A Lingering Magic

“There weren’t always dragons in the Valley.” Steph made this supremely obvious observation, then looked at me expectantly.

“Well… no. Of course not. Otherwise you wouldn’t be writing this article, right? And I wouldn’t be getting interviewed.” Steph squirmed uncomfortably and opened her mouth to say something, but I interrupted. “Why do you want to interview me anyway? I only lived in the Valley for a few years and that was before the dragons arrived. Couldn’t you find an actual Blue Noser to interview?”

Steph was ready for this question. “Because you’ll be more objective than anyone who has lived in Nova Scotia during the time of the dragons. Their memories are all tied up with the dragons now, but you only remember the Valley without them. Plus, as a come-from-away, you’ll have insights that someone who’s lived their whole life there wouldn’t have. I do have some of those people coming in for interviews later. And…” Here Steph paused uncertainly. I raised my eyebrow. “Well, I heard that you know the person who found the dragon eggs.”

I stiffened, but tried not to confirm that rumour. “Really. Where did you hear that?”

Steph barely hid a smile. Damn. She’d seen in my body language that it was true. “I can’t reveal my sources. Let’s just say I have it on good authority.”

“Uh-huh. And I suppose you think that I can get you an interview with my friend?” Eagerness flitted through Steph’s eyes. She would have to get a better poker face if she wanted to be an actual journalist. Well, I was not going to make this easy for her. I crossed my arms and leaned back, not saying a word. She sighed.

“C’mon, Janna. Help me out here.” My protective instincts were on high alert. “It’s just an interview. It can even be anonymous. You know me. I promise I wouldn’t do anything to compromise your friend’s safety or privacy or anything like that. Please?” Great, now she was playing on my people-pleasing issues. I closed my eyes and sighed.

“All I can do is ask, Steph.” She nearly leaped out of her chair in glee. “But!” I cautioned, “I’m also going to tell my friend that I don’t think it’s a good idea.” Steph wasn’t about to be deterred, though. She grinned at me and settled back in her seat.

“Fine. As long as you ask.” I already regretted saying that I would. “Now, let’s get back to your interview. Just tell me about your experience. Did you ever see any hints that dragons had ever inhabited the Valley?”

Taking a deep breath, I allowed myself to relax into the question. After thinking for a moment, I began. “There weren’t always dragons in the Annapolis Valley, like you said. But maybe there was always a little residual magic. I think Longfellow felt it when he wrote about Grand Pré.”

“Longfellow? Grand Pré?”

“Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. He was a poet who wrote Evangeline, a poem about the time the English displaced Acadian settlers from Nova Scotia. The characters in that poem were from Grand Pré, one of the first towns – or, well, it’s more like a village or a hamlet, really – that you drive through when you enter the eastern end of the Annapolis Valley.” I dug through my purse and pulled out the book of poems that I always carried with me. Finding the beginning of Evangeline, I read,

This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks,

Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight,

Stand like Druids of eld, with voices sad and prophetic,

Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their bosoms.

Loud from its rocky caverns, the deep-voiced neighboring ocean

Speaks, and in accents disconsolate answers the wail of the forest.

“There is something magical about the natural environment of the Valley. I mean, you could probably say the same thing about any natural environment, but it felt different in the Valley. Maybe it’s only because I didn’t grow up there, I don’t know. But the colours always seemed brighter. And sometimes these mists or clouds or something would come up off the Bay of Fundy and just roll right over the North Mountain, especially over Blomidon, and … I can’t really describe it. I had never seen anything like it before and I’ve never seen anything like it since. And then there was the soil, how it was so fertile, but it was red, not black, like the soil around here. How could something so red grow things that were so green?”

I paused so that Steph could finish typing her notes and so I could gather more thoughts. She glanced up.

“Um, Blomidon?”

“Steph, have you done any research on the Valley?” I asked in exasperation. Her sheepish look told me she hadn’t. “Ok, Blomidon is this iconic piece of land that juts off the eastern end of the North Mountain – you know that the Annapolis Valley lies between the North and South Mountains, right?”

