The Heirloom

I stood watching the sunlight hit the pier, smiling as the light reflected off the water’s surface. The scent of salt water hit my nose, and the pelicans squawking overhead added to the ambience of the carnival.

The sights and smells enveloped me like a warm hug. The scent of sizzling fish wafted into my nose from nearest food stand. There were also rides – huge, sky-high rollercoasters that dropped devastatingly with people screaming all the way down.

I was too chicken to go on one myself, which was why I was currently waiting by the seaside for my friend Amy to return.

Which she soon did, surprisingly intact from her near suicide attempt.

“You don’t know what you’re missing, Ariel!” she called out, skipping over to where I stood. Her cheeks were flushed, eyes dancing joyously.

I was unmoved.

“I’d like to keep it that way,” I responded, my tone dry.

Amy chuckled. “Come on, let’s go see what else there is.”

We strolled through the area, stopping now and then to check out a new attraction. We came across a magician's stand with a sign in block letters.

“STEP RIGHT UP FOR A CHANCE TO WIN 20,000!” Amy read out to me. We paused in front of it.

A long line of people hovered at the stand. In front stood a man wearing a suit and white gloves, a lady in a fancy dress standing beside him.

He held open a small black book in the face of a man sitting on a stool.

“If you can read the words,” he told the guy, “the money's all yours.”

Amy and I peered curiously as we watched the man's brow furrow.

“What is this?” He sounded incredulous.

“It’s not even words!”

The lady clucked. “The words don’t reveal themselves to just anybody, I’m afraid,” she said sympathetically.

“Sorry, your turn is up. Next please!”

The man got up from the stool, muttering angrily as he walked away. Another person took his place, but immediately had the same difficulty.

Amy looked over at me.

"Why don't you go give it a try?" she joked.

"Hilarious," I snarked. My dyslexic self couldn't even read my own mail. Anything to do with reading was not for me.

Still, I couldn’t help but wonder what was in that book. It wasn’t often I saw other people having a hard time reading.

My curiosity drove me to say, “Maybe I will give it a try.”

Amy snickered and pulled us into the line.

Patiently, we waited until the line dwindled.

Then I was at the front.

“You wish to try, young lady?” The magician asked. He had a kind face, but puffy bags hung from his eyes.

“Yes,” I responded, wondered if there was some personal stake in this for him.

The lady spoke, drawing my attention away.

“What’s your name, sweetie?”

“Ariel,” I replied.

“Alright, Ariel,” she gestured towards the stool. “Whenever you’re ready.”

I sat. The magician held open the book.

“Can you tell me what this says?”

My forehead creased. The page wasn’t filled with any discernible letters. Rather, it contained scrawled circle-like symbols with zig-zags around them, drawn crudely as if in a child’s hand.

Looking at it made my eyes burn. “Do you know what it says?” I asked the magician.

He simply shook his head.

“So how will I?” I was confused.

The lady shrugged. “You just will.”

I stared at her, then turned back to the book. I squinted at it in concentration, pushing past that strange feeling of discomfort.

Slowly, the feeling faded. All of a sudden, it was like a film I'd never noticed before cleared from my eyes. My vision seemed to sharpen by the second, and the symbols, which looked like deformed blobs just a second ago, started to impart some meaning onto my brain.

"It says… " I blinked, realizing that I could read it.

"It says 'BEGIN'."

I looked up to ask the magician if I was right.

But he was gone.

In fact, the whole carnival had disappeared. My eyes widened as I found myself staring at an empty space. I stood, the stool the only item in the room, and spun around in place.

There was a white floor beneath me, but no walls. As I turned, all I could see was the blue of the sky and puffy white clouds floating around. A gentle breeze lifted my red hair from my shoulders.

Either I was hallucinating, or I was currently standing on a platform suspended in the sky.

Maybe my corn dog had been expired.

“Finally,” somebody grumbled from behind me.

I squealed in surprise and turned hastily.

A rather tall, solidly-built male with messy raven-black hair and jade green eyes stared at me. The planes of his face were chiseled, showcasing a bone structure that made him look extraordinarily attractive.

That attractive face scrutinized me, sizing me up from head to toe. He rubbed at the stubble on his chin like he found me puzzling.

I took him in as well. He wore stripped pajamas, with a teddy bear tucked into the crook of his elbow.

I was definitely hallucinating.

A loud snort pulled me from my thoughts. I looked up to see his face now filled with amusement.

“So, you’re going to slay the dragon?” He sounded like it was the funniest thing ever.

I stared at him, wondering if I was addled.

“I beg your pardon?” Should I be speaking to a hallucination?

His eyebrows rose in further amusement. “You spoke the spell, yes?”

His accent sounded unfamiliar, like it didn’t belong to my part of the world. Or my world.

“That’s means you’re the only one that can break the curse,” he told me.

My eyes bulged. “What curse?” I slowly backed away.

“Who are you? How did I get here? How did you get here?”

Remembering the open sky, I abruptly stopped walking.

“Where is here?” My tone rose in decibels.

