Tell Us Again

“Tell us again, Gramma!” My twin sister Helena and I squirm into our narrow bed, clutching stuffed animals and rumpling the blankets.

“Again?” says Gramma. She bends over the hearth, stoking the fireplace and adding logs. “You girls haven’t heard that story enough times yet?”

“Pleeeeaaase,” we beg in unison. We may not be identical twins, but on this we always agree.

“All right,” she says, settling into the rocker by the bed. “I’ll tell it again.” Her voice takes on her signature sense of drama.

“One day, when your mother was about two years old, she went missing. One minute I was hanging the linens in the autumn sunshine, listening to her tiny voice singing songs from behind me, laughing at the chickens. Next moment, it was too quiet and she was gone. I ran to the side yard, and she wasn’t there. I ran into the house, and she wasn’t there. I went and got your grandpa, told him “Have you seen Saba? I can’t find her, I’m starting to get worried!” He abandoned his chores and joined me in the search.

“Soon we enlisted the neighbors to help us look. Dozens of people were calling her name, even other children. Nothing. I fought down hysteria; by then my baby had been missing for two hours! As groups of men went to check the river and lake with dread, I organized a group of my own to brave the forest.

“I chose four good hunters, two men and two women. I was an accomplished hunter myself, you know!” She points this out with each retelling. “I want you to imagine, now, your Gramma, young and strong, in trousers and boots, with a bow and handmade arrows and strapped to the teeth with knives!”

Then her voice gets serious, toning down from its big inflections and theatrics. “I was ready to fight the forest itself to get my child back.”

We wait, enraptured.

“I was up front, the others spread out to either side and behind me, all calling Saba’s name. When the trail came to a dead end, I pushed on, hacking the woods apart. Even now, all these years later, when I catch the scent of cut green wood, this day comes rushing back to me.

“The calls of the other hunters gradually faded away, and soon I was alone. My voice grew hoarse from screaming your mother’s name.

“It felt like hours I walked, driven by desperation. When my legs failed at last, I sat down on a log and sobbed. I grappled with the idea of never seeing my daughter again. Of dying here in the woods. What a tragic poem that would make, the hysterical mother who went into the woods to find her lost child, and never returned, lost to the forest herself.

“I took deep breaths and finished crying myself out. And then, just as I got to my exhausted swollen feet, I heard it.

“A squeal. The squeal of a child. My child.

“I froze, tears still streaming down my face and salty snot on my lip.

“There it was again, somewhere to my left. A tiny voice, a tiny scream.

“I bolted through the woods toward the sound. I tried to call out but my voice was nearly gone. I crashed through the woods for a minute, then nearly fell right over as the terrain changed entirely: The thick brush gave way to large trees, all spread out. I could easily stride between them. I put away my brush blade and stepped quietly, listening.

“There. Closer this time.

“I drew an arrow. Something was hurting my daughter.

“I stepped closer and heard another sound: Big, warm, whooshing breaths! It had to be some creature, some deplorable beast that stole my baby for its dinner! Pressing my back to a broad trunk, I readied my bow, caught the alarming smell of a fire.

“Then she screamed again. But…it was not a scream of terror, as I thought before.

“The baby was laughing! Great clear cascades of laughter, like silver bells riding down a babbling brook. The most precious and beautiful sound I ever heard.

“I nearly fainted from confusion and relief! I shakily stepped out from behind the tree and into a clearing, still holding my bow at the ready. A tidy fire burned cheerfully a short distance away, in a space cleared of leaves."

A dramatic pause.

“And there, lying in the orangey-red leaves, long neck bent over my first and only child, was a dragon!”

I gasp, as I do every time. “What was it like, Gramma?” I whisper.

“Well, it was nothing like the books said. I mean, the books said they were all myths, but this thing looked very real to me! It was huge, yes, but it was…,” Here Gramma always pauses as though trying to find the right word, despite telling the story many times, “...it was slender, with bluish white skin covered in fine, glittery scales. Not the cobblestone knobby scales depicted in old paintings, not at all. It had big eyes and two delicate horns curving back, and a strange mane of stiff silvery whiskers. This creature pawed at my child with the gentle sweetness of a lioness with its kitten.

