Chapter 13 of The Half Life of Dragons

by Sonja Hakala

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.

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“Okay, which room do you want to tackle today?” Josh asked his brother as they pulled into the driveway of their family home.

Matt sighed as he unbuckled his seat belt. “Is none of the above an acceptable answer? Yesterday was rough. I don’t think I ever appreciated how heavy and sad memories can be. I’m wishing we had hired someone to do this for us.” He quickly raised his hands to stave off his brother’s protests. “But I agree with you that that would be creepy.”

They looked at one another, two faces with similar landscapes but very different details, each of them trying to discern the other’s true preference. “Well, I suggest we start with coffee and go from there, okay?” Josh said.

“Yeah, let’s start there.”

In an effort to procrastinate, the two brothers rattled around the kitchen where their mother had baked amazing brownies, stirred up pots of soup, and made the best breakfast biscuits ever. Their purging of the Bentsen family home had started with such enthusiasm—“We’ll have this done in no time”—but that had quickly petered out under the weight of the stuffed animals their mother had made and the many photographs their father had taken. The memories had, indeed, taken their toll.

Josh was filling the electric kettle with water when they heard the sound of a car pulling into the driveway, followed by another, and then another. “Who’s that, do you suppose?”

Matt scuttled to a window that looked out toward the front of the house. “Well, offhand I’d say it was Ruth Goodwin, Edie Wolfe, Aggie Findley, and Charlie and Andy Cooper.”

Josh rushed to open the door. “What are you folks doing here?”

“We are here to provide helping hands, and emotional relief,” Edie said.

Matt shook his head. “No, really, it’s okay.”

“Nope, sorry, that won’t do,” Ruth said. “Your mother was our friend. That’s point number one. And point number two is…”

“We’ve all been through this…this emptying a house after someone you love dies,” Charlie said as he pulled on a pair of work gloves. “And believe me, we know it’s awful.”

“Have you made any arrangements for the big stuff like furniture?” Andy asked.

“We called Ed Henderson, like you recommended,” Josh said. 

“And when’s he coming to pick it up?”

Matt shook his head. “We didn’t get that far.”

Ruth looked the two young men up and down, her hands on her hips. “Third day into the project, and you ran out of steam, didn’t you?” Then she smiled. “Right on schedule. That’s why we decided to come today.”

“Are you keeping any of the furniture?” Aggie asked. “Because if we can move it all into one room, except for maybe the kitchen and dining room tables, it will give us space to tackle stuff like linens and books and dishes. That way, you two can get into the more personal stuff.”

“But…,” Josh said.

“Look, with other people around, you can’t wallow so much,” Ruth said. “Besides, your Mom helped all of us do stuff like this. It’s our turn to help her kids.”

Josh’s eyelids began to flutter with unshed tears that he struggled to control. Edie walked up to him, and laid a hand on his cheek. “We’ll take that as a yes then. Right?”

He nodded. “Yeah, okay.”

“How about I call Ed to set a time to pick up the furniture that you aren’t going to keep?” Andy said. “Would that be okay?”

Matt heaved a big sigh. “Yeah, that would be perfect, Andy. Thanks.”

It didn’t take long for the crew to start buzzing as the house-emptying got organized. Andy called Ed who said he’d come out in the afternoon to make an assessment of the furnishings. Edie took Josh and Matt in hand to walk through the house to decide what they wanted to keep. Ruth and Aggie tackled the linen closet while Charlie headed for Woody’s shop and his tool collection. Based on what he’d gleaned from the conversations around him, Charlie figured that Barbara had never had the heart to tackle it after her husband died. 

The scent of dust and wood shavings hit him before he opened the shop door. Charlie wasn’t sure what he expected to see so the shop’s state of preservation surprised him. “Oh my,” he whispered as if afraid to disturb a ghost, “it’s just like Woody left it.” He sneezed. “Although with a lot more dust.”

Footsteps crunched on the gravel driveway, and then Andy stood at his younger brother’s shoulder. “Wow. It looks like Woody just went up to the house for coffee,” he said. “Incredible.” He stepped inside to finger a set of wooden planes hanging on a wall. “These were Woody’s pride and joy. Took him years to collect the whole set. I wonder if the boys will want to keep them.”

Charlie shook his head. “Sentimentally, I’m sure they will. But they both live in apartments near Boston so there’s probably no woodworking in their futures.” He pulled open one of the drawers in a tool chest. “Don’t you know a guy who specializes in auctioning tools?”

“Yeah, Verne Sullivan.”

“Why don’t you give him a call too. No matter what, neither Josh nor Matt will be keeping all of these,” Charlie said as he closed the tool box.

Andy had just started scrolling through his contacts in search of Verne’s number when another car door slammed in the driveway. Charlie ducked out to see who had arrived.

