Choke

  “There were more dragons,” I said waving my arms. “And none of them were the queen. I’m pretty sure there’s some law somewhere that says you can’t kill a queen.”

  “You’re quite the debater,” Kate said insultingly.

  “Thanks,” I sniffed.

  “This is ridiculous. What are you going to do? Just live in here with her?”

  “Maybe.”

  Kate shut her blue eyes and then opened them slowly. I could see the depth and a swirling energy in them. They didn’t pop like Lizzy’s, but they weren’t bad. Kate turned and walked toward the sliding steel door.

  My shoulders drooped, and I sighed. “Come on, Kate, don’t go.”

  Kate stopped and turned her head. “Are you going to tell me?”

  “It’s not that easy,” I argued. “I can’t just . . .”

  Kate kept walking.

  “Kate.”

  She stepped through the door and out of sight. I stood there for almost half an hour waiting for her to grow up and come back.

  Apparently she liked being a child.

  Illustration from page 47 of The Grim Knot

  CHAPTER 20

  Action Right Now

  I remember when I was a child reading a book about a boy and a fish. The story went like this. A boy went into a pet shop and bought a fish. Before he left the pet shop the owner told the boy to not feed the fish too much. The wise boy, knowing that sometimes people said things that weren’t true, promptly went home and fed the fish a whole box of food. Well, almost instantly the fish grew too big for the fish bowl so the boy moved him to the tub. Then the fish grew too big for the bathtub, so he moved him to a pool. I don’t remember what happens after that. I think they had a huge neighborhood barbecue and everyone ate part of the fish. And although I can’t clearly remember the end, that story reminds me of Lizzy.

  The day after Kate immaturely stormed out on me, Lizzy was a good bit bigger. The next day she was bigger than that, and the following three days she kept right on growing. By the end of the week she was too big for me to climb onto, unless she let me scale her tail and shimmy up her back.

  She was frightening, but I was so taken with her I didn’t care.

  Another problem was that she was going through food like a pig with a high metabolism. She could polish off a whole barrel of the dragon cereal in three bites. And after each bite I could practically see her size increase.

  Still, she was perfect.

  I hated being away from her. I had a hard time sleeping. It bothered me to have to take time to eat, and I felt great pain every time I had to lock that steel door behind me and hike back home.

  Luckily the rain had finally stopped, and it was forecasted that we might actually have sun mixed with clouds for the next two weeks. Things were beginning to dry out, and it was much easier to get up to the cave.

  I was still waiting for Kate to grow up. I figured now that it had stopped raining she would come over and apologize

  for walking out—she didn’t. I even swallowed my pride and called her once, acting like I was one of her teachers. But her mom said she couldn’t come to the phone because she was meditating. Likely story—what kind of person younger than Buddha meditates?

  The best news was that my dad came home. I went up to visit him a couple of times, but his thoughts were so preoccupied that he barely noticed me. I didn’t mention a thing about Lizzy because I was afraid he would go all legal-guardian on me. And since he had a really difficult time carrying on a conversation, or asking me about my life, it never came up. I did ask him where he had been. His answer was, “Putting something to rest.” It sounded like gangster-talk so I let it go.

  Millie was happy my father was back in the manor—which made me happy because she spent less time fussing over me—which left me more time to spend with Lizzy.

  I was walking through the courtyard, making my way to the train tracks, when I plowed into Wane as she came around the corner of the house. We collided and bounced apart from each other.

  “Sorry,” I said.

  “Don’t worry about it,” she replied, rubbing her nose that I had knocked with my chin. “Where are you racing to?”

  “I’m thinking of catching grasshoppers.” It was all I could come up with on the spot, so I ran with it.

  “Really?” Wane asked in surprise.

  I decided to dig my hole deeper. “Yep, maybe I’ll catch them and then name them and then track them.”

  “You can track grasshoppers?”

  “It’s not easy,” I said, bothered by how lame an excuse I had come up with. “What’s your hurry?” I asked, throwing it back to her.

