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That was my wyvern, damnit.
I stared at the sky, debating what I would do if he landed. Would he? Was he keeping tabs on me and annoyed that I’d come back to Oregon? Did he consider the whole state his territory now? We were more than a four-hour drive from where the wyvern had been, though I supposed that was a much shorter distance as the dragonflew.
Fortunately, the dragon kept flying and soon soared out ofsight.
“Let’s hope it’s a coincidence,” Imuttered.
Hissing came from Maggie’scarrier.
I frowned at Sindari. “Are you doing something to thatcat?”
Absolutelynot.
Why is shehissing?
She finds my size and magnificence intimidating, a reminder of her small and diminutive stature, which would put her at the mercy of wolves and cougars if she were in thewilds.
Or maybe she just doesn’t likeyou.
Another hiss came from the catcarrier.
As any feline will tell you, it is more important to be respected than to beliked.
I got into the car. As I headed back to the highway, Maggie hunkered down in her carrier. She switched from hissing to glaring frostily through the grate towardSindari.
Even though it was the silence I’d hoped for, I felt bad about cowing thecat.
“You’ll like my mother’s house,” I told her. “It’s got all kinds of bookcases to climb on, and there’s a loft with tons of junk in it. She’s got a golden retriever, but you should get along fine. Rocket likes everybody. Cats, rats, squirrels, people.Everybody.”
Tigers?
We’llsee.
As I drove the car onto the highway, I realized something with a sinking feeling. We were heading in the same direction the dragon had beenflying.
* * *
My mom had livedin the same log cabin in Bend since I’d left home at eighteen and joined the army. Back then, she’d been on the outskirts of town with a pine-tree-filled acre of land along the river. Since then, town had moved out to her and far beyond, with subdivisions full of expensive houses on tiny lots sprouting up like mushrooms after a rain. Fortunately for her sanity, her street hadn’t changed that much, other than that half the little homes had been replaced by boxy four-thousand-square-foot monstrosities with walls ofwindows.
She hadn’t cleared any of the trees on her lot, and a lava-rock cliff rose up behind the cabin, so it was still relatively private and unchanged by time, or at least it had been three years earlier, the last time I had visited. Now, as I drove down her road toward the end, a tingle raised the hairs on my arms, a warning of a magical being or perhaps magical artifacts. I hoped my mom didn’t have a witch or a werewolf for aneighbor.
I turned off the paved street and onto her long gravel driveway and frowned. There was a beat-up orange camper van parked in the dirt that didn’t look anything like her Subaru SUV. Was it hers? I’d spent the first twelve years of my life living in a school bus that she’d converted into a house on wheels, long before the term “tiny home” had become trendy. But after settling here, she’d seemed to give up her itchy-footedways.
Stranger than the van were the new lawn ornaments—stands of metal flowers, miniature windmills, bears holding fish like bazookas, and peacocks made out of rusty bicycle parts. They were all over the patches of grass that managed to thrive in the splotches of sun between the trees. Not only were the ornaments of dubious design, but they oozed magic, much like the charms on my necklace. They were what I’d sensed from up thestreet.
“Did shemove? Withouttellingme?” I staredaround.
The log cabin itself hadn’t changed much, with the roof still in need of pressure-washing—though the moss growing up there would surely object to such an activity—and the greenhouse and garden beds in use. There was a blue kayak mounted on the side of the one-car log garage thatmighthave been there last time, but I couldn’tremember.
What makes you wonder that?Sindari had figured out how the automatic windows worked, and his big furry silver head was hanging out from the back seat.Themagic?
The magic and the, uh, flavor of the magic.I wouldn’t have been surprised if Mom was collecting elven artifacts, but it was hard to imagine an elven or even half-elven hand involved in the making of the rusty recycled art.Can you tell what those yard ornamentsdo?
No. Maybe your mother acquired amate.
That’simpossible.
Is she not sexuallyactive?
