The large man smiled. “Greetings, and many welcomes.”
“Who are you?’ Bobby asked once again.
The large man laughed as if the question was highly amusing. “There are those who call me the Oomgosh.”
“There are those who call him other things, too,” Raven snapped. “Oomgosh is my preferred name,” the large fellow explained patiently. “You may address me as such.”
“And you can call me Raven,” the bird interjected as if he wanted to regain the center of attention.
“You say you made all this?” Nick asked the bird with a certain skepticism. Todd snorted derisively.
“Raven does not make,” the bird replied imperially. “Raven is, and all else follows.”
Nick shook his head and turned to the Oomgosh. Somehow it was easier to talk to someone who looked at least vaguely human. “Why should we believe a bird?”
“Raven is very believable,” the Oomgosh replied.
“The Oomgosh agrees with everything I say,” Raven added drily.
“Of course,” the Oomgosh agreed. “Raven is also a great liar.”
The bird squawked. Nick wondered if that sound was Raven’s laugh.
“Well, Raven did save you!” the bird insisted. “That is, Raven and the Oomgosh.”
At that, the large green man lost his smile. “You were saved, but at a cost.”
“Cost?” Raven protested. “What cost? Almost all the trees were dead.”
“Not all, no,” the Oomgosh replied sadly. “Not all. Still, it had to be done. The newcomers are most important.”
Todd got an odd smile on his face. “More important than the raven here?”
This time the bird’s squawk sounded angry. “Please. Address me as ‘Raven,’ not ‘the raven.’ The use of that extra word implies the existence of others.” The bird ruffled his feathers and tossed his head. “Raven is unique.”
Nick looked from one strange creature to the other. “You felled the trees, then. Did the two of you also do that”—he couldn’t find the words—”that other thing, too?”
“Raven can do anything,” the bird replied.
“What other thing?” was the Oomgosh’s more pertinent response.
“I don’t know.” Nick tried hard to describe the feeling he had. “There was this moment, when everything seemed to fall away—”
“Yeah!” Bobby added with a yelp. “The whole place whirled around, and the air got funny—”
The Oomgosh laughed. “You give Raven far too much credit. That was the voice of the dragon.”
“The dragon?” Jason piped up. “You mean there’s a dragon around here?”
“Oh, most assuredly, no,” the Oomgosh answered. “If the dragon were close, truly close, we would all be dead. But the dragon heard the soldiers. And the dragon called.”
“Even Raven admits,” the bird added, “as good as my ears are, the dragon’s are better.”
Nick still didn’t understand. “What did the dragon hear?”
“Loud noises, perhaps,” the Oomgosh ventured. “They make him stir in his sleep.”
“Or the force of a great anger,” Raven added. “Remember the stories.”
“The dragon has slept for so long, no one quite remembers,” the Oomgosh explained.
The bird fluttered its dark wings in agitation. “Even Raven’s memory slips now and then. But we must be going.”
“You are right,” the Oomgosh agreed. “We are on a mission.” He stretched out his arms to include the four boys. “We are all on a mission now.” With that, he turned and marched off into the woods.
“Better keep up,” Raven cautioned. “The Oomgosh can move quickly on those legs of his.”
Charlie looked back up at the bird, a growl deep in his throat. “And keep that creature away from me!” Raven cautioned. “You wouldn’t want Raven to hit it with a bolt of lightning!”
“Lightning?” The Oomgosh’s laugh boomed from up ahead. “Oh, Raven, you are most assuredly unique among birds.”
“Most assuredly, my Oomgosh,” Raven replied as he flapped his wings and flew from his perch to shadow the giant. “Most assuredly.”
“What do we do now?” Jason whispered.
The four young men from Chestnut Circle all looked at each other for an instant. And then they followed.
Four
She should have gone with them.
Mary Lou looked at the spot where the four boys had disappeared into the woods. She had wanted to run, to get free of this nightmare, to go with her brother and the others, to somehow be away from everything.
But before she ran, she had turned and looked at her parents.
They clutched each other tight. Mother buried her face against Father’s chest. And the way her father looked at Mary Lou; her parents were so upset, so afraid. What would they do if she left them?
Don’t go. Mary Lou had seen it in her father’s eyes. Don’t go.
What a good daughter you are. Her father said it all the time. She did her best to make her parents happy. And a good daughter could never run away. Especially not now.
A man with a spear stepped between her and freedom. She took a step back toward her father and quickly looked around her.
For what? Whatever chance she had for escape was gone by now. The trees had stopped falling, and the leader of the soldiers had gotten his men to surround the remaining captives. Four of the soldiers cautiously climbed across the new barriers and followed Nick and the others into the forest.
“No more talking!” barked the man who called himself Captain. Mary Lou hadn’t noticed anybody talking. They were all too scared. She twirled a strand of long brown hair around her finger. It was a nervous habit. Her mother yelled about it all the time.
The leader scowled at all of them. “I want nothing more from any of you,” he added hurriedly. “Nothing.” He turned away from them and marched ahead.
She heard something new in the Captain’s last remark. She had expected him to be angry. She hadn’t expected him to be as full of fear as the rest of them.
