Dragons of the Watch - Donita K. Paul [14]
“It might get chilly tonight,” she said.
Tak swung his head to look at her, but didn’t offer a comment.
Rummaging around in her carpetbag produced a voluminous skirt to use as a blanket. The pillow on the floor wasn’t quite as big as her bed at home but was twice as soft. The light faded, and Ellie made one more search for something to eat. Under the counter in the kitchen, she found an enormous cupboard door that she had overlooked. Several jars and boxes tumbled out. In all the disorder, she found nothing edible.
She made her bed on the pillow and climbed in as twilight gave way to night. For some time she lay very still, listening to every noise. But soon her thoughts overcame her awareness of the old house, and she pondered her unusual circumstances.
She tried to shut down a flow of questions, but found it impossible. Where am I? How do Tak and I get back? Does anyone even know I’m lost?
This pesky quizzing cycled through the main queries and occasionally added or subtracted one or two questions. Since she interrogated herself and she had no answers, the exercise became boring.
Tak settled beside her, and his outline in the light of the moon helped her forget the strange happenings of the day.
When she awoke in the morning, his chin rested on the pillow-bed beside her. He opened his eyes and greeted her.
“Maa.”
“Tak, I think I feel brave enough to go into the city. Last night I wasn’t sure. But I was tired. Maybe we’ll find someone to tell us where we are and how to get home. That would be nice.”
She glanced around at the room they’d slept in.
“It would also be nice if this helpful person is no taller than I am.”
Dew still clung to the grass and bushes as Ellie and Tak walked deeper into the city. The space between houses became shorter, and the structures loomed larger. A string of homes changed to shops, with only an occasional residence. Still no signs of life. Each building appeared to be deserted. A shiver ran up Ellie’s spine from time to time as she walked. Sometimes the frisson was caused by her awareness of being alone except for Tak. Sometimes, an eerie feeling of being watched caused her to glance around at the empty windows.
Birds and butterflies flew among the gardens and, on the commercial streets, among the flower boxes and planters. The streets at one time had been well cared for, but now an air of neglect marred their beauty. Dry leaves filled the street gutters. The wind occasionally picked up dirt and swirled it around in dust devils. No one had trimmed the bushes or cut off wilted flower heads. Ellie put aside a fearful thought of a perished city with dead people decaying in these many buildings.
The road ended at a paved circle. Streets branched out from this center like six spokes on a wheel. In the middle, water splashed in a fountain. Seven statues of women in flowing gowns poured water from elegant pitchers into the base they stood in.
Tak leaped up on the side of the pool and drank from one of the streams of falling water from a stone lady’s urn. Ellie climbed the carved rim and eagerly quenched her thirst too. Wiping dribbles of water from her chin, she sat with her legs dangling over the outside of the fountain’s containment wall.
Somehow this area of the city impressed her as different. She studied her surroundings, trying to discern just what made her feel more at ease in the wide-open circle. A slight wind picked up an abandoned scarf, and like a marionette responding to the puppet master’s strings, the thin cloth performed an aerial dance. Tiny brown dowdy birds fluttered about like scraps of paper just as they had along the route to the center of town. But the flower boxes looked beaten, as if someone had whipped the puny plants with a stick.
Tak bumped her as he hopped down, and she almost fell.
Her complaint against him died in her throat as she saw the plate of food up ahead of them.