The Dragon's Emissary

There weren’t always dragons in the valley. But their presence was all I knew. Meemaw used to drag my baby sister and me into her lap once a week to tell us how the creatures got there. That is, until we got older and savvier.

She’d settle into the rocker by the woodstove with a cup of putrid-smelling tea and beckon for us to join. Then, me and Annmarie would flee the room in a flurry of squeals and pattering bare feet to avoid the umpteenth telling of the tale.

It was a good story—and I appreciated it once I got older and Meemaw wasn’t there to tell it every five seconds. But back then, it felt like cruel and unusual punishment. Like those old movies where the bad guys would torture the good guys by making them listen to the Barney theme song on repeat.

She had mastered the dramatic retelling of that dreadful day when the Gash tore through the sky above Memphis and unleashed a torrent of beasts—not just dragons. They were all shapes and sizes, from a tiny little fairy dust-bunny that you’d hardly notice buzzing past your nose, to impossible behemoths that wiped out more than a few shopping malls upon entry.

Just as their size ranged widely, so too did their looks. “They was from Heaven and Hell, all of ‘em,” Meemaw used to say in her chain-smoker’s voice. “Sometimes, you couldn’t tell which one they come from.” And she’d point a pale, withered finger to the roof of the tiny cottage that Papaw had built three decades earlier. Her crystal blue eyes would glaze over as if she could see it happening then and there—like she’d been transported back to that day 40 years ago when that first glorified gecko came down and tore Great Uncle Creedence in two.

Great Uncle Creedence got better. Daddy used to say he only ever used half his brain, anyway. He got along fine with the parts that were left, as long as he visited the wizard down the road every few months for tune-ups.

Those magical prosthetics just don’t last the way they used to—so said Great Unk. But then again, he also said there used to be such a thing as human toasters—giant air fryers that people would climb into to radiate themselves. Willingly. So, you can’t trust everything Great Unk says about how things ‘used to be.’

Meemaw had been dead five years—ever since that nasty bug swooped through the village and took what was left of her last lung. Turns out, the preventative tonic we’d been getting from the witch two villages over was mostly just mud and recycled fish guts—meaning, her familiar ate the guts and expelled them into the garden in the form of fertilizer.

It was a miracle that Meemaw didn’t succumb to some nasty intestinal worm a decade ago. Must've had a stomach lining made of steel, given she’d been drinking litterbox tea all that time. But she was no match for that lung bug. Nasty things, those critters. Another gift from the Gash. Some of them grew so big that it was hard to imagine how they could even fit their fat rumps down a windpipe in the first place.

Even though Meemaw had gone to the void, I still heard her voice every time I went down to the river. She was always warning me about the dangers of those lands as I hunted and fished on them.

But on that particularly balmy summer evening, as I hiked up my baggy jeans and stooped to investigate the underbrush near the bank of the Mississippi, her chainsaw of a voice said to me, “You ain’t gonna find yourself a handsome husband hiding in them bushes.”

I jumped away from the bush and whirled to find the stout, silver-haired woman standing in the purple cotton nightgown and slippers that she had died in. She watched me with arms crossed and a knowing look on her leathery face.

“Meemaw,” I hissed at the spirit and gestured to the shrub. “Hush. You’ll scare away dinner.” She looked as solid as the dirt beneath her. As alive as the rabbit that I probably would've had in my clutches if it wasn’t for her deciding to pester me.

“There ain’t no dinner in there, child.” Meemaw gave me a toothless grin. “I saw Annmarie collecting bunnies from the traps this morning. Plenty of meat for the week.”

I heaved an annoyed breath, pushing a strand of dirty blonde hair behind my ear that had escaped the bun at the nape of my sweaty neck. “There can always be more.”

When I went to turn around, she asked, “What you hiding from, Winnie?”

“I ain’t hiding.” I threw her a glare. “I’m hunting.”

“For an excuse?” Meemaw raised her eyebrows and quirked the corner of her lip. “You’re frightened of what’s to come, ain’t you?”

I straightened and lifted my chin. “I ain’t scared, Meemaw. Now leave me be before—”

“Them dragons’ll be coming home to roost soon.” She glanced at the northern sky. It was nearing dusk, and the sunset lit the river ablaze with the glowy reflection of the tangerine sky—it was a clear sky, except for the Gash.

Meemaw’s prediction was probably right. That jagged tear had been growing wider over the past few weeks. Usually a modest squiggle of a fine-tipped pen, the Gash had expanded into a fat, inky brush stroke—wide enough for a few stars to twinkle through from beyond the torn orange canvas.

“So?” I sheathed my trapper knife in the scabbard at my hip. Meemaw had been right about that, too—there was no dinner to be found tonight, thanks to her.

“First time they’ll come home since you been of age.” She kept her gaze locked on the Gash as if her mind was somewhere far, far away. I waited for her to get to the point with a patience I reserved for her and very few others. Yet my tolerance was dwindling. “Valley’s been quiet for a few years.”

She finally focused on me. She had that glossy look in her eye that meant she was deep in a memory. Her pale blue gaze contrasted the cocoa brown eyeballs in my own head. She was serious when she said, “Your Mama will be counting on you when the time comes, Winnie.”

