The Silver Moon Elm (38 page)

Jennifer didn’t really hear the last couple of sentences. “We shifted? Our Plan B? You were one of the…?”

“Oh, come on, Jennifer. It can’t surprise you that much, can it? I mean, you suspected Skip from the start; so it’s not like you always thought it was four adults behind all of it.”

“But you’re not…you don’t…”

“I’m special. Let’s leave it at that.”

Jennifer bit her lip. “So if you, and Dianna, and Otto were…then either Edmund or Tavia wasn’t…”

“Tavia Saltin’s a talented gal. But not Quadrivium talented. Edmund Slider had to bring her along, just like Skip brought you. It cost him half of his sight and hearing, a price he gladly gave. I was the one who ‘sang the song of change,’ as the verse says.”

Jennifer didn’t know what to say. Sweat tickled her cheekbones, and her breath came up short. Edmund Slider was right. There’s still a plan. They’re going to try again. They’re going to take away—

“Jennifer. Please, don’t panic. We’re not going to try to take away your universe again. Whatever you may think of Dianna Wilson, she keeps her word. She really did love your father. She told me so many times, when Otto wasn’t around. She said leaving Jonathan Scales behind for your mother was the one mistake she’d correct, if she could.”

“That.” Jennifer put a hand up against a locker and tried deep breaths. “Doesn’t necessarily. Make me feel. Better.”

The girl pulled her long sweater sleeves up, rubbed her palms, and smoothed her green-streaked hair behind one ear. Jennifer noticed how much straighter she stood. “You have a great universe here. Worth fighting for, I can see already. Thanks again for opening the door so I could come home.”

And with that the small, dark girl Jennifer only knew as Andi stepped up, kissed her on a clammy cheek, and pranced off to history class.

Jonathan and Elizabeth didn’t want to hear much about Andi when Jennifer got home. They were preparing for their next trip to Crescent Valley.

“This girl sounds like she’s rather fond of Winoka,” her father pointed out as he put on Jennifer’s silver moon elm leaf. The strange cellulose was tough enough for them to puncture a hole through the leaf and put on a simple necklace chain. “If she’s up to mischief, I doubt she’ll be able to plan much in a day or two. And if she has no troubling designs, so much the better.”

That made enough sense to get Jennifer in the minivan with Eddie and her parents. They started the drive talking about their plan for the visit.

“Two things have to happen this trip,” Jonathan said as Elizabeth peeled out of the driveway. “First, I have to tell Winona Brandfire the truth. Second, we have to show a true effort to bring more beaststalkers to the table.”

“I’ll help this time,” Eddie said. He held Jennifer’s hand tightly. “Dr. Georges-Scales, thanks for taking me to see my mom earlier today. I think you’re right: We can start with her.”

“She’ll be able to check out of the hospital in about a week,” Elizabeth advised. “Once she’s out, we might want to wait a few more weeks before trying to take her through the lake. Meeting the others at the cabin will be best, for a while.”

Jennifer squeezed Eddie’s hand back. “Will she stay at your house with your dad?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. The two of them haven’t talked since I moved in with you. He hasn’t even tried to visit her.”

“Oh, Eddie. I’m sorry.”

“My dad did most of my training. Until my mom gets better, I guess I’m going to be pretty pathetic with a sword.”

“Huh.” Jennifer chewed her tongue and held his hands up to her face to smell them. He had used her soap that morning, she could tell. “Have you ever considered archery?”

He gave her a quizzical look. “What, like, you mean a bow and arrow?”

“I’ll bet anything you’d be really good at it.”

“Geez. I guess I could try it, but I don’t think my mom knows much about—”

“Actually,” Elizabeth interrupted from the front, “your mother was on the archery team in college. She won quite a few trophies.”

“Wow! I had no idea,” Eddie said. “Maybe I should ask her once she’s doing better in a few weeks.”

“You don’t have to wait. I can get you started before then.”

“You did archery, Mom?”

“Sure did. It’s been a while, but I was in those competitions, too.”

“Thanks, Dr. Georges-Scales. But I can wait. If my mom won all those trophies, I should probably learn from the best.”

Elizabeth’s eyebrows lifted in the rearview mirror. “You would be. I didn’t say she got first place trophies.”

Jennifer gave a snort and turned to her father in the passenger seat. “Dad, who else are we meeting besides Winona?”