“Uh, yeah, totally.” I raised my eyebrows. “Well, I do now, ok?”

“Ok, so the North Mountain runs along the Bay of Fundy and at its eastern end, it juts out into the Bay. That jutting out part is called Blomidon. You can hike up there in a couple of hours and see right across the Bay on a clear day. I went up there with some students a few times. The first time, we took a picnic lunch. One of my students couldn’t finish her sandwich, so my colleague told her to just toss it over the side of the cliff. She threw it pretty hard and it looked like it was going to go far enough to clear the cliff edge, but then it kind of start slowing down and spinning in place and then it came back towards us. It came nearly all the way back! The breeze was pretty strong that day, so we just chalked it up to the wind and laughed it off. It made for a fun memory, you know? But now… who’s to say it wasn’t magic, right?” I shrugged and rolled my eyes, hoping to communicate that I didn’t really think it was magic.

“So nature is magical. Is that all you’ve got for me?” Steph looked disappointed.

“No, it’s not all, but I do think that if dragons ever lived in the Valley before and if they have chosen it as their home again now, then something about that land appeals to or complements their magic. Heck, maybe the Valley is so fertile because the dragons used to live there and contributed to the health of the soil.” It took Steph a moment to realize what I was saying.

“Oh, come on, that’s disgusting!”

“It can’t be any more disgusting than in the spring when the farmers spread pig manure on their fields and the wind carries the smell right into downtown Wolfville.” Steph looked horrified. I just smirked, knowing that I would call my sister later and we would berate the delicate sensibilities of city people.

“Let’s change the subject, please. You said there was more,” Steph prompted.

“It’s not exactly solid evidence, Steph, so don’t get your hopes up. But I was thinking about language. There are some names in the Valley that seem to cling to vestiges of magic. First, of course, is Dragon's Breath cheese. It's a type of blue cheese made and sold in the Valley. People really love it, but I'm not really a blue cheese fan, so I never tried it. Then there's Rainbow’s End. It’s this full-to-bursting used book store in Wolfville where you can find all sorts of things; the kind of place where you just know all of the employees have been part of DND campaigns since long before it was popular. And then there are the high school sports teams. On the South Mountain, there’s Horton High School. Their mascot is a griffin. Then on the North Mountain is – you’re going want to get this down accurately – NKEC, spelled N-K-E-C, all caps. It stands for Northeast Kings Education Centre, but no one has time to say all that, so we just pronounce it ‘Nek-Ek.’ Their mascot is a titan. Obviously, griffins and titans aren’t dragons, but they are kind of in the same general category.”

Steph looked skeptical. “Dragon's Breath chees, Rainbow’s End, Horton Griffins and,” she checked her notes, “NKEC Titans?”

“I told you it wasn’t solid evidence. But you’re working towards becoming a journalist, right? You’ve got to know how integral language is. It both comes from and informs who and what we are. Who decided to name that cheese, and that store and those teams? How many people had to vote to choose those names? There was enough legend or magic or something in those people’s memories or histories or – I don’t know, the vibe in the air, I guess – to leave traces of magic in the language of the Valley for decades at the least. Probably a lot longer, though.”

It seemed like Steph might actually be warming up to my thoughts. “Ok, I guess I can see that. Anything else?”

“Not that I can think of at the moment.”

“Alright, well, why don’t you tell me about how you met your friend, the one who discovered the eggs.”

I stiffened again, but this time I didn’t care whether or not Steph saw. “No.”

She actually the nerve to looked surprised. “What? Why not?”

“Because my friend hasn’t agreed to talk with you or have any part of their story shared. If they agree to talk with you and if they want me to, then I will answer your questions about them.”

Steph obviously wanted to argue, to get me to share the story, but she couldn’t figure out how to defy my logic. Finally, she waved me away. “Ok, fine. I think I’ve got what I need for now. Thanks for coming today. You’ll let me know what your friend says?” I said I would and got out of there as fast as I could.

As I rode the bus home, my mind drifted 5000 km away, back to Nova Scotia and the day I met Kira.