The Dragon's Tooth (4 page)

“Not yours, Cy. Put the poor dead thing back.”

“It
is
mine. He said it was. It’ll come alive when I break it open.”

Antigone raised her eyebrows. “Like a cursed pharaoh?”

“Ha,” Cyrus said. “Keep talking.”

“Cy! Tigs!” Dan’s yell came from the courtyard. “What are you doing? C’mon! The Baron should be out of the road!”

William Skelton stepped beside him. Cyrus whipped the rag behind his back.

“Careful there,” the old man said. “Don’t waste another perfectly good bug. It took your father weeks to catch it.” He walked out into the parking lot and then down along the front of the motel, stopping at Cyrus’s battered white door.

“When you’ve finished, bring that key ring back to one-eleven.”

“No!” Cyrus yelled. “Dan! What? You gave him my room?”

Skelton opened the door. Saluting Cyrus with two fingers, he stepped inside and shut the door behind him.

three

THE LITTLE LAWYER

“I’
M NOT GIVING
the keys back,” Cyrus said. “Not unless he gets out of my room.” He was trying to pace, but there wasn’t enough open floor. Instead, tossing the key ring from hand to hand, he turned in place between Antigone’s two twin beds. The keys had a strange feel to them—almost a current, though vastly more subtle than the lightning bug. His skin cooled and itched wherever they touched.

Cyrus stuck his finger through the key ring and spun the bundle around his knuckle. His head felt extremely clear.

He was wearing his filthy shirt again, but inside out, with the grime against his skin. The glass-mummy lightning bug was propped up on the bedside table behind him, leaning against a lamp.

“Not a great idea,” Antigone said. She lifted a black projector off a shelf and set it on a wobbly TV tray. “Someone like that, you don’t steal their keys. You don’t steal anything.”

“Did Dan tell you more about him?”

Antigone shook her head. “Just what you heard. He thinks he remembers the guy at Christmas once, but he’s not sure. And he thinks Dad chased him off when we were little.”

“I should look through his camper.”

“Worse idea.” Antigone glanced up from her work. “Go give the man his keys and get some clean clothes. You’re not staying in here until you’ve showered and changed.”

“Whatever,” Cyrus said. The key ring felt strangely light in his hands, and he couldn’t stop himself from fiddling with it. There were only two keys hanging from their own smaller rings—the long gold one with a square head that he’d used to start the truck, and a shorter, round-headed silver key with a green tarnished head and a gleaming, polished shaft. More interesting than the keys were three large charms. Cyrus fingered each of them. A pearl, or something like one, moon white and gripped by a tiny silver claw. Beside it, a piece of reddish wood, worn smooth and polished with handling. And then the largest and heaviest of the three, the one that had looked at first glance like a silver animal tooth. On second glance and third handling, it had become more interesting. The silver tooth was actually a small sheath on a tiny hinge, hiding a real tooth within.

Cyrus popped it open one more time and ran his thumb along the edge of what he assumed was a large, petrified shark tooth—black, smooth, and cold. It could have been stone.

His thumb tingled. It wasn’t the keys, it was the tooth that chilled his skin.

Cyrus snapped the sheath shut, dropped onto a bed, and lobbed the keys up against the ceiling. A cloud of white paint powder and dust ghosted down, and the key ring bounced on the bed beside him. William Skelton. What did the old man with the yellow truck really want with his room? What was he doing in there? Room 111 was his, and it had been from the very beginning, ever since the world had ripped the three young Smiths up by their roots.

When Dan had finally pulled the Red Baron into the Archer’s parking lot for the first time, Antigone had cried. It wasn’t the California house. There were no cliffs. No sea. No father. And a mother in the hospital.

Ten years old, Cyrus had looked out his car window and seen three 1s together on a door—111—a picture of what was left of his family. It had seemed like a safe number. It had been a safe number. A number not easily divided. And it held two years’ worth of new roots—at least what he hadn’t buried in the pastures and drowned in the streams. Antigone had insisted on taking the room beside him. When he was honest with himself—which didn’t happen often—he was grateful that she had.

