Mia was always fearful now. At night, her dreams were filled with dragons and monsters and a constant whispering voice that pleaded with her to return to return to the house next door. Had Bella put a spell on her? Enchanted her? She tried to convince herself that what she had seen in the glasshouse had been an illusion, a trick, a hologram even. But she only had to look out of the back window of her house and see the familiar curved structure of the glasshouse, to remember vividly the flutter of dragon wings, the glimmer of dragon eyes and the feel of dragon skin.
The following week, Bella cycled down by the lake and along the village road every day, passing by Glenkilty National School. Dressed heavily in black, she rode her old black bicycle in front of the school yard. Mia watched from the classroom window, anxious and afraid, hearing Bella call her name again and again. Neither the teacher nor the other children seemed to notice anything.
When Mia was going to the supermarket, or the post office or just even walking home from school, she knew that Bella would suddenly appear, smiling and friendly. She did her best to stay close to her Mum and her Granny and her friends, but she knew that they could not protect her forever from Bella’s magic.
‘Are you all right, pet?’ asked Mum, sensing that something was going on.
‘Yep!’ said Mia, too frightened to tell. She didn’t want to be an apprentice dragon keeper, or helper or whatever that crazy old witch wanted of her. She just wanted to go back to being a normal eleven-year-old girl who knew nothing about dragons or magic or people’s time running out!
The whole family had noticed Mia’s behaviour and they were beginning to get very worried.
‘There’s definitely something wrong with Mia,’ Granny Rose said as she rolled out pastry for an apple tart on the kitchen table.
‘Rory, do you think Mia’s being bullied at school or something like that?’ asked Mum, a worried frown creasing her forehead.
He didn’t think so. Mia would tell him something like that, he was sure.
But Mum and Granny were right. Something was wrong with his sister. She seemed tense and nervous, as if she was scared of something or had a big secret to keep.
‘It’s that Bella Blackwell, next door. She has something to do with it, I’ll be bound,’ Granny said, shaking her head.
‘The two of you have always been so close, Rory. Will you have a word with her?’ begged Mum.
‘I’ll try and talk to her,’ he promised.
Jackie raced in front of them snuffling at the leaves, as Rory and Mia walked through Glenkilty Wood. Rory was glad that he’s managed to persuade his sister to put on her new yellow padded jacket and join him, for the woods behind their house had always been a favourite place of theirs. Oak, ash and chestnut trees formed a natural tunnel of greenery, and as they walked, the sunlight flickered and danced through the leaves. Only Jackie’s panting and the crackle of broken twigs disturbed the silence. Druids, hermits, bandits and outlaws were all supposed to have found shelter within Glenkilty’s ancient wood many centuries ago.
‘I want to see down by the roadworks,’ said Mia, startling Rory from his daydream.
At the edge of the wood they both stopped, horrified by the decimated area where huge trees had been removed to make room for road widening. Cars and trucks would soon replace green leaves and tree trunks.
‘It has been destroyed,’ said Rory, sadly.
Mia searched among the enormous tree trunks cut close to the ground. Bending down low she scrabbled among the scattered sawdust and timber until she found what she wanted. There it was, a large circle of rounded stones placed near to each other, almost covered by bracken and ferns.
‘That’s funny,’ said Rory, ‘I never noticed them before.’
Rory had put two chocolate bars in his pocket. Fresh air and exercise always made him hungry. Deep in the woods there was a clearing where wooden picnic tables had been set up for the summer visitors. Rory sat down on one of the benches and passed Mia some chocolate.
She nibbled it slowly, like a small rabbit, leaving teeth marks in the bar. A fat wood pigeon strutted by, pecking at the ground.
‘I bet she sent him to spy on me,’ Mia muttered to herself, shooing the bird away.
‘Is everything all right, Mia?’ Rory asked softly.
He could see a flicker of indecision cross her face.
‘I don’t know what to do, Rory, I’m scared and …’ His sister looked around as if checking her surroundings. ‘Do you believe in magic, Rory?’
Surprised by her question, he began to laugh, ignoring her dismay.
‘You mean like Dad!’ he jeered. ‘No way! It’s just tricks and sleight of hand and practice, that’s all magic is.’
‘No, I mean proper magic,’ she insisted.
‘Hocus pocus! I don’t believe any of that kind of stuff,’ he said firmly. ‘You know that! There’s always a logical reason for things. An explanation.’
Mia smiled nervously. ‘What about Bella? You saw her too, Rory. Bella can do magic! You know she can!’
‘The Bird Woman! Is that what’s upset you?’
‘She’s not a Bird Woman!’ Mia shouted angrily at him. ‘She’s a Dragon Woman, a Dragon Keeper!’
‘A Dragon Woman!’ he burst out laughing. ‘I don’t believe it, Mia! Where on earth did you get such a crazy idea from? Dragons! They don’t exist! They’re just a myth, part of old legends!’
