Chapter the 5th
The dragon flew through the driving snow with Michael Bullinger and Karen Rosskill on his back. Visibility was so poor that the passengers could not tell when they left Milton behind, neither could they see where they were going. Michael took comfort in the realization that if they could not see anything, then nobody could see them. The more her hands ached, the more tightly Karen gripped the scales on the dragon's neck. Michael held her in place with one arm and clutched Dornal’s harp to his chest with the other. When a dim golden light appeared ahead of them, Michael assumed it was the headlight of a vehicle on the highway. But as the light drew closer and larger, it took on the shape of a huge lion. The beast opened wide its mouth and let out a deafening roar. Karen’s throat so tightened with fear that she could not scream. Michael swore under his breath. The dragon quickened its pace as the lion leaped over the dragon and its passengers in one long, gliding motion.
"Pay it no mind, if you can," advised the dragon in a high-pitched scratchy voice that unnerved Karen..
"If we can," Michael muttered.
From behind the dragon, the lion roared again. Michael and Karen ducked as the lion leaped over them a second time and landed in the air in front of them.
"What makes you think the lion will hurt you?" asked the dragon.
"Stupid question!" Michael retorted.
Again Michael ducked as the lion cleared his body only by inches.
"What's so stupid about my question?" asked the dragon.
"Don't you know what lions can do to people?" Michael asked.
"Yes," the dragon replied.
Again, the lion leaped over them. Michael pushed Karen down to protect her.
"And that is why I am wondering why you are so afraid of the lion," the dragon continued.
"Do you know something I don't know?" asked Michael.
"Apparently," answered the dragon.
The lion roared again with the sound of fireworks exploding, flew back and forth over the dragon and his passengers, landed squarely on the dragon's head and stared down at Karen and Michael. The dragon dipped under the weight and then righted itself again. Light emanating from the lion’s fur formed a halo about his head. This close up, the lion looked familiar to Karen, but that did little to put her at ease.
"You could look on this as an opportunity to see what I know about what a lion can do," the dragon remarked, as if there were nothing exceptional about carrying such a large lion on top of its head.
"Thanks a lot, Scuzzy Scales," said Michael.
The lion growled at Michael. Michael stared back defiantly.
"That's not a very respectful name for an old friend," said the dragon.
"Since when have I known you?"
"Since my conception in my mother's egg."
Michael gulped at his failure to recognize the dragon.
"I'm sorry. Visibility is bad."
"Apology accepted. Hope your visibility improves."
The lion stared down at Michael, poised to pounce on him and Karen at any second. Michael, shaking from fear as much as from the cold, stared back at the lion as hard as he could.
"Mr. Lion," Michael said to the animal, "I'll have you know that if you attack anybody, you will have to deal with me. And no fair picking on girls.”
"No fair picking on anybody,” added Karen, as she gathered courage from an inner source she didn't know she had.
The lion roared once more and then leaped off the dragon.
"That's telling him," said Michael.
"I guess so," Karen replied.
But the lion was still did not leave Michael and Karen alone. A blurry golden light flitted about in front of them and to the side of them.
Finally, after the journey in the night had gone on for so long that Michael and Karen had thought it would last forever, the dragon landed. They could see the shadows of houses or small buildings, but only a few flickers of light. The dragon dashed between rows of houses and came to a stop in a wide-open space. Something bright moved through the snow. It was the lion!
“Get us away from that thing,” Michael ordered the dragon through his gritting teeth.
“It won’t hurt you here, you know,” said the dragon.
“I don’t know that. And where am I?”
“Don’t you recognize the tree where I was born and you were reborn?”
The lion’s pacing about the park lit up a snow-covered tree that Michael had to admit to himself was all too familiar. The lion circled the tree and then padded straight towards the dragon and his passengers.
“All right, I recognize the tree,” said Michael. “Now get us away from that lion before it tears somebody to pieces.”
“If you want me to complicate your life, I’ll complicate your life,” said the dragon.
As the lion growled and stepped ever closer, the dragon braced himself and leaped into the air. He flew just above a shadowy rooftop then suddenly shrugged off his passengers, dumping them into the snow. Michael rolled down the slanted surface until he caught himself by grabbing a gutter, then held on tightly to make sure that he stopped Karen’s tumbling.
“Nice play, Scuzzy Scales!” Michael yelled into the teeth of the wind.
“Quiet,” Karen ordered. “You’ll wake people up.”
