Annie had landed near the dragon’s neck. She scurried up to him and sat astride just in the nick of time, because three seconds later Bloom landed on the dragon’s back, plop, right where she’d been a moment before. He, of course, landed on his feet, being the confident elf that he was. He had more grace than a cat.
Nice landing, the mellow, gravelly voice in her head said.
Thank you.
Annie’s eyes widened as Bloom sat down. “I heard you say that, but your lips didn’t move.”
Bloom smiled but didn’t say anything else. Annie took one hand off the dragon’s scale to hold her head. Her cheek wound was bleeding. She hoped she wasn’t brain damaged.
“I don’t understand,” Annie said to Bloom, who was busy unwrapping the rope from his wrist.
The dragon swooped down to almost beach level and crested out over the sea toward the storm. He then flapped his large wings and swung back toward the cliff.
Going up.
Annie gulped as the world flew past them and they soared up way past the cliff and above even the trees. All of Aurora hunkered beneath them. Miss Cornelia’s house sat on the hill. The town lay below. The barrens spread out like white fields, giving way to woods and mountains. On the beach by the river’s mouth, Gran Pie knocked pieces of wood together. Annie waved.
Going down.
Annie shut her eyes as they spiraled back down toward the sea. She clutched the dragon’s spine with both hands and clenched her thighs around his back.
Open your eyes.
“Annie, it’s so fun,” Bloom said, and then he yodeled and yelled. “Yeee-haww!”
Annie didn’t know elves yodeled, but she opened her eyes. It was like an amusement ride, like a roller coaster, only smoother, and if she forgot about her headache and the cold beating of the wind against her, it was sort of fun.
“Yell, Annie!” Bloom said, punching her in the arm.
“Yell?”
“It’s so fun. Just yell.” He did again. “Yee-haw. Do it. DO it. Yee-haw!”
Annie cleared her throat. “Erm—Yeee?”
“Yee-haw!” Bloom bellowed again, lifting both his hands above his head.
Annie tried again. “Yee-haw.”
Louder, the voice in her head and Bloom said at the same time.
She looked around and felt silly. “Yee-haw!”
“Again!” Bloom laughed as the dragon soared in a whirlpool pattern lower and lower and then zipped back up.
“Yee-haw!” Annie yelled. “Yeee—haaaww!”
It felt glorious. It felt like ice cream at the beach. It felt like a straight-A report card when the know-it-all boy in the seat next to you got a B in Health.
“Yeeee-hawwwww!” Annie shouted again.
Good, good. Now let’s go in so someone can take this arrow out of my tail.
It was only when the dragon said that sentence that Annie realized the mellow male voice in her head was not her own, but it was, actually, the dragon’s. She gulped. She lifted up her hand off his back, but she missed the feel of his shiny skin against her fingers so she put it back down again.
“Okay,” she said. “I’ll do that for you.”
In her head, she could feel the dragon smile, and they turned and headed for the middle of the cliff, straight for the black hole of the dragon’s cave. As they flew, Annie patted the dragon’s back. His scales shimmered like fairy dust, like a thousand tiny diamonds or stars reflecting all the colors of the sun.
The dragon’s lair did not resemble the dangerous place Annie had always heard about in Grimms’ Fairy Tales. No heaping mound of treasure mixed with human bones and skeletons. Swords and daggers taken from humans in bloody battles didn’t cover the floor.
Instead, there were some nice mounds of sea glass sorted into colors. The pile of royal blue was the biggest. Annie slid off the dragon’s back taking care not to hit his right wing, which he had folded neatly into his side. She reached into her pocket and brought out the blue and purple glass. She reached them toward the dragon’s front legs.
“These are for you.”
Thank you. The dragon bowed his head like a gallant knight.
Annie smiled up at him with a feeling in her heart that could only be described as love. “Thank you for saving my life.”
Anytime.
Bloom slid off and landed next to her.