“Hello? Where is everyone?”

“Diana? What are you doing here? Escaping from the bakery?” Even though he was a frequent flyer at the Crow Town Bakery, Charlie seldom saw Diana Bennett because her work with flour, sugar, and yeast kept her in the back of the business she owned and ran with her husband Stephen. Aware of this, Diana often introduced herself as “The Muffin Queen” so that folks would know who she was.

“No, no escape,” Diana said. “I’m here looking for a birthday present.” She pointed at the blue Honda sitting in the garage. “Do you know anything about it? Stephen and I want to get Faye a car for her eighteenth birthday.”

Charlie shook his head. “Nope, not a thing.” He pointed at the house. “You’d best go ask Aggie.”

“Aggie? Not Josh or Matt?”

“Nope. Aggie will know more about this car than the two of them put together,” Charlie said. “Neither one of them has driven it, and I know that Aggie did the last maintenance on it. She could give Stan up at the garage a run for his money when it comes to mechanical stuff.”

“I had no idea,” Diana said.

“Her father was an engineer, and he made sure all his kids could handle a wrench.” Charlie grinned. “That’s how Aggie earned extra money while she was in law school. She does all the work on our cars. She’s really good.”

“Well, now I’m really embarrassed that I didn’t know that,” Diana said. “Shame on me. Well, lead on Macduff.”

As they turned toward the house, Charlie said, “Did you know that that’s a misquote from Shakespeare’s Macbeth?”

“Really? What’s the correct quote?”

“Lay on, Macduff. It’s one of Macbeth’s line, and it means he’s ready to fight Macduff to the death,” Charlie said as he opened the front door to the house. “A rather typical ending for the Bard, wouldn’t you say?”

Diana’s reply, if there was one, was immediately whisked away in the neighborly whirr of sorting and organizing in the house. Josh and Matt were hefting chairs while Edie packed books, Ruth emptied drawers of kitchen utensils, and Aggie carried an armful of clothes from the bedroom. 

“Josh, I spread your Dad’s sweaters out on the bed so you and Matt can go through them,” she said as Charlie and Diana appeared. “Oh, hello Diana. Your Mom said you might be by to look at the car.”

“Which car?” Josh asked. 

“Which car? Is there more than one?” Charlie asked.

The brothers Bentsen glanced at one another then Matt said: “I’d better show you.”

Curious, everyone trouped out the door in Matt’s wake. “It’s around here, in the back of the wood shed,” he said as he pulled a ring of keys from his pocked.

“Huh, I always just assumed that that was full of wood for the winter,” Ruth said.

Matt hesitated, his hand on the shed door. “Mom and Dad did keep wood in here, but it was only ever half full. Please everybody, this needs to be handled carefully. I know you’re all aware of our sister Ashley’s connection to Timmen Eldritch and Calliope, and the fact that those idiot culties are all over town, so…”

Matt selected a key, and fitted it into the padlock. Together, the brothers swung the doors open to reveal the remains of a stacked wood pile, and just beyond it, a rounded shape covered by a drop cloth.

Aggie stepped inside, pointing. “Is that the Karmann Ghia? Eldritch’s Karman Ghia?”

“Yeah, he named it Llamrai,” Matt said as he and Josh pulled back the cloth to reveal a two-seater convertible with red paint dulled by decades.

“Llamrai? What’s that mean?” Diana asked.

“Well, according to Ashley, Llamrai was the name of King Arthur’s favorite horse.” Josh’s smile was twisted. “Eldritch had to have a myth associated with everything, didn’t he? You know, it was part of his image.”

“How—and when—did it get here?” Edie asked.

“Their Dad and I drove it here from Maine not too long after Ashley came home.”

Everyone jumped, and turned toward the open door where Amos Hardy stood in his ever-present cutoff jeans. 

“You and Dad drove this here?” Josh said. “I don’t remember that.”

“Hmm hmm, that’s the way your sister wanted it, and your Dad agreed,” Amos said. “You boys were both away at school so it was easily done.”

“But why?” Matt asked. “The only thing that Eldritch ever brought to our family was grief. Ashley was well rid of him. Why did she want to bring this home?” He slammed his hand on the hood of the car.

Amos shrank a little when everyone turned to look at him. He drew a long breath. “Look, I was not privy to all the details that went into the decision.”

“Amos, was this before or after Eldritch disappeared?” Aggie asked.

“Just before.”

“And where was the car, exactly? Where did you pick it up?” Aggie asked. The intensity of her questions made Charlie’s eyebrows rise.

“In an old barn near Rumford,” Amos said. “Why are you asking these questions so hard, Aggie?”

