I decided. I thought I was tired, or scared, or annoyed, or hungry. But ultimately all of those emotions were just wrapped up into one giant quilt of overwhelm that suffocated me.
I didn’t like admitting how fearful I was. Not aloud – I would never do that! – but even just to myself. Oh, I loathed such an admission. Why are you so weak? What do you even have to lose? You’re a fraud. You talk all the time of greatness, of progress, of intellectual advancement, of longing to get away from your cloistered world. And now you have the chance to do something marvelous and you’re just a scared stupid kid. How do you escape your mightiest adversary when that adversary is you? I pulled my blanket tightly around me, not so much for warmth but to smother that negativity.
The window was partially open; I liked the chattering of the birds and cool breeze that night ushered in. Geese honked. A fly buzzed in. I swatted at it, missed, and threw a pillow. I liked that Dragon had removed the screen from my window, but the flies! Something knocked on the window. Definitely not a fly. Within my blanket cave, my heart pounded. Rhythmic but intense. More knocking. Shit, am I crying? I still felt guilty when I swore, even in my head. Tears fell without provocation most nights now.
“Egg? Err, that is, Evechild?” I heard Dragon’s voice gently calling me.
“Um, yeah,” I coughed, quickly wiping my face on my pillow. “I just, ugh, need a minute.”
Dragon didn’t respond.
More knocking at the window, and then a sort of scuffle. A thud. More knocks.
“I’ll be right there, calm down out there,” I muttered, annoyed, as I slid out of bed.
I scrunched my face, squeezing my eyes shut and trying to remember the stupid anxiety-busting statements my mom would make me recite. I am alright. I am strong. I am alright. I am strong. My tears stopped. I smiled. I am … doin’ alllriiiiiiight! My mantra gave way to a favorite Queen song.
“Alright, Dragon. I can do this. I can – I can do this …,” I said as I pushed the window open further. I fell away with a gasp.
Outside, a pair of yellow eyes stared back at me from under a dark cloak. Then one eye winked.
“Your dragon is gone,” a low voice whispered.
A wiry hand with grey wrinkled skin reached through the narrow opening of the window and wiggled its fingers at me in a sickening wave.
I screamed and fell away from the window as the hooded interloper giggled. It was screeching, terrible sound. I slammed the window shut and backed away.
“Dammit, Dragon, who is that? Where are you?” I murmured as I approached the window once more. I pushed it open and scanned the quiet night. No movement, no lingering shadow. Just the rhododendron bush below rustling nonchalantly. Everything undisturbed.
But everything was very disturbed! Where was Dragon? Who has yellow eyes like that?!
“Dragon? Dragon!” I called aloud as I paced. I waited for his comforting voice to answer me. “Dragon! Dragon, if this is a test … Just come out! Dragon?”
I was frantic, panicked, sick to my stomach. There was no telepathic response, no audible response, no tap at my window. Just the echo of that sinister giggle.
I groaned. I needed help. And there was only one person nearby I could call on. I marched boldly down the hall. I knocked on her door. I squared up my shoulders and cleared my throat, ready to blow her mind by asking for her help. I would tell her, calmly and maturely, that Dragon is apparently kidnapped (dragonnapped?) and that it happened in our very own home.
But there was no answer at her door.
I knocked longer. No response. I knocked louder. I assumed she was blaring terrible jazz music into her earbuds, as was often the case with my unanswered knocking. My panic from the encounter at my window disappeared momentarily while full-blown irritation took over. I shoved her door open, ready to now scold my sister rather than blow her mind. But her room was vacant.
“Philippa?” I called out. “Where are you? Philippa, be cool.”
Nothing. She wasn’t there. It was nearly 10 p.m., and while she was a teenager, she wasn’t that kind of teenager. All of her weird after-school clubs would have ended by now. I took a lap through the house. Empty, every room.
“Mom?” I called finally as I headed toward her room. “Do you know where Phlee is?” I paused, breathless, outside her door. My knuckles barely grazed the wood as the door fell open. Empty? Empty! I shivered. Her window was wide open, the screen knocked out. The curtains blew artfully in the night breeze. My heart drummed harder. I hoped that I could just be feeling left out, that she and Philippa and gone out together. I desperately wanted that to be the case. But everything in me felt fear, felt worry, felt sick.
Something moved on the other side of the neatly made bed. Baleful yellow eyes fixed on me. I froze.
“Ye’ll not find ye lassies here. They shan gone with the dumb beast!”
A Scottish accent was barely discernible through the shrill whisper. The black garb and black tone of this little fellow told me this was definitely not Baert and no friend of mine.
I started toward him, but he held up his palm toward me. A bright yellow light emitted from his open hand. The beam was small but piercing. He smiled a toothless grin as I squinted in the sharp light.
“That’s a gan, hie stay there then!” he cackled as he slowly retreated behind the yellow ray.
Keeping his palm toward me, he shuffled backward and reached his opposite arm to feel the window behind him. In one smooth motion, he hopped upon the transom, wiggled his fingers in an awful wave, and lept.
I dove after him, but he was too quick. The screen was below, slightly bent, perched atop another rhododendron bush. No sign of that evil elf, or Philippa, or Mom. Or Dragon.
“M-m-mom?” I stuttered in a scared whisper. “Mom? My mom is … gone?”
The trees along the drive swayed affirmatively in the evening light. The clouds dropped and the moon cried. An owl hooted an apology. The bushes shivered with concern. I dropped down from the window, suddenly very acutely aware that my stomach hurt very, very badly.
I collapsed on the floor, and I cried.
I could only cry.