The dragon was about eight feet tall and maybe twelve feet long. Even in the cavern he shimmered, but now most of his color was red. His wings were even more beautiful than his scales; they seemed to waver with the wind like ribbons blowing in the breeze.
He is so beautiful, Annie thought. Why does Gran Pie think dragons are scary?
It’s these, the dragon answered in her head.
He opened his gigantic mouth and showed her seven rows of pointy teeth as long as her forearm. Behind them was a pointy forked tongue like a snake’s.
“Oh,” Annie said.
“Whew,” Bloom said. “Those are huge teeth.”
The Big Feet don’t like the fire either, the dragon said and blew a tiny flame out toward the ceiling. It turned into the shape of a bird and flew out toward the sea.
“Wow,” Annie said and looked up past the dragon’s teeth and into his eyes. It was the first time she’d actually looked at them. They were a lovely calm blue. She had never in her life seen anything so beautiful and sad.
Do you like that? the dragon asked. I can also do a horse.
With another little puff, he made a winged horse totally composed of red flame. It flapped its wings as it flew away.
Annie clapped her hands, delighted. The dragon smiled.
It’s just a little trick, not a big deal. How about another? Maybe an archer such as our elf friend here with a mighty bow and a quiver of arrows.
“Oh, the arrow!” Annie said, hitting herself in her already aching head. “I forgot. Let me get it.
“You hear him, too, Bloom? In your head?” Annie said as she trotted around the dragon to its long forked tail.
“Yes.”
That’s how we talk, the dragon said.
“Do you hear my thoughts?” Annie asked, looking at where the arrow had stabbed into the tail. It wasn’t in very deep.
Yes. And his. And the gull’s. And when you are near me, you hear each other’s.
Annie tried not to groan. This could all be terribly embarrassing, like if she had to use the toilet or had grumpy thoughts or something like that. She tried not to think about it and focused instead on the arrow. She wondered how to best pull it out.
If you just pull it up while the elf holds my tail down that should do it. Or I could try to pull it out with my teeth.
“No, it’s my fault. I’ll fix it,” Annie said.
It’s my fault, Bloom’s voice said in her head.
“I’m the one who fell.”
It is no one’s fault, and it barely hurts, the dragon said. No more blaming.
Bloom straddled the tail and then bent down, pushing all his weight against the appendage. Annie wrapped her hands around the arrow. She didn’t want to hurt the dragon more.
You won’t hurt me.
Annie shook her head. This mind reading stuff was more than a little annoying.
It can be intrusive, the dragon said.
Annie laughed. Well, she’d have no privacy, that’s for sure, but it was worth it if she got to be near a real dragon who might help her rescue Miss Cornelia. “Okay. I’ll count to three and pull. No, Bloom, you count.”
Bloom wiggled his eyebrows at her. He knew the thought of hurting the dragon that had just saved her life terrified her.
It’ll be okay, his voice said in her head. Breathe deep, Annie.
Out loud he counted. “One … two … three …”
Annie yanked the arrow up and out and threw it across the cavern floor. A tiny trickle of blue blood spewed out of the wound.
“Oh, no.” She clamped her hand over it.
Touch your cheek.
“What?”
Touch your cheek with my blood.
Annie didn’t understand why, but she wasn’t about to refuse the order of a dragon that had just given her life. She put her other hand on the wound and placed the hand with the dragon’s blood up to her cheek. Her face tingled and the world went black. Bloom caught her as her body fell to the floor.
Now we are joined, the dragon said in the darkness. Annie, Bloom, I am Grady O’Grady.
It was the last thing Annie heard. Her exhausted body went into a coma-like sleep for almost a half hour.
Bloom used the time that Annie slept to explain to Grady O’Grady what was going on. The dragon, it turned out, knew Miss Cornelia and was a great fan of the old Time Stopper. Just as Bloom was the last elf, Grady O’Grady was the very last dragon, and he and Miss Cornelia (and then Gran Pie, when she discovered him by accident) had agreed that his existence would be kept secret to protect him from humans and to protect Aurora from evildoers who wanted to free the Raiff.
