The Silver Moon Elm (3 page)

“Great. Save a bit o’ mutton for me, guys.” With that, she led the others inside.

“Um, Jennifer.” Susan’s voice was very small as they hustled themselves into the library. “There are twelve dragons in your backyard.”

“Twelve big dragons,” Skip chimed in. He was still grinning, but there was a certain awe in his voice. “And I’m not sure they’re all thrilled we’re here.”

Susan tried on a smile for her best friend. “Good thing we’re with you!”

Skip sniggered. “I don’t think all of them are that crazy about Jennifer, either.”

“She’s not in dragon shape,” Eddie observed quietly. It was the first time he had spoken since they had arrived, and he stared at the gathering by the fire pit. “They don’t like the reminder of her beaststalker side.”

Jennifer ignored the uncomfortable turn the conversation had taken. “Hey, Catherine. You around?”

“In here!” Catherine’s voice came from the kitchen. “Car still intact?”

“Give or take a wheel. Bring out the ketchup, will you?” Jennifer turned to the other three. “There’s plenty of snacks in the refrigerator, if you don’t want sheep. I remember the first one I had—it was a bit weird.”

As Eddie and Susan headed into the kitchen, Skip turned to her. “You and Catherine going outside to eat?”

“Yeah, I have to—it’s been a rough few—Eddie’s right. I should try to make nice with them. There are dragons around who still wonder about me and my mom.”

“So we eat in here. You eat out there.”

“Yeah.”

“Interesting.” His expression wasn’t quite readable.

“What? It’s not like you’re in any danger or anything. I just thought you’d be more comfortable in here.”

“I’ll eat out there. With you.”

“What, so you’re going to make Susan and Eddie eat in here alone?”

His hands spread out. “They can come outside if they want.”

Catherine ambled out on all fours, one wing claw clutching a squeezable ketchup bottle. “Who can come outside?”

Jennifer turned to Skip. “I’m not going to get into an argument with you, Skip. You want to come outside? Come outside. Be an hors d’oeuvre. The rest of us will remember you fondly as we continue to Crescent Valley.”

A few minutes later, she was grumbling to herself as all five of them sat around the pit with the dragons, eating barbeque and swapping stories. Susan was full of nervous laughter as she told these strangers about her childhood memories with Jennifer; Skip and Catherine chatted together about life without parents; and Eddie gave short, one-word answers to the occasional question from a dasher or trampler.

“That’s right,” Susan was saying cheerfully to a bright violet creeper sitting to her left. “Jennifer can breathe fire, twirl a knife around her wrist, and do all sorts of amazing things. And I sculpt things out of rocks and wet dirt.”

“Beautiful things,” Jennifer spoke up loyally, thinking of the small dragon Susan had made for her earlier that year. Susan gave her a grateful look.

She noticed that this group of dragons was younger than average—all in their very late teens or early twenties, like Joseph. A few had lived in Eveningstar like Jennifer, before it burned down; but they had no memories of Pinegrove, so there was caution but little bitterness in evidence toward beaststalkers.

Finally, Joseph turned to Skip. “So what’s your story, buddy? You a beaststalker like Eddie here, or a pure human like Susan?”

Jennifer’s insides clenched. Skip flipped back his chocolate hair and looked up at the treetops. “Neither.”

A dasher with deep blue-green undertones and quills bristling from the nape of her neck winked. “But that’s impossible. You’re not pure human, and you’re not beaststalker. Jennifer here is the only dragon who can hold human shape under this moon.”

Joseph’s gray eyes narrowed. “So what are you?”

Skip lowered his gaze with a cold smile. “I’m like Jennifer. Except a bit different.”

The dasher spit out a gobbet of sheep and licked her full array of teeth. “How different?”

With a low growl, a trampler at the far end of the pit joined the conversation. “Eveningstar different?”

Skip remained calm. “That’s one way of putting it.”

Joseph gave Skip a hard stare, and then turned to Jennifer. “Do the elders know about this? Does your father know?”

She returned a defiant look. “Come on, guys. I’m full. Let’s go back inside. We’ve got to get ready for Crescent Valley.”

“You’re taking all of them to Crescent Valley?” The dasher was up on her hind legs now, pointing at Skip with a trembling wing claw. “Including him?”

“Including him.”

“Inside, inside,” Catherine stressed, pushing the others in front of her.

