Fire Star

by Chris D'Lacey

  That fetched a stab of guilt into David’s heart. It hurt to know how slow he’d been to detect the cat’s increasing lethargy. That had to be the illness, wearing him down. He shook the thought away and turned back to the dragons. “All right, we’ll start there. What’s the icefire done to him? Did it cause the cancer?”

  Pfff! went Gretel as if such a thing was completely unthinkable.

  “Zookie?”

  Gadzooks blew a faint wisp of smoke.

  “G’reth?”

  He was marveling at the structure of a single salt grain and simply pretended not to hear.

  Gollygosh, the healing dragon, turned to speak to Liz.

  “Oh, yes … I see,” she said.

  “See what?” said David, taut and impatient. Even now a rapid flurry of dragontongue tended to leave him in need of a guidebook.

  Liz reached out and touched Bonnington’s back. The cat stirred and gave a faintly puzzled blink, then burbled once and slipped back into his slumber. “Golly says the cancer cells are multiplying rapidly. They’re young and …” she paused to steady her emotions, “… bursting with life. That combined with the power of the icefire to animate clay, plus a potion Gretel made from a lock of my hair — the red smoke we saw him inhale — and Golly acting as a kind of … transformer —”

  “Transformer?” David said.

  “That’s the nearest I can translate it to … was enough to bring Grockle out of his stasis.”

  “Transformer?” David said again.

  All four dragons looked at their toes.

  “OK, which one of you worked this out?”

  “It was the new one, wasn’t it?” Liz said quietly.

  G’reth flicked his tail.

  “Who was that?” she asked.

  “More to the point, where is that?” asked David. The mysterious hologram had faded away as soon as Grockle had started breathing.

  Gretel gave the wishing dragon a prod. He stepped forward, reluctantly, and gave a little hurr.

  “Inside you?” Liz said.

  David’s heart thumped.

  G’reth looked at him nervously, then in a desperate flurry of dragontongue he told Liz all about his meeting with the Fain.

  “Oh, no,” David groaned and looked at the ceiling. Bergstrom wasn’t going to like this very much.

  “An alien species?” Liz’s mouth dropped open.

  “They love dragons,” hurred Gretel. “I’ve commingled,” she said.

  They all have, thought David. He could tell by the level of excitement in their faces.

  “Did you know about this?” Liz turned to him then, wonder spilling from her bright green eyes.

  “A little. Bergstrom told me G’reth had made contact with a transdimensional, prehuman species. I didn’t know he’d brought one home with him.” He fixed his gaze pointedly at the wishing dragon. “What else is this tenant going to do?”

  G’reth shook his head. Nothing, he told them. The Fain was tired. The vibrations of this planet were heavy for it. It would need to rest now until the fire star came.

  “Then what?”

  “Then it goes home,” G’reth hurred.

  Liz covered her mouth. “This is amazing.”

  “It changes nothing,” David said bluntly. “We still have a wild dragon on the loose, and another to think about in three months’ time.” He looked again at G’reth. “I thought you were supposed to be out there, somewhere, looking for the last known piece of Gawain?”

  “Say again?” said Liz, pulling a tissue from her sleeve.

  “Bergstrom claims it should be possible to stop Gwilanna if every part of Gawain is returned to the island. But there’s one piece missing, which he says is protected by some kind of force that G’reth can’t break through.”

  Hrrr, went the wishing dragon, opening his paws.

  “He thinks Grockle will,” Liz said, translating.

  David returned his gaze to G’reth. “That’s why you did this? You revived Grockle so he could track it down?”

  Hrrr! went Gretel in the wisher’s defense.

  “She says it was the Fain’s idea,” said Liz.

  “It’s a big planet, guys. What hope does Grockle have?”

  “A better chance than you or I,” said Liz. “A dragon’s sense of smell is highly developed. They can trace the whereabouts of one of their kind by following the signatures of their exhaled fire. Gawain’s scent would be over every part of his body. It’s as recognizable to another dragon as your twenty-four-hour deodorant is to me.”

  “And what if the search draws Grockle into danger?”