Charlie felt his brother Andy come into the shed but did not turn around to acknowledge him. His eyes never left Aggie’s face. He sensed that the whole Calliope mess festering in their safety deposit box was coming to a head.

“Timmen Eldritch left a will, of sorts. He wrote it himself but it was witnessed, signed, and notarized so it is a legally binding document,” Aggie said. “And this car is mentioned in it.”

“Who was it left to?” Josh asked.

Aggie glanced at Charlie, glad he was there. He shook his head. “I’m sorry, Josh. I can’t tell you that until Eldritch is declared dead, and the will is read.” She looked over at Matt whose face had become thunderous. “I am really sorry.”

“And only a family member can petition the court to have him declared dead,” Charlie added.

Matt’s hands fisted and unfisted, and his lips pressed tight against one another. “You mean to tell me that we could be stuck with this thing forever?” His voice was tight with anger. “You mean to tell me that that son of a bitch, the one who lured our loving, kind, and oh-so-funny sister away from her family still has the power to interfere with our lives? Do you have any idea how wild with fear our parents were when Ashley disappeared? I swear, it drove Dad to an early grave.”

He grabbed an axe from its perch on the wall next to him, raised it over his head, and smashed it into the side of the Karmann Ghia.

“Matt, please don’t do that,” Aggie yelled. 

“Why not?” Josh yelled. He picked up a splitting maul. “Did you know that Ashley never laughed after she came back? She used to laugh all the time, just like our Mom, but Eldritch stole that from them. This house used to be warm and comforting but it…it…just died after Eldritch lured Ashley away.” He swung the maul, taking one of the car’s side mirrors with it. “His will means nothing here.”

Aggie started to object again but Charlie intervened. “Let’s leave them to it, shall we?”

As the others began to leave, Amos started to hiss and sputter like a tea kettle. “What is it, Amos?”

“Well, umm, I didn’t come over here about the car,” he said.

Matt and Josh stopped beating on the Ghia, both of them panting. “Not here about the car?” Josh asked.

“No, not at all. I’d just about forgotten it was here, to tell you the truth.”

“Then why are you here, Amos?” Matt asked.

“To ask about your water,” Amos said.

“Our water? You mean in the house?” Josh asked.

“Yes. Do you have running water in the kitchen?”

“As far as I know, we do,” Matt said. “Josh made us a pot of coffee this morning when we got here.”

“So nothing was wrong?”

“Well, I remember thinking it was running a bit slow but that’s all,” Josh said. “Why are you asking?”

“Well, we all draw on the same spring, you know, all twenty of the houses in the district,” Amos said. “You know, the East Carding Water District.”

“The what?”

“Are you sure, Amos?” Andy asked. “I thought that was phased out long ago.”

“It sort of was and it sort of wasn’t,” Amos said. The raised voices made him nervous, and he glanced longingly at the exit. “All of us eventually had wells drilled but some of us kept the spring water for use in our kitchens. It’s really good for drinking and cooking and for making coffee.” His voice faded out. “That sort of thing.”

He looked from Josh to Matt and back again. “And I know that your Mom and Dad were one of the ones who did that, like me.”

There was a long pause while they all waited for Amos to finish his thought. “But?” Diana finally asked. “What’s happened, Amos? Why did you come here this morning?”

“My kitchen faucet ran dry this morning,” he said. “So I wondered if yours had too.”

“Could the spring have run dry? It’s been years since the water district was formed,” Edie said. 

“Nineteen seventy-four, it was,” Amos said. “And the only way to find out if it’s the spring is to hike up to the source.”

“And where is that?” Matt asked, though he had a feeling he knew the answer.

Amos shifted his head to the left. “Up there, behind the old Calliope place.”

“Gawdammit, I am so tired of those people being part of our lives.” Matt emphasized each word with his fist on the car’s trunk lid.

Until it popped open.

To reveal a cache of high school exam booklets with blue covers.

“What the…?” Matt sputtered. “What the hell are these?”

Aggie grabbed one off the top of the pile, and flipped it open. The inside pages were covered edge to edge and top to bottom with cramped writing, sketches, doodles, and spidery marks that resembled shorthand. 

“What are they Aggie?” Ruth asked.

Aggie picked up a second booklet, and opened it to reveal more of the same. “There have been persistent rumors for years about a lost trove of these. Eldritch used to carry Blue Books with him everywhere. It’s what he used to write songs, to journal, and draw. Only a small number of them are known to exist. There are two in the safety deposit box where Charlie and I stowed all the stuff I inherited from my boss at Brownlow Smith & Brownlow. I figured the rest were long gone.”

“I don’t care,” Matt said. “I don’t want them here.”

“Let’s burn them,” Josh said.

Aggie splayed her hands across the pile. “If you’ll trust me, I have a better idea.”

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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