A voice from the creature, smooth as buttered oil. “He-llo,” it said. “Ding-dong. You look remarkably like dinner.”
“I’m Charlie Nancy,” said Charlie Nancy. “Who are you?”
“I am Dragon,” said the dragon. “And I shall devour you in one slow mouthful, little man in a hat.”
Charlie blinked. What would my father do? he wondered. What would Spider have done? He had absolutely no idea. Come on. After all, Spider’s sort of a part of me. I can do whatever he can do.
“Er. You’re bored with talking to me now, and you’re going to let me pass unhindered,” he told the dragon, with as much conviction as he was able to muster.
“Gosh. Good try. But I’m afraid I’m not,” said the dragon, enthusiastically. “Actually, I’m going to eat you.”
“You aren’t scared of limes, are you?” asked Charlie, before remembering that he’d given the lime to Daisy.
The creature laughed, scornfully. “I,” it said, “am frightened of nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“Nothing,” it said.
Charlie said, “Are you extremely frightened of nothing?”
“Absolutely terrified of it,” admitted the Dragon.
“You know,” said Charlie, “I have nothing in my pockets. Would you like to see it?”
“No,” said the Dragon, uncomfortably, “I most definitely would not.”
There was a flapping of wings like sails, and Charlie was alone on the beach. “That,” he said, “was much too easy.”
He kept on walking. He made up a song for his walk. Charlie had always wanted to make up songs, but he never did, mostly because of the conviction that if he ever had written a song, someone would have asked him to sing it, and that would not have been a good thing, much as death by hanging would not be a good thing. Now, he cared less and less, and he sang his song to the fireflies, who followed him up the hillside. It was a song about meeting the Bird Woman and finding his brother. He hoped the fireflies were enjoying it: their light seemed to be pulsing and flickering in time with the tune.
The Bird Woman was waiting for him at the top of the hill.
Charlie took off his hat. He pulled the feather from the hatband.
“Here. This is yours, I believe.”
She made no move to take it.
“Our deal’s over,” said Charlie. “I brought your feather. I want my brother. You took him. I want him back. Anansi’s bloodline was not mine to give.”
“And if I no longer have your brother?”
It was hard to tell, in the firefly light, but Charlie did not believe that her lips had moved. Her words surrounded him, however, in the cries of nightjars, and in the owls’ shrieks and hoots.
“I want my brother back,” he told her. “I want him whole and in one piece and uninjured. And I want him now. Or whatever went on between you and my father over the years was just the prelude. You know. The overture.”
Charlie had never threatened anyone before. He had no idea how he would carry out his threats—but he had no doubt that he would indeed carry them out.
“I had him,” she said, in the bittern’s distant boom “But I left him, tongueless, in Tiger’s world. I could not hurt your father’s line. Tiger could, once he found his courage.”
A hush. The night frogs and the night birds were perfectly silent. She stared at him impassively, her face almost part of the shadows. Her hand went into the pocket of her coat. “Give me the feather,” she said.
Charlie put it into her hand.
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He felt lighter, then, as if she had taken more from him than just an old feather…