  “I was coming to find you,” she answered.

  “Why?”

  “Because I just talked to the sheriff.”

  That was not a line any kid ever wanted to hear. My mind started racing with all the things I could have done wrong to make the sheriff call Wane.

  “I didn’t do . . .”

  “Listen, Beck,” Wane interrupted. “It wasn’t about you. Sheriff Pax told me that the road’s almost fixed.”

  “Okay,” I said relieved.

  “They say it should be done by tonight.”

  “Right.”

  “You’ll be going back to school,” Wane clarified. “Is there anything you’ll need?”

  “School?” I asked, as if she had just introduced a completely new word to my vocabulary.

  “School,” she reiterated.

  My stomach sank down into my right leg, bobbed back up into my throat, and then settled in my gut like a heavy meal. I had actually missed school a week ago, but now I could think of nothing more horrible than having to spend the day at Callowbrow while Lizzy was up in the cave being her amazing self.

  “I can’t go to school,” I panicked.

  “Why?” Wane asked.

  “Kids there pick on me,” I whined urgently.

  She wasn’t buying it. “Beck, you’re bigger than almost any of the boys there, and quicker.”

  “But I’m not as crafty,” I argued.

  “I don’t know anybody craftier,” she said, folding her arms.

  “The sheriff shouldn’t be calling you,” I tried, clinging to the thinnest of hopes. “He’s got more important things to do than to bother you.”

  “The phone call’s already happened, Beck. So as concerned as you are about Sheriff Pax and his schedule, it doesn’t matter now.”

  “I have a school library fine,” I said, grasping at straws.

  “Your school doesn’t have a library,” Wane informed me.

  “They don’t?”

  Wane shook her head. “Actually, they do, but it’s obvious you’ve never visited it. You’re going to school tomorrow,” she insisted. “Sheriff Pax said the bus should be right on time.”

  I didn’t know what to do. Suddenly it felt as if all my time had been sucked away from me. I had plans—plans to hang out with Lizzy. Most of the world didn’t even believe in dragons, and I had one hidden away who needed all my attention.

  “I wanna be homeschooled,” I blurted out.

  “Come on, Beck.”

  “Honest,” I said. “I feel I can get a much better education that way. I’ll buy some flashcards and you can teach me how to play chess. Plus, we can all sleep in.”

  “Nice try,” Wane smiled. “You’re going to Callowbrow tomorrow.” Wane walked off laughing.

  I ran to the train tracks, through the woods, up the stairs, and into the cave. I turned on the lights, rolled open the steel door, closed it behind me, and then collapsed on the dirt. I could hear Lizzy drop from the ceiling, and I felt the ground tremor as she strode over.

  “Sorry, Liz,” I said breathing hard. “Let me catch my breath.”

  Lizzy stepped right up to me and tilted her head down to make eye contact. She snorted and dragon drool splattered all over my face.

  “Nice,” I said, trying to be kind. I looked up. Her huge blue eyes were like cobalt tar pits
that seized my gaze. Her head was the size of a couch and the scales around her eyes reflected light down on me like a disco ball.

  I wiped off my face with the back of my arm.

  Lizzy yawned and I got a perfect glimpse of her frighteningly large teeth and purple tongue. I could also see down her throat and I realized that if she decided to, she could bite me in half with just one chomp.

  I rolled over and got on my hands and knees. I then stood and dusted myself off. Lizzy butted her head against the steel door.

  “What?” I asked her. “You wanna get out?”

  Lizzy scratched at the ground and screeched.

  “Honestly,” I said holding my ears. “You’re going to make me go deaf.”

  She head butted the door again.

  “You can’t go out,” I insisted. “It’s not safe.”

  I think even she, with her low dragon intellect, knew how ridiculous it sounded for me to be saying something like that to her—she was too large to worry about safety.

  I was going to go on about how she shouldn’t leave, when a small warm thought began to spread over me. It started at my toes, and in a few moments my entire body was tingling. The Pillage in me was awakening.

