out ahead of us forever; it was already a very long, very dull stretch of road flanked on either side by boring, nondescript fields of boring, nondescript wheat and wheatlike plants. But the continued loop of Spandau Ballet that blasted on my sister’s car stereo made this road interminably long.
“Ah-ha-ha-haaaaaa-ha, I know this much is truuuue!,” Philippa sang happily as her head bopped to the beat.
“Why this song, though?! These guys are probably dead. It’s just creepy,” I said, exasperated with my sister’s 80s music. “Oh my god. Is that a saxophone? Am I listening to an actual saxophone interlude?”
Philippa just winked at me and kept swaying, bringing her hand up in a fist and punching at the air.
“Stop that. Stop that right now. No way did you just wink at me,” I giggled.
She had finally let me reclaim the front seat. But it came at a price: I had to concede any vote for music selection. Usually that meant hearing a lot of musical theater or Vivaldi (which I was actually okay with). But this morning, Philippa was using some cruel and unusual punishment in the form of terrible 80s power ballads as her entertainment.
“But seriously,” my tone tensed, “Enough of this throat clearing and bad music. You’ve literally cleared your throat 14 times. During the seven times you’ve played this song. What do you have to tell me?”
Philippa cleared her throat. Again. I thought I would scream.
“You can’t be mad. At me, at mom, at anyone … Especially mom,” Philippa chose her words carefully and spoke slowly and evenly. “I know she was only trying to protect you. Like a mom.”
This was an unsettling way to preface a conversation. I shifted in my seat and pulled the frayed cuffs of my hoodie sleeves over my hands.
“So when you were little, like really young, Mom and Uncle Seb got into this crazy fight about you, and something to do with Nana… and I think this same fight happened a few times,” Philippa spoke as if she were recalling a dream, uncertain of the verity of its reality but left with the emotion of it. “I didn’t remember any of this until a few months ago, when Uncle Seb stopped by our house. I was at home sick; I remember I was soooo stressed about missing that history test. But I was able to retake it, and I totally nailed it because the essay portion was on the impact the Napoleonic wars had on –”
“Phlee! Focus! Why was Uncle Seb at our house?” I cut her off imploringly.
“I’m fine now, thanks for asking; it was just a stomach bug,” Philippa sighed and flipped her straight brown hair behind her ear. “But yeah, it took me awhile to realize who it was. I was in my room, and I heard raised voices, and then Mom was crying and yelling and saying that you didn’t need to know.”
“That I didn’t need to know? Need to know what?” I felt like I was listening to a suspenseful bedtime story.
“That you’re special. That you have the same abilities as Nana. And even Great-Grandma, I think. That you have to be protected,” Philippa said quietly.
I wasn’t following what she was getting at. It was like being at the kids table again and having grownups spell things in front of you; everything Philippa was saying was composed of spelling words that were beyond my comprehension level.
“Eve, you’re a dragonlord.”
I stared straight ahead. I couldn’t take in what Philippa was saying to me. The wheat fields on either side of us blurred into a golden haze.
“Eve? Did you hear me?” Philippa glanced over at me nervously.
A powerful feeling of confidence started in my toes and tingled all the way up my legs, filling my belly, enlarging my lungs, broadening my shoulders, and ending with a buzzing thrill in my head. I felt weirdly victorious, like when you’re running track in P.E. and you look back to realize you’ve lapped everybody else and you’re in the lead, and the rush of winning propels you even more, and you run faster than you thought you could and you smile and … and … and … you win.
“I am a dragonlord,” I repeated back to Philippa, trying to hide the grin sneaking onto my face.
“Listen, I don’t fully know what that means – being a dragonlord. I just know Mom was really upset about it. Uncle Seb was insistent he take you somewhere, somewhere Nana used to go, and that’s what they were fighting about last.”
The Seventh. That had to be what the argument was over. And my Nana had been there?! I didn’t know my mom’s mother well, but I felt another thrilling jolt of pride over this, over sharing a rare trait with women in my family. Or, at least I assume it’s rare. If I didn’t realize my own self had this trait, I couldn’t imagine it was super common.
“Hold on, you said they fought about this when I was a kid? So, like, my whole life you’ve known this thing about me, and you just never told me?”
Philippa slowed the car down some as the gravel became thicker on the road. Little pops of rocks pinged at the underside of the car. The little white Volkswagen soldiered on, weathering the tiny gravel pebbles that nipped at its sides and windshield.
“Eve, it’s not like I understood back then what they were talking about … I barely understand it now. I suppose I just always knew that you were, I don’t know, special. And I, well, I guess I trace it back to those conversations I heard when we were little. That and you’ve always been kind of a super-brilliant weirdo.”
“Awwww, you think I’m special,” I punched her in the shoulder good-naturedly. She cringed.
