Voices of Dragons (13 page)

He shrugged and gave a wry look over his shoulder, out the window to the sheriff's deputies and news vans. “I'm not sure. I almost didn't believe it when I saw you. Thought I must have been going crazy, and why report a delusion? Then again, maybe I admired your guts. That's test pilot guts, flying with that thing. Maybe I didn't want to get you in trouble, one pilot to another.”

“His name is Artegal,” she said. She'd never been able to tell anyone before. He nodded, conceding the point.

He'd kept her secret. Not that it mattered now, when there was probably going to be a war. Dragons burned towns, and then people went after them with swords. Or vice versa. That was the way it had always been.

“The thing is, Miss Wyatt, the situation has changed.”

“So you're going to tell them now. Now that you know who I am,” she said. She sounded angry, on the verge of tears. She focused on keeping control of herself.

“Right now, you're the only person who has any real contact with them. I wanted to make sure you understood that, if you hadn't already figured it out.”

“Why does it even matter? It's not going to change anything.”

“Don't be so sure, unless you want this to blow up into an all-out war.”

“No, but—”

“I was under the impression the military wants an all-out war,” Mom said, standing by the kitchen with two mugs of coffee in her hand. “That you crashed your plane across the border on purpose to see what the dragons would do. That people like Branigan wanted to go to war this whole time. ‘Like poking a wasp nest' is what Jack said. And now you want to talk? And what does Kay have to do with this?”

When he didn't answer, when he didn't deny it, Kay grew frightened. Her gut turned cold, which shocked her because she thought she was numb. Mom stood there, the coffee mugs trembling slightly in her hands, a lost, accusing shadow in her eyes.

Conner ducked his gaze and actually looked sheepish. “Ma'am, I know you'll never believe me, but I wasn't privy to all the details of that mission. My plane was rigged to malfunction, and I wasn't told. I didn't know. I was the plausible deniability. And I can't say I'm at all happy about being used like that.”

Mom's voice was quiet, but harsh, filled with bitterness.

“I have a feeling Branigan's going to get a little more out of his war than he bargained for.”

“I think you're right.” He turned to Kay. “Planes have nicknames. The B-17 was the Flying Fortress. The P-51 Mustang. The B-26 Marauder. This new one, the F-22. You know what the guys are calling it?”

She shook her head.

“The Dragonslayer,” he said.

If the military had been preparing for a war, what could she do to change anything? Maybe it was inevitable. The two sides had been stalemated for decades. It was just her father's stupid luck to be the first person to get caught in the middle of it. Kay couldn't do anything to stop it. Telling someone sooner about her and Artegal wouldn't have stopped it. Talking to Artegal now wouldn't bring her father back. She didn't want to do
anything
.

“What's going to happen?” she asked.

“I don't know. I'm sorry to bother you all. I'll go,” the pilot said. He pulled a business card from a front jacket pocket and handed it to Kay. “Let me know when you're ready to talk. I think you can help.”

He let himself out the front door.

“What was he talking about?” Mom said, staring after him. “What does he think you've done?”

“Can we—can we sit down?” Kay said.

In a moment, they were both seated at the kitchen table. Mom kept one of the mugs of coffee, gripping it with
both hands and breathing in the steam. Kay studied her worriedly, not knowing how to start.

“Are you angry at them?” Kay asked. “For doing it—for starting the fires?” She couldn't say exactly what, couldn't mention Dad. Didn't want to make it real.

“What? The dragons?” Mom thought for a moment, her gaze distant. “I don't know. Right now I think I'm angry at him. Why'd he have to…why'd he have to be so goddamn brave? He should have known better, he should have known—”

Her voice choked, and she looked away, her mussed hair falling in front of her face. Kay put her other hand over her mother's, and they sat like that, clutching their hands together. Mom was crying quietly. Kay's own eyes were stinging, and she gritted her teeth to keep from crying. They were both working so hard to keep from sobbing she wondered what would happen when they couldn't hold it in anymore.

