Wilhelmina snatched it up and spun it menacingly. “You were a fool to threaten a witch in her own home,” she said in her best sonorous voice, striving to imitate her husband at his most intimidating. The man’s closing eyes fastened on the knife, and she saw the fear even as they clouded over.
“Oh, don’t worry, I won’t kill you. But I don’t intend to make things comfortable either.” Using the hilt of the blade, she clonked him on the head and he instantly dropped, limp. The simple sleeping spell she’d used in the tea would have knocked him out without effort from her, but she wanted him to have a nasty headache the next day as a souvenir.
Wilhelmina snorted in disgust. Then she got some sturdy rope and tied him up, shoving him into a corner under the hooks by the door for their coats and cloaks. No sense taking chances.
It was also a good thing she thought to add a modifying sprinkle of oak gall so that the spell in the tea would only affect men. Otherwise she would be on the floor right next to him. She sneered at his trussed-up, sleeping form and reached up to select a few dried herbs. These she mixed and then threw onto the fire, where the rising smoke would carry them.
Then she went back to finishing dinner.
Just as the last of the light was disappearing over the tops of the mountains, she heard Markus’s approach. He wasn’t making any attempt at all to be subtle; it was obvious something very large was approaching quickly.
Wilhelmina winced, but she didn’t blame him. This was something they had worked out between them when he began going on his extended hunting trips: if she needed him, she would cast a particular spell on the smoke from their fire, which would then seek him out. He would know by the scent what it meant and come home as soon as he was able. This was the first time she had had reason to use it, however.
She went out to greet him, to at least relieve him of some of his anxiety.
“Wilhelmina!” he rushed up, still in lindworm form, and curled up protectively around her. She was surrounded by a wall of green scales on all sides, with his head directly in front of her. He nosed her all over, and baby Edel on her back. “Are you both all right? Are you hurt?”
“Yes, we are well enough.” Suddenly the shakes she had managed to suppress all through the incident and afterwards caught up with her. She shuddered violently, and her knees started to buckle.
His tail shot out to curl around her whole body several times, keeping her upright by sheer force. She wondered if this was what it felt like to be in the coils of a python, if the python was taking incredible care to be gentle instead of trying to crush you to death. She relaxed into his hold, as much as she would have a human embrace. The fork in his tail brushed over her face, tracing her features.
“What happened?” he asked, in a lower voice. She still felt the words vibrate through her down to her toes. He lowered his terrible face again and nosed her, concern in every line of his body.
She leaned her face against the side of his snout, just below one nostril. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “I…” Suddenly she wasn’t sure where to begin.
“Would it help to go inside?” She felt the muscles in his tail shift a bit, preparing to release her.
“No.” She wasn’t sure how he would react to finding the man tied up next to the door and she wanted to prevent bloodshed if at all possible. She might have no compunctions about hitting their erstwhile robber over the head when it wasn’t strictly necessary, but having a vengeful lizard tear him limb from limb was something else.
She opened her eyes, and worked one of her arms loose from his tail’s embrace to stroke the side of his face. Then she explained, as succinctly as possible, what had taken place.
His eyes darkened, and she could feel his coiled tail tighten around her as he understood. His head snapped around to glare at the cottage.
“Don’t!” she said, loud enough that Edel made a fretful noise. Markus looked back around, eyes still furious.
“I dealt with him, and he’s completely helpless by spell and by ropes. He won’t wake until morning, at the earliest. Now we just have to take him down to town and turn him over to the law.”
Her husband rumbled, deep in his throat, but her words seemed to have kept him from blind wrath. He uncoiled his tail and shifted back from her. She staggered back half a step as he transformed, but in less than a second he was there in human form and caught her.
He crushed her and Edel to him, burying his face in Wilhelmina’s hair. She hid her nose in his loose shirt, tucking herself against his warm chest and inhaling the soothing, verdant smell of aloe and sweet pea. “It’s over,” she murmured. “I lived alone with a small child for years; I know how to defend us.”
What she hadn’t had before was someone to comfort her when it was all over. This part was a new experience.
He loosened his hold enough that she could look up into his face. He managed a smile. “My fierce mate. You should have been born a dragon yourself.”
No admonitions that she should have waited for him to return and rescue them, no bemoaning that he hadn’t been here, as almost every other human man she’d ever known would surely have done. He was concerned, yes, and angry at the intrusion to their safe little home, but now that the shock was wearing off he was clearly pleased at her independence. Perhaps not a surprise, given how much the trait seemed prized in his own kind.
And in that moment, the last of her months of reservations wore away. She wouldn’t find anyone else, human or not, who valued her for exactly who and what she was. Any lack of humanity paled in comparison. He was human in the ways that mattered.
She reached up, twined her fingers around his neck and pulled him down, rising up high on the very tips of her toes to press her lips to his.
A little shudder ran through him, and then he leaned into the kiss, his big hands sliding to cup the back of her head and the small of her back. She felt warm, and safe, and cherished.
She lost track of how long they stood there, until a particularly insistent chilly breeze washed over them, yanking at their clothes and all but demanding that they retreat indoors. Once they broke apart, they crushed together in another silent embrace before heading to the cottage, hand-in-hand.
