Jennifer Scales and the Ancient Furnace Read online

  “I don’t get it,” Susan said, ignoring what Jennifer just said. “The championship wasn’t that long ago! You played great. That kick! And then hitting Bob in the hallway—you seem so strong. How can you be sick?”

  Jennifer stood and began sketching trees off in the distance, far away from the sheep. No cover for the poor little sheep.

  Her friend tried again. “Anyway, I acted like a jerk today when I didn’t even say hello. I couldn’t figure out what to say. I’m really sorry. I mean, you’re my best friend, and we haven’t seen or talked to each other in a long time. I miss you.”

  Jennifer couldn’t bring herself to speak. Part of her was thrilled that Susan still cared, but most of her wished she had locked her window and avoided this. Why become best friends again, when she’d just have to disappear again before the next crescent moon—possibly for good?

  A moment passed, and then Susan exploded. “Dammit, could you at least turn around and look at us?”

  I’m afraid of the shapes I might see, Jennifer thought. She remembered the spindly sheep on the bus, and the animals all over town. She liked her friends the way she remembered them, not stretched out like some kind of insane claymation farm movie characters. But she didn’t know how to put her fear into words.

  “This is getting old fast,” snarled Susan.

  “Susan, cut her a break!” pleaded Eddie. “We can’t know what it’s—”

  “I had a mother who was sick, five years ago.” Susan interrupted. “I’m sure Jennifer remembers her. She died six months after the doctors discovered her cancer. She spent those six months wrapped up in her own pain, not talking to anyone. Not even me, though I stayed by her bed night after night. She got thinner and thinner in that bed. Barely a word all that time. And then she died, without making it right. It was selfish and cruel.

  “If Jennifer wants to do this, fine. But I’m not wasting any more time here. It hurts too much to watch.”

  Jennifer heard scraping at the window, which apparently was stuck closed now, then a slam on the sill. “Fine, screw the window. I’ll go out the front door.”

  As Susan opened the door and passed into the hall, Jennifer caught a glimpse of her friend—a midnight-black Arabian galloping by, with glitter in its mane and long, velvety cheeks streaked with blush and tears. Jennifer set aside the image and remembered Susan’s mother. How stupid of her to forget! She should never have let her parents use illness as an excuse.

  She wanted badly to call out, but now matters were worse. How would Susan feel if she found out that Jennifer and her family were using a wasting disease as some sort of neat and convenient cover story?

  It didn’t matter. This was inevitable. She’d lose all of them. Not all right away, but one by one . . .

  “Susan!” Eddie rushed out of the room, in the shape of a silver stallion. “Jennifer, I’ll get her. Susan!”

  There were footsteps on stairs, and mumbled voices, and Susan shouting, and then her parents’ voices, too. Then Susan shouting again and a door slamming. Then silence.

  She waited for a moment.

  “Skip, if you’re staying, pick up some charcoal.”

  “Okay.” She made out his shape out of the corner of her eye as he bent over, picked up a stick, and reached up with another hand to pull down one of the lingering posters on her wall. “You want more sheep, or something else?”

  “Something else,” she said, shuddering. In her waking dream, she saw once more in his place the spindly sheep-creature from the bus. It was all she could do not to look at it directly as it pawed at her wall with graceless appendages. “Definitely something else, now. I don’t care what.”

  Jennifer stopped eating the next day. Ever since the meeting with Mr. Mouton, she felt too predatory—she found herself craving meals too much and feeling guilty that everyone around her seemed to take on the shape, smell, or surname of a tasty snack. Of course, not eating made the cravings worse, and before the week was out, Jennifer saw food in the most alarming places—noodles in the bathroom sink drain, sugar cookies lacing the windows, and fish flopping around the dirty clothes strewn all over her floor.

