Ambush. Part 20

"Yeah," I said sarcastically. "I'm not going to forget that."

"Good," Millie said with satisfaction.

I finished my dessert and went directly to the fifth floor. It was dark, so the destruction and mess Malcolm had made weren't very visible, but I had to be extra careful while walking through it not to trip over anything.

I got to the bathroom, walked around the ma.s.sive iron boiler Malcolm had knocked over, and grabbed a flashlight. I got inside the elevator and pushed the b.u.t.ton. The metal gate dropped.

"Going down," I said with dark satisfaction.

It had been murder trying to keep the dragons fed the last few days. I had broken into the food storage room where Millie and Thomas had stockpiled things like wheat and dried corn and flour in case we were ever cut off from town for an extended period of time. There were also four cases of sardines and almost a half pallet of chili that Millie had bought from a food wholesaler for a deal. Millie had served the chili once, but it had made Thomas and her so uncomfortably sick that she had stored the hundreds and hundreds of cans away, thinking she would only serve them in an emergency.

It had taken a lot of work, but I had transported most of the food down to the gla.s.s cavern. I knew that if Millie decided to check the food stock, I would be discovered as clearly as if someone actually came up to the fifth floor and witnessed the destruction. I just kept telling myself, "A few more days."

I was always thinking that I would soon have a solution figured out, so I had been spending a lot of time down in the cavern opening cans of sardines and chili, feeding them to the gang, and trying to ignore that gnawing feeling in my gut.

The elevator descended.

I could hear myself breathing slowly as the cables squeaked and whined. I felt so attached to the manor. I felt beholden to all its secrets and to the ancestors who had taken the time to feed their manic and oddball desires and wishes by creating a home so perfect for my family and the gift we needed to foster.

I spent two hours down in the cavern. I walked the perimeter with Jude right beside me. I could gauge his temperament and wishes just by looking at him now. Likewise, he seemed to know what I was thinking as I thought it. We were connected, and it felt just as it should.

Malcolm and Paul did their own thing, as usual. Lately they had spent a lot of their time practicing with their wings and screaming. They would open their wings and flap slowly, lifting themselves off the ground a few feet. The ceiling of the cavern wasn't high enough for them to fly freely, so they would just hover and screech.

The dragons were much bigger now. They had grown more rapidly than any of the previous beasts I had raised. Jude was larger than a horse, and the other two were just slightly smaller. I climbed up on Jude's back and looked at our reflection in the gla.s.sy surface of the walls.

I looked good.

The ring of uneven b.u.mps around Jude's forehead and right ear had grown into a circular ridge of sharp horns. They looked like a wicked crown. Of course, Jude needed no crown to convince me he was a king. The first dragons I had raised had been very similar to Malcolm and Paul. Lizzy was clearly a queen, but Jude was a king. The connection and communication we shared were far superior to any I had shared with a dragon before. Both he and I knew who he was.

Jude stomped his legs and unfurled his wings. They were long and imposing and made me wish that the two of us were up in the sky flying.

"We've got to get you out of here," I said for the thousandth time.

I think the reason I was so uptight the last few days was because I knew that the dragons would be trapped down here forever unless I figured out what to do. I had taken an ax and tried to bust up bits of the crystal wall, hoping that I would find a hidden tunnel or s.p.a.ce behind them, but the walls were solid and my chopping did nothing but break off small shards.

Jude folded his wings, and I slipped off his back. He leaned his long neck down, and I put my arm around his neck, like I was going to give him a noogie.

"I'm glad you're around," I told him. "Everything's crazy, but it seems okay because of you."

Jude tilted his head and looked back at me with his left eye. He snorted twice, and thin streams of smoke rose from his nostrils like gray tentacles. I held onto one of the spikes on his head and shook it softly. His head bobbed from side to side, and he flipped the two ends of his forked tail against the ground. He shifted his weight and nudged me to the left.

"You're by far the coolest dragon I've ever raised," I praised him. "No offense to Malcolm and Paul, of course."

Jude nudged me again, directing me back toward the elevator.

"Fine, I'll be back later," I told him. The words were really unnecessary because he knew what I was thinking.

I got into the elevator and gazed out into the cavern. I looked at the three dragons and pushed the b.u.t.ton three times in a tribute to them. The gate dropped and the elevator began to go up.

It traveled about seventy feet and started to slow down. Then it stopped. I looked at the flashlight dangling above me and began to worry about being stuck. Before the worry could grow, the elevator began to rotate slowly. I held onto the sides to steady myself. I could see the wall outside the metal gate moving sideways as the elevator cart turned. It creaked and rotated 180 degrees. Through the metal gate I could now see that there was an opening.

"Wow," I whispered. My heart began to beat at an appropriate rate for someone who had just discovered that the secret elevator he had found had further secrets.