“Your mother, bless that child, she was just laughing and laughing! This dragon arched its long neck over her, and nuzzled its muzzle down into her belly! Very human-like! Mother like, even. Exactly how I would do just before bedtime. Only things missing were kissy sounds and the raspberries I blew! It rolled onto its side, wings flopping back, white belly exposed. It nuzzled and snuffled and that baby girl grabbed and wrapped her arms around the snout, giggling. Her tiny hands patted over the dragon’s closed eyes as it patiently let her explore that whiskery mane.

“I was dumbstruck. I mean, can you imagine? Seeing a dragon in the forest is crazy enough, but to see one playing with your child? It was unreal. Simply unreal.”

“What happened next?” My sister is sucking her thumb with her eyes closed, but I am wide awake and focused, even though I’ve heard the story a thousand times before.

“Well…I stepped forward, and a twig snapped underfoot. The dragon’s head lifted up and looked right at me. It wasn’t afraid of my arrows. It had simply been waiting.

“Saba’s tiny voice rang out, ‘Mommy!’ and she pushed against the dragon to stand up, ran over to me. My weapons clattered to the ground as I knelt, nearly crushed her into myself and cried into her shoulder, telling her, ‘Don’t you ever run away like that again, you hear? I was so scared I lost you forever…’

“When I set her down again, the dragon was standing, watching. We shared eye contact. You know how all the paintings have those slitted vertical pupils? Well, this creature looked at me with rounded pupils, just like ours! Then it shook the leaves from its silvery mane, trotted off and those enormous wings lifted it off the forest floor, and it sailed away between the mossy tree trunks.

“I tried a few times to find that place, where the trees grow tall and broad but I never could. I never saw or heard of any dragon anywhere, ever again. So, listen to your mother, Heather! She is a very special person.” She leans in and whispers: “The only person ever touched by a dragon!”

“All right everyone, settle down now,” Mother steps into our room. “It’s way past time for bed.” She is smiling, though.

“Is it true, Mama?” I ask sleepily. I have asked many times.

“Of course not,” she chuckles. “It’s a great story, but dragons aren’t real.”

“It is true!” Gramma objects, like she always does. “Just because you were too young to remember doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.” She turns to me, with her distinctive slightly crooked smile. “It’s the truest thing I ever said.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The seasons rhythmically turn over. Mother teaches me about seeds and earth and growing things. Helena learns to sew and mend clothes; I constantly ask her to patch the knees of my trousers, and every time she obliges. In a few years, I’m gifted a small garden of my own and Helena has graduated to making wearables. Father brings home a breeding pair of pelt rabbits, and she raises litters for their plush fur to make fine garments.

One day she comes to school wearing a fur-trimmed cape she made herself, from rabbits she raised herself. After lunch we all are outside for recess and Helena is behind the two large trees in the yard, where it’s shadier and more secluded, spinning around so her cape twirls out around her. I’m a little ways off, digging in the dirt with a heavy stick when a boy approaches her. He’s a bit taller than she, and his sneering voice catches my ears, asking her why she had to dress up like our cold and sterile queen. I recognize him: his name is Tir and I've seen him push around many other kids. Helena stands mute, face reddening, unable to respond. My legs unfold from their squat and carry me toward them of their own volition.

“You’re a fancy, schmancy, snob,” he says, emphasizing the last three words. “You think you’re better than everyone else in school!” He leans in close to her face. “Don’t you?” He pokes her and she flinches. I step closer and he hasn’t seen me, stick still in hand, eyes steady. The nearer I get, the bigger he looks, but I don’t care.

Helena snatches at her cape to move it away, but the boy has stepped onto the meticulously stitched hem, stomps it and grinds his foot into the dust. The fabric tears. The rabbit skin buckles and rolls between the reddish dirt and his patched shoe. My sister cries out, distraught.

“Hey, you,” I say, without force. Tir turns to face me, his smirking lips red and sticky-looking with jumbled teeth that look like they’ve been inserted in a rush. The smack of the stick into that mouth is most satisfying, like smashing a candy-shelled apple with a bat. I would do it a thousand times over.

This is the first time I fought for my sister. It would not be the last.

He scrambles, hand to his mouth and blood streaming down between his fingers, spits out the words, ‘Are you crazy or something?!’ before sprinting off toward the school. I pick up the strip of rabbit skin from the dirt and grab her into a hug. “Did he hurt you?” I ask.

