Tad Williams - The Dragons of Ordinary Farm

They did so. Somehow there seemed nothing else they could do. Lucinda heard distant birds in the trees, a breeze ruffling leaves, the ragged breathing of this terrible man, their great-uncle.

“Promise me,” said Gideon, “swear on everything you hold sacred, that you will never, never betray the secrets of Ordinary Farm to the outside world!”

The old man’s grip was so tight that she could feel him trembling, and she suddenly had the feeling that he was more than just angry-Gideon Goldring was frightened. Really, seriously frightened that they might tell people about the farm. An odd calm came over her. “Yes,” she said, “I promise.”

Tyler didn’t say anything for a moment. “As long as you don’t try to hurt me or my sister,” he said. “Remember, you asked us to come here.”

Gideon let go of their hands. He sounded surprised. “Hurt you? You are my relatives-you are family!”

“Okay, then, I promise.”

Another silence fell. When Lucinda looked up at Gideon to see if he was getting over his anger, the heels of his hands were pressing his eyes. “God,” he cried suddenly, “oh, God, my head!” Suddenly he swayed and almost fell.

Mrs. Needle, black hair streaming, ran to his side. “Gideon, enough! You are still unwell. You must come away now and lie down.” And she began to lead him to the house. Gideon leaned into her, hobbling and wiping at his eyes.

“Just like Mom told us,” Tyler said quietly. “Right, Lucinda? A nice, old-fashioned summer on the farm.”

B y the time they reached the grand lobby and its blind staircase, Colin could just barely hide his anger. Only a few hours on the farm and these two interlopers were already getting special treatment! The boy-what was his name? Tyler-had immediately broken the rules, but instead of being sent home they had both been rewarded. Already they had been shown the second biggest secret on the farm!

Of course, Colin had known that having strangers on the farm would cause trouble, but who could have guessed it would have begun so quickly? Now he understood and could even sympathize with his mother’s dark, cold rage when Gideon had announced it.

His mother had taken Gideon upstairs, the old man stumbling like a sleepwalker. No matter how much medicine she gave him, Gideon didn’t seem to get any better. That was strange: it wasn’t like Patience Needle to come up short, although she hadn’t had much luck with the female dragon, either. It gave Colin a strange, slippery feeling-half joyful, half terrified-to think of his mother failing at something.

At Colin’s mother’s order, Caesar came down from Gideon’s rooms to lead the two Jenkins children back to their beds. Colin avoided the bent old black man. He had made the mistake once of referring to Caesar as a servant-what else would you call someone who took trays to Gideon, turned down his bed each night, and ran his bath and folded his clothes?-but Caesar had turned on him. When the man straightened up, Colin had discovered, Caesar was actually quite tall and more than a little frightening.

“Don’t you ever call me that,” Caesar had said, his weary, wrinkled face twisting into something quite different. “I work for Mr. Goldring because work is all I know how to do and because I owe him a big old favor, but I am no man’s servant. Not ever again. Do you hear me, child? Do you hear me? ”

All Colin had been able to do at the time was squeak a yes. He had done his best to avoid the fellow ever since.

“Come, children,” Caesar now said as he led Tyler and Lucinda away. “Must be tired, you two. Quite a day, quite a day. Ordinary Farm ain’t like other places, and now you know it. Enough to tire anyone out. Come along to bed.”

When they had gone, Colin stood in the silent lobby, too disturbed for bed, too full of irritated thoughts and anger. Gideon had actually had the nerve to suggest that Colin would enjoy having “people his own age” on the farm this summer. As if these two children were anything like him! As if he himself were a child instead of an adult in all but the official sense. Which is what any kid had to be if they were like Colin, a boy without a father, but also with a mother who never spoke about her previous life and treated Colin more like an assistant than a child. All in all, he hoped Gideon had learned a lesson about who he could trust and who he clearly couldn’t.

Colin Needle’s attention was suddenly drawn to a rectangle of white sitting on a silver tray. It was the tray that Caesar used to carry upstairs the mail and other papers that Gideon needed to see. The old fellow had obviously been distracted by the afternoon’s events and had left the tray with a small pile of undelivered mail out on a table near the door leading to the kitchen. Colin sidled over to look through the envelopes.

Feed bills. Equipment bills. A postcard for the brats from their mother, and a couple of letters from a lawyer-Colin didn’t recognize the name, although this was by no means the first time he’d snooped in Gideon’s correspon dence. More bills. Assessor’s office-that would be taxes. Lots of money going out as usual, but nothing coming in. No wonder Gideon was always half crazy with stress and worry. Ah, but what was this? Colin’s heart beat faster as he recognized the gray envelope. He had been waiting, hoping, for one of these.

He cocked his head and listened to make sure nobody was coming, then lifted up the letter. The return address in the corner confirmed what he’d suspected: Jude Modesto Antiquities, Santa Barbara, California. It was from the antiques dealer, the one Gideon was always so secretive about, although Colin had figured out their arrangement long ago. But far more important to him was the information inside-including the man’s email address.

Colin’s mother and Caesar were still upstairs. The cook, Sarah, and her helpers would be here very soon to begin preparing dinner. At best, he had mere minutes. Colin slipped the gray envelope inside his sweater and hurried into the empty kitchen and straight toward the kettle.

Steam coaxed the sealed envelope to open as neatly as one of the pale flowers in Colin’s mother’s garden spreading its petals to the spring sunshine. He slipped out the letter and read it quickly:

Dear Gideon,

Of course I’d be delighted to meet with you-I always enjoy your company and sharing in the miracle of your wonderful collection. In fact, I have a new buyer who is very interested in just the sort of items with which you’ve favored my little enterprise in the past. He will be thrilled if I am able to offer him more “genuine Goldrings.” Of course, I call them that only to myself-I have kept your injunction to secrecy quite faithfully, I assure you…

The letter went on like that for a few more paragraphs, full of all the slimy politeness that grown-ups used when they were pretending they wanted something other than simply to make money. When Colin grew up he wasn’t going to be such a hypocrite. When he wanted something he’d say so. When he didn’t like someone-the way he already didn’t like Tyler Jenkins-he wouldn’t bother to hide it.

Of course, he would have to be in charge. You only got to make the rules and do what you wanted when you were in charge. His mother had taught him that from the first moments he could remember.

Colin memorized the email address in Jude Modesto’s personalized letterhead and sealed the letter back up, then made his stealthy way back out to the lobby. He had dropped the letter back onto the tray only a few moments before his mother reappeared, brushing straight black hair away from her pale forehead.

“This foolish plan of Gideon’s is going to cause us all a great deal of grief,” she said, then suddenly seemed to see her son properly for the first time since she had walked into the room. “What are you doing, Colin? Are you loitering?”