The Search for the Red Dragon Read Free Page A

asking.
    “Yes,” said John. “If you’re asking what I think you are.”
    “So…the Archipelago of Dreams…the Imaginarium Geographica …”
    “Yes,” John repeated. “It’s all real.”
    Jack turned to look at them, his face inscrutable. “Do you have the atlas with you? Can—can I see it?”
    “It’s, ah, it’s in the backseat of the car,” John admitted sheepishly.
    “In a lockbox, or a leather bag, I’d assume?”
    “No,” said Charles. “It’s protected by a thick layer of lectures on Ancient Icelandic.”
    Jack blinked and then snorted. “And they call you the Caretaker Principia. Did you at least mix in a few papers on old Anglo-Saxon? Or are you giving your professorship short shrift too?”
    John and Charles stared at their friend for a moment before the somber expressions on their faces were broken by broad, transcendent smiles.
    “Of course it happened, my good fellow,” said Charles, clasping Jack by the shoulders. “Our adventure in the Archipelago of Dreams has become the stuff of legend. And you are one of the heroes.”
    Jack embraced each of his friends, then stepped back to look at them. “Charles,” he said with a hint of teasing, “you’ve gotten old .”
    “Editors don’t grow old ,” Charles retorted. “They just become more distinguished .”
    “And you,” he said to John, “how are you finding teaching at your old stomping grounds?”
    “I like it as much as I expected,” said John. “Although I think I’d prefer to be left alone to write if I have another crop of students like the current bunch. Hardly an inquisitive or creative mind among them.”
    “It could be worse,” said Charles. “You could be teaching at Cambridge.”
    At the mention of their old joke, the three friends doubled over in laughter. But soon enough a more serious mood settled upon them again, and the haunted look Jack had worn when they entered returned to his face.
    “Why have you called us, Jack?” John asked. “What’s happened?”
    “It’s hard to say,” Jack replied. “I came up here with Warnie to work on some of my poems—and perhaps a book or three—but several weeks ago I began to have nightmares, and in the last few days, they’ve gotten worse.”
    “Warnie said you called out Aven’s name,” said Charles.
    “Yes,” admitted Jack, wincing visibly. “I’ve tried not to think much about her since our return to England—but I’ve been dreaming about her. I—I think she’s in terrible trouble of some kind. But I can’t say what.”
    “Hmm,” John mused. “What else has been in these dreams?”
    “Well, dreamstuff, naturally,” said Jack. “Things that come bubbling up from one’s subconscious. Indians, and crows, and strangely…children.”
    “Do tell,” John said, considering his own recent dreams. “If there were children, I’m assuming there were also…”
    “…Giants,” finished Charles. “If there were children, then there were also Giants. I’ve been having the same dream.”
    “As have I,” said John. About the Giants, but not about Aven, he said silently to himself.
    Before any of them could elaborate further, they were interrupted by a knock at the study door.
    “I’m dreadfully sorry to interrupt,” said Warnie, “but it seems we’ve, ah…” He paused and bit his lip, as a curious and puzzled expression came over his face.
    “Warn?” said Jack. “What is it? What’s happened?”
    “Oh, nothing bad—I think,” Warnie replied. “But it appears we have an angel in the garden.”
     
    There was indeed, as Warnie had surmised, an angel in the cottage’s garden; or at least, something that was as close to a description of an angel as one might give if one was unaccustomed to finding such things in one’s garden.
    Sitting in a disarray of just-blooming bluebells, mud, and free-floating feathers was a small girl. A small girl with wings .
    Her face was smudged with dirt, and her clothing, a simple brown tunic, belted