“We go together or we don’t go at all,” Bloom announced. “We’re friends, Annie. I won’t let you go alone. Not without me.”
“Nor without me,” said Eva, who had been eavesdropping through the window.
They all shushed her. Megan rolled her eyes and said something again about all the dwarf drama.
SalGoud paused. “I’m coming, too. You might need someone to heal people. Stone giants are good at that, right? Plus, someone has to handle Eva.”
Eva glared at him. “What is that supposed to mean?”
Bloom sighed. This conversation was so familiar. They said good-bye to Megan and trudged through the darkness of the woods to begin their journey into horrible danger.
When they got to the beach, Annie focused her thoughts.
Grady O’Grady. We are here. There are … There are a lot of us … She hoped her voice sounded apologetic. The dragon’s back was big, but she couldn’t imagine he would want to carry a stone giant, two humans, a dwarf, and an elf.
Coming …
Bloom touched her shoulder. It will be okay.
Not if we start hearing Eva’s thoughts.
He gasped, obviously stricken by the possibility, but before he could respond, the air above them whooshed with a violent force and in the next moment, the dragon had landed on the rocky shore right next to them.
Hello! he said, smiling and showing all his teeth.
Eva fainted dead away.
SalGoud opened his arms. “I somehow failed to anticipate the fainting.”
“She’d been doing so well.” Jamie made the excuse for both of them. “Sir, can we please have a ride to the Badlands?”
Absolutely. The dragon bent a bit at his knee, and SalGoud and Bloom hoisted Eva up. Annie and Jamie climbed up themselves, and soon they were all on the dragon’s back.
Grab a scale, he recommended. The crossing can be rough.
Annie shuddered as she thought of the Badlands, of facing the Raiff in the flesh. He was bad enough when he was just projecting himself.
Yes, little Annie, shiver. It is an evil place we go to. But hold on to my back, and we will do what we can to save your Miss Cornelia and end the devastation of the Raiff.
Bloom sat behind her and restrung his bow.
“Just in case,” he said. “Do you still have your phurba, Annie?”
She checked. It was still tucked to her belt beneath her coat. “Yes. And the bell the ghosts gave me.”
Good, the dragon said. I think you will have to use both of them.
He faced the clouds and storm, and without even a second glance or a second thought, he pushed off his massive hind legs and leaped out into the open space of the sky with the children clinging to his back. The mighty wings unfolded and stroked the air, slicing through it and moving it to fit their needs. The sun was beginning to rise behind them.
As the wings flapped, the air made a faint humming noise. Warmth filled Annie. Every part of her seemed to be full of blood and strings, resonating.
We are joined, Grady O’Grady said. Your power is greater with me.
Will you come with us to the Raiff? Annie asked in her head, desperately hoping he would.
I may not be able to. We shall see. I have enemies there just as you do. It may be more dangerous for you to be with me.
That is not encouraging, Jamie thought.
They headed out to sea directly toward the storm. The lightning broke the sky in vibrant yellow vertical streaks. They were on their way.
“Here we come, Miss Cornelia. Here we come,” she whispered.
“Don’t look down, Annie,” Bloom said, grabbing her by the shoulder. His voice was husky with concern, but she didn’t need it.
She did look down. She could. Her heart leaped. She wasn’t afraid of heights anymore.
Fly with me, Annie, Grady O’Grady said. Feel the wind. Call it to you. Make it your friend.
She opened her arms and lifted them up to the clouds. Behind her, Bloom did the same thing. Jamie held on tight, and SalGoud clung to the still-unconscious Eva, but Annie and Bloom with arms wide open flew toward the storm, flew away from the only world they knew and headed into the arms of danger without ever once looking back.
24
The Badlands
A great swirl of clouds greeted them as they flew straight into the storm. The lightning screamed against their ears, and the rain beat at them with slashing pellets. Annie hunkered down low, pushing her chest to her knees, and Bloom leaned his body over hers, protecting her back from the worst of the pellets. She clutched Grady O’Grady’s scale right below his neck, but her hands were rapidly turning red from the cold and the lashing water.
