Raising Wende Yaho

There weren't always dragons in the valley. Nobody knew why the valley was named after the dragons.

Helena was obsessed with the name, Dragon valley. She remembered asking the question perhaps a hundred times and more, and it was always the same answer coming back.

“You see, the dragon is this mystical, mighty creature from the east, people just took the name for good luck, sweetheart.” Even as a child, Helena knew that her grandmother was hiding a secret.

Helena was born in a vast country named Elu. Next to the mighty Sippi river, lies the ninety-nine-mile-long Dragon Valley. In the center of the valley, between the open savannas and the soft prairies, Agalisgv was the small town Helena grew up in. She lived with her grandmother. Helena didn’t remember her parents, but she had always been a happy child.

Helena's mother was a nuclear physicist from the faraway country of Nanook, and her father was an environmental scientist, who grew up in Agalisgv. Her parents fell in love when they were both graduate students, studying at the university of Shikaakwa. Helena’s father, Rastus, died just before Helena was born. Her mother, Vasilisa, who had become one of the key pioneers in the nuclear harvesting program at the young age of 27, was requested to go back to her own country, Nanook, by its government. Helena was just three months old.

The country of Elu and Nanook were not on friendly terms since that time. The motherly instinct in Vasilisa told her to make Helena’s birth a secret from everybody in her home country. Vasilisa wanted Helena to grow up in Elu with the freedom that she had always hoped for her child. She promised to come back to her daughter, as soon as she could, entrusting Helena to her grandmother. Vasilisa was sent to Elu by her country, she knew that if she refused to go back, her own family in Nanook would have faced unimaginable punishment from the government.

Shikaakwa was the largest city in the country of Elu, and it was only twenty miles away from Agalisgv. Helena was traveling to Shikaakwa five days a week. Helena taught Environmental Science in one of the high schools in the big city. She loved teaching her favorite subject. Helena’s grandmother passed away Twenty years ago. Helena almost married her high school sweetheart, but at the age of forty-two, she is single. She longed to have a family to call her own, to raise her own children but that now seemed to be quite some time ago. Helena is content with her life, having no rush to get into a marriage for the marriage's sake.

After going away to college and living in big cities, Helena moved back to the house she grew up in. Dragon Valley was calling for her, she never felt at home elsewhere after the initial honeymoon period for any new place. Dragon Valley was her first and true love.

Helena lives with her golden retriever, Losi. She traveled with Losi to the big city in her self-driving air-qayaq. The air-qayaq is a small flying vehicle, it has a dome-shaped transparent top, and the body is made of buckthorn wood. Losi loved flying with Helena over the valley to the big city.

It was Helena’s idea to utilize the buckthorns for the air-qayaq. Buckthorns have invaded Dragon Valley for more than 50 years since they were first brought here as ornamental trees by the immigrants from across the sea. More than half of them are now removed, after forty years of restoration effort by the volunteers.

A very large amount of buckthorn wood needed to be burned down every year, which presented a daunting task and consumed much labor cost. Helena found a way to rebuild her own air-qayaq using the cut-down buckthorn trees. Little did she know this became a huge success, which inspired air-qayaqs to be built utilizing invasive trees all over the country.

The air-qayaq is small, with a maximum two-person capacity, and because of its low cost and sustainable nature, it has become the most loved transportation all over Elu. The air-qayaq is designed to have a life expectancy of about 9-10 years maximum, this has miraculously encouraged the research and development in continuously finding new and more sustainable materials for building the next generation of air-qayaq. Helena wanted to do more and encouraged her students to do the same. She was at the height of her career.

Helena named her air-qayaq Buckley. Sometimes, Helena closed her eyes, she imagined that she took her grandmother for a ride. Helena missed her grandmother dearly, especially recently, life brought her many changes, a decision made by the city put Helena’s career to an end, and at the same time, the country of Elu and the rest of the world is changing rapidly. Helena felt a sense of helplessness, ever so often.

This year, Buckley, the air-qayaq, is turning nine years old. “Nine years, It is about time for Buckley to retire.” as Helena was thinking about that, a notice came for her from the high school. The entire city of Shikaakwa announced the end of the Environmental Science program for all schools due to funding issues. Helena was given a choice to continue teaching as a science teacher or leave her job. Helena chose the latter.

Growing up, Helena never had to make a choice that did not make her heart sing. Her grandmother always encouraged her to go after her dreams, regardless of the money an occupation may bring or the pleasing of anyone else. Helena did not want to comprise. She was profoundly sad that the city could not budget for something so vitally important when the world seems to have a dire need for it. Although at the same time, she was aware that something else desperately urgent seemed to be threatening Elu and the rest of the world.