“I know, Meemaw,” I said with more attitude than I should have. She gave me a sideways look for it. I could practically feel the lecture she wanted to give me.

As the firstborn of the Gillian family, the emissary responsibilities were passed to me when I turned 18 last year. That’s what the treaty demanded, and I felt that heavy burden without Meemaw’s reminder.

Papaw had made that treaty with the Emperor of the dragons not long after they’d first come. But not until after they’d killed three-quarters of Memphis. The city’s gutted remains weren’t far downriver from where I stood talking to Meemaw’s ghost.

He'd been the mayor of West Memphis across the river when Papaw saw the mayor of real Memphis get his innards eaten for being inhospitable. But unlike that fellow, Papaw had the gift of negotiation and was able to strike a favorable deal. That’s what he said, anyway.

There were five of us emissary families. The four others were old business connections Papaw formed during his days owning the biggest used car lot in West Memphis. Everyone in town used to know at least one jingle on the TV from a business each of our families owned back then.

Was that a rational justification for trusting us with the fate of humanity? Well, Papaw thought so. My dead Daddy might not have agreed. But he didn’t want to be tethered like Meemaw after he died, so I couldn’t ask his opinion on the matter now. But one thing was for sure—he was dead because he was a lousy emissary. A real good Daddy, though. I missed him every day since he got himself stuck between a rock and a burning place.

Of all the fantastical changes that had occurred since the Gash appeared, the deal Papaw made with the dragons was my least favorite to hear about.

It didn’t bother me that magic now weaved its way throughout the entire world, snaking through the ether, blessing people at random. I hated to think that there was a time when we had to fare without it.

I didn't mind that we now shared this world with hundreds of odd creatures, big and small—from the minuscule imps to the tremendous trolls. What bothered me more was all the earthly creatures we killed off long ago that I would never get a chance to meet.

It didn’t even bother me that the dragons ruled all these new creatures and had control over the magic. Or that they were likely the culprits behind the Gash in the first place. I didn't care that they came and went— no one really knew what they got up to when they disappeared through the Gash for years at a time, or why they chose to come back to Earth to breed. I got the impression that we weren’t allowed to ask.

No. What bothered me was that these intelligent beasts wreaked havoc on my people and took what I guessed was the good half of Great Unk’s brain... And then Papaw made a deal with them.

A deal that was supposed to protect the village he’d helped build after the initial slaughter. But it didn’t really protect us much, did it?

What if I was a lousy emissary like Daddy? What if the dragons didn’t like me? What if—

“You'll do well, child,” Meemaw reassured me as if she could read my thoughts. I blinked at her, and she smiled. “You ain’t the only baby emissary, is you? And you’ve got others who’ve been through multiple seasons and can guide you. Best of both worlds.”

I thought about this as I stared up at the Gash. It was true on both accounts—Davis Brown had turned 18 not even a full year before me. He had no idea what he was doing either—not that he’d ever admit that. The others—Josephine, Maribel, and Billy—were older. They’d all dealt with at least one dragon encounter and lived to talk about it.

I took a deep breath, nodded, and brushed off my faded pink t-shirt. “Thanks, Meemaw.”

She gave a brisk nod. “Now, ain’t there an emissary meeting you’re missing?”

“Later,” I said. “I told you, I ain’t hiding. I’ll be there.”

“I expect you to work on getting you a man that can give me great-grandbabies while you’re there.” Her smile turned mischievous. She’d been trying to force Davis and me together since we were babies ourselves, despite the disdain that only grew between us as we matured.

I pointed at her. “You’re on thin ice, Meemaw. Don’t think I won’t cut your tether and send you off into the void for good.”

“Well, I ain’t never heard such disrespect.” She put a paper-skinned hand to her chest with a scowl. “If I were—”

An ear-splitting, earth-shaking screech cut her off. I dropped to the ground at the sheer force of it, covering my ears in an attempt to shield them from the onslaught. I heard nothing but that thunderous shriek. It tore through my brain like the Gash tore through the sky. But then I heard something other than that horrible sound. Faintly, Meemaw’s voice reached me through the pain.

“Run, child,” she yelled. I looked up from the damp grass I knelt on, but she was nowhere to be found. Still, I heard her. “Run.”

Then I saw it—the source of my agony. Jet black against the blood-orange sunset, he must have been the size of a skyscraper. The two long horns that grew at a slight curve from his temples gave away that he was male, and the sharp shriek emitting from his slender snout gave away that he wasn’t there for a friendly visit.

The dragon was the largest I’d ever seen—he could probably eat every dragon I’d ever seen—with a wingspan that seemed like it could traverse the half-mile width of the river. He flew from the Gash straight toward Memphis, flanked by a half dozen smaller dragons of emerald green and opal white. Straight toward me.

He got bigger against the sky, and I realized he was further away than I initially thought. He kept getting bigger. And bigger.

And I knew it then—before those predatory ruby eyes even found me sitting in plain sight on the river basin, ripe for the picking.

I wouldn’t be making it to that emissary meeting, after all.