The soldiers prodded the neighbors on with their spears. Mrs. Smith had more trouble than ever keeping up. She tried to smile when Mr. Mills and Mrs. Blake helped her, but the pain showed through, making her look older than ever. Mr. Jackson looked angry. His wife and the Furlongs looked afraid. Only Mary Lou’s parents managed to look cheerful. Her parents smiled in public, no matter what.
The Captain shouted something from where he marched at the front, almost out of sight of the rest of the party. A pair of soldiers hastily fashioned a litter from some dead branches and strapped the old woman inside. Mary Lou guessed that their leader didn’t want to risk losing another one of them.
The neighbors started to walk, Mary Lou following close behind her parents, all of them surrounded by the soldiers. They marched quickly, and, to Mary Lou’s surprise, not for all that long, halting a few moments later in the first clearing she had seen since they had left what remained of their homes. The open space was almost square, around the size of the baseball field behind the high school.
The clearing was also the first place Mary Lou had seen that was completely free of the dark ivy. In fact, nothing grew in the packed reddish-brown dirt, which looked as if it had been beaten down by thousands of boots. At the center of the clearing was a large building made of logs, topped by a tower; Mary Lou guessed it was a lookout post. No one emerged from the building as they approached. The place seemed deserted.
The soldiers stopped and pointed at the neighbors with their spears.
The neighbors stopped as well.
“This is all of them?” someone spoke from their midst. “Was I misinformed?” The question was followed by a laugh. “I am never misinformed.”
There was another man standing in their midst, although Mary Lou had no idea how he had gotten there. She blinked as the scene in front of her shifted, as if she was looking through a shimmer of heat or a sudden sheet of rain.
A
moment ago, she could have sworn he was wearing some sort of dark-colored robes. Now he was dressed in a dark blue business suit with wide lapels, a white shirt, and a grey tie with silver stripes.
Did he think this would make them more comfortable? The new costume made Mary Lou trust him even less than before. He reminded Mary Lou of that salesman who’d sold them their new car. He smiled at the assembled crowd.
Mr. Mills stepped forward. He stood as tall as the soldiers as he stared at the other man. “What do you want with us?”
The man in blue nodded agreeably. “Only to help you, really,” he said easily. “You’ve had the misfortune to be dragged from your homes, into a hostile environment. And that, I assure you, was none of our doing.” He waved at the soldiers, who had now all put down their weapons. “Excuse us if our methods seemed harsh. Better, though, that you are physically moved from a dangerous place than to face some of the other things that live on this island.”
“Then we’re on an island?” Nick’s mother asked.
“Yes,” the man replied in a tone that reminded Mary Lou of her teachers, “one of seven islands, clustered together in this little corner of the world. Our world, that is.”
“What?” Mr. Furlong demanded. He was so upset that his whole face turned red, all the way up to his thinning hair. “Where have you taken us? Is this some of that crazy flying-saucer stuff?”
“We haven’t taken you anywhere. You have been brought by something else—” He paused and frowned for the first time. “Something difficult to explain. It is something very powerful, that tries to control everything that lives here, and everything that comes here. We call this thing the dragon, although it is more than a simple creature.”
“Who’s trying to control us?” Mr. Jackson demanded. “I don’t take orders from anybody!” Mary Lou thought Jackson looked a lot like his son when he was angry, only thirty years older and thirty pounds heavier. With the way he held his fists, he also looked like he wanted to hit somebody.
“Carl, please,” his wife said in a small voice. She backed away as she spoke.
Jackson whirled around to face her, as if he had found something to hit at last.
“Come on, now,” Mary Lou’s father interrupted, his face full of his peacekeeping grin. “I’m sure this must all be some sort of misunderstanding. There’s got to be some way we can work this out.” Mary Lou’s mother smiled, brushing a hand through her recently dyed hair. No matter what, her mother always managed to look her best.
“We most certainly can work this out,” the man in blue replied smoothly. “But I’m being impolite. You have walked some distance.” He clapped his hands. “We’ll prepare a meal, find someplace for you to sit.” As the man in blue spoke, three of the soldiers passed quickly into the structure behind him. “We’ll have all the time you want to talk. After we’ve eaten, I’ll make a proposition. I can help you. But you can help me, too.”
He paused, letting the neighbors talk among themselves. Some of them, her parents included, wanted to hear this fellow out. Mary Lou was amazed. What were they thinking? He—or his men—had killed Mr. Sayre! How could they even talk to someone like that?
Two of the soldiers reemerged from the building, each carrying a pair of long, rough-hewn benches. Placing these before the neighbors, they went back into the structure and returned with a table of similar design; sort of a picnic table, Mary Lou thought, although the wood looked more green than brown.
“I appreciate the difficulties you’ve had coming here,” the man in blue remarked as his soldiers continued their preparations. “I’m very glad you’ve decided to hear me out.” Had they? Mary Lou couldn’t remember the adults coming to any decision. Still, no one contradicted the man. “I understand that some of your fellows were not so polite. But, by running away from my men, they could inadvertently hurt themselves.”
