The link went dead and Jimmy got the distinct feeling that he was ‘hung up’ on.
He vowed to make it up to Ash tomorrow. Right now, he had to sort through his missing father’s things.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Jimmy tiptoed across the bedroom floor. He had no clue what he expected to find in there. It had been ten years since his dad disappeared that hot summer night without a trace. The chances of him being the one to discover anything new… Ridire-solas began to glow and buzz in his belt loop.
He stopped.
The buzz intensified and the sword’s tip pulled him toward a small wooden table in the corner. The table stood on three intricately carved legs. They looked like beautiful vases with large openings where the flowers would go, only a triangular table top was sticking out instead. The edges of the triangle were also rounded as if a puddle of gold had been frozen and laid on top of it. One shiny brass handle hung from a single drawer like a door knocker.
It smelled ancient and looked expensive and didn’t match anything else in the house. Jimmy knew better than to touch it, but Ridire-solas wanted him to. The sword pulled him closer, daring him. At that exact moment, the brass handle shook and clanked against the drawer.
Ash wailed in Jimmy’s head, as if he’d been screaming for a long time before Jimmy noticed. The dragon’s voice sounded rough and their bond ached red.
Mom’s voice cut through all the chaos. “Jimmy, did you find anything?” she called from the living room.
Jimmy jumped back, startled.
Ridire-solas went still and silent. So did the brass handle. Ash, too far gone, did not.
“I can’t find anything,” Jimmy answered. Then, to Ash, he whispered, “Calm down. Nothing happened. I have to play a game with my mom and then I’ll come get you.”
Ash quieted, barely.
Jimmy opened the closet door. Some faded board game boxes were stacked on the top shelf. He grabbed the first one he could and ran.
The rest of the night flew by in a blur of grilled cheese, passing Go, and handing over money to Mom and Grandpa James. In his few moments of paying attention, Jimmy felt bad that he wasn’t doing more. His mom would be gone in the morning and he had no idea when - or if - he’d see her again. Still, he couldn’t stop thinking about that drawer. About all the crazy magic things happening to him.
“Alright, I’m calling it,” Mom said with an exaggerated yawn. “Another early morning tomorrow.” She frowned, then reached a hand over to Jimmy and patted his head.
Jimmy cut his eyes over to Grandpa James, mortified that she would pet him like a child in front of this man. But Grandpa James didn’t seem to notice.
“Ye can stay in my room, Angie. I sleep better on ol’ Bessie anyways.” Grandpa James slapped his dusty recliner.
“Oh, I couldn’t,” Mom protested.
Jimmy would have suggested she stay in his room, but he knew she’d never go in there. Just like she’d never go in the barn. Or that sliver of closet space back home that had two boxes covered with a heavy blanket. As if it could make his dad’s things disappear.
Besides, he had a magic drawer to investigate. Jimmy scraped all the plastic houses and game pieces into the box and closed everything up. Then, doing his best to outdo Mom’s yawn, he said, “I left something in the barn. I’ll be right back!”
“Oh, no you don’t.” Mom grabbed the back of his shirt. “It’s dark out there. It can wait ‘til tomorrow.”
“Mom, I’m not a kid,” Jimmy whined. “Plus, I got this. I’ll be fine.” He pulled Ridire-solas out of his belt before realizing he’d just shown his mother a glowing sword.
But she just smiled her ‘that’s nice, Jimmy,’ smile.
Grandpa said from behind her, “Well, I’ll be damned.”
Mom gasped and Jimmy laughed.
“I thought Margaret had got rid of that ol’ thing,” Grandpa continued. “Where’d ya find it?”
“Um, in the barn.” Jimmy stuck Ridire-solas back in his belt before anyone could think to take it from him. “It was behind some old junk… uh stuff. Way in the back.”
Grandpa James leaned back in his fluffy chair and grinned. “Boy musta hid it from her, that rascal.” His gap-toothed smile faltered for a moment then beamed wider. “Aw, I remember him runnin’ around with that thing day’n night. Swore it was magical.”
Ridire-solas buzzed in response. Jimmy slapped a hand over it.
