a tapping at my door. How I wished it were Philippa! How I wished I could let her in my room. I would act annoyed but really be so pleased she wanted to hang out with me on a Saturday, and we would talk about what records we were saving money for (invariably I would opt for another Beatles album and she would want something old and obscure like “Barbra Streisand Sings Jewish Holiday Hits” or something). We’d watch funny videos on her phone, and I’d lean my head against her shoulder. And we’d stay cozy and entertained like that until our mom called us for lunch … Yeah. It would be wonderful.
The whole scene I wanted back. I had it. And I thought I hated it. Or at the very least, I was never grateful for it.
The tapping came again, this time a little more forcefully.
“Go away!” I barked, wanting to be alone in my pity and gloom.
“Geez, not quite the welcome I was going for,” a man’s voice responded.
“Uncle Seb?” I got out of my bed and bounded across my room.
“Yep, it’s me, your Uncle Seb; just me,” his voice sounded odd – almost shaky.
As my hand reached for the doorknob, I heard a sort of scuffle and then something bang against my door hard. I swung the door open.
“I wouldn’t do that,” the man cried.
Standing outside the door was, indeed, my Uncle Seb. His hands were held together in front of him by some sort of glowing rope; brilliant yellow rays flickered about his wrists. I could see a hand holding onto his right elbow, clutching at his sleeve fiercely.
“Watch the leather, would you, pal?” Uncle Seb said brusquely, turning his head toward his right shoulder and looking down.
“My sincerest apologies. But we need to be on with it,” a boy’s voice came from behind him.
“What is going on? Uncle Seb, I can help! You’ve got it wrong –” I stopped speaking in panicked phrases as the figure behind my uncle stepped to the side to face me.
I gasped, feeling all the blood draining from my face.
“What are you doing here? Uncle Seb, get away from him!” I reached toward my uncle’s handcuffed hands; in an instant the rope glowed brighter and hotter and zapped me hard. I fell to the ground.
“Did you really think that would work?! You could just grab his hand and free him? How dumb are you? Honestly, some adversary.”
“Shut up, Jonah,” I growled through my teeth from the hallway floor.
“Oh, she wants to fight back! She’s off to a great start – such a mighty retort!” he laughed, kneeling down next to me.
Uncle Seb just stood there, tall and muscular and helpless. I glared at him and wondered why he was doing literally nothing just because his hands were bound.
“Oh, ‘shut up, Jonah!’ Wow, you really put me in my place!”
“What do you want,” I snapped.
“What do I want? Just like that? No backstory, no small talk, just a rudely pointed question?” H cracked his side to side – such a disgusting sound.
“Sorry, did you want some tea,” I said dryly, proud of myself for mustering the courage to be snarky.
“No, I don’t want any of your freaking tea!” Jonah answered angrily, lifting his left leg up high and bringing his foot down sharply onto my hand. I yelped and tried to pull away. He shifted all of his body weight forward onto this foot and leaned forward, looking down at me.
“I want. The Book. Where. Is. It.”
Fortis Librae. I somehow knew this is what he was after before he even said it. I just stared at his stupid face, framed by his stupid hair spilling out of his stupid beanie.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said flatly. “Kindly get out off of my foot and out of my house now.”
“AAAARRRGGGHH!” Jonah shrieked, and Seb yelped behind him.
As Jonah yelled, handcuffs flashed brighter and hotter.. The squalid odor of singed hair met my nose.
“Stop, stop, you have to stop. He gets angry I get burned even more!” Uncle Seb cried desperately. He leaned against the wall, shoulders raised. Pathetic, I thought.
Evechild, the book is safe. You must get him away from here.
What?! My attention left Uncle Seb and I looked up, my eyes searching wildly for Dragon.
Keep your gaze steady! You can’t alert him to my presence! I am at my gargoyle post.
I knew what that meant: Dragon was still here and perched outside my bedroom window again. We would be okay!
Keep your optimistic presumptions at bay, Evechild. He’s going to request your uncle accompany him.
“So that’s how it’s going to be? You are such a dumb child,” Jonah’s eyes flashed yellow and he stepped forward, meaning to stomp on my hand again.
Before his foot could land once more, I shot my hand back and grabbed at his ankle. I pulled hard, and Jonah toppled backward. He hit the hallway floor hard.
