The Dragon Men

“Ma,” he said, “you don’t have to do this anymore.”

“What do you mean, honey?” She pulled away and went back to sewing. “I’m nearly done with this piece, and I can just get in another before dark. And what have you been doing? Talk to me while I work.”

“I mean, Ma, that you don’t have to sew anymore. Or work. Or live here.”

Her needle never stopped moving. “How’s that?”

From his pocket, Gavin took a thick stack of bank notes. He laid it on the table where Carrie could see it. She glanced at it but kept sewing.

“What is it?”

“It’s yours, Ma,” he said.

“Just like your father,” she replied, still sewing.

At one time, that remark would have made him angry. Now he was just curious. “How so, Ma?”

“You vanish, and you think money makes it all right.”

“Did Dad ever send money?” Gavin asked, surprised.

“For a while. Then it stopped. Just like-well, it stopped.”

“I talked to him, Ma. I found him.”

Now she did stop sewing. “Gavin Eric Ennock, don’t you dare come back into my life with wild stories that-”

“It’s true, Ma. He’s alive. I found him. In China. He’s not coming back, but he wrote a letter that explains everything.” From his pocket he took a handkerchief and unwrapped the silver nightingale. “I don’t blame you for being angry at him, or at me. Not all of it was his fault or mine. Part of it was the clockwork plague, though the plague was more our fault-mankind’s fault-than we knew.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Carrie held the nightingale up to the light.

“It’s hard to describe. I’ll try, but after we’ve all had something to eat. At a nice hotel with a fine restaurant.”

“With that?” Carrie said, gesturing at the bank notes. “It’s a little hard to believe. Where did it come from?”

“I’m a baroness, Mrs. Ennock,” Alice put in. “And, not to put too fine a point on it, I’m quite wealthy. Filthy rich, I believe you Americans say, and I’ve given a portion of my fortune over to Gavin. That money is his quite legally, and he has a suite of rooms reserved for you and your family at the Revere House.”

“Oh!” Carrie looked overwhelmed. “I–I wouldn’t know how to behave at such a fancy place.”

“Mrs. Ennock.” Alice leaned forward to touch her hand conspiratorially. “When you have pots of money, no one cares one bit how you behave. It’s a lot of fun, believe me.”

At that, Carrie laughed. “All right, then. Please call me Ma. And I want to know how my son ended up with a baroness.”

“You’ll hear all about it,” Gavin said, relieved. “But Ma-what about Gramps? You didn’t mention him.”

Carrie hesitated, and Gavin’s heart jerked. “Your grandfather. . isn’t quite the same, honey. He doesn’t eat much, and he sleeps a lot.”

“Where is he?”

“In the sleeping room. Go on, then.”

Gavin took up his fiddle and went into the back room. Alice followed. Just as he remembered, there were no beds, just narrow pallets of threadbare blankets on the floor. A narrow window let in grudging light. His grandfather lay on one of the pallets. His hair was all but gone, his skin deeply wrinkled and mottled, his eyes closed.

“Gramps?” Gavin knelt beside him. “Gramps, it’s me, Gavin. I’m back.”

At first Gramps didn’t move. Then he stirred slightly and his eyes opened. They were the same blue as Gavin’s, though filmy with age.

“Boy?” he said gruffly. “That you?”

Gavin took his hand. “I’m here, Gramps. I’m back.”

“Well, where the hell have you been all this time?”

Alice put a hand to her mouth to smother a laugh, and Gavin smiled. “It’s a long story, Gramps.”

“Don’t tell me now, boy. I don’t have time. Just do one thing for me, will you?”

“Anything, Gramps. You know that.”

“Play.”

Alice gave Gavin his fiddle. Carrie appeared in the doorway, holding the nightingale as Gavin tuned up. He sang:

I see the moon, the moon sees me.

It turns all the forest soft and silvery.

The moon picked you from all the rest,

For I loved you best.

Gramps gave Gavin a proud smile, exhaled once, and died.

They held the wedding a month later on the deck of the Lady of Liberty. Alice wore a white gown, which was still the rage for brides, and her spiders and whirligigs accompanied her down the aisle to the helm. Gavin awaited her in a new set of white leathers of his own, and he couldn’t stop smiling. Click flatly refused to carry the rings, though he did deign to sit on the generator and watch. The priest, hired from a local parish, seemed a bit overwhelmed at marrying a baroness aboard an airship high above the city, but he performed the ceremony without a hitch. Carrie Ennock, her hands no longer reddened with work, looked ready to burst with pride and happiness, and Gavin’s brothers and sisters cheered when Gavin lifted Alice’s veil to give her a long, lingering kiss.

They held a reception directly afterward, with a great deal of drinking and music from hired musicians. Gavin thought it strange to have music played for him instead of by him, but it was his wedding day, so nothing was likely to be normal.

After the sun went down and Alice’s whirligigs shuttled the guests back to the ground, they abruptly found themselves on an empty deck. The lights of Boston spread out below them like snowflakes scattered across velvet.

“Alone at last with my wife,” Gavin said, trying out the phrase.

“Alone at last with my husband,” she replied, doing the same.

“So why are we up here instead of in our stateroom?” He held out his arm to her. “Madam?”

She took it. “Sir.”

He paused to kiss her one more time. “I love you-”

“Always,” she finished. “Yes. Yes, indeed.”

They strolled below, and Gavin couldn’t stop himself singing. Alice joined in.

The moon picked you from all the rest,

For I loved you best.