“Catherine will be there, I think. And Xavier.”

Eddie almost cried out as Jennifer crushed his hand. “Xavier Longtail? Why did you invite him?”

“He deserves to hear the full truth, too.”

“Is he bringing his niece?”

“I don’t believe Ember comes out of Crescent Valley much, anymore. It should just be the three of them.”

As it turned out, there were four dragons waiting for them around the barbeque pit in the farmhouse’s backyard. Xavier sat next to another dasher—not Ember, but a young male with soft cobalt scales and lavender wings. Jennifer couldn’t tell his exact age, but from his wide golden eyes and the way he deferred to Xavier, she guessed right away that he was a relative.

Indeed he was. “Jonathan. Jennifer.” Xavier looked at Elizabeth and Eddie, but did not acknowledge either of them. He motioned to the second dasher. “This is my great-nephew, Gautierre Longtail.”

“Ember’s son?” Jennifer asked, reaching out to shake Gautierre’s wing claw with one of her own.

“Yes, Ambassador.” Xavier nodded appreciatively at Jennifer’s morph. She couldn’t help it—the last time she had seen this man, they had both held dragon form, and he was dying with an arrow in his heart. The gesture of respect seemed natural. “He turned fourteen some weeks ago. Like you, Ms. Scales, he had his first morph earlier than the average dragon. This is not so unusual among those of us who raise our families in Crescent Valley.”

“Raise your families?” Jennifer turned in amazement to her father. “In Crescent Valley? Before first morph?”

Jonathan sighed. “It’s not supposed to happen. But Crescent Valley is a big place, and not every rule is easy to enforce.”

“Not every rule is a good idea, Elder Scales.”

“Rules like letting beaststalkers into Crescent Valley?” Jennifer shot back.

Xavier’s reaction surprised her—he actually snickered. “The Blaze has forgiven my niece her indiscretion, as I believe it has forgiven yours, young lady.”

“I hope forgiveness is the order of the day,” Jonathan sighed. “Because I have a great deal to tell you, Xavier. Winona. Catherine.” He nodded at each of the dragons.

Suddenly realizing what she was looking at, Winona Brandfire gasped at Jonathan. “The crescent moon is still in the sky! What has happened here?”

“My daughter can explain that later,” Jonathan said. He turned to Xavier. “I hope you and your great-nephew will not begrudge me keeping human form tonight. I am enjoying a rather exceptional opportunity.”

“Don’t mind us,” Xavier said with a bit of gruffness. “Tell us why you’ve called us here. You mentioned it was urgent you speak to us, and only us.”

“I will speak before the full Blaze later. But you deserve to hear this first, in private.”

Jennifer held her breath while her father told the Brandfires and Longtails everything about that night twenty years ago: the secret relationship with the beaststalker, the appearance of the silver moon elm, and the attack by the tramplers. Winona stiffened the moment these two entered the story, and she still had not moved by the time Jonathan finished his confession of murder in the defense of Elizabeth. Meanwhile, Catherine gave her grandmother a confused look. Did anyone even tell her what her parents were doing when they disappeared? Jennifer wondered.

“The Blaze should know,” Jonathan finished, “that I am solely responsible for your daughter’s death, Winona. And her husband’s. I am also solely responsible for deceiving the Blaze afterward. Elizabeth had nothing to do with these transgressions. She thought I had owned up to it all long ago and received forgiveness. Forgiveness I hope to receive from you, if you’re willing, in your time.”

The fire in the pit crackled for a long time after Jonathan stopped talking. Waiting for the others to react, Jennifer recalled her own reaction on the side of the highway, when she found out about all this. She looked at Catherine, who was still looking back and forth between her grandmother and the man who had killed her parents. Dragon faces are so hard to read. Is she confused? Outraged? Sad?

Finally, Winona stood up on her hind legs. It appeared to Jennifer the elderly trampler was going to step forward to embrace Jonathan, but instead she veered and began to walk toward the lake.

“Eldest?” Jonathan called out. “You have nothing to say?”

Winona paused but did not turn her head. Steam rose from the water’s edge in front of her. “Elder Scales. You have broken faith with me, for the last time. Catherine, let’s go.”

“Jennifer.” Catherine’s voice quivered with despair. “Please tell me this isn’t true!”