“Tough Tetrazzini in Tahiti,” Michael muttered. “You okay?”
"I guess. Where are we?" asked Karen.
Michael and Karen crawled away from the edge of the roof. A pair of dark windows covered with mansard roofs peered out at the two of them. Michael checked out the harp as best he could, which didn’t tell him much about whether or not it had survived the rough landing.
"We’re somewhere in Carelin," Michael explained.
“Where’s that?”
“No idea. Don’t worry about that. At least we’re here. This might be the best place to start looking for Kevin.”
“And I suppose inside a shark’s stomach shark is another good place to start looking for him,” Karen retorted.
“Ever tried having faith in anything?” asked Michael, his voice as cold as ever.
“No, why?”
“Try it sometime. Like try it right now.”
"What ever for?"
“For trying to find your stupid brother, Stupid."
"Don't call me Stupid when your brain doesn't even - "
The lions's roar drowned out the rest of Karen's retort as he landed in the snow right next to Michael and Karen and fixed its fiery eyes upon them. Michael grabbed Karen with his free arm and backed towards one of the windows. When the lion stepped towards them, Michael dug his numb fingers through the snow until he grabbed hold of the window pane. To his surprise it opened. Quick as thought, Michael dragged himself, the harp, and Karen through the opening and slammed the window shut. The lion pressed its body against the window, casting enough light enough to illuminate an attic filled with trunks and boxes. The lion pawed at the window, threatening to break in.
"Hope that window holds up,” Michael remarked.
Karen looked about the attic apprehensively.
"Do you think they'll mind?" she asked.
"Who? Mind what?"
"Our coming into their house like this?"
"What choice do they have? What choice did we have?"
“I just hope they understand.”
“I’m sure that whoever lives here will understand very nicely,” said Michael, “provided this isn’t the royal palace, and I’m quite sure it isn’t.”
Michael looked about at the trunks and noticed a broken couch off to a corner. The dust made Michael and Karen both sneeze. With the harp under one arm, Michael picked one of the trunks at random and opened it.
"Don't do that!" Karen admonished him.
The lion flung its body against the window and growled.
"Why not?" Michael asked.
"This isn't your house, you hunk of hemoglobin."
"Thanks for the compliment and the advice."
Michael raised the top of the trunk, but recoiled, letting the top slam back down, when the golden light revealed the corpse-like face of his father. Seeing the blank expression his father wore as he watched television day after day was too much. Karen gasped. Michael looked at her.
"Now it's your turn," he said.
"My turn for what?"
"To see what you can see in the trunk of your choice."
"No!"
"Don't want me to see the skeleton in your closet? I just showed you mine. Fair's fair. Now you know my father’s a zombie. What can be worse than that?"
"I didn't ask you to show me how big a zombie your father is," Karen retorted.
Michael reached for the top of another trunk. Karen tried to stop him but she wasn't fast enough. Michael flung the trunk open and revealed the corpse of the one man Karen spent every day trying to forget. Michael mercifully slammed the trunk shut as quickly as he had opened it. Karen couldn't stifle a tear.
“Nothing new there,” Michael murmured. “Everybody in Milton knows what he did to you and Kevin."
Karen drew back her fist to slug Michael in the head, but the window's glass shattered right just then and the lion stepped through the opening with snow swirling about its mane. Michael picked up a broken chair with his free hand and held it in front of him as if he were a lion trainer.
"Easy now," said Michael cautioned the lion.
The lion growled and closed in on Michael and Karen, backing them against the trunk they had just looked into.
"Goldfire!" cried a child's voice that pierced the lion's growl.
The lion closed his mouth and backed away a few paces. A small pool of light revealed the face of a boy lit by a lantern he was holding. The boy, dressed in a white night gown, climbed the last step of the ladder and crawled through the trap door
"Roger!" cried Michael.
"Welcome back,” answered Roger. “And welcome to Carelin—uh—You’re not Kevin, are you?”
Karen’s face fell.
“Sorry. Just his sister.”
“If you’re the sister of Sir Kevin the Painter Weaver,” said Roger, “then you must be Karen the Captain of the Pirates.”
“How did you know my name is Karen? And—what make’s you think I’m a pirate? I haven’t robbed a ship in my life!”
“The grand aunt of a friend of mine has told me lots of legends about Chief Captain Karen, Sister of Sir Kevin the Painter Weaver, and her crew of pirates,” Roger replied. “You don’t have to worry about being accused of robbing other ships. All the legends about you say that you and your pirates found hidden treasure when it was needed the most.”
