N. Wilson - The Dragon's Tooth

That night, New Year’s Eve, the new cook put out his best spread yet — and it wasn’t any good. But no one cared. Snow was falling while the old year died, and fireplaces were roaring in every room in Ashtown.

Cyrus and Antigone Smith sat on an empty bed. Dan sat between them. Their mother, still lost in peaceful dreams, slept on the bed in front of them.

“I’m proud of you two,” Dan said. He slapped their knees, and then pulled them in tight. “You did it. And I think it’s good that you’re staying. We’ll still be together a lot.”

“And I’m glad you’re starting school,” Antigone said. “Get rid of your lazy ways.”

“Right,” said Cyrus. “California is good for that. Can we go eat? I did Latin today, so I’m starving.”

Antigone started to stand, but Dan pulled her back down. His once-blue eyes had been darkening over the past few months, and his pupils seemed to bulge a little … vertical. The Order hadn’t been willing to let him leave at first. They’d poked and prodded and tested and observed until they’d been sure that he was fine — that his mind was undamaged and that he was, well, who he thought he was. But that didn’t mean that Antigone was used to his eyes. She didn’t mind his new height or the size of his shoulders or the shape of his teeth or his quick bursts of strength when he picked her up or squeezed her. He was more than healthy, and that made her happy. But she missed the blue sparkle when he smiled.

Dan cleared his throat. “Just one more thing I need to tell you. Not a big deal, but I thought you’d be interested.”

“And …,” said Cyrus.

“I sold the Archer.”

“What?” Antigone asked. “How? Who would buy it?”

“Well, it’s not like I was asking a lot for it, and it does have a certain truck-stop beauty.”

“Who?” asked Cyrus. He felt a strange tug inside him, a tug he knew well. This was another goodbye. Another piece of him gone. But he didn’t mind. Not this time.

“Pat and Pat. They’re fixing it up. The pool, too. And they’ll move their diner in. I threw in the waffle maker.”

Laughing, three Smiths stood. Three Smiths bent and kissed their mother on the head, and as they left the room in each other’s warmth, outside the window, a red-winged blackbird sang.

In the dining hall, the men and women of the Order mingled, laughed, and occasionally shouted. But one table — a round table in a corner beneath a battered and bullet-pocked vent — was especially rowdy. People called them the Polygoners, but only three of them were actually members of the O of B.

Dennis Gilly, sailing instructor, was explaining the origins of certain rules to Nolan, who was telling a joke to little Hillary Drake from Accounting, who didn’t get it but was laughing anyway. Jax, the twelve-year-old zookeeper, was singing a song he’d written about turtles. Gunner, too tall for his chair, was joining in whenever the chorus came around, but was refusing to sing the right words. Daniel Smith was emptying a third plate. Diana Boone was telling Antigone an old family story. Cyrus had been interrupting to show them both tricks with bread. Oliver Laughlin, the boy, sat quietly smiling with his arms crossed beneath a boxing monkey on his chest.

Laughing, Cyrus leaned back and watched the circle of faces around him. He’d been late to this already very late celebratory dinner — he’d had a Latin test to sink through the ice off the end of the jetty.

But his chair had been waiting for him. He looked at his sister, his brother, at Diana and Dennis. In the end, he would say goodbye to them all, or they would say goodbye to him. Life would pass. They would all find their ends. But not now. Not yet. For now, they were alive. Together. And that was enough.

Rupert Greeves and John Horace Lawney walked up to the table.

“Excuse me,” said Horace. “And a happy New Year to you all.”

When the replies had died down, he continued, adjusting half-moon glasses on his nose. “Mr. Cyrus Smith and Miss Antigone Smith, Mr. Rupert Greeves, the appropriately appointed Avengel of the Order of Brendan, informs me that you have completed the requirements established at your presentation this past summer, and have met the standards for Acolytes, 1914.”

“Huzzah for the Polygoners!” Jax yelled, raising an empty milk glass.

“Quite,” said Horace.

“I know Latin!” Cyrus yelled.

“Not quite,” said Nolan.

Horace plowed on through the laughter. “As the representative of one William Cyrus Skelton, Keeper, now deceased, it is my duty to inform you that, in the eyes of the Order of Brendan, you are now — finally — considered to be Mr. Skelton’s full, complete, and uncontested heirs. Barring, of course, any specific exclusions in Mr. Skelton’s Last Will and Testament.”

The table went silent. Horace peered at Cyrus over his glasses.

“Well,” said Cyrus, “what do we get?”

“That,” said Rupert, eyeing Horace, “is between you and the Order. And as the New Year has now arrived, I am here to invite you to join me in my office for an unsealing of the documents and a formal reading of the will.”

Cyrus and Antigone stood up and pushed back their chairs.

Antigone waved to the group. “We’ll be right back.”

“No,” said Horace, laughing. “I don’t think you will. This should take some time.”

Beside a quiet country road outside of Oconomowoc, Wisconsin, not too far west of the frozen freshwater sea called Lake Michigan, there is a lady on a pole. She stands as silent and pale as the snow falling around her, crowning her head, chilling her extended arm.

Behind her, the Red Baron slept in a bed of snow beside an enormous bulldozer. Beneath her, an old green pickup idled. A large woman leaned against its hood.

A man, as big and bearded as a musk ox, came hustling toward her. He was holding a silver box and switch, dragging an electrical cord behind him.

He put his arm around his wife. She put her arm around her husband. The two of them looked up at the Pale Lady.

And then the New Year erupted with life, with silent, slow-falling flakes of wealth. Snow became golden. Darkness crept away.

Cyrus gripped the worn leather on the arms of his chair and glanced at his sister sitting next to him. She tucked back her short black hair and bit her lower lip. Across the top of the large desk, John Horace Lawney adjusted his half-moon glasses. Rupert Greeves stood behind him, arms crossed.

The little lawyer set a blue glass brick the size of a shoe box on top of his desk. Dust ghosted off its sides. Cyrus leaned forward. It wasn’t glass all the way through. It was some kind of package wrapped in glass. Heavy folds met on the top beneath a large black seal.

“Will the Avengel please break the seal?” Horace asked, leaning back in his seat. Rupert stepped forward, sliding a gold ring onto his finger. Clenching his fist, he dealt the center of the seal a quick, crisp blow. The glass cracked through the corners. Horace delicately peeled the pieces away like giant petals.

An ebony box sat amid the shards.

Horace opened it and leaned forward, peering beneath the hinged lid through his half-lenses. Cyrus held his breath as the little lawyer lifted out the contents one at a time. First, a creased and folded hand-drawn map of Mongolia. Second, an apple core the color of leather. Third, a little booklet called How to Breed Your Leatherbacks . Fourth, a folded rice-paper sphere for a Chinese lantern, wrapped in a protective oilcloth. The lawyer expanded it carefully until it sat on his desk in front of Cyrus and Antigone, a little larger than a classroom globe. A map of the world had been crudely drawn on its yellowing paper, and the oceans were filled with ink scrawlings in a language even Rupert didn’t recognize. Also in the box, a tiny bamboo tray full of hardened oil with a candlewick.