Page 6

“Nan’s right. I saw the castle. And other strange buildings in town… Does anyone know what actually happened?”

David shook his head. “No, but it’s happening everywhere.”

That’s what the news reports had said, but it didn’t seem real. The castle next to the pub was real.

“How is that possible?” How did earthquakes hit everywhere? How did new buildings arrive everywhere? Oh God, he didn’t really want to be agreeing with Nan that the fae folk were real, but what else could it be? “Is the world falling apart?”

A screech in the sky made them all glance up. Something flew overhead and if Noah had been smoking a joint, or something else, he might’ve said it looked a lot like a dragon silhouetted against the gray afternoon sky. But that was ridiculous, and he was sober, and the thing was too high up to tell. It must’ve been a bird, but with the lack of lighting and the…

He ran out of excuses because he had seen the tail and the wings.

Around him, people were pointing and yelling, and someone was crying. Another man was all bluster about how it had to be a joke, some kind of promotion for a movie. Global earthquakes didn’t make sense, and dragons weren’t real.

But the cracks in the road were. The damage to the pub was. How was that promotion for anything?

Another neighbor claimed it was the end of days and that the devil was coming for the sinners—he looked at Noah as he spoke—and that they should all pray. It was the same neighbor who’d kicked his daughter out of their home for having a girlfriend. The same neighbors who spread gossip and never had a kind word to say about anyone.

Another screech, and this time the thing, the dragon, was closer.

Noah hoped the dragon ate them first. He glanced up and then at his uncle. “I should give Mum a call.”

David kept his arm around Nan. “Yes, good idea. Maybe they’ve heard more in Australia.”

Noah nodded, but he wasn’t sure what he hoped for. Did he want the news to confirm that, yes, dragons were real? Or to say that they only had twenty-four hours left to live because the Earth was falling apart? What could anyone say that made any of this okay?

He paused for a moment to take in a small amount of damage done to his street. They were lucky, and they didn’t realize it. In a movie, someone would sweep in with a bold plan on how to glue the world back together or lead a group of plucky humans to victory against the invaders or something.

All he wanted to do was call his parents and wait for someone to tell him what to do.

In the house, the TV was going. The reporter linked to reporters in other countries as they shared what they were seeing. They showed footage people had recorded on their phones. He stood frozen in the lounge room watching recordings of buildings erupting out of the ground, roads splitting in half, dragons—and other things he couldn’t name—flying overhead.

Roaming the streets as if confused. Injured. He remembered the screams in the castle. They’d abandoned them instead of helping.

Was that a werewolf limping along the street?

A hideous pale creature washed up on rocks, part human, part fish.

He wasn’t sure he was blinking.

Humans attacked some other creature and left it bloody and dying on the ground.

Another fight, this time between archers and humans with guns.

It was the same devastating footage he’d seen after terrorist attacks or natural disasters. No one had any facts yet, but they wanted to share what they’d seen.

David stepped in front of the TV. “Noah, call your mother. Watching this will do you no good. No one knows anything; this is just fear-mongering.”

“Yeah.” He knew that, but it didn’t make it any easier to look away or forget what he’d seen.

Not that he understood what he’d seen. Maybe the people were lying, and they’d taken bits from horror movies. Or gotten dressed up to make things look worse.

It was hard to imagine that this event was happening in every country.

That seemed too impossible.

David guided him to the kitchen and pulled out a chair. Noah sat while his uncle made tea.

“Nan hit her head. There was a bit of blood. She should see a doctor.”