‘They do exist!’ she screamed at him. ‘I’ve seen them!’
‘You thought you saw them, imagined you saw them!’ he insisted. Perhaps that old witch or whatever she is conjured them up, or hypnotised you. Be sensible, Mia, there’s no such thing as dragons, not really!’
‘You play with dragons, I’ve seen you, Rory.’
‘That’s on the computer. They’re just games. Made-up, animated, computer-generated images of dragons and monsters, whatever. They’re not real, it’s just for fun!’
‘But someone must have seen them once. How else would they know how to draw them?’
‘They imagined them,’ he retorted firmly.
‘The other day I was looking for Bella, Rory, and I went into the glasshouse. Remember when Mr Hackett had it and it was full of all his plants? Do you know what Bella has hidden there? Dragons, small baby dragons. Dragonlings. I saw them. I swear! She found them in that circle of stones at the edge of the woods. She says that they’re the last surviving dragons in the world. They’re so small they look almost like big lizards. Bella says that she wants me to help her, to become her apprentice. She says she’s too old, that she wants to teach me all she knows about them and show me what to do before her time runs out!’ Mia, pale and breathless, let the words come tumbling out, fast and furious, her voice shaking.
‘They’re dragons, baby dragons, I saw them, Rory, honest I did! I touched one, felt his skin, and ran my fingers along his backbone. I saw his eyes. It was a real dragon, Rory, I’m not imagining it, honest I’m not!’
Rory didn’t know what to think. How could Mia actually believe that their crazy neighbour had found dragons here in Glenkilty Wood? It was bad enough that the old woman was obviously bonkers, but now she was putting her strange ideas into Mia’s head too.
‘It’s not true, Mia! I don’t care what that old woman told you, or what you think you saw, none of it is true. Don’t believe it, any of it!’ he shouted angrily at her.
‘The thing is …’ said Mia softly, ‘I do!’
In the distance, Jackie suddenly whined, then barked.
‘She must be stuck. I’ll go get her!’ Rory said.
Mia stayed sitting on the log, a small, scared figure.
Jackie was caught in a small patch of briars, which she had run into in her haste to catch something or other, probably a squirrel or a rabbit. Untangling the squirming dog took Rory a few minutes, and by the time he walked the few yards back, Mia was gone. He saw the yellow flash of her jacket way ahead of him on the path. He called and called her, but she ignored him and kept walking on.
Mia didn’t know what to do. Talking to Rory hadn’t helped at all. Usually her brother was so understanding. They’d always helped each other and stood up for each other no matter what, but now they seemed so far apart. He didn’t believe her and she wasn’t prepared to listen to him.
She had never felt so alone and unsure of herself. All her life she had been reading books and listening to stories, stories about princes and princesses and giants and dwarves, witches and wizards and all kinds of incredible happenings – children who followed a piper and were never seen again, a king who turned everything he touched into gold, a mermaid who sold her beautiful voice for a pair of human legs, why, even her mother and grandmother had told her about the banshee that cried the night before anyone in their family died, and of the little man who, if you managed to catch him, would share his crock of gold with you at the end of the rainbow. Her head and heart were full of such stories, they filled her brain and she dreamed and imagined them in the long hours of night. Were they all nothing but lies, based on nothing more real than imagination? Surely strange things could and did happen in the world?
She was tired of being scared and worrying about Bella. The dragons meant her no harm. She had not just imagined them, or made them up! They were real.
Walking back home she felt more light-hearted, clear-headed. She stopped outside the witch’s house, staring up at the windows, almost unafraid. She was just turning up the driveway to her own house when Dad pulled up in the car. He stopped and parked and reached into the back seat for his briefcase.
‘Everything okay, Mia?’ he asked, hugging her. ‘Were you in next door?’
She looked at him, standing there beside her. He was tall and sandy-haired, balding in the front, wearing a navy suit, a white shirt and a multicoloured, striped tie. He always seemed out of step with the world and what was going on around him, as if he lived in a world of his own that was more real to him than the actual world. It drove her mother mad and exasperated Rory.
‘Bella, the old woman next door keeps dragons, Dad,’ she blurted out. ‘There are eight of them!’
Matthew Murphy looked across at The Elms, his eyes studying the shape and form of the old house before coming to rest on the windows.
‘Does she indeed! What colour are they?’
Mia stood in disbelief. Her father hadn’t shouted or roared at her, or even argued about the existence of dragons.
‘There are two black ones and a gold one, and four green ones and a blue one.’
‘How interesting!’ nodded her father.
‘Oh Daddy, I love you!’ Mia smiled and gave him a big hug.
Matthew Murphy was left standing there, wondering what it was he had said or done that pleased his daughter so much.