“This was a bad idea,” Eddie groaned as he stepped through the porch doors.

“Grow a pair, Blacktooth.” Skip was the last to enter the house, letting Catherine herd the others inside while he kept eye contact with Joseph. For a moment, Jennifer thought he would close the door behind them and rejoin the dragons at the pit, at whatever cost. But he did finally come inside.

“That was scary,” Susan whispered.

“Please,” Skip retorted as he watched the barbeque through the glass doors. “They’re not that scary!”

“Are you looking at the same dragons I’m looking at? You almost got roasted!”

“Susan, they’re just talking tough. But all they have are teeth and—”

“Fire-breathing! They breathe fire, Skip. Can spiders do that? I mean, I’m sure the webs you can weave are pretty and all, but—”

“It doesn’t matter,” Jennifer cut in. “We’re going.”

“So are they,” Catherine groaned. She was watching the dragons outside as they doused the fire and extended their wings, making for the lake. “The crescent moon is up over the treetops. They’re going to make it to Crescent Valley first and tell the others what we’re doing!”

“Let them tell,” snapped Jennifer. “We’re not doing anything wrong.”

“We should go now—they’ll be expecting us!”

This was exasperating. Jennifer stepped up and flicked her friend’s nose horn. “Excuse me, but I’m in no rush. My plan was to spend a fun weekend with my friends. And I don’t know if you noticed, but we are now five teenagers with the place to ourselves, with no adults telling us what we can and cannot do.”

“Now you’re talking my language,” Skip chuckled.

“Stow it,” she replied kindly. “After we kick back and relax with our own fire, there are enough bedrooms here for us to each get our own. To sleep in. No nighttime visitors!”

Skip poked Susan’s ribs. “That goes double for you, Elmsmith.”

“Grammie will be so ticked off when she hears about all this,” Catherine murmured as she watched the lake’s surface. “And then the whole Blaze will be waiting for us! You sure we shouldn’t go now?”

“They’ll be calmer tomorrow,” Jennifer pointed out. She yawned. “And I’m getting too tired to fly more, and then face everyone. Plenty of time.”

“She only told you to bring back beaststalkers, Jennifer. Maybe Skip should stay here? And maybe Susan, too?”

Before Skip or Susan could react to that, Jennifer held up her hand, five fingers extended. “All five of us, Catherine. All together. All the time. Got it?”

Catherine gulped. “Okay.”

Skip’s voice floated in from the kitchen. “Hey, toaster waffles!”

CHAPTER 2
Sunday

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“Cripes, Skip, could you just change back? You’re creeping me out.”

“Lighten up, Susan.”

“Lighten up?! You have a poison stinger, Wilson. Ugh, I cannot believe I let you feel me up in the car.”

“If Jennifer and Catherine can be who they are in this place, so can I.”

“Skip, it is a bit much to take—”

“No one asked your opinion, Blacktooth. Don’t you have a sword to bust into pieces somewhere?”

“Skip!”

“Aw, Jennifer, I’m just messing with him…”

“Can we get on with it?” Catherine asked miserably, tapping a toe claw, which gouged divots of dirt the size of dessert plates. “You guys have been drying off for the last hour. We got off to a late enough start this morning—we should get moving.”

“Jennifer was right yesterday. What’s the big deal? She wanted me to come, and I’m here. If the Blazers can’t handle that—”

“Blaze,” Jennifer corrected him uncomfortably. It was a bit much to have this conversation with a six-foot-long fat-tailed scorpion. The yellow and gray segmented body dried more quickly, she supposed, than Skip’s normal clothing would. But still…

“Blaze, whatever. Anyway, I’m going to have to change when we get going again. Catherine and Jennifer can’t carry all three of us at once.”

She tuned out the conversation and took in the scenery. They were on the shore of the other side of the lake, huddled around a quick fire Catherine had spat up. Everyone had come through the water just fine, with only a bit of shock at the thought that there was a whole other world through the bottom of her grandfather’s lake.

With only twilight to see by, her dragon sight could still make out the gorgeous expanse of moon elms that got thicker and taller to the north and west. Far above the treetops was the eternal crescent moon, which rolled through the sky without ever changing shape.

She had been thrilled to see the moon welcome them with its traditional signal of fire. Her grandpa Crawford was up there now. Would he be proud of me? she wondered. He had always had a tense relationship with her beaststalker mother—but then, he had gone ahead and left the farm to her as well, to look after.

