He would admit that when he killed his grandmother, he thought he’d suffer for it. He’d be caught and even if he wasn’t, it would be as Father Joseph preached—he would be forever damned in the prison of his own mind, tormented by his sins. Father Joseph had lied. Or, more likely, he simply didn’t understand boys like Bobby.
No one ever suspected Gran died of anything but a natural death, and his life turned for the better after that. He learned how to win his parents’ sympathy if not their love. To turn them, just a little, to his side, away from the Gnat. He learned, too, how to deal with his sister. That took longer and started at school, with other children, the ones who bullied and taunted him.
He decided to show those children why he should not be bullied or taunted. One by one, he showed them. Little thingsfor some, like spoiling their lunches every day. Bigger things for others. With one boy, he loosened the seat on his bike, and he fell and hit his head on the curb and had to go away, people whispering that he’d never be quite right again.
Bobby took his revenge, and then let the children know it was him, and when they tattled, he cried and pretended he didn’t know what was happening, why they were accusing him—they’d always hated him, always mocked and beat him, and the teachers knew that was true, and his tears and his lies were good enough to convince them that he was the victim. Each time he won, he would hear the dragons scream again, and he’d know he’d done well.
Once he’d perfected his game, he played it against the Gnat. For her eighth birthday, their parents gave her a pretty little parakeet that she adored. One day, after she’d called him a monster and scratched him hard enough to draw blood, he warned that she shouldn’t let the bird fly about, it might fly right out the door.
“I’m not stupid,” she said. “I don’t open the doors when she’s out.” She scowled at him. “And you’d better not either.”
“I wouldn’t do that,” he said. And the next time she let the bird out, he lured it with treats to his parents’ room, where the window was open, just enough.
He even helped her search for her bird. Then she discovered the open window.
“You did it!” she shouted.
She rushed at him, fingers like claws, scratching down his arm. He howled. His parents came running. The Gnat pointed at the window.
“Look what he did. He let her out!”
His father cleared his throat. “I’m afraid I left that open, sweetheart.”
“You shouldn’t have let the bird out of her cage,” his mother said, steering the Gnat off with promises of ice cream. “You know we warned you about that.”
The Gnat turned to him. He smiled, just for a second, just enough to let her know. Then he joined them in the kitchen where his mother gave him extra ice cream for being so nice and helping his little sister hunt for her bird.
TheGnat wasn’t that easily cowed. She only grew craftier. Six months later, their parents bought her another parakeet. She kept it in its cage and warned Bobby that if it escaped, they’d all know who did it. He told her to be nicer to him and that wouldn’t be a problem. She laughed. Three months later, she came home from school to find her bird lying on the floor of its cage, dead. His parents called it a natural death. The Gnat knew better, and after that, she stayed as far from him as she could.
While his life outside Cainsville improved, his visits to the town darkened, as if there was a finite amount of good in his life, and to shift more to one place robbed it from the other.
He blamed Rose. After her dream of the dragon, she’d been nicer to him, apparently deciding it had been no more than a dream. Unlike Hannah’s power, Rose’s came in fits and starts, mingling prophecy and fantasy.
But then, after he did particularly bad things back home—like loosening the bike seat or killing the bird—he’d come to Cainsville and she’d stare at him, as if trying to peer into his soul. After a few times, she seemed to decide that where there were dragons, there was fire, and if she was having these dreams, they meant something. Something bad.
Rose started avoiding him. Worse, she made Hannah do the same. He’d come to town and they’d be off someplace and no one knew where to find them—not until it was nearly time for him to go, and they’d appear, and Rose would say, “Oh, are you leaving? So sorry we missed you.”
Soon, it wasn’t just Rose looking at him funny. All the elders did. Mrs. Yates stuck by him, meeting him each time he visited, taking him for walks. Only now her questions weren’t quite so gentle.Is everything all right, Bobby? Are you sure? Is there anything you want to tell me? Anything at all?
It didn’t help that he’d begun doing things evenheknew were wrong. It wasn’t his fault. The dreams of golden castles and endless meadows had begun to fade. It did not directly coincide with the first screams of the dragons, but it was close enough that he’d suspected there was a correlation. When he stopped tormenting his tormenters and let the screams of dragons ebb, the dreams of the golden world continued to fade, until he was forced to accept that it was simply the passing of time. As he aged, those childish fancies slid away, and all he had left were the dragons. So he indulged them. Fed them well and learned to delight in their screams as much as he had those pretty dreams.
There were times when he swore he could hear his grandmother’s voice in his ear, calling him a nasty boy, a wicked boy. And when he did, he would smile, knowing he was feeding the dragons properly. But they took much feeding, and it wasn’t long before no one tormented him and there were no worthy targets for his wickedness. He had to find targets and, increasingly, they were less worthy, until finally, by the time he turned twelve, many were innocent of any crime against him. But the dragons had to be fed.
That summer, his mother took him to Cainsville two days after he’d done something particularly wicked, particularly cruel, and when he arrived at the new diner, the elders were notthere. Even Mrs. Yates was gone. He’d walked to her house and then to the schoolyard, where they sometimes sat and watched the children play. He found her there, with the others, as a group of little ones played tag.
When she saw him, she’d risen, walked over and said he should go to the new diner and have a milkshake and she’d meet him there later. She’d even given him three dollars for the treat. But he’d looked at the children, and he’d looked at her, standing between him and the little ones, guarding them against him, and he’d let the three bills fall to the ground and stalked off to talk to Rose.
He found her at her brother’s place. Rose was the youngest. A “whoops” everyone said, and he hadn’t known what that meant until he was old enough to understand where babies came from and figured out that she’d been an accident, born when her mother was nearly fifty. This brother was twenty-nine, married, with a little girl of his own. That’s where Rose was—babysitting her niece.
Bobby snuck around back and found the little girl playing in a sandbox. She couldn’t be more than three, thin with black hair. He watched her and considered all the ways he could repay Rose for her treachery.
“What are you doing here?” a low voice came from behind him. He turned to see Rose, coming out of the house with a sipping cup and a bottle of Coke. Like Mrs. Yates, she moved between him and the child. Then she leaned over and whispered, “Take this and go inside, Seanna. I’ll be there in a minute, and we’ll read a book together.”
She handed the little girl the sipping cup and watched her toddle off. Then she turned to him. “Why are you here, Bobby?”
“I want to know what you told the elders about me.”
“About you?” Her face screwed up. “Nothing. Why?”
