The Story of Owen (18 page)

Now, Georgios of Lod was a scholar and a soldier, but he was no dragon slayer. The Roman Legions, under the orders of Emperor Diocletian himself, were sworn to give aid to dragon slayers, but never to join their ranks. Yet there before Georgios was the broken lance of the fallen dragon slayer and the hysterical girl who was about to become the dragon's next victim.

Georgios of Lod took up the lance and put heels to his horse's flank. He intercepted the dragon as it streaked toward the magistrate's daughter, and by some skill or the intervention of God (public opinion remains split between the two), he struck the broken end into the dragon, cutting through both its hearts, and it fell dead on the grass in front of the city gate.

In the city, there was much rejoicing. The lake would remain foul for many years, but the spring was now accessible and, with time, would clear the lake of the dragon's poison. The maidens of Silene had been spared, and the herds could be replenished. The magistrate hastened to write to Rome with thanks for sending the great dragon slayer, Georgios of Lod, to save them in their time of need.

Naturally, that's where the whole thing unraveled. There were those orders from Diocletian to consider, and when Georgios refused to make a public apology, he was taken to
Nicodemia and eventually beheaded for being a dragon slayer without the appropriate pedigree. When Lottie Thorskard started appearing on the news with St. George's iconography stylized on her shield in addition to her own family crest, no one guessed that she too would soon be at odds with the media and the status quo.

In any case, it's understandable that it was a few hundred years before anyone started thinking that Georgios was the type of man to emulate or admire, and by then, of course, the facts were difficult to assemble. He was eventually canonized, and several wildly conflicting accounts of his life, career, and death became the bread and butter of wandering bards throughout medieval Europe. The story was recounted at least once a year on St. George's Day if you went to the right kind of church, and even if you didn't, everyone in Trondheim knew him as the high school mascot.

Most of the later stories, though, focused on the dragon slaying part of the legend and not the resulting decapitation. The idea was promoted that St. George had done what was right, knowing the price he would pay. That he had made the leap from non-dragon slayer to dragon slayer without any thought for his own wellbeing. This was the kind of thing I had to live up to, the reason Lottie Thorskard was trying to so hard to make me step out of my comfort zone, so I think it is completely understandable that when Owen passed me the following note on Monday morning in English, I punched him in the shoulder.

My part was easy / I slayed it. You need a word / That rhymes with hubcap.

I didn't perform the song I wrote about Owen's first public dragon slaying at our school Christmas assembly. Well, not on my own, anyway. I'd written it by then, along with a shorter piece about the encounter at the house. I usually kept my own music to myself, but now that I was Owen's bard (in training), this was no longer an option. Luckily, my music teacher asked me to arrange the song for the band instead. Since I could fade into the back row and everyone's focus was on Owen anyway, I didn't feel as nervous as I thought I would. I did feel a bit like I'd thrown Owen under a bus, though. We did have to attend Trondheim Secondary for another year and a half, and neither of us really wanted to spend all that time living down embarrassing musical numbers.

The orchestration was accompanied by some of the smart phone videos that had been shot, cut with footage of Owen's training, as filmed by the local news. There were no lyrics, so technically it was not very bardly, but no one cared. Lottie,
Hannah and Aodhan couldn't attend. Aodhan was out on patrol, like always, and Lottie and Hannah were back in Toronto. They'd been driving back and forth so often that they'd barely been home long enough to switch to their snow tires.

The arrangement was theatrical and heroic, and the band was more or less competent at navigating the various parts. There was something not exactly right about the song itself. At the time, I assumed that it was the red streamers lining the stage and the Santa hats worn by the trombone section. It was hard to take the dragon's line seriously when fluffy white tassels were featured so prominently. I was the only person who noticed, and in the end I decided it wasn't too bad a first attempt. Everyone else thought it was perfect, and when the assembly was done, Owen practically had to fight his way out of the adoring crowds. No one paid any attention to me, except for the girl who held the back door of the gym open so I could maneuver the bari, my music folder, and my music stand through it.

“I liked the flute part,” she said, smiling as I passed her.

“Any time,” I said, returning her smile as I completed the awkward move that got me clear of the gym. “And thanks for holding the door.”

“No problem,” she said and fell into step beside me. “Thanks for not getting my dad arrested.”

The notes fell into place.

“You're Emily Carmichael,” I said. She seemed unthreatening.

“Yes,” she said. “I've been meaning to introduce myself, but I was worried Dad might have made it a bit awkward. Sometimes he doesn't think things through.”

“He seems to have thought about the hatching grounds a lot,” I said. I didn't have a free hand for the rail on the side of the stairs, so I took the steps slowly.

“He has,” Emily said. “I meant that he doesn't always think about practical things.”

“What does he do when he's not looking up theories on the Internet?” I asked.

“He owns the used book store off the Hub,” Emily said.

Saltrock didn't have a main street like a normal town would. Instead, their downtown was a large traffic circle that went around the town hall and courthouse. Calling it the Hub always gave the idea that it was an active sort of place, but the truth was that, unless it was beach season, the Hub was just as dead as the main street of Trondheim.

“I don't think I've ever been in,” I said. Even though Trondheim and Saltrock were only fifteen minutes apart, most people in Trondheim only went there to go to the Walmart or to hit the beach.

“You should come by sometime,” Emily said. “I can't promise he won't say something off the wall, but I got him an espresso machine for Christmas and he's already opened it because we both have a problem with leaving things wrapped, so at least the coffee will be good.”

Emily opened the door to the music room and took my music stand to put it with the others. I unclipped the bari with some relief and started putting it back in its case. It was nearly lunchtime. We still had to get through the second half of the day before Christmas Break was upon us. The other band members in the room were excited, chattering loudly about the coming holiday, but I mostly ignored them as I cleaned up.