“Catherine, I didn’t know until last night…”

“We-we’re moving into Winoka,” the young trampler stammered. “That was the surprise I hinted at Sunday afternoon. We close on our new house this week. Jennifer, Grammie wanted to move because she believed in—”

“Granddaughter!” The earth shook, and the water bubbled near Winona’s wings. Large coils moved through the water, but Jennifer could not make out if it was one creature or ten slithering over each other.

Without another word, Catherine followed her grandmother as they heaved their large bodies into the air and made their way over the lake. Whatever Winona had summoned disappeared under the surface.

“Catherine?” Jennifer knew her friend couldn’t hear her, but she could not believe she was gone. Again.

Her mother’s hand on her wing comforted her, and she even accepted an apologetic look from her father. He didn’t know, she told herself. He had no idea the tramplers attacking his girlfriend were parents. No idea their daughter would grow up to be my friend. No idea Winona would walk away from this family, after all these years.

Gautierre got up to leave.

“Sit down.”

Gautierre sat down with an exclamation of protest. Jennifer stared at Xavier Longtail. The Elder dasher had not moved from his position by the fire.

“Uncle X, they murdered Catherine’s parents! Shouldn’t we go?”

“We’re not leaving just yet.”

Jonathan gave him a weary glance as he sat down across the fire from the dragons. “You want to fight instead, like your niece? Go ahead, Xavier. Take your shot. I’m not going to stop you.”

“I will,” Jennifer warned them.

Xavier’s black-scaled features broadened into an ironic grin. “Frankly, my friends, I find myself unable to go. The violence and drama surrounding your family is fascinating. I simply must stay and see what horrific revelation comes next.” He turned to his great-nephew, who was impatiently twitching a triple-pronged tail. “Who knows, Gautierre? With a little luck, we may be the next victims!”

“Longtail, I’m not in the mood for—”

Xavier raised an apologetic wing claw. “My gallows humor. Yes, very well. But I would like to stay, Jonathan. If you and your wife don’t mind. You see, I also have something to share.”

“You’re going to tell them?” Gautierre huffed as he stood again. “But shouldn’t we tell Mother first—”

“Your mother,” the Elder dasher said through sharp, gritted teeth, “does not always have the most rational perspective. Sit down, kid.”

“Where is your niece, anyway?” Elizabeth’s tone was understandably anxious, Jennifer observed.

“Back in Crescent Valley. She is—how can I put this?—unaware we are here. I felt her presence would only be disruptive.”

That’s kind of funny coming from you. Jennifer congratulated herself for not saying it aloud, but Xavier seemed to read it in her face anyway. His next comments were to her. “Since you and your parents left Crescent Valley, Ms. Scales, my niece has become obsessed with you. Worse, she seems intent on taking some sort of vengeance upon you.”

Jennifer felt her mother move to her side and look up in the air. Eddie took up position on her other side, and Jonathan scrambled to his feet. In response, Gautierre sat up on his haunches and curled his wings.

Alone among them all, Xavier sat still and breathed in the smoky fumes from the barbeque pit. “This is not an attack. Had I agreed with my niece, I would hardly have put you on your guard. Not exactly my style.”

“No, your style is to fly up behind people and smack them on the back of their head,” Jennifer recalled.

“Xavier, you said you came to tell us something.” Jonathan dared to sit back down again, which made the others relax. “Perhaps you could get to it.”

“We received your summons early this morning,” Xavier began. “Gautierre and I were patrolling the ocean far to the north. At first, I intended to leave my grand-nephew in Crescent Valley and come here alone. But on our way back to our lair, we passed a sight I have never seen before. The very sight convinced me to bring him here.”

“What was it?” Jennifer asked.

The dasher licked his teeth. “If you trust me, Ms. Scales, I would like to show you.”

She didn’t need to think about it for long—just long enough to remember the dragon who had saved her from a suicidal last stand, who had shown her the deeper power of the Ancient Furnace, and who ultimately had given his life to help her.

She stepped forward. “Okay, let’s go.”

“Jennifer!” Elizabeth tried to hold onto her daughter’s shoulder. “Are you sure?”

“I’m sure. Ready when you are, Longtail.”

Elizabeth and Eddie went through with them all, and clung to their rides—Jonathan and Jennifer—with shivering cold hands as they emerged into Crescent Valley. Jennifer almost cheered when she saw the venerables’ fire signal around the crescent moon, but then she thought of Evangelina, which made her think of Dianna Wilson again.