Chapter 1 #4
Back at the cottage, Katherine attended to her daily chores.
The cats were growing in their winter coats now as the season turned, and she tossed the tumbleweeds of their shed fluff outside, delighting in the thought of all the small creatures who would use that spent fur to line their winter nests.
Her chores complete, and her home as clean and tidy as ever, Katherine began to get ready for her evening out with Mrs. Chrysler.
As much as she traditionally avoided town, Katherine found she was looking forward to the outing with her friend…
and learning more, if she could, about local goings-on.
Oh, are we going somewhere? Mr. Scruffles said, pushing his way into her room.
Tilly shoved past him, shaking off Mittens and Buttons, who had clasped onto her legs and insisted on being taken for a drag across the floor.
They zipped back up to the ceiling. Tilly regarded the matching lavender blouse and skirt laid out on the bed.
I always knew I was her favorite color. Must be a party, she said idly.
Or a date! Mr. Scruffles said. She’s picked out the swishy one with the gold trim. Hasn’t worn that in ages. Still, it could use a bit more decoration. He pounced on the skirt and began to roll all over it.
Katherine returned from the privy and caught him shedding all over her ensemble. “Mr. Scruffles, stop that.” She shooed him off.
It would be nice if she had a date, sighed Ember, whom Katherine was now employing to warm an iron on the vanity. The dragon-cat wiggled her toes dreamily as the iron heated in her paws.
“Thank you,” Katherine said, gripping the iron handle with an oven mitt. She brushed her skirt with one hand to scatter the cat fur, then steamed the garment flat on the ironing board she pulled out of the wall.
Mmm. She never had much luck with dates, did she? Mr. Scruffles said.
I don’t suppose it had anything to do with us always tagging along, said Tilly, her eye roll practically audible.
Mr. Scruffles either didn’t hear or chose not to. We’d better go with her. Keep an eye out, sort of thing, he said.
Katherine finished primping her outfit, put on her good shoes, fluffed her silver curls, and picked out a brooch—an amethyst compass rose that had always brought her luck. As she trundled out of the bedroom, swishing her skirt behind her, the trio of cats followed in her wake.
Stop Shape-Shifting When I’m Talking To You lumbered down the hallway in the opposite direction, tromping along in an unhurried way. He had an appointment with his favorite napping spot under the bed, and it didn’t matter if he was late.
Mr. Scruffles addressed him as they passed. Keep an eye on the others, my good man. We’re going out.
The shape-shifter’s deep, slow voice made the floorboards tremble. All right.
Katherine gathered up her purse and threw on a warm shawl. Mr. Scruffles was already halfway through the door, which she had yet to open. “Eh, eh—stop that and get inside. I think it’s best you three stay here tonight.”
You heard her, Tilly called, watching the last of Mr. Scruffles pass through the door. She doesn’t want us coming.
Stay at home? Fat chance! came his reply, only slightly muffled by the wood.
Mistress, you may find you want us, Ember said. What if you get cold? She rubbed against Katherine’s leg and leapt lightly onto her shoulder.
“Oh, kitties,” Katherine laughed, nearly inaudible under their mews of protest. “You do make me feel like such a pushover. All right. Come along. As long as you behave.”
Hooray!
They all strolled down the winding wooded lane to Mrs. Chrysler’s yurt.
Three tails waved jauntily in the air, attached to animals who were very pleased with themselves, as cats and dragons often are.
Occasionally, Mr. Scruffles would get a little farther ahead and swat at a bug or dive for a mouse under the leaf litter, but he was mindful to never make a successful catch as long as his mistress was watching.
Katherine herself soaked in the earthy aroma of the forest and delighted in the cheery pink and purple blossoms of the roadside asters, some of the year’s last flowers to bloom, a final hurrah of floral color.
But before they were within sight of Mrs. Chrysler’s home, a funny smell began to waft over her, like burnt honey with a hint of charcoal. Katherine’s nose wrinkled, and she looked up to see wispy smoke billowing over the trees ahead.
“Oh dear, that would be Harvey,” she said. A loud belch rent the air. “Well, he must be feeling a bit better. The smoke doesn’t look so ashy today.”
The trees soon thinned to reveal a large pasture, lined at odd angles with pens and fences.
The orchard was laden with ripe apples, gardens and barns appeared in various states of harvest or disorder, and fields were dotted with grazing sheep.
A gray clapboard house, the one Imogene had grown up in, sat some distance away on the other side of the valley, occupied now by a very nice family who also ran quite a bit of the farm.
The brick yurt, on the other hand, had been built by Charlie Chrysler himself, and now it reared into view from behind a large, singed hedgerow close to the road.
Katherine chuckled as she rounded the hedge and trod the small lane that led to the front door.
The curved brick walls still looked quite attractive, she noted, swept here and there with a gentle wave of ivy that hid quite a few old scorch marks.
The building material had been strategic of course—to accommodate Harvey, Charlie’s pride and joy.
Katherine, like most people, had never encountered many dragons, and knowing that he was lucky to keep the company of one, Charlie had constructed his house accordingly.
Fortified against the large and particularly gassy dragon, the roof was corrugated sheet metal, the windows thickly paned.
Approaching Mrs. Chrysler’s doorstep, Katherine breathed in the sweet autumnal scents of the small herb garden, which hugged the yurt’s foundation behind the shelter of a raised stone border, safe from inadvertent flames.
She looked around the yurt at the smoldering, pea-green shape lying in the yard beside his spacious brick lean-to.
