The Good, the Bad, and the Emus(44)

“So, tomorrow we get up at dawn to watch them round up emus?” Michael asked through yawns.

“Tomorrow we get up at dawn to watch them look for emus,” I said. “Which might not be nearly as much fun for the boys as a roundup. Do we have a backup plan?”

“I’m working on one,” he said.

He fell asleep a few minutes later. Ah, well. Rose Noire was fond of suggesting that if we needed a solution to a knotty problem, we should think about it just before going to sleep and let our subconscious minds solve it. I would leave Michael’s subconscious mind to its work.

If only I could follow his example. But with every passing minute I grew more restless.

After what seemed like several centuries, I gave up. No sense tossing and turning and waking up the rest of the family. I slipped my shoes back on and crept quietly out of the tent to see what was happening.

Not much at the moment. It was only midnight, but no doubt everyone else, like Michael and the boys, was full of enthusiasm for tomorrow’s first day of real work and had gone to bed early. Maybe some of them were even planning to join the early morning owl-watching expedition, which meant they’d have to be up in about four hours. I could still see lights on in some trailers and tents, but no one sitting around the group campfires strumming guitars and singing. No one having a late night snack in the mess tent. No campers lounging in lawn chairs outside their RVs. And several of the lights winked out as I passed them.

Apart from Grandfather’s guards, I was probably the only person in camp still awake. I was glad the soft grass and weeds underfoot muffled my footsteps.

Still, I felt relieved when I finally passed the last few tents and trailers and stepped out into the open pasture. I stopped when I came to the tall chain-link fence defining the emu holding pen and turned to face Miss Annabel’s house. It was slightly uphill from the pasture—only slightly, but with its tall lines and gleaming white Victorian fretwork it looked even farther above me, like an ornate wedding cake sitting on top of the hill.

There were lights on in two rooms on the ground floor. I couldn’t see anything, because all the shades were drawn. Was Dr. Ffollett still there, watching over Miss Annabel? Or had he lied about her being sedated and asleep? Should I have arranged for guards for her, too? I made a mental note to broach the subject tomorrow.

A couple of times I saw a shadow flicker across the blinds, but it was a useless and rather uneventful vigil I was keeping.

Or a very peaceful one, depending on how you looked at it. The noises from the camp had pretty much died down, so I heard only the bugs and frogs and the occasional distant peal of thunder. I glanced back and forth between the house on the hill and the camp down here in the pasture, with an occasional side glance at Theo Weaver’s house, which had been and remained completely dark. Eventually one of the lights in Annabel’s house blinked out. A light upstairs came on—then another. I heard the sound of a car starting and then driving away. Presumably Dr. Ffollett leaving. The remaining downstairs room went dark. The reclusive Miss Annabel, secure in her lair, was moving upstairs to retire for the night.

I had a sudden, unexpected vision of a dragon settling down for a nap on its treasure hoard, folding its wings and coiling its scaly tail, knocking a jeweled goblet off the pile of gleaming objects and sending a small avalanche of glittering gold coins falling down.

“Curious what the subconscious sends up when you’re overtired,” I murmured.

But yes, the image of Annabel as a dragon wasn’t off base. There she was, sitting on who knows how rich a hoard of family history. Pictures, letters, journals, and her own memories of my grandmother. The house was less a wedding cake than a castle hiding a treasure chest inside, with dragon Annabel guarding the gate. And it wasn’t our job to slay the dragon but to charm it. To win it over by completing the quest it had set. To—

I suddenly realized that for the last several minutes—maybe longer—I had been feeling the uneasy prickling that we humans feel—or think we feel—when we are being watched.





Chapter 13



I had to fight the urge to whirl around, darting glances in all directions, trying to spot whoever was watching me. Instead, I took a slow survey, moving only my eyes.

Who could possibly have any reason for watching me? I suspected Annabel had been keeping an eye on the camp earlier, with those binoculars I’d seen on her kitchen counter. But even if she was still peering out of those now-darkened windows, I was in shadow. She couldn’t see much from this distance. The idea of her watching didn’t creep me out. And I was definitely feeling creeped out.