Grady and Bloom talked strategy, and the dragon made Bloom touch the rope burns on his hand with dragon blood so that they, too, were bound. Now there was a circle that linked the three of them.
“Forever?” Bloom asked.
Forever.
Annie’s mind woke before her body, and the dragon’s voice promising to help echoed through her head.
Traveling through a portal on a dragon’s back isn’t easy, Grady O’Grady was saying. It’s rougher than regular flying.
We have no choice, Bloom thought.
No, you don’t. Not with the Tree of Many Trunks gone.
Annie opened her eyes. The dragon sat on the floor with his front paws curled gently around Bloom and herself.
You’re awake.
“What happened?” Annie asked, staring up into the dragon’s mouth. Though she wasn’t afraid, his many teeth weighed heavy on her mind. It was like the mouth of a shark. She’d seen one of those in a science book at school. They had rows and rows of teeth, just like a dragon.
The joining was a little too much for you, Grady O’Grady answered. You were tired. I’m afraid it made you faint. I’m sorry. I didn’t quite expect that. Bloom caught you, though.
Annie tried to imagine Bloom catching her and felt herself turn a vicious red. Don’t think out loud, she told herself. They’ll know.
“Why didn’t you come when we called?” Annie asked, sitting up. “And what’s this joining thing, and when are we going to go to the Badlands? We need to go now. Miss Cornelia needs us.”
In a moment. The answer to your first question is that dragons don’t hear with our ears the way humans do.
“But, then, how did you know to save me?”
Dragons hear souls. I could feel your soul and all the despair in it. That’s how I knew to rush out. That’s how I knew you were good. You let your guard down and I saw right in. I knew that your intentions were noble and that I could trust you.
“So what about me?” Bloom asked.
When Annie fell, your fear flew out with her. You shook with it. You were horrified, overcome with the possibility of her loss. That’s how I could tell you were good, too.
Bloom blushed.
I’m sorry I embarrassed you, Bloom, but we dragons are honest. We tell the truth even if it hurts. And we remember things. For instance, I can tell you every time one of the Red Sox struck out, every error in a World Series Game, the name of every elf that the trolls have taken.
Annie could feel the pain shoot through Bloom’s heart at Grady O’Grady’s words. In her mind flashed two pictures of elves, both with golden hair like Bloom’s. Their eyes looked so kind. It broke her heart along with Bloom’s and the dragon’s. She wasn’t so sure how she felt about this dragon code of absolute honesty. She decided to change the subject and itched at her nose.
“You like the Red Sox?” Annie asked.
Of course. I am red. I live in New England.
“I see,” Annie said, although she didn’t. On each of his feet were three toes that ended in pointed talon-like nails. “You don’t wear socks.”
The dragon’s laughter echoed in her head. His belly shook, but no sound came out into the air with them.
Now, tell me a riddle.
“Tell you a riddle?” Annie panicked. That’s what Gran Pie had said. Dragons like riddles. She was awful at riddles. Maybe Gran Pie was right after all. She’d tell it a horrible riddle, and Grady O’Grady would eat them both. Then Miss Cornelia would die and the world would stop.
Stop it with those thoughts. Those thoughts will be your undoing. I will not eat you. We are joined. Plus, I prefer salmon. And those red hot dogs they sell at Red Sox games …
Then why a riddle? Bloom asked in his head.
He seemed to be quite comfortable talking without words, but Annie found it hard and kept saying things out loud.
Dragons like riddles.
“What does it mean to be joined?”
The dragon showed her a picture of two souls swirling in white with ribbons flashing between them. We are in sync. We vibrate together. We help each other. Your wound is gone and so is my arrow.
Annie touched her cheek. There wasn’t even a cut or a scar.
“Okay,” she said. “A riddle.”
Think the riddle, but block the answer. It will train your mind.
“For what?”
Not for anything, but against intruders.
That wasn’t something she wanted to think about. Mind intruders. She shuddered.