“Where did it come from?” Jimmy heard himself ask. Mom let go of his shirt and he stepped closer to the old man. He didn’t seem as scary now, remembering his son fondly. His cloudy eyes filled with water.
“Aw, I dinna ken. Just showed up one day. I figured he whittled it at school or somethin’. Never thought ta ask.” The smile receded. Grandpa James sniffed.
“Why did he have to get rid of it?” Jimmy prodded after the old man went silent. He’d only had the sword for a couple hours but couldn’t imagine giving it away.
“Aw, just kid stuff. Knights n’ Dragons he called it. He kept tearin’ up the house, runnin’ through here knockin’ stuff over. Swore he didn’t do it. That the sword — what’d he call it? Ride somethin’? Whatever it was, he told her the sword done it itself. Like it had a mind of its own.” Grandpa James shook his head. “Wild imagination, that boy. Anyways, Margaret had enough one day when Jim came stormin’ through the house hollerin’ about a dragon being after him and broke her good vase, the one she’d got from her mother. Well, she done had enough of it and told him to toss the dern thing on the burn pile.”
Jimmy turned slightly as if protecting Ridire-solas from the words.
Grandpa James slapped his leg and let out a whoop. “I guess he got one over on her, didn’t he?”
“So can I go? Please?” Jimmy begged. “It’ll only take a second.”
Mom hesitated.
“Aw, let the boy go. ‘Tain’t nothin’ out there’s gonna get him. Nothin’ but Craig land for miles.” Grandpa James hoisted his large frame up off the chair, favoring his sore knee, and patted Jimmy’s head. “Just like him,” he muttered to himself and disappeared down the hall.
Jimmy looked up at his mom with pleading blue eyes. She laughed, “Yes, just like him. Hurry up and you owe me a big bedtime hug.”
“Deal!” Jimmy called behind him as he took off out the back door. As soon as he got Ash, they would finally see what was in that drawer.
Jimmy slammed the bedroom door. Ridire-solas could barely contain itself long enough for Jimmy to check for a lock. There wasn’t one.
“We need to be extra quiet,” Jimmy warned.
Ash had been hiding under the bed while Jimmy took care of Mom’s bedtime bear hug. Now he trotted out, licking his lips and rubbing his mouth with a wing.
Jimmy eyed the dragon through furrowed brows. “What did you eat under there?”
Ash made a noncommittal noise and movement that had to be a dragon shrug. Just then, a small bug scurried out between them and Ash whacked it with his tongue like a frog.
“Gross!” Jimmy gagged. “Come on, we’ve got work to do.”
The closer Jimmy got to the strange looking table, the more of a racket Ridire-solas made and the more Jimmy’s nerves tingled. Ash didn’t seem to mind either way. He was more interested in a line of ants marching toward the slice of turkey Jimmy had snuck from the fridge.
At the final small step in front of the antique table, the brass handle stretched itself out toward him. Ridire-solas did the same and they almost reached each other. Energy crackled in the air. Fear shot through Jimmy and he stepped back at the last second.
“Whoa.”
Ridire-solas jerked and the yellow light brightened. The drawer handle jumped up and down, almost scooting out on its own. Jimmy wrestled with Ridire-solas to stay in his belt loop and lost. The sword wiggled out and flung itself through the air. Yellow lightning lit up the room and Ash ran to Jimmy for protection. In one motion, Jimmy scooped up Ash and grabbed the sword’s handle. “Tha
t’s not what I meant by quiet,” he whispered forcefully.
Ridire-solas jammed itself behind the handle and pulled, yanking Jimmy’s arm with it.
The drawer opened a tiny bit and bright yellow rays of light shot out. It engulfed the glow from the sword. Ash hissed and tried to breathe fire at the light. He flapped furiously, roaring and growling.
“Stop, let me see what it is.” Jimmy held Ash tighter with one hand and tried to maintain his grip on the sword’s handle with the other. Ridire-solas at least listened. It went still, allowing Jimmy to place it back in its holster.
The light pulsed as if it were breathing, a sight which made Jimmy’s next move feel foolish. He wrapped one finger around the brass handle, ready to jerk his hand back if necessary, and pulled.
