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They stayed up late again, talking, TP in his rocker and she on the couch. TP was in no hurry to retire. He'd been knocked out a good part of the day and wasn't sleepy. In fact, he felt wired up. And the longer he stayed awake the less time the beast had to haunt his dreams.
"I've been wondering, TP, if the chimera could influence you to destroy the vegetable stone in the lab."
TP frowned and put his palms together in front of his chin, something he often did when thinking. "That's a million dollar question, isn't it? I think not when I'm awake, possibly when I'm asleep, maybe if it drives me completely mad."
"And if you're knocked out, like you were today?"
"I don't know for sure, but it didn't happen, so maybe not."
"That's a lot of ifs and maybes, TP."
He nodded, reaching into his pocket and pulling out the lab door key. "Here, take this and put it in a safe place. I'll ask you for it when I need it, and you can give it to me if you're going out."
"You don't think the chimera could pass from you into someone else, do you?"
TP shook his head. "Remember Doc Stubblefield I used to visit in Minglemist?"
"Of course. Lives in Boggy Meadow with his wife, Hattie."
"Right. He treated people who'd been infected with chimera dragons. According to him, once a dragon attaches itself to someone, it doesn't change hosts unless the person dies."
"Well, that's a comfortingly depressing thought."
TP rubbed his hand through his hair, causing it to stick up in peaks. "I still know so little. But one thing is sure: I've got to call Evalda tomorrow morning. Harold needs to leave. This house is no place for a child right now. If I've angered the dragon, there's no telling what it's capable of."
"I agree," Madeline said. "What will you tell your sister?"
TP sighed. He'd have to come up with a believable excuse, else she'd roast him alive for being selfish, or unfeeling, or a hundred other horrible things.
"Maybe if I tell her I have parasites."
"It's true, isn't it? You do have one big, horrendous parasite. Would she believe you?"
"It may be the only thing she would believe," said TP wryly.
"TP, about Gladys... did you ask her to clean your house?"
"No. I'm paying her for the meals she makes. I could hardly let her keep feeding me for free."
"So she took it upon herself to bring her little dust mop over? It's just an excuse, you know, to go through all your cupboards and closets. People like her get a thrill out of knowing other peoples' private business. Talk about parasites! She's attached herself to you like a leech. You've got to give her firm boundaries or the next thing you know she'll be moving in."
Why, TP wondered, was it his lot in life to be surrounded by domineering women? There must be some karmic lesson to be learned, but darned if he knew what it was.
"I'll take care of it," he said. Another uncomfortable confrontation.
"Make sure you do, and soon. She's dying to get into your lab. We've got to keep it locked."
He changed the subject. "So, how are things with you and Todd?"
"He wants me to move in with him."
"Oh? And what do you want?"
"I'm not sure. We have a lot of fun together, but he's in a different place than me. He's already talking about where he'd like to live, and how many children he wants. I'm just not there yet."
"You haven't been together that long."
"Five months. You don't like him very much, do you?"
"I never said that! He seems nice - steady, dependable."
"But."
"But nothing."
"Come on, TP, you can't fool me. Spit it out."
Ah, he'd missed sparring with her. She was so intuitive and smart, and she knew him so well. "It's just that I wonder if he's enough for you, for the long term. You have such a lively spirit."
Madeline freed her hair from its band and shook it loose, curling her long legs up under her on the couch. "Maybe I need steady and dependable instead of..."
A pensive look crossed her face, and he knew what she was thinking about. Or rather who. Sephyr. The young man she'd fallen in love with in Minglemist. Sephyr, the prince of Boggy Meadow. A dubious title, as Boggy Meadow wasn't much more than a giant swamp full of tiny islands, rickety shacks and houseboats, and a slew of nefarious characters paddling through the waters doing heaven-knows-what. None-the-less, Boggy Meadow had a queen, and Sephyr was her son. He was handsome and charming and exciting, cocky and unpredictable, all the things that attract young girls and make them fall in love. Madeline, so young and naive, had fallen hard. She'd been crazy about him. But then the door to Minglemist had closed, and that was the end of their relationship. She'd been so heartbroken TP had worried about her. But after moping around for several months, she'd picked herself up, started college, made new friends, and now seemed in a positive place.
"Would you go back, if you could?" he asked her.
"Sometimes I think I would, just to have closure. Not to stay. Because really, what kind of life would it be, attached to someone from a different world? I try to imagine Sephyr living here, and it's impossible. He belongs there. And I could never live in Minglemist, as much as I loved it. So that means I'd be running back and forth through the hedge, straddling two worlds, which would be exhausting."
"Sorry it was so hard on you."
She gave him a lopsided smile. "That's life."
Before he retired, TP went into the lab once more and looked through a cabinet where he kept delicate instruments and supplies. He found a pack of sterile syringes and a vial of an injectable herbal sedative made for him by a pharmacy last year when he'd returned from Minglemist and was still having nightmares from the experience with the chimera dragon. He'd thought the nightmares were just residual effects; now he knew different.
"This is war," he muttered as he drew a small amount of liquid from the vial, swabbed his arm with alcohol and guided the needle into his skin. Then he went to bed, noting that King Richard and the Duke were still on guard beside his door.
"Gird your loins, men. We're in for a battle."
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