  “You know what, why not?” I asked myself.

  Lizzy was so powerful and so awe inspiring. I couldn’t imagine a single thing in the world being able to really bother her. And I couldn’t imagine any of those same things bothering me while I was with her. I had stopped thinking soundly.

  I fetched a large rope that was coiled up on top of a crate. I tossed it over Lizzy’s neck and back up. I then wove it behind her two front legs and beneath the spot her wings came out. I tied the only knot I knew—a square knot—and pulled her to the metal door.

  “Come on,” I said sliding the huge door open.

  She ducked her head and moved forward. The opening was barely big enough for her to fit through. She stood up tall next to the train. I was amazed to see she was almost half the size of the big metal machine and her head reached way above the large metal scaffolding that the train was sitting under.

  “Wow, there’s no way you’re going to fit through the opening to the outside.”

  I bolted to the moss and began pulling at the opening with my hands. Small bits of thick wet goo broke off. Lizzy lumbered over and shoved her head through the opening. As she lifted her neck up she created a dragon-sized hole in the tall green wall. She pulled her head back in and shook wet slime everywhere.

  After wiping a piece of the sticky stuff off my face, I climbed up her tail and onto her back. I wrapped my hands and wrists around the rope hold and held on tightly.

  “Ready?” I asked encouragingly.

  Lizzy snorted and pawed at the dirt like a bull.

  I yelled the only thing I could think of, “Yah!”

  It worked. Lizzy stomped through the opening, tearing it even wider. She stood on the stone ledge in front of the cave and opened her wings. It was so impressive that I felt like clapping, but I kept my grip, knowing what was coming next.

  Lizzy sprang out from behind the crooked trees and into the semi-blue sky. I could feel wind racing up my nose, and my heart was beating in such a way that I thought it was going to pop out of my chest and smack me in the face.

  I missed this.

  There had been few things in my life as exciting as the moments I had been able to ride on a flying dragon. It just doesn’t get much better. Ever since the first dragons had begun their pillage and I had been able to hitch a ride back and forth into town on one, I had hoped that I would get the chance to ride one again someday. Now as Lizzy rocketed higher and higher, I felt as if I would pass out from happiness.

  Lizzy leveled out, just short of the stratosphere. My lungs lurched and huffed for more oxygen as my body froze. I would have worried, but Lizzy hunched and began angling downward. We shot to the earth, my heels digging into her scales above her wings and my eyes wide open. We buzzed the manor and then whizzed over the rockslide and the open prairie on the opposite side.

  Lizzy flapped her wings and we ascended above the west mountains. She cleared the jagged peaks and dipped down into a beautiful green valley I didn’t know existed. We wove through clouds and skimmed the earth like water bugs on a glass lake. I wanted my father to be here with me. I wanted Kate to look up and see what she was missing. I wanted Wyatt to be jealous, and I wanted the flight to never end.

  It was perfect.

  I could see a quaint chapel with a tin roof sitting on the edge of a dark blue pond down below. The scene was so serene and intoxicating I felt dizzy. I breathed in and the smell of

  wintergreen filled my nostrils. I then closed my eyes and listened to Lizzy’s massive wings flap up and down. Much like the sound of the ocean, it was a noise I don’t think I could ever get sick of.

  Lizzy screamed, and every bird in the sky went stock-still and fell toward the ground. I held my face up to the sun and the racing wind and contemplated how lucky I was.

  When I opened my eyes we were considerably closer to the small white chapel. The tin roof glistened in the patchy sunlight, blinding me for a moment. Lizzy continued to fly straight toward it at a remarkable speed.

  “Wait a second,” I yelled. “You’re not going to . . .”

  I had to interrupt what I was asking so that I could execute a proper scream. Lizzy slammed into the roof, her talons ripping off the top of the chapel’s bell tower. The sound of splitting wood and snapping metal bounced from cloud to cloud and filled the entire sky. I could see the church bell slide down the pitched tin roof and clank against the ground.

