It was a nest. A very big nest.
I found it! he thought. I was right! I did it all by myself!
Tyler began to make his way down the slope, leaning so far backward to keep his balance that half the time he just gave up and slid down on his butt. Alamu, whether from brains or instinct, had built his nest on far the side of the hill from the farmhouse, out of sight, with nothing but the trail of bottle caps on top to lead whoever it was supposed to impress… Meseret, pretty obviously
… to where the real thing was hidden just below the crest.
As he got near the thicket Tyler realized he was making a lot of noise and settled into a crouch. There hadn’t been any sign of Alamu but he couldn’t see the whole nest because of the trees and the angle of the hill and he certainly didn’t want to encounter an angry dragon on this naked hillside…
The wind changed direction, and as the animal stench of the dragon’s nest struck him he realized he had been upwind of it all this time: if Alamu had been home he would have smelled Tyler a long time ago. He could almost hear Lucinda asking him whether he wanted to get eaten.
The closer he got the stranger and more impressive the nest appeared, a huge shape wedged between the madrone trunks like a bushy flower head. It might be hidden from the farmhouse but Alamu had still built it right out in the open, with all the arrogance of his position at the top of the food chain, and then filled it with his scavenged treasures-hub caps, bicycle wheels, a crutch, wire fencing, aluminum garden furniture, all things that had glittered once, though many were rusted now. Tyler wondered how long it had taken the dragon to collect so much junk with no way to carry it but claws and jaws. The variety was amazing-there was even an artificial Christmas tree like a toilet brush made of tinsel. If Alamu had indeed stolen the Continuascope, then this had to be the place to find it.
He looked around for the dragon once more, then climbed carefully down into the nest, which swayed in a very alarming way: Tyler had to grab onto a huge tangle of baling wire to keep himself upright. Several seconds passed before he was sure that the whole thing wouldn’t slide down from between the trees and take him tobogganing down the hill in a pile of jagged, rusty metal. How did it support the dragon, which must weigh something like a thousand pounds?
Tyler eased forward like a man crossing a frozen but thawing river, stopping at each unusual sound or movement beneath him, and as he moved he sifted cautiously through the dragon’s hoard, bits of pipe, chrome from cars, the rusted remains of a giant ceiling fan as big as the propeller of an ocean liner. Tyler couldn’t even imagine where Alamu had found that.
Not only was he becoming more and more desperate to find the Continuascope before the light failed, the bottom of the nest had proved itself little more than a loose weave of madrone branches, so he kept his head down as he moved.
“Owww! Rotten lizard and his stupid trash!”
The sudden sound of a human voice was so startling that Tyler almost lost his grip and tumbled through the bottom of the nest. Colin Needle’s pale face appeared above him, sucking on a bloody finger. When the older boy saw Tyler a flurry of emotions passed over his face-surprise, a little fear, but most of all, triumph.
“You! You creep!” Tyler shouted up at him. “You followed me!”
“Really? You figured that out, did you, Jenkins?” Colin rubbed his finger on the sleeve of his shirt and left a bloody smear. “So what? I would have found it myself if my mother hadn’t made me do all those stupid chores.”
Tyler began to clamber across the mat of branches and junk, heading straight toward the older boy. “Yeah? Well she’ll have a chore of her own-putting your face back on after I beat if off you!”
Colin’s eyes widened. “Stop! Right now!”
“Why?” said Tyler. “You going to stop me?”
Colin looked more terrified than dangerous. “Just… stop, Jenkins. I’m serious. Behind you… ”
“Oh, nice one…!” Tyler began, then a huge shadow fell across him and he whirled to see Alamu sweeping down from the hilltop, wings spread. Tyler tried to throw himself forward to where Colin crouched at the edge of the nest but fell short. He could hear Alamu’s deep rumble of fury as the gliding dragon darted its long head at him and just missed by inches, then the orange and bronze monster swept past, wheeled in the air, and hurtled back toward him again, little pennants of fire trailing from its open mouth. Tyler tried to scramble out toward Colin Needle, but before he could reach the edge of the nest the part of the nest beneath his feet suddenly shuddered and then collapsed and Tyler tumbled into a chaos of broken branches and rusting metal.
Chapter 18
With Gideon downstairs in the Snake Parlor all of the house staff had been tiptoeing in and out to have a look at him, thrilled to have the master of the farm home again, but when Lucinda saw him it shook her badly. Her great-uncle was sitting up and eating broth from a spoon, but he didn’t quite look right, although she wasn’t certain exactly why. It was obviously Gideon, and he was still able to talk-she heard him grumbling a warning at Pema when the nervous young woman almost spilled some water on him-but his eyes were sunken and bloodshot, and he looked at almost everyone who came close as if he suspected them of trying to harm him. Yes, she realized, that was it-Gideon Goldring looked like one of his own less pleasant animals, peering out of its cage at its captors.
Mrs. Needle seemed to think everything was as it should be, though, and it was true that he didn’t make those faces at her: instead, Gideon looked up at her like a trusting child. She even made encouraging little noises as he slurped his broth or drank water, which made Lucinda feel sick to her stomach. She wondered whether Gideon had suffered some kind of stroke or something really bad, but no one was telling them.
Well, she thought, if they’re trying to hide it from us, maybe they shouldn’t move his bedroom downstairs where we all have to see him…
“Where are you going?” Mrs. Needle asked as Lucinda sidled toward the door. “I might need you to run an errand for me.”
The last thing Lucinda wanted to do was spend all day here in this room, under the cold, watchful eyes of Patience Needle. “Oh, I’ll be back really quick,” she said. “I just wanted to… to pick some flowers in the garden. To brighten the room up.”
“The garden,” said Gideon, nodding, his eyes not quite focused on anything. “We lived in the garden once.”
“Huh?” Lucinda took a step back. “What did you say, Uncle Gideon?”
“The garden.” Her great-uncle spoke as though it were an ordinary conversation, but what he said next showed that it wasn’t. “We had to leave. Angel… an angel chased us out. With a flaming sword. You saw him, didn’t you? Or was that the serpent…?”
“Hush, Gideon, you’re confused,” Mrs. Needle said, which seemed a bit of an understatement. “Just finish your broth.”
Suddenly the old man seemed to see Lucinda for the first time. He leaned forward, fingers outstretched as though he might grab at her, but she was well out of his reach. “But listen… ” He looked around as though worried about eavesdroppers, then turned his red, staring eyes to Lucinda once more. “ We can go back. Yes! We can sneak past the angel and get back into that lovely garden again… ”
Lucinda could not bear to listen to any more of Gideon’s crazy ramblings. She turned and all but ran for the door.
I know he wasn’t talking about this place, not this garden, Lucinda thought as she made her way down the rows, but this part of the property still creeps me out sometimes.
The huge garden spread down from the slightly higher spot where the house stood, or at least where the main and largest part of the house stood, and stretched across what would have been at least a city block back home, most of it overgrown and neglected. Only Mrs. Needle’s herb garden and Sarah’s vegetable garden, which covered quite a bit of space at the end nearest the kitchen, looked as though they were regularly tended. The rest of the sprawling garden, with its rioting plants, overgrown paths, vine-choked arbors, and corroded greenhouse