  She hardly left her room for three weeks, letting her mother bring her food she would not eat—she tried a bit of chicken soup once, and spit it out when it tasted like blood—and plead with her to sip water and nibble on bread. She covered her walls in charcoal—the flocks of sheep were now hunted by droves of vengeful angels and (where Skip had injected his own artistic taste) a couple of black, faceless butterflies. He had left enough pink from the wall showing through their wings that they looked a bit like that Swordtail that Jennifer had heard screaming in Ms. Graf’s class weeks ago—years ago, it seemed now.

  Skip and Eddie came to see her every couple of days after school, sometimes together, sometimes apart. They invariably brought up food that Jennifer’s parents hoped she would eat if offered by different hands, and then ate it themselves when the ploy didn’t work.

  More often than not, they appeared in their strange shapes—Eddie as a beautiful silver stallion with brown speckles, and Skip as a pair of overly tall and skinny sheep. Neither distortion was comforting to Jennifer, so she usually turned away, complaining that she needed to rest her eyes, and let them talk about high school (“boring”), and Bob Jarkmand (“healing”), and even girls they thought were cute (“giggling”).

  If the topic was mundane enough, she would ask a question or two, just to keep them talking. After all, even if they would leave like Susan someday, she wasn’t ready to lose everybody at once. And perhaps after enough talk, a corner of Jennifer’s mind insisted, she could find some way to tell them the truth after all.

  But the time was never right in those weeks after Susan left. Whenever Eddie or Skip turned the conversation to her or her condition, Jennifer would tighten and shake her head. They knew then to drop the subject.

  One early morning, hours before sunrise, someone she had barely seen for two weeks woke her up: her father.

  “We’re going,” he said simply.

  “Where?”

  “Grandpa’s farm. Get dressed.”

  The idea of going to the farm during a crescent moon was enough to pique Jennifer’s interest. She had considered refusing to move during her next morph, just to have Skip the Sheep and Eddie the Horse walk in one day and find Jennifer the Dragon in her bed! But that could wait.

  “Will any other weredragons be there?”

  “Get dressed. Remember, no good clothes.”

  He drove her up to the cabin himself, as the waning crescent moon drifted off to the east. Despite Jennifer’s protests, he did not let Phoebe come with them.

  “There won’t be time to play with your dog. Your mother’s staying home. They’ll look after each other.”

  And so they went up alone, in a quiet drive that seemed longer than it actually was. By the time they got to the cabin, Jennifer began to feel both excited and nervous—she saw the wildflower fields she had flown over, and the wrecked beehive, and the sheep (real sheep, not skinny-Skip-sheep) lying in the pasture.

  “You got any of that morphine Mom used last time?” she asked her father nervously as he parked the minivan.

  He glanced out of the corner of his eye. “I don’t exactly approve of your mother’s methods. There’s a lot about being a weredragon she can’t understand. Most of what you felt that first night was fear, not pain.”

  “That’s funny. It felt an awful lot like back-bending, brain-cooking pain. Yep, now that I think of it, that’s what it was.”

  “It won’t be so bad this time. The more the change happens, the more you get used to it. Taking morphine, or anything else, just means it’ll take longer for you to adjust.”

  Nothing—not even the wind, nor the golden eagles she had seen daily on their last visit—made any movement or sound around them in the dusk. Her father got out of the minivan, lifted the back door, and pulled out the bags they had packed. “You didn’t pack enough, but your mother c
an bring up more clothes for you, in a week or so.”

  “How long are we going to stay here?”

  “For a while. Your mother and I decided—”

  “You and Mom decided?”

  “—that it’s simply too dangerous to let you wander around Winoka, where you might make a mistake—”

  “What do you mean, make a mistake?”

  “—and beyond that, we’re concerned for your health, since you haven’t been eating—”

  “I can decide what I eat and when!”

  “—so anyway, you need to stay someplace for as long as it takes.”

  “For as long as it takes for what? For someone to actually seek my input on my own future?”

  “For as long as it takes for you to get comfortable with who you are now.”

  She followed him up through the barn and into the connecting mudroom. “Comfortable with who I am! I’m never going to be comfortable with who I am! I hate that I don’t look like you or Grandpa. I hate the way it changes the way I see and smell things. I hate the way it makes me lie to my friends. And I hate how much it hurts.” She flopped down on an armchair in the sitting room. Her father paused in the doorway to the kitchen long enough to look at her.

