Chapter 17 of The Half Life of Dragons

PREVIOUSLY IN THE HALF LIFE OF DRAGONS: It’s been seven years since Timmen Eldritch, lead singer of the mystical rock band Calliope, disappeared. To this day, most people believe he died. But there are enough conspiracy theories swirling online to keep his ardent cult members hopeful of “Timmens’ return .”

Eldritch and Calliope recorded their last album in an old farmhouse in Carding, Vermont so the town has become a reluctant mecca for Calliope culties, as they call themselves. They’ve already started to gather, and no one in Carding is happy about it. 

You can catch up on previous chapters of this novel in progress here.

---

“Ooh, Dex, I don’t know about this,” Allison said. Her whole body was tensed up in a “whoa!” position. “Can we go around the block again?”

Dex pulled to the side of the road in front of the Owen house. The door opened and Paula came out to expectantly and uncertainly stand on the steps. Allison spotted her father leaning toward the double window, willing her to come inside.

“You can do this, Al,” Dex said quietly as he turned off the engine. “Whether you know it or not, this is the reason you moved back to Vermont. You’ve come so far, and I know—I can see—that you are scared. But you have wounds in your life that you need to heal, and this visit is an important step.” He unbuckled his seat belt.

“Are you coming in?” Allison asked, her eyes wide with relief.

“For a few minutes, yeah. I’m your sponsor as well as your friend, remember? And I feel responsible for making sure you’re okay.” He walked around the car to open her door, offering his hand to help her out. “I don’t think you’ll need to call me but I do have my phone, and I’m only going to be a few minutes away.”

Dex held her shaking hand all the way to the bottom step. Both women’s faces were busy trying to figure out how to greet the other. Paula made her decision first. She extended her hand. “Hello Allison. Welcome home.”

Allison’s exterior shell shattered with those simple words, and to her surprise, tears flooded her eyes. She grasped Paula’s hand like a lifeline, and walked into her family home for the first time in almost twenty years. As Paula looked over her shoulder at Dex, he gave her a big smile and a thumbs up. Everything was going to be all right.

“We moved your father into the living room so he’s at the center of the house,” Paula said as she led the way. “I can’t tell you how much your visit means to him. Robert? Allison is here.”

The gentle old man had his hands out for his daughter, and Dex noticed that both of them were crying. Robert could no longer stand unassisted but his upper body was erect. Allison bent down and then kneeled in order to hold as much of her father as she could. Dex and Paula watched for a moment, and then quietly left, closing the door behind them. They both sighed a sigh of relief then Paula pointed toward the kitchen. “Would you like a cup of tea or coffee?”

“Tea would be perfect,” Dex said. “Then I’m going to leave for a while. The Crow Town Bakery’s not far from here, right?”

“You’re meeting Aggie—Agnes Findley—am I right?”

Dex grinned. “Al told me that everyone knows everything about everyone here in Carding. Yeah, I’m meeting with Ms. Findley.”

Paula laughed. “Well, in this case, passing along that information was Robert’s doing. He’s been like the proverbial cat on a hot tin roof ever since Allison agreed to come so he has—unwittingly, I think—told a lot of people about today, including Suzanna, though I don’t think he remembers that.” She poured hot water into two cups. “Milk? Sugar? Honey?”

“Oh, milk and honey,” Dex said. “It’s been a tense morning, and I could use an extra boost.”

They both sighed again as they leaned back with their mugs, and then they laughed. “So tell me,” Paula finally said, “how strong do you think Allison is now?”

“Strong? In what way?”

“Well, we found some papers in a box in an upstairs closet when we moved Robert into the living room, and Suzanna took over the upstairs,” Paula said. “It’s about Allison’s mother.”

Dex’s cup of tea stopped halfway to his lips. “Of all the sensitive subjects in Al’s life, that one is the touchiest,” he said. “To answer your question, Al’s stronger every day—coming here is proof of that—but she is plagued with doubts about people accepting her, especially after what happened with Suzanna. That was truly her low point though in retrospect, it was the best move she could have made. Agnes Findley told me that Suzanna has had a good life here with you and her Uncle Ted and her grandfather.” He sipped. “So what about Al’s mother?”

“The paperwork we found was from a doctor, a neurosurgeon, dated about a week before Anna died.”

Dex slowly set his mug down on the table. “Are you telling me Al’s mother was sick?”

