The Fifth Branch by Kate Samuels

Author:Kate Samuels
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: The Fifth Branch, Kate Samuels, Welsh myth, Welsh dragon, Magic major, Cardiff University, Wales, Dragon, Lloyd Alexander, Red dragon myth, mythology, Welsh legend, Retelling
Publisher: Harkraven Press
Published: 2021-01-12T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 11: The Guardian

“Your roommate sounds like someone I’d get on with,” said the curator as her old sedan rattled up the side of the valley. Being crammed into the front seat of a small car with her, my feet rolling on old takeout baggies, should’ve broken her spell, if the sheep mug hadn’t been enough to convince me that she was human. But there was something about her. It wasn’t frightening. She just...I don’t know. Touched the world lightly, was the slightly giddy thought I’d had as we’d crossed the bridge. Her car should’ve smelled like dog and takeout, but it didn’t smell like anything at all.

“My roommate would love your museum,” I said politely. “She loves stories.”

“And what about you?”

“I’m an archaeology major,” I said. “I guess I like things I can hold in my hand.”

The headlights traveled across the trunks of the slim pines and gleamed on the leaves of waxy bushes. Beyond their white circle, there was nothing but night. There weren’t many streetlights up here at the edge of the Clwydian Range.

“There’s quite a lot of archaeology around here,” she said.

“Castle Dinas Bran?” I’d seen a poster to that effect in the museum. And, bowing to the temptation to show off what I’d learned a quarter of an hour ago, I added, “Seat of the Princes of Powys?”

She scoffed. “Newcomers. We have Roman gravestones, Celtic crosses, and a chain of hillforts on the peaks of every hill in the Clwydian Range between here and the ocean. You just have to know where to look.”

The road wound along the top of a ridge. To our left, the ground dropped away. Beyond the guardrail could’ve been the edge of Annwn, the Otherworld. Then, with jarring suddenness, we rounded a bend and confronted a pair of glowing red eyes. It took several seconds for them to resolve themselves into the taillights of a Peugeot idling on the road ahead of us. Beyond was a white plastic barrier.

“Hmph,” said the curator. She didn’t sound surprised; only faintly irked.

A flagger was holding up our lane while a pair of policemen searched a car on the other side of the barrier. They were dishearteningly thorough. I watched them open the doors and fold down the seats. They made the owner pop the boot. They shone their flashlights into the glove compartment.

Anxiously, I said, “They couldn’t possibly block every road out of Wrexham, right?”

“Oh, if they pinch off the A5152 ring, they’d have the town pretty well bottled,” said the curator. “But they won’t.”

“Really?”

“If they’re looking for what I think they’re looking for,” she said, “they’ll block off every road in Clwyd and half of Denbighshire.”

The police finished searching the car on the other side of the barrier. The flagger let it through. They rounded the barrier and started on the Peugeot. I wondered how on earth Aurelia’s mom was going to get to us, much less how we were all going to get out.

The police let the Peugeot go. As they approached the curator’s door, she rolled down the window.

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