Helena worked as a steward to help restore Dragon Valley’s native landscape on weekends, her students loved to join her. She could still teach the kids on a volunteer basis, the thought brought her some consolation. She thought It was time for her to devote herself to the restoration of Dragon Valley.

The Dragon Valley is no longer the same as it once was.

The Dragon Valley was a magical land!! When Helena was a child, springs and early summer days were her favorite time of the year.

In early March, ice still covered small patches of the open areas of the savannas, under the gentle spring sun, the icy areas sparkled like blue diamonds. In areas that were warmer, underground springs began to melt and sip through the land surface with a greater and gentle force. Where the spring water met with the ice, patches of tiny, white, fragrant flowers, the Lilies of the Dragon valley, emerged. They were the first bloomers in the spring.

When the snow wasn’t melting yet, the clusters of Lily of the Dragon valley flowers and the patches of white snow that remained would look like different shades of clouds, floating on the open savanna, where under white "clouds", grass would slowly turn green, from pale to a darker shade. The Lily of the Dragon Valley would slowly turn golden in a week or two. The snow melted and revealed more green. When the entire town of Agalisgv was filled with a faint and delicate sweetness, the Lily of the Dragon Valley’s roots were ready to be harvested.

Helena’s grandmother had a way to talk to the flowers. She would gently put her hand on the golden flower, and without a whisper or word, she knew which ones were ready. People only harvested small amounts, sustainably, so the next year, there would be no fewer flowers to bloom than the year before. The sweet roots of the lily were made into jams or dried and preserved for later use. As a child, Helena did not take medicines for colds or coughs, it was the root of the lilies that cured her. It fascinated Helena that such tiny plants had such healing powers.

Lily of the Dragon valley was of course, native to Dragon Valley and they could only be found in the Dragon Valley… But when Helena was ten, she found out that the official name of the flower was actually called "False Lily of the Valley”. A similar-looking plant that is native to another continent was brought here and they took the name, the Lily of the Valley. Helena had never seen them as a child in Golden Valley until she was first introduced to the foreign flower when she visited her father’s friend in Shikaakwa.

Fast forward thirty years, now the foreign Lilies of the Valley have taken over many areas in Agalisgv and many other regions of Dragon Valley… In fact, the native Lily of Dragon Valley, if you are lucky to find them, would be such a rare sight! No one knows the original name for this delicate native flower now, as most of the indigenous Elu people who were originally living in the valley have vanished. “Funny isn’t it, Grandma?! Our lily is not a false flower!” Helena used to laugh at this naming system.

As a teacher, Helena found herself having a challenging time teaching her students the name “False Lily of the Valley”, she was sad that a native plant would have to give up its name to her foreign sister… She use to think that the white flowers were her healing angels.

If March was a month filled with the light sweet scent of the lilies and fresh aroma of the emerging tall grass, then early June came with the pungent sweetness in the air as the pink Smoke Flowers dressed up the prairies. As early as the first of June, the prairies would become softer and kinder as the light pink clusters of Smoke Flowers whispered the arrival of the summer. The valley became a fairytale land for kids from two to ninety-two. Helena would run with her friends and shout out with ecstasy, “lollipop flowers are blooming! Look! The lollipop flowers are blooming!” Indeed, when the Smoke Flower was in full bloom, the fuzzy, long flower paddles would form into a perfectly round shape that looked like an enticing lollipop or a dollop of ice cream!

When ready, the pink Smoke Flowers would all fly into the sky. People would put out a black walnut bowl outside, waiting for the pink flowers to land in the bowl placed next to the windows or in front of their front doors. It had to be a bowl made of black walnut wood, or otherwise, the Smoke Flowers would not come! And the flowers will land nowhere else, but only in the black walnut bowl. The flowers would just fill the bowl perfectly, not to the excessive to cause any spill, but just perfectly full. People would eat the flowers the same day they land or they will vanish the next morning… There was nothing like the taste of the Smoke Flowers, the sweetness penetrates every cell of the body, and it would make the heart want to sing and make the body want to dance.

Every summer, on one perfect sunny day in June, when Smoke flowers were ready to fly, they would begin to signal their departure the night before, and the flowers would light up gently and softly like tiny pink lanterns glowering in the dark.

The second morning, people would take the time off from whatever they were doing, work, school... there were no festivals, no dancing, and no singing, even the kids were quiet on the day the Smoke Flowers said goodbye for the year. It was a sacred time for the valley residents.

Visitors were welcomed to witness the magical sight... people gathered in small groups, standing or sitting outside, looking up at the sky. The flowers, except for the ones that landed in the black walnut bowls, all the rest of the pink Smoke Flowers would depart, one by one, and they became so many, all over the valley, the flowers were floating in the air, flying into the sunlight, slowly, from morning to dusk... As the sun began to set, people sang the old folk song left by the indigenous Elu people, there were no instruments, just human voices, sending the remaining pink flowers into the dusk sky until the softly glowing tiny pink lanterns disappeared as the night fell. There would not be a single flower to be found the second morning.

