adrenaline flooded my system. I couldn’t believe what I had done. An actual fistfight? Well, does it count as a fistfight if the other person doesn’t strike you back, or maybe even realize they’re in a fistfight? Never mind; I was on a new weird high and I was going to bask in it for at least a few more minutes. I had never done anything like that in my life! I had responded to Libby with words – audible words that made sense – but to actually punch her in the face? Epic.
I shook my head and popped my knuckles, then immediately winced in pain. Oh right. That thing about punching a girl in the face, well, it kind of hurts. I covered my right hand with my left, shielding the swollen knuckles from my mom’s eyeline. I leaned my head against the car’s head rest, feeling very satisfied. Maybe I liked this new side of Eve. Maybe I should keep her around.
Hmph! That’s a reprehensible wish.
I sat upright, jerking forward just enough that my seatbelt’s safety activated and held me tightly.
“Did you say something?” I asked my mom, who shook her head from the driver’s seat.
I frowned and leaned back again. I closed my eyes and smiled, letting my mind linger in reflections of my glory.
You are better than that, Evechild. Use your strength for good.
I jolted up again, looking all the around the little car. I pressed my face against the window. It fogged up. I wiped it with my sleeve and peered upward. A faint shadow was trailing just behind us. A shadow in the shape of a mind-reading, pompous dragon.
“You’re talking to me in my thoughts?!” I blurted out.
Mom shot me a concerned look.
“Sorry, uh, reciting a poem,” I stammered. She took a swig of water from her water bottle and adjusted the radio station to classical music.
Thank god she’s used to my weirdness, I thought.
Indeed. You’ve trained her well. But pompous? No need for insults.
It was Dragon’s voice. Inside my head. Reading my thoughts, responding to my thoughts. And mocking me a bit.
“Get out of there!” I exclaimed aloud, again receiving a confused look from my mom.
I smiled awkwardly and gave her a thumbs-up. A thumbs-up? That was my brilliant deterrent? Man, that lady must really love me.
She does. More than you could ever know, Evechild.
I rolled my eyes. Breaking news: mother loves own child.
My mom was half-singing, half-humming now. She did that a lot. My sister and I would often get home only to be greeted by our mom’s wailing – sounds popping from her mouth indiscriminately as she danced around with headphones on, leaving us to guess what song she thought she was singing. Philippa and I had pooled our money the Christmas before to gift our mom with fancy noise-canceling headphones. I giggled thinking of one time when Philippa had crept up behind Mom and started mimicking her dance moves and singing gestures.
My mom caught my grin and took this as encouragement. Up went the volume of the car’s stereo, and up went the volume of her voice. I don’t know many people who would unabashedly sing along to classical music, pretending to know the words to Italian opera or mimic symphonic instruments with their voice. I gave in and bopped my head a little. My mom smiled at me and shook her shoulders in response.
Car dancing? And to Verdi, no less! How wonderful!
I tried to ignore the voice in my thoughts. I was actually really enjoying this moment. I leaned forward and hit the volume control again.
We need to discuss your response today.
Up went the volume.
Your violence is quite troublesome.
“But I didn’t mean to punch her!”
I slapped my non-injured hand over my mouth and looked over at my mom. She just winked at me and kept singing.
Anyhow, I continued internally, I really didn’t mean to punch her. I was amped that I even said intelligible words to her, especially in front of people. Really, Dragon, you should be impressed.
Evechild. Your boorish behavior certainly needs to be addressed. But I’m not speaking of this.
Dragon’s voice carried the faintest echo as he spoke telepathically.
What I’m speaking of is that sensation of heaviness.
Yeah, it was super weird, I said inwardly, thinking through my morning. But even more bizarre than that, it felt familiar.
Can you pinpoint where you’ve experienced this sensation before?
I thought hard, focusing on any pivotal moments from the past school year.
You needn’t search that far back, Evechild.
The music stopped. A loud ringing sound came through the speakers. My mom quickly popped in one of her earphones. She fumbled with Bluetooth settings on her car’s console. I took this moment of distraction to look at my right knuckles. I pulled my hand out of its light blue sleeve sanctuary and gasped. The back of my hand was purplish and swollen. I yelped when I tried to make a fist and open my open fingers.
Never mind your hand. Seems a just recompense.
You are a dragon, I said inwardly to him. With fire-breathing powers. Are you telling me you’re so anti-violence?
Violence is a response in only the most sever and dire of situations.
That’s easy to say when you have fireballs locked and loaded in your throat all the time, I thought.
That’s not how fire breathing works! And my abilities are not playthings; I did not employ them unless, again, it was of absolute necessity.
His voice smacked of irritation, but I dumbly pressed on: Like when you really need to cook pizza? Or there’s another dragon looking at the mountain cave you wanted so you, you know, do like the Vikings do ….
