“That sounds a little like bed-wetting,” Rose’s mother said thoughtfully. “I’ve had some experience with that. Sara wet the bed until she was ten years old, and she sometimes then got out of bed and proceeded to dampen the hallway.”
“Mamaaaaaaaaa!” Sara squealed in humiliation.
“He’s a little young for potty-training,” Henry said defensively. “He just hatched two months ago.”
“Perhaps so,” Rose’s mother agreed. “But this was almost a separate issue. Sara was already potty-trained.”
Sara’s face was scarlet, and she looked ready to hit somebody.
“You might try having him breathe out all the fire he can right before bed,” Rose’s mother said. “It might not solve the problem entirely, but it might help. If he doesn’t need to eat in the middle of the night anymore, it might even solve most of the problem.”
Rose gaped at Henry. He looked as stunned as she felt.
Did we go to the wrong people for advice? Rose thought. Instead of dragon experts, should we have gone to other parents?
Perhaps this blizzard was not a curse. Perhaps this blizzard was a Christmas miracle. That might have been exactly the advice they needed.
“Let’s try it tonight,” Rose said. “We’ll see if it makes any difference.”
As if on cue, Virgil wriggled and his eyes opened. Were his parents thinking about him? Were they thinking they wanted him to breathe fire? He would do it. He knew how to make his nostrils snort. Snort, snort, snort . . .
Henry yelped and raced for the kitchen. Rose raced after him and flung open the oven door. Just on time, because a roar of flame escaped Virgil’s nose and blasted against the back, longer and louder than she had ever seen before.
No doubt a product of the child eating so much extra dinner.
Rose looked back at the doorway, where her mother was watching with an open mouth.
“Yes, he does that,” Rose said. “That’s why we’re concerned.”
“Wait till I tell my friends about this,” Louise breathed.
“Why didn’t you do that in the fireplace?” Sara asked.
“Because they didn’t think of it, because they don’t have one,” Louise informed her.
Virgil felt better now. His stomach didn’t hurt anymore. Something else hurt now. It was his . . .
Henry yelped again and raced up the stairs for the bathroom.
“Where is he going now?” Louise demanded.
“To change Virgil’s diaper, and perhaps his own clothes if he wasn’t in time,” Rose said wearily. “Virgil really did eat a lot of food. Excuse me while I go up to help.”
Chapter 10: Choice
Rose woke up before anyone else, eyes wide open as she lay on the floor outside the bathroom door. She wasn’t sure why she had woken up, and the pile of blankets on top of her was warm, while the air on her face felt bitter cold, so her eyes drifted shut again.
Hungry! So hungry! Virgil was hungry, hungry, hungry! He would share it with his mother! HUNGRY HUNGRY HUNGRY!
Rose’s eyes flew open again as the terrible feeling slammed into her mind. It was painful and persistent, and impossible to ignore.
HUNGRY HUNGRY HUNGRY!
Did I oversleep? Rose thought blearily. She rubbed her eyes and reluctantly dragged herself out from under the blankets. Goosebumps immediately prickled all over her arms, so she picked up the two blankets and flung one around her shoulders like a cape, then pulled the other one around her waist and tucked it in at the top, like a skirt. It dragged on the floor as she walked, but that didn’t matter.
“Wait patiently, Virgil,” she mumbled, knowing he would catch her meaning whether he could hear her through the bathroom door or not. She shuffled down the hallway, away from the range of Virgil’s telepathic wailing.
Why was the child so hungry now, right when it was extra cold and that made it especially inconvenient? It was like the way he had chosen to hatch on the day of their wedding. Virgil’s timing was exceptional, and not in a preferable way.
She shuffled down the stairs and turned on the light in the kitchen. The clock on the mantel took her aback.
Four o’clock in the morning? It’s four o’clock in the morning? He usually eats at midnight, and that keeps him content until six!
This was not a good precedent. He’d eaten half the chicken last night; at this rate, the rest would be gone by lunchtime. Even if a butcher’s shop was open on Christmas Day, they had no way of leaving the house currently. And that chicken had been intended to last Virgil nearly a week.
Why is he so hungry? Rose thought in frustration. She pulled the chicken out of the icebox, discovered it was nearly frozen, and turned on the stove and placed it in a pan to thaw. Impervious to cold he might be, but the chicken had to be sufficiently soft, or he might choke on it.
Rose cut off a piece of the hard stick of butter and dropped it in the pan to warm up . . . and then she stopped.
