13 #2
She was out of breath by the time she reached the road to Medley and slowed to a trudge. Alone in the road, she screamed her anger to the sun as loud as she could. From the fields of the Seraphin Estate, a dragon roared back. She knew the voice.
She quickened her pace again, up the wide driveway to the Seraphin mansion. Carmine, her favorite dragon, met her at the gate of the pasture. Asta unlatched the gate and stood back to let him through. He paused before exiting, nosing her body as if checking for injury.
‘I’m okay, buddy,’ she said, running her hands down his neck and shoulders; the smooth feel of the scales under her palms calmed her a little. ‘Just having a hard day.’
He puffed hot breath through his nostrils and kept inspecting her.
‘It’s my birthday today,’ she added. She kissed his long nose and ran her fingers through the feathery tuft at his chin.
Asta knew that she was supposed to ask permission before taking one of the Seraphins’ dragons out for a ride, but she would deal with the consequences later.
‘Come on,’ she said to Carmine. She waved him forward.
Carmine walked through the gate, his side rubbing on the post with a muted clicking sound.
She halted him with a hand on his wing so that she could close the gate behind him.
He stopped, docile under her touch. The dragon had only reached full size this year and would let no one except Asta put a saddle on him.
But today, she did not bother him with any kind of tack at all. Checking to see if anyone was watching her, Asta took hold of his wing, found a toehold at the ankle of his foreleg, and climbed on Carmine’s bare back.
They skirted the stables and rode through the grassy meadow that stretched up the hill toward the woods and the rocky mountain beyond. Summertime meant that the meadow was full of flowers – coreopsis and wild carrot bobbed their heads under the long grasses gone to seed.
Asta was still mad. How could her parents be so stupid?
She had never wanted to live like they did.
It was so boring. All they talked about was the weather, the prices at market, the fences that needed mending, the latest automatic feeder technology.
How could they think that she cared about that stuff? Didn’t they know her at all?
Asta found the trail at the edge of the meadow.
She gripped Carmine’s shoulders with her knees and leaned to the right to steer him into the dappled shade of the trees.
The smell of the earth changed from hot and dry to something damper and darker.
Small twigs and last year’s fallen leaves rustled and cracked under Carmine’s steps.
The dragon had rarely been past the edge of the meadow, and his head swiveled back and forth curiously. Whenever something interested or startled him, his neck frills would flare for a moment before settling back.
Asta liked watching him explore the trail; it was like she could see the world through his bright eyes.
His experience was so pure, so direct. She wished she could be like that.
She let him go at his own pace, stopping whenever he wanted to and darting forward at a butterfly when it suited him.
His explorations wound them up the side of the mountain that backed the Seraphin Estate.
But as they neared the crest of the mountain, Carmine’s whole body suddenly tensed beneath Asta, and he stopped mid step, back leg raised.
When his neck frills flared this time, they remained alert.
His head lifted, coiled back on itself like a snake ready to strike, and his nostrils flared.
Asta watched his silver eyes tracking back and forth at something ahead of him, and she looked too, trying to see what he saw.
‘What is it, Carmy?’
The dragon rumbled, but did not break his gaze from the crest of the mountain ahead. Slowly, cautiously, he stepped forward.
Asta’s nerves were trilling. She wished now that she had at least put his halter on so that she could lead him back down the trail to the safety of the farm below.
Carmine continued creeping forward. He was heading for an outcrop of rock that overlooked the valley.
Half of her wanted to climb off and run for her life.
The other half thought she might die if she didn’t see what was on the other side of the mountain.
She scooched forward and wrapped her arms around Carmine’s neck as he scratched his way across the bare rock.
The outcropping looked over a small river, maybe four hundred feet below.
Doe Lick Creek, the people of Medley called it.
It wound through the forest below, its path evident in the subtlest gap between the trees’ branches.
But at one of its deeper bends, the floodplain was a bare wash of river stone.
And there, basking in the summer sun, were dragons.
Asta counted. Nine of them. Wild dragons.
It was rare to see them, even from a distance. They were canny creatures and did not like to be close to humans. But Asta and Carmine were downwind, and the brood seemed unaware of their presence.