  The four dragons exchanged a worried look.

  “Quite,” said David, running a hand through his hair. “We might as well sit at home and wait for reports of a strange flying creature to hit the news. A massive witch hunt for the pterodactyllike bird with violet eyes seen terrorizing the United States of America.”

  Liz shuddered and clutched her arms. “It won’t come to that. He’ll adapt. He’ll hide.”

  “For now, maybe. He’s small and agile. But what about when he starts to grow? How big is he likely to get?”

  “I don’t know,” Liz said, tears filming her eyes.

  “How will he survive? What’s he going to eat?”

  “I don’t know,” she said again, becoming distressed. “Vegetation, initially. Then …”

  “Meat?” David’s voice hit solemn. “What will he take? Rodents? Sheep? Cattle?”

  “Da-vid!”

  The tenant stood down, but only for a second. “He’s your son, Liz.”

  “That’s debatable,” she said. “He might claim Zanna.”

  “Whatever. He came from an egg that you kindled, that could and should have produced a boy. There’s something human in his genes and we must try to find him. Zookie.”

  The writing dragon jerked to attention.

  “I need some inspiration and I need it fast.” He rifled through his jacket pocket and brought out the missing pencil and pad.

  “Oh my goodness,” Liz gasped. “How —?”

  “Long story,” he said, handing them over to his jubilant dragon. “By the way, Bergstrom also told me Lucy is safe and in some kind of hibernation state, protected by a female polar bear.”

  “Thank you,” Liz said, though the news had turned her almost as white as a bear herself.

  “Zanna is alive as well.”

  “Oh, David. Oh, thank goodness.” She stepped forward, wanting to give him a hug, but a sudden huff from one of the quartet brought David’s attention back to the dragons.

  Gadzooks, though relieved to have his writing things back, was dismayed to see the tip of the pencil broken. This was no problem for Gollygosh. The healing dragon quickly dipped into his tool kit, found a sharpener, and repaired the damage. The new point seemed better than ever. Gadzooks, who looked as if he’d been storing up a novel in his days of downtime, scribbled something fiercely across the pad. Gretel and G’reth leaned in to take a look, exchanging a puzzled hrrr at what they saw. David closed his eyes to picture the message. It surprised him too. A name:

  Arthur

  He whispered it aloud.

  As usual, he had no idea what it meant (at first). Insight would come a little later, from Liz. Right then, however, she was incapable of speech.

  She had just fainted in a heap on the floor.

  40 LIFE BEFORE LUCY

  Steady, steady …”

  “Where am I?” groaned Liz, trying (and failing) to prop herself up.

  David pushed another pillow under her head and eased her down again, onto her bed. “In the Ritz Hotel, having a makeover to die for.”

  “It feels like I’m dead. Why is my head so cold?”

  “Golly’s orders. Bag of frozen peas, on the forehead. Something to take the swelling down. You fell over in the kitchen and bumped yourself. You’re now slightly lopsided, thanks to a small egg on your left temple.”

  “Kitchen?” she queried, looking right
and left for landmarks. “I’m in my bedroom.”

  “I carried you up.”

  “You —?” Her eyes grew wide with disbelief.

  “Stronger than I look,” he said, squeezing a bicep. He smiled and sat down on the edge of the bed.

  “I’m getting up.”

  “No, you’re not. Lie back.” Catching her shoulders, he pushed her back again.

  “David, I’m embarrassed.”

  “You’re also hurt. You had a nasty fall. One more move and I’ll call Henry in. Then it’ll be paramedics, a helicopter, and the National Guard.”

  “Don’t be mean. I — ow!” she went, abandoning the protest. Frowning was far too painful. She found the bump and felt it. “Am I hideous?”

  “Compared to a rhino? No.”

  Sighing heavily, she accepted defeat. “You could at least defrost me.”

  David lifted the peas, wrapped them in a towel, and put them on the floor beside a pile of magazines. He clicked his fingers at Gwillan. The dragon tapped the base of a bedside lamp. A soft rose hue lit up the room.

  “Thank you,” Liz whispered.

