The Story of Owen (28 page)

“What about the environmental fallout from the tankers?” Emily asked.

“You can't make an omelet without breaking the eggs,” Lottie said, and then grimaced at her inadvertent pun. “But we'll do our best to limit the damage.”

“That still leaves us with the problem of who goes to Manitoulin,” Owen pointed out.

“I might be able to help with that,” said Aodhan from the doorway. I hadn't even heard him come in, but before I could turn around to say hello, I caught sight of Owen's face and froze.

I looked at Hannah and Lottie, and they both seemed surprised as well. Emily just looked as confused as I felt. Slowly, I turned around. There was Aodhan, sure enough, and behind him there stood a woman with dark hair. She looked vaguely familiar, but I couldn't place where I had seen her. She was well-muscled and she stood like a fighter, so I knew she must be a dragon slayer too. But there was no one we could call. All the Canadian dragon slayers were spoken for.

And that, of course, was it. She wasn't a Canadian dragon slayer. She was here for reasons that had nothing to do with
patriotism or pragmatism, and had everything to do with family and personal loyalty, even though she looked like she wasn't sure how she would be received. I had sat next to her picture in the back of Aodhan's Volkswagen, and now she had traveled all this way to help. I looked back at Owen and waited to take my cues from him.

He found his voice at last and stood up from the table.

“Hi, Mom,” he said, and the symphony flared to life, waking up every single person who sat in the audience.

And now we come at last to the story of a dragon slayer who is not a hero, though if you live in a small town in southwestern Ontario, you might recall his name. Aodhan Thorskard was born to a fine dragon slayer line, descended from Vikings and famed in both Europe and North America for the fighters it had produced. He trained from when he was old enough to hold a sword, fighting side by side with his sister Lottie, who was two years his elder, under their mother's tutelage. Though he grew both taller and broader than his sister did, he could never match her speed or her skill.

There was no rivalry between them on this point, however. They worked in concert throughout their training, playing to one another's strengths. For where she was fast-thinking and impetuous, he was often a keener mind in strategy and by far a better a tracker. Together, they made a nearly unstoppable team.

But
nearly
is
not quite
.

Both were sent to the Middle East when their tour time came. Lottie went two years before, and when she was finished her required four, she volunteered for another pair of summers in the desert, so that she could see her brother to the end of his time. They fought side by side, with the others in the Oil Watch and with the regular military, for three years.

While the Iraqis and the Kuwaitis fought bitterly in the desert for the ownership of the oil beneath the sand, the dragons gathered in the skies. “Thank your lucky stars the dragons don't realize they could light the oil fields aflame,” the drill sergeants would say, risking a cigarette because there would be better targets elsewhere. “Or we'd be in real trouble.” As though the trouble wasn't real enough.

Lottie wasn't on duty the day the fires started in earnest, but Aodhan was. He saw the Republican Guard strike team at the very last moment, right as they stood poised to shoot. He could not stop the shot; he could not stop the flames that engulfed the oil rig closest to the Oil Watch barracks. But he thought he might be able to stop the dragon that made straight for the smoke.

The Oil Watch is supposed to patrol in teams, but the fires were hotter than ever, and Aodhan's non-dragon slayer support crew hesitated when Aodhan made his charge. He ordered them to stay and call for reinforcement, and he sent one of them—the youngest, who could run the most swiftly—to bring Lottie as quickly as she could. Then Aodhan turned back to the fire and went in.

No account was made of his exploits when he passed beyond the sight of his support crew, and there was no bard to make guesses at his tale. The soldiers could see his dark shape,
and the bigger shape of the dragon, through the flames, but they could see no detail. They could hear the dragon roar, and with each bellow it spit more fire into the air, and the flames spread from rig to rig, with nothing done to check their terrible march.

The screams of dragons filled the air, as more came scenting on the carbon fumes and they turned to fight with one another. And still Aodhan strove against them, though it seemed too hot to bear, and Lottie did not come.

