Dragons of the Watch (16 page)

Ellie turned over again and greeted the lightening sky with relief. The cushion did not make a satisfactory mattress. Her bed in the library was much more comfortable. She’d tossed and turned most of the night. Tak raised his head and then put it back down quickly, as if to say, “Oh no! I’m not getting up. It’s too early.”

Ellie couldn’t stand the lumpy bed any longer and gave up any notion of sleeping a few more minutes. She changed out of her nightgown, folded the garment her aunt had purchased, and put it away in the little bag she’d brought with her. She figured the library must have given out the bags since Rumbard City Library was emblazoned across the front. The light cloth sack was easier to carry than her carpetbag.

She washed her face and crept to the back door. The closed door momentarily stymied her desire to go outside. She didn’t have a clue as to how to open it. Following the wall, she came to the opening they’d crawled through the night before. She pushed halfway through and stopped to gape at the garden. Gorgeous, lush bushes crowded the yard, and each had bright flowers of different sizes and colors. She hadn’t seen any of this splendor when they arrived by the light of the moon. Everything had been shades of gray. She twisted to lie on her back for a better view.

For several minutes, she reclined half in and half out of the small portal. A flock of heliotrope birds fussed at each other in a tragabong
tree. Butterflies with shimmering wings flitted between the flowering bushes. A breeze rattled a chiming tree, and the little bell-like leaves quaked. The musical jangle rose and fell, sounding a pleasant natural percussion in the early morn. Later in the day, the leaves would soften in the heat of the sun and no longer sing softly to the world.

Ellie felt Tak pushing her from behind. She wiggled out and sat on the grass as the goat followed. “So you decided to get up after all.”

A rooster crowed.

Ellie sat up straighter. “Did you hear that? Where there’s a rooster, there are chickens. Where there are chickens, there are eggs.” She jumped to her feet. “Come on, Tak.”

Det and Airon joined the two early birds.

“Are you coming with us?” Ellie asked.

Airon assured her that they would be back soon. At the same time, Det mindspoke their intention to check for news from the watch. Ellie found she received the simultaneous messages with a little less confusion than before. Perhaps she would become skilled at communicating with the little messengers. The dragons flew off toward the center of town.

Ellie and Tak followed the sounds of clucking down the alley and came to a huge lawn behind a mansion. A barn stood on one corner. Two giant horses grazed in a pasture beyond. Dozens of normal-sized cats scooted around the paddock and outbuildings.

“It must be perilous to be a mouse around here,” she said to Tak. “I don’t see any goats or cows or pigs. I guess this was not a working farm but more of a hobby.” She looked again at the mansion on the hill. “No farmer I’ve ever known lived in a house like that.”

The rooster ran in front of them on an urgent mission. He challenged a smaller bird that had the audacity to strut in front of his hens.

“I’m glad they’re not giants like the horses. I think I’d run.” She glanced around the barnyard and stopped to consider the small wooden hutch. “I don’t think they’ve been laying in that chicken coop. Let’s look in the bushes.”

She examined the shrubbery nearest the alley with Tak right behind her, who was plucking green leaves for his breakfast. There she found dozens of eggs. Many eggs were clustered, and the grass and foliage around them showed obvious signs of a hen’s devotion. Having run off from the house without a basket of some sort, she tucked up the hem of her skirt, making a pouch to put the eggs in.

She and Tak meandered back to the house where they’d slept, enjoying the early morning feel in the air and fascinated by the trappings of the urohm neighborhood. When they finally made it back, Ellie sat beside the hole in the wall and, one by one, put the eggs inside. With her skirt pouch emptied, she stretched out on her stomach, reached through the skinny portal, and carefully moved the eggs aside. Finally, she crawled in, and Tak followed.

An empty flowerpot stood against the wall, and she loaded her find into the makeshift bowl. In the kitchen, she placed the pot on the seat of a chair and brushed twigs and bits of dirt from her clothes.

“Is that you, Ellie?” Bealomondore called from somewhere in the house.

“Yes.”

“Come here. I want to show you something.”

She followed the sound of his voice and ended up in the room where her lumpy pillow-mattress lay. Her venture outside had been filled with color, light, and beauty. Now the darkness of the empty house made her skin prickle with bumps. “Where are you?”

“Through here.”

Tak darted in front of her, and she gladly followed.

A light beckoned her from the end of a hall. Bealomondore had opened the shades in a room filled with paintings.

“Aha,” she said as she came through the door. “What a fine collection. Are the paintings good or merely pretty?”

“Mostly good. A few excellent.” He pointed to a picture of a ship on the sea and then to a depiction of a woman reading to children around her.

He pointed out a six-foot-tall painting of two men standing side by side, a tumanhofer and a urohm. “But this is the one that astonishes me.”

“Oh!” Ellie moved to the picture as if drawn by a rope. “Is it right? I mean, the proportions? The shorter man comes up to the other’s waist. Surely one is too tall or the other too short.”

He took her hand and pulled her along with him as he sped down the hall and into another room. Dropping his grip, he crossed the room and pulled on a shade, which zipped up and twirled several times at the top, making a
whopping
sound with each turn. Sun poured in through the window, and dust motes floated in the air.

“This is a nursery.”

She’d already surmised that from the furniture and childish pictures, toy trains, and stacking blocks.

“I’m four feet five inches tall,” Bealomondore said.

She had no idea why that was relevant but decided to not reveal her obtuse state.

Bealomondore strolled across the room to a wall that had one decoration, an embroidered height chart. Several places were marked with ribbons. Bealomondore fingered one of the lower trimmings. “Haddy, age two.” He straightened out another to read. “Gelay, age five.” Another strip said, “Haddy, age four.”

Ellie shrugged. “My family records our heights on the wall in the mud room. Don’t most families keep some kind of record?”

