“As if anyone we know could afford one!” Beth interjected.
“—we’d have heard about it ages ago. Trust me! It’s a neighbourhood event whenever anyone adds a new handful of sheep to their flock, much less ... this.”
As they all watched, the little dragon flattened itself on its long belly and then slunk back towards the meat pie in a manner that it might, perhaps, have imagined to be stealthy.
“I suppose ...” Beth took a tentative first step into the room. “If someone were travelling across the countryside and happened to lose their dragon along the way ...”
“But where would they be coming from? Or going? We don’t live by any great roads!”
Rose frowned. “What about the ghoul—that is to say, your new neighbour? At Penryddn House?”
Georgie’s laugh boomed through the kitchen. Even Beth stifled a giggle, her shoulders relaxing as she took another half-step closer to their semicircle.
“Don’t tell me you’ve actually been tricked into believing Serena’s Gothic fantasies!” Georgie shook her head indulgently. “The rest of us learned better years ago. The fact that Sir Gareth hasn’t bothered to pay any social calls since he moved in all those months ago may well make him a misanthrope, but it hardly labels him a ghoul. I’d skip most social calls myself if I was allowed. Wouldn’t you?”
“Serena wouldn’t. She’s desperate to meet a ghoul.” Beth finally sank onto the floor beside them, eyes still fixed on the dragon. “She thinks it would be desperately romantic.”
“Of course she does.” Rose sighed. She had been romantic, too, when she was younger, but unlike her stunningly gorgeous older cousin, she had been forced to learn better. “Gothic or not, I suppose he hardly sounds like the sort of gentleman who would invest in a pet dragon for his daughter or sister to carry into high society. At any rate, we can’t pay him a social call to ask, not without a prior introduction to make it respectable.” She frowned down at the beast as it licked out every last speck of a crumb from the nearly empty dish, then moved on to the floor nearby. “We’ll have to ask your father how to look after this one until its owner turns up.”
“Oh, no!” Beth seized Rose’s closest arm in a desperate grip. “Please don’t, cousin! For all of our sakes. Don’t breathe a word to Papa, I beg you!”
“Why ever not?” Rose shook her arm, but she couldn’t loosen her cousin’s panicked hold. “Uncle Parry is a noted dragon expert. He must be—”
“Father hasn’t the slightest notion about real dragons,” said Georgie. “All he cares about are the legends – you know, the red dragon and the white, Sir George and the dragon, and so on.” She waved a dismissive hand. “I’ve never seen him so disappointed as when the news came out about real dragons being found, and being so entirely unmagical after all.”
“He wouldn’t eat any of Mrs Davies’s puddings for two weeks!” said Beth. “She was beside herself. It was horrid. And his theories ...!”
The two sisters traded meaningful looks. As Beth’s fingers finally loosened on Rose’s arm, Georgie sighed. “Papa is convinced that native Welsh dragons would be far more powerful, and far bigger, too, just as they were in the old stories. He’s certain that they’re only in hiding now, somewhere deep underground. He says it’s probably the fault of the English, too, no matter that half of our ancestors were English! It’s been months since he last let loose about it all, but if he catches sight of this one, he’ll plunge directly back into despair about how unbearably disappointing real dragons are compared to all the legends of Merlin ... what a bitter mockery they make of his life’s vocation ...” She winced. “Trust me, we’ve all heard that lecture often enough.”
Beth shuddered, her grip on Rose’s arm tightening anew. “Mrs Davies refused to make any puddings for the rest of us until we made him stop!”
“Then we certainly cannot allow him to see this one.” Rose tapped her fingers against the floor in thought, and the little dragon looked up at her with alert interest. It was still hungry – that much was clear – but she had no notion of what else it would need.
Her older sister, Elinor, would know. Elinor had been writing to Rose for months about the poor dragon who’d been gifted to their intolerable cousin Penelope. Rose’s older sister was far out of reach, though, settled with that far wealthier and infinitely more horrible branch of their extended family in southern England. Any dragon-care questions directed to her would go unanswered for days.
... And Rose had already been trying not to fret over the fact that she hadn’t heard from Elinor for nearly a fortnight. By her older sister’s high standards, that was an astonishing lapse of reliability. Still, it didn’t necessarily mean that anything bad had happened to her.
There was no reason or even any likelihood that calamity should strike Rose’s family again.
Still ... had today’s post arrived yet?
“We could hide him in the stables for now,” Georgie suggested.
“No, he’d be trampled. Poor thing!” Beth let go of Rose’s arm at last so she could lean down and present herself at eye level to the dragon, even as she trembled with nerves. It was one of the things Rose loved best about her younger cousin. Beth’s anxiety, intense and overwhelming though it could be, had one failsafe Achilles heel: her deep well of compassion.
“Do you want to hide in my cupboard, little one?” Beth cooed, reaching out a wary hand. “I can probably clear enough space for you to fit. You’ll just have to stay perfectly quiet and still when Carys comes in to clean, so she doesn’t mention you to Mrs Davies.”
The dragon backed hastily away from Beth’s fingers, its long neck curving back over its body ... and closer to Rose.
That did it. As the little dragon shifted more and more tightly into Rose’s side – as if she, of all people, could somehow represent any sort of stability or safety for anyone! – Rose came to an inescapable conclusion.
She couldn’t protect either of her sisters from danger; they were scattered beyond her reach. Nor did she have any funds to restore this crumbling old house. Despite the love she had developed for her uncle, aunt, and cousins – and even for their monstrosity of a home – she knew perfectly well that her presence could only be a burden upon them for as long as she chose to remain here: one more mouth to be fed with Uncle Parry’s dwindling inheritance and the tiny pittance brought in by Aunt Parry’s delicious novels.
Rose still didn’t know how to solve that problem, but she knew one thing for certain: how it felt to be lost and surrounded on all sides by strangers, no matter how kind or well-meaning they might be.
She would not leave this small creature to feel that fear for long ... even if solving its problem required the tiniest bit of recklessness on her part.
She wasn’t being rash or unreasonable, though. It was simply unthinkable for Rose to not help when so much needed fixing all around her!