The flames engulfed the barracks too, spreading to the infirmary and mess before anything could be done. Human screams joined the dragons' then, and Aodhan could not go to them, could not stop the flames. Finally, in the distance, there was the whine of helicopters that could, at the very least, evacuate the Oil Watch until the worst of the frenzy had passed.

In this moment of desperation, a Venezuelan dragon slayer, who had escaped the barracks with nothing but her sword, her shield, and the clothes on her back, came to fight by Aodhan's side. Her name was Catalina, and in her time with the Oil Watch, she and Aodhan had often trained together. Their friendship was great, and she would not let him fight alone. She leaped into the fire, and they stood back to back, with their swords before them while the dragons circled. He had slayed two of them already, too hurried to make it clean, and now they faced a third.

“We must get clear of them,” they say she said, though how anyone could know is unclear. “We must not stay!”

Together they struck, each of their swords slicing through one of the dragon's hearts as it reared above them and then fell dead to the ground. They vaulted over the dragon's body,
grasping at the spines along its back when they would have slid across its scales, and pulled themselves out of the fire. Then, though it went against both training and instinct, they ran. They ran until the dry air seared their lungs more caustically than the fire had, and when they could run no more, they lay down in the desert to die.

At last came Lottie Thorskard, with the helicopter that bore her brother and her compatriot to safety. They were both of them burned, but they were alive, which was more than could be said of those who had been trapped in the barracks and the infirmary when the flames took hold. Fully half the company had burned, and the oil rigs with them. It was the worst loss of life since the Oil Watch was begun. Also dead were the sentries who guarded the outer reaches of the camp; the Iraqi strike team had killed them when they breached the perimeter. It was some small solace that the strike team had not escaped either.

There are many ways for people to deal with trauma. Some drink to forget. Some pretend it never happened in the first place. Some commiserate and forge bonds in grief that might not otherwise come to be. Thus it was with Aodhan and Catalina. One month later, during a physical to check the progress of her healed burns, the Watch Doctor determined that Catalina was pregnant, and she was immediately retired from the Oil Watch—though not discharged, on account of her bravery on the day the rigs were burned.

The surviving members of the company voted unanimously to relegate Aodhan to safer duties, but in truth this was a formality. Though his body had healed well from the fight, his mind was slower to follow. None spoke against him, on account of Lottie, but everyone knew that he would never be the giant
he had been. He took to his new duties with the same loyalty he had always shown, but with none of the vitality.

Owen Thorskard was born on the twenty-third day of April, 1995. On the first of May, his mother was sent back to Venezuela. Her time in the Oil Watch was done, and she longed for home. Two weeks later, Aodhan Thorskard landed in Trenton with his sister, his soon-to-be sister-in-law, and his son. Catalina would become a hero in her own country, and songs would be sung of her for long years after her death. Lottie's tale you know already, for she is the most famous of all the dragon slayers since St. George. Owen's story is still being written, but you have heard it whispered on the wind.

Of Aodhan Thorskard, I cannot sing. His mission failed. The oil fields he watched over burned. I cannot sing to you of him, for there are no songs to be sung.

There have been a few moments in my life when I have felt more awkward. Once, when I was playing at an outdoor concert, a sudden gust of wind had made off with my sheet music. I had to stop an entire jazz orchestra while I and helpful members of the audience chased the pages. Another time, I got turned around in the middle of “Für Elise” and skipped the entire fast part. But this, sitting at the table with my cooling pizza on my plate and Owen's mother behind me, was the worst.

For her part, Emily looked genuinely curious. I couldn't remember if Owen had ever mentioned his mother to her, but I figured she probably had the Internet to fill her in. Fortunately, she was way too smart to accept everything she read as fact, and she was way too gracious to ask questions. She usually reacted to things more quickly than I did, and I hoped that she would come up with a reason for the two of us to leave the room, but she didn't say a word.

“Aodhan, Cat, come on in,” said Hannah, like this was a
weekly occurrence. “There's lots of pizza. Grab a plate.”

