Simon didn’t tell anyone about him. He didn’t want the man thrown in jail; the poor guy probably just needed a few bucks. And he surely didn’t want anyone thinking that was his father.
But what if he was telling the truth? He wondered if it was possible. Why had he looked so run-down—didn’t he have plenty of money? And why couldn’t he prove his identity to the principal?
The questions nagged at Simon all day.
The answers came during the Halloween masquerade. The lighthouse had been surrounded with jack-o’-lanterns and orange lights had been put up all over school. The library had been transformed with ribbons and banners and decorations, and there was music, but nobody danced. Girls from the nearby private school congregated around one punch bowl, and the boys stayed at the other. All of them were nervous, even though they were disguised in their costumes.
Once Simon looked out the window and thought he saw the man staring back at him…but when he looked closer, it was just the reflection of his own black knight mask.
Simon noticed that the girl from the novelty shop had come to the gathering, but before he could approach her, other boys moved in, and he heard them making fun of him. At first he thought they couldn’t see him under his mask. Then he realized they were joking about his costume. Someone said he was the shortest knight in history. The girl didn’t laugh, but Simon slipped outside to escape them all anyway.
He was going to head to the lighthouse or the stables, where he often went to be alone, when he heard voices. He peeked around the building and could see a man dressed all in pale white, along with other men, servants perhaps, talking to the principal. Simon leaned forward, hearing only pieces of the conversation.
“…Simon St. George here?” he heard the man in white say.
“Is he in some kind of trouble?” asked the principal, but the man answered that his father was inquiring about him.
His father? Simon tried to hear more. Then he glanced down and saw several rats. They had been scurrying beside the building and were now stopped, staring at him. Very large white rats with red eyes.
Simon froze where he was, afraid to get bit, afraid to scream and give himself away.
“I’m very sorry to bother you at this late hour,” he heard the man in white say. “My plane arrived late, and I just desperately wanted to speak with the boy.”
Simon winced as a rat began to crawl onto his foot. He was going to scream after all, but something the man said stopped him: “Has the boy been doing well?”
He strained to hear the reply, that Mr. St. George had nothing to worry about, the boy was doing fine, acceptable work, but he was curious as to why the family had never come to see him in person.
At this the man in white sounded sorry, as if it hurt to explain. “If he ever asks about that, you just tell him his father would like to see him very much, but work has taken him far from home, and you know, as time has gone on, it’s become harder for his father to simply show up out of nowhere. It’s difficult, as I’m sure you realize. His father thinks it might be better to stay away than to stir up a lot of angry feelings, especially if the boy is doing all right without him.”
Simon leaned out to look at the man’s face, but he couldn’t see clearly, not in the dim light. All he could see was a coat, a hat, nothing more.
“I can tell you,” said the principal, “the boy is doing well; you can be sure of it.”
“Well, that’s good,” the man said. “Because I have concerns for him.”
“Concerns?” the principal asked.
“There is always a certain kind of rabble who are drawn to a boy from a family of means,” said the man. “Rotten, disreputable people. I just want to make sure you turn away anyone…unsavory…if someone should come around, looking in on the boy. You know, I suppose I should probably talk to him myself. Is Simon around?”
“Yes, of course. He’ll be thrilled. He’s here somewhere,” the principal said. “Might take me a moment to find him.”
“Well, now, wait a moment. I don’t want to interrupt all this if he’s having a good time,” said the man in white. “I can’t imagine a worse way to meet him, come to think of it. I didn’t know you were having a party here. I’ll tell you what. I’ll be back tomorrow, and maybe I can get away with the boy for a while.”
He smiled at the principal, shook hands, and headed for an old white Rolls-Royce.
For a moment, Simon just stared. He had never heard a word from his father, and now two people wanted the job in the same day? The well-dressed man certainly fit the part in Simon’s mind, but he had no time to weigh the matter—the rats at his feet were squealing murderously.
Simon stepped away from them, backing up into the field, where dozens of masqueraders were now leaving for the library to hear ghost stories. The younger students were all carrying jack-o’-lanterns, and a little boy handed one to Simon.
Simon stared blankly at the pumpkin, as above him, the sky clouded over in a sudden desire to make a storm.
Panicked that he had missed his chance to see his father in person, Simon scrambled through the throngs of boys with their pumpkins, hurrying to catch the man in white.
Simon ran across the field, but the ground was slick with mud, and he nearly fell.
As he hurried to catch the man, he did not notice the lizards—several of them—that had slithered out of the underbrush to get to him, just missing. He did not see the bats that had gathered above him, swarming in a tangle of moonlit motion. The boy was focused completely on catching his father.
Simon ran down the lane from the building, but he could not see the landscape well, even with help from the lighthouse and the stern glow of the moon. There was no sign of his father. No sign of anything; the car had vanished. The awful emptiness of the night slammed into him with the power of the ocean wind.
Whoever he was, the man was gone.
Simon stood there, watching the boys continuing to pass over the field, and with a confused sort of feeling, he joined them. He couldn’t think. He just started moving with them.
