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23
When we emerge from the empty dragon’s cave, I hear yelling from the courtyard.
“Just make sure it is covered,” Tolliver directs from somewhere far off.
“Got it,” Angus replies in a booming voice.
“What’s going on?” Hollis looks around.
I wonder the same thing as I carry her across the courtyard.
“Don’t put her in there, Ledger,” Tolliver commands from several stories up.
The sky is darkening because of evening and the advancing cloud of smoke and ash. Tolliver leans over the ledge, blonde hair hanging in his face. I realize it has grown long, nearly shoulder length. Without mother to cut it, his hair is shaggy and out of control. I wait for him to tell me where to go, because I’m too tired to use words.
“Bring her up here.”
My head pounds. “I already carried her up two flights of stairs. I don’t think I can do anymore,” I groan.
He shrugs. “We will be on top of that volcano in a matter of hours, not days,” he says and disappears from view.
“Angus,” I call toward the dining hall. I nearly bump into him with Hollis in my arms. “Can you help me?”
“Why are you carrying her like a wee baby?” Angus pushes his orange curls behind his ears. “Set her on her feet and she can ride on my back.”
I lean down placing her gently on her feet.
“Why are you guys talking about me like I’m just a sack of grain?” Hollis puts her hands on her hips, hanging her leg limply.
Angus laughs and kneels. Hollis grabs his shoulders and climbs on. He tells me to go in the kitchen and cover all the sacks of grain, making sure the open one is closed.
Once I complete my task, I ascend the castle steps. Unsure which floor they are on, I must listen for them before moving on to the next floor. I keep going up and up.
By level ten I’m winded. “Where are you?” I finally yell up the tower.
The wind tosses my hair around and sends a voice down with it. “Thirteen.”
My head whirls and I brace myself on the stone wall. Alouette lived on thirteen. I take a deep breath as I walk past Alouette’s home as if her ghost stares at me from the doorway. The evening is graying with twilight. Following the sound of Tolliver’s voice, I find them five rooms down and enter the living quarters they’ve occupied. A fire in the hearth casts orange light around the room, along with several candles on the table and a sconce beside the door. Hollis is on the padded bench against the wall with her leg up. Kava sits at the table. Angus is across from her using a fat wooden ladle to eat his mush, and Tolliver stands over them talking loudly about shutters.
“What would you like me to do?” I take a seat at the table.
“Pick a bedroom on the western side facing away from the volcano and close the shutters. Take one of those pails of water and make sure you cover it. It looks as if we will go right through that cloud of smoke.” Tolliver places a hand on my shoulder and says, “This may be a regular thing for Ellery.”
I nod, feeling calmer with his hand on my shoulder. My heart slows, and I sigh. Thirteen flights are quite a hike. I’ve seen Tolliver many mornings run the stairs, as though he is training for the Clash. Maybe he’s just bored. I wonder how many flights of stairs he runs each day.
Kava slides me a bowl of mush. I thank her and eat heaping spoonfuls. Tolliver helps Kava close up the bag of grain. Their hands brush and she glances at him, blushing.
“Thanks, Kava.” Angus wipes his mouth. He tromps to the door, grabbing a pail of water. He walks out toward Alouette’s home. I jolt upright and mimic Angus’s actions in fast motion.
“Thanks, Kava.” I wipe my mouth, grab my pail and dash out the door.
Angus hesitates in front of Alouette’s door.
“I want that one,” I blurt.
With a tired unconcerned look, Angus says, “I walked all the way over here, this one’s mine.”
“Please, Angus?” I am fully ready to fall to my knees and beg.
Angus curses under his breath at the inconvenience. “What ya gonna give me?”
“I’ll—”
“You’ll fetch me another pail of water when I need it. That’s what you’ll do.” Angus grunts and heads to the next door.
Relief trickles down my back with a bead of sweat. I push the door shut behind me and shuffle my way to the table. The sun is already down on this short winter day. I light a chamber stick and carry it with me while I set my pail near the hearth. Pulling a small pillow off the bench, I lay it on the pail.
I head to the bedroom, to the tiny metal windmill on the nightstand. I lift it and blow into it. The small blades swirl round and round. I think of Alouette. Her wings. Her eyes. I chew my lip in worry about what might have happened to her. Is she dead or alive? A voice interrupts my thoughts.
“Why are you all the way down here?” Hollis stands in the doorway.
I gape at her, annoyed that she has snuck up on me twice in the same home.
She hobbles down the hall toward me gripping the wall, favoring her left leg. “Can I stay with you?” She reaches the bedroom door and waits for my reply.
“I don’t believe that would be appropriate,” I state, remembering the Balfour Code of Conduct and using it as an excuse to say no.