You do not know of what you speak. My powers are sacred; I used them with a heavy heart and for the greater good, and …. Dragon coughed and stuttered a bit, and I resisted for as long as I could, lost so many, but it was right. But now you, why, you flout morals and noble integrity for the prejudiced blows of an unarmed classmate.
I sat there in silence. Dragon so far struck me as elegantly aloof if not borderline secretive; this indignant lecture had my mind racing.
I eschewed violence nearly one millennium ago. I have a token for each century I’ve been a proud pacifist. Shall I show you? I am peaceful. An academic.
A Dragon who graduated from anger management classes. That’s what I had in my life now.
Dragon stayed quiet for a long time then. I squirmed in my seat to see if his shadow was still trailing us. I pressed my face against the usually clean window, straining to see his actual body. I caught just a glimpse of his soaring wing and a drooping neck.
I didn’t know what to say to him now. Naturally I wanted to push for more backstory – twice now he had eluded to loss that easily shook him up. And the other day at the park, during that moment when he was explaining to me the danger of peridiote, why, I had actually seen a glimpse of that loss. Fire and death and hurt … such hurt! Dragon’s scholarly machismo covered his painful past.
I stared out the window. We zoomed past the mundane hum of humanity. I thought hard, trying to fathom what that would be like – losing everything, losing everyone you love. I only loved, like, five people total. The rest of the world I could more or less do without. Does having fewer people to lose make the loss more bearable? I glanced at my mom. She was still chatting away; I couldn’t share my musings with her. I frowned. This is just the sort of weird existential thing she adores discussing with Philippa and me.
I considered people who invented things I like, and cooked things I like, and sold things I like. Not being able to watch videos on my phone in bed or eat pad kee mow takeout or buy Stephen Hawking books online would make me profoundly sad. Do I love those people? Does love have transitive properties? I love my pillow, so do I love the person who made it? Maybe losing everyone on Earth would be more difficult than I thought, even if I didn’t directly know them.
My mom turned the car left down our street. I watched joggers running alongside the sidewalk, people walking with baby strollers, kids carrying baseball equipment, all coming from or going to the park. It was a lovely forested park; I liked best that most of the treed areas were undeveloped. No imposing trails or play structures horning in on the trees’ home.
As we drove past the little wooden gate opening up to the wooded park, flashes of peridiote burned brightly in my mind’s eye and made the hairs on my arms stand on end.
The stone, I thought. I felt that way with that stone! That same heavy feeling when I thought I fainted after punching Libby! And … and … I struggled to remember more. And that one day when I dropped my bag getting off the bus! Oh my god, it was like I had been walking through that corridor in quicksand that morning.
My terrifying recollection halted when I realized Dragon’s wings were no longer in sight. I again squirmed in my passenger seat, trying to spot him.
The car slowed in front of the park, pulled forward, then back, as my mom turned the steering wheel hard. My eyes grew wide with panic. What was she doing?! Where were we going?! Was she controlled by that yellow stone?! My hands, suddenly sweaty, shakily grabbed at my seatbelt but the car was in motion so I couldn’t unlatch the belt. Everything in me screamed to get out of that car; I couldn’t go back to that park! As my hand reached for the passenger door latch (I guess my plan was to dive and roll?!), the car picked up speed and continued back down the street the way we had come, away from home, away from the park’s notoriety.
“Whoopsies, totally went into auto-pilot mode, there,” my mom said casually. “I was taking us home! I hope the dentist will still see you tonight; we are cutting it close.”
Deep breaths. In and out. Pants were dry. I’m glad my mom isn’t a bad guy, I thought fervently, hoping Dragon would respond. A profound feeling of guilt tinged with self-loathing befell me. How could I ever imagine that my mom, this dear creature who took all of my weirdness in stride, would be against me?!
I am the scum of the Earth, I thought, selfishly still expecting that Dragon would swoop into my inner dialogue and reaffirm my goodness.
But beyond the classical music radio station and my mom’s occasional swearing over her inability to work the Bluetooth function, there was silence.
We reached the dentist office. I clenched my wounded hand in a fist, purposely inflicting pain on myself as some sort of sick penance for my terrible thoughts.
We parked. My mom, chipper as usual, popped out of the car and stretched. She did that no matter how long the drive had been – I think it was more of a salutation to the sky than it was a stretch. She smiled at me and waved for me to follow.
“Hurry! They don’t usually schedule appointments this late,” she smiled again and did a little dance step up the stairs.
I cautiously scanned the parking lot, the sky, the small brick building’s rooftop for signs of Dragon. Where does a Dragon go, exactly?
I slumped toward the open door my mom was holding for me. Her cheery eyes didn’t match the event awaiting me. I was already mentally rehearsing how to really milk the dental pain afterward. The least I deserve after all of this a large smoothie. Preferably mango.