“This is a pocket realm,” he said, watching me with glimmering eyes.

“A pocket realm is a place that exists outside reality,” he explained.

“It can only be accessed on the basis of a quest. This realm was formed by a dragon, nasty, ill-tempered fellow, who cursed the magician you spoke to. The only way you can get out is if you complete the quest, thereby breaking the curse. I’m Timothy, the guardian of this realm. I owe the magician a favor, so I will be assisting you on your quest.”

I blinked. It sounded like he was speaking English, yet what he was saying failed to make sense.

“My quest to… ?” I finally spoke.

“To slay the dragon,” he calmly replied, like it was an everyday activity.

Suddenly there was a loud bellow that caused the platform to shake. Icy fear skittered down my veins at the sound.

“The dragon has realized you’re here. Come, there’s no time to waste.”

Snapping his fingers, Timothy’s pajamas and teddy bear suddenly transformed into armor and a sword.

I shrieked again.

“You can do that later,” he said, grabbing me. “Let’s go!”

He dragged towards the other side of the room. An open door suddenly appeared in our path, and he pulled me through it. We were suddenly in what looked like an underground mountain pass.

My mouth hung open. Flaming torches hung from the wall. A huge pile of armor gear and steel weapons littered the space.

Timothy released me to grabbed a helmet and chest gear.

I vehemently shook my head. “No, this is crazy! Dragons don’t exist, and there’s no way I can kill one!”

He looked up at me crossly. “Well if you don’t, we’re both barbecue,” he hissed. Before I could speak, he placed the gear over my head and body.

“Hurry, hurry,” he muttered, fingers moving in a frenzy. I stood still, too shocked to move.

He picked up the only other sword in the room and was about to hand it to me when fire suddenly shot down the tunnel.

He pulled us out of the way in the nick of time. When I turned in the direction it'd come from, there flew the largest, most terrifying creature I’d ever seen.

The dragon was enormous. Its wings could’ve spanned the length of the entire sky, and its skin was blistering red and ridged with scales.

Malevolent, bloodshot eyes fixed on me.

“RUN!”

We swiftly sprinted down the pass. The dragon tore after us, but we managed to evade it by turning the corner and pressing against the wall.

“Take the sword,” Timothy got out in-between pants. “There’s an inscription on the blade. Read it, like you did with the book. It reveals the dragon's weak spot.”

He swallowed, then straightened. “I'll buy you some time.”

“WAIT!”

He was gone, running to meet the dragon head-on as it came into view. My heart leapt into my throat as I saw Timothy clash with it, swinging his sword expertly.

The dragon roared.

Timothy raised his sword again, but the dragon batted him away with a swipe of its claws. He went down.

Then the dragon aimed for me.

I stood rooted to the spot as its teeth came down around me.

“NOOO!” Timothy yelled as the dragon took half my body into its maw. Its wings beat, and then we were flying up the mountain and into the sky above.

The height made me dizzy. The only thought I could manage as clouds whirled around me was that I was about to die.

“THE SWORD!”

The loud shout from below penetrated my panic. I snapped out of it and wiggled until I could get my arm out.

The dragon continued flying heedlessly. It could roast me with a breath, so it wasn’t very worried.

I ran my eyes across the symbols on the blade. THE RIGHT EYE, it read.

That was directly in front of me. Steeling myself, I inhaled.

Then I buried my steel in its eye.

The dragon roared, louder than ever. I screamed as we started to plummet, my hair sticking up in the air.

We landed with the sound of an earthquake. I was safely cushioned by its soft tongue. I freed myself from its mouth with a shudder, rising unsteadily.

Timothy ran over to me.

“Are you okay?” He asked, scanning me in concern. Bleakly, I nodded.

“So what happens now?”

“Now,” he pointed behind me, “you take that.”

I turned to find that the dragon was gone. In its place was a gold necklace littered with gems.

Warily, I picked it up.

“And then?”

I looked up, expecting to see Timothy.

Instead, the magician and lady were now beaming at me.

The magician had made a bad deal with the dragon, I discovered. The dragon cursed him to sleeplessness and stole his mother’s necklace, a priceless heirloom meant for his future wife. Who, it turned out, was his lady assistant.

He desperately wanted it back in time for their marriage. But the spell could only be read by “the one who could not read". So, at his wits end, he set up a stand at a popular carnival in town and hoped for the best.

After vehemently apologizing for what he’d put me through, he wrote me a check.

I contemplated not cashing it in. That would’ve made everything real, and I was still in disbelief. So was Amy.

In the end, I decided to accept the money.

I was leaving the bank after depositing it when I came across a familiar face.

“Timothy,” I gasped. “How are you here?”

Those noteworthy green eyes twinkled. “You freed me,” he said, walking towards me. “And I found I couldn’t stay away. I had the time of my life fighting dragons with you.”

His smile was beautiful. “Want to go grab a coffee?”

My own smile slipped free. I nodded.

We were off on our new quest, walking hand-in-hand.

“You’re paying,” he told me.

I laughed, my heart soaring.