When Women Were Dragons(105)
It didn’t happen right away. We all moved through the rest of the day in a state of alert, waiting for the change. Instead, Beatrice, suddenly relaxed, helped with the decorations and putting icing on the cookies. She cleaned her dishes and helped with the sweeping and brushed her teeth without prompting and went to bed without a fuss. The next night was Christmas Eve, and we attended a special Midnight Mass in the snow outside the cathedral with other mixed-state families. Both Beatrice and I rested in the arms of one of the dragon aunties, the furnace in their bellies keeping us warm. I half expected her to dragon then, right there in front of all those people. But she didn’t. Beatrice was asleep before the second reading.
The next morning, Beatrice was up like a shot and raced to open her presents under the tree. Our building was thick with the smells of cinnamon and cloves, of apples and roast turkey, of sugar and chocolate and cream. Sonja and her grandmother and Dr. Gantz all arrived for our Christmas Day celebration at two in the afternoon. Immediately it was clear that Dr. Gantz was rather taken with Mrs. Blomgren—he became oddly flustered and stumbled on his words, his cheeks flushing each time she spoke. We had invited Mrs. Gyzinska as well, but she informed us that she had caught a cold and couldn’t come. (She didn’t tell us that she was in the hospital. I had to find out later.) We sang and read stories and Beatrice played a song on her flute and Sonja sang Norwegian folk songs as her long fingers plucked chords and harmonies on her grandfather’s old mandolin. The dragons were tender with one another, and Sonja and I sat with our arms around each other on one section of the couch. No one told us we couldn’t.
The dragoning began after the dinner and songs, but before Edith presented her beautifully crafted Yule log, with layers of chocolate cake and ganache and thick cream, along with spun sugar made to look like holly leaves.
“Is anyone ready for something sweet?” Edith asked everyone. She swayed a bit from wine and laughing.
Beatrice stood. “Yes, but.” And then she stopped. She pressed her hands to her heart. My eyes went wide. I reached over and grabbed Sonja’s hand.
“Oh,” Beatrice said, her eyes growing gold. “Oh.”
“Beatrice?” I asked.
Jeanne, thinking fast, began to move the furniture out of the way. Clara ran and filled a bucket of water, just in case. Dr. Gantz took out his steno pad. He reached over and pulled a camera out of his bag and handed it to Sonja. “Please take as many as you can. Do try to keep the camera steady. This is for science, after all.” I don’t know how he knew to give this job to her. Perhaps it was her unflappable demeanor and her clearly solid hand. In any case, I still have the photographs, all these years later. They remain remarkable.
Dr. Gantz asked question after question, and wrote things down whether he got an answer or not.
Beatrice said nothing. I watched her tilt her face upward, her rib cage heave in and out. Her mouth was open, as though her soul was escaping in sighs. She had a look of unabashed joy on her face. I crept closer, kneeling to the ground. I put my hand on her hand—it was so hot it hurt, but I held on anyway, lacing my fingers with hers. I kissed her cheek. My lips blistered just a bit.
“It’s okay, Bea,” I said. “It’s okay. It’s you and me, together. Nothing ever changes that. You are you, and I am me, and we are us, and that is pretty great.” She turned, opened her eyes. They were wide, and large, and gold. They glittered so brightly, I squinted.
“Alex,” Beatrice gasped. Her skin stretched. Her tongue shone. I still have scars on my hands from when I grabbed both her hands in mine and held on tight. I didn’t let go for anything. Light poured from Beatrice’s skin. “Did you know, Alex? Did you know how big the world can be? Did you?”
Oh, Beatrice. Yes. I finally did. And I still do.
Her skin fell away like petals. She let out a roar that rattled the bricks, sent books off the shelves, and vibrated in my bones.
42.
As expected, Beatrice was expelled from school. Marla, Edith, Jeanne, Clara, and I all marched into the principal’s office, with Beatrice reluctantly in tow, and demanded that she be allowed to remain in class. When the principal refused, we demanded that he put his refusal in writing. Journalists and photographers from the university newspaper (all friends of Sonja’s) waited in the hallway. They lobbed questions and took photographs and splashed the whole story on the front page the following morning. By the next week, the Milwaukee paper had picked it up, then Chicago, and by the end of the month, similar stories had been reported across the country. It seemed that we were not the only ones willing to make a fuss about maintaining educational access for a recently dragoned child.
Still, Marla and the other aunties enjoyed homeschooling and shared the duties equally, and Beatrice took to the concept with unexpected enthusiasm. Jeanne built a learning nook in the corner with a dragon-sized desk and several bookshelves and even a makeshift lab for science class. Clara taught home economics and history, while Edith was in charge of literature and rhetoric, and Marla handled math and car repair. Jeanne was in charge of both science and gym class, and don’t even ask me what the latter entailed. Something that Beatrice referred to as “fire dancing” and honestly the thought terrified me, so I just changed the subject. It turns out my mother was partially right—sometimes it really is best not to ask questions.
Through their contacts at the farmers’ market, they found other families with dragoned children, which meant that Beatrice had both peers and compatriots—and later, study groups. She organized games and schemes similar to the ones she spearheaded in our old neighborhood, but now her playmates could fly. And breathe fire. I gritted my teeth and hoped for the best. Beatrice, now unburdened and unfettered, became infinitely easier to live with. She continued to transition between her girl and dragon forms, though the process was sometimes arduous and left her exhausted for the better part of a day. She generally preferred being a dragon and girled only occasionally. She said she sometimes enjoyed the sensation of being small. I understood this. I was also small. And I did enjoy it. Beatrice laughed easily and helped often and filled every space she occupied with light. Her mind was an endless river of ideas and concerns and questions and plans. She wanted to understand the whole world. This isn’t to say things were perfect. But they were good. All of us would say so.