Hollis snorts and scrunches her eyebrows. “I don’t believe it would be appropriate to board an island circling our world. I don’t believe it would be appropriate to feed a dragon.” Laughing and limping to the four-poster bed, she sits and sinks into the fluffy mattress of feathers. “Oh, wow, this bed is soft.”
My gut is in tangles. I want time with my own thoughts. I want Alouette’s rooms to myself. But I don’t want to create an argument. So I avoid it completely, lighting the bedside lampstand.
In truth, I don’t want to endure this night alone. What if the ash cloud is so thick we all choke to death? Maybe we should all be in the same room, so we are safe and looked after. I decide to let Hollis stay, though she didn’t exactly give me much choice. I open the trunk and pull out several blankets.
“What are you doing?” She watches my every move.
“I’m making myself a bed.”
She scowls at me and I dramatically scowl back.
“You can lie on this bed with me, Ledger, I don’t have fleas.” She laughs. “Anymore.”
It irritates me that she is so casual. I grit my teeth and refuse to laugh. Regardless, I finish piling blankets for a sleeping mat. Ignoring her pout, I head to the window. I scan for the volcano, knowing full well it is in the opposite direction. I pull the shutters closed.
“Is there a thorn in your paw, scary bear?” Hollis says with that irritating high-pitched giggle.
I lie on my makeshift bed feeling heavy and unreachable. “I’m a little worried we may choke to death,” I say, hoping to shove her out of her chipper mood and drag her down with me.
She fake-giggles again and my skin crawls with irritation. “It’ll be fine,” she mutters. “Kava said we’ll probably be just fine,” her voice trails off.
Her eyes sadden as she looks away. I feel bad for scaring her. I frown at my rudeness and consider how I can make up for it. I look around the room and notice something under the bed. I reach underneath and pull out a small pillow. There is an embroidered bird on the front. I imagine it is Alouette’s pillow and place it on my mat.
Hollis watches my every move. Her blue eyes are glassy with tears so I place my forearms on the mattress and my chin on my hands. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“It’s not just that,” she sighs. “It’s everything. Tristeh is gone. You’re here, but still gone. Tolliver hates me and there is a volcano about to roast us alive.”
“What do you mean I’m still gone?”
She looks down at her hands, wringing the sheets in her tiny fingers.
“You’re not the same Ledger on Ellery as the Ledger I knew in Balfour.”
I understand what she means. I don’t really know who I am up here either. I feel lost.
“You’re not carefree anymore. You’re distracted and sad,” she says. “And a little boring.”
I jerk and meet her eyes. She cracks a smile. I sit back on my feathery mattress and gape at her, offended by the assessment of me.
I lie back on my mat resting my head on Alouette’s pillow. I stare at the patterns of light and dark the candles create around the room.
“I can’t help that you’re bored, Hollis.”
“No, Ledger, you are boring,” she says again. “You rarely tell me jokes anymore. You don’t play games. And,” she puts a finger in the air, “You don’t sing about your food anymore.”
We laugh together and our voices echo in the shadowy room. The last time I sang about my food, my mother had packed me a lunch to eat with the men as we helped fix the roof on Angus’s cottage. Uncle Roan was furious that it caved in before we had a chance to fix the rotting support beam. So we had to replace most of it. Hollis had arrived with her father’s meal and stayed to eat with us.
“Oh little bread,” Hollis began to sing from atop Alouette’s bed. “Crunchy on the outside, chewy on the inside. Oh little bread.”
My face grows hot with embarrassment as she sings my made-up song. “Okay, Hollis, I understand,” I say, trying to stop her.
“Oh little cheese.”
A laugh sneaks out of the deep parts of me. Hollis continues singing and laughing at the same time.
“Okay, stop it,” I say with a smile. “I get it. I’m boring.”
She yawns through another verse about berries. The last I hear from her is a long sigh. With eyes closed, her chest rises and falls at long intervals. Her mouth hangs open and I realize if the smoke does come in, she will inhale it. We all will.
Inching toward the chest at the end of the bed, I open it finding several sheets. I quietly drape it over the two posts on the headboard and down over Hollis. That way her head is beneath the sheet yet it isn’t smothering her. I drag another out, lay down and drape it over my whole body.
Sleep doesn’t come fast enough. I drift from wake to dream to wake again. I smell the smoke. If we aren’t over it by now, we should be close. I don’t remove the sheet, but drift back to sleep where I am hunting in the woods with my father. For some strange reason, he is wearing his full battle armor and we are quietly approaching our prey. His bow is poised, ready to shoot and right when Alouette comes into view, I jerk awake.
