The Story of Owen (15 page)

Our intent had been to get takeout and eat on the pier. It was a bit cold for it, but I liked the wind and Owen hadn't spent a lot of time by the lake yet, not being a swimmer, so he still considered it adventurous. I was halfway down the hill toward
the beach before I figured out why there were so many cars parked along the side of the road.

“How do you feel about bagpipes?” I asked.

“I think they're noisy,” Owen replied. “Why?”

“We're about to attend Piping Down the Sun,” I told him.

“They're still doing that?” he asked.

“Apparently.” I started looking for a parking spot. Or an escape route. I was still undecided.

“Can we turn around?” asked Owen, clearly having similar thoughts. “We could go eat at the lighthouse instead.”

“We'll have to drive all the way to the end before I'll have space to turn around,” I told him. I couldn't believe how many cars were here, considering it was November and only a few degrees above freezing. “We'll be okay as long as no one recognizes you.”

The beach road ends in a giant traffic circle. It was lined with people who had come to hear the pipes. It took them about ten seconds to recognize Owen, and then the crowd started to cheer.

“So much for that,” Owen said. He pointed at a man who was waving madly at us. “That's the mayor. It looks like he's got a parking spot for us.”

“Fabulous,” I said, but there was nothing for it. I followed the mayor's directions and parked.

“Game faces!” Owen said brightly, and I watched as he changed from a high school kid who couldn't get the hang of factoring equations to a dragon slayer in training. I did my best to follow suit, though I had no idea what a bard looked like.

“Owen Thorskard!” the mayor said in a loud voice. “I had no idea you were coming tonight!”

“It's been a busy few months,” Owen said with an absolutely straight face. “I'm sorry it took me so long to attend one of these events.”

“Oh, not a problem,” the mayor said. “Your studies and training should come first.” He looked at me for the first time, and a puzzled expression crossed his face. “Who are you?” he asked.

“This is Siobhan McQuaid,” Owen said. I stepped up beside him and extended my hand to the mayor. He looked surprised, but shook it anyway. “She's my bard.”

I wondered if I could get away with killing him later on this evening. Lottie had been saying things like “and we'll think of something to say when people ask you why you're spending so much time with Owen” for weeks now but hadn't come up with an actual pitch yet. And now Owen had just told the mayor of Saltrock that I was his bard, and I couldn't even glare at him because the mayor was looking at me with a mildly confused expression on his face. I suppressed a sigh and turned on what I hoped was my most charming, unthreatening high school girl face.

“I'm in training too,” I said, my tone far more excited than any I usually used. I assumed bards were excited to meet important people, even when they found themselves unexpectedly at random town functions. “But not to slay dragons, I assure you! That's Owen's job.”

My declaration did nothing to clear the mayor's confusion, but he nodded politely and told me that sounded very interesting and exciting. Then he excused himself to start the festivities.

While we watched, fifteen pipers lined up together, various tartans flapping gently in the breeze, and, at the mayor's signal, began to play “Scotland the Brave” at full volume. Saltrock was populated primarily by the descendants of Scottish settlers,
unlike Trondheim, which was largely Norwegian, so many of the people in attendance knew the words to the song and were only too happy to add their voices to the din. I didn't know about the local dragon population, but I was certainly having second thoughts about ever coming back to Saltrock again. That feeling of discomfort was heightened when I looked away from the lake, up the bluffs to where the school board office stood, its windows still soot-stained from an attack earlier in the week.

It seemed to go on forever, but eventually the sun disappeared from the sky and the bagpipes were silenced. The mayor came over to introduce Owen to the pipers, and I tagged along for lack of anything else to do. Although of Norwegian descent themselves, Lottie and Aodhan both fought with Scottish-style broadswords on account of Hannah's ancestry, and since Owen did too, the pipers accepted Owen as one of their own immediately. When they found out my name was McQuaid, I was welcomed as well.