We usually went on vacation over Christmas, since it was the last time my father had any free moments until May, but this year we were staying at home. One of the new doctors in town had young children, and Mum had agreed to work his Christmas shifts for him at the hospital so he could have the time at home. I didn't mind. I was old enough now that the idea of spending two weeks mini-golfing with my dad in North Carolina no longer appealed.

Owen wasn't going anywhere either. The cold weather had brought about an increased number of attacks as people turned up the heat, lit wood fires to warm their houses, and otherwise bundled up against the snow. Owen hadn't had any more solo fights since the first one, but he was on high alert.

I fastened the bari case and wrinkled my nose in distaste. Mr. Huffman, ever eager to politicize our education, had given us all essays on the Oil Watch to write over the break. He had suggested very strongly that we look into sugar production, and it didn't take me long to figure out why. In Canada, the States, and Europe, dragon slayers were hired by wealthy corporations. The Oil Watch had expanded and now monitored forestry projects and large mines in addition to oil fields around the world. They claimed they did the best they could to allocate their “resources,” but there was a decided gap when it came to protecting sugar production in developing countries.

I sat back on my heels and considered my options for the afternoon. I was pretty sure that nothing was going to happen in music, and in math we were probably going to do some sort of holiday-related pointlessness. I wasn't by nature truant, but sometimes it was worth it to consider one's options. I waved Emily over, and we headed for the door together. Owen had
somehow managed to get free of the adoring crowd and was waiting for me there. He looked surprised that I had company, but I had already decided that, in addition to Emily being useful, she also had the potential to be kind of fun.

“Owen Thorskard, Emily Carmichael,” I said, waving my hand back and forth between them.

“Please tell me we're not eating in the cafeteria,” Owen said, and I decided that meant he had accepted Emily too.

“You're not very good at being famous,” Emily observed.

“Don't remind him,” I said. “Let's skip school this afternoon.”

Owen looked at me like he suspected I'd been replaced by an alien of some kind. Emily beamed.

“I'm serious,” I said. “What are we going to learn this afternoon that we can't learn at a bookstore owned by a conspiracy theorist with a brand new espresso machine? No offense, Emily.”

“None taken,” she said. “That's the life we chose.”

I'd never skipped school before, and I wasn't entirely sure where the impulse was coming from. I was just, quite suddenly, very opposed to spending the afternoon doing anything that required me to sit still. I had never felt like this after a concert before, but I'd also never played a piece I wrote in front of such a crowd. I was restless and more than a little bit antsy. Espresso and wild theories were probably exactly what I needed.

Owen didn't need further convincing, and our ad hoc trio was headed for the parking lot in short order.

As we passed, Sadie slammed her locker shut. The noise drew my attention away from Owen, and when I locked eyes with her, she looked angry with me for the first time. I tried to
think if I'd done anything in the last few days that would have set her off, but couldn't think of anything.

“Come on. Before Siobhan changes her mind,” Owen said, and pushed through the door.

Neither he nor Emily saw Sadie. I thought I should say something, though, so as we walked past her, I reached out and tapped her arm.

“Merry Christmas,” I managed. Not my best work.

“You too,” Sadie replied. Her tone was completely flat. “See you in January.”

I had too many thoughts. I had no idea what was up with Sadie, and I really wanted to get out of the school. I hovered for a moment in the door, undecided, until Owen turned around, still oblivious.

“You lost?” he asked.

I shook myself, and Sadie turned away toward the cafeteria.

“For that,” I said, even though I didn't feel like joking, “Emily gets the front seat.”

Owen does not do well in the backseat of the car. He doesn't get carsick or vertigo or anything like that. It's like he's not getting places fast enough, so he spends the whole ride leaning forward between the driver and passenger's seats, like it would help if he got out and pushed. When I got around to asking him about it, he made up some excuse about sight lines and vantage points, but really I think he just can't deal with not being on the front line of something, even something as basic as a car ride. It's probably a good quality in a dragon slayer. I've never asked what happens when he, Aodhan, and Lottie are all in the car together. Hannah probably locks them in the trunk.

It didn't bother Emily in the slightest, even though he was hovering over her to avoid getting hit in the face by my shoulder when I shifted gears. She just turned in her seat, leaning back against the seatbelt clip so she could look straight at both of us. I was looking at the road, on account of all the black ice that had formed thanks to the recent cold snap, so I wasn't concerned by
her gaze, but as soon as I put the car in cruise, Owen moved closer to me.

“So, what exactly are we going to do?” Owen asked her. He wasn't rude about it, just uncharacteristically direct. “I mean, once we get to the bookstore and assuming Mr. Carmichael doesn't yell at us and make us go back to school.”

“There's no way my dad is letting you out of his store without showing you everything he has ever collected about dragon slayers,” Emily said. “I'll understand if you want to back out, but at the same time, we might learn something.”

“And here I thought the whole point of skipping school was to not learn anything,” Owen said.

“Not learn anything we don't want to,” I specified.

“Exactly,” Emily said. “Except with better coffee.”

“Well, I certainly have no problem missing one math class,” Owen said.

Mrs. Postma had given us back our last round of algebra tests, and Owen's marks had been much better, but his general feelings on the subject were still predictably un-merry.

“Good,” said Emily, completely unaware of Owen's scholastic shortcomings. “Then you and my father should get on just swimmingly.”

Emily smiled, the same smile as her father, but where I saw the skittering flute counterpoint in his expression, her face was much more subtle, the humor less straightforward and more personal. She might play the flute in concert band, but out from behind the music stand, she looked quite different. There was depth and breadth to Emily Carmichael, and enough warmth to carry the weight of the world without being crushed by it. She was a tuba to the core.

“Tell me everything about hatching grounds,” Emily said, leaning back in her seat, though she still faced a bit sideways.