After some time, seconds or minutes, Mom sat back, let go of Kay, scrubbed her face, and smiled like she was okay—a fake, stiff smile.

And Kay said, “Mom, I have to tell you something.”

The Federal Bureau of Border Enforcement building had been part of the block that burned that night, almost as if the dragons had known their target. The bureau—along with the sheriff's department, which had also burned—had set up temporary offices in the Silver River Middle School gym. Kay and her mother stood in the open doorway, looking in at chaos. A dozen workers set up temporary office partitions; another group of technicians strung miles of wires between desks and set up telephones and computers. Various people in suits scurried through it all, from one computer to another. Outside, news vans swarming with reporters and cameras were parked. Phones were ringing, people were shouting.

Kay wondered that they had anything at all to do now.
People were crossing the border all the time now—at least the military was. She thought the bureau's job would have been practically over. But people kept calling. The military wouldn't tell anyone anything, so people called the bureau instead.

Her mother hadn't been back to work since the fire, just like Kay hadn't been back to school. In the doorway, Mom put her arm over Kay's shoulders. Kay didn't know if the gesture was meant to comfort her or her mother.

In the end, Mom had been less angry about her crossing the border and meeting the dragon at all than she had been about the flying. She'd ranted for long time about how dangerous it was, how Kay could have been killed, and what was she thinking, and on and on. Kay tried to explain how careful they'd been, using her climbing gear. “You could have been killed, and I'd never know,” Mom said, and Kay didn't have a reply to that.

When they arrived at the offices, people stared and reporters took pictures. They were famous, Kay supposed. That picture of them at the funeral—the one Captain Conner had seen—appeared in most of the national newspapers, was posted on hundreds of websites, and aired on all the network news channels.

It didn't help that no one knew what to say to them. If it had been someone else, Kay wouldn't have known what to say.

A middle-aged man in a suit, with the tie missing and
the shirt collar unbuttoned, walked straight toward them. “Alice, you shouldn't be here. You should be resting. Take all the time you need—”

Kay's mother took the man—the regional bureau director, her boss—aside and spoke in a low voice. Kay waited, feeling like she was going to be sick. Maybe this situation—the jets, the news, the fire—wasn't inevitable after all; maybe she had caused it. After she and Artegal met, the world started falling apart. It was still falling. The more Kay thought about it, the dizzier she felt. She kept thinking that she should have told Dad about her and Artegal. She shouldn't have kept secrets from him. If she'd told, maybe none of this would have happened. Maybe, maybe, maybe…

The temporary bureau had commandeered a classroom and turned it into a conference room, pushing desks together in the middle and lining chairs around them. The director guided Kay and her mother there and told them to sit, which they did, side by side in the cold, silent room. He kept giving Kay odd, sideways glances, as if he were trying to believe the story her mother had told him. Trying to imagine her with a dragon.

None of these people knew anything about dragons.

“It's better this way,” Mom was saying. She'd been talking for a while, but Kay hadn't been listening. The sound of her mother's voice startled her. “You'll only have to explain everything once. I'll be with you the whole time. Just tell
them the truth. Don't leave anything out.”

Now Kay understood. The director had sent them there to wait. He needed to contact others, a whole group of people who had a stake in this. Kay didn't know who else or how many. The police, probably. They'd lock her up, and she'd never see the outside of a jail again.

Somehow, she was as numb to this thought as she had been to everything since the fire. Nothing mattered. She'd done something amazing, done the impossible, and now she was paying for it. And none of it mattered. She imagined her father, remembered the look on his face when he'd pulled her over for speeding. That wry look. Why did she even think he'd be wearing that expression now, when this was so much worse? Because maybe he'd have understood. Quickly, she wiped her eyes to keep from crying.

Mom was studying her. Both of them had the same glassy stare, Kay thought. Surely no one would be mean to them, after what had happened. Her stomach clenched.