I recounted a couple of stories about Owen's training exercises, and once I had the crowd warmed up a little, I launched into a retelling of the dragon he'd help slay in the yard defending Hannah's smithy. Since no one present knew what happened to my backpack, I was able to get away with significantly more elaborate fictions than I had when I told my parents. By the time I got to the part where Lottie skewered the dragon, everyone in earshot was staring at Owen like he was the most amazing thing they'd ever seen, and I felt like there was a set of bagpipes inside me, singing in my blood.

When I finished recounting the tale, the pipers clapped and called for another, but I was cold, not to mention hungry since we'd never had the opportunity to eat the food that was
now stone cold in the backseat of my car, so I held up my hands in front of me and affected my most overdramatic pose yet.

“I'm sorry, ladies and gentlemen,” I said, “but we really do have to get going. As much as I'd love to tell you all more stories about our young dragon slayer, he has to get back to work. Those dragons aren't going to slay themselves!”

They laughed and clapped us both on the shoulders until I was sure I was going to have bruises the next day. Apparently playing the bagpipes is good for your arm strength. We made it back to the car, and I managed to drive all the way to the top of the hill and pull into the poorly lit parking lot near the lighthouse before I collapsed into giggles.

“It's not funny,” Owen said. “They really think that bagpipes prevent dragon attacks.”

“You heard the racket,” I said. “For all we know, it actually works.”

“It definitely does not work,” Owen said. I did my best to swallow what was left of my laughter and reached behind me for the bag of food that was sitting on the seat. “Really?” said Owen.

“I'm hungry,” I told him, unwrapping a cold burger. “I can't subsist on fame alone.”

“Good point,” he said, and took the bag. “You did a great job telling stories down there, by the way.”

“Thanks,” I said around a mouthful. “It was actually kind of fun.”

“Let's never do it again,” Owen said.

I laughed. “At least not until summer,” I agreed.

Then there was a knock on the window of my car, and I screamed, jumping so abruptly that I spilled french fries all over the gearshift.

Owen Thorskard walks around with a knife in each of his sneakers, though what good that will do him if he is attacked by a dragon he has never explained. He cannot hold both of them and a cheeseburger at the same time. These are things you learn in dark parking lots when a stranger knocks on the window of your car.

Once I had more or less recovered from my shock and Owen had more or less recovered from throwing his dinner into the front windshield, I looked out the window. The man who had knocked looked nearly as startled as we did—which I felt was distinctly unfair—and was holding his hands up in the universal sign for “I really, really promise that I am not a serial killer, please open your window.” My car was still running, because of the outside temperature, so after making sure that Owen still had both knives, I cracked the window open about an inch.

“Hello?” I said, hoping that I sounded at least confident, if not outright dangerous.

“I didn't mean to scare you,” the stranger said. “I'm sorry about that.”

“Dinner was cold anyway,” I said, still blustering. “Are you lost or something?”

“No,” he said. “My name is Archie Carmichael. You go to school with my daughter, Emily, since the amalgamation.”

I cast about in my memory looking for an Emily Carmichael. I could vaguely remember a flute player from tenth grade I was sure was at least called Emily.

“Okay, Mr. Carmichael,” I said. “What do you want?”

“I saw you two at the piping,” he said. He sounded vaguely scornful about the event, and my opinion of him increased slightly. “I wanted to talk.”

“And you couldn't wait for daylight?” Owen said. “Or warn us first?”

“I'm sorry about that,” Mr. Carmichael said again. “But I thought it was important that we speak as soon as possible.”

The single streetlight that illuminated the parking lot provided a very thin orange glow in the darkness. It wasn't much, but it was enough for me to see Owen's shields go up. Archie might be harmless, but something about him sparked Owen's cautious side.

“About what?” he said.

“Dragons, of course,” Mr. Carmichael said. “I think I know why they're attacking Saltrock more often.”

Owen and I exchanged a look. If we were going to be partners long-term, I was going to have to get better at reading his mind, because I had no idea what he was thinking. Maybe I should ask Sadie to give me tips. She always seemed to know what everyone was thinking. Plus, it would give us something
to talk about. She hadn't stopped initiating conversations with me, and I was running out of things to say. Owen sighed, bringing my attention back to the car, and put his knives back in his shoes.

“Do you have a car, Mr. Carmichael?” he asked.