Karen looked at Michael.
“Is he putting me on?” Karen asked him.
Roger looked slightly hurt by the question.
“Roger’s too kind to put anybody on,” said Michael.
“I seem to be confusing you,” said Roger, rather sympathetically.
“You can say that again,” said Karen.
"First, let me introduce myself. I am Roger the Violin Concerto Writer at you service," said Roger as he formally shook Karen's trembling hand. “Second, what problem brings you here—now—on a night like this?”
“Kevin disappeared and we’re looking for him,” Michael explained.
Roger frowned.
“That wasn’t supposed to happen.”
“Lots of things happen that aren’t supposed to,” said Karen, her voice tense, her teeth clenched.
“I know,” said Roger, his face suddenly clouding over.
“And then there’s this harp,” said Michael.
“What harp?”
“Want to see it now?”
“Of course.”
Michael unfastened the harp’s covering and revealed the broken harp. To Michael’s relief, it didn’t seem to have been damaged any further than it already was by the journey and his final landing.
“That’s Dornal’s harp!” Roger exclaimed.
“That’s what Mrs. Lear said,” said Michael.
“Where did you get it?”
“In a street in Milton, Pennsylvania,” Michael answered.
“The harp’s owner got run over by a car,” added Karen.
“A car?” Roger asked incredulously. “Do you mean a train car?”
“No, a car,” said Karen. “You know, a vehicle with four wheels—“
“No, I don’t know,” said Roger. “But what was Dornal doing in Milton?”
“I don’t know,” said Michael.
“Hmm. I don’t think this was supposed to happen, either.”
“So, what do we do about it?” asked an impatient Karen.
“We’ll have a family council meeting first thing in the morning,” Roger answered. “This blizzard wasn’t supposed to happen, either. I hope the harp is a clue. Where’s Dornal, then? Still in Milton?”
“At the hospital,” said Karen.
“Karen’s mother should be taking care of him right now,” added Michael. “She’s a doctor.”
A fresh gust of wind blew snow into the attic.
“Sorry to bring you this lion and a broken window besides,” Michael apologized.
“No problem,” said Roger. “Our attic can use a coat of snow and Goldfire’s my favorite lion.”
To prove his point, Roger stepped over to the lion, who had sat so quietly for so long, and stroked Goldfire’s mane vigorously. Karen and Michael both began to feel sheepish over being so frightened of him, now that they saw him looking so friendly. The snow, blowing in through the open window, was beginning to coat the floor. Roger, in his bare feet, seemed oblivious to the cold.
“I guess the dragon was right,” Michael grumbled.
“Dragons are always right,” said Roger.
“About everything?”
“Well, about lions and other worthwhile matters.”
"Is Goldfire your pet?" asked Karen.
"No. He's part of the greatest painting so far by Sir Kevin the Painter Weaver. It’s on display in the King’s City Hall.”
Karen looked at Goldfire again as recognition dawned on her and her jaw dropped.
“Omigod! It looks like the lion Kevin drew for the art show at school?”
“Just like I said,” Roger replied. “We were expecting Kevin to come here any day to get started on the project.”
"But—how can Kevin be coming here to do a painting that’s already on display?” Karen stammered.
"You don't seem to understand," said Roger.
"No, I don't. And—how can a drawing come to life like this?”
“Hmm. It’s like writing a violin concerto,” Roger explained.
“I don’t write concertos,” said Karen.
Roger shrugged.
“Whatever. The concerto is kind of dead on the paper it’s written on, but it comes to life when I play it. Likewise—“
“This isn’t making sense,” said Karen.
“You can’t expect Karen to understand this place until she gets used to it,” said Michael.
Karen gave Michael a sharp look.
“I resent that!”
“You can resent the truth all you want,” Michael retorted.
The rattling of a trunk's lid interrupted that conversation. Goldfire growled.
"Quick! Close that up!" Michael cried as he pointed to the trunk.
Not wanting to see whatever the trunk contained this time, Michael ran to press the lid down but, with only one arm free, he was not strong enough to prevent the corpse from pushing up the lid. Karen ran to help him but, but her effort also proved useless.
"You do it, Goldfire," Roger prompted the lion. “Quick!”
Goldfire leaped up on to the trunk as deftly as a frisky kitten and slammed the lid shut under his weight.