She shakes her head.

“Can you fix it?” I ask, holding out the torn fabric.

“I think so,” she says. Her fragile voice shakes. So do her hands. “Thank you.”

I link her arm into mine, lean my head onto hers. “I hate that guy!” I say. “I’ve always wanted to do that!”

She laughs her breathy whispery laugh, and I feel her trembling relax as we walk together back toward the school.

My teacher suspends me for three days. That night at the evening meal, Mother condemns my violence, asking how we can set good examples for each other if we behave like brutes. Father says the cape can be mended, but the boy’s teeth will likely never be the same, and his lip will be scarred. Helena says quietly, “She was so brave.” I have to spend a month weeding the gardens, including pulling the invasive thorny vines that stick through all the gloves.

The next day I’m on my hands and knees in the noonday heat, tugging the pernicious vines from around the crocus beds, sweating and dirty but smiling because it was still worth it, when Gramma pops out to visit. Her big straw hat shades her face.

“Ah, getting started on your punishment, sweet Heather?” She smiles her crooked, ornery smile. “Something I want you to know, is that violence is never the –,”

“I know, I know I shouldn’t hit people.” I interrupt glumly. “Violence is never the answer.”

She looks at me for a moment with a slight smirk. “I was going to say, violence is never the first answer.”

I brighten up. She continues.

“Your sister needed someone to stand up and fight, and you were there for her. I admire that! It is unfortunate about the boy’s face, but from what I understand he wasn’t much to look at before. And golly, didn’t it feel good?”

I feel my face splitting into a smile, and I get to my feet. “It really was awesome,” I say.

Gramma takes a step closer, and as she does so I notice she is hiding something behind her back.

“You know, I’ve been wanting to give you something for a while now. However,” she glances toward the house, then leans in, “I wouldn’t want your mother or father to think I was rewarding bad behavior, so maybe it’s best if it stays a secret? Just until your punishment’s over.”

I’m intrigued. “Okay!”

From behind her back she pulls a short bow and a small quiver of arrows, and I gasp in wonder and delight. They are simple but well made, and the perfect size for my small hands and narrow frame. They’re the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen.

“These are, of course, only for target practice, hunting comes later,” says Gramma sternly. “They’re mine from when I was young. Archery is a valuable skill! I think it would be a good outlet for you.”

I’m so excited and touched, tears wobble on my lash line. "Thank you, Gramma, thank you! I will honor them, I promise."

Gramma lowers her voice again, leans close, and repeats: “A very. Valuable. Skill.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The years tick over. I become a flower farmer, and my flowers decorate every celebration, funeral, and florist shop. Helena marries her favorite tanner, Jaren, and their wedding explodes with more lilies than any wedding has ever seen. She soon gives birth to twins, a boy and a girl. Watching her raise them is like watching scattered dust condense into star systems, solidify into the world as she sees it. Even though they are only infants, she tells them to do things like escort spiders out of the house and never be afraid to ask for help even if you feel dumb about it. Helena’s eyes blink at me from her daughter’s face. I see Gramma’s mouth smiling on the face of my nephew, the same ornery grin.

Gramma gives me pointers on archery well into her seventies. When I find her one morning, cold and peaceful, she’s holding something tightly in her hand. It’s a long, tapering hair, stiff at the thicker end and flexible at the other, shining with bluish-white iridescence. When I touch it I feel a subtle sensation, like a gentle, almost imperceptible humming from inside, warm vibrations from the fingers themselves. I keep it hidden, and look at it often before falling asleep.

As we tearfully clear out Gramma’s house of her belongings, I find a thick folder, held shut with a braided strip of rabbit skin wrapped around the stiff cardstock. Inside are articles, hand-copied notes cited from books, torn pages from ancient newspapers and old curling scrolls. The sheet on top reads: “Myth or Truth? Sightings of an Ancient Spirit.” It’s an article about the persistent legends of a familiar forest spirit, written by an anonymous author. Brimming with questions, I hide the folder in my coat and take it home with me.

When night falls I bring a hot mug to my desk and open the folder, starting with the article.

