by Jadyn Chase
She blinked at me. Then she bowed her head and closed her eyes. She burst out laughing again. “No, you don’t have to do that. We don’t do that in this day and age. Everybody just goes with the person they want to go with.”
I frowned. “That’s a strange way to conduct your affairs.”
“It might seem strange to you. Anyway, you’re different enough from the men of my time that you don’t have to worry about it.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
She put her head on one side and her hair swept sideways. “I was thinking about that speech you made last night—the one where you said you wanted my heart. Men don’t express themselves that way now. Maybe that’s why I wasn’t interested in any of them. Maybe I wanted someone different, someone who expressed themselves differently. I’m a historian. Maybe I wanted something more…. historical.” She erupted in giggles again.
I couldn’t understand what she found so humorous. “It does seem odd how the rules don’t apply anymore. We seem to have moved into a realm where none of the old conventions pertain to what we’re doing. We seem to be drifting in a world of our making.”
Her cheeks glowed and her eyes flashed. “I was thinking the same thing.”
I took my hand off her arm. “If that’s the way you feel, I don’t mind letting you go.”
She dove in and gave me a quick kiss. “Thank you. I’ll take a look around. I think I can talk to the other tour guides and security guards more freely if you’re not there.”
She jumped out of bed and headed for the water closet. I noticed one of them in my room, but I hesitated to ask her to explain all the fitments and devices in there.
She shut the door so I didn’t see what she did next. She came out with her hair wrapped in a cloth and another around her body.
She proceeded to dress herself. “What do you think you’ll do today?”
I hoisted myself up in bed. “I have no idea. I suppose I could go explore Dover.”
She talked with her back to me while she hitched that strange harness around her bosom. “I guess it’s asking too much to expect you to stay in this room all day. Just try not to get into trouble—and by trouble, I mean hurt or arrested.”
I bowed my head in a sitting position. “I shall do my utmost, Allison.”
She shot a wild grin over her shoulder and pulled her shirt over her head. “Thank you. It would be terrible if you got killed before we found your family or if you wound up back in Wichita while I was still over here.”
“Quite,” I replied.
She slung her handbag over her shoulder. She gave me one last kiss. “See you later.”
After she left, I sat still for a while and thought. I hadn’t gotten a chance to really think since we arrived in England. Now I knew for certain I wasn’t alone. My parents and some of my brothers had fallen asleep at the same time I did. Now they were awake and at large…somewhere.
If they could turn into dragons, too, they could be anywhere. They could have flown off to Siberia. I shuddered to think.
After an hour of pondering the worst possible scenario, I began to feel the first twinge of hunger. I got dressed, but when I glanced into the water closet, I shrank away from entering it except to drain my bladder. I would have to ask Allison for a lesson on how to use the equipment when she got back.
I wandered down to the dining room and asked the landlady for a sandwich. I couldn’t possibly go wrong with that and Allison already told me they had them in this time. To my eternal relief, the landlady understood me perfectly and gave me exactly what I wanted.
When she brought it and set it on the counter in front of me, I shifted from one foot to the other. She wiped her hands on her apron. “Will there be anything else, Sir?”
“I’m afraid….” I began. “I’m afraid I haven’t any way to pay for this right at present.”
“Oh, that’s no trouble at all,” she exclaimed. “The lady explained it all to me. She said you were to have anything you liked and I was to put it on your tab.”
I squinted at her. “My tab?”
“Meaning as she’ll pay for everything when you check out, like.”
“Oh.” I brightened up. “Thank you.”
I took the sandwich to the coffee room and ate my belated breakfast. After that, I went outside. Now I had to find my way around Dover on my own.
I meandered through town not paying any particular attention to anything. The cars streaking past and blaring their racket didn’t interest me. I decided to head out to the Cliffs again to ponder some more.
I stepped off the footpath to head south. The moment I put my foot on the ground, a deafening blare surprised me out of my skin. I whirled around just in time to see a car barreling straight at me. It locked its wheels. I caught a fleeting glimpse of the driver behind his plate glass window. He braced his elbows to grip the steering wheel and stared at me with huge, terrified eyes.
In a fraction of a second, the car skidded across the pavement and smashed into me with the force of a thousand cannonballs. I never imagined anything could hit a human body so hard. I catapulted over the vehicle’s front end and cartwheeled into the air.
I never came down, though. That strange force took hold of me that I experienced in the tunnels. Fear and alarm translated deep inside me and exploded in rage and violent rebellion.
I pinwheeled over the car, but instead of crashing back to Earth, I launched skyward. The dragon burst forth. I didn’t have to see it in a mirror this time to know that was what it was. Wings sprouted from my shoulders and my body blasted to ten times its normal size.
The next thing I knew, I looked down on Dover from high above. I tilted on the wind and soared over the Cliffs and out to sea.
12
Allison
I hurried up the path toward Dover Castle. The place gave me a special thrill now that I knew something about it no one else knew. I would never be able to write this up in the professional publications, though. No one would ever believe that story about the Shelton family falling asleep for one hundred and eighty years, only to wake up alive and well in modern-day England.