“What do you mean?” Nick’s mother asked with a frown. “This is a different place,” he replied simply, as if this was all the explanation that was needed.
Nick’s mother looked very upset. “But—” she began. “What—” she added, but couldn’t find words to continue her sentence.
“We’ll find them,” the man in blue said reassuringly. “This is our home, not yours.”
He strolled before the line of neighbors, regarding each one in turn. For some reason, Mary Lou thought he was going to ask for a volunteer. He paused by Mr. Mills, and then walked over to Mary Lou.
She found herself staring into the eyes of the man in blue. For an instant, his eyes looked perfectly normal. And then they seemed to cloud over, and darken, so that her gaze was pulled deeper and deeper within, as if she was forever falling.
“Mary Lou,” he said. She started.
“So nice of you to share your name.” She had? She didn’t remember speaking.
“You may call me Nunn,” the man in blue continued. “See? We only want to work together.”
Mary Lou shivered. Who did he mean by “we”?
“So, if we’ve all agreed to work together,” Nunn continued, as if the neighbors had made another silent consensus, “I think we should eat.”
Some of the neighbors murmured in agreement. Mary Lou’s mother laughed, as if she wanted everybody here to be fast friends.
All three soldiers emerged from the building, each carrying a great, steaming bowl of something that looked like stew.
“We fight when we must,” Nunn remarked conversationally, “but isn’t it much better when we can work together?”
“I wouldn’t worry about the boys,” Todd’s father added with a rough laugh. “They’re all cowards. If they’re like my son, they’ll show back up here with their tails between their legs.”
“Tails?” Nunn asked with his perpetual half-smile. “Ah, like animals, I see. Well, I certainly hope so, for their sakes.”
Other soldiers had brought out smaller bowls and spoons for distributing the stew. Mary Lou couldn’t help but wonder what the steaming bowls really contained. What did they use for meat around here? She remembered the small creature that the Captain had shot from the trees. It had almost looked human. Would they eat something like that?
She realized then that she hadn’t seen the Captain since Nunn had begun to talk. Underneath his bravado, she couldn’t help but think that the Captain had been very afraid. She wondered what had happened to him. She looked back at the bowls.
The stew could contain anything.
She shouldn’t let her imagination run away like this. Still, she didn’t think she could bring herself to eat anything. She wished again that she had run away.
Her parents and the others sat down on the long benches. Some, like Mr. Mills and Nick’s mother, seemed guarded in their movements, while her parents seemed to want to treat the soldiers like they were old friends.
Her father thanked the soldier for the steaming bowl placed in front of him. The soldier grunted back.
Mr. Jackson laughed. “Just like the army.”
“I understand you have already met my brother,” Nunn addressed the others. He frowned when he saw the confusion on their faces. “Ice cream?” he added. The neighbors smiled as if they understood. They passed the bowls of stew down the table.
“Time may be very short,” Nunn continued. “There are certain things that need to be done before the arrival of—well, something that’s very important. We shouldn’t let that confuse you.”
“Then you sent for us?” Mr. Mills asked pointedly.
“Oh, no. We’re not strong enough to do that. You were brought here—” He paused, as if thinking better of what he might say next. “— well, by others. I’ll explain it to you soon enough.”
He looked pointedly at the teenager. “Mary Lou? Why don’t you join us?”
She saw a bit of that same emptiness in his gaze. She quickly looked away. It was strange how quiet all the neighbors had been since they had come to this clearing; no stranger, she supposed, than anything else that had happened to them in th
e last few hours. She wondered if there was something about this Nunn that was affecting them all. Couldn’t her parents, Mr. Mills, and the others see what was happening?
Perhaps they needed somebody to show them.
She remembered how the boys had run. Maybe, she thought, she hadn’t lost her chance. Maybe the real battle would be here, facing this stranger.
Maybe, she thought, and the idea both scared and excited her, there were a lot of different ways to fight.
Five
“We’re never going to get home, are we?”
Mrs. Smith was the first to say it. Although she was the oldest among them and sometimes had trouble walking, she had a lot sharper mind than half the other adults.
Mary Lou always hoped she’d have some of Mrs. Smith’s spunk when she got that old. She looked at the faces of the others around the table. All had stopped spooning the stew into their mouths. Some looked at the old woman, while others were very busy looking somewhere else. For a moment, nothing moved but the wind.
“Nonsense,” Mr. Furlong said. He made a noise that started as a laugh but ended as a dry croak. “We don’t know that.” Mary Lou’s parents nodded from where they sat farther down the table, glad to agree with anything that was being said.
“What do we know, Leo?” his wife asked pointedly.
“I think this Nunn guy is here to protect us,” Mr. Jackson said loudly. Mary Lou had noticed that Jackson almost always made firm statements like that, rather than asking others for advice.
“Did you see the way that guy talked?” Jackson insisted with his all-too-eager grin. “If we stick with him, we should all get back easy.”
“But what about Bobby?” Mrs. Furlong said. “He’s run away,” she added quietly. She glanced out at the forest for only a second, as if the trees might object if she stared at them too long. “All our sons—what will happen to them?”
Dragon Sleeping (The Dragon Circle Trilogy Book 1) Page 5