“Yes,” she said flatly, “Yes. And I’ve had to live my entire life knowing that there’s something magical and exciting and worth protecting about you, but I’m just … nothing. Plain. Normal,” Philippa’s voice cracked a bit and she cleared her throat again.
“No one would ever call you normal,” I said quickly with a little smile. She didn’t laugh. Or even smile.
“Make jokes, Eve. But Mom never freaked out over me going somewhere; there aren’t any family conspiracies about me being special. Uncle Sebastian doesn’t even freaking know I exist,” Philippa’s brow furrowed, and her hands clenched her steering wheel more tightly. “Anyhow, this stuff started happening to you with creatures and books and whatever, and … and I guess I wasn’t surprised.”
I looked down at my hands, still enclosed in the sleeves of my aqua hoodie, the hems on either wrist unraveling just enough that I could stick my thumbs through them. An awkward hush spotted with cloying pain filled the small car. I looked up at Philippa and saw that she was crying. Small, noiseless tears splotched her perfect makeup.
“I wasn’t surprised,” she continued, “But I also didn’t say anything. Because … because saying something would be admitting that you’re special, that you’re more special than me in a way I can’t even comprehend and … and Eve … I guess I was jealous. I didn’t say anything. I was just dumb and jealous. And scared. Yeah, scared,” her voice cracked. “And that sounds so idiotic now that I say it aloud.”
Philippa tried to compose herself. She brushed her hair behind her ear again. She rubbed her cheeks to scourge her skin of evidence of tears. She cleared her throat. Staring straight ahead, she shook her head and forced a smile.
“Isn’t clearing your throat that often, like, bad for singers?”
“What?” she shot back.
“Um, nothing. Never mind. So, mom—”
“Now, shall we get back to some awesome tunes? I’m not gonna lie, I’m feeling a little Lionel Ritchie right now.”
“Philippa! No! You can’t say all of that and then just brush it off and throw on terrible music and everything is fine!”
“Yes. I can.”
“No, you cannot. You can’t! And I’m not trying to make it all about me, but what else did you hear? Does Mom have dragonlord skills? And how is Uncle Seb a part of all of this? Is he a dragonlord?” I stopped my bullet train of thought to catch my breath.
I was dumbfounded. Flabbergasted. Flummoxed. All of the adjectives for shocked and without words could be inserted here. I come from a line of dragonlords? Moi?! Eve Gwendolyn Genevieve Archer, child genius/fraud/confirmed heroine?! My heart pounded. Not to be dramatic, but I felt like I was seeing color for the first time. I think I even grew taller in that moment.
The old car groaned to a stop, clouds of dust billowing up on either side of us from the dust and gravel. The sun shone brightly now, and the tiny dirt particles seemed to float with a golden glint and catch the light of the warm car. We were in front of a familiar plane hangar. It sat, old but meticulously kept, in the middle of sprawling fields, gravel roads shooting out from it with a small air strip stretching beyond.
“Why don’t you ask him?” Philippa said, nodding ahead.
I looked up to see the silhouette of a man standing with his hands on his hips in the wafting dust. I scrambled out of the passenger seat, tripping out of the car in my eagerness.
“Uncle Seb! I’m a dragonlord!” I yelled as I hopped toward him.
He sneezed in the dust. Loudly. It startled me. But it didn’t distract me from my excited proclamation.
“A dragonlord! Are you one? Is that why you can fly through the –”
“Ah-ah-CHOO!” Uncles Seb sneezed and turned back toward the open building.
“Well?” I said, throwing my arms out.
“Not yet,” he yelled gruffly over his shoulder.
“Not yet what?” I frowned.
“You’re not a dragonlord yet,” he stopped to face me, then turned and continued through hangar’s gaping open doors.
I followed him, ready to protest. I was stopped by the snarl of tires squealing behind me. Philippa! I turned and ran toward the car, but the little white beetle was racing back to the main road, leaving a fantastic cloud of dust ballooning behind it. I coughed and waved at it. I waved relentlessly, tears suddenly stinging my eyes. A ball of guilt accumulated like a leaden weight in my gut.
“Evechild? Come, discuss these plans –” Dragon’s voice halted when he saw me. “You are not in good spirits?”
“I could have at least thanked her for helping me this morning,” I said quietly.
Dragon searched for my gaze to meet his, but I kept my moist eyes fixated on my untied Converse. A tear splattered on the dingey white rubber toe of my right shoe. I heard Uncle Seb calling to us from further back, and I dutifully walked toward him. I wiped my cheek with my sleeve. I usually hated how easily I cried. But seeing my sister hurt – hearing her admit pain while I did nothing to help her – I felt I deserved the humiliation of these tears.
I am the worst.
And I’m not even a dragonlord after all.
Well, not yet, anyway.