Is he impervious to cold weather?
She had assumed he was, because he did not seem to be able to sense hot or cold. He also did not seem to get sick. But perhaps the change in temperature affected him in other ways.
Virgil’s warm-blooded, Rose thought slowly. Even if this had not been conclusively determined by researchers studying him and Violet, it would be obvious just by the fact that he stays warm even while out in the cold. He clearly regulates his own temperature. He keeps himself warm.
Doing that requires energy. That’s absolutely unavoidable. So what if . . .
Rose stared down at the pan, frowning, as the butter bubbled and the chicken began to simmer. She turned it over slightly so that another side could warm up.
What if the cold weather is what’s causing this increased appetite? What if the increased appetite is what’s causing him to wake up outside of his normal schedule? Eating more would also result in the creation of more flammable gas, which might have been useful for adult dragons if they used that to create fires to keep themselves warm, or to kill prey for extra food. But in the human era, with the advent of central heating and wooden homes, it’s just dangerous . . .
It all fit together, and it was so obvious that she couldn’t believe she hadn’t seen it before.
Rose held the cold top of the chicken with one hand while she pried warm chunks off the bottom with a fork, then dropped them into a bowl. She poured the melted butter, which was now rather brown, out into the bowl, too. Then she added a cracked egg and about a tablespoon of water, and mixed them thoroughly.
By the time she brought the bowl upstairs, Virgil was —
HUNGRY! HUNGRY HUNGRY HUNGRY!
“I know,” Rose said. “I brought food.”
HUNGRY HUNGRY HUNGRY! HUNGRY HUNGRY HUNGRY!
“Here,” Rose said in exasperation, holding out the bowl in front of his face. “Here’s food. Do you want it?”
Virgil’s tail lashed out and whacked the bowl out of her hands. It toppled and spilled across his head.
Virgil opened his mouth in fury. He was very upset! He was angry! He was hungry! No one was feeding him! He was going to scr—
Rose snatched a shred of chicken and hastily shoved it into his open mouth.
Virgil shut his mouth. This was food in his mouth. This was food in his mouth. Yes. This was food.
Virgil wanted more food now.
Rose fed him the rest of the bowl’s contents, and before Virgil could gripe that he still wanted more, she removed the blanket from her shoulders and draped it on top of him.
Virgil was still hungry! Virgil wanted more food! Virgil was under something soft. It was like the soft floor. Why had Virgil’s mother put the soft floor on him?
“We’re going to test something out,” Rose said. “We’re going to see if wrapping you in blankets is sufficient. We have the option of putting you in a cage, but if this works, I think it is a much better choice.”
Virgil didn’t understand. The soft floor on top of him was soft. Maybe he would take a nap now.
Rose waited until Virgil’s eyes were closed, his mind was no longer letting out quiet murmurs, and she saw no signs of sparks flying from his nose. Then she stood, rubbing her arms to stop the goosebumps, and headed to the hall closet to find another blanket. She was fairly certain there was at least one more that was not being used.
She started to make a bed for herself on the floor again, and then she stopped. She walked down the hallway and peered in at Henry sleeping, snoring softly.
I’m awake, Rose thought. We’re in a house with a working stove. I have no homework to do right now.
She picked up the new blanket, wrapped it around her shoulders, and headed back down to the kitchen to make Henry a hot meal for Christmas.
Chapter 11: Cherished
In the morning, apologies made and Henry wildly enthusiastic about his breakfast, Rose gathered up Virgil from the bathtub, and she carried him downstairs still wrapped in blankets.
“Do you think we could have him sleep in the bathtub at home, instead of the oven?” Henry asked excitedly. “If we did, could we reconnect the gas and have actual cooked food every day?”
Don’t get ahead of yourself, Rose thought. I still have homework most days, and a longer commute to school than you. If you start darning your own socks, we’ll see.
But that was a conversation they could have on another day. For now, it was Christmas.
She watched her family members open presents under the tree with some regret. All the presents she and Henry had bought for each other, and for Virgil, were back at the apartment. Virgil would not be getting his stuffed animal prey today.
“Here!” Louise said, handing a lumpy package to Rose. “For you!”
Rose opened it. A terribly-knitted scarf was within. She fingered the holes and uneven stitches. “Thank you,” she said, touched. “Did you make it yourself?”
“Nope, I made Sara do it for me,” Louise said proudly.