“Legends of a local forest spirit date back many years,” the author writes. “While the blue-scaled creature has been allegedly sighted many times over the centuries, reports of this benevolent dragon-like being have markedly fallen off in recent memory.” The writer concludes that this wholesome and helpful spirit was probably prayed to for help finding those who were lost, particularly lost children and pets, often helping them find their way home to their families. “Accounts include details of scales, fiery breath, and immense body size, but the creature has never been accused of any harm or wrong-doing in all the accounts this writer has perused. It appears, all in all, to be a mythical representation of the ferocity of motherhood, and of hope in dark times."

The rest of the folder is similar, filled with sightings, reports, legends, bedtime stories, drawings, all having some connection to the blue-skinned creature Gramma told us about. I dig through it, read every scrap and scroll, until my tea goes cold.

I place the silvery hair in the folder and keep it under my bed.

I move onto Helena’s property, a small guest quarters surrounded by fields I sow with vibrant yellow, red and purple flowers. The view from my kitchen is a spectacular prism of plants and the fragrance can be smelled for miles. The children are eight months old, just starting to determinedly pull themselves upright. Sometimes I get to put them to bed, and when I do, I tickle their perfect little faces with the silvery whisker. The little girl relaxes into quiet sweetness as I stroke her eyelids, the lids of my sister’s soft eyes. A great and beautiful pain tugs inside me as the little boy with my Gramma’s mouth smiles. I trace the lines of his lips with the thrumming whisker.

Policemen on horses come and burn my fields, the foxglove and the poppies. They say they are toxic, and by some new order of the queen are unfit to be possessed or sold. While they are here, Helena is cited for keeping too many rabbits, and most of her breeding stock is culled. They begin showing up more and more regularly each time with some new regulation to enforce. Once, I notice the scarred mouth and jumbled teeth of Tir, riding a long-legged chestnut gelding. Homes are invaded with murky reasoning, and sometimes large families are targeted. Whispers circulate that too many children attract the wrong kind of attention, that the new queen never processed her own infertility, that she is not of sound mind. I hope they are only rumors. We keep our heads down, carry on our businesses in a nervous huddle.

I stare at the silvery bluish-white whisker every night, stroke it ritually before sleep. The thrumming grows stronger.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

One night there is a commotion at the main house. I can hear horses snorting and stomping, hounds baying. Voices. As soon as I'm dressed to investigate I hear Helena’s ragged panting and uneven footsteps, coming up the path. My door bursts open.

She is carrying her whimpering children. Her blood spills over their swaddling blankets. Behind her I can just see through the trees the orange glow of her house, burning.

I take the babies from her, cover them on my bed.

“It's Tir,” she says, collapsing into my breakfast nook, sliding bloody handprints over the small table. “He killed Jaren, they said – she outlawed twins--,”

She weakens fast, like one of her prized rabbits at slaughter, and before I can do more than hold her crumpling, sobbing, dying face in my shaking hands she is gone, slumped over the table. Her bloodied fingers rest on the silvery bluish hair by last night’s teacup.

I know there is no time to grieve but I cannot move, for how long I’ll never know. I say her name, and say it again, one more time. I pick up the silvery hair tinged with blood and tuck it into my shirt. I take the children, secure their bundled weight into my largest backpack. They are squeezed in tight, but that’s all right. It’s only for a while. I kiss my sister’s soft eyes and leave tears on her skin, barely understanding my actions.

I take a lantern, every arrow I own, and our fastest horse, the smell of smoke and ash growing stronger every second, and ride hard into the forest.

The horse sprints admirably, to the end of the trail. It takes a long time. Here I dismount, yank the saddle with haste from his sweating, shaking body, drop the bit from his foaming mouth. His legs give out and he collapses heavily in a panting heap. I check on the babies. They are awake. I press my hand to my shirt, almost in prayer to the silver whisker beneath.

I follow Gramma’s story to the letter. I know it by heart. I hack the woods apart. My arm struggles to hold up the lantern to see. I push on and on, my legs burn and my feet swell, my throat stings in the cold night air.

The baying hounds approach.

I keep going, further than my muscles have ever carried me, the weight of the children cutting into my shoulders. The lantern finally dies and I fling it into the brush. My breath goes ragged and harsh, like the horse’s. Like my dying sister’s.

I trip and fall hard. The babies wail. I lie there, sobbing into decaying leaves, but I can’t stay down long.

The hounds are catching up.

