“Besides that,” Thaddeus said, his happiness at what his father said tempered by impatience with the healing process of the water, their journey, all of it. “Does it feel like anything is happening? Like you have more energy or something?”
His father sighed, his lips parted as if in reply, then his eyes rolled back, and he slumped over against Thaddeus. Convulsions rattled his father’s thin body, jarring him as he shook within Thaddeus’s arms.
“Oh dear Flora,” Miriam said. “Hold him tight so he doesn’t hurt either of you!”
“I’m trying,” Thaddeus said through gritted teeth, and lifted his chin to avoid his father’s wildly thrashing head. “He’s stronger than he looks.”
The spasms stopped as suddenly as they had begun, and his father lay still against Thaddeus a moment, panting heavily. His thin frame felt hot in Thaddeus’s arms, feverish, and once again he worried that he had been too late returning with the water.
“Oh…,” his father said with a horrible smelling exhalation, and then he pushed Thaddeus away and vomited up a long, thick runner of black sludge. It splattered on the ground, and Miriam and Thaddeus both scrambled back away from the stuff as his father brought up more of it, bracing himself on thin, shaking arms.
Once the vomiting had passed, his father slouched back against the tree. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and looked at Thaddeus. His gaze was much sharper now, and his eyes clearer and brighter. His skin, once tinted gray, was pale but glowed with more health in the dim light of the small fire.
Thaddeus smiled as tears blurred his vision. “It worked. Oh my God, Dad, it worked.”
“What the hell is that stuff?” his father asked between breaths. “And how can we get more?”
“This is all that’s left,” Thaddeus said, holding up the canteen and shaking it so the contents sloshed around. “It’s water from the Well of Tears.”
His father’s eyebrows went up, and he looked at Miriam, then back at Thaddeus. “The Well of Tears? It’s real? You found it?”
“It is real, and we did find it. It was Fetter’s—” He glanced at Miriam. Her expression tightened, and she looked away. Thaddeus battled back the sadness and anger that threatened to rise up within him and continued his explanation. “Well, we decided to go there first to get the water and come back and save you. And it worked! I knew it would, because it healed my leg and my hand. See?” He held his hand out for inspection.
“But you were supposed to find your mother,” his father said as he ran his thumb lightly over Thaddeus’s palm. “Don’t get me wrong, son, I’m grateful you came back with that water. But your mother is out there, afraid and alone. And we don’t know where Isadora is.”
Thaddeus’s happiness abated a bit, and he dropped his gaze to the thick black gunk that his father had coughed up. “I know. I’m sorry. But coming back to help you heal was all I could think of once we started talking about it.”
“Everyone’s back?” his father asked, tipping his head to look around Thaddeus. “All of you returned?”
Thaddeus glanced over at Miriam again, then met his father’s gaze. “Not all of us. Do you think you can move? Can you come outside so we can all explain?”
A short time later, after helping his father out of the shelter within the trees and him greeting the others and meeting Dulindir, they settled into a circle around the fire Teofil had started. As the flames threw flickering orange light on them, Teofil and Astrid told the story of how Isadora had disguised herself as Fetter and lived within the Rhododendron family all these years. They explained how she had manipulated them into searching for the Well of Tears in order to help her change back into her true form, and how she had ridden off into the forest on the Bearagon, threatening to find Claire in her dragon form before Thaddeus could.
As the gnomes related their adventure, with some comments added by Dulindir and himself, Thaddeus sat beside his father. He studied his profile as he thought about Isadora’s words before she had ridden the Bearagon off into the trees: Shame he won’t be able to share any more family secrets with you. Had she said that just to be cruel, or was there some meaning behind it? Thaddeus had already uncovered some whoppers recently. What else could be left? Did he really want to know, or were some secrets best left to those who kept them? He needed to think on it some more before he asked his father about the meaning behind Isadora’s words.
“That’s quite a story,” his father said once their tale had been told. He reached out to take Miriam’s hand and gave it a squeeze before releasing it again. “I’m sorry, Miriam. I know this must be difficult for you.”
Miriam wiped her eyes. “It is. But it helps explain so many things I noticed about Fetter over the years. His general attitude and struggle to conduct magic with any growing, living thing. Rudyard and I tried our best, but he just never caught on like the rest of the children.” She pressed her lips together and looked out into the darkness gathering around the trunks of the forest trees. “I just want to know what that witch did with my son.”
“I think he might still be alive,” Astrid said in a quiet voice. “Held prisoner somewhere, perhaps? It makes me sad to think of it, him wondering why we’ve not found him yet, or if we’ve even been looking for him all these years.” She brushed aside a tear, and Teofil put an arm around her for a quick hug.
“Awful, awful woman,” Miriam said, and then she fell silent.
“Be that as it may, we will need to continue our original quest,” Thaddeus’s father said as he looked at him. “Your mother needs to be our first priority. After that, we can search for Fetter.” He turned to Miriam. “We will find him, Miriam. I promise.” She gave him a tight smile before turning her attention to the flickering fire.
Thaddeus’s father looked at them each in turn, studying them as if trying to gauge their ability to go on. “We’ll rest here, but just for one night. Tomorrow we’ll strike out again for Wraith Mountain.”
“Why are you so certain she would go there?” Thaddeus asked. “Have you heard of people there catching sight of her?”
“No. But dragons are drawn to high, rocky peaks, and she’s familiar with Wraith Mountain.”
“She is? How?”
“We visited there once,” his father replied in a low, sad tone, “A long time ago.”
“Oh,” Thaddeus said. “Well, as we were flying back here in the gliders, Astrid and I saw a section of the forest that had been burned. A long strip of it, as if maybe by dragon breath.”
“Do you remember in which direction it lay?”
“Pretty sure. It was right before we turned to follow the line of the forest at the plains. It looked like it was pointed toward the mountains.”
His father smiled and put a hand on the back of Thaddeus’s neck. “You helped build a glider and flew in it over the Lost Forest. No wonder you always did well at science fairs. You’re quite the brave man now, Thaddeus. I’m proud of you.”
A warm glow of satisfaction surged within Thaddeus’s chest, and he grinned as he pushed aside his questions. For now. “Thanks. We all did very brave things as we went.”