disposable toothpicks. How could four incompetent pufflers hope to defeat her mistress, Gwilanna? She tuned in again, searching for details. The first snippet she picked up stiffened her scales. Hrrr-rrr-ar-raar. The password for the suitcase. Great Gawain! They were planning to steal the scale? How? None of them could carry such a weight, let alone get past … Wait. What was that? She tuned in again, carefully tweaking the listener’s ears, trying to receive an accurate signal. The hurrs faded in. The hurrs faded out. And then the dragon Gadzooks broke through. Help would come. G’reth was sure of it. Pff! went Gretel. Help? From where? The airwaves hummed again. And out of the Dragons’ Den came an answer. A word that made Gretel curious and fearful in equal amounts.

  What in clay’s name was a Spikey, she wondered?

  27

  HOBNOBBING WITH DILYS

  The offices of Apple Tree Publishing were wedged between a lumberyard and a bar in a cramped and rundown area of Boston. It was hardly the castle of literary elegance that David Rain had imagined it to be. Redevelopment was everywhere. Half the road was checkered by scaffolding. Boards surrounded the knocked-out shop fronts. The smell of damp brick dust hung in the air. Taxicabs shuttled past, squirting slush onto the snow-packed sidewalks. And from every quarter there came a noise. Hammering, drilling, workers shouting, music thumping out of the bar, the steady buzz of traffic, the rumble of a bus, the sucking whistle of an overhead plane. By the time David had found the right door (a giveaway, thanks to the window display of Apple Tree’s award-winning TV character Kevin the Karaoke Kangaroo), he could barely make his voice heard over the intercom. Thankfully he did and the door clicked open. A pleasant young woman, wearing what appeared to be a pilot’s headset, asked him his business. He brushed the snow off his shoulders and told her. Mr. Rain for Dilly, she announced. She invited him to take a seat. Someone would be down to see him in a moment. Dilly? thought David. Seemed a bit irreverent for a senior editor. He shrugged. Perhaps it was a publishing thing. He plopped himself on a stylish futon and picked up a copy of Kevin Goes to Texas.

  He was halfway through the classic Home on the Range, when a woman appeared on the stairs to his left. She was tall and frighteningly slim; all arms and legs, like an alien visitor. She would have been several years older than Zanna, but not nearly as old as Liz. Her dark brown hair was short and chic. She was wearing a cream-colored turtleneck sweater, trapped at the hips by a low-slung belt that sat on top of a short suede skirt. She walked like a Siamese cat. David whistled inwardly and tried not to stare. He was checking out where the buffaloes grazed when the alien leg-stalks halted in front of him.

  “David?” A delicate hand came out.

  Dumbstruck, David shook it.

  The alien apparition smiled. She had a generous mouth and sparkling eyes. High cheekbones. Perfect skin. “You’re quite a bit younger than we imagined,” she said, slightly overpronouncing her words.

  “Sorry,” David muttered.

  “No problem,” she said. “Come and meet the clan.” She turned and led him up the stairs. By the time they had climbed four winding flights, she seemed to have learned the best part of his background. “Geography? Isn’t that a lot of maps and contours?”

  “Mmm,” went David, mapping the contours of her swinging hips.

  They entered a large office. Posters of book covers and children’s characters leaped off every scrap of wall. The whole floor was divided up by orange partitions. In every space was a desk, a computer, and at least one rack of children’s books. “This is Editorial,” the tour guide fluted, trailing a hand as they wandered past. “And over here is Design.”

  David smiled at everyone in turn. It wasn’t difficult. All the computers were staffed by women. Young women in T-shirts and jeans. They waved or said hi and went back to their screens. The apparition stopped by a coffeemaker. “Coffee?”

  “Thanks. One sugar, please. Excuse me, but don’t any men work here?”

  The hostess thought a moment. “Hmm. Robert in Marketing. He’s very useful for blowing up balloons at parties. Why?”

  “Just wondered,” David muttered. The prospect of being a children’s book author was beginning to appeal to him more and more. “What do you do? Are you Mrs. Whutton’s assistant?”

