Chapter Twenty-Six
It fell to Charlie to send word to the victims’ families, and his face was stoic when he returned to the cabin that evening. Jackaby laid the strip of bark he had taken from the site of the slaughtered goat next to the scale I had found in the field. “Rook and I have found what we can, Mr. Barker. I think it’s time.”
Charlie looked at me, and I nodded. “Please give me a moment,” he said.
Half of New Fiddleham had seen his accidental transformation during our first big case, but he was still deeply self-conscious about transforming in company. In truth, although I had been imploring him to avoid it, it was strangely heartening to see Charlie emerge from his room and pad across the cabin in canine form. His fur was patterned in caramel browns and dark blacks, and it looked softer than fleece. The last time I had seen Charlie as a hound, he had been pushed beyond exhaustion and badly injured. It was the hound who had saved my life when that first unruly caper reached its bloody end, and the sight of him in full health was a comfort.
He sidled up to the table to inspect the scales, sniffing each carefully before trotting back into the privacy of his chamber.
“They are definitely from the same beast,” said Charlie when he emerged from his room, fastening the last button on his shirt and straightening his cuffs.
“There can be no doubt?” Jackaby asked.
“They are the same scent,” Charlie confirmed, “or two beasts of the same family.”
“If that’s the case, then I hope the family is a small one,” I said.
“Tell me everything you remember,” said Charlie.
I told him about the farmhouse and the frightened sheep, the broad tracks and deep claw marks, the trampled brush and broken branches as high as my head. Jackaby, meanwhile, moved the scale from one hand to the other, holding it at odd angles and squinting at it through the little carved lens.
“The dragon from the grove . . . ,” Charlie began.
“If it was a dragon,” interjected Jackaby without looking up.
“The one from the grove was only a few feet tall, judging by the marks in the forest,” said Charlie. “Perhaps this latest is its mother?”
Jackaby shuddered. “Let’s hope not,” he said. “The most frightening monsters are monsters’ mothers. Just ask Beowulf. I need to see the bones again.” He held the scale in the lamplight and glared at it. “The evidence increasingly corroborates the improbable notion that dragons have returned, but there is something . . . off. It’s not clean. Even with a scrying glass, the reading of auras is imprecise. I need to compare the artifacts directly. We will revisit the bones in the morning.”
He retired to his guest room, still holding the scale and frowning in concentration. I found myself alone with Charlie in the warm front room of the cabin. He had shed the navy blue jacket of his uniform, but his clothes were as tidy and pressed as always. I wished I had not spent the day hiking through underbrush and traipsing through barns and pastures.
“I’m sorry that you had to see that,” he said.
“See what?” I asked.
“The hound in me. I understand if it bothers you.” He shrugged shyly, looking at the little tin stove.
“Oh no—not at all. I actually rather liked seeing . . . I mean, I wasn’t gawking at you like some spectacle or . . . You . . . You make quite a handsome hound.”
He looked up skeptically. “You are being very generous to say so.”
“No, really. I think you have a very fine figure. Goodness, I meant as a hound . . . You look fine as a hound. Not that you don’t have an excellent figure as a man. Oh Lord. I mean . . .” My cheeks were growing warm from ear to ear. “I mean that I don’t mind at all, Mr. Barker.”