“Thank you, Goldfire,” said Roger. “Looks like you'll have to stay here a while and keep that lid down."
The lion roared angrily.
"I mean - please stay here," Roger pleaded. "I know you want to get back to the painting where you belong. But if you stay here for now, you'll like the painting even better when you get back, because Kevin's coming back to work on it himself."
The lion's growl turned into a purr to show that all was well.
"I hope Goldfire does a good job of guarding that trunk,” said Michael. “I—saw my father in it.”
"And—I saw—my father—in another trunk" Karen stammered.
“Gosh!” said Roger. “Sounds like lots of things are unraveling. Hope we can get them raveled soon. Come on! Let’s go downstairs.”
Michael fastened the harp’s cover and followed Roger and Karen to the attic’s entrance. They looked back apprehensively at the lion, but he was still sitting placidly on the trunk. Then they climbed down a narrow stairway single file until they reached the hallway on the floor below. The hallway proved to be longer that it looked, and instead of coming to another flight of stairs, it simply stopped at a doorway. Roger opened a door into a moon-filled room where a spinning wheel stood in the center and heaps of flax covered the floor.
"Hmm," said Roger, "I wonder what this spinning wheel makes."
"Don't you know?" asked Karen.
“No,” Roger replied. “I haven't seen this room before."
"But you live here, don't you?" Karen asked.
"Sure," Roger replied, "but that doesn't mean I know what’s in this house at any one time. If I did, I wouldn't have the fun of discovering something new."
Roger knelt down, picked up some of the flax and twirled it around his fingers.
"Too bad my sisters aren't up, they're good at this sort of thing," said Roger. "Karen, can you see what you can make of this?"
"I've never spun cloth in my life," said Karen. “And what makes you think I am the one who should do it, just it because I’m a girl?”
“Both of my sisters are better at this than I am, so I thought maybe you would be,” said Roger. “If Michael’s better at it than you, then he should do the spinning.”
“I’ve never spun a thread in my life and I’m not going to start now,” said Michael.
“Hmm. Then I don’t know what to do,” said Roger. “I don’t think we can get past this room until one of us spins whatever it is we’re supposed to spin.”
“You mean we’re stuck here?” asked Michael.
“Not if we can spin what we’re supposed to spin.”
“And nobody knows how to do it,” Karen complained. “Why not wake up your sisters if they know what to do?”
“No fair waking people up except in an emergency,” said Roger. “We’ll just have to spin some flax without knowing how we’re doing it.”
“Well, if you two are as helpless as that, I’ll try it,” said Karen.
“I knew you would,” said Roger.
Karen sat down at the wheel, picked up some flax, then fingered the wheel, making educated guesses as to what she should do with it. Soon, the wheel began to spin on its own. In a daze, Karen wound the flax around the spindle and worked the wheel for some time. Suddenly a silver key dropped to the floor. Karen cried out and then picked it up.
"What's this for?"
Roger looked at it carefully.
"I'd say it's a tuning key for a harp," he explained. “The harp must need tuning.”
“Big help that is,” said Michael. “Most of the strings are broken. I suppose the strings that are left need more tuning than they can get.”
"Then we'll have to unbreak the strings,” said Roger.
With the harp key in hand, another door appeared next to the strange room with the spinning wheel. Roger opened it and led Michael and Karen down another stairway which ended up in a kitchen cluttered with pots and pans all over the sink and the kitchen table. In the middle of it all the mess was a potted plant. A tall girl was standing at the gas stove, heating something in a saucepan.
“Hello, Michael,” said the girl.
"What are you doing up, Amarilla?" asked Michael.
“I thought you might like some hot chocolate," said Amarilla.
“How did you know?" asked Michael.
“When I heard the attic window break and then heard the roar of a lion and then heard a certain brother of mine gallantly run upstairs to greet our guests, I made certain inferences,” Amarilla replied.
“Good inferences mean good chocolate,” said Roger.
“Is anybody going to introduce the guest who has not been here before?” asked Amarilla.
“Her name is Karen,” Michael and Roger both answered in a ragged chorus.
When the hot chocolate came to a boil, Amarilla poured it into four mugs that Roger found for her in the midst of the chaos. After giving it time to cool down, Amarilla handed a mug to Karen.
“Welcome to Carelin,” said Amarilla.
Karen took a sip. It was the best chocolate she had ever tasted.
“Told you it would be good,” said Roger with a smirk.