He leaned in to get a better look.
The blinding light made it impossible, so he did the only thing he could think of. He stuck his hand in the drawer and felt around.
His fingers ran along the ordinary things you’d expect to find in a boy’s end table. Pens and pencils and loose sand mostly. A few sheets of paper. And batteries. Then he felt the rough edge of something warm, hot even. Jimmy fought the urge to pull his hand back, and inspected the item more.
At first feel, it seemed like an ordinary piece of jewelry. It was curved and smooth, not quite round. Heat radiated from the object’s burning core. Energy poured through Jimmy. It started at his fingertips and spread up his arm into his chest. Soon his toes warmed with calm.
Ash was anything but calm. He clawed at Jimmy’s arm with his wing, trying to pull him away from the table.
“You’re gonna wake up the whole house,” Jimmy said, slow and soothed. He thought it odd that Mom wasn’t already trying to break down the door. He also didn’t care.
The piece of jewelry weighed more than Ash. When he removed it from the drawer he almost dropped it. Ash screamed and jumped down, then ran under the bed. Ridire-solas perked up and began to glow again, but its light was no match for the glorious gold medallion in Jimmy’s hand.
Magic coursed through his bones as he stared at it, wondering what it was for.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Three more arrows volleyed through the air, one catching its mark right above the dragon’s collar. It jerked, heavily, and the green flame narrowly missed the giant. It seared the tops of the trees. Over the cliff, steam rose from the sea. The giant threw himself to the ground and took cover under his leather armor and all those shields. King Ase prayed again to Odin that the enchantments held.
In the distance, he swore he saw the Fangal Islands heave, a quick lurch to the left to get out of the line of fire. A trick of the eye, no doubt.
The dragon landed on the road before them, claws digging into the stone. With a great roar, it swiped at the giant, flinging it as one might a pesky bug, back toward the fighting.
At the same moment, a cry rang out from the other side of the battlefield. King Ase turned in time to see King Daegen pull his sword from the chest of one of the conscripted soldiers, a boy no more than fifteen.
With a glint in his eye that traveled across the melee and dared Ase to take one more step, Daegen raise his sword again. His fortified armor rattled with excitement. At his feet lay another whimpering boy.
King Ase had no choice.
He charged.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Jimmy woke with a start. His heart lurched in his chest. “Ash!” he whispered. Then he felt around for the medallion. As his eyes adjusted to the pale light coming through the window, he saw the glow under his pillow. He must have put it there for safekeeping before finally falling asleep last night. He didn’t remember a thing that happened after he touched it.
“Ash!” he tried again.
Nothing.
Jimmy climbed out of bed and called for him again, frantically throwing the sheets out of his way. Ash lay curled up under the bed. Jimmy shook him but he didn’t move.
“Ash!” Jimmy yelled. He didn’t care if his mom heard.
There was a knock on the door. “Time to go Sweetie. You up?”
Jimmy jumped and shoved the magic pendant back in the nightstand. Ash still wouldn’t wake up so Jimmy carefully laid him in the backpack and tucked Ridire-solas in his belt. He threw open the door just as Mom was about to knock again. “Great, you’re up!” Mom gave him a sad hug, like she already missed him. “Grandpa’s on the phone with Mr. MacLauren now. He’s going to come by tonight when you get back and bring you a friend to play with. Rowan, I think his name was.”
Jimmy pulled out of the hug and hurried down the hall. All he could think about was waking up Ash. What happened last night? Did he do something while he was spaced out? He cursed himself for not being more responsible. He had a mythical creature to care for now.
“Whoa, where’s the fire?” Mom asked with a laugh.
‘In my dream,’ Jimmy thought with a shudder. Fire was the only thing he could remember about it now.
Jimmy tried repeatedly to wake Ash on the trip to town, totally forgetting about the magically appearing mountain that still chased him. They made it about halfway, or rather, the truck did before it died with a sputter and a choke. Grandpa James coasted off the road and slammed the door. “Well,” he looked and Jimmy in the back of the truck and censored, “darn.” Grandpa James fiddled with the hood latch and repeated the same sentence, uncensored this time. When the hood raised with a loud creak, Jimmy craned his neck to get a good look. He’d never watched anyone fix a truck before.