“This is not the best,” Jamie mumbled.
She tried to keep her eyes open, but it was almost impossible to do anything more than squint.
Hold on, children. Crossing into the Badlands is never easy, and of course, the Raiff has given us a storm.
Up! They climbed higher into the sky. Lightning struck past the group, missing them by merely a foot, and thunder came with it like a monster’s smack across the face. Bloom’s body tensed, as did Annie’s. She wished Tala were here. She would bury her face in his fur.
“Please,” she said between clenched lips, “let Tala stay safe.”
She thought of Miss Cornelia.
“Please, let Miss Cornelia be okay, and let the elves be okay. And my friends, please don’t let him hurt my friends.”
Despite her fear, not one of her worries was for herself.
Bloom was chanting Hold on, Annie. Hold on, SalGoud. Hold on, Jamie.
“We’ll be fine,” she yelled toward Bloom. But he didn’t hear her words, only the reassuring thoughts that went with them. The rain was too heavy, the wind too loud as the thunder became a cacophonous noise that pressed against their heads and made them feel small.
The dragon smashed against the winds that swept the air in opposition to their flight. He roared and beat his wings with groaning moans.
Bloom gritted his teeth and his mind reached out to his friends. His hands clenched Annie’s jacket. There was something about this storm that wasn’t right, and he was determined to fight against it. He remembered a storm similar to this one when he’d lost his parents to the trolls. His mother had kissed his forehead and smoothed it with her hand. Her lip trembled although he could tell that she was trying hard to be brave.
They won’t smell you here, she had said. Remember your words.
He’d grabbed her hand. She pulled it away and kissed his knuckles one by one.
We’ll be right back, she said, and then turned and ran, her long white dress flowing behind her. The rain took her. Her wet blond hair clung to her green cape, a cape like he wore now, tucked beneath his jacket.
His breath came too fast.
Annie stilled her mind. There, in the back corners a terrible solid lump, stuck in her brain like a piece of not-very-well-chewed-chicken in the back of your throat. The lump felt dark and cold and watchful. She tried to push at it, to move it out. It wouldn’t budge.
I feel him, she thought and shuddered, half from the cold and half from the horrible darkness that was somehow inside her, waiting. Bloom’s fingers tightened around her arms.
Jamie’s thoughts came tumbling into her head. Annie … are you okay? What’s that darkness? Are you …?
A moment later, a nasty blast of wind smashed against Grady O’Grady’s left side, pushing him off course and into a spiraling descent. Annie lost hold of the scale with her weakening fingers. Her legs kept their tight grasp around the dragon’s lower neck. Bloom rocked backward and lost his grip. Twisting, she lunged for him, and her hand caught his by the wrist. His fingers wrapped around hers and he dangled there, wind lashing into his face and legs kicking at air.
Hold on! she screamed. JAMIE! SALGOUD!
SalGoud couldn’t help because he was holding Eva. Jamie scurried forward, one arm hanging onto a scale. The dragon flipped upside down, and
Annie’s arm twisted as did Bloom’s. His eyes opened wide and his mouth set in a line of determination. Annie grabbed the dragon’s scale with her free hand, and Bloom managed to fight the wind to get his other hand up high enough to grab Annie’s lower arm. Her shoulder burned from his weight, and the socket considered whether to pop out or not. Jamie got close enough to grab onto Bloom’s arm, too, and they pulled. Bloom did not get up.
Dragon!
The dragon didn’t answer. He was doing all he could to straighten out his wings and to stop their downward spiral. They fell, wing over tail, overhead, upside down, and then right side up, until Bloom’s feet touched the top of a green wall of ocean water and the biggest wave Annie had ever seen. It was the kind of wave mariners dreaded, the kind that toppled barges, tore apart lobster boats, the kind that made widows. Her eyes widened with fear.
The boy gritted his teeth and closed his eyes, murmuring elfish words that Annie and Jamie couldn’t quite hear. Her heart lurched at the sight of him and caught in her throat, somewhere behind her tonsils, making a gigantic lump there that threatened to explode out. He seemed so strong and calm despite the obvious fear that pumped throughout his body.
