Cold Cereal (The Cold Cereal Saga) (22 page)

“‘We’re high above where friends conspired to send him
after he retired,’”
said Scott, and he self-consciously scanned the sky for a hot-air balloon. “They can’t possibly be hiding in a tree, can they?”

“I didn’t want to be the first to say it.”

“This is a lot of trees.”

They instinctively headed for the center of the park. If someone were trying to hide, it would be there. The trees were half bare and littered with brittle leaves. Scott and Mick crunched along a fenced and winding path until, in silent agreement, they hopped the fence and crossed a mossy glen.

“We’re going to get deer ticks,” said Scott, just because nobody had said anything for thirty minutes.

After another thirty minutes they decided arbitrarily that they had reached the geographical center of the park and began to trace a scribbly spiral outward, all the while watching the boughs of the passing trees. After two hours Scott was ready to call it hopeless when he noticed Mick was whistling beside him.

“You’re in a good mood today.”

“One o’ us oughta be. Yeh feelin’ bad abou’ lying to your da?”

“It wasn’t a lie. I
am
going to Erno and Emily’s. If we can find … wherever it is they’re staying. Erno
did
invite us, with that riddle.”

“All right.”

After a respectful silence Mick started whistling again.

“Just don’t know why you’re whistling—we’re terrible at this.”

“We’re doin’ fine. Besides, it occurs to me today that I am a free elf. I’m outside in Pan’s hairy arms, gettin’ pleasantly lost in a park that just happens to be named for one of the great elfin places. A park that hides both the children an’ the rabbit-man we’re hunting.”

“We don’t know that—”

“’Tis good luck, it is. It’s things comin’ together. It’s significant.”

“Maybe.”

“No maybe. We’re going to turn a corner soon an’ find our pooka. We’re going to look up, an’ there’ll be our tree. Like that one.”

Scott looked up because Mick was looking up, but he didn’t see anything.

“Which one?”

“That one there, with all the dead wood like a great bloody nest.”

It was some distance off: a huge oak with thinning leaves. But it was densely packed with loose branches, and Scott had to admit it would make a good (if dangerous) place to hide. He squinted at it for a few moments before he noticed that Mick had walked on ahead, and he hustled to catch up.

“Y’know,” said Mick, “that tree reminds me of a story.”

“Oh good.”

“This was back in the old days. ’Twas coming on summer, an’ a little finch was late to lay her eggs, so she flitted from tree to tree, askin’ permission to build her nest. Each time she stopped she waited for the tree to think it through (which took its time—a tree has heavy thoughts, an’ no way to deliver them but on the backs o’ termites and ants), an’ each time the answer was no.”

“Uh-huh.”

“An’ eventually she happened upon a crater, a great bowl in a black mountain where nothing grew. This crater was filled with the bones o’ dead trees: a great tangle o’ kindling an’ branches an’ boughs an’ trunks. Some hard as iron, some made dark an’ soft by fire. So this lady finch

says to herself, ‘It may be no tree, but sure an’ it’s a safe place to make my nest.’ An’ back and forth she goes with
straw an’ twigs, an’ soon there’s a tiny wee egg, an egg in a snug little nest, a nest restin’ in the center o’ that vast woodpile, the pile inside the crater at the heart o’ the black mountain where nothing grew.”

“We’re here,” said Scott. He stopped at the base of the tree and peered up into the canopy.

“Not finished. So the finch mother looks down an’ laments, ‘Just one lonesome egg, an’ now a storm moves in.’ Ev’ry chaffinch has a rain song—”

“Every what?”

“Chaffinch. ’S a kind of finch. So. Every chaffinch has a rain song, an’ she sings hers then while the whole crater goes gloomy with wind an’ shadow, an’ then that shadow gets thicker, yet smaller, an’ the finch looks up to see not a cloud at all but the monstrous body of the Great Dragon Saxbriton comin’ in for a landing.”

Scott circled the trunk, searching for a way to investigate. But the lowest braches, barely nubs, were ten feet off the ground. Erno and Emily couldn’t climb this.

“The poor mother bird tears out o’ there; and Saxbriton, unwitting, settles down in her colossal nest atop the solitary egg o’ the finch.

