When Women Were Dragons(58)

Mostly.

—“A Brief History of Dragons” by Professor H. N. Gantz, MD, PhD





23.

Over the next month, I started seeing tiny flyers in odd places. Stuck inside the mailbox door or taped on a bicycle rack or strewn on the steps in front of the school. They were small, about the size of my palm.





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I paused as I opened the front door of my apartment, noticing a card stuck to the glass. I pulled it off to see if there was an address on the back, only to have it snatched out of my hand by Mr. Watt, my landlord. He was a short man with a head that balded only in patches, leaving frail wisps clinging randomly to his deeply freckled scalp. They looked like feathers on a wrinkly baby bird. He had a stubbled, gnarled face, pressed permanently into a scowl.

“If I catch you looking at that filth again, I’ll tell your father.” He was constantly threatening to tell my father things. As far as I could tell, he never had.

I folded my arms. “I have no idea what you mean. It was just sitting here on the door. What was I supposed to do with it? I thought you had left it there.” I hadn’t, but I didn’t care for his tone.

“Hmph. Loony outsiders with their loony ideas. More Madison liberals, if you ask me. Or worse.” His face grew grim. “Californians. Well. Not in my town, no sir.” His gaze darted up and down the road, as though at this very moment, hordes of trucks crammed with West Coasters were bearing down on our streets.

He tore the paper into pieces and shoved them into his pocket.

“But, do you at least know what it’s even about? I keep seeing these cards all over town.”

“I ain’t saying nuthin’,” he said. “I sent a note to your father about that girl of yours. Running wild again. It’s the last thing I need. Keep her under control, or find a new place to live.” It was an empty threat, I knew, but it unsettled me all the same. He pushed past and hobbled down the stairs to his apartment.

I shook my head.

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I had to admit, I was rather curious.

The next day, in French class, three girls in the row ahead of me examined three cards—each slightly different but advertising the same clinics. I tapped the shoulder of the closest one—a tall girl named Emeline, who wore her hair in a high bun to show off her long neck, and who flashed her new engagement ring to whoever came too close. She never wore makeup—that wasn’t allowed—but she always did seem to glow.

“Excuse me,” I said.

“Yes”—she swiveled to glow in my direction, extending her hand with a pretty flourish to show me her ring—“it is real, if you were wondering.” She flashed an indulgent smile.

“Sorry?” I said. “Actually, no. I wasn’t. But I am curious about those cards. Is there an address?”

The girl next to her, Marie-Louise, I believe her name was, peeked over Emeline’s shoulder and rolled her eyes. “They can’t just advertise something like that,” she explained. “That’s how they get shut down. You know.” She glanced over her shoulder. “By the government.”

“Why would the government shut them down?” I asked. Sister Leonie entered the room. She was a tiny thing, with a face like a walnut and small grey eyes that shone like two brand-new nickels. Her shoes creaked as she waddled up to the blackboard. She needed a long stick with a rag on the end in order to clean it up to the top.

Marie-Louise quickly gathered the cards and shoved them in her pocket. “Use your head,” she whispered. “Why wouldn’t they? But if you’re really curious, I suspect you’ll find out more soon enough.”

“How?” I asked.

Marie-Louise said nothing. She just tapped her nose.

Sister Leonie turned. “Silence, s’il vous pla?t,” she said, not unkindly.

We opened our books.



Before I knew it, September wound down and October asserted itself, all bright colors and bright skies and stiff breezes. Beatrice behaved at school and came home with glowing comments on her papers and each day I breathed a sigh of relief. Maybe the dragon drawings were just a phase.

Beatrice didn’t complain when I took her to the library for long hours, nearly every day. I let her do exactly what my mother denied me. I let her roam without limits and read whatever she wanted. I praised her for her curiosity. Mrs. Gyzinska had several assistants who checked in on Beatrice, sometimes bringing her to the children’s room to make arts and crafts, and she would come home wearing outlandish crowns with glitter, or bright bangles covered in tin foil, or a pair of brightly colored wings. (The wings I threw away. She was a child; I hoped she would forget. I hated myself for doing it.)

As for me, I kept to myself at school. I kept my eyes on the ground. I was used to being alone. More than once I thought I saw Sonja, just out of the corner of my eye. Sitting alone at a lunch table. Or standing in a doorway. It was never her. But each time, I felt my heart crack, just a little bit. I had a friend once. But my father dragged her away. There was more to that story, but it hovered just out of my reach, insubstantial as smoke. I tried to force it from my mind. It didn’t do to dwell on the past, after all. There is a freedom in forgetting. Or that was the story I told myself then.