“Your dad was worried about you,” Mom said softly. “We talked about it. You were spending so much time by yourself, going off to do who knew what. But he wouldn't let me search your room. He said, ‘Give her a little more time. I bet she'll come clean about whatever it is. She's a good kid.' That's what he said.”

Kay wanted to tell her mother to stop. Just stop talking. This was going to make her cry and she didn't want to cry, not when she was going to have to talk to the police.

Mom smiled a grieved, wincing smile. “He was right. He was always right. I'm just trying to figure out what he'd say about this.” She wiped tears away with the heel of her hand.

Kay bit her lips and looked away. “I'm sorry.” Her voice was a whisper.

Then they didn't say anything.

When the door to the classroom opened again, Kay flinched, startled. She didn't think she could get any more scared, but her heart raced. A half dozen people in air force and army uniforms filed in, along with another half dozen in suits. One of them brought in an armload of stuff, a stack of poster board, and a dozen file folders. Mom stood and put her hand on Kay's shoulder.

Kay recognized two of the military men: the air force general from TV, General Branigan, and Captain Conner.

One of the guys in a suit arranged the sheets of poster board on the table. They showed blown-up copies of the photos of Kay riding Artegal, the ones taken by the jet that had seen them. Maybe they won't believe me, Kay thought. She'd tell them it was her, and they wouldn't believe a kid could do that. Then she could go home.

Wearing a stern, serious expression, the general took his hat off and approached Kay's mother. He radiated authority and demanded respect. But Kay felt herself growing angry. He was probably the one who ordered those fighters over the border, and that was the reason the dragons attacked.
So was it the dragons' fault? Was it the general's?

Was it hers?

“Mrs. Wyatt, I'm extremely sorry for your loss.” He spared Kay a quick glance.

“Thank you,” Mom said. Kay marveled at how calm her mother was.

Between them, the general and Mom's boss introduced everyone, but the names went right past Kay. She couldn't process. They all nodded respectfully and murmured words of sympathy. But the blood was rushing in Kay's ears. They were going to ask why she did it, why she and Artegal were even friends. And she didn't have a good answer.

General Branigan started by saying, “Miss Wyatt, is this you in these photographs?”

Kay wanted to laugh because she didn't think of herself as Miss Wyatt. She didn't know how to be formal back at him. She was wearing jeans and a thick wool sweater, not a suit or skirt.

Her voice scratched when she answered, “Yes.”

He stared at her for a long moment, and the other men—they were all men—followed his lead, letting the silence grow heavy, weighing on her.

Conner shifted then, clearing his throat and throwing a look at Branigan, who scowled. The spell broke. Conner was the only person there who didn't seem as if he were studying an insect when he looked at her.

“Would you like to tell us how this happened?” General
Branigan nodded at the picture.

“It was an accident,” she said, her voice small. Mom squeezed her hand. “We weren't hurting anything.”

The general put on a fake easygoing smile and spoke in a condescending voice. “Now, nobody says you were. We just want to understand what you've been doing.”

Kay decided she hated the guy. That gave her confidence. She sat up a little straighter. “We just talked—”

“You
talked
to it? It
talks
?” Branigan said.

Mom spoke up. “General, we know from the Silver River Treaty negotiations sixty years ago that some of the dragons will talk to people.”

The general settled back, but his expression was sour.

“Go on,” Mom prompted her.

“We got this idea about flying.” Kay was a little vague on that. She wasn't ready to give up the book. “I do a lot of rock climbing. I used some of the gear. It worked.” She shrugged. Maybe if she played out the sullen teenager thing they'd leave her alone.

“But what was it doing that close to the border?” Branigan asked.

It took her a moment to realize he was talking about Artegal. “He was curious. He wanted to find someone to talk to.” She made sure to emphasize the
he
.

“So it was spying?”