I turned on my flashlight and lifted the metal gate.

"Wow," I said again.

It was a small, finished room. It was no bigger than my bedroom, but there was a big wooden desk and shelves filled with books. There were cobwebs everywhere, and on the ground was a big dusty rug. I walked around the desk, looking at all of the papers and books on top of it. I ran my finger over one of the papers, and a half inch of dirt came off.

"Wow," I said for a third time.

It was obviously the personal office of one of my grandfathers. There were sketches of dragons hanging on the wall and a small dragon statue in the corner near a globe that looked identical to the one up in the dome room.

A framed large topographical map of the Isle of Man hung on the wall next to the desk, and a spilled bottle of dried black ink lay on the ground.

I sat down in the chair, and dust puffed up and filled the air. I sneezed appropriately. I liked this place. It felt like the lair of an important person. I flipped through the papers on the desk. There was a sketch of the elevator and the gla.s.s cavern. I couldn't read all the writing because a lot was faded and the rest was too flowery. Why did people insist on having such fancy penmanship back then? The drawing of the elevator showed the long shaft and the secret room where I now was.

I looked through the books on the shelves and pulled most of them out to check for hidden compartments or anything that might be important. The books looked technical and scientific. Most of them had t.i.tles and authors I couldn't even p.r.o.nounce. There was a small, yellowed folder with the words "The Grim Knot" written across the top of it. I grabbed it and sat back down in the chair. I opened the file and looked at the three sheets of paper in it.

I shined the flashlight at the top sheet.

There were four signatures and a bunch of numbers filling the top third of the page. On the bottom two-thirds were a few lines describing The Grim Knot. It talked about its size and color and how all answers were hidden inside. I checked the back of the paper and then shuffled to the next piece of paper. This one was much more interesting. On it was a sketch of the manor that showed all eight floors and the bas.e.m.e.nt. There was a part of the bas.e.m.e.nt that was circled and the letters G. K. were written next to it. On the back of that page was a drawing of the tunnels that led from the bas.e.m.e.nt to the s.p.a.ce below the garage where Kate and Wyatt and I had crashed the train.

The third page listed exactly where The Grim Knot was hidden in the bas.e.m.e.nt. It revealed the shelf and the book where it had once been tucked away. I figured that Milo had somehow found the room I was now in. He was probably the one who had last looked at this file. There really was no other way he could have dug The Grim Knot out of a bas.e.m.e.nt full of dirt without this information.

The only other thing in the folder was a small quote written directly on the back side of the folder that read, "There are answers in beginnings."

"Nice," I said. "There's a news flash."

I closed the folder, feeling like a reporter who had stumbled upon a great lead but was ending up with little more than he began with. I knew The Grim Knot held answers, and I didn't need to know where to find it because it was currently up in my room being watched over by a stuffed koala.

I moved the flashlight around the room, looking for anything I might have overlooked. I liked this place a lot. I wondered why the elevator had stopped and turned this time when I was coming up but had never stopped and turned before. I retraced my steps in my mind and thought of anything I might have done differently.

"I pushed the b.u.t.ton two extra times," I said aloud.

I flipped through the papers on the desk again and found the elevator shaft drawing. It showed the complete shaft with a row of marks indicating how deep it went. According to the drawing, the gla.s.s cavern was almost twenty floors beneath the bas.e.m.e.nt of the manor. The room I was now in was ten floors below.

Next to the cavern was a small number 1. I hadn't thought anything of it, but I now saw that next to the drawing of the office there was an even smaller number 3.

"That's cool," I said, talking more about myself and how smart I had been to figure it out before I had found it out. "Three pushes."

I searched around for about half an hour more and then got back in the elevator and pushed the b.u.t.ton once. It took me straight to the fifth floor.

I washed up and then turned in early. I pulled out The Grim Knot, wanting to look at it now that I had read the file. In the past, the book had helped me with a number of things concerning the dragons, but most important it had told me how to eliminate the ones I had grown. I was curious about what Jude, Malcolm, and Paul's weakness was-a.s.suming it would be the same for them all-but I was also scared to know. I figured if I had no idea how to end their lives then I'd never be able to do it and they'd live on forever making the world a better place for me.

"You're so selfish," I told myself.

Sadly, I no longer minded the feeling.

Chapter 26.

I'm a Loser Knowing that Kate was going to the prom with Wyatt was painful. Knowing that today was the day made it even worse. The morning of the prom was cloudy and warm and smelled like summer. I took out the tux from my closet, hoping that looking at it would make me feel better about not going. It was so ugly that it did help a little.

