The Search for the Red Dragon Page 3

  The girl sniffed at the tea Jack offered her, then wrinkled her nose in distaste. She allowed Jack to pour her a cupful of cream, which she sipped at dutifully, but she was more interested in the tea biscuits.

  “You don’t have any little ones, do you?” she asked.

  “What, smaller biscuits?” asked Jack.

  “Yup,” said Laura Glue. “They’re called Leprechaun crackers, although I’m pretty sure there ain’t any real leprechauns in ’em.”

  “Really?” asked Charles with a knowing smirk. “And how can you be sure?”

  “Because,” the girl retorted, “usually you have to smoosh ’em up separate and spread ’em on top.”

  “Ew,” said Charles.

  “That’s not part of the official recipe in the book, mind you,” she continued, “but I added it in myself.”

  “Laura,” Jack began.

  “Laura Glue,” she reiterated. “Just calling me ‘Laura’ is just as bad as calling me ‘Glue.’ My name is my name.”

  “Very well, Laura Glue. Tell us about the Caretaker you came to find. Tell us about Jamie.”

  “That’s about all I knows,” the girl admitted. “I’ve only ever seen him twice myself, and that was before I went to the Well. The first time, anyway.”

  Charles leaned close to John. “Not possible,” he whispered. “She wasn’t even born yet when we went to the Archipelago—and that was long after Barrie had given up being Caretaker.”

  “I knows what I knows,” said Laura Glue, “and my ears hear like a fox.”

  “Well, er, ah,” Charles stammered, “it’s just that you can’t have met him—”

  “Can too!” Laura Glue exclaimed, standing and stomping her foot. “He said I was sweet, and he gave me a kiss. Look,” she continued, as she fumbled around inside her tunic, “I still have it.”

  She held out her hand and showed them her “kiss”—a small, tarnished silver thimble.

  “All right, Laura Glue,” said John with a placating look at his friends, “we believe you. But you must also believe us. James Barrie isn’t the Caretaker anymore. The Imaginarium Geographica was given to us, and we are the Caretakers now. So tell us what you need, and we shall do all that is within our power to help you.”

  Hearing this, Laura Glue slumped back in her chair and deflated like a spent balloon. It was not the reaction they had expected.

  “Then I’ve come too late,” she said mournfully. “I’ve failed. Grandfather will be so unhappy.”

  “Your grandfather,” said Jack. “It was he who sent you?”

  She nodded. “Yup. And he was sure that Jamie was still the Caretaker. So he sent me to find him, to help. Because he is who he is.”

  “He is what, Laura Glue?” asked Charles.

  “Grandfather’s enemy,” the girl replied. “There is something happening in the Archipelago. Something terrible. And Grandfather said that sometimes something is so important that the only ones who can help are your enemies. And he gave me the Compass Rose and said to fly to the Summer Country and find his enemy, the Caretaker Jamie, and he would come and help us.”

  “And what was it that Jamie was supposed to do?” John asked.

  The girl shrugged and sipped her cream. “I don’t know. Grandfather said that the message would tell him everything he needed to know. He is, um, was, the Caretaker, after all.”

  “What message, my dear?” Charles asked.

  “Oh!” the girl exclaimed. “I forgot.” She stood at attention, as if preparing to recite a composition in school. “‘The Crusade has begun.’”

  “And?” promted John. “Is there more?”

  “That’s it and that’s all,” said Laura Glue. “May I have some more of the big crackers?”

  The three friends left Laura Glue munching on biscuits and moved into the hallway, where they could discuss the situation with some privacy.

  “It’s an incredible story,” said Jack. “But there’s too much credibility in it to disregard her.”

  “I agree,” John said. “But I’m at a loss as to what we should do. Obviously someone there meant for us to do something. But I have no idea what.”

  “She does have that rose,” mused Charles. “It bears the marks of both the High King and the Cartographer. I can’t imagine they’d allow just anyone to use them.”

  “I concur,” said John. “So how should we proceed?”