One of the dragons – a stocky, earth-colored male with patches of slate blue on its haunches – rose and went to the creek for a drink of water. Thirst quenched, it settled on a large boulder and opened its dark wings to let the sun warm them.
Behind the blue-haunched male, a pair of younger dragons began to scuffle.
Asta almost laughed out loud. They looked like Carmine and his siblings at play in the pasture.
One of the dragons caught the leg of the other in its mouth and bit down.
The other screeched and flailed, whipping its tail at its attacker and hitting it in the eye.
The other dragon let go and wailed its own complaint. Then they were on each other again.
Carmine made a tiny whimper. Asta couldn’t tell if he was afraid, or if he wanted to join in the play fight.
She imagined him down there, free from harnesses, containment fences, feeding schedules, or saddle training.
She imagined herself down there, too, surrounded by dragons, without anyone putting their expectations on her.
In a moment, she thought, Carmine might take off and fly to them.
That, of course, Asta could not allow. It was too dangerous. It had been wild dragons that had killed Carmine’s dam, a dragon called Honey, two years ago.
Honey had been guarding a clutch of eggs in an outdoor nest when a wild dragon got into the enclosure.
She fought off the invader, protecting her eggs, but unbeknownst to anyone, the wild dragon had been carrying a virus.
The first signs that Honey was sick came weeks later, just as her eggs were ready to hatch.
Asta, who had never seen a dragon hatch before, was camped out in the pasture, as close to the nest as Honey would allow.
Suddenly, Honey had started thrashing and spasming wildly, crushing two hatchlings still in their eggs.
Asta called for help, but Honey was dead within the hour.
More eggs might have been lost that night except that Asta – thinking quickly and not for a second of her own safety – had darted past the convulsing dragon and rescued five of the dirty white eggs from the nest, one by one.
As Honey’s body was examined, then burned, Asta sat with one of the rescued eggs in her lap, watching over it.
When the little dragon finally fought his way out into the world, his scales were the color of rusted iron, and he had his mother’s silver eyes. Asta had loved him immediately.
And now here he was, fully grown, looking down at the wild dragons below with trembling curiosity, unaware that they likely carried the very same virus that had killed his mother. If she gave in to the yearning she could feel radiating from him, it could kill him too.
‘You can’t go down there, buddy,’ Asta said to him, her throat dry. She leaned back and to the right, trying to encourage him back to the farm. But Carmine stood firm and did not shift his gaze from the wild dragons in the valley.
Asta turned at the sound of her name.
It was Felix, coming up the mountain on Essie. The worry on his face melted into relief as his searching gaze met hers. The look in his eyes set Asta’s insides on fire. She was torn between wanting to throw herself at him and throw herself off the ledge.
Felix’s hands, as he rode, were winding around each other, as if he was rolling string around them. Asta looked closer, and, indeed, there seemed to be the faintest shimmer of overlapping threads wrapped around his hands.
‘What’s that?’ she asked.
Felix looked down, then back at Asta. ‘A tracking thread. I have one on all our dragons. Just in case they get out. Or you know,’ he added, allowing himself a teasing smile, ‘in case one gets stolen.’
Asta made an impudent face at him. He had tried to make the point gently, she knew, but it stung to be reminded that Carmine was not her dragon. She wondered if his parents were mad.
‘Is it an illusion?’ she asked, pointing to the string.
‘Yeah,’ he said.
‘Do your parents know?’
Felix shrugged. ‘It’s just for security.’
‘And for spying on me, apparently.’
He smiled so sweetly that it sent Asta reeling.
‘That’s just the side benefit.’
Essie had caught the scent of the wild dragons now. She backed away from the edge of the outcropping, grumbling with displeasure.
‘What’s down there?’ Felix asked, alarmed by the change in Essie. He craned his neck to see.
‘Wild dragons.’
‘Asta, are you serious?’ His back went straight.
Asta nodded. ‘Down by Doe Lick Creek.’ She looked down to the streamside. The whole brood was basking now, their wings spread and their heads resting on bright river rocks. ‘They’re – really beautiful.’
Felix got off Essie’s back, soothing her as he walked forward to look for himself. Asta got down, too, and looked with him. She wondered if Felix could hear her heart beating.