“You stupid … idiotic …waste of ….” Jonah writhed on the ground for a moment, seeming to run out of insults to launch at me.
“Oh, Eve. I wish you hadn’t,” Uncle Seb said quietly from his post against the wall.
Jonah stopped squirming. His body pulled itself into a single line. Slowly and robotically, his legs straightened first, his torso arching backward awkwardly as his lower half balanced and aligned itself. Then the top half of his body pulled itself upright, his neck and head being the last thing to straighten. The movement was so foreign, so disgusting. I wanted to throw up.
“Let’s. Go. Now,” Jonah ordered as his eyes glowed yellow again.
“Go? No way. Go where, you freak?”
“You! Move!” Jonah grabbed the back of my hoodie and yanked hard. “You too!” he barked at Uncle Seb.
Eve, I am with you. Do as he says. All will be ok!
Dragon’s voice wasn’t as comforting as I needed it to be. I marched after my captor next to my worthless uncle. As we passed the kitchen on our way to the front door, I caught Baert’s wide eyes watching from within the pantry. I sort of nodded, not sure how to signal to him to stay where he was. My heart stopped as I saw the pantry door creak open a bit. I coughed, slowed my pace, and pushed my hand away from me. Baert’s shadow retreated. I whistled a quick a sigh of relief and moved forward as Jonah’s death grip tugged hard at me again.
Dragon! I said inwardly. Baert is in the pantry.
I glanced around nervously. Had I spoken aloud? Neither Seb nor Jonah seemed phased. I closed my eyes and breathed in.
What do I do? Help me! I pleaded inwardly.
This is unprecedented; I think you need to find out what he wants.
“He wants the book!” I blurted aloud accidentally.
“Yeah, idiot. I want the book. Are you just now getting this?”
We reached the front door. The sunlight that poured in and filled the entry with bright yellow usually cheered me up. Jonah’s head spun toward me; the sickening glow of his eyes matched the yellow hue of the sunshine-soaked entryway. Some alternate took its place, sallow and grotesque.
“You’re going to take me to the book now.”
Stall him; take him to your uncle’s plane.
I brightened. His plane! The spheresaii should still be stowed in the cargo hold of Uncle Seb’s Cessna.
“We, uh, need to get to Uncle Seb’s hangar,” I stammered.
Uncle Seb shot me a puzzled look. I avoided looking at him. We stepped outside, and I pulled the door shut loudly behind me, but didn’t let go of the handle. With the other two in front of me, I carefully pushed the door open just a tiny bit again and gently pulled my hand from the doorknob. I don’t know why I felt compelled to do this; maybe someone would discover the door ajar with no one home and go for help. But who would discover this? Whatever. I did as my gut told me.
The sickly blaze of Jonah’s eyes diminished in the brightness of the sun. Seeing this, my eyes darted over to my uncle’s handcuffed wrists. The flickering rope’s glow faded as well … an idea shot into my brain.
“Uncle Seb, turn!” I yelled.
I lunged forward with arms extended, my palms together. In a grand attempt to free him, I swiped down viciously between my uncle’s imprisoned hands. I assumed they were weakened.
I was wrong.
I yelped. While the handcuffs’ glow faded, their fire had not. The base of my pinkies burned first. A charred line across the outside of my hands where the bands scorched me. Man, did it burn. I licked my wounds like the pathetic creature I was. My spit was warm and only made the singed lines sting worse.
Jonah looked irritated at first, but then just laughed.
“Idiot,” he muttered, shaking his head, “you’ll be your own demise soon enough. Get into the car.”
I looked back at my house. We were only at the end of the driveway … it wasn’t a terrifically far distance, maybe 40 yards, but it felt unreachable now. What had my plan been? Uncle Seb and I would run back inside? Get in his car and drive away? Where was Dragon?
“I said, get in,” Jonah’s voice startled me.
Uncle Seb sat in the driver’s seat, his neon-cuffed hands poised dutifully atop the steering wheel. His face looked foreign to me. What had happened to turn him into the cowering animal outside my bedroom that morning? Where was the leather-clad, gallant machismo?