My feet and legs scream in agony as I stand, but now the sky is lightening. In this wee morning light I can see: The tangly brush has given way to a different kind of forest. Tall, thick trunks, all spread out. Just like Gramma said. Just like all the stories. The children calm.

The hounds are closer now.

I hurry forward, fumble my hand into my shirt to touch the silvery hair, press it between my blistered hand and valiant slamming heart. Please.

I suddenly sense we are being watched, and for a moment of sheer terror I believe the hounds and the war horses have finally found us and this is the end of everything, but then I see it.

From behind a huge fallen oak with torn roots clawing at the sky, the dragon peers over. Plumes of steaming breath rise from its nostrils in a V-shape above its head. It stares at us, looks me up and down.

I take the pack with the babies from my back, my hands shaking and nearly numb from the cold. The children are nearly asleep from exhaustion, eyes shut and noses snuffling.

With surreal grace and strength the dragon carefully, quietly climbs over the gnarled roots. First comes the long neck, then a broad chest. The sheer mass of its body and the ease with which it moves startle me to my knees; it's more like an impossibly huge jungle cat than any reptile I’ve ever seen. It is so much like Gramma said: Fine glittering scales over a slender but powerful frame, muscles rolling beneath supple bluish skin. Expansive wings unfold for balance, golden light filtering through skin and veins, gentle whoosh-ing flaps pushing fallen leaves into the air. It pauses with one back leg still on the fallen tree, listening as the leaves fall back down. The face is long and stately. Its eyes are like wheeling galaxies reflected in deep, dark pools. A silvery mane decorates its horned head and neck, a mane of long, iridescent whiskers just like the one I've kept close through the years of my life. My hand goes to my chest where the whisker now hums stronger than ever.

The dragon steps up close to the babies, arching its long neck to look down at them. Then it looks at me, still on my knees. An opalescent kaleidoscope shifts around circular pupils, which contract and expand, contract and expand. I feel I'm watching its thoughts moving around. Heat rolls off its body to warm my hands and face.

I get to my feet. I’m crying without sobs, hot tears streaming down my dirty, bloodied face. They run down my neck, salty into my mouth.

Hounds bark out, closer than ever. The dragon’s mane bristles and we both look to the sound, then back to each other. I pick up the pack, so heavy in my faltering arms, and hold it out. The dragon, never taking its otherworldly eyes off me, slowly and deliberately opens its mouth. It takes the straps into its many short sharp teeth, gripping securely. The precious weight lifts from my hands. The babies are sleeping, and I take a few seconds to drink in once more the perfect magic of my sister’s eyes, my Gramma’s ornery mouth in the faces of my niece and nephew. I don’t know when I will see them again.

I pull my bow from my back.

The dragon exhales, great curling clouds puffing from its nostrils. It goes to turn away and then pauses, waiting for me.

“I’ll catch up,” I say. The whisker beneath my shirt hums with purpose and strength. “I have one thing to do. I will find you.”

Those celestial eyes examine me for another moment, then it turns away from the sound of the approaching hounds, and its warmth goes with it. Head steady with priceless cargo, striding powerfully as enormous wings unfurl, the great silvery myth lifts off the ground with fluid strength. The dragon swerves gently around the broad trunks, and disappears from sight.

Leaves settle back into the forest floor.

Tears rapidly chilling on my face, I climb over the massive uprooted oak. I find a good vantage, wipe my eyes and nock the first arrow.

Four hounds fall, one by one, into the leaves.

Then I wait. I might have passed a full century in the deadly, patient silence.

Hooves approach slowly, cautiously, along with the sharp smell of sweat-soaked leather. The chestnut horse and armored rider emerge from the brush; a rider with a scarred mouth.

Tir.

He's scanning over the dead hounds, holding a long knife. I almost wish he knew how useless his weapon is. The horse is anxious and it sees me, shifting its weight and disobeying his urges to move forward.

He doesn’t see me until my arrow is buried in his neck. Staring hatred into my eyes but unable to make a sound as his red life pours in a thick messy curtain down the front of his uniform, he slides from the saddle. I relish the heavy crunch of his weight onto the forest floor, the warm puffs of his final breaths escaping his bleeding mouth. Candy-apple satisfaction.

He finishes twitching. With calm and careful moves to avoid spooking the horse, I take the reins and mount up.

I don't know how long this story will be. What I do know is, I will tell it, again and again.