They began to walk across the dark field, with only their jack-o’-lanterns, a few flashlights, and the lighthouse itself lighting their way. The lighthouse beam would sweep across the field, and then it would spin around and light the ocean, so the field would go dark.
Flash. Flash. Light. Dark. For most of the boys, it was a weird and perfect end to a Halloween night.
Light. Dark. Light. Dark. The boys could hear the ocean rushing back and forth against the rocks. Simon thought he could hear something else, too. Thunder. Not the usual kind of thunder from a rainstorm, but something somehow less real. Then he realized it was not thunder he was hearing at all. It was a horse’s hooves.
Walking at the end of the long group of boys, he stopped to listen. “Do you hear that?” he said to the boy in front of him. The boy turned, and then all the boys turned.
“What is it?” said the next boy.
“It’s a horse,” said Simon, “somewhere out there.”
Everyone turned around, searching the foggy night. They could hear the thunder of the horse’s hooves getting closer and closer.
The lighthouse spread its beam across the cloudy field. Suddenly a shape launched out of the fog. A man on a great horse. In a second he had swooped up Simon into his arms and thrown him atop the horse.
The boys screamed and ran. Lanterns were dropped. Before anyone knew it, the horseman had rumbled off into the fog. The librarian called out to Simon, but no answer came. As the lighthouse beam swept past the boys again, the light showed them nothing but the whiteness of the fog. The beam did not fall on the horseman, nor on Simon St. George.
Both of them had vanished.
Chapter Four
ST. GEORGE, THE ELDER
SIMON COULD NOT YELL. He was in a panic, with no air in his lungs. The horseman’s face was nearly all covered in a long black scarf, and his great black trench coat was fanning out from the wind, like giant black wings.
Simon clung to his back, afraid of falling. In that quick moment, Simon felt a strange flash of fear that the horseman was the hideous creature he had seen crossing the street—a creature with a long snaky tail. But now the horseman’s scarf fell down from his face, and Simon could see it was the shabby man who claimed to be his father.
For some reason, this made Simon feel better.
Suddenly, he heard sounds up ahead. Shouting. In the grayness near the cliff, he could see three men rushing at the horse.
The horseman drew a long sword, heading for the first man, who may have held a gun. It was hard to tell.
But then, behind the three men, came another, out of the fog, who slashed at the attackers with a long wooden staff. The staff slammed into the first two men, throwing them to the ground. Then the man with the staff attacked the gunman, knocking loose his weapon.
It was the old lighthouse keeper, there, in the thick of the battle, brandishing his long walking cane! The old man was holding back the three attackers! Simon gaped in surprise as the horse galloped past the fight.
“Go!” the old man shouted.
The horse galloped into the safety of the fog shroud.
Gone into the night.
When Simon finally found himself able to breathe and speak more than a whisper, he was a long, long way from the Lighthouse School for Boys. The horseman said not a word, urging his horse on through the fog. He must have gone a very long way, because Simon did not hear any sirens, and he knew the principal would have called the police immediately.
“Where are you taking me?” Simon managed to say.
“Don’t worry now,” said the horseman comfortingly. “You’ll be safe.”
That was all he said, and the horse galloped onward, down the coast, through muddy forests, empty fields, and past lifeless piers, with the dark ocean calling after them.
Simon had no chance to yell for help. They did not go near any houses. Even if he was able to call out, Simon wasn’t sure he wanted to. Once the shock wore off a bit, he started to think this was the most exciting thing that could have happened. If this was his father after all, what exactly did he have to tell Simon?
They reached a long, empty dock. There were no buildings around, just a big sailboat that looked like it had been made a long time ago. The horse trotted over the wooden pier and stopped at the boat with a snort of exhaustion.
“Rest now,” said the man, and Simon thought he was speaking to the horse. “There’s a place to sleep onboard,” he went on.
“You’re talking to me?” said Simon in amazement. “I can’t just…I’m not going to…”
“You know who I am,” said the man. “And I’d like to stand here all night and tell you the story of my life, but it’s not safe here. We’ve got to move on.”
He led the horse on board. Standing on the dock, Simon looked around. He could make a run for it, but he doubted he would get very far. He didn’t even know which way to go; the fog had obscured everything around them.
“Are you coming?” said the man, annoyed, and he put out his hand for Simon to take it.
“I didn’t know I had a choice,” said Simon.
“You have a choice if you want to get eaten out there” was the reply.
Not sure what he meant by this, but knowing that indeed he meant it, Simon turned to look behind him. He heard a rattling in the bushes, and fearing that it was the dangerous men from the lighthouse, he reached out and took the man’s hand. He was pulled aboard the ship, and they set sail.
The thing was, Simon thought he might be able to trust this man somehow. Without knowing why, the boy was willing to go with the unknown….
It was too foggy to see the cliffs as the boat drifted away, but Simon could see the giant light-beam from the Lighthouse School, slicing through the darkness. It got smaller and smaller as the night went on. Ebony Hollow was being pushed away, and with it, Simon’s old life.
Part of him was sorry to see it go. He had few friends, but the Lighthouse School was his whole world. He had no idea where he was headed.