“Okay. A riddle.” She searched around the cave frantically for some sort of visual clue to jog her memory. “A riddle … a riddle.”
The only one she could think of was the one she’d told Gran Pie before. She decided to give it a go, forcing herself not to think of the answer.
What’s black and white and red all over?
The dragon’s mind was silent for a moment. Then he yelled, A newspaper.
“No.”
There was no reply.
A skunk in a bucket of red paint?
“No.”
A raccoon blushing?
“No.”
I give up.
“A zebra with a sunburn.”
Grady O’Grady smiled and stood up. Good one. Good one.
“Gran Pie didn’t like it.”
She has no sense of humor. None of her kind do.
“Actually, I don’t think she knows what a zebra is,” Bloom said.
Well, I do. I’ve seen them on one of my journeys to Africa, which you should remind me to tell you about sometime. And the riddle is good.
9
The Headless Horror
Jamie couldn’t believe what he was seeing when he finally woke up in Aquarius House. Rainbows covered the house, and there were pixies flittering in and out the front door. They twittered when they saw him, circling around his head.
“He’s not dead!” one yelled.
“He’s not troll!”
“He’s rescued Eva and Canin! Look! Look!”
Pixies and fairies buzzed around his face, kissing his cheeks, hanging out in his hair, catching a ride on his ear-lobe. It was a huge, noisy commotion, and still Eva and Canin didn’t wake up.
“Um … are … is … Annie here?” he asked. A pixie buzzed right in front of his eyes. He resisted the urge to swat her away, reminding himself that they weren’t flies or mosquitoes even if right now they were being that annoying.
“Annie is gone!” one shouted in his face. She landed on his nose.
“She saved us!” another said, perching herself next to the other pixie.
In a twittering hubbub of noise, nose sitting, ear tugging, and hair bombing, the pixies told Jamie that Annie and Bloom were off looking for a portal or a dragon or something. They weren’t quite sure, but they brought him Annie’s note. It took five pixies to fly the piece of paper and hover it in front of Jamie’s face.
Two seconds later, Gramma Doris rushed to his side. “James Hephaistion A
lexander!” she scolded. “Look at you! If you aren’t eaten by trolls, or jailed by our less intelligent townspeople, you’re going to starve to death! Pixies, stand back! Let the poor boy through!”
“Are people really looking for me? To put me in jail?”
“Yes. They are blaming you for Miss Cornelia’s abduction, for the … the trolls,” she basically spat out the word, “that have been invading this town, for everything really.”
Jamie contemplated this for a moment, his heart sinking. “Because I might be a troll.”
“Because people need to blame someone, I think. You’d bet that magical creatures would be above that sort of thing, but no … Just as bad as everyone else, I suppose. Just as bad as humans.” She paused and hiccupped, straightening her hair and getting gobs of flour in it. “Do you like what I did to the house?”
“The rainbows?” Jamie asked, wondering why they would talk about that when other things were oh so much more important.
“Yes! I thought it would be cheery for when Cornelia comes home, and she is coming home, so help me. I will see to that. And all will be right, and there will be pies for everyone. But for now, we need to keep you fed, safe, and hidden.”
“Hidden?” Jamie protested.
“Yes! Hidden!” With a sturdy hand placed on the bottom of his back she pushed Jamie into the hall, down the stairs, and into the room off the front parlor, the one with the Cupid statue, which he and Annie had beheaded accidentally. The cherub’s head had been reaffixed with rainbow duct tape, and it now sported a curly blond wig. The statue’s plump arm was raised to the mosaic on the ceiling, which had shifted to show a shiny green arrow pointing at what resembled a British pub or hotel.
“Wait!” Jamie protested.
But it was too late. Gramma Doris had slid open the trapdoor by moving the Cupid statue with her foot. She pushed him down the hole with a “sorry” and an added “it’s for your own safety” and then “I will bring you some pies.”
And that was that.
She slid the trapdoor shut on top of him, and he was stuck there in the darkness.
The door slid open. Hope filled his heart.