  “Obviously,” Charles said, “we should take her to see Barrie. He’s in London, and colleagues of mine have often pointed out his residence to me. We can deliver her straight to his front door. And then perhaps we’ll find out what this is all about.”

  “That sounds like a plan,” said Jack. “It’s time I was out and about for a bit anyway.”

  “Excellent,” agreed John. “This sort of adventure I can handle. A little mystery, a little drama, and it’s all wrapped up and done with a quick excursion into London.”

  It was decided that they would have to take John’s car into the city. To take the train, especially from the Oxford station, would risk the three of them being seen on nonuniversity business and would engender too many questions that they’d have to make up answers for. And that was before any queries about their keeping company with a small winged girl with a penchant for yammering on about something called the Archipelago.

  John went to make some adjustments to the engine, followed by a very inquisitive Laura Glue, while Jack and Charles made apologies to Warnie about having to leave. Warnie himself had already decided that this was a business he’d rather have no part in—and so nodded in agreement when they presented their plan to go into the city to locate the girl’s family.

  “I call navigation,” said Jack as they walked out to the car.

  “What does that mean?” asked Charles.

  “It means I get the front passenger seat,” said Jack, “and you have to sit in the back with Laura Glue.”

  “What?” sputtered Charles. “That’s not fair. I came in with John. I get the passenger seat.”

  “What are you two arguing about?” John said, wiping his hands on an oilcloth. “The car’s ready to load, if you haven’t something more pressing to settle.”

  “We’re arguing about the seating arrangement,” Charles told him. “I wanted to sit in front—”

  “But I called navigation,” said Jack.

  “Well, there you have it,” stated John. “Can’t be helped if he called navigation. Sorry, Charles.”

  “Drat,” muttered Charles.

  It was fortunate that Laura Glue’s wings were artificial, because they would not have fit in the small cab of the car and still allowed room for any other passengers. It was difficult enough to get them into the boot, and then only with some amount of judicious folding and positioning.

  Laura Glue was twisting her hair into knots with nervous concern for her wings, until John pointed out that he was putting the Geographica in the boot as well, so she could be assured it was a safe place for them to be.

  Wings and atlas secured, Charles and Laura Glue bundled into the cramped backseat, and John and Jack climbed into the front.

  “Okay,” said Laura Glue, pointing at the threadbare seat covers. “There’s an invisible line down the middle. This side is for girls, and that side is for boys. And you aren’t allowed to cross the line.”

  “It’s a little close in here for boundaries,” Charles noted. “What happens if I cross the line?”

  Laura Glue scowled. “I’ll have to cut out your heart and feed it to the fairies.”

  Charles stared, wide-eyed and speechless, before the girl’s face split into a broad grin to indicate that she was teasing him.

  “You’re not exactly a normal little girl, are you?” asked Charles.

  “You have a funny-looking mouth,” said Laura Glue.

  “This is going to be a very long ride,” said Charles.

  It was actually a shorter ride than they expected, as the weather was good and there were few other vehicles
on the road. Traffic became more congested once they arrived in London proper, but Charles’s familiarity with the city streets aided with their navigation considerably.

  “Ironic, isn’t it?” remarked Jack.

  “Oh, shut up,” Charles said crossly. “Turn left up here, John, then park as close as you can to the house. The shorter the distance we have to walk in public with Laura Glue, the better.”

  “Hey,” the girl said. “Why don’t you want to walk with me?”

  “Because,” Charles told her with a teasing smile, “we’ve decided we like you, and we don’t want some shady fellow swooping in when we aren’t looking to carry you off.”

  Instead of the laugh or sarcastic retort he was expecting, Laura Glue’s eyes grew wide with fear and she seemed to shrink back into the recesses of the seat.

  “Don’t,” she whispered in a fragile, frightened voice. “Don’t ever tease. Not about that.”

  Charles hesitated, but Jack saw the look on the girl’s face and reached out a hand to her. “Don’t worry,” he said reassuringly. “You’re with all three Caretakers. And do you know we’re not just Caretakers of a musty old atlas? We’re also Caretakers of everything else there is in the entire Archipelago of Dreams. Even little girls named Laura Glue. And as long as you’re with us, no one will ever harm you.”