  “This is why you need this time. Trust me, Jennifer.”

  “I can’t trust someone who’s been lying to me for fourteen years,” she spat. Once it was out, she didn’t want to take it back. It felt too much like the truth.

  He stared at her but didn’t reply. Instead, he went into the kitchen.

  The change came less than an hour later, and as much as Jennifer hated to admit it, her father was right. It didn’t hurt as much as it had the first time. Her insides still twisted uncomfortably, and the way her spine crinkled still creeped her out beyond belief, but there was little pain in her jaws, claws, or limbs.

  With less pain and fear, Jennifer was able to observe her own transformation more clearly. The most interesting part, she told herself while gritting her teeth through the modest aches, was the unfolding of the wings. A sheath burst out of her shoulder blades and wrapped itself around arms and torso. It spun out the thin material that stretched from her scaly wrist to her glistening abdomen. Then her elbows bent backward with a sickening grapp, though it felt to her like little more than cracking her knuckles.

  All in all, she couldn’t decide which was the more troubling—the first change weeks ago, when she was terrified and could barely see anything, or this one, where she knew what was happening and could calmly observe the dragon shape obliterating her human body.

  As the tint of electric blue came to her thickening skin and the greasy horn began to poke out of her elongated snout, she finally decided it sucked either way.

  Her father came in from the kitchen when they had both morphed—he had given her some privacy, at her request—and looked her over with a smile that fell short of his silver eyes. The comment she had made earlier apparently stuck with him.

  “The moon’s been coming out of last quarter for at least a day. The others will be here soon. Wait here.”

  “What, you’re leaving?”

  His silver eyes held an icy tint. “Don’t pretend to be disappointed.”

  Jennifer had never experienced bitterness from her own father, and it surprised her. It made him seem a lot younger—or perhaps herself a lot older. A surge of guilt flushed her cheeks.

  “I’m sorry I’ve been acting so difficult—”

  “Don’t be sorry,” he interrupted, holding her gaze. “You’re right to feel the way you feel. But I think I am doing more harm than good. Your grandfather will be a better tutor for you.”

  “Where will you go? I mean, you’re a dragon, Dad. Shouldn’t you stay here, at least for the crescent moon?”

  “I’ll go where I often go when I’m like this. Crescent Valley.”

  “Can I—I mean, after a while, do you think I could go there, too?”

  He paused and for the second time in the conversation, revealed an expression she had never seen before. This time, it was as if he was weighing her with his eyes, or examining her for faults. It made her feel both resentful and anxious at once.

  “In time,” he finally said. “For now, I’ve got to get moving while there’s still enough moonlight on the water.” He turned to leave.

  “When will I see you again?” She felt herself start to panic. What if Grandpa didn’t come? What if the other weredragons were unfriendly? And what did moonlight on the water have to do with anything?

  “I’ll probably stay there a few weeks,” he said. “Your mother’s going to be out of town on seminars. I’ll pick up the van on the way back.”

  “Wait, weeks? I thought you only stayed in dragon shape while the crescent moon lasted.”

  He leaned in close and bared his sharp teeth in a mysterious smile. “Curious, isn’t it?”

  And then, with a rush of wind, he was gone.

  Sunrise came about an hour later, and there was still no sign of anyone else. Silence and the dewy scent of dawn lay in the crisp October air. Jennifer curled up on the porch and waited, looking over her nose horn for any sign of anyone and wondering if she ought to catch something to eat for herself . . . when suddenly breakfast came to her.

  Half a dozen of Grandpa’s sheep, far away from their grazing pastures, came lumbering around the northeast corner of the cabin. They looked terrified.

  The sound of galloping feet came surging right after, and before Jennifer could react three enormous olive green shapes barged around the same corner in hot pursuit. All three dragons—for they were dragons, though not of any kind Jennifer had ever seen before—gave a boisterous roar that practically knocked her off the porch. Then, like thunderstorms in skin, they redoubled their pace and charged after their prey.