  Lizzy flapped her powerful wings and clawed her way up into the sky. She turned her head and circled around again.

  “You can’t . . .”

  My screaming wouldn’t let me get a word in edgewise.

  Lizzy swooped toward the chapel as I hung on for my life. Her talons grasped the peak of the tin roof and, with a tremendous howl and a deep grunt, she ripped off half the covering. She carried the tin roofing in her talons and screamed. I looked down and could see directly into the chapel. With half the roof gone, I could see an organ with brass pipes. There was a little gray-haired lady sitting at the organ, staring up at where the ceiling once was.

  Lizzy turned and spotted the shiny organ pipes. She instantly dropped the tin roofing and shot straight down. The old woman clutched her chest and screamed like they used to do in old-fashioned movies. She fell backward off the organ bench as we dropped in.

  Lizzy spun and grabbed the pipes with her back talons. She then added something new to the mix by breathing fire and igniting a third of the chapel.

  “No!” I screamed as heat pummeled me.

  But Lizzy ignored me, turning her head as she swept fire everywhere. I held tightly to the ropes, wishing I were back in the cave.

  Lizzy leaped out of the burning building with half the organ pipes clenched tightly in her talons. I could see the old woman frantically running from the church, as flames engulfed the entire structure.

  I suddenly felt like throwing up.

  Lizzy screeched and then straightened out her head and flew in the direction of the manor. I wanted to think, or say something to make myself feel better, but both my brain and my mouth were speechless.

  We soared over the mountains and into the Hagen Valley as I clung to the ropes, wishing the ride would end. Lizzy raced across the landscape, the scenery splashing by me. We were going so fast my cheeks were flapping and my skin was cold. Lizzy lifted up and headed straight for the cave. She screeched as she flew over the manor. I could see the copper dome and then the train tracks down between the trees.

  Lizzy threaded herself in through the moss door and dropped the pipes on the dirt in front of the stationary train. They clanged and scattered over the train tracks. I slipped off Lizzy and fell face first into the soil.

  “What were you thinking?” I yelled as I got up. “You tore that church apart.”

  Lizzy blinked he
r eyes and rocked back and forth. She looked both proud and embarrassed.

  “You need to get back into your cave,” I insisted. “Now.”

  She lowered her head and scooped up the organ pipes with her mouth. My stomach was twisting and lurching. I pulled on her ropes and tried to fit her through the steel door but the pipes were too long.

  “Can’t you just drop them?”

  She cocked her head.

  I pulled the rope back, helping her thread the pipes through the door sideways. As soon as she was all the way in I walked out and rolled the door shut behind her. I threw the heavy metal latch into place, locking her up.

  “This is not good.”

  I leaned my back against the door and moaned. I could hear Lizzy tossing the organ pipes around and screeching triumphantly.

  “Let’s just hope nobody noticed.”

  It was extremely wishful thinking on my part.

  Illustration from page 50 of The Grim Knot

  CHAPTER 21

  Put Out the Fire

  When I got back to the manor it was almost dark and I was so worried and out of sorts I almost didn’t recognize myself. I looked in the mirror hanging on the wall near the kitchen and was surprised to see it was still me.

  I crept past the open kitchen door hoping to go unrecognized by Millie as well.

  “Get in here, Beck,” she called.

  I leaned my head back and looked in. “Yes?”

  “Come,” she insisted.

  “I was going to go to bed,” I told her. “I want to get a good sleep for tomorrow since the road is fixed.”

  “Get in here.”

  I walked into the kitchen with my head down. Millie was really the closest thing I had to family, aside from my dad. She was like a grandma-mother-aunt hybrid, and I could tell by the tone of her voice that I was in trouble.

  “Your father’s angry,” she said. “I’m not sure why, but he’s in a mood.”

  “Really?” I asked. “You’re not sure why?”

  “He rang for you to come up some time ago, and he’s been ringing every ten minutes since then.”

  “He could just come down himself,” I suggested.