  Laura Glue blinked back a tear, then took Jack’s hand and smiled. “Okay,” she said. “But I still want to find Jamie, just the same.”

  It was the twilight hour when they finally trooped up the steps and rang the bell at the place Charles directed them to. The stately, well-situated town house was brightly lit within, but there was no answer to the bell, or to their repeated knocks on the stout mahogany door.

  “Now what?” John wondered. “He must be out for the evening. Do we wait for him? Or is there another place to look?”

  “There may be,” said Charles. “Kensington Gardens is just down the way. Perhaps he’s inclined to take evening walks there.”

  “It’s certainly worth a stroll,” Jack said. “Now that we’ve come this far, I’m just happy to have had reason to leave the Kilns.”

  Both John and Charles had noted the drastic change in Jack’s countenance since the unusual apparition had crash-landed in his garden. He looked fully engaged once more, as if the girl were a fulcrum that had levered him out of his melancholy. And as such, neither one of them was inclined to mention their shared dreams again, until it seemed necessary to do so. The mystery at hand was more than enough to consume the evening anyway.

  The gardens were indeed just a short distance away, and the lights of the city were just beginning to twinkle in the fading cobalt light of dusk when they arrived.

  “It’s a good-size park,” said John. “Where should we begin looking?”

  “Where else?” Charles replied. “The statue.”

  “Of course,” said Jack, slapping his forehead. “The statue. It was erected for May Morning, was it not? I could be drummed out of Magdalen for forgetting that.”

  “Or worse,” said Charles. “They’d make you take up residence at Cambridge.”

  Set just along one of the walking paths, the tall bronze statue of Sir James Barrie’s most famous creation towered over passersby, who strolled along at a leisurely pace, hardly pausing to glance at the sculpture. Except for one.

  The small, slight man was barely five feet tall, with a mustache and fringes of white hair that stuck out around the edges of his top hat. He stood holding a cane in one hand and a leash attached to an enormous Saint Bernard in the other. He looked at the statue with an expression that might have been construed as fondness, or longing—if it were not also for the immense sadness that seemed to lie underneath.

  Charles, deciding that this was no time for furtiveness, called out to the man from some twenty yards away. “I say, are you James Barrie? Might we have a word?”

  The man’s eyes widened in surprise as he saw a cluster of people eagerly rushing toward him, and he quickly pulled down his hat, turned up his collar, and began walking briskly in the opposite direction, dragging the reluctant dog behind him.

  “Didn’t he hear me?” Charles said, puzzled.

  “Oh, he heard you,” Jack said wryly. “You have all the stealth of a wet badger.”

  “In some places that’s a compliment,” retorted Charles.

  “Do shut up, you two,” John scolded. He quickened his pace after the swiftly receding forms of Barrie and the Saint Bernard.

  “Wait!” John shouted after him. “We only want to speak with you!”

  “It’s no use,” said Charles. “We’ve frightened him off.”

  Laura Glue planted both her feet and flung out her arms. “Jamie!” she shouted. “Jamie, please don’t go!”

  And abruptly, the man stopped in his tracks.

  Slowly he turned around and looked at them. Then, just as slowly, he walked back toward the four companions, his cane tapping gently on the cobblestones and the dog trailing obediently behind.

  Several feet away, he stopped and considered them one by one, before finally looking down at Laura Glue.

  “It’s been a very, very long time since anyone has called me Jamie,” he said slowly, “and it’s not something I allow many people to do. So you must tell me, if you can, who you are and why you call me by that name.”

  The little girl’s eyes began to well up. “Don’t you remember me? The last time we met, you gave me a kiss.” She showed him the thimble, and he knelt down in front of her.

  “My dear, I am an old man, and in all my years, many, many children have seen that play, and they know that a thimble is a kiss, and a kiss a thimble. And please forgive my aged memory, but I can’t have been the one who gave this to you, because I haven’t done that sort of thing since long before you were born.”