I paid to get in and bit my nails waiting for the tour to get back to the same communications room. When the coast was clear, I ducked back to the pump chamber where the six coffins still lay upturned in every direction. What did I hope to find in here?
I flipped over one of the boxes. Besides the disheveled bedding, it didn’t look much like your garden variety coffin. All the boxes consisted of plain wooden boards with no decoration. The wood didn’t even bear the marks of a plane or any other tool to smooth them. Someone cobbled them together in a rush and didn’t take the time to make them beautiful.
I didn’t see a cross on any of them, either. That was really odd. Whoever built them never intended them for dead bodies. If they had, they would have put something on them to honor the dead. Someone put the Sheltons in here knowing they were alive. So why did they stash the bodies in a remote tunnel?
I pawed through the bedding, but I didn’t find anything. I searched all seven caskets to no avail—until the last one. When I shook out the satin pillow, a sheaf of papers fluttered out at my feet.
I snatched them up and read the dainty handwriting.
Dear Father—
I have waited nearly forty years for you and Mother and the boys to wake up. I am getting older now. I won’t live forever. I have had to come to terms with the possibility that you may never wake up—not in my lifetime, at least. Even if you do wake up and read this letter, I will probably be dead. It breaks my heart that you will never look upon me again. You will never see your grandchildren. The boys will never have children of their own.
I do not know how this happened. I only know that whatever it was became the tragedy of my life. I lost all of you at a stroke and I will never get you back. My youth and my life passed without you in them. I grieve for the loss of you even while you remain alive.
If you ever get a chance to rea
d this, know that I did everything possible for you. I did not know what to do when you and Mother and the boys fell asleep, so I did the only thing I could think to do. I put you in these caskets to protect you and hopefully keep you comfortable until you wake up.
During the wars against Napoleon, I could never be sure Dover would be safe. Even as the Royal Engineers renovating the Castle for invasion, I couldn’t dream of moving you anywhere else. I moved you to the pump chamber and you have remained there until this day.
I could not move away myself. I have stood guard over all six of you and kept your secret for forty years, but I sense my time coming to an end. I can only hope and pray that you will remain safe after I am gone.
If my actions have not been enough, if anything happens to you or harms you, I beg you to forgive me.
Your loving daughter,
Mary
My heart wrenched. Poor Mary. According to Thomas, she was standing in the Great Armour Hall when her family fell asleep. It must have devastated her as much as if she’d watched them all drop dead before her eyes.
That explained how they got into these caskets in the tunnels. It didn’t get us any closer to finding out what caused them to fall asleep in the first place. Neither did it help us locate the others.
I folded the letter and tucked it into my handbag. Thomas would be glad to read it and to hear that his sister lived as full a life as she could under the circumstances.
I retreated to the open air. I returned to the central information desk just in time for my tour group to show up.
I approached the tour guide. “Can I ask you some questions?”
The man turned around. “Sure. What can I do for you?”
“I’m wondering about the strange events that were reported in the paper. The story said the security guards tased the intruder.”
“I don’t know anything about that.” The man jerked his thumb toward the security station where four guards stood around chatting. “You’d have to ask them what happened.”
“Okay, I understand that. I’m just wondering if you’ve seen any other strange people in the tunnels recently.”
He narrowed his eyes at me. “Are you some sort of detective?”
I blushed and lowered my gaze. “I’m not a detective. I’m actually a historian.”
“I haven’t seen anything in the tunnels,” he told me, “but that doesn’t mean there isn’t something there. I’m not down there all the time.”
I nodded. “Thanks. I’ll ask the others if you don’t mind.”
He waved his hand. “Be my guest.”
I tried the security guys next. They straightened up when they saw me coming. “Hi. I was wondering if one of you was the one who tased that intruder I read about in the paper.”
“That’s me, Miss.” One of them thumped his own sternum. “He didn’t go down no way and I gave him the full jolt right in the chest. He must have been some class of a mutant or something.”
One of the other guys smacked his shoulder. “He weren’t no mutant, piker. He were a dragon. We all saw that.”
I pricked up my ears. “Dragon? What do you mean?”
“Everyone knows what a dragon looks like,” the second man replied. “He sprouted wings and flew away, he did. We all saw. You ask Margorie. She’ll tell you the same thing.”
“Who’s Margorie?”
“She’s the guide who dobbed the bugger in,” he told me. “She were standing right there when it happened.”
Now I knew they were trying to cover something up. No way could mild-mannered, gentlemanly Thomas Tierney Shelton turn into a dragon. I narrowed my eyes at the group. “Are you sure something else didn’t happen in the tunnels? What did he do to make you tase him in the first place?”
“He were trying to get away,” the first security guard returned. “I ordered him to stand down, but he wouldn’t listen no way. He attacked those visitors and he….”
“He did no such thing,” the second one interrupted. “He never attacked no one. Margorie called an intruder alert. When we got to the room, he were standing well away from the visitors. He weren’t nowheres near ‘em. It was only when you threatened to tase him that he tried to leave the room.”