Paula nodded, taking a minute to steel herself. Aggie had reassured her that Dex was a solid friend, and quite protective of Allison. But still, the next words she uttered would be difficult to hear. “Robert has told me that he’d been concerned about Anna’s health for a while before she died, but he thought she was having difficulties with menopause It turned out to be much worse than that.”

“So what did you find out?”

“Anna went alone to that doctor for the second time a couple of days before she died. While she was there, she got confirmation that she had early onset Alzheimer’s disease,” Paula said.

Dex let his breath out very slowly. “So her judgement would have been impaired, and her actions would have been…,” he hesitated, “erratic.”

“Yes. No one except her doctor knew, and after Anna died…”

“…no one had any idea that there was anything to follow up on so the doctor never passed on his information,” Dex said. “And you want to know if you should tell Al?”

“Oh Robert plans to tell her. It’s one of the reasons he pursued reconciling with her. My only question is, should we do it today? We’re all aware that coming here was difficult enough for Allison.” Her mouth twisted up. “I imagine it’s been difficult on your end as well.”

Suddenly a sound fluttered down the hallway from Robert’s room to the kitchen. Laughter. Dex and Paula blinked at one another.

“I think that’s your answer,” Dex said. “I can tell you that Al has always been puzzled about why her mother went out on the slopes to look for her that night. Al says she was always the worst skier in the family, and had never skied at night so why would Anna go out on the slopes looking for her?”

Paula sat back in her chair as she added that piece of information to all the rest. “Huh, interesting. You know, I didn’t live in Carding back then but I’ve asked everyone who knew Anna at the time if anyone ever accused Allison of causing her mother’s death, and no one has any memory of anyone doing that.”

“You can accuse someone with silence,” Dex said. “Given the circumstances—Al was missing so her mother went out in icy conditions to find her, hit a tree, died, and then Allison comes out of a room where she’d been making out with some boy, and everyone’s horribly upset, and…” He held his hands up in the universal “who-knows” gesture. “You can understand the two plus two equals four aspect of that. Even Al assumed she was the cause of her mother’s death.”

“Oh that poor young woman,” Paula said. “What a horrible burden to bear.”

Dex crooked his head toward Robert’s room. “So how is his health?”

“Not good. We all see him becoming more frail every day,” Paula said. Another soft ripple of laughter flowed in their direction. “Which means we need to tell her now, doesn’t it?”

__________

“So I thought this room could work for you,” Edie said as she led Aggie and David into a long, narrow space at the back of the Carding Academy building. “This was the kitchen pantry when Joseph Croft built this place. And it’s out of the direct line of sight of the front door so that, hopefully, nobody will just wander in.”

“Do people do that?” David asked.

Edie’s lips tightened. “We’ve had stray Calliope culties in here a couple of times since their invasion began, and I can tell you from experience, they are a nuisance and often quite rude. Let’s just say I wouldn’t leave this space unoccupied, especially given what you are doing.” She turned to Aggie. “Is Charlie coming?”

“He’ll be here a bit later,” Aggie said. “He had a texting marathon last night with someone who knows Gusto in the gaming world, and he’s following up on something from that conversation.”

“Something hush hush?” Edie asked.

“Mmm, I wouldn’t call it that,” Aggie said. “More like he doesn’t want to speak prematurely. A lawyer’s caution, you know how it is.”

Edie nodded. “So does this room suit?” Her gesture took in the space.”

“It’s perfect as far as I am concerned,” David said. “This long table is just right for sorting paperwork.”

“Speaking of paper, David,” Aggie said, “did you bring the stuff you’ve collected on Calliope’s time in Carding?”

“Better than that.” David patted the messenger bag that hung from his shoulder. “Della gave me a deadline to clear out the bedroom where I’ve been working.” He blushed. “Well, working and hoarding, if the truth be known. It’s got to be cleared out because the grandkids are coming.”

Edie laughed. “That’ll do it.”

“Yeah, anyway, as I cleared and organized, I also indexed and scanned everything I found from the band’s time in Carding, and that’s all in my computer.” David grinned. “Should have been doing that since the beginning.”

“Bravo,” Aggie said. “Well, let’s grab one of those art supply carts, and bring the stuff from the safe into this room as well.”

“Right,” Edie said. “I’m interviewing teachers for the summer session this morning so I’ll be in my office if you need me for any reason. And Aggie knows where the coffee and tea are located.”