I didn't know what I was going to do. I was anxious about everything. I was worried that someone might go up to the fifth floor and discover the mess. I was worried that someone might go to the food storage room and discover what was missing. I was worried about Jude and Malcolm and Paul being trapped down in the gla.s.s cavern forever. I was worried that someone might go to the laundry room and realize that one of the switches on the fifth floor was on. I was worried that Sheriff Pax would show up and arrest me. I was worried that my father was going to try and take what was mine. And I was worried that Kate was going to the prom with Wyatt tonight.

I was a mess.

I was completely on edge. My hands shook, and my eyes seemed to twitch and ache in ways I wasn't accustomed to.

"Kate," I whispered, voicing the worry that concerned me most at the moment.

I'll admit that some tiny part of my brain knew she had every right to go to the prom without me and be happy. That tiny part also knew that it was completely my fault that things had fallen apart and that Kate had dumped me. But, that tiny part was a jerk. The rest of my brain hated that part. The rest of my brain thought that part was weak and stupid.

I just kept thinking of Wyatt taking Kate to prom and how wrong that was. I could see him trying to hold her hand and him saying something stupid and her laughing. They were supposed to be my best friends, but they had betrayed me.

I had stayed up late last night reading The Grim Knot. I read about my ancestors living on the Isle of Man. I read about their ability to farm the land and grow remarkable crops that blessed so many. I read about the taxes that forced them to lose so much of their land and wealth. I read about the peddler who had sold them the stones and the resulting perversion of growth and power-the harvesting of dragons and the endless season of pillaging and stealing. I read about those in my family who wished to break the cycle-those who had traveled to America to hide. I read about the building of the manor and the endless desire to once again grow dragons here. I read about my father's father and my dad. I read how the women had gone crazy and how my dad had locked himself up only to succ.u.mb to the madness once I arrived here. I read the parts I had added to the book. I then got out a pen and added a bit more. I wrote about the elevator, the gla.s.s cavern, and the three dragons that had come from one stone. I described Jude and Malcolm and Paul. I wrote about my father's illness and about my desire to now keep the family's obsession alive.

I had also discovered how the king dragon could be eliminated. I hadn't been trying to, but the answer had come easily to me with some simple information I had found in the folder in the room down below. It made me uncomfortable to have the information. I wanted nothing to do with the extinction of Jude or any other dragons for that matter.

As the day got longer, my thoughts became darker and more painful. At three o'clock Wane came to my room to see how I was doing. I still hadn't told any of them that I wasn't going to the prom. I seriously considered doing so, but I knew it would break Millie's heart. Thomas had offered to drive me and Kate, but I had lied and told him that Kate's mother was insisting on taking us.

"Do you need us to help you get ready?" Wane asked.

"What?" I asked, wearing nothing but my cargo shorts and a white T-shirt.

"Shouldn't you start getting ready?" Wane questioned. "Aren't you two going to dinner first?"

"Probably," I said, caught off guard. I was ready to lie, but I just hadn't figured out the details.

"Probably?" Wane asked surprised.

"Just kidding," I tried to recover. "We are."

"Where?"

"La Fontania?" I said, naming the one fancy restaurant I knew in Kingsplot.

"Oh, that's nice," Wane said. "Do you have reservations?"

I laughed as if I was insulted by her question. "Of course."

"Millie got you a corsage," Wane told me.

I really had no idea what that meant. "Great."

"Thomas said he would shine your shoes, and I can help you with your hair."

What was happening? Suddenly everyone in the manor was obsessed with dressing me up and sending me to the prom.

"This really is an exciting night," Wane said.

"I can tell," I replied.

Wane held her hands out as if expecting a tip. I stared at her until she was uncomfortable enough to explain herself.

"Thomas needs your shoes."

I handed Wane the shoes that Thomas had gotten me. They were already so shiny they reflected light like a mirror.

"What time do you need to be at Kate's?" Wane asked.

"Six?" I said.

"What time's your reservation?"

"Seven?" I said sounding even less sure of my answer.

"Okay," Wane said. "Hop in the shower and then get dressed. I'll do your hair downstairs."

"I can do my own hair," I complained.

"Not tonight," Wane insisted.

"Can I shower alone, or does someone need to bathe me?" I asked.

Wane turned around and left me to shower alone.

I took a shower and changed into jeans and a white T-shirt. I put on clean socks and shoes, wishing I had just told them the truth. When I got downstairs and walked into the kitchen, they all looked disappointed.

"Ahh," Millie complained. "Why aren't you in your tux?"

I actually laughed. None of them laughed back.

"Really?" I asked. "I'm just going to put it on when I get to Kate's house."

"No, you're not," Millie insisted. "This is a special night, and I won't have you showing up in leisure wear. Back to your room at once and put on the tux."

Thomas stood up and handed me two blinding lights. The black patent leather shoes were so polished they looked like small suns.

"Do you need help dressing?" Thomas asked.