  The faithful little puffler warmed up a hankie and flew in to dry her face and neck.

  “How long have I been out?”

  David glanced at her Noddy alarm clock. “Forty minutes or so.”

  “Forty —? Ow!”

  “Lie still,” he chided.

  “Yes, doctor.” A moment passed. She reengaged his eyes. “Don’t look at me like that.”

  He half cocked an eyebrow.

  “Stop it,” she said.

  “Stop what?”

  “Sparring. You’ve got that ‘I need to know something’ look in your eye.”

  He relaxed his stare, focusing for a second on her bunny rabbit slippers. For a middle-aged woman, she could be pretty sweet. “Is it coming back to you, the reason why you dropped?”

  She pondered a moment, then turned her face away.

  “Who’s Arthur?” he asked, trying not to sound pushy.

  “Don’t go there, David. It won’t do any good.”

  He moved his gaze from her face to her fingertips, watching them nipping the blanket into peaks. “I wouldn’t be asking, if Zookie hadn’t written it.”

  “He’s probably trying to help you with a story, that’s all.”

  “Liz, come on. You fainted in the kitchen. Something shocked you when you heard that name. Please, tell me. I only want to help. Is Arthur Lucy’s father?”

  Her eyes closed, tears welling under their lids. “How did Gadzooks do that?” she said, punching the blanket lightly now. “How could he possibly connect to Arthur?”

  “Commingling with the Fain raised his level of vibration, bringing that name into his conscious auma. Arthur must be involved in my wish. I’m going to need your help to work out how. Who is he, Liz?”

  She sobbed and a tear ran down her cheek. David raised a hand toward Gwillan. No help yet. There were moments when it was better to let people cry, he thought. That decision bore fruit when Liz said quietly: “Do you promise me you’ll never tell another living soul?”

  “Does Lucy know?”

  “No. And she mustn’t.”

  “OK. I promise,” David said. He gestured to Gwillan, who quickly flew a tissue to his mistress’s hand.

  “Cup of tea,” she said, blowing. “Not doing this without.”

  David had already figured that. He gestured again to Gwillan, who flew behind the lamp, pushed a mug of tea forward, and warmed it instantly with his breath. “There you go. Might be slightly stewed.”

  “It’s wet and warm. It’ll do,” she said. She pushed herself into a sitting position, adjusted her skirt, and stretched her legs out flat. She blew a kiss to Gwillan and circled a finger. He folded down his wings and settled back into his solid pose. “It’s not that I don’t trust him, but the dragons aren’t ready for the whole story yet. I’m not sure you are, but …” She took a sip of tea. Then another. Then began.

  “Twelve years ago, I lived alone — in Cambridge. I had an apartment overlooking the Charles river. A beautiful place. A kind of artist’s garret.”

  “Were you in college?”

  “No. Oh, no. I just liked that leafy part of the world. And I needed somewhere to escape from Gwilanna.”

  David’s body height immediately rose. “You lived with her?”

  “On and off, for many years. I traveled with her, learning, never really settling down. Eventually, like most people, I wanted independence and a place of my own. So I kind of ran away from her, thinking, stupidly, she wouldn’t want to find me. I was wrong, but I’ll come to that in a moment.

  “For a while, all was well. I had money and a business that paid the rent.”

  “The dragons?”

  “Hmm,” she said, absently sipping. “I’d made other things, the usual pots and ornaments, but that was about the time I began to sell the dragons.

  “One day, I was loading up my van with them, ready to take them to a local craft fair, when I noticed I had a flat tire. I didn’t know what to do. It was a Sunday. Garages were closed. And I didn’t belong to any auto clubs. So I stood for a while, looking rather glumly at my broken car, then did the only thing a damsel in distress can.”

  “Went for help?”

  “Stamped my foot.”

  David spluttered with laughter.

  “Magically, a voice behind me said, ‘Hmm, right leg movement, but it would help if one of these was connected to the tire.’ I turned around, and there was this man — holding a foot pump.”

  “Just like that? Out of nowhere?”

  Liz smiled, reminiscing. “He confessed later he’d had his eye on me for days, but was waiting till I came out to the van because he felt too shy to approach me otherwise.”