He would agree with Jennifer bringing Skip along, wouldn’t he?

As if in answer, a distant chord of howls wafted through the trees. Catherine’s head immediately perked up.

“Newolves!”

“Newhat?” Eddie’s nose wrinkled.

“Newolves. They’re like wolves, except they help us hunt, and—”

“Catherine’s barely ever seen one.” Jennifer giggled, her mind returning to her friends’ conversation. “But she still managed to write a whole thesis on them.”

“You want to be banned from the Mustang for life?”

“By which I mean to say, Catherine is a genius on the esteemed topic of newolves.”

“Yeah, well, whatever they are,” Skip guessed, “I’m sure they won’t be thrilled about me either.”

“You could try not being a scorpion,” Eddie offered.

“And you could try getting bent.”

As the two of them hurled insults at each other, Susan bent over and whispered in Jennifer’s ear, “Which one do you think will pee harder?”

“Do scorpions even pee?”

Susan giggled, which made Jennifer feel better. She knew this world was impossibly strange for her friend—the cellolike crickets in the distance, the luminescent morning orange lichen hanging from a few of the moon elm branches, and, of course, the way three of her friends turned into exotic beasts.

“Let’s go turf-whomping,” she suggested to Catherine. “Skip, if you’re going to keep up with us, you’re going to have to shift into something that can jump.”

“I can arrange that.” A few moments later, he was something furry and black, with white stripes and three rows of dark brown eyes. “This type runs in my dad’s side of the family an awful lot.”

“Swell. Catherine, why don’t you carry Susan—she’s lighter. Eddie, climb on.”

Skip snickered at Eddie, who gave Skip a rude gesture before he straddled Jennifer’s back.

Off they went, leaping through the forest, Jennifer and Catherine gouging great tufts of turf with their claws, Skip leaping alongside them, eight legs pumping effortlessly to push him thirty feet in the air without breaking a sweat. Assuming spiders could sweat.

Eddie’s legs clenched around Jennifer’s kidneys, and she felt his heartbeat race against her scaled spine. “Slow down!” he finally called out after they had nearly hit a large moon elm branch.

“I thought you went riding all the time on your family trips to Wales,” she replied, amused. She rotated just enough to squeeze between two half-fallen elm trunks that were thicker than their own bodies.

“Horses! I like riding horses! You are not a horse! There’s no saddle! No reins! No spurs!”

“Damn right there’re no spurs,” she snickered. “Just don’t barf on me.”

“No promises.”

“Also, watch out for fire hornets.”

“Fire what?!”

“So how the hell do you brush your teeth in the morning?” Susan asked Skip. Her open disgust had largely passed, and she seemed genuinely curious.

“Mandibles,” he corrected her, merrily clicking them. “And we don’t brush them. We wash them in human blood.”

“Ugh, Skip, that’s—”

“Kidding,” he sighed. “Geez, Susan. If Jennifer had said something like that, you wouldn’t have taken it seriously.”

“Jennifer doesn’t have eight legs.”

“She—”

“Jennifer doesn’t have mandibles.”

“But—”

“Jennifer doesn’t look like the eternal predators that scuttle across the shower wall and freak me out even when they’re only one-inch long.”

“You’re prejudiced.”

“I can’t help my natural instincts. I see lots of legs, I squash.”

“Skip, you probably should change back to human form,” Jennifer piped up as she did so herself.

“Why?” Skip asked with all the enthusiasm of an angry cobra.

“Skip.”

“This is the real me!”

“Skip.”

“I’m being myself. Isn’t that what Crescent Valley is about?”

“Skip!” She held out her human hands, presenting herself. The message was obvious: If I can do this, so can you.

“Fine.” He shrugged four of his limbs and shifted back to a human wiseass. “Happy?”

“A minor improvement at best,” Eddie chirped. He had his land legs back and appeared ready for whatever came next. “How far are we from the Blaze?”

“The amphitheater is right over this hill. Come on, we’ll walk there together.”

“Oh, man,” Catherine said with a sigh as they started. “Grammie is going to be so angry.”

“Now the Blaze might be a bit edgy—”

“You think?” Skip grinned. He took in the vast amphitheater of grass and stone, with an aged dragon perched on each rock. Very few of them were smiling at any of them.