Georg came racing out of the trees to scramble up to sit on his father’s shoulder.
“And where have you been?” Wilhelmina demanded.
“I told him to stay back, just in case. His smaller size might have been helpful, depending on what kind of trouble you and Edel had gotten yourselves into.”
Georg chittered, drowning out Wilhelmina’s indignant snort.
“And then we were being far too…affectionate for his taste, so he decided to wait us out,” translated Markus with a sigh. He gave Wilhelmina’s hand a squeeze and opened the cottage door, looking down at their intruder with disgust. “Now, did you want to carry this human piece of dung down to town tonight, or wait until morning?”
“Now, I think. I do not like the idea of having him tied up here all night. We can find our way back in the dark.”
Markus’s night vision as a lindworm was excellent, and if they stayed off the path there was little chance of discovery.
“As you command, my queen.” He grinned at her, then bent down and slung the man over a shoulder—Georg jumped from him to Wilhelmina to get out of the way—and with a grunt and only a little effort stood up again. “Let us be done with this, and then we can think of more pleasant things.” He raised his eyebrows, and Wilhelmina was glad the growing dark hid her flush.
As it turned out, the authorities were pleased enough to be rousted from their own dinners, for they had just that morning received a telegram of a dangerous fugitive escaped from prison in Bern who might be headed in their direction.
“Well done, Signore Lynd!” said the police chief, clapping Markus on the back. “You’ve done everyone a great service today in apprehending this man! We will all sleep more soundly thanks to you.”
Wilhelmina pretended she needed to concentra
te on shifting her grip on the two babies in her arms to cover her unbidden snicker. Markus’s eyes darted to her and away, and then he thanked the chief solemnly and did not correct the misapprehension. The little family only stayed long enough to see their intruder locked into real handcuffs and carried away to the police station, then turned to slip through the dark back to their own snug cottage.
The atmosphere between them as they rode home was one of relaxation and relief, of something finally settled between them that was a question no more.
Epilogue
Summer 1927. Brig, Switzerland
The day had begun as fair and beautiful as anyone could wish, but as noon came creeping up the sky turned slightly ominous.
“Oh, I do hope it doesn’t rain,” said Clara, peering anxiously out the cabin window.
“I don’t particularly care if it does one way or the other,” Wilhelmina replied, running a brush through her shining sheet of hair that was trending increasingly towards silver these days. “We’ve survived worse than a little cloudburst. In fact, I hope it does rain. It would be fitting.”
“I hope it rains,” Edel said, “then we can all take our shoes off and splash.”
Wilhelmina smiled at this image, but Clara faded a bit, her gray eyes dimming. “I don’t care for mud,” she said.
“Never mind, Mama.” Catherine, Clara’s four-year-old daughter and third child, snuggled in close. “If it does rain, maybe there won’t be mud. There are too many rocks here.”
“You may be right, my darling.” Clara scooped up Catherine and planted a kiss on her cheek.
Wilhelmina came over and patted Clara on the shoulder. Then she returned to brushing and Clara to corralling Edel and Catherine into holding still long enough to continue braiding flowers into their hair. Clara’s dislike of mud was warranted given how much time the nurse-turned-lady had spent in the trenches during the war.
But soon the sober mood lifted. There was too much to look forward to on this particular day that even the prospect of rain couldn’t entirely dampen the generally cheerful atmosphere in the room.
Lady Clara and her family had made the journey to Switzerland at the request of Wilhelmina and Markus to bear witness to their own private pledging ceremony. They had agreed that while their original marriage agreement had been made more for expediency than anything else, this time they would be promised for the rest of their lives in truth.
And this time they wanted to do so in front of people who actually knew them and wished them well. To that end, Wilhelmina had written to her hedgewitch friends and a few others, inviting them to witness. Most had agreed, and now a small group of about fifteen people, including Clara’s husband and their four sons—the Montgomerys’ young family having continued to expand in the intervening years since Edel and Georg were born—waited in a nearby meadow just out of sight of the cottage for the ladies of the not-quite bridal party to emerge.
Wilhelmina wore her best summer dress, an ankle-length dark blue cotton with several inches of the hem covered in hand-embroidered mountain flowers, edelweiss being the most prominent. There were also a few poppies, in honor of Karl. Her linen shirt was starched white to within an inch of its life, and the puffed sleeves were also embroidered with tiny flowers. Edel wore a miniature version of this same attire.
She and Catherine—fast friends despite the two years’ difference in their ages—had insisted on twining fresh flowers in their braids. Wilhelmina herself wore a crown of flowers over her hair, which was loose and flowing past her waist.
“Are we ready?” asked Clara.
“Yes!” chorused the girls. They turned as one to look at Wilhelmina, bright-eyed and eager.
Wilhelmina grinned back at them. “Then I am ready, too.”
The two girls scampered out the door, giggling. “Try not to get dirt on those dresses for ten minutes!” Clara called after them. She turned back to Wilhelmina and flashed her sweet smile. “It will take them five. I had better go after them.” She also left.