“Hello, Harvey,” she said kindly. He closed his heavy eyelids and puffed a few more dark clouds from his nostrils.
The dragon had always been a bit colicky, but after Charlie passed away, his sullen bouts of illness seemed to become more common.
Mrs. Chrysler had tried various tinctures, but so far to no avail. The cats trotted over to greet him.
How are you today, Harvey dear? Ember said.
Been better, he grumbled. Harvey’s dry, cracked scales reeked of balm.
Katherine left the animals to chat among themselves and knocked on the door.
Mrs. Chrysler quickly opened it, a vision in goldenrod and teal.
“Katty!” she said. “I’m so glad you actually came!
And you dressed up too! You look so lovely!
” She bustled her friend inside. “Here, I’m just finishing up. Still got to accessorize.”
Katherine stepped into the yurt, which was one very large, very circular room, partitioned into different functional spaces with decorative screens and sprawling houseplants.
Curved shelving lined the walls, interrupted only by assorted hutches and wardrobes.
Mrs. Chrysler was making her way over to one of them now.
“Just like the good old days,” she said.
“Oh, I haven’t taken this out in so long. It’s going to feel so good.”
As her friend shuffled over to a particularly ornate armoire, Katherine noticed Charlie Chrysler’s pipe and glasses, carefully dusted, still on the end table by his favorite armchair.
They rested on the book he’d last been reading, Both Sides Now and Other Poems by Jonee the Minstrel.
The bookmark was in a different place than she remembered, though, so Imogene must have picked it up again.
The chest of drawers that Katherine had known to be Pip’s was gone; he had taken it with him when he moved out this past summer.
In its place, collaged on the wall, was a sort of shrine: scraps of drawings, tickets to timbersports tournaments Pip had entered over the years, ribbons from livestock shows, and, in the most prominent position, a framed family portrait, Harvey and all, personally signed and dated in crayon by Pip, age seven and a half.
Katherine felt a pricking in her eyes as she returned her gaze to her friend’s back. That was the value of never having a family of your own, she thought. You didn’t have to miss them. She stitched her brow. Or pack up their memories if you moved.
By now, Mrs. Chrysler had reached the armoire. She threw open its doors with a flourish. Inside, a glittering gilded sword with a ruby-studded hilt lay reverently on a bed of velvet. Swords usually have names like Excalibur or Excelsior or Sting. This one was named Chauncey.
“You’re bringing your sword to the pub?” Katherine said.
“Of course! It’s customary to have one’s sword when going questing.”
“Imogene… I don’t imagine we’ll be questing tonight.”
“Nonsense. You never know where the evening may lead.”
Katherine rolled her eyes where Mrs. Chrysler couldn’t see her do it and resigned herself to the tide of her friend’s optimism. She walked over to the armoire, laying a hand on the plush fabric. “It still looks in great shape.”
“Oh, yes.” Mrs. Chrysler lifted the broadsword out of its display.
“Only,” she grunted, “I don’t remember it being so heavy.
” She grappled with it a bit, trying to heave the pointy bit higher than the handle and brandish it heroically, but the blade tip seemed determined to conference with the floor.
“Oh, well. It’s mostly for show anyway.” She slid the sword into its scabbard, laid it on the bed, lay down backward on top of it, and lashed the whole affair to herself with a complicated series of straps and buckles that fastened on her front.
“Dang arthritis,” she grumbled, struggling with the last one.
“All right.” She rose, less than gracefully, from the bed and turned to face a very bemused Katherine. “How do I look?”
“Like a kabob, Imogene.”
The hilt poked out above the knitting needles in Mrs. Chrysler’s hair, and the tip ruffled the back of her skirt. “I seem to have shrunk a bit.”
“It’s a fair bet the sword hasn’t grown.”
“Well, when’s the last time you wore yours? We should go get it, really. May need it.”
“Mine? I don’t have it anymore, Imogene. I sold it.”
“Sold it!”
“Years ago.”
“Years ago! For goodness’ sake, why?”
“I’d retired. I didn’t need it anymore.”
“Need it! You don’t get rid of a magic sword just because you don’t need it!
” Mrs. Chrysler was clearly beside herself.
She fumed various incredulities under her breath, and Katherine let her, without interrupting.
After all, she stood by her decision. Calming, Mrs. Chrysler spoke audibly, “I do hope you got a good price for it at least.”
“I did. And I paid handsomely for these”—Katherine lifted the hem of her skirt a fraction—“out of the proceeds.”
“Hmm.” Mrs. Chrysler inspected Katherine’s proffered footwear with a discerning eye. “Elvish orthopedics. High end. Worth it, was it?”
“Every bit.”
“Not very stylish, though.”
“Well.” Katherine let her skirt back down. She used to care about style. But as the years went by, she’d come to think less about fashion and more about comfort and stability. And elves really did make the best boots. “What are those?” she asked, indicating Mrs. Chrysler’s feet.
Mrs. Chrysler looked down at her own stubby, holey shoes. “They’re called ‘alligators,’ I think,” she said.
“Why?”
The old woman shrugged. “I don’t know. All right.
” She clapped her hands to mark the change in subject.
“Time’s a-wastin’. Let’s go see if we can’t get a couple of swarthy lads to buy us some drinks and tell us their tales of woe, which may or may not be happily concluded by some thieving. ” She winked conspiratorially.
“I’ve agreed to go, Imogene, but let’s focus on finding out what’s going on in town. I have no plans of going home with anyone.”
“You’ll have to beat them off with a stick, Katty!”
“And I’d like to be home by seven.”
“Ugh.”
“To feed the cats.”