“Jim…my,” Grandpa James said, adding the last syllable as an afterthought. “Throw up some flares.”
Even with Grandpa James miming the action with his hands, Jimmy had no idea what a flare was or how to throw one. This seemed to dawn on Grandpa James because he came to the back of the truck and grabbed two tubes from the metal toolbox. He bent over and did something that made the tube light up. Its flame reminded Jimmy of the glowing medallion from last night, and the terror of his forgotten dream.
After placing it on the ground, he disappeared around the truck and did the same thing in the front. Then he got back in and waited.
And waited. And waited.
By the time the first car came, the sun had already burned through the clouds and started working on Jimmy. The whole time, Jimmy nudged and pushed Ash, desperately trying to rouse him. He also watched over his shoulder, expecting the mountain to pounce on him.
Ash finally moved after the fourth car flew past them. He jerked as if in pain and curled himself into a tighter ball in the bottom of the backpack.
That couldn’t be good.
Jimmy searched his mind for any clue about last night, but all he got was the blinding light and the smell of fire. His skin prickled with the memory of burning heat. It left a lasting imprint on him, as if all his senses could now find magic in everything. Sensing magic should have been a dream come true but it terrified him.
Mom became more frantic with each near miss of help. She shifted in her seat, opened her door, walked a bit, and checked on Jimmy several times. “I can take a later train,” she said, more to herself than to him.
But he had his own problems. Now that Ash was moving a little and obviously alive at least, the mountain loomed again in his mind, so close he couldn’t breathe without smelling the electricity. Ridire-solas didn’t seem to like it either, vibrating and pulsing in his belt with the same fear.
And Ash still wouldn’t wake all the way up. How did he manage to mess up his life so bad in two days?
Jimmy leaned forward in a panic, ready to confide in Mom or Grandpa James when a large truck slowed down. Gray dust swirled around both vehicles before settling in a thin film over everything, including Jimmy. It scratched his eyes every time he blinked, which was a lot since he told himself not to.
“What seems to be the problem here?” A round man in overalls waddled to Grandpa James’s window and spit a brown liquid onto the brown grass.
“Not sure, but we’re ve
rra late gettin’ ta town. My daughter-in-law here done missed here train.”
“Well, we can’t have that now can we?”
Half an hour later, Jimmy rode in the back of an empty truck being towed behind the round man’s larger truck. He had Ridire-solas raised in the air, pretending they were astride a great steed. It was the first time he laughed in so long. He felt like a little kid again, going on an adventure. Ash even started to come around a little more, to where Jimmy could feel him through their magic link again.
Jimmy had a blast until they pulled onto a main road and half the city stared at him.
All eyes were upon him as if the whole town stopped what they were doing to get a good look at the dirt poor broke down family. Jimmy slinked down into the bed of the truck and grumbled, covering his birthmark with his shirt collar. He knew better than to go out in public. What was he thinking? He didn’t use Grandpa James’s bad word, but he came close.
Two sets of eyes in particular bore into Jimmy more than the rest. The first were attached to the meanest face Jimmy had ever seen. A boy about his age with black hair shorn almost to his scalp, vile freckles, and a wide nose scrunched up in a bitter sneer, laughed harder than the other boys in his group. Then the boy - their obvious leader - pointed at Jimmy’s birthmark and shook his head in mock pity. He heckled something Jimmy was glad he couldn’t hear.
It took forever to roll past them, and Jimmy had to sit through two red lights before they had room to pull both trucks through what had to be the one intersection in the entire city.
They stood there, watching him the whole time. The leader did everything he could to get Jimmy’s attention, yelling and throwing rocks and rubbing his own bare cheek. Jimmy saw it all in his peripheral vision, but managed to keep his head straight forward and a hopefully blank look on his face. Jimmy did his best to cover the offending birthmark as they finally started moving again and hoped he never had to run into that boy the rest of the summer.
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