David and Aggie quickly discovered that they were well-matched for the task at hand, being natural-born organizers at heart. After a bit of discussion, they created a simple sorting system for their first pass through the material from the Karmann Ghia’s trunk. Then they each took an armful of paperwork, and began to sort it by type—scraps of paper with song lyrics here, legal-looking documents there, and sketches done by Timmen Eldritch in a box at the end of the table.

It didn’t take long for the first blue-covered essay book to appear. In addition, there were random collections of lined notebook paper stapled together, each sheet covered by what was now Eldritch’s familiar handwriting.

“Why are so many of these essay books folded lengthwise?” Aggie asked. “Any ideas?”

“Yep.” David opened his laptop. “It seems that Eldritch had an obsessive need to have paper and pen on his person at all times. I didn’t know about that until the break-in at the library.”

He clicked a couple of keys. “There must have been a cache of these blue-covered booklets somewhere in the library’s research room because I accidentally brought one home just before the break-in. Then after the room was tossed, we found more of them as we re-shelved everything.”

Aggie thought about that for a moment. “Do you think these essay books were planted? I think we all agreed that that whole break-in scenario was staged.”

David nodded as he tapped away. “I do think most of them were planted, yes. I didn’t examine them in minute detail when we were putting the research room back together but I can tell you that most of them were forgeries with just a few in Eldritch’s handwriting . And the forgeries weren’t very good if I could spot them with only a glance. We weren’t sure what to do with the essay books so we boxed them up, and locked them in the library’s safe. Here, look at these pictures.”

Aggie leaned forward, adjusting her glasses. All of the photos on David’s screen were of Timmen Eldritch. “So what am I looking for?”

“Take note of his pockets.”

And there they were, booklets with blue covers, folded in half so they would fit in Eldritch’s shirt pocket or the back pocket of his jeans as well as in the pockets of every jacket he was wearing. There were even pictures of him in a hammock and on a couch jotting something in a booklet with a blue cover.

“Well,” Aggie said, straightening up, “I think we should take a thorough look through the ones we have here first, don’t you?”

“I do. It would be easy to hide something important like a contract among them,” David said. “But how about some more tea first?”

Once they were re-supplied with caffeine, they dove in, taking one booklet at a time, scanning it long enough to ascertain its contents, making a few notes, and then numbering it with a Post-It stuck on its front cover. Their silence was broken only by pens scratching on paper, and the occasional “hmm.”

Aggie had just silently resolved to break for lunch after going through one more booklet when she spotted a small sheaf of stapled notebook paper folded in quarters.

“Oh my gawd,” she whispered as she unfolded it. On top was a page of signatures, each in a different hand—Timmen Eldritch, Nicholas Kelvey, Oliver Quigley, Edmund (Smugs) Gallagher, and Lindsay Henderson.

“David, wasn’t Lindsay Henderson the agent for Calliope when they lived in Carding?” she asked.

“Yeah. Why?”

“I think I may have found the missing contract.”

David came around to look over her shoulder. “Wow, would you look at that,” David said, pointing. “The copyrights on the lyrics of their songs, they’re all in Oliver Quigley’s name. Do you know what this means?”

“That Timmen Eldritch never wrote the songs that made him and Calliope famous.” A third voice made David and Aggie jump. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.” Charlie Cooper grinned at them from the doorway, a box of muffins in his hand. “I’ll think you’ll be very interested to know what I just found out.” He set the box down, selected a muffin, and began to peel off its paper. “You know how I’ve been poking into Gusto’s online gaming activities, right?”

“Yeah.” Aggie and David both reached for muffins.

“Well, last night, my main contact in the gaming community told me this story about a guy trying to borrow a lot of money from this big-time gamer. The collateral on offer was a contract signed by the members of Calliope, an artifact that would bring a hefty price if it was put up for sale. And I just found out who the borrower was.”

“If it’s about gaming, it has to be Gusto. Am I right?” Aggie asked.

“One hundred percent, my dear.”

“I knew he was scum,” Aggie muttered. Suddenly she looked at the clock, and jumped to her feet. “Oh my gawd, Dexter Little is waiting for me at the Crow Town Bakery. I’ve gotta go. Please, the two of you take this contract to Edie, have her scan it, and then lock it back in the safe. This Calliope business just gets more complicated by the minute.”

---

Thanks for sharing some of the minutes of your life with me and Carding, Vermont. I hope you’re enjoying The Half Life of Dragons and can visit next week for the latest chapter.

When I reach the end of the tale, the entire book will be available here as an ebook. In the meantime, if you need to catch up or would like to share this adventure with someone else, you can do so by clicking this link.

~ Sonja Hakala