“You will not die!” she yelled. She pleaded, “Please, Bloom, I need you.”
There was a silence then, as if the storm paused for a moment to see what stuff the three of them were made of, to see if it had to do anything else to destroy them, or if they’d destroy themselves just fine.
Anything frantic in Annie fell with the raindrops and was lost in the massive sea. She focused all her energy on her thoughts, all her strength in her arm.
Flip your legs up, she yelled to Bloom in her head. Pull up to me. Come on.
You’re not strong enough to hold me.
Yes, I am. I am with Jamie.
Annie …
Do it, Bloom. I won’t let you go.
The elf closed his eyes. He was afraid the momentum of his pulling and tossing himself up onto the dragon’s back would be too much for Annie and Jamie, that they would drop him and he would end up in the sea. Lost.
There’s no time. Do it now. Now, Bloom. Now!
He bit his lip, drawing blood. He swallowed. Then in a movement full of grace and elfin power, he swung his legs back and forward, vaulting up toward the dragon’s back and tossing himself over. At the height of his momentum, he let go of Annie’s arm and lunged. Grabbing the scale in front of her, he twisted his body around and seized the dragon’s neck between his legs. Relieved, Annie wrapped her arms around his waist, ignoring the ache in her shoulder. They clutched each other, sobbing and laughing. Jamie hung onto the both of them.
You’re safe. You’re safe, she thought.
Because of you.
The dragon righted himself finally and they skimmed over the tops of the waves. You were all brave.
His voice sounded infinitely weary.
And you? Bloom asked Grady.
She strained to hear his thoughts, they were so shaky, so unlike the brave Bloom she was used to, that she already depended on. Well, she’d shown him he could depend on her, too.
He was so scared, she realized. He thought he was going to die.
He did almost die, Jamie thought.
Would you all like a quote? SalGoud asked. I have several motivational ones that might bolster our spirits.
I am fine, Grady O’Grady answered. My wing is a bit roughed up. Nothing a good Scotch and a pennant win over the Yankees wouldn’t cure.
They all thought brave things and quotes to one another, but they knew they had to go back up and face the storm. There was no use talking about it. With a sigh, the dragon turned again toward the sky. Below them, a dolphin crested the waves, wishing them luck, trying to give them hope.
It’s so beautiful, Annie said as Bloom righted himself, facing forward.
Life is beautiful, he said.
Yet they flew from it.
Directly above them, the clouds turned black and the only light came from far behind them, back in Aurora, and it had to fight its way through the clouds just as they did. It faintly touched them and barely gave any warmth at all to dispel the bitter cold that the dark storm brought with it. Annie thought it was like flying through squid ink that pressed against them, growing thicker and colder with every inch they managed to surge forward. In a shocked silence, the four flew through it. Eva didn’t wake.
Fight with me, Grady O’Grady commanded them, his wings struggling to flap up and down.
They focused their minds on the dragon, focused their minds on the flight. Their brains were half in a trance and half-awake. Their eyelids heavied, but they focused everything in their beings on one word.
Up!
And so they did. With a mighty heave, they went up and up. The storm battered them, tried to knock them off, but with each blast, Grady O’Grady was ready. The children’s bodies tensed and trembled.
The storm was a formidable enemy, swift and untouchable, cold and dense, but they held their course and suddenly the sky shivered before them like a miracle. Thousands of threads of every color radiated and vibrated in front of them like a gigantic ribbon that stretched across the sky. The whole of it shone like it was made of infinite particles capturing all the shimmers of light in the world, like tiny diamonds of all colors.
Annie gasped. The brilliance of it forced her to blink. It reminded her in all its shimmery highlights of Grady O’Grady’s wings. It streaked down the entire skyscape in front of them like the aurora borealis, the northern lights, she sometimes saw in the winter sky, only much more vibrant, much more real. She could almost pick out the individual filaments of color, stretching and moving.
“The strings,” Jamie whispered, sounding as awed as she was.
The storm wailed in anger with a rough and horrid noise, but they paid no attention. They headed straight for the strings, and toward the Badlands.
