was standing there listening to us talk to Caesar? Listening to us talk about Kingaree? And the Continuascope! I told you, he’s trying to make one!”
Lucinda shook her head. “Don’t worry about it. If Gideon couldn’t make a new one, Colin Needle sure can’t do it on his own.”
It was a good point, especially since Gideon had actually helped Octavio make the first one. “Yeah, but he’s up to something and I don’t like him sneaking around, listening in on us. I’m going to figure out what he’s doing and then he’s really going to know what trouble is!”
“Oh, man!” Lucinda rolled her eyes. “Sometimes I think Colin’s right about you, Tyler.” She turned and headed up the stairs, the noise of her footsteps for a moment as loud as the approaching thunderstorm.
“What?” he shouted after her. “Wait! What’s that supposed to mean?”
Chapter 14
The summer storm had been a powerful one, with lightning and drumrolls of thunder in the night that had set the house shuddering, but it was gone by morning. Now the sky was clear and the hills bright with detail beneath the sun. Even the ground smelled rich and new.
“Did you hear all that last night?” Lucinda asked her brother. “It was hard to sleep.”
“Saw some lightning,” he said. “Pretty cool. Thought it might hit the house… ”
“It did hit the house,” Colin Needle said in his most bored, superior voice. “Probably about ten times. That’s why we have a lightning rod on the roof.”
Lucinda was relieved that her brother only rolled his eyes in disgust and turned away from Colin Needle. It was bad enough they were all so worried about Gideon. She wanted today to go well.
Mr. Walkwell was driving them to the Carrillos’ Fourth of July party, so of course they were traveling by horse cart. Before heading off to Cresta del Sol dairy farm, though, he took them to the unicorn pasture so he and Ragnar could fill the unicorns’ trough. The graceful creatures came down from the hills to feed, but they were skittish: when Ragnar approached a young unicorn who was limping, she spooked and ran. The rest of the herd followed and soon had all but vanished from sight, a shrinking white cloud skimming across the dry, golden grasses.
“Perhaps it is last night’s storm,” Mr. Walkwell called to Ragnar. “But something is bothering them, that is sure.” He looked at Lucinda, Tyler, and Colin as if they might somehow be to blame. “All the animals are strange today.”
“Yes, it’s not just that one foal, Simos,” the Norsemen said. “There are at least three of them, maybe four, who are all wobbly on their feet. I fear we may have some pest among them.” Ragnar walked up the nearest hill carrying his binoculars, trying to get a better look at the foals. He seemed worried, and no wonder: if some disease infected this herd, every single unicorn left in the world might die. The thought of all that beauty just swept away made Lucinda’s eyes blur with tears.
“Maybe Poseidon makes an earthshake soon,” Mr. Walkwell called after Ragnar. “That frightens many creatures. Often animals can sense what the gods plan long before men can guess.”
“The gods-of course, all this must be their doing!” Colin smirked as he said it, but Lucinda wasn’t so skeptical. After all, if the farm’s overseer was a faun, or a satyr, or whatever he was-something that wasn’t supposed to exist-who was to say that Zeus and the other Greek gods weren’t real, too?
“Do you really think the gods are angry with us?” she asked.
Mr. Walkwell gave her a sourly amused look. “The gods are always angry about something.”
“What are we going to tell the Carrillos about Gideon when we get there?” Lucinda asked as Ragnar finally turned and began to make his way back down the hill toward the wagon.
“You? Nothing,” said Mr. Walkwell. “I will talk to Hector Carrillo myself. As for any others that might ask questions, Gideon is gone and you do not know any more than that, so do not say any more.”
“It’s none of their business, anyway,” Colin said. “Those people already know too much about our farm. Don’t tell them anything.”
Tyler stirred beside her. “It’s not your farm, Needle, it’s Uncle Gideon’s.”
“Easy for you to say, Jenkins. You have another home.”
Lucinda heard the very real pain in Colin Needle’s voice and it surprised her. The older boy actually sounded worried, even frightened. Tyler was so certain Colin and his mother were up to no good-but what if Tyler was wrong?
Ragnar and Mr. Walkwell were talking at the front of the wagon, but so quietly that Lucinda could scarcely pick out the low murmur of their voices from the constant buzzing of the cicadas in the tall grass. After the wagon had bumped along slowly for nearly a half an hour during which the hot day pressed on them like a sweaty hand, Colin Needle nodded off to sleep and Lucinda let her own eyes fall shut as well, enjoying the warmth and the wagon’s motion. She hadn’t felt this relaxed in a week-not since the day Gideon had vanished. Then Tyler spoke up suddenly, as if continuing a conversation they had already begun, and Lucinda suddenly found herself very much awake.
“Hey, Ragnar, you said that guy Kingaree burned down the lab, right?”
Ragnar made a growling noise. “I said nothing like it. I only said he vanished the night Gideon’s laboratory was burned.”
“Well, then, what makes you so sure he didn’t do it?”
Ragnar would have answered, but Mr. Walkwell interrupted. “Enough of this foolishness,” he said. “Kingaree is a very bad man but he had nothing to do with that fire.”
Tyler was not about to give up so easily. “How do you know?”
“I know Kingaree did not set the blaze,” said Mr. Walkwell, “because I saw the tracks of the one who did.”
Beside her, Colin’s eyes remained closed, but Lucinda thought the tall boy had become very still, as though he was now awake and listening.
“You saw footprints?” Tyler asked quietly.
“I said ‘tracks’,” Mr. Walkwell told him. “Clawed tracks, made by Alamu, the male dragon. And the ashes of the place stank of dragon-flame… ”
“But… but… I’ve never heard anybody say that before!” Tyler sounded positively outraged by this new information. “ Alamu burned it down? Why didn’t anyone tell us?”
“Because I did not speak about it until now, child. To protect Gideon.”
Lucinda could hear her brother struggling to keep his temper. “Sorry, but I don’t understand… ”
“As long as he thought Kingaree had stolen the Continuascope, Gideon could believe he might recover it.” Mr. Walkwell tugged the reins and Culpepper turned into the narrow road that led to the Carrillos’ farm. “But if Gideon knew the dragon had burned the place down and his Continuascope was almost certainly destroyed and forever lost… well, I feared he would despair and give up hope completely-so I kept it a secret. Losing Grace had already been a crippling blow to him.”
That was all he would say, but it was enough to make Tyler shut up for the rest of the trip. Lucinda didn’t mind at all.
By the time the wagon reached the Cresta Sol Dairy Farm gate no one had spoken for a while. The white iron and painted cartoon sun looked so bright against the grumpy gray sky that Lucinda felt herself cheering up. All these old secrets and sad stories-but surely things would get better! Gideon would come back, she had to believe that. And today, at least, there would be food, friends… and fireworks!
They clopped down the long gravel driveway and into the huge dirt front yard. Carmen was already visible, standing in the shade of the porch shading her eyes with her hand, watching for their arrival. She waved, then the door next to her burst open and out came Steve and Alma, the youngest child, who turned back toward the house. “Mom! Dad!” shouted Alma. “Look who’s here!”
Hector and Silvia Carrillo came out too, Silvia wiping her hands on her apron. Ragnar couldn’t wave because his arms were full with the two cases of beer that were his contribution to the feast, but he bellowed a greeting.
