Chapter 22—The Half Life of Dragons
by Sonja Hakala
PREVIOUSLY IN THE HALF LIFE OF DRAGONS: Some of the questions hanging over the lives of folks in Carding, Vermont have now been answered. Suzanna Owen has finally learned the true identity of her father, and she’s got a birth certificate to prove it. Her mother, Allison, finally reunited with her father, Robert, and there’s every hope that the chasms separating this family are being bridged.
In today’s chapter, reality makes an emphatic bid to sit in the driver’s seat for the many fans of the band known as Calliope. And for the locals in Carding, it can’t come a moment too soon.
You can catch up on previous chapters of this novel in progress here.
“Knock, knock! Al, it’s me.” Dexter Little stood outside the door of his friend’s condo smiling because this day had finally come while simultaneously twitching with nervousness because this day had finally come.
“I’ll be right there,” Allie called as she hurried a brush through her short hair. “Gawd, I should have cut it years ago,” she said, patting a few strays into place. “So much easier.”
Grabbing her coat, she checked its pockets for the three essentials of life—her phone, her wallet, and her keys. “You’re a bit early, Dex,” she started to say as she opened the door. But the last word never quite materialized. The slender bearded man standing on her doorstep was not Dexter Little. Allison gasped, stared, stepped back, and then launched herself into his open arms.
“Oh, Arty, is it really you? After all these years, is it really you?”
“Yeah, yeah it’s really me, Allie.”
They tightened their grip on one another, rocking silently from side to side. Then Allie looked beyond his shoulder. “Oh my, Nick,” she squealed. “Come here.”
“It’s so good to see you, Allie,” Nicholas Kelvey said as he hugged her.
The three old friends stepped back, holding one another’s hands, drinking in the details of one another’s faces. Where had they aged? Where were they still the same? Finally Dex spoke up. “Can we come in, Al?”
“Oh, oh, of course. Sorry. I am…oh my gawd…speechless, gobsmacked. Come, come,” she said. “Why are you here? Where have you been? How are you? Can I get you anything to drink? Or eat? Can I cook you something?” Then she stopped to step up close to the man the rest of the world knew as Timmen Eldritch, placing one hand on each side of his face.
“You’re thinner,” she said, “not that you were ever heavy but you seem, I don’t know, more muscular?”
“I’ve been a trail angel on the Appalachian for a few years now,” he said. “After I got clean, I discovered the joys of long-distance walking. Have you found a joy, Allie?”
She caught her breath with the surprise of his question. “Well, I’m starting to reconcile with my family. I’ve seen and talked to my father. And my brother Ted called me last night, and we talked until my phone battery nearly went dead, and we promised to do that every Sunday. And I’ve learned how to cook, and the people who come to the Brick love my soups. They go really well with Dex’s bread and muffins.”
“And how about your daughter?” Nicholas asked.
Allison sighed. “She’s not ready, not yet. But I’m hopeful. She told my father that she’s not done being angry with me. But we’re going to have to be in the same room at the same time soon because my Dad is,” she choked back a silent sob, “because my Dad is failing. And Dad and Ted and I have something to tell her. About my mother and her death.”
“I saw Suzanna—when she came to see Nick,” Arty said. “The day he told her about Ollie.”
“And how is she?” Allison asked. “How did she take the news?”
“Shocked, taken aback, relieved, and very resilient, I thought,” Arty said.
“At times, she has facial expressions that are so Ollie,” Nick said. “It’s uncanny. But then when her face relaxes, I could see you.”
“Ted told me that she’s already called both of Ollie’s sister, her new aunts,” Allison said as she shook her head. “It’s a lot to take in for everyone.”
“Look, Al, we’ve got something to tell you about that auction you want to go to today,” Dex said. “I promise that we’ll hang out and talk all night afterward. But we’ve only got an hour before it starts.”
“Oh, are you kidding? I don’t mind skipping the auction,” Allison said. “I’ll find somewhere else to buy a purple carpet.”
“Oh, you’re not going to want to miss this auction,” Nick said. “Smugs will be there.”
“What?”
“And the state police,” Dex said, “as well as a few people from Carding, including Agnes Findley.”
“Okay.” Allie looked from one face to the other. “I need to sit down for this, am I right?”
“It wouldn’t hurt,” Dex said. “Have you heard that Agnes and her partner, Charlie Cooper, went to court to have Timmen Eldritch declared a non-person?”
“What?” Allison sat down in a hurry. “What does that mean?”
“It means that the name Timmen Eldritch is officially recognized as belonging to no one living or dead. From now on, most people will know me only by my trail name, Ruby Throat.” When Arty grinned, Allison could still catch the reason why so many young women had swooned over him.
“Ruby Throat, humph. Clever,” she said. “R.T. instead of Arty.”
“Yeah, I know. But once you know what we have planned, you’ll understand why the name Arty Chandler needs to be a secret for a little while longer,” Nick said. He glanced at the clock. “We’d better get you in the loop, Allie. You’ve got an important part to play, my dear.”
“Oh my, would you take a look at the size of this crowd,” Ruth Goodwin said as she pressed through the door of the Mostly Antiques building in Burlington, Vermont. Its former life as a lumber warehouse made it an ideal site for the popular monthly auctions that drew bargain hunters from all over New England, New York, and before a certain Orange Buffoon threatened its sovereignty, eastern Canada. Today’s catalogue was so impressive, it had attracted press attention because it included several works of art by the now non-person Timmen Eldritch.
“I see a couple of seats close to the front,” Ruth’s friend, Edie Wolfe, said, raising her voice above the din of the crowd. “Let’s head in that direction.”