  “Nice technique. What was he like?”

  “Tall. Dark-haired. Lovely blue eyes. A few years older than me. Handsome in a bookish kind of way — like you.”

  “Eh?”

  “He wore a knitted green vest. I didn’t like that. And there was a pipe sticking out of his pants pocket. I wasn’t sure I liked that either. He wore the silliest little glasses I ever saw. But otherwise, he was very acceptable.”

  “And this was Arthur?”

  “This was Arthur,” she confirmed. “He told me straight away my tire could not be saved, due mainly to the fact that I’d parked the van on a broken bottle. So like a true gentleman he rolled up his sleeves and put on the spare. And that was that. Within fifteen minutes he’d changed my tire and changed my life.”

  “You fell for him?”

  “You sound shocked.”

  “Not shocked, just … surprised, given what I know about you.”

  “And what do you know about me?”

  “Very little, I suppose,” he said, turning red. “So …?”

  “So, we went out — for the next seven months. He was lovely. Shy. Funny. Charmingly eccentric. He took me to all sorts of interesting places. Art exhibitions. Poetry evenings. Jazz clubs. College functions. Picnics by the river. Walks. He loved to walk. Especially in the evening when the stars were out. He liked to dazzle me with stories about far-off galaxies and time travel and the speed of light.”

  David’s ears pricked up. “He knew about stars?”

  “Everything,” Liz said, glowing from ear to ear. “Stars were his passion. He was a professor — of astrophysics. Why? Is this meaningful?”

  “Perhaps,” David shortened his gaze. “Did he ever talk about something called ‘dark matter’?”

  Liz shook her head slowly. “Not that I recall. He talked about dragons, though.”

  “Uh?” David grunted, almost slipping off the blanket. “How did he know about dragons?”

  Liz smiled and ran a finger around the rim of her mug. “He was Welsh, from a village in Monmouthshire. The red dragon is the symbol of Wales, remember? He was quick to wave his flag when he saw my pottery. I liked that about him. He was the first man I’d met who c
ould hold an intelligent conversation about dragons. We used to swap myths. He even explained, scientifically, how they might have breathed fire.”

  “You swapped myths?” David said, going back a step. “How much did he learn? Did he know about … y’know?”

  “No,” Liz said, looking inward again. “The special dragons came later, after Arthur had gone.” She picked up the tissue box and plonked it down closer, then drew one and crumpled it against her nose.

  “You broke up, then?”

  “Obviously.”

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean to sound … do you want to stop talking?”

  She finished her tea and put the mug aside. “No. You’ve come this far; you might as well hear the rest. But if I cry too hard you have to leave, is that agreed?”

  “The house?”

  “The room.” She gave his thigh a soft kick. “Are you sure it wasn’t you who had that bump on the head?”

  “OK, agreed. Was it bad?”

  “Horrible.”

  David nodded, remembering his fallout with Zanna. “But it sounds so idyllic, like — excuse the mushiness — like you were made for each other. What went wrong?”

  “The only thing that could have gone wrong,” she said bitterly. “Gwilanna found out.”

  41 THE BIRTH OF LUCY

  Right,” David said, as if he ought to have guessed. “Did she follow you to Cambridge?”

  “Not exactly,” Liz said, staring at the window like some Wendy looking for her Peter Pan. “She picked up on my auma and came to me because she was needed — so she said.”

  David shifted uneasily on the bed. “This is to do with Lucy, right?”

  Liz nodded lightly. “The arrival of Lucy changed everything. But if I’d known what I was, what lay in store for me, she might never have come into being.”

  “You can’t be serious?”

  “I didn’t say I didn’t want a child, David … just maybe not the way it happened.” She took a deep breath and gathered herself. “Arthur and I were becoming very close. He was a good man. A decent man, with old-fashioned values. He’d never pushed our relationship beyond true friendship or asked for more than the warmth of my hand. But my feelings for him were beginning to run deeper. And that was when the problems started kicking in. I changed the dynamic. I wrecked it. Me.”