“For you!” their mother told Sara, handing her a large box.
“Is it the new dress I asked for?!” Sara squealed, ripping it open.
“For you!” Rose’s father declared.
Henry took the package, looking startled. “For . . . me?”
Rose’s father nodded. “That’s right. Bought it myself.”
Henry opened the paper slowly. Inside was a package of expensive-looking cigars.
“I don’t smoke,” he said flatly.
Rose’s father grinned.
“And I have a present for Virgil,” Sara added, walking over with an oddly-shaped package in her hand. “Want to open it?”
Virgil was busy rolling around in the loud stuff. It was really fun.
“Come on, there’s wrapping paper right here,” Sara coaxed, holding the somewhat-tapered brown package out. “You can roll on the paper, or shred it, and even keep what’s inside.”
Virgil didn’t know. He liked the loud stuff he had right now.
Sara walked over to Virgil and picked him up out of the pile of discarded brown wrapping paper, which was now looking more crinkled and shredded than ever. She placed the protesting, wriggling dragon on her lap.
“Here,” Sara said, grabbing an end. “I’ll help you. You pull it like this . . .”
Virgil didn’t want to pull it. Virgil wanted to play in the loud stuff. Virgil tried to get down.
Sara caught him before he fell all the way off her lap. She held him with one arm while she unwrapped his present with the other. It was a shiny metal bucket with the handle removed.
“You see?” Sara said excitedly. “Look how much fun this’ll be!”
Virgil ignored the bucket and clawed at the wrapping paper which was now all over her lap. He liked that there was now loud stuff to play with.
Sara leaned over and put the bucket on the ground. She picked up Virgil and deposited him in it.
“Um —” Rose began, alarmed.
Sara tipped the bucket onto its side and gave it a mighty shove. It rolled in an arc across the room and slammed into a wall.
“Virgil!” Henry shouted, jumping to his feet.
Virgil’s head poked out of the bucket. That had been fast. That had been fun. Could Virgil do it again?
“Yes!” Sara shouted. “I knew he would like it!”
Rose rubbed her forehead. This wasn’t a game she would have encouraged, but as Virgil seemed unharmed, she supposed she couldn’t object. Not for now, anyway. She might hide the bucket when they got home.
Henry put his hand on top of hers, and Rose looked after at him. He smiled. She smiled, and leaned into his shoulder.
When they got home, they’d need to talk about whose responsibilities were actually whose. However sincere his apology had been this morning, he needed to be told that his assumptions did not match hers, nor the reality of her quantity of schoolwork. Still, there would no doubt be compromises that could be made.
If hot meals were what mattered to him, perhaps she could find time to do that daily if he took charge of the laundry. She would not mind giving up washing Virgil’s disgusting diapers. If laundry was what mattered to him, he could take charge of the groceries. If groceries were what mattered to him, he could take Virgil’s midnight feeding so that she could wake up an hour earlier and buy groceries before class. And no matter what, he could darn his own socks, thank you.
“You know what?” Henry murmured, squeezing her hand. “I think this wound up being a nice Christmas after all. I wasn’t sure it would be.”
Rose smiled and squeezed his hand back. They watched their son use his tail to shove himself off from the wall and roll in the bucket for a ways. They watched Louise chase after him and fight with Sara over who got to push the bucket next. They watched her father catch the bucket and then hold it hostage while Virgil protested his new lack of mobility.
I hope the next dragon to hatch will be as lucky, Rose thought. I hope he or she will be as cherished.
Of course, she did not know for certain that a third dragon would hatch. But she could hope so.
And on a beautiful Christmas morning, surrounded by family and a tree that was not charred and had not fallen over, hope seemed more than sufficient.
Next Book:
When Rose decided to correct an arrogant woman about her wrongheaded belief that dragons were not intelligent, it resulted in an unexpected complication: now that woman wants a dragon egg of her own.
Hearing the news that two new eggs have awakened, Rose rushes with her dragon son to the museum in hopes of preventing such a catastrophe.
You can get it here.
The villains are dead. The world is at peace. And now the magical girls want to conquer it.
Chronos has the power to see the future, and that’s the future Chronos foresees. All she wants is to get a good night’s sleep, so she decides to have a simple conversation with the fated ringleader in hopes that it will set that horrible future straight.
But Kendra is not an easy person to convince. Kendra wants to save the world. And if she has to cram that down the world’s throat, well, so be it.
You can get it here.
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