When he patted down the final clump, he read the inscription out loud. “Shiloh Nathanson, beloved daughter of Patrick and Paili Nathanson. Born 1948. Last seen at this tree on October 31, 1964.” He squinted at the carved numerals. “Nineteen forty-eight?” Moaning softly, he rolled his eyes upward. “The engravers got it wrong,” he whispered, shaking his head. “They got it wrong.”
Patrick laid a trembling hand on the tombstone. Hot tears welled in his eyes. Rubbing them away with a grimy knuckle, he sniffed hard and gritted his teeth. He couldn’t cry. Not yet. The battle for Shiloh had just begun.
Circa AD 1986
Gabriel glided through the maternity ward, eyeing the numbers on the doors as he passed. Finding room 1545, he slid under the door and re-expanded. With the lights dimmed, shadows obscured the faces of the two adults in the room, but it didn’t matter. Gabriel knew them immediately. Hannah and Timothy. Mother and Father. Twenty years of searching had led him to this hospital, and the computer in the basement pinpointed the room and included details about their baby Ashley, a daughter of dragons, a chance to redeem himself as a guardian.
He drifted toward his parents. Hannah lay in bed, nuzzling a swaddled infant with her smooth, ageless cheek. It made sense that her dragon genetics would keep her young. Easing closer to his father, Gabriel studied his wrinkle-free face. How had he maintained his youth? Becoming fully human should have started a normal aging process, but he didn’t look a day older than when he left for the States almost forty years ago.
Timothy leaned over the railing and gently pulled the baby’s slender arm from underneath her pink blanket. Cooing at his daughter, he placed his finger in her grasp. “Ashley!” he cried in mock pain. “What a strong grip you have!”
Lifting his energy field, Gabriel glided over the bed and gazed down at his new sister. “Ashley,” he said in his electrostatic voice. “I’m glad to meet you.”
Ashley’s eyes locked on his. Gabriel drew back. Did she hear his greeting? Could she see him now? No one but Sapphira had been able to see or hear him before. He floated to one side of the bed. Ashley’s gaze followed. He floated to the other side. Ashley followed him again.
Timothy cocked his head upward. “Is she looking at something?”
Gabriel shrank his energy field to the size of a baseball and drifted higher.
“That fly on the ceiling is all I can see,” Hannah said.
“Isn’t that unusual?” Timothy asked. “I thought babies couldn’t see so far away. Gabriel didn’t follow objects with his eyes until much later.”
Hannah sighed. “No. . he didn’t.”
“I’m sorry.” Timothy shook his head. “I’ll try to remember.”
“It’s okay. Hearing his name doesn’t hurt quite as badly as it used to.” Hannah turned Ashley’s face toward her and chirped in a suddenly cheerful voice. “You’re just a smart little girl, aren’t you?”
“Smart, yes,” Timothy said. “But. .” His voice faded away.
Hannah took Timothy’s hand in hers. “Say what is on your mind, my husband. I will not be angry.”
Timothy squinted at her. “You sound like you did in the old days.”
“I spoke that way intentionally.” She rubbed her thumb along his knuckles. “Let us retrieve our dragon courage and speak plainly.”
Timothy’s gaze followed the buzzing fly as it flitted from ceiling, to wall, to bedpost. “I heard from Patrick this morning. I risked contacting him because it had been five years since we’d heard from him.” He shook his head sadly. “Still no sign of Gabriel. No one has seen him in almost forty years.”
Clenching her eyes shut, Hannah covered her mouth and bit her finger.
Gabriel surged down to her side and stroked her hair with his radiant hand. He glanced at the door. The courier was late. The computer should have sent the telegram over two hours ago. Gabriel gazed at his fingers, each one etched with jagged lines of energy. Using those clumsy digits to manipulate a computer through electronic impulses was a new skill. His earliest experiments had often failed, and he had to cut his message short before he ran out of power. Still, it would do, at least for now. . if the courier ever showed up.
Timothy clasped Hannah’s hand with both of his. “Gabriel was old enough to hide on his own. Maybe he’s ”
“He was only thirteen when he disappeared!” Hannah countered.
A knock sounded at the door. “Telegram for Hannah Drake.”
Gabriel breathed a radiant sigh. Perfect timing.
Timothy returned from the door, opening a Western Union envelope. Deep creases etched his forehead. “It’s a telegram from Glasgow.”
“More bad news?”
He shook the page in front of her. “It’s good news! Excellent news! But I’m not sure how to interpret it.”
“Don’t just stand there!” Hannah cried, trembling. “Read it to me!”
Timothy raised the paper to his eyes and cleared his throat. “Congratulations on the birth of your daughter. May she live in peace and learn the secret behind the Oracles of Fire. Signed, Gabriel.”
Hannah slapped the bed rail. “Gabriel? Then he’s alive!”
Timothy leaned over and kissed her with a loud smack. “Yes!” he shouted, rising again with her hand clasped in his. “He must be!”
Hannah made a shushing sound, but her laughter washed it away.
Timothy laid a hand over the baby. “Careful,” he said, “you’ll jiggle Ashley.”
With a wide smile still gracing her lips, Hannah pointed at the telegram. “Do you know what he meant by the secret behind the Oracles of Fire?”
“I told you about meeting Sapphira in Dragons’ Rest.” He folded the telegram and stuck it in his shirt pocket. “I never saw her again.”
“Could the secret be how to get her to open the portal to Dragons’ Rest without destroying it? Maybe there’s still a way to save Roxil. . or, Jasmine, I guess I should call her now.”
“And save all the others, for that matter.” He tapped his finger on the note. “But if he knows the secret, why wouldn’t he just tell us?”
“Maybe he knows there is a secret, but he doesn’t know what it is.”
Timothy wrapped his fingers tightly around the bed rail. “If there was only some way to contact him. He must be in terrible danger if he won’t come out of hiding to explain.”
Hannah hugged Ashley close. “But he’s alive!” she said, tears streaming. “After all these years, he’s alive! And since he knows we’re in Montana, maybe he’ll join us and help us look for Irene. He might know where she is, too.”
“Let’s not go too far.” Timothy rubbed her forearm. “It’s not like he’s that fly on the wall.”
Hannah laid a finger over her lips. “Right. One step at a time.” She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Too much information will make your brain choke.”
Gabriel expanded again to his full size and let his radiance glow brightly. He shared their ecstasy, rejoicing with them the only way he knew how silently, invisibly, yet with all the joy he could muster.
He lowered his glowing hand to Ashley’s cheek. As he caressed her pink skin, she turned back toward him and gazed directly into his eyes. She smiled and gurgled.
“Did you hear that?” Timothy said. “She’s happy Gabriel’s alive, too!”
Hannah laughed again. “Maybe she’ll get to see him someday.”
Gabriel joined their laughter. He was that fly on the wall, an imperceptible listener who learned the secrets of the room’s quiet conversations. But one secret whispered more loudly than all the others. He had a new sister, and he loved her. Nothing would ever harm her. Not Devin, not Morgan, not even the devil himself could come between him and this precious baby.
Sapphira sat in front of the portal screen. She tried to smile at the lovely sight a new baby, a rejoicing mother and father, good news of lost loved ones. But she couldn’t smile, couldn’t shake the unbearable sadness that weighed her down.