I felt defeated. I sighed and crawled into the backseat of Uncle Seb’s tiny car. I looked up only to see Jonah’s big dumb face right in front of mine. Beads of sweat formed along the bottom of his beanie; one after the other freed themselves and trickled along his temples down to his neck in a disgusting pearlescent stream.
“No way, you get up there, where I can keep an eye on you,” Jonah hissed, disrupting the sweat pearls.
I shrugged and did as I was told. He clearly overderestimated two things: the comfort level of that little bench seat in the back of my uncle’s MG, and my ability to connive and execute. You’d think my failed attempt with the glowing cuffs would have tipped him off that possibly I’m not the greatest of criminal masterminds, but this apparently hadn’t faltered his faith in my cunning. As I sat in the passenger seat considering this, I actually felt complimented.
Uncle Seb started the engine. I felt Jonah jostling behind me, and I smiled knowing well that all his shifting and squirming meant he was fantastically uncomfortable. The little car moved slowly away from my house.
“Why are we even doing what you say,” I asked abruptly, feeling a little surge of power now that I knew Jonah was so unpleasantly squished behind me.
“Have you seen what’s around your uncle’s hands?” he shot back, irritated, “How’d you like that around your entire face?”
I slumped forward. Was that an actual threat? Or a terrible comeback? I couldn’t figure this kid out. Every time I had encountered Jonah, it was so revolting, like something that leaves the worst taste in your mouth. He was usually so aloof, ambivalent, even, and let’s not forget that horrible feeling of heaviness and drowsiness that weirdly befell me every time he was near. I mentally flipped through our catalogue of recent encounters to confirm this. Check, check, check; why did I not feel this way now? Was that even …
Evechild, get out of there! The hairs on my body went erect. Every bit of me came to the same panicking conclusion. THAT’S NOT JONAH!
Get out, get out, get out!
I was dizzy. My stomach churned. Wait, that was from the car lurching forward. I looked over at my uncle who was clumsily moving his left hand from the gearshift to the steering wheel and back again, leaning back and tilting his head down to watch his foot on the clutch rather than keeping his eyes on the road.
“Oh my god, that is not my uncle!” The realization came forcefully and reverberated. I stared straight ahead, worried that any movement would betray me. We turned down an unfamiliar road. It lay barren on either side, the vista beset only with gaunt trees and the odd farm house. There was no one around to think anything was off about an old MG lurching laboriously down the road.
For as long as I could remember, Uncle Seb drove tiny British cars that had a stick shift and a right-side steering wheel. My mom would mock him relentlessly over his pretentious automobile preferences. Little snippets of childhood memories were replete with this image. I tried a quick dose of devil’s advocate: maybe Uncle Seb was really just that scared of this whole thing and was losing his cool and forgot how to drive his car…?
Get out! Now!
Dragon’s urgency of tone left no time or reason to weigh out different scenarios. My heart pounded me into action. I slammed my body against the passenger-side door while I pulled hard on the door handle. Thank goodness this was an old British car – no safety latches, no automatic door locks! The little steel door fell open heavily and swiftly with a bitter creak, revealing the street below. The car stalled and jolted.
And then I did it. I just launched. I rolled sideways out of the moving car. My left hip and elbow hit first, hard, but I didn’t stop. The momentum kept my bumpy landing moving; the smell of tar, the taste of asphalt, then blood, the sounds of cars whizzing by, the screeching of brakes … everything was dizzying and disorienting. Face down, every joint in my body screamed at me. The ground pulsed beneath me.
I don’t know how, but I pushed myself onto all fours and got up. But my right ankle wouldn’t support my weight. Something wet ran down my left temple. I tried to walk forward, my brain still swirled in panic. I was certain that every sound I heard was the tiny car with the two imposters on my heels.
Something grabbed me. I was squeezed under my armpits, around my ribcage, and then suddenly whooooosh! up into the air I went. Dragon! I was atop his back, the sheen of the black scales around his neck welcome.
“It’s not them,” I tried to speak, my head spinning, throbbing, aching, roaring.
You are safe now. Breathe.
That was all I could do. Breathe. Soaring over treetops and rooftops growing smaller beneath me, I inhaled, I exhaled. And there, atop a telepathic European Arrowtail in the midst of clouds and impossibility, with blood on my hands and asphalt in my hair, I felt farther away than ever from my mom and Philippa.