The Blackstone Chronicles - By John Saul Page 0,67

picture frame that had a chip on it, thus disqualifying it from being displayed in Janice’s shop on Main Street. “Look!” Rebecca cried. “Isn’t it wonderful?”

Oliver looked curiously at the object in Rebecca’s hand. At first he wasn’t quite sure what it was. It seemed to be a dragon’s head, which Rebecca was holding by the neck. Two red eyes glared out from deep sockets. When Rebecca squeezed the dragon’s neck, Oliver saw a spark deep in its throat, immediately followed by a flame that shot out of its mouth.

“It’s a cigarette lighter,” Rebecca exclaimed. “Isn’t it perfect?”

“How do you know Andrea still smokes?” Oliver asked.

“Because I heard Aunt Martha telling her she couldn’t smoke anywhere in the house.” Rebecca’s expression clouded. “That’s why I want to give her this. She already feels terrible about the way her life is going, and now Aunt Martha wants her to feel bad about smoking too. At least I can let her know that I don’t disapprove of everything she does.” The flame died away as Rebecca eased her grip on the lighter. She held the lighter out to Oliver, and he reached out to take it from her, but the instant his fingers touched the metal of its snout, he reflexively jerked them away as if they’d been burned.

“Be careful!” Rebecca cautioned. With one fingertip she touched the dragon’s snout herself. It was barely warm. “He must have bitten you, Oliver,” she said. “It’s not hot at all.” Smiling, she dropped the cigarette lighter into Oliver’s hand.

Just as Rebecca had told him, the lighter now felt perfectly cool. But that was impossible: it had been burning hot just a second before. As he turned the strange object over, searching for its price, he wondered whether the odd sensation of heat he’d just felt was a sign—like the troubling headaches he’d been having—of something wrong. Very wrong. Lost in his disturbing thoughts, he barely noticed that Janice Anderson had finished with the customer she’d been waiting on and turned to them. At a nudge from Rebecca, Oliver recovered himself and held out the lighter. “How much for the dragon?” he asked.

Janice gazed blankly at the object Oliver was holding. “Are you sure this was on my table?” she said.

Oliver nodded. “Right there, next to that frame.”

Frowning, Janice took the cigarette lighter and examined it from every angle. There was a trade name stamped on the bottom, but it was far too worn to be legible. Though at first glance it appeared to be gold, she could see that the cheap plating was starting to peel away; and the “ruby” eyes were obviously glass, maybe even plastic. The question was, Where had it come from? She had no memory of having bought it, nor even of picking it up from the back-room clutter now spread out on the table in front of her. But then, surveying some of the other junk on the table, she realized she didn’t know where most of these bits and pieces had come from. Many were the odds and ends purchased in lots from estate sales. Others, she could have bought from any one of the dozens of people who had come into her shop over the last year, offering for sale treasure they’d found hidden in their attics. Usually, Janice simply turned them away, but now and then, when she sensed that someone was selling something out of desperate need, she would knowingly buy a worthless object, simply as a way of allowing its bearer to keep his dignity and pocket a dollar or two.

That, undoubtedly, was how the lighter had come into her possession, she now decided, even though she had no memory of it. But how much might she have paid for it? Five dollars? Perhaps ten? “Twenty?” she suggested, knowing there was no chance Oliver would agree to her first price. To her dismay, it was Rebecca Morrison who replied without a second’s hesitation.

“I’ll take it! It’s just the kind of thing Andrea will love!”

“For twenty dollars?” Janice Anderson heard herself say. “You will not take it for twenty dollars, Rebecca. It certainly isn’t worth more than ten, and if you ask me, seven-fifty would be closer to fair.”

“Great!” Oliver said. “How about five? Or would you like to counter at two-fifty?”

Janice tried to glare at him, but found herself laughing instead. “How about we stick to the seven-fifty my honest side thinks it’s worth?”

Before she could change her mind, Oliver paid for the dragon’s