Hidden

"There weren't always dragons in the Valley".

The girls glanced up at their mother, their fingers, lips and aprons stained purple from collecting wild berries. They had heard these words before, always delivered with the same sense of sadness for a time lost.

Helena kept her gaze firmly on the blackberry bushes, her fingers racing skillfully through the thorny brambles, gathering beautiful, plump, ripe berries by the handful. It was as though she had muttered the sentence to herself, perhaps simply to validate that it was so.

"Mother?"

Suriya was a quiet child, an observer with an eagerness to learn.

"Do you remember what it was like before the dragons came?"

No sooner had she asked the question, Suriya felt her cheeks burn and the gaze of her mother turn to her. The feeling that she may have spoken out of place made her all the more uneasy.

Zara, several years younger than her older sister, slowly popped berries from her haul into her mouth, one by one, as she watched the pair intently. Plonking herself down on a grass knoll beside the wall of blackberry bushes, she waited patiently for her mother to respond.

Helena, recognizing Suriya's discomfort and Zara's curiosity in equal measures, smiled gently, placed her basket on the ground and brushed her hands together as she walked towards her eldest daughter, now a young lady, to embrace and reassure her. Never before had anyone asked and never before had the story been told, but it was clear to Helena, now, that it was time.

"Yes, I remember", she responded calmly.

"I would not have been much older than you, my Darling", tickling her gently under her chin.

Sitting down beside her youngest and beckoning Suriya to join them. Helena took her daughters' hands in hers and began to speak quietly, almost in a whisper.

"It was the during the reign of our King's father, King Cyris, whose Castle lay far beyond our village in the Valley, on the vast and fertile plains of Jerah. When I was younger, I lived together with my parents, your grandparents and my older brother, your uncle, in a humble wooden hut on a small, gloriously green plot of land on the outskirts of the village. We grew vegetables and raised chickens and on Holy Day every week we took the vegetables and eggs that we did not need to keep for ourselves to sell at the village market".

Zara, now entirely out of berries, scrambled across on to her mother's side, to better hear her tale. Helena paused momentarily, waiting for her to resettle and brushing aside a wisp of hair from her daughter's pretty face before reaching down to reclaim her small hand in her own.

"This was a day that we all looked forward to", she continued.

"Children played safely together in the central market square and the adults vigorously exchanged banter, with news of any importance spreading quickly across the market place. I remember laughter, a lot of laughter", she smiled, and so did the girls. Their mother had a sparkle in her eyes and a joy in her voice that they had rarely witnessed.

"With our earnings from the day, my parents would buy supplies for the week ahead from the many other market stallholders, all of whom were our friends and we would then head home for a sumptuous evening meal", she reflected.

"I had also met your Father, we had married and had built our own small home next to your grandparents and I became pregnant with your brother Marcus, all before the first dragon arrived on Jerah's distant shores", Helena paused momentarily and gently squeezed her daughters' hands.

"They were happy, happy times", she whispered, her smile disappearing as she turned her gaze to towards the ground.

"So, you see girls, it's really not that long ago that our Valley and, indeed, the Island of Jerah was entirely free of dragons. When they came....", Helena stopped suddenly and listened.

Her eyes darkened and narrowed as she strained to make sense of the noises that were erupting deep in the dense Valley jungle. In the trees to the west she could hear the fiercely territorial Panggilan monkeys calling out to each other, Lembah cows bellowed to unite their herd and she looked up to see the skies above her were filled with birds, flying erratically in the opposite direction to the monkeys' call. She released her girls' hands and sprang to her feet.

"Mother!"

Helena spun around, her eyes now wide with fear, to see her adult son, Marcus, appear through the blackberry bushes. A look of relief swept across his face.

"There is news of a dragon this side of the Great Lake, we must return to the caves immediately". Breathing heavily and with sweat pouring down his face and arms, Marcus ushered his mother and sisters through the bushes ahead of him.

"Give me your baskets, quickly, and run!", the urgency in his voice was absolute.

The path back to the safety of the caves was well worn but the climb up to the entrance was extremely steep and, in places, treacherous. Not a word was spoken until all four had reached the cliff face and had very carefully navigated their way behind the thunderous waterfall that protected the entrance to their hidden sanctuary.

There, finally, they embraced. For now they were safe.