Page 14 of Owen

“Here.” I uncapped the water and held it out. “Splash your face.”

“What? Does it look terrible?” Though she cupped her hands, accepting the water I poured into them. “I guess I’m not a pretty crier.”

“I don’t care how you look.”

“Gee, thanks.” She splashed the water against her face, then held her hands out for more.

“I didn’t mean it that way. I only meant you do not look bad to me. I wanted you to be comfortable, nothing more.”

She splashed again, rubbing water out of her eyes. “But I’m an ugly crier, aren’t I? I know it.”

I laughed. “There’s no getting around you, and you happen to be far too hard on yourself. I wouldn’t call you an ugly anything. The word doesn’t come to mind when I look at you.”

“Oh?” The glow of the fire revealed a flush on her cheeks, and she bit her bottom lip, concealing a smile. “What word does come to mind?”

“Impossible. Let’s start there.”

“Thanks. I guess I deserve that.” She reached into her pack again. “Are you hungry? I have jerky in here, and granola bars.”

The thought of eating either of the two turned my stomach. I could so easily have returned to the cave and feasted on roast beef, or venison, or stew. Mary had warned the clan of our impending arrival, and they’d managed to get out to stock the kitchen before the hurricane hit. A clan of dragons tended to go through food rather quickly—especially meat.

“No, thank you,” I said, holding up my hands. “I had a large dinner.”

“Suit yourself.” She pulled out a strip of jerky and tore a piece from the end using her teeth. I noticed that as she chewed, she appeared to be eyeing me in a thoughtful manner.

“What’s on your mind?” I sat across from her, nearly close enough to touch. There was nothing beneath my backside but a carpet of leaves and needles, under which sat cold, hard stone, but I’d survived worse.

“I was wondering something.”

“I could tell, hence my asking.”

She snickered, studying the jerky as if it held some closely-guarded secret. “I wondered… if I should tell you what I was really doing up here before the hurricane hit. Why I decided to hike the mountain.”

I frowned. There was something different in her voice. A note of hesitation which hadn’t been there before. “Don’t tell me it was something illegal,” I attempted to joke.

“Not the last time I checked.”

“What were you doing, then? And why couldn’t you tell me before?”

“I didn’t know if you’d think I was crazy. You might still think I’m crazy now, but you seem like you’d at least be willing to hear me out rather than telling me straight-off that I’m a nutcase who would’ve gotten what she deserved if a tree fell on her during the hurricane.”

This didn’t exactly give me a warm and fuzzy feeling. Far from it, in fact, but I decided to play along. “All right, then. What were you doing up here?”

She pursed her lips, exhaling through her nose. Steeling herself, it seemed. I did the same.

“I was searching for something. One of those Holy Grail sort of things. A legend—well, a legend in my family. It’s really weird. Nobody I’ve ever tried to tell about it has understood, so I stopped trying a long time ago. But you seem like you would get it, Or like you wouldn’t judge me, at least.”

A legend. What were the odds that the legend in question had to do with dragons?

No, that was impossible. Wasn’t it?

I made an attempt at lightheartedness. “A legend, eh? What’s it got to do with?”

“You won’t think I’m completely nuts if I tell you?”

“That’s rather an unfair question,” I pointed out, still struggling to maintain a light tone. She was hardly giving me hope of this being some benign family tale handed down through generations. “I’ll do my best. How about that?”

She snickered. “Yeah, fine. Whatever. Okay.”

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