“In the coming days the crater is visited by one o’ the Good Folk, a charmin’ elf-man of Ireland.”

“Was it you?” asked Scott.

“What? No.”

“Oh. It seemed like it was going to be one of those kinds of stories.”

“It isn’t,” said Mick, and he sat down on a mossy stone to gaze up at the treetop. “The old elf weens that he’s discovered the lair o’ the Great Dragon Saxbriton, whose terrible furnace of a belly makes the air hazy with heat an’ sulfur an’ magic. Then the dragon rises, an’ takes flight, an’ the elf sees she’s left behind a tiny egg in the center of her nest.

“It’s difficult, but he scrambles over the twigs an’ timber, and soon he’s lookin’ down at the egg o’ the largest dragon in all the isles. It’s smaller than he would have expected, but greenish an’ speckled with purple an’ rose. Some say the Fair Folk have no hearts, but somethin’ thumped hard in his chest as the elf snatched the dragon’s egg an’ raced down the side o’ the mountain.

“He came first upon Finn, a giant of some renown. The elf showed Finn his prize and said, ‘The dragon’s egg!’ but Finn was dubious. ‘’Tis awful small,’ said the giant in his rumblin’ thunderous voice. ‘Great things come from small packages,’ groused the elf, an’ he went on his way.

“Next he happened upon Oberon himself, consort to Queen Titania an’ commander o’ the troopin’ fairies. ‘Look here,’ the elf told his king. ‘The egg of Saxbriton!’ But Oberon sneered an’ tilted his horn’d head. ‘’Tis plain for a dragon’s egg,’ said His Majesty, but the old elf huffed. ‘’Tis its insides what counts.’ And he took the dragon’s egg to his own mound, an’ kept it warm under the earth, an’ sang it an original song abou’ loyalty to the one who hatched you an’ the smiting of his enemies.”

Scott called “Hello!” to the sky. The day was overcast and silvery, as though the sun itself had been pulled cobwebthin and spread like gauze over the earth. Now that they
weren’t walking anymore he was getting cold.

“When the egg twitched an’ made to hatch, the old elf gathered Oberon an’ Finn and all the fairies great an’ small to watch an’ share in his triumph. An’ hatch the egg did, its fuzzy tenant laid bare. All was quiet; all were still. ‘Behold!’ bellowed the old elf. ‘The son o’ the Great Dragon Saxbriton, BORN MAGICALLY IN THE FORM OF A FINCH!’”

“Heh,” said Scott. Mick nodded.

“But the elf knew it was a lie. The other fairies knew it too, an’ their laughter still rang in the elf’s ears long after they’d gone,” said Mick, and he looked down at his hands.

“He fed an’ cared for that baby bird, whom he named Finchbriton, but his heart (if he had a heart) was not in it. So when Finchbriton was fledged, the elf took him from the mound an’ placed him up in a birch tree an’ left him. But the bird followed him home. Everywhere he went
Finchbriton followed, to the fairies’ amusement an’ the old elf’s consternation.”

Scott eventually elected to climb a smaller tree nearby just to get on higher ground. “Keep going,” he said when Mick seemed to pause. “I can hear you.”

“One day the elf had his fill o’ the taunts an’ the laughter, an’ he walked Finchbriton into Morrígan’s Wood. You won’t find its like today. They said it had grown up around the site of an ancient battle, one tree for each fallen soul, an’ crows still picked at the bark an’ the cork of these trees an’ dark sap flowed from the knotholes. The elf took Finchbriton into this forest in a wooden cage and left ’im.

“But as he returned home, his heart (if he had a heart) turned inside him, an’ he ran back for the cage, callin’ ‘Finchbriton! Finchbriton, where are yeh?’ An’ from time to time he thought he heard the trill o’ his little bird, but
he could not find him, an’ by nightfall both elf an’ bird were lost.

“There were wolves in that Ireland. An’ the wolves of Morrígan’s Wood were large an’ silent as death. The old elf did not even know he was hunted ’til they were upon him, a whole pack o’ them. The leader, a great brute, showed his startlin’ teeth an’ padded forward on long legs to take the old elf’s throat. But then the night was brilliant as day. Finchbriton was there, breathin’ blue fire, an’ in a trice the wolves were singed an’ whimpering all the way back to their den.