“What else happened?”
“He kept eyeing the taser like he knowed it weren’t no real gun,” the second one went on. “He made a little face like he didn’t hold it no account no ways. Then he tried to walk past Gordon here. That’s when he fired the taser.”
Gordon nodded in agreement. I looked back and forth between them. “Is that it? Nothing else happened?”
“If you call changing into a dragon and flying out of them tunnels nofin, then yeah, nofin else happened.” The second one pulled his head in. “Meself, I calls it somefin.”
I examined their faces one after the other. Everything about their behavior and their story indicated they were telling the truth.
“Okay,” I breathed. “Thanks for your time.”
I walked away buried in thought. A dragon—Thomas? I couldn’t believe it. Still, something happened in that room to transport him from Dover to Wichita. It got him out of there when he’d been tased in the chest. That should have knocked any normal man senseless.
I went back to the information desk. “Can you tell me where I can find Margorie?”
“She’s on her lunch break,” the first tour guide informed me. “She’ll won’t be back for an hour.”
Dang. Thwarted again. I left the Castle, but I didn’t feel like heading back to town just yet. Something still bugged me about the whole story. Some clue remained hidden in this Castle.
A few other visitors explored the Castle grounds taking pictures of everything and pointing out to sea. I sauntered over to see what they were looking at. The way things were going, I might just see a medieval dragon soaring over the ocean. That would be the absolute capper to a stunning week.
While I stood there, one of the guys took down his phone from taking a video of the Cliffs. He rotated it close to his chest. When he did, a very distinct English voice came out of it. “Sources claim to have sighted a winged monster flying over Dover this morning heading in a southerly direction. Police are still trying to ascertain the nature of the incident, but accounts evaporate when the creature apparently got somewhere between Connaught Park and Knight’s Road. Witnesses claim an unidentified man with brown hair….”
I didn’t wait to hear anything more. I whirled away and ran. Another monster? Another something that sounded like a dragon heading…. where?
The description matched Thomas. I didn’t have to hear everything to know that. People always seemed to be spotting mythical winged creatures whenever he was around.
The creature wasn’t heading out to sea or to the Cliffs, though. If it went between Connaught Park and Knight’s Road, it must have been heading for the Castle. He said he lived there. He probably felt safe there, or at least comfortable.
I bolted back to the Castle in a ferment. Where could he be? He couldn’t re-enter the tunnels without someone seeing him. He must be in the grounds somewhere. I raced back to the Castle entrance, but when I looked all around me panting for breath, another thought struck me. Why didn’t I think of it before?
He couldn’t come anywhere near the Castle without being seen. Wide, clipped lawns surrounded the main structure on all sides. Farther down the hill, dense forest closed it in. He might have gone there to hide.
I charged down the slope as fast as I could. Wherever he was, I had to find him first. I had to get him out of here and somewhere safe. My heart hurt from pounding so hard. That run seemed a thousand times longer than it should have.
On the way, I became aware that I wasn’t trying to hide Thomas out of any sense of professional historical consideration. I wanted to shield him from harm. I wanted to smooth things over for him and ease his transition into modern life because I cared about him.
I slept with him last night, but I would want to help him even if I hadn’t hoo
ked up with him. He needed someone, but not just anyone. He needed me. He said so, and now I knew I needed him to. He unlocked a part of myself I couldn’t access with anyone else.
13
Thomas
I bolted upright out of a sound sleep. Only when I tried to open my eyes did I realize I hadn’t been asleep at all. I knew this sensation. Overpowering lethargy weighed me down. I couldn’t shake the wool out of my eyes.
Allison’s visage peered down on me. “Are you all right, Thomas?”
I lurched trying to sit up. “Allison! I didn’t hurt you, did I?”
“Why would you hurt me? You’re in the woods outside Dover Castle. I just found you here.”
I stared all around me trying to put the pieces back together, but nothing made sense. “Where…. how did I…..?”
“I should ask you that.” She leaned back and arched an eyebrow downwards.
That pointed glare sent a chill through me, but not a chill of embarrassment. Goosebumps sprang out on my skin and I experienced once again that disconcerting realization that…..
I gasped out loud and my hands flew to my body. I tried to cover everything at once, but in my frantic struggle to preserve my dignity, I succeeded in covering nothing. I was stark, staring naked with Allison peering down on me. Not a stitch of anything, not a leaf or a twig could cover my shame.
“Don’t worry about it, Thomas,” she intoned. “I’ve seen it all before. Remember?”
I froze. My brain registered a distant memory that, yes, in fact, she had seen it all before. She found me naked in her back garden and…..I gulped. I spent last night with her in her bedroom. I certainly wasn’t wearing anything then.
She extended a hand to me. “Come on. We’re getting out of here.”
She clasped me by the wrist, but when she hauled me to my feet, I faced a new problem. “How am I to get out of here, Allison, without someone seeing me?”
She cast a glance through the trees. “You’re right. I’ll go back to the hotel and get you some clothes. You can stay here. No one will find you.”
