The Search for the Red Dragon - James A. Owen [43]
The smoke had been mostly cleared by the easterly winds, but a light haze remained, and the moon rose, unfocused, into the first frame of its nightly show.
Charles, feeling a bit peckish, announced that he was going to go rummaging around in the galley below for something to eat. He was joined by Bert, who claimed to have learned a recipe from Tummeler for an exceptional millet and barley soup.
“Good old Tummeler,” Charles said as he opened the door and began descending the steps. “I’ve often thought about having him for a visit to Oxford and London—I think he’d have a marvelous time. It’s just that…”
“Difficult to explain a talking badger?” said Bert.
“Actually,” confided Charles, “I was more worried about him getting wet. The smell, you know.”
John stayed above, in part because he enjoyed the feeling of flight, but also to observe Jack. Since the trip had begun, neither he nor Charles had so much as mentioned Jack’s turbulent feelings regarding the death of his friend in the Great War. Everything had been moving at such a breakneck pace that it seemed to have been overlooked that Jack’s sleeplessness had begun long before the crisis in the Archipelago. There were larger beasts to be grappled with in his friend’s soul, and John was worried that if no one was watching, they might eventually devour Jack from the inside out.
In their last voyage through the Archipelago, it had been John who was traumatized by the events of the war and who felt a profound loneliness at being separated from his wife. But then, he had been older to begin with, and had more life experience than Jack in the four years that separated their ages. So coming to the Archipelago as a Caretaker of the Geographica was cathartic. It compelled him to find strengths he barely knew he possessed.
But Jack had come there with a different set of perceptions—and then saw a friend die as a result of his own choices and actions. There was no way for someone else to gauge how that might affect a man, especially when yet another friend was later lost in battle, and there was no real family to return to, to ground oneself.
Without turning around, Jack chuckled. “I can feel your eyes burning holes in my back, John,” he said. “I know you’re concerned about me, but you needn’t be. I can take care of myself.”
“Of that I have no doubt,” John assured him, sitting next to the railing. “But your friends are here to support you, Jack, in whatever way you need. And remember, I have some understanding of what you’re dealing with.”
Jack started to retort, then caught himself and grinned wryly. “Nine years ago I might have argued with you. But I’ve realized in recent years that I sometimes argue just for the sake of arguing. I wonder why I do that?”
“It’s part of what makes you a good teacher,” said John.
“Maybe,” said Jack. “But with my students, I tend to win every time. It’s not exactly fair.”
John smiled. “You just need to learn the difference between arguing for arguing’s sake and arguing when there’s a point to be made. If it’s the latter, then it won’t matter if it’s fair. Just if it’s right.”
Jack looked at his friend for a moment, then turned back to the sea and sky, watching.
The moon was fully above the horizon now, and it dominated the sky, turning the seas to cream and dispelling the last of the vaporous clouds that had obscured a sky of distant fireflies.
“It wasn’t Warnie,” Jack said suddenly.
“What wasn’t Warnie?” asked John.
“It wasn’t Warnie who began to call me ‘Jack.’ It was my own idea. Came to me in a dream when I was a child, actually. I just woke up and announced to my family that I was to be addressed as ‘Jack’ from then on. Sometimes it was ‘Jacks’ or ‘Jacksie,’ but Jack was what stuck, and Warnie was the first to pick it up. But I came up with the name myself.”
John furrowed his brow and grinned wryly. “Then why tell us Warnie came up with it? What’s the difference?”
Jack shrugged. “I don’t know. I supposed I just felt ill at ease telling anyone