He had a moment to think about his schoolmates, the lighthouse keeper, and to wonder just for an instant about the name of the girl at the novelty shop, but as that thought flitted away, he felt ready for whatever came his way.
The man behind Simon coughed. “Well,” he said, “if you’re not too tired, we may as well get some work done.”
He went inside the cabin.
Simon turned back, not sure he wanted to follow. But the time for regrets had passed. Simon went in.
In the tight quarters of the galley, Simon found the man hard at work, making something to eat. “First things first. I hope you like eggs,” grunted the man. “That’s all I’m cooking.”
“I’m not very hungry,” said Simon.
“You ought to eat whenever you can,” the man replied. “You never know when you won’t be able to.”
Simon was confused. Is he ever going to explain himself? He went to sit at a tiny table, not knowing what else to do. The ship lurched a bit, and Simon fell, embarrassingly.
“Don’t tell me the tide knocked you over,” said the man. “The water’s calm as can be tonight.”
“I’m fine,” said Simon, and he started to realize the man might be insulting him.
“You’re small,” the man added, sizing up Simon’s frame, and he seemed touched by that. “I didn’t think you’d be small.”
Simon decided to be direct.
“Are you going to tell me what’s going on?” Then he added a threat. “My father is waiting for me back there. He isn’t going to like this. He’s a very…he’s a very wealthy businessman. Very powerful.”
“Businessman? Is that what you were hoping?” said the man disdainfully. “Would’ve expected more imagination from you. You’re not going to spook me. You can stop with the petty threats. Next time use a little foul language, put a bit of punch in it, so you don’t sound like such a prep-school toughie.”
He broke eggs into a bowl. “Old Denman, your lighthouse keeper, he might’ve gotten hurt out there tonight, protecting you. He’s done a good job looking after you all these years—wish I could have thanked him proper. He knew the enemy might come looking sometime, with its spies out all over the world. He’s a good man, a good warrior. I hope he’s all right.”
The lighthouse keeper, working for this man? Nothing made any sense. Simon decided just to listen.
“I don’t want to scare you off, but this isn’t like playing war in the woods. You need to be sharp. Pay attention. Listen and learn every step of the way. There is a hallowed place for each one of us after death, but I don’t plan to get to mine for a very long time, so you better not hasten my passage. Certain people have a mission in life, and there’s no changing it, halting it, or reasoning with it. It’s just the way it is.”
Maybe the man was insane. He acted like it. This fancy way of talking about his work, whatever that was, and the way he grunted his words. He did not look very clean, either. His clothes were ragged and dirt-ridden. He seemed distrustful of everything. He was like a homeless man, Simon thought. His eyes did not seem crazy, though. They seemed kinder than his voice. Did he think he needed to be harsh with Simon?
“Eat.”
Simon followed his orders. Scrambled eggs. Plain, unsalted, but they tasted good. Turned out Simon was hungry. How late was it now?
“You’re going to need all your strength,” the man said again, gobbling his own meal with a wolfish hunger, “and all your skills. Do you have any skills?”
Of course he had skills, Simon thought. What skills would this man find useful?
“I can do…woodworking,” Simon tried.
“Don’t need it.”
“I can read French.”
“French?”
“I speak fluently. My teachers say I’m very good.”
“Probably not helpful. What else?”
“I don’t know. I can pretty much operate the lighthouse. I ha
d to cook sometimes in school, so I know a little about that. And I’m good with horses.”
“Good, I guess that’s something,” the man said. “That school had the best fencing instructors in the country—you never took fencing?” The man’s eyes shot over to Simon.
“Fencing was going to be next year. This year I took art.”
“Art.” The man sighed. “Didn’t you take anything practical? What about archery?”
“Since when is archery practical?”
The man almost smiled. “Depends on your line of work.” He looked at Simon for a long moment, taking him in. “Denman must’ve kept you away from all this sort of thing. We never thought you’d come into this.”
“Do I get to know your name?” said the boy.
“My name is Aldric St. George,” he answered. “And I am your father.”
He seemed proud of the fact. But it also seemed to be a warning.
“You’ve said that before.” The boy eyed him. “I don’t suppose you have any proof.”
“Proof?” The man looked angry. “We’ve got the same eyebrows, the same nose…You hear it in your voice, you see it in the way you move—the proof is in your blood, boy! You are a St. George!”
Simon tried not to react to the man’s thundering.
“And if I had any proof with me,” Aldric continued, calming, “it could prove deadly to you. Why do you think I haven’t been able to talk to you all these years?”
“I figured you didn’t want to.”
Aldric St. George looked very upset for a moment. “Of course I wanted to talk to you,” he told Simon, “but it wasn’t safe. I’ve been wondering about you since the day we said good-bye.”
“You said good-bye. I was too little to talk,” Simon said plainly.
Aldric didn’t like to be corrected. “There was no other way,” he said, and then his anger came back a bit. “The Lighthouse School had the best reputation anywhere. I trusted Denman. Didn’t that school take care of you?” At this he seemed to lean forward, worried about the answer.
The Saint of Dragons Page 3