As they entered the strings, Annie’s heart thumped hard with joy. From the moment the dragon’s first front foot passed into the gleaming lights, her body shook with absolute happiness. It was glorious, like suddenly coming home, like suddenly being able to do a back layout and back tuck in gymnastics.
She knew the danger of the Badlands lay ahead of her; the knowledge caught in her throat and threatened to rip her to pieces, but she couldn’t help but smile and pat the dragon’s back.
“I could stay here forever,” she said. Her voice sounded like a melody of flowers.
Bloom turned his head and smiled. “It’s glorious.”
Annie laughed. It was exactly the right word. Glorious. The syllables of it reverberated in the strings.
Bloom turned back around. His body and the dragon’s seemed to pixelate a bit, like a computer picture when you magnify it a lot and can see all the little dots of color. Only the colors weren’t dots but tiny, tiny moving strings within the dots. Her body pixelated, too. In her head, the music of a million stars resonated with her.
Glorious.
SalGoud started quoting things, and Jamie breathed in, happy, finally happy. And then the strings shifted … Something was … Something was off …
We cross, Grady O’Grady said. Ready yourself for the Badlands.
Annie grabbed onto Bloom’s back. Behind her, SalGoud clung to Eva and a scale, and Jamie clung to Annie.
But Grady O’Grady’s words didn’t prepare any of them for the searing jolt of pain that racked their bodies as they left the strings and entered the wretched land of the Raiff.
25
The Awful Place
The dragon landed immediately after crossing, thudding down onto the hard, deep-red land, which reminded Jamie of the pictures he’d once seen of Mars. Above them, the sky was the deep brown of chestnuts and UPS trucks.
The ghastly landscape created a despair in the children so profound that they gasped from the weight of it. Jamie’s heart became a leaden mass behind his ribs.
Annie’s hope sank to the bottom of her feet, and she slid off
the back of Grady O’Grady. Bloom and Jamie jumped down with her. It was as if an important part of them had gone missing. It was that part that finds joy in a flower, that knows an F on a geography test can be fixed by extra credit, that knows no matter what, a mother will hug you at the end of the day, kissing your forehead as she tucks you into bed at night with your favorite stuffed animals and a pillow.
A sob racked SalGoud, shaking him all the way down to his feet.
“This is an awful place,” Annie tried to say out loud, but her words came out like gasps and gulps and turned into something akin to a wail that echoed across the fetid land. Grady O’Grady moved to her and wrapped his long neck around her. She clung to it, finding comfort in the brilliant scales, in its long strength.
Brave, Annie, he said, his own voice quivering. We all must be strong.
“What the heck? Did I miss the crossing!? Oh bat boogers!” Eva’s voice bellowed out.
“Eva’s awake,” SalGoud said, rather unnecessarily, wiping at his eyes before Eva spotted his tears.
Bloom stood alone, scanning the landscape, searching for the horrible things that he knew must be lurking in the distance. A great fierce focus turned the boy into more of a warrior than the goofy elf that Jamie thought of as a friend. He had almost died when he fell off Grady O’Grady. He wanted to protect his world and his friends. He wanted to protect Annie and save the elves and Miss Cornelia.
Something on Grady O’Grady caught Bloom’s sharp eyes. He began inspecting the dragon’s wing, touching it lightly with his fingers. He gently took the edge and unfurled it. A horrible five-inch-long gash marred its shimmering beauty.
It will be fine, Grady O’Grady said, grumping and shuffling away sideways. My arteries are like a horse’s, you know. Corny told me that once.
“Corny?” Annie asked.
Miss Cornelia. I call her Corny. Did you know that her mother was an ambassador to England? Oh, I could tell you stories.
He was trying to distract them.
Bloom rolled his eyes. Let me help.
Fine, Grady O’Grady said. But it’s not a problem at all. My bronchitis, however, you could fix. I’ve been up a few nights with that. Two in the morning it wakes me. Coughing and wheezing. Have you ever heard a dragon cough? It’s like an elephant expelling gas out the rectum. You do not want to be around.