“No—” But she realized she didn't know that for sure. Maybe Artegal had been sent to spy. “If he was spying, I'm
pretty sure he didn't find out a whole lot from me. I don't know anything.”

Then they started talking as if she weren't there.

“Maybe it thought it could use her to gather information—”

“Or it misjudged how much access she had—”

“If it could trick her into flying away with it, they'd have a hostage—”

“So did they think she was a source of information or a hostage?”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. She knew she was right; they were wrong. “He was just curious. He just wanted to
talk
. We're just friends.”

The group of men stared, disbelieving and speechless.

If she told them about the book, would they believe her? Would they believe a girl and a dragon could be friends then? Or would they take it away and keep ignoring her? She thought of
Dracopolis
as hers, and she didn't want anyone to find it.

She especially didn't want them to find the page with the map and coordinates slipped inside it. They'd go looking for whatever was there, and she wanted to keep that secret safe.
She
wanted to be the one to find it. She and Artegal should be the ones to look for it.

Her mother squeezed her hand again. She hadn't let go all this time.

“We just talked. Really. He isn't a spy,” Kay said.

Branigan smiled that awful fake smile again. “We know you'd like to think that. Tell me, Miss Wyatt—why did you cross the border in the first place?”

“I told you, it was an accident. I fell in the creek and he—the dragon—pulled me out. He saved my life.”

“I hate to start making accusations,” Branigan said, but Kay got the feeling he was all too happy to make them. “But it sounds like if you managed to get close enough to the border to fall over it, the local Federal Bureau of Border Enforcement may have gotten a little sloppy.”

“Now wait just a minute,” Mom said, straightening and glaring across the table.

“General, if I may,” Captain Conner said, hand raised. “I've been in those woods, and if someone determined enough wanted to get across the border, they could. Especially someone who grew up around here and knew the area and FBBE procedures. Am I right?”

“Nothing bad happened,” Kay said again, pleading. “We weren't hurting anything.”

“Young lady, we're at war here,” Branigan said.

“That's your fault,” she replied. She continued, before he could yell at her. “What's going to happen to me? I broke the law by crossing the border, I know. I knew it then. I'm the one who crossed, not him. So what's going to happen to me?” Whatever it was, she just wanted to get it over with. She wanted it all to be over.

Mom's boss, the regional bureau director, should have
been the one to answer that question. There were no cops in the room. It was his jurisdiction. But he, her mother, everyone, in fact, looked at General Branigan. Kay didn't want him to decide what happened to her.

“None of us is out to get you, Miss Wyatt. The situation we're in right now is a little too unusual to be worrying about something like that. But I think what you've given us here is an opportunity. I think you may be able to help us, if you're willing. If not—well, you're right. You've broken the law. Pretty spectacularly.”

Mom's hand clenched even more tightly around hers. Branigan's meaning was clear. She'd help, or she was screwed. Kay didn't see how that was any choice at all. She had to play their game. She had a bad feeling she knew what he wanted.

The general said, “If we asked you to, do you think you could get in touch with this dragon again? You see, Miss Wyatt, you probably know more about the dragons than anyone else in this room. And we need to find out as much as we can about them. I think you can help us do that. Miss Wyatt—Kay—think about your father. Think about what they did to him. This is your chance to do something about that. Do you understand?”

Except that her father worked to keep the peace, that was how he saw himself. He wouldn't have wanted her to take revenge. He'd wanted to keep the peace. He'd always said keeping the peace was easier when you made
friends rather than made threats.

“Well?” Branigan said. “Will you help us?”

“It's just talking,” Conner said. “We just want you to talk.” Although the glare Branigan threw him said that maybe the general didn't quite agree.

That was it, then. Artegal may not have been a spy, but Branigan wanted to turn her into one. She didn't know more about dragons. She just knew Artegal.

Kay's head really started swimming, but her response was mechanical. It wasn't much of a choice at all. She nodded, agreeing, because she would have done nearly anything to get out of that room just then.