When Women Were Dragons(97)

“But I’m hours and hours early if school was in Hawaii, Auntie Edith,” Beatrice cackled. “Let’s fly to Hawaii!”

Beatrice referred to all four of our dragon housemates as “the aunties” inside of a day of our moving in together. Even Marla was Auntie Marla to her. As the months went by, I continued to notice the way that Marla lingered while brushing Beatrice’s hair, or the way she pressed her paws to her heart at the sound of Beatrice’s voice.

I had to tell her. But I wasn’t ready.

“Be smart at school, Alex!” Beatrice waved with a grin. She shut the window. I knew for a fact that she had no intention of finding her shoes. Beatrice preferred to be on her own time. I sighed. If it weren’t for the dragons, it would be me wrestling with Beatrice. Demanding rule-following. Demanding submission. It was a relief, frankly, to leave that behind.

I tried to feel grateful for the dragons.

It was a one-mile walk from my building to my first class. Sometimes I biked and sometimes I took the city bus. But when I had time, I preferred to walk. It was November, but still oddly warm. The trees were bare, and the brown turf was brightened with frost, but the sky was a brilliant blue and the sun shone warm and clear. I closed my eyes for a moment and lifted my face, drinking in the heat and light.

Without meaning to, I thought about the dragoning girls. I thought about their dresses on the floor, their discarded skins lightly tumbling away like cicada husks. I did not hear the call that day, at prom, when many of my classmates did. I did not transform when they transformed. My body was still my body. I was still me. And yet. My back ached and my fingertips ached. All the time. My bones creaked like cranked-down springs. My back was my back, but sometimes I felt phantom wings. My hands were my hands, but sometimes I felt phantom talons. And phantom fangs. And inside my belly, a fire burned. I couldn’t explain it. I had no way of getting good information. I had no way of knowing what was happening to me—or if anything was happening at all. Maybe my aunt was wrong. Maybe some women are not magic. Maybe all my symptoms were psychosomatic. The brain is powerful, after all.

It didn’t matter. I didn’t want to dragon anyway. I liked my body the way it was.

I mean. I was pretty sure.





39.

On my way to school, I saw Sonja.

I didn’t believe it was her.

I had imagined her so many times ever since that afternoon when my father hauled her away, I had begun to question whether she had ever been real in the first place. I would see her out of the corner of my eye on the stairs, or in the locker room, or at the drinking fountain. Several times, I thought I saw her at the library, or on the street, or driving a car. Each time, at my second look, I would realize it was just another blond girl, or a brunette, or a girl of a different race entirely. Once I thought a middle-aged woman with children was Sonja. And another time it was a man in a suit. And another, an elderly nun. Each time I would shake my head or give my hand a little slap. Pull yourself together, I told myself sternly.

I stopped on State Street to grab something to eat—my aunt had been right, of course, and I realized I was hungry the moment I left the house. State Street was overrun with people again, and it was difficult to maneuver through the crowds and barricades. Another protest. Two of them, actually. On one side of State Street were the anti-dragon protesters (THE WISCONSIN IDEA NEVER INCLUDED MONSTERS! read one sign. DRAGONS ARE DUMB read another), and on the other side were the dragons and the dragon supporters. (MY BODY, MY CHOICE declared the sign held by one dragon. OUR LIVES ARE BIGGER THAN YOU THINK read another. REAL MEN LOVE DRAGONS insisted the sign held by a scruffy-looking ponytailed man gazing hopefully at a nearby dragon.) I stopped for a few minutes to say hello to friends who were handing out flyers and demonstrating in favor of dragon acceptance—a boy from my astronomy class, and two girls who were in my mathematics seminar, and a dragon named Milly from my physics study group.

After a few minutes, the boy—Arne was his name—peered over my shoulder and squinted into the crowd. Then his face lit up.

“Oh, hey!” he called out, waving madly and beckoning someone over. “Guys,” he said to us, “come meet my cousin.”

My mouth was full of cheese sandwich when I turned, and gasped. The din of the crowd—with its chants and music and blasting horns and beating drums and shouting—fully ceased, and was replaced by a high, thin ringing in my ears. A young woman approached. She was smiling at Arne. She hadn’t recognized me yet. Her hazel eyes were stark against her pale skin, and her white-blond hair had been tied into a braid that hung down her back. It was . . . oh god. Her face. Sonja’s face. The whole world stopped. Sonja’s face. My cheeks got hot. Sonja’s face. I couldn’t breathe. Sonja’s face. My vision wobbled, and the street, the people, the signs, the buildings, and the wide, wide sky all at once, began to swim. I tried to speak, but nothing came out.

“Oh, my god,” Arne said. “Alex, are you choking?”

After a few swats on my back from my friends, and then being fully turned upside down and shaken by Milly the dragon, the chunk of sandwich lodged in my esophagus popped violently forth. I dropped to my knees and heaved a few times. I wiped my face on my jacket and stood. Sonja’s face. I became suddenly aware of myself in ways that I hadn’t been for a long time. My hair, much longer than I preferred, curled below my shoulders and was covered mostly by my hat. (I had never once in my entire life thought about my hat, nor had I ever bothered to wonder if I happened to look dumb in that hat, but in that moment, my only thought was Oh good lord, do I look dumb in this hat? over and over again, like an infinite loop.) There was cheese sandwich stuck in my teeth, and I was fairly certain I hadn’t washed my corduroys in well over a week. Possibly a month. I was wearing a sweater that Clara had knitted, which frankly wasn’t one of her primary skills, so while it was certainly warm, it was also lumpy and misshapen and a terrible shade of rust. I became uncomfortably aware of my hands, and suddenly realized that I had no idea where I should put them, and I noticed that I was likely standing weirdly, but I suddenly couldn’t remember how people organize their bodies in order to stand like regular people. Sonja’s face, Sonja’s face. How could everyone hang around acting normal when Sonja was—