“Still making it in the forge?” Owen's mother asked, sitting down and helping herself to a slice. “I hope so. I've missed it.”

“There are other ways?” Hannah said, smiling. She elbowed Lottie in the stomach, subtly, but I still noticed.

“Perish the thought,” Lottie said, having swallowed her surprise. “Owen, get your parents something to drink. There's more pop in the garage and it should be cold enough.”

“I'll help,” I said, and jumped up from the table. I felt extremely gauche, but Owen looked at me gratefully. “Anyone else want a refill?”

Once we had safely escaped to the garage, I watched Owen get cans out of the carton.

“You can call her Catalina, by the way,” he said, as though that was my biggest concern. “She prefers it. She says North Americans always butcher her last name.”

“Okay,” I said. I took a few of the cans. “Are you all right with this?”

“I just wish Dad had told me, that's all,” he said. I couldn't tell if he was telling the truth. “I don't like being surprised.”

“He probably just didn't want you to be let down if she said no,” I said.

“She never says no,” Owen told me. His voice was flat. “Well, she said no twice: once to marrying him and once to moving to Canada, but Dad wasn't willing to move to Venezuela either, so …” He stacked the cans up in his arms as he trailed off.

“Are you sure you're okay?” I asked again.

“You know how in stories, there's always the hero and the heroine, and they can't live together for whatever reason, and
everyone always says how romantic and tragic it is?” he said. I nodded. “Well, it just sucks,” he continued. “But you learn to live with what you've got, and appreciate the fact that people love you.”

“Oh,” I said, tremendously grateful for my excessively normal parents.

Owen took a deep breath, like he was getting ready to take a penalty kick or make a run at a dragon's hearts, and expelled it in a huff.

“Okay, I'm ready to go back in now,” he said. “And thanks, Siobhan. For understanding.”

“No problem,” I told him. “But you realize that this just became the best night of Emily's life, right? Even without giving away any details, she's going to be famous on the Internet tomorrow when she says she met your mother.”

“She can't say anything,” Owen said. “It'll blow her anonymity.”

“It might be worth it,” I said, and he laughed as he held the door open for me.

When we got back to the kitchen, Catalina was telling a story about defending an oil well near Caracas, and Emily was hanging on her every word. Lottie was looking on indulgently, but Hannah and Aodhan both turned, concern on their faces. Owen smiled at them, and they relaxed. Owen passed his dad a can and poured a glass of ginger ale for his mother, and then tucked in to his pizza again.

“Emily tells me you have an ambitious plan,” Catalina said, turning to Owen. “I am happy to help.”

“We're still working on the details,” Owen said. “By which I mean please suggest anything you can think of.”

“What have I missed?” Aodhan asked, chewing while he talked. The cello in him was in full swing now, low and strong, and so, so sad. I did my best to focus on the part where he was so enormous it looked like he could break a tree in half with his bare hands.

I finished my pizza while Lottie brought him and Catalina up to speed.

“Do you think the town councils will go for that?” Aodhan asked. “Particularly Saltrock's?”

“They might if it comes from Lottie,” Hannah said. “And it's not like we're strangers to property damage. I think Lottie can convince them. We'll just leave out the part where the bulk of the plan depends on two sixteen-year-olds.”

“How quickly people forget that young dragon slayers were once commonplace,” said Catalina. She wasn't wrong. In the years since the end of World War II and the rise of the Oil Watch, dragon slaying become something controlled by the age of the dragon slayer instead of by his or her capabilities. And even that much I only knew because of the research Emily had done. We were encouraged not to think about it.

“It's harder now,” Hannah agreed. “Times have changed, and tying dragon slaying so tightly to the military only reinforced the idea. No offense, you two.”

“We're almost seventeen,” said Owen at exactly the same time I said, “What?”

“You two will be the ones to go to Manitoulin,” Hannah said. “I thought you suggested that in the first place.”