  “Hey, what’re you—” she began, but her voice was lost in the horrific din. Was she seeing animal shapes again, or was this real?

  It was in fact real, she decided, and a real hunt at that. The predators’ forearms were thick and strong, and the sparse wing webbing that connected these limbs to their bodies seemed more decorative than useful. Certainly they were more comfortable on the ground than Jennifer still was. She couldn’t imagine these bulky shapes circling over a lake full of fish like her father, or diving gracefully down to pluck anything out of anywhere.

  But it was their violent crimson eyes that really caught her attention. Three pairs of narrow red pinpoints sprinted toward their prey, completely focused. If the sheep had been gazelles, they wouldn’t have been any better off, Jennifer was sure.

  One caught up to a straggling sheep. With a quick movement of its head, it ducked under the animal’s belly and gored its rib cage with a nose horn. The sheep flipped up into the air and fell dead.

  Ew. She winced. With a wing claw, she fingered her own nose horn tentatively.

  The other two dragons had almost caught up to their own sheep when two slender blue shapes flipped over the nearby trees and swooped down. Their scales were almost exactly the same shade as Jennifer’s, but their enormous wings had patterns of pink, orange, and yellow that reminded her more of a butterfly than a dragon.

  With a spirited laugh, the newcomers swung their tails down and struck each of the green dragons with the tips. Sparks flew, and there were shouts of protest and more laughter. The blue dragons tried to get at the surviving sheep, but the green dragons would have none of it.

  “Hey, Catherine!” one of the flyers giggled with flashing, golden eyes. “What’s the matter? Haven’t learned how to fly yet?”

  “Come closer and say that” came the good-natured response. “I’ll have you for breakfast instead.”

  “You’re going hungry today! These sheep are ours!”

  As both groups chased each other back and forth, Jennifer thought she saw a shadow by the edge of the trees move. It was a mound of dirt and weeds that she wasn’t sure had ever been there before. Staring directly at it, she realized that it had eyes—silver eyes.
They fixed on the sheep, and the dragons chasing them.

  They looked hungry, and not entirely friendly.

  CHAPTER 8

  The Legend of the Ancient Furnace

  Jennifer raised her head, not knowing what this mysterious mound with eyes was or whether to warn the others—but before she could even say a word, the clump struck. As an unobservant sheep trotted by, its jaws flared out, grabbed the poor thing by its fluffy neck, and twisted.

  “Creeper!” one of the blue dragons cried out, but he was still laughing. “Creeper alert! Mullery’s trying to horn in on our meal!”

  This got all of them working together. But before green or blue dragon could reach the site of the attack, the newcomer had disappeared again, wrapping its shadowy skin around its prey somewhere in the prickly brush.

  “Come out, Mullery!” they all roared, swiping gently at the branches. “Show yourself, and the sheep! Or we’ll burn this forest down looking for you.”

  “You will not,” Jennifer abruptly shouted, jumping over the porch railing and landing (rather elegantly, she congratulated herself) on the lawn not far from them. They all started a bit at her interruption, but quickly smiled when they saw who she was.

  “You’re Crawford’s granddaughter, aren’t you?” said one of the olive-skinned dragons.

  “That’s right. I’m Jennifer Scales. Who are you, and why are you chasing our sheep around our barn and talking about burning down our forest?”

  The dragon extended a wing claw. “Catherine Brandfire. We’re just joking about burning the forest—we know the rules around here.”

  Jennifer reluctantly shook the offered claw. “All right, then. What about the sheep?”

  “What, you want one? Join the hunt. But that’ll mean two of us go hungry, instead of just one!” She said this last to the whole group, and there were a few chuckles.

  “Why haven’t I ever seen you around here before?”

  Catherine shrugged. “Well, I’m pretty new. Only turned sixteen a few weeks ago. But the others have been coming here for years. Some of us get bored around mealtime—picking off prey is too easy, unless you have a bit of competition!”