Brother to Dragons, Companion to Owls - Jane Lindskold [20]
Abalone is gone. Searching quickly, I find that her tappety-tap is also gone. Around me, the Free People sleep, so very softly I whisper to the dragons.
“Abalone?”
“We’re not Abalone!” Between says indignantly. “Where is little blue lips, anyway?”
“Weren’t you staying to screw Head Wolf?” Betwixt asks, his red eyes shining.
I can tell that the dragons are hurt by my abandoning them, so I hold my questions until I have fed them some jelly and crackers from my hoard. The food sweetens them.
Betwixt finishes the last crumbs of his share. “Scratch my eye ridge, would you, Sarah?”
When I do so, not neglecting Between, the dragon relaxes. The ruby eyes seem to glow amiably rather than burn.
“Soon after you left,” Between says, “Abalone got bored with her magazine. She didn’t seem sleepy and I heard her mutter something about going to the Park.”
“That was a while ago,” Betwixt adds. “I guess she’ll be back soon.”
I try to relax and agree. Abalone has done well without me; certainly I must be a trouble to her—a constant shadow. I stretch out on my hammock and set myself gently rocking. Balanced on my stomach, the dragons drowse.
“Go to sleep, Sarah,” Between says soothingly. “You’re beat. We’ll take turns watching and wake you when Abalone comes back.”
I can feel exhaustion stealing through me and yawn nodding my acceptance of the dragon’s plan.
“For some must watch, while some must sleep: so runs the world away.”
Pulling my blanket over me, I position the dragons so they can watch. My last sensation is their claws, like little needles, gripping for purchase as we gently swing.
I do not awaken when Abalone makes her stealthy return, but true to their promise, the dragons hiss me awake. Even in my pleasure at seeing Abalone safely returned, I do not miss that they are more agitated than seems warranted.
“Say ‘Hello’ quickly, Sarah,” Betwixt urges, “and don’t let her drop off yet. We’ve got to tell you something and I think she should hear it, too.”
“Abalone!” I call, reaching out across the space between our hammocks. I struggle, but I cannot find words for my irrational concern for her safety and my joy at her return and must settle for smiling.
“Hush, Sarah,” she whispers. “You’ll rouse all the Jungle. I didn’t expect to see you here so early.”
“Hide me from day’s garish eye,” I comment softly, hoping she will read my grimace into my words, “while the bee with the honied thigh…”
“Oh,” Abalone chuckles. “Bumblebee came calling. She’s been watching you, my friend. I’m surprised she waited this long.”
She begins to snuggle into the down-filled sleeping bag that lines her hammock. Betwixt and Between hiss urgently at me.
“Tell her we heard Edelweiss saying that someone is looking for you. Someone from the Home from what she said. We heard her telling Tapestry while you were sleeping.”
My mouth opens and shuts like a clam in an old cartoon. There are no words in my mind for this fragmented message. Still, I reach and shake Abalone.
She yawns at me. “Yeah?”
“I am a brother to dragons, a companion to owls,” I start.
“Sarah, I’m tired,” Abalone sighs. “I know about the dragon.”
“Charity begins at home!” I try again, my voice breaking above a whisper.
“Hush!”
“’Tis ever common that men are merriest when they are from home,” I mutter futilely to myself.
Abalone falls asleep. I lie swinging, too awake and hunting for words.
“You’ll never take me alive,” I murmur as I finally fall asleep.
In the evening, Abalone sleeps past the time the Tail Wolves and the Four rise and leave. Their activity awakens me and I lie in my hammock watching them dress and depart, a nighttime rainbow. My mind tries to find words to tell Abalone of Betwixt and Between’s warning, wishing for not the first time, that my friends could talk to the dragon.
When the commotion below has thinned, I slide down to the floor level and go to wash. I am soaping in one of the showers rigged in a curve of the Jungle tank when I hear soft cursing from down by my feet.
“Damn, damn, damnety, damn!”
Tilting my face into the gentle fall