Wilhelmina glanced around the suddenly empty, quiet cottage. It was neat, as usual, with evidence here and there that two boisterous children resided in it: a battered, carved oak bird under the table that Georg loved to drop from as great a height as he could get away with, a few books piled helter-skelter on the hearth—when she wasn’t racing around after her brother, Edel was quite fond of the school she attended in town and well on her way to becoming a great reader. Myriad bunches of herbs hung from the rafters, as they had in every place Wilhelmina had ever lived. Their earthy smell permeated everything.
If she had been asked to describe ‘home,’ at any point in her life, she would have described the scene before her, complete with growing children and a loving partner.
Of course she never would have imagined that that partner would spend a significant portion of his time roving the remote mountain peaks as a lizard as large as a locomotive, or that their twin children were growing into a disturbingly observant hedgewitch-in-training, and a dragon whose wings every day carried him closer to true flight.
Karl would laugh with amazement to see her now, she thought, and Allen… she could picture Allen shaking his head with that confused but indulgent half-smile he often wore when he didn’t understand her but loved her anyway. But she rather thought both of them would be proud, if they were looking down on her from wherever the dead who moved on went. They would have wanted her to be happy, of that she was certain.
And she was. Of that she was also certain. She would always miss them, and the pain of losing them had never completely gone. But it no longer stabbed so deeply when she thought of them.
One last glance around the cabin, and then she went outside.
Thunder grumbled and threatened overhead, but she ignored it. It did remind her of the night she had performed the transformation spell on Markus that had given him human form, and to her mind it was a fitting atmosphere to accompany them pledging themselves to each other for good.
There was a stir of anticipation from the watchers when she came around the bend in the path and into view. Wilhelmina barely noticed, however. She only saw Markus, standing head and shoulders above everyone else as usual. He beamed at her, and she beamed back. Her eyes did dart about with a mother’s instinct, locating the twins and making certain they were behaving themselves. Edel stood in Markus’s shadow, between him and the Montgomery family. Georg, in human form per his marching orders, was fidgeting and trying not to. Wilhelmina appreciated how hard they were both trying to be good for the sake of the occasion.
She had just taken hands with Markus when the skies opened up. Rain torrented down, and everyone was instantly soaked. There were a few shrieks and gasps, and a crow of delight from Edel. As she had threatened, their daughter immediately removed her shoes, and Georg followed suit. The two of them set to twirling about the meadow in a giddy rapture, joined quickly by the eldest Montgomery children.
Wilhelmina and Markus watched for a few moments, and then looked back at each other. They laughed at the same time.
“It will never be dull, our time together, will it?” he asked.
“Never.”
“Good.” His green-brown eyes sparkled. “I was half-asleep until you walked into my life. Nothing has been the same since.”
“And I was slowly drowning until you pulled me out and forced me fully to life again. I’d say we’re even.” They were far off of the little speeches they had prepared, but now Wilhelmina wondered why they had even bothered. This was so much more fitting.
“For the rest of our lives?” he asked.
“For the rest of our lives,” she agreed. “However long we have.”
Without warning, he scooped her up, one arm beneath her knees and the other supporting her back, and kissed her soundly. Even in her soaking wet dress he had no trouble lifting her. She twined her arms around his neck through his long hair and kissed him back, disappearing completely into the feeling of his lips on hers and the rain plastering
their bodies together. The faint scent of aloe and sweet pea drifted in her nose.
Distantly she heard an appreciative whistle from one of their guests; if she had to guess it was probably Max Merkel, the former pickpocket who had turned his life around thanks to a spell from her and had recently married into a successful wine merchant’s family. The sound immediately following the whistle was probably Max’s wife Martine smacking the back of his head.
Reluctantly, Wilhelmina broke the kiss and Markus lowered her to the ground. All of their guests were either looking at them or watching the children behind them play. Everyone had enormous smiles, even Clara, though her shoes were starting to sink a bit into the wet earth.
At the same time Wilhelmina and Markus bent down, removed their shoes, and went to frolic with the ecstatic children, beckoning the rest of their attending friends to do the same.
Later, after all the guests had gone home and the Lynds had changed into dry clothing, Markus and Georg changed into their lizard forms. Wilhelmina and Edel climbed onto Markus’s back, and they set off for their private mountaintop meadow, the one that only their family could reach. The storm had passed, and the setting sun was coloring everything in shades of amber and ruby when they arrived.
Once they all had their feet firmly in the grass, Edel set herself to find the most perfect flower in the meadow. She would bend down and examine each candidate with all the seriousness of her six years, but each time for some reason known only to her would determine its unworthiness and move on to the next. Georg launched himself from the cliff into the air, wings outspread, gliding to and fro down towards the trees below, then scrambling up to leap again. He couldn’t truly fly, not yet, but his parents were certain that given that his wings seemed to grow twice as fast as the rest of him—in body his two forms, dragon and boy, were still roughly equal in size, but he had more than double that in wingspan already—that day would come. He certainly practiced enough in the meantime.
The Dragon & the Alpine Star Page 18