Cyrus looked over at his sister. Two years ago, she’d had long hair. Black glistening braids. It was all pixie cuts now, even though her short hair wouldn’t stay tucked behind her ears and was always falling into her face. Antigone never seemed to do the easy thing. That was his job.

Cyrus yawned. “I’m starving.”

“A pocket-size grilled cheese isn’t enough for you?” Antigone had collected a blue collapsible tripod and movie screen from the corner. “Dan offered you waffles. Waffles are unlimited.”

Cyrus groaned. “I think I’m made of waffles.”

Room 110 was all Antigone. Like Cyrus, she had lined every bit of the open walls with shelves. Unlike Cyrus, she had actually painted the paneled walls first (pale blue), she actually dusted her shelves, and she actually vacuumed the golden-brown carpet. Cockroaches, ants, and spiders actually died in 110—111 was more like a wildlife preserve—and Antigone had found sheets for herself that were softer than the Archer’s standard polyester surprise.

And her shelves were organized.

Most of the shelves held books—books that had belonged to their mother, their father, their grandparents, and a few that had belonged to people with “great” and “once removed” attached to the relationship. Three shelves sagged beneath photo albums entirely full of her own Polaroids. One sagged with old family albums, two sagged with circular tins full of film reels, and one held her cameras. She only had two—the eight-millimeter silent-movie camera that had belonged to their father’s father, and an early bellows-style Polaroid that had been their mother’s.

The only patch of wall that wasn’t carrying shelves was just above her bed. There, nine picture frames hung in three rows of three. The top six were rotated out weekly, but the bottom three never changed. On the left, a young man with hair even blonder than Dan’s had been in California was hanging upside down in a tree. On the right, a laughing woman with hair spun from midnight was reaching toward the camera, trying to block the shot. In the middle, a serious blond boy held hands with a very small dark-haired girl, and between them, seated and shirtless, a fat infant was eating dirt.

While Antigone adjusted the legs on her movie screen, Cyrus rolled up on his side and stared at the pictures.

“You’d’ve killed Dan if he put that guy in this room. You know you would.”

“Yes,” Antigone said. “I would. But I wouldn’t steal the man’s keys. And you can’t blame Dan. I’m sure he’s getting paid well, and we need it. You know he has it worse than we do.”

Cyrus sat up. “Wait. You’d kill him, but you wouldn’t blame him?”

“Right.” Antigone stepped back to the projector and flipped it on. Empty wheels spun, and a misshapen square of light appeared on the screen.

“And he has it worse than us?”

“Right again,” Antigone said. “I’m proud of you, Cyrus. You’ve learned to listen.” She glanced up. “You and I don’t have to deal with us. We are us. Dan
does
have to deal with us—you in particular. Now, here’s the deal, Cy. You go give the man his keys, or you don’t see today’s reel.” She shrugged. “I shot a lot of Mom, and I don’t mind keeping it to myself.”

“That’s cheap. You shouldn’t have left me behind in the first place.” Cyrus stood. “You know, I don’t even feel like today really happened.”

“I feel that way about … everything.” Antigone sighed and looked up, almost smiling. “Maybe tomorrow we’ll find out that we’re still four and five years old, I’m still taller than you, and everything around here has just been a very complicated daydream. Mom’s fine, Dad’s alive, we never moved, and Dan still knows how to smile.”

Cyrus breathed slowly. Half a continent away, he could almost hear the ocean. “No waffles,” he said. “No motel.” He grinned. “But I was already taller than you when I was four.”

Antigone spun her brother around, put both hands on his back, and pushed him toward the door. “Go,” she said. “Movie when you’re clean.”

The door closed, and she was alone with a whirring projector.

Outside, Cyrus looked up at the night sky. The clouds had blown over, and the stars of early summer had crowded silently into place above the Golden Lady.

The yellow truck sat where he’d parked it, immediately in front of the two adjacent doors—110 and 111. Both rooms had curtains drawn over the windows, but both rooms still glowed. Dan’s room was out of sight, by reception, opening on the courtyard. And no light trickled down through the walkway from Mrs. Eldridge’s room. She had checked out two hours ago, showering Dan with a barrage of shouted warnings before dragging a single suitcase toward the road.