“Yes,” came the reply. “It's around the corner. I didn't want to startle you with the lights.”

I managed not to say anything sarcastic to that, but only just.

“Great,” Owen said. “Meet us at McDonald's. We need to buy dinner again.”

“It's on me,” Mr. Carmichael said. He turned and walked back to his car. I put the window up.

“Are we really going to McDonald's, or are we ditching him?” I asked. I was sort of hoping for the former. Whether Mr. Carmichael was nutty as a fruitcake or not, I was still hungry.

“We're really going to McDonald's,” Owen said. “And when you drop me off at home, remind me to get you a knife for your shoe.”

“I'm wearing ballet flats,” I pointed out. “I don't think they can support a knife.”

“Aunt Hannah will think of something,” Owen said with absolute faith. I didn't disagree. “A dragon slayer should never be without a weapon.”

“I'm not a dragon slayer,” I reminded him. “And anyway, my sword's in the trunk.”

“That's a start,” he said. “Let's go.”

I drove to the McDonald's and parked. Last time, we'd gone through the drive-thru to protect Owen's anonymity. This time we had no choice but to go inside. Owen got seats
in the corner while I ordered with Mr. Carmichael, but by the time I sat down, there was a crescendo of whispers circulating through the restaurant.

“What did you want to tell us, Mr. Carmichael?” Owen asked. He was polite and formal, sitting up straight and looking directly across the table when he spoke.

“As you know, the number of dragon incidents up and down the shores of Lake Huron has increased in the past few years, and dramatically so since the spring,” Mr. Carmichael said. “In particular, in the Saltrock area.”

“That's because of the salt mine,” I pointed out. It was one of those things that everyone knew: The mine was dangerous, but it was also one of our best local resources, so we lived with the threat it posed. “They have huge tankers in and out of the harbor all the time. It attracts more dragons.”

“You're right, it does.” He ceded the point by waving a french fry like he was conducting an orchestra. “But I think it's more than that.”

It dawned on me that Mr. Carmichael was talking to us like we were adults and professionals. It made me feel a bit better about listening to him. Most adults, like those at Piping Down the Sun, talked to Owen like he was some kind of mascot, and they didn't usually talk to me at all.

“Please explain,” Owen said. I wondered if he had noticed too, because he relaxed a little bit. We were definitely going to have to work on our telepathy.

“The mine wouldn't account for such a dramatic jump,” Mr. Carmichael said. He stirred the fry around in his ketchup as he marshaled his thoughts. “Usually, dragons only attack in this sort of pattern when they have a hatching ground to defend.”

“But there isn't a hatching ground anywhere near here,” Owen pointed out. “Unless you think they're flying in from Michigan.”

Michigan hadn't always been one big hatching ground. It was similar in climate to the Canadian side of Lake Huron, and before the invention of the car, the hatching ground was confined to the Upper Peninsula. Now, even northern Ohio was considered a dangerous place to live, and we held onto Windsor and Sarnia by the skin of our teeth to maintain the shipping lane in the St. Lawrence Seaway and guard the border.

“I think that the dragons have established a new hatching ground, just like they did in Michigan,” Mr. Carmichael said. “Owen, until your father got here, the closest organized dragon slaying was an hour away. We know there's overpopulation in Michigan. It makes sense that some of the dragons would have had to go looking for other places to lay their eggs.”

“But where?” I asked.

“We don't know,” Mr. Carmichael admitted.

Dragons laid their eggs in the fall, in places where the soil was thin, where the trees were thick and where there was plenty of lakefront property. In Ontario, that meant the regions around Lake Muskoka and the Kawarthas. Both of those places were far enough from Trondheim that we didn't have to worry about the increased dragon presence. The Bruce Peninsula, which was directly north of us, and Eastern Ontario, where Queen Victoria had elected to hide our capital city in the hope that sticking it close to dragons would discourage American interest, were just different enough in terms of climate and geology not to attract a dragon population. This meant that it was possible to get from Southern Ontario to Northern
Ontario without having to go through the hatching grounds. It was a longer drive to go around, but it was certainly easier to drive in a car that wasn't on fire, so no one complained.