As they threaded their way toward the empty chairs, the two friends realized how out of place their gray coiffeurs were in sea of twenty- and thirty-somethings. More than one eyebrow was raised as they passed by.
“Will you look at all those microphones,” Edie said as they paused to reconnoiter. She was right. The hall bristled with recording equipment for all the podcasters, bloggers, vloggers, and local news stations vying for an angle on the developments in the Calliope story that none of their competitors had thought of.
“So, aren’t you concerned about the provenance of Eldritch’s art now that he’s been declared a non-person?” a young woman was asking a rather bewildered young man.
“Prov—what?” he asked.
“Provenance, you know, whether the art was genuinely painted by Timmen Eldritch,” the young woman asked. Ruth elbowed Edie, directing her attention to the interviewer with a pointed nod of her head.
“White Boots,” she said.
Edie glanced over. “Well, I’ll be. I thought Charlet had planned to keep her in our comfy town lockup for a couple of more days.”
“Maybe White Boots had a get-out-of–jail-free card,” Ruth said. She counted the number of rows from the front, straining to see through the crowd. “This is it. I hope those seats are still empty. Excuse me. I’d like to get by.”
One by one, the seated people in row four stood to let Ruth and Edie pass through. The two friends were glad they had taken Faye’s advice to ditch their handbags, carrying what they needed in their pockets. Extra baggage would have made it impossible to negotiate their passage to the empty chairs in the middle of row four.
“Excuse me, are these taken?” Edie asked when they reached their destination.
When the young man swung his head to face her, and Edie gasped. “It’s Dexter, am I right?” she said. “We met at…”
He quickly stood up. “Yes, we did meet there,” he said, cutting her off. Then he leaned in close to her. “Please don’t use any names. I’ll explain later.”
“Why, yes, of course,” Edie said as a question mark crinkled her forehead. “This is my friend…”
“…Ruth Goodwin.” The woman seated on Dexter’s right leaned forward to see them.
“Please don’t gasp,” Dex whispered. “We don’t want to draw any attention, not yet anyway.”
But Ruth and Edie did gasp, but they managed to keep it quiet enough not to attract attention. How could they do otherwise when they realized they were talking to Allison Owen? The two older women blinked a few times then smiled graciously. “Oh my dear,” Edie said quietly as she reached out her hand. “I am glad to see you.”
“Me as well,” Ruth said as she followed Edie’s lead. “I must say, I really like your hair short. It suits you.”
An uncertain smile flickered across Allison’s face. “Thank you.”
With the preliminaries over, all three women sighed at the same time. Dex counted silently to ten, and then he said out of the side of his mouth: “I didn’t realize you were fans of Calliope.”
Edie shook her head. “We’re not. We’re fans and friends of Agnes Findley.”
“Ah, I see. She and Charlie have been busy lately,” Dex said.
“So I gather. They are supposed to be here. Have you seen them?”
“I haven’t seen them, no. But I know they are here.”
Just at that moment, a man with thinning brown hair pulled back in a pony tail took his place at the podium, his eyes sweeping the crowd as he waited for everyone’s attention to focus on him. Edie noticed that Allison had pulled a hood up over her head, and that made her decide that the man at the podium needed her attention. When he opened a notebook, the crowd finally began to still.
“Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your patience,” he said. His voice was well-oiled. “We are going to begin this unusual auction with one of the more famous pieces ever created by Timmen Eldritch of the band called Calliope.”
He pointed to an easel at his left as an assistant pulled away its cloth covering. The action was accompanied by gasps, exclamations, and clamor. “Is this a joke?” one voice called out. “What does that mean?” a woman asked.
The man at the podium turned. The painting that he expected to see had been replaced by a sign that read: “Smugs Gallagher is a fraud.”
“What the hell is that?” he roared.
Suddenly Allison leaped to her feet, pushing back her hood. “It’s the truth. Smugs Gallagher is nothing but a thief, a con, and a phony. He forged the art he claims was painted by Timmen Eldritch, and he stole from every member of Calliope.”
“Get her out of here,” Smugs roared, pointing at Allison.
But just then a second man appeared at the podium, crowding Smugs to one side. “Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your patience,” he said. “My name is Henry Yates, and I am a special investigator with the Vermont attorney general’s office. What this woman says is true. Among the items placed in this auction are several pieces of forged art as well as artifacts stolen from members of a band once known as Calliope.”
Smugs began to back away from Yates but quickly discovered that his escape was blocked by a man and a woman in uniform. Each of them laid a restraining hand on him.
Voices rose across the hall. “Please may I have your attention,” Yates said. One of the doors behind him opened, and Agnes Findley and Charlie Cooper join Yates. “About an hour ago, these two attorneys appeared before a judge to argue that this sale be suspended. The judge granted their request in order to ascertain the ownership rights of the works and artifacts in question.”
Allison took a deep breath, and squared her shoulders. “You can do this, Allie,” Dex growled, patting her hand.
The din in the hall drowned out Yates’s words as he struggled to regain control of the room. “Ladies and gentlemen, please take your seats,” he said again and again. Edie scanned the room, and realized that all the exits had been blocked.
“The suspension of the sale was also granted to protect the copyright of the artist known as Timmen Eldrich to the work he created while he was a member of Calliope.” Timmen walked out to stand next to Agnes.
“Mr. Little,” Edie said as she turned to Dexter. “What exactly is going on here?”
Dexter smiled. “I suppose, in an odd way, you could say this is a Calliope reunion, just not the one the band’s fans have been waiting for.”
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
Sonja Hakala 