  The “assistant” smiled rather inwardly at this. “I make the coffee — among other things,” she said, handing him a scorching plastic cup. “Strictly speaking, it’s ‘Ms.,’ not ‘Mrs.’ I would accept ‘Miss,’ but I always think it makes me sound like a schoolteacher. Just plain Dilys will do.” She opened the door to a quiet office.

  David went in, wishing that the floor would dissolve beneath his feet. “You’re Dilys? I’m sorry. I thought you’d be …”

  “Older?” she laughed. “I’ll take that as a compliment — this time. Sit down. Help yourself to a cookie.”

  David looked at the plate. Chocolate chip cookies. How could he resist?

  Ms. Dilys Whutton sat down opposite. On the table in front of her lay David’s manuscript. She stroked her fingers along its margins and pressed the pages neatly into register. “This is a lovely story, David. How did it come about?”

  So David told her about his adventures with the squirrels, and how he’d written the story for Lucy’s birthday.

  Dilys Whutton cooed like a dove. “Ah, that’s so sweet. You made half the girls here cry, you know.”

  “They’ve read it?”

  “Oh, yes. Everyone has. Even Robert in Marketing. Anything we consider for publication is read by the whole office.”

  “But … you said in your letter you’re not going to publish it.”

  Dilys steepled her fingers and tapped them together. “No, that’s right. Let me tell you why. Every publisher has what they call a list, which kind of represents their general tastes. If we don’t feel confident that a book will sit right on our list, we tend to let it go.” She cast her eyes at Snigger. “I know that must be awfully disappointing for you, but there is a ray of hope. The reason I called you in today was to tell you how much I enjoyed your style. Your writing is full of innocence and charm, but it’s also oddly captivating. If we could find a project that might interest us both, I’d like you to have another go.”

  “Oh,” said David, and took another cookie.

  Dilys sat back and crossed her legs. “Are you working on anything else right now?”

  “Well, um …”

  “Just an outline of something, perhaps?”

  David looked at the window, at the patterns forming on the snow-flecked glass. This was his chance to make an impression. But what could he tell her when there was nothing else? Everything he’d tried to write just lately, including his essay, had come out sounding like gobbledygook. He sighed and focused his gaze on the snow. And as he did, something peculiar happened. From the light and angles and shapes and spaces he made out the face of a polar bear. In his mind he heard Lucy’s happy voice chattering, “He’s going to do another book soon, about b
ears!” And before he knew it he was telling Dilys Whutton, “I have an idea for an Arctic story. It’s going to be a sort of … saga, I think. It’s set in a time when the ice was ruled by nine bears. One of them was a male called Ragnar.”

  Dilys broke a cookie. “Go on,” she whispered. “How does it start?”

  “On an ice floe,” David said, and suddenly the story started to come, as if all that had ever been required of him was to pluck it out of the surrounding air. Staring straight through the polar bear’s eyes, into the gray city sky he said, “A mother bear is sitting with her female cub. They’re looking across the Arctic Ocean, at an island the bears call the Tooth of Ragnar. The mother is telling the cub its history. The island is a place of many legends, but it also marks a time of … terrible conflict.”

  “Between rival bears?”

  David swept his head from side to side. “No. Bears and men.” The snow began to dot the windows again, and now, with every flake that settled, an image of the Arctic came along with it. A village … an ancient tribal place … people wailing … hunger … drums … the wind whistling … darkness … cold … a bear cub, lost and seeking shelter … a man with a long bone in his hand, wielding it high above his head … “No!” David let out a sudden gasp and a snow shower thumped against the office windows, almost punching a dent in the glass.

  Dilys Whutton jumped and knocked her coffee. She took a tissue from her sleeve and mopped the spill, then stood up and checked the window latch. “Sorry, these windows are very old. They get a bit spooky in weather like this. What made you cry out?”

  “I saw a cub,” said David, setting his gaze into the middle distance between himself and the corner of the office. “It wanders into an Inuit settlement where the people are starving and desperate for food.”

  Dilys bit her lip. “A cub? They killed it?”

  “Yes.” Here David paused and narrowed his eyes, as though his mind was having to reach far back in time. “Yes,” he breathed again, “but it shouldn’t have happened. In those days, bears were sacred to the Inuit. Hunting them was strictly forbidden.”