Cyrus took a long breath of the cool night and stepped over to his bedroom door. For a moment, he listened to the neon buzzing of the Lady, and then he knocked.

On impulse, he raised his thumb and covered the peephole. A mosquito drifted past his ear and settled on his extended arm. He slapped at it and waited. A few slow seconds ticked by, and he knocked again.

Muffled footsteps approached. A dead bolt slid. A chain rattled.

The door opened, and William Skelton, smoking, leaned against the frame.

Cyrus took a step backward. The man was wearing jeans and a tight, stained tank top. His face was pale and sickly, but his bare shoulders and arms could have belonged to a thirty-year-old lumberjack, a lumberjack with a taste for morbid tattoos. The man’s skeleton had been crudely needle-etched onto every visible part of his body from the neck down. Scrawled collarbones stood out above a cage of blue ribs. Ink bones marched down his shoulders and arms. Even the backs of his hands and the tops of his bare feet were detailed with every joint and knuckle. Slanted notes and calligraphics filled in the remaining space on his arms and shoulders.

Cyrus couldn’t help but trace every bit of ink with his eyes. He’d never seen anything like it. Fear was trying to crawl up his spine. He pushed it away. It was ink. Nothing but ink. Looking up into Skelton’s sweating face, Cyrus dug into his pocket and pulled out the ring. “I brought back your keys. You know you can’t smoke in here.”

William Skelton turned and walked back to Cyrus’s bed.

“Hey.” Jingling the keys, Cyrus stepped into the doorway. His room had been destroyed. His shelves and their collections had been torn down off one wall and piled on the floor. The wall itself had been ripped open from end to end, revealing a row of hollow cavities and cast-iron plumbing. On the side of the bed, a small but bellied man was sitting with his legs primly crossed. He was wearing a gray suit, and half-moon glasses were perched on the end of his nose. Large sheets of yellowing paper were mounded around him.

“What?” Cyrus scanned the carnage of his room, his life. “You trashed my room.” Fear was gone. He could feel his pulse in his fingertips as his mind scrambled for some kind of explanation. “You know what?” He kicked a shard of drywall at Skelton’s legs. “I’m keeping your keys, old man. They’re going to disappear. All of them.”

The small, fat man clicked his tongue and cocked his head. “This is the boy?” he asked Skelton. “This is the best you could do?”

William Skelton nodded and pulled at his cigarette. He had chewed the end almost flat.

Cyrus glared at the man in the suit. “Who are you? Did you rip into my wall?”

Peering over his glasses, the little man examined Cyrus’s shorts, his shirt, and finally his face.

“I was getting some clean clothes,” Cyrus said. “It’s been a long day. Why did you wreck my room?”

“You’re sure about this, Billy?” the small man asked.

“About what?” Cyrus asked. The room was chilly with air-conditioning, but William Skelton wiped sweat from his forehead onto the back of his tattooed arm.

“Kid,” he said quietly. “How do you feel about Death?”

“What?” Cyrus took a small step back.

“Death,” Skelton said again. “Dying. How do you feel about it?”

“How do you think I feel about it?” Cyrus asked. “Death sucks. I don’t like it. How do
you
feel about it?”

The old man stared at the end of his cigarette. “People say you can’t run from Death.” He shook his head. “People lie. Running’s all you
can
do, kid. Run like Hell’s on your heels, because it is. And if you’re still running, well, then you’re still alive.”

Cyrus opened his mouth, but he had nothing to say. The little man was sorting through his wrinkled stacks of paper.

Skelton examined his tattooed hands. They were trembling, but his voice was calm. “You know what happens when you run too long?” He made a fist and looked into Cyrus’s eyes. “Death becomes … a friend, a companion on the road, a destination. Home. Your own bed. The place where your friends are waiting. You stop being afraid. You stop running.” He dropped the stub of his cigarette onto Cyrus’s carpet. “Tonight,” he said, grinding the butt out with his bare foot, “I stop running. Someone else is gonna start.”