  “But, but,” she stammered, confused, “you must be Jamie. Otherwise it wouldn’t have worked.”

  “What wouldn’t have worked, my dear?”

  “This,” said Laura Glue, pulling the Compass Rose out of her tunic. In the presence of four Caretakers, it shone as brightly as a beacon.

  The expression on Jamie’s face changed rapidly from surprise, to disbelief, to, strangely, gratitude. “Put that away,” he said gently. “And let me see your kiss again.”

  Laura Glue tucked the parchment flower back in a pocket and handed him the thimble.

  “Hurm,” he rumbled as he examined the kiss, “I see it now. I’m sorry I didn’t recognize it before. I wasn’t expecting anyone like you in Kensington Gardens. Not again, anyway.”

  He put his arm around the girl and drew her close. “Do you know, this kiss is one of the only items ever removed from the treasure trove of the great dragon Samaranth?”

  “For really and truly?” said Laura Glue.

  “Yes,” Barrie replied, winking at John as he spoke. “It was acquired in an adventure of great peril, and my best friend and I barely escaped with our lives.”

  “Whatever else has gone on,” John whispered to Charles, “it’s obvious why he was chosen as a Caretaker.”

  “Yes,” said Charles, nodding.

  Laura Glue clapped her hands. “I know that story! I know it! That was before you got old again, and became his enemy.”

  A pained expression flashed over Jamie’s face before he smiled and kissed Laura Glue on the forehead. “It was the best of my failures, my dear girl. Now, who’s for some Leprechaun crackers in front of a fire? The sun has set, and it’s obvious the fairies are going to be about in Kensington Gardens tonight.”

  “…someone is always listening…and someone always comes.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  The Lost Boys

  True to his word, back at Jamie’s home he had an ample supply of Leprechaun crackers, as well as an assortment of other biscuits, teas, jams, jellies, and chocolate.

  “I find it useful to be prepared,” Jamie said as he settled into an overstuffed chair with a cup of tea, “for even the most unexpe
cted of visitors. Particularly the youthful ones.”

  “Thif if wuderful,” mumbled Laura Glue through a mouthful of crackers and chocolate. “Fank hu.”

  “You’re quite welcome, my dear,” he said as he placed a saucer of cream and crackers on the floor for the great Saint Bernard, who was lounging comfortably before the fire.

  “Aramis likes treats as well, but that’s more often than not just an excuse to indulge in a nibble myself. And now,” Jamie continued, turning to the three men, “can you tell me what’s brought three gentlemen and a child of the Archipelago to Kensington Gardens, just to have tea with an old playwright?”

  When they had finished eating to everyone’s satisfaction, Laura Glue repeated the message she had been sent to deliver, and, her mission accomplished, promptly busied herself with grooming the dog while the Caretakers talked. It took more than an hour for John, Jack, and Charles to recount the events that had brought them together years earlier as the new Caretakers, during which time Laura Glue fell fast asleep on the cushions in one of the town house’s deep bay windows. They continued with a brief accounting of the war with the Winter King, concluding with the afternoon’s events and the sudden appearance of the girl with wings.

  When they had finished, Jamie stared into the fire, considering, for several minutes.

  “I was terribly sorry about Stellan,” he finally said. “I read about his death in the papers, of course. But it never crossed my mind that it had been the work of the Winter King. In the next couple of years, as the war wound down, I suspected that Bert and Jules had taken some sort of action with regard to the Archipelago, but I tried to put it out of my mind. When I left, I vowed to be done with it—and for better or worse, I’ve kept that vow. Until tonight, that is.”

  “You were Arthur Conan Doyle’s replacement, weren’t you?” Charles asked.

  “In a manner of speaking,” said Jamie. “There have always been three Caretakers, more or less, although once called to the task, those who previously served as Caretakers never seem to be completely removed from the responsibilities it entails, as you may have noticed,” he said, smiling broadly.