When Women Were Dragons(38)
I pressed my lips together for a minute. “Mommy doesn’t like it when people say things like that.” I didn’t tell her that what she said wasn’t true. But nothing much got by Beatrice. She held my gaze for a moment, and then winked. She returned to the garden, showing me where the blueberries were, and where the chickens hid their eggs. She knelt down next to the tangle of ground-cherries and started peeling back the dry husks and flicked each berry into her mouth, one by one, rolling them around like marbles. She grinned with her mouth full.
Beatrice was clearly in no hurry to leave, so I sat down next to her. The yard was a riot of bright colors, set in a backdrop of vibrant green. Everything the old lady once grew in her garden had morphed into generations of feral offspring. The plants spread, multiplied, and comingled with everything else. A thicket of volunteer squash vines tangled in a mound in one corner, with yellow flowers and all manner of squash sizes and shapes and colors. The strangest cucumbers I had ever seen snaked up the side of the ruined chicken coop—they were round and bright yellow with dark green spots. And wild strawberries were everywhere. The side of the house was impassable with raspberry bramble.
Beatrice reached over and pulled at a wild thyme stem, running her fingernail along the stalk and letting the tiny leaves fall into her hand. The world smelled like compost and green. Two chickens, feeling bold, came near us, pecking at the ground while still marking our movements with a wary eye. A cat watched them from the squash thicket.
“I love this place,” Beatrice said with a yawn. “We should come here every day.”
“I used to come here every day,” I told her. “When I was very little. There was lady who lived here who used to give me presents.”
This got Beatrice’s attention. “What kind of presents?” she asked.
“Well,” I said, using this as an opportunity to help her to her feet and lead her back home. “Little-old-lady presents. A cookie or some carrots or an egg. One time, she gave me a bag of sweet peas with flowers that you could eat. They tasted like pepper.”
“I would like to try one.” She looked around, checking for a blossom she could eat.
“Let’s tell Mother to grow them. I don’t know what they’re called, though. Anyway, I used to love it here, but one day the old lady went away, and I haven’t been back here since.”
“Where did she go?” Beatrice asked.
It had been so long since I thought about it. The man’s yell. The woman’s scream. The scrabble and the struggle and the gasp and the Oh! And then the—
I shook my head. I couldn’t even think about it. Every time a dragon found its way into my mind’s eye, I forced it to go blank.
“I don’t know,” I said. “She just disappeared. Or maybe she just moved.”
We paused at the back gate. Beatrice turned and looked at the yard, her gaze keen and searching. “Maybe the dragon knows where she is.”
The physical sensation that came over me at Beatrice’s words is difficult for me to describe, even now. And it is even more difficult for me to explain. My skin—from my toes to the crown of my head—erupted in what felt like pinpricks—and my vision swam. I became suddenly aware of the sound of my heart beating. And my mind’s eye started moving through images faster and faster, like a film projector gone out of control—I could barely make sense of what my mind was seeing. I reached out and held on to the gate for balance.
“What in the world are you talking about, you nut?” I said, trying to keep my voice even and low. “There’s no more dragons. They all left and they aren’t coming back. Everyone knows that. And no one misses them. It says so right in the pamphlets at school. And scientists write that. Real scientists who work for the actual government. So it has to be true.”
Beatrice frowned. “Well, there’s a dragon that lives here.”
“Don’t be crass,” I said reflexively. “And anyway, what makes you say that?”
“Well,” she shrugged her little girl shoulders. “Just look at it.”
I did. A dilapidated house with gaps in the siding like missing teeth. A collapsed henhouse. A shed saved from collapse for the time being by leaning heavily on the trunk of an ancient maple tree.
“All I see is a mess,” I said. “Let’s go.”
Beatrice didn’t move. “Dragons love messes. And they love kitties. And chickens. And everyone getting along—they love that part most of all.”
“Do they?” I said skeptically. “I think maybe you’re just talking about yourself. My understanding is that dragons prefer murder and mayhem and burning down people’s farms and villages and destroying families. I mean, that’s what happens in stories, anyway. Come on, let’s go back. Mother is going to worry.”
This actually wasn’t true. My mother was likely still asleep. She had been so tired lately, and I was at an age where I only knew how to be aggravated. I was too self-centered to know how to worry about my mother.
“Stories are stupid,” Beatrice said. “The people who write stories about dragons have never met a dragon. Dragons like chore charts and sharing and book clubs. Everyone knows that.”
“Well, that’s news to me,” I said as I ushered Beatrice out of the gate.
“It’s true,” Beatrice assured me. “And anyway, who do you think is taking care of everything? Keeping the chickens fat and the cats happy and scaring the hawks away.”