Without a word, Bealomondore turned and backed up to the measuring chart. “How tall am I?”

Ellie came closer to look. Her eyes widened, and she shifted her gaze to his solemn face. He already knew what it said.

“Three feet five inches.”

He quirked an eyebrow at her.

She corrected for more precise accuracy. “Five and
a half
inches.”

He moved out of the way and nudged her in position to be measured. “How tall are you?”

“Four feet one inch.”

He glanced at the number at the top of her head. “Three feet two inches, and I’m giving you a bit on the inches.”

“So the urohms don’t have the same standard of measure as we do?”

Bealomondore pursed his lips and let out a breathy whistle. “On the contrary, my guess is that their twelve-inch foot would match our twelve-inch foot.”

He took her hand and led her back to the art room and to the portrait. “In that picture, the tumanhofer comes up to just above the urohm’s knee. Look at the background. What do you see?”

“Shelves of books, a table, a lamp, a globe, a desk, and papers.”

“I believe this is a painting done in Amara and brought here.”

“Why?”

“The size of the furniture is small in comparison to the urohm figure. The globe shows the Eastern hemisphere, where Amara is located. And the style of clothing is foreign.”

Once he pointed out the details, Ellie could see what he meant.
“So tumanhofers and urohms got along well in that land? Well enough for two men to want a portrait together?”

“I hadn’t thought of that, but yes. My point is the size of the tumanhofer.” He moved to stand beside a chair in the room. He reached up to put his hand on the seat of the chair. “This chair is designed for a urohm.” He patted the edge of the seat. “The urohm’s knee would bend right here. I’m a foot below that point. We’re smaller, Ellie. When we came through the glass wall, we shrank.”

Ellie let out a nervous giggle. “That’s not possible.”

“Nothing about this place is possible. Why would you doubt a simple case of ‘Shrink the Visitors’?”

“Bealomondore, why? Why would someone bother to make us smaller?”

“I doubt it was aimed at us in particular but affects anyone who passes through the wall.”

Ellie took in a deep breath and let it out. “Wulder? Could it be like the legend of the urohms? We were made the size of our hearts? We’re smaller, because our basic personalities are selfish? We don’t care about others?”

Bealomondore shook his head sadly. “I hadn’t thought of that.” He pinched his upper lip. “No, that can’t be it. At least not for you. You have a heart for these beastly children. It could certainly be true of me, however.”

“No, you’ve taken care of me. You care about Old One.”

Bealomondore gave a dismissive snort. “I am interested in Old One because he might be able to help us get out of here. And of course I’ve watched over you. You are a pleasure to have around. You rescued me from wretched loneliness. So my care also has a self-serving motive.”

He frowned and looked away from her, his gaze moving to the window and beyond. She walked over to his side and took his hand. “What you need is a good breakfast and something to occupy your mind other than these depressing speculations.”

He looked down at her, squeezed her hand, then brought it to his lips to kiss. “What shall we do for breakfast?”

“I found chickens, and therefore I found eggs.”

“That sounds good.”

“And afterward, you and I shall bake daggarts for naughty children and a grumpy old man.”

He laughed. “See? I told you your heart is not small.”

She smiled but kept the words flowing through her mind to herself.

He made her heart swell. She felt the expansion in her chest every time she looked into his eyes, heard him speak, or felt his presence. She liked this tumanhofer very, very much.

Tak found a shady corner in the yard and settled in for a day of resting and eating. When Ellie invited him to come in with them to explore, he pointedly turned his head away and chewed. She and Bealomondore passed through the small opening and plowed into the task they had set before them, the locating of ingredients and appropriate bowls and cooking pans.

Ellie bubbled with enthusiasm. Her partner in raiding the kitchen was the most amusing companion she’d ever known. And tackling the difficult task of baking with oversize equipment would be full of surprises. Ellie giggled with anticipation, then glanced at Bealomondore to see if he’d heard. The door he was opening required all his attention. Each big urohm cupboard provided a challenge to little tumanhofers.

She and Bealomondore both explored the pantry, shoving boxes into unsteady stairs so they could reach the upper shelves. They found dried fruit and stores of nuts, as well as sugar, flour, and salt. They both climbed on the counter and investigated the cabinets. A small bag of baking powder, some spices, chocobits, and bowls added to their found treasure.

And they laughed over many of their discoveries.

“Look.” Bealomondore held up a glass jar of pickles. “This urohm housewife kept jars of pickles in every nook and cranny.”

Ellie laughed and held up a jar she’d just found. “This makes my sixth hidden pickle stash. How many are you up to?”

“I’m ahead of you by three.”

“Someone in this house must have had a passion for pickles.”

“You mean the mother hides the jars out of necessity?” Bealomondore examined the pickles more closely.

“I suppose she’d have to if the woman wanted her pickles to last through the winter. My mother hides her razterberry jam.”

“Perhaps we should sample these. They must be uncommonly good.”

“Mother’s razterberry jam is.” Ellie smiled at the memory of her brothers fighting over a jar. For a brief moment, her home tugged at her heart.

She swallowed, put on a smile, and said, “We’ll have to find mustard if we want pickles and mustard on our sandwiches.”

Bealomondore reached in the cabinet in front of him and held out a yellow bottle. “Mustard!”

Ellie laughed.

In many of the drawers, bunches of soft hemmed hand towels covered the contents. Delicately embroidered cloth rested on top of forks, spoons, and table knives. Measuring cups and spoons nestled under a thin sheet of patterned material.

“Whatever is the purpose of this, Ellie?” Bealomondore asked. “Do all housewives feel the need to conceal the contents of their kitchen drawers?”

She shrugged. She had no idea what possessed the mistress of this house. “I don’t know, but I can tell you that all this handiwork is of the best quality.”