Helena knew that the Smoke Flowers were the food for the dragons. Dragons only ate once a year, and they were not visible to humans. Dragons are the protectors of the valley and the earth. Helena knew. She did not know how she became to know, but quietly, she knew. She no longer felt that she needed to validate the knowledge with her grandmother again as she grew older.

As Agalisgv and other towns in the valley turned into suburbs of the mighty city of Shikaakwa, buckthorns, and invasive Lilies of the Valley began to move into Dragon Valley with their human friends. So did many other species of invasive plants. March became a warmer month, so warm that the blue diamond ice patches became a distant memory for Helena. Many areas flooded and the land became too wet for many native plants to survive. Open savannas were the forests of buckthorns at one point. Even the woodlands that only had fewer and larger, tall native trees became crowded with buckthorns, making the woodlands dark, spooky, and not as inviting as they once were. The sewage waters had no place to go in some areas... making the spring water too polluted to be consumed by humans and animals. One year, the pink Smoke Flowers were nowhere to be found, they never emerged in the spring, never bloomed. It happened just like that, without a warning. That year, Helena was 18.

In the year Helena was born, the leaders of Nanook threatened the rest of the world with “the consequences you have never seen.” Since that time, many counties began to heavily invest in their nuclear power harvesting program, which meant the development of more powerful atomic bombs. Shikaakwa was one of the cities that Nanook’s government set as a target in case of military action is absolutely necessary to maintain “world peace.” as they declared. The world began to be filled with increasing anxiety, fear, doubts, anger, and despair. People became numb as the tension continued for years to no end… but this year, Helena instinctively know, that something was about to happen. The negotiations among the countries were not going well, mankind was facing a reckless attack, by mankind itself, and the Earth and Dragon Valley were in need of help. Helena could not be quite certain what exactly would be coming next.

Helena felt lonely, so lonely that she felt it was hard to breathe when she went to sleep every night. Other than Losi, Helena felt isolated from what was all around her, including the flowers and trees that used to whisper to her. Despite her effort for many years, she felt that she had failed the Dragon Valley.

Helena began to wake up early, as early as 3 AM. Losi who always slept by her side would put one paw on Helena's forehead as if she was trying to comfort her. Oftentimes, Helena fell back asleep again, and for many months, between 3 AM to sunrise, Helena began to “see” points of light floating all around her, not with her eyes… but she could “see” the points of light while her body was asleep.

This morning, just about before dawn, Helena woke up, in clear consciousness, she noticed that it was her grandmother by her side, and for a second or two, a man she thought that she had never met before standing in front of her, a new but familiar face: dark brown hair, high cheekbones. the eyes of the man looked as deep as the ocean. He was smiling with such kindness… a warm wave of energy came to hug her, Helena remembered the man was her father.

Helena was in the 4th dimension, she realized now for the first time. Helena was traveling into the 4th dimension each night. She only understood now and remembered, that her grandmother, her father, the indigenous people of Elu, the valley of her childhood, and the dragons, all of them lived in the parallel universe in the 4th dimension. Helena was traveling into the parallel universe each night and traveling back when morning came.

“Grandma! Papa!” Helena opened her arms, “Sweetheart!” Helena’s grandmother hugged her. Helena buried her head in her grandmother’s chest like she did when she was little. When Helena's father hugged her, she knew it was not the first time they hugged. "I missed you, Papa." The word "Papa" came naturally. Her father's hug made Helena feel such lightness as if the anxiety she had held on to for so long had disappeared. "I have always been here, sweetheart...See what grandma has for you, Helena." Her father said in soft tones, with excitement.

Helena turned to her grandmother, and suddenly, she saw, on her grandmother's palms, there were two little fuzzy baby dragons! “Meet Wende and Yaho, sweetheart!” Helena smiled, with almost a light laughter and elation, Helena felt as if the two dimensions merged...Helena’s grandmother was sharing the secret with her for the first time, "The dragons are the protectors of the valley and the earth, Helena. The only way to save the Dragon Valley is to bring Wende and Yaho back…” as her grandmother stopped, Helena looked at both her grandmother and her father, something grabbed Helena’s chest, making it feel a little tight...she could feel tears were in her eyes. Helena has always been able to connect with her grandmother's energy without words... Helena gently put her right hand on one of the fuzzy dragon babies, as she petted the dragon baby with her fingers using such light touch, she continued with what her grandmother left off “If I bring Wende and Yaho back with me when morning comes…” Helena stopped, she took a deep breath, “Is this a goodbye, grandma? ” “Yes, Helena, once you bring dragons back to the valley, you would not be able to travel into this universe again, my darling child.”