When Women Were Dragons(108)
After the kiss, we lingered close for a long moment. Our flushed cheeks touching. Our hands resting gloved palm to gloved palm. Sonja pulled away. She looked at me for a long time, her grey eyes glittering. “Sometimes, I think about my mother. How many drawings do I have of her face? How many paintings and sculptures? I can’t keep track of them, honestly. But it helps me to make sure I remember her face, and my father’s face. It comforts me to remember the vast amount of love they had for one another. Even though their love wasn’t enough. Because sometimes love isn’t enough.” She slid her hand under my hat and wound her fingers in my hair. I buried my face between her scarf and her long neck. “I didn’t hear the call that night with my friends. But I wanted to. And I kept wanting to. So when I got to college, I went out of my way to make friends with dragons. I thought that might trigger something. Nothing happened. Not for a long time.”
“Well, then,” I said. I didn’t let go. “Maybe that’s your answer.”
She dropped her arms, stepped back, and regarded my face. She shook her head. “Oh, Alex. Don’t you see? I do feel something. Now. It started the day I found you again. I felt something inside. Like my life was more than itself. That I was more than myself. Maybe that’s a different sort of call.” She took another step back. Her eyes were now gold, and shining. There were rubies in her mouth.
“Oh, Sonja,” I breathed. “Are you sure?”
“My father died looking for my mother, but my mother wasn’t even here. I think—actually I know—that she launched to explore the stars. I think she’s still there. Deep in space.” Her neck elongated. Talons pierced her boots. She was so beautiful I thought I’d die. She kissed me once more, on the mouth. Her coat began to smoke and singe. My lips burned. She pulled her clothes apart with a slight tug and held a talon on the skin between her breasts. I looked away. The night was cold. The stars were bright. Dragons skimmed the windswept lake and the air was full of the calls of men. Beatrice was home. Beatrice needed me. This me. Unless she didn’t. Maybe she wouldn’t need me forever. Maybe asking what Beatrice needed was the wrong question. What did I need? What did I want? What did I want my life to be? The ground moved under my feet in waves. Sonja Blomgren creates earthquakes, I thought, and it never felt more true. Sonja pressed her talon into her skin and began to draw it down.
“I want to be bigger than myself,” she said, closing her eyes. “I’d like to find my mother. I’d like to explore the stars. And beyond the stars. I want to swallow the universe with my eyes. Come with me, Alex. I can’t stay here a moment longer. I can’t stay in this body a moment longer. This is not the life I choose. I choose something else. I love you so much, Alex. Won’t you come with me?”
How do I pin this memory down? How do I wind each detail, each strand, each filament together? I remember the squeak of my shoes against the impossible cold of the compressed snow and ice. I remember the ache in my heart and the heat in my body. My back hurt. My skin felt tight. My vision swam—with tears? Or something else? I remember the smell of Sonja as she had now become, no more rosemary, but ash and caramel and smoke. I remember the sheen of her scales, the glow of her eyes, the glint of each tooth, each edge, each claw. A drunk young man on the ground catcalled and hooted. A car’s horn blasted and another car peeled away. Sonja hovered in front of me, a riot of light and beauty, a crack in the universe. It was all I could do to keep standing.
She reached outward, her scales shimmering in the low light. What could I do? I took her paw between my palms. I stroked each scale with my thumb. I bowed my head as though in prayer.
“Well?” Sonja said.
43.
By the spring of 1965, a year after the Little Wyrming, a majority of the girls who dragoned that day were living, once again, with families. For the most part, this was due to a change of heart in the families of origin, who sorrowfully sought their homeless and abandoned daughters and begged forgiveness. Once these reconciliations became public, and once the images of happy, reunited families became part of the public consciousness, the sense of urgency regarding the well-being and moral development of dragoned girls living on their own began to increase. Social service agencies dedicated to finding flexible foster families who were ready to take on the physical, spiritual, and moral needs of a transformed girl popped up around the country, seemingly overnight.
Once the families were reunited or built anew, parents started advocating for their daughters. And they weren’t prepared to take no for an answer.
By 1966, high school principals began defying their district decrees and welcoming the dragoned girls back to school (either moving classes out of doors, or holding special classes in the auditoriums or commons or gyms, or in the case of some schools, fitting each window with outdoor perches to allow outsized students to participate in class but also have freedom of movement). The first dragon-friendly primary school announced itself in 1967. And in 1969, a group of eight thousand souls—both human and dragon—situated themselves in front of the White House, demanding equal education for their dragon daughters.
The optics were terrible. No politician ever wants to appear to be anti-education. President Nixon, new to the job, was not a tremendous fan of dragons generally, but even he knew a losing argument when he saw one. He and the First Lady invited a well-heeled family (long-standing Republican donors) and their Radcliffe-educated dragon daughter to the White House lawn for a well-publicized luncheon. The weather was fine, the chat genial, and promises were made. From Nixon’s point of view, the promises were empty, obviously, and meant to placate worried parents and provide himself with political cover over making any real change. He had no idea what was coming next.