by Rena Rocford
But it was easy for him to embrace his gryphon side. He was born into a community of gryphons, surrounded by them. They even had a special camp in the mountains. I’d found out I was a dragon days ago, and my aunt, my only other contact with dragons, had never once mentioned it.
I should hate Felix for running off without answering any of my questions. But if I hated him, why did I scream when he went over the cliff? I just couldn’t pin down anything about him.
The latex did the job well, filling in the cracks between my scales like skin. I added another coat to be sure, but it was practically overkill. And then, of course, I only had my touchup foundation, not the pancake I used at home.
Did I ever get to go home? Not Albuquerque, but would Mom’s next job be the one? The one where I’d get to join the drama club and build up some extracurricular activities to put on my college applications?
Dawn colored the sky, and I found myself eyeing last night’s dinner. I needed to eat something. Anything. And if it was already light out, then I needed to go find Felix’s father so he could tell me all about being a cranky, old, fire-puking betrayer.
I tried to calm myself with a few cleansing breaths, but it only stoked the fires still rolling in my belly. It didn’t seem fair that Felix could just fly away. I’d told him what I knew, and he still hadn’t explained anything.
When I stepped out of the cabin, the cold mountain air bit at my arms, but I didn’t go back for my jacket. No one else was up yet. At the stone fire pit, the ashes from the previous night’s barbeque blew in the soft breeze. Through the trees, I spotted the garage and the Lodge, and made my way to the log cabin of doom. To the west, the rocky ledge where Felix had flown away taunted me. Had he come back last night, or was he curled up on the cliffs in his feather-headed form?
A gryphon flew overhead, landing on a balcony of the Lodge. It hit the wooden deck with a not-so-subtle thunk, turned to look at me, and opened its beak. I expected a squeal or a squawk, but instead, he spoke.
“Meet me on the rocks,” he said.
I recognized the voice from last night as Felix’s father, Joe. I nodded, and the gryphon took to the air in three pounding wing beats. When I got to the rocks, my previous suspicions were confirmed. The boulders jutted out over a steep cliff, more than a hundred feet down to the first ledge. I stepped back from the edge. When I turned around, Felix’s father stood behind me, and for a wild second, I wondered if he was going to try to push me off.
I dropped into a crouch, and the fires surged within me.
His leather vest tightened as he laughed, and his whiskers curled. His beard mimicked the shape of a gryphon’s beak. Still, his laugh was hearty; it had none of the mocking Felix had last night. “You startle pretty easily for a dragon. Aren’t your kind supposed to be stoic, calm, and wise?”
“Uh, no?”
He laughed again.
“Look, I don’t mean to be rude, but if you brought me out here just to mock me, then why don’t you round everyone up and get a good solid laugh out of the way.”
“No need to get your feathers up,” he said, then sighed. “You remind me of better times.”
“Before all the kidnappings?”
“It seems I’ve been bad luck for my people.” He hobbled over to me. “And I wouldn’t try to push you off a cliff. You’d just fly back and bake me on the rocks. Only fools toy with dragons.”
“I don’t know how to fly.”
He looked down at me sharply. “That’s a shame. Is that why you wear so much makeup? To hide what you are? Or, just to hide yourself?”
“You sound like my mother.”
“And where is she?”
I deflated in a sigh. “Worried sick about me in Albuquerque. I didn’t want to tell her anything because the unicorns were spreading lies about Beth and me. They want to kill Beth because they think she’s working with me and the other trolls to kidnap their people.”
“Well, first things first.” Joe handed over a cell phone. “Call your mother. I won’t have her worrying, seeing as how the first thing the unicorns will do is leave her in the dark.”
I held the phone, but I didn’t want to make the call. I certainly didn’t want to call my mother in front of this grizzly gryphon biker gang leader. I thumbed the number in and Joe walked away, pretending to give me privacy.
It rang and I prayed she wouldn’t pick up. I could leave her a message. Yeah, that’s what I’d do, a message. Come on, come on, go to voicemail already.
Mom never picked up the phone for strange numbers.
The line clicked softly and I deflated.
“This is Catherine.”
“Mom?”
“Allyson? What’s going on?”
“Mom, I’m…” I’m what? Okay? Am I? What am I supposed to say? I have a letter from Dad and he wants Aunt Aggy to kill him with this special sword, but I can’t get it out of its casing. Oh, and I need to stop an army of trolls because I think they’re kidnapping people and making the unicorns crazy. Do you know anything about magic? Because these gryphons are completely worthless on that end.
“Honey, where are you?”
That stopped me. I didn’t really know. “Uh, somewhere in Nevada, I think.”
“Are you hurt?”
Only my pride. “No, Mom, I’m okay. I’m with some people.”
“Who?”
“Um, that’s sort of hard to explain.”
A brief silence hung on the phone. “Try me.”
The steel in her voice traveled up to my defiance switch. “Fine, Mom, I will tell you the truth. I’m currently camped out in the center of the base camp for a huge biker gang. Think Hell’s Angels but with gryphons instead.”
I drew breath to keep going, but my mother cut me off. “Are you with Hazel?”
“Who’s Hazel?” I asked.
Joe locked eyes with me.
“She was a friend of your father’s. I was supposed to go find her if things ever got crazy.”
I looked at Joe, and he watched me intently. They thought everyone from the fire died. But in the letter, my dad said he watched over Hazel. Was she still alive?
“Someone took her, I think. She isn’t here. Did you want to talk to Joe? He’s in charge now.”
“When are you coming home?”
“I don’t know, Mom, but you need to be careful around Dr. Targyne. He’s not all together truthful.” But not to worry, Mom, he’s a terrible shot.
“Just come home, and we’ll sort it all out. Please, Allyson, just come home.”
The thought of home swept through me. Sleeping in on Saturdays and watching stupid movies. Eating TV dinners and messing around on the Internet. But somewhere in San Francisco, my father was working for one Mr. Stein. Soon, Kurt would have my aunt, too. What would he use his army of trolls for? Could he conquer the world?
Or did he just need to conquer my father?
“I’m sorry, Mom.” I kicked a rock chip at my feet and it sailed over the edge of the cliff. “I can’t come home. I have to find Dad.” I pushed the button and hung up the phone.
Joe watched me, his mouth open.
“I think that went well. Next?”
Joe shut his mouth with a snap and took back his phone. “What games are you playing at, dragon?”
“I read it in a letter.”
He held up his hand. “Don’t say anything else. My people have keen ears. We should go somewhere more private.”
I looked around, but we were alone. The rocks were bare, but there were trees nearby. “Where?”
He pointed across the valley to a peak. The mountain on the opposite side of the flat-bottomed valley looked a long way off.
“It’s not like I can fly.”
Narrowing his eyes at me, Joe nodded and smiled the kind of smile better suited to Santa than a biker gang leader. “I’ll give you a lesson.” He walked to me and put a fatherly arm around my shoulders. Together, we walked to the edge of the cliff. “Feel that wind?” he asked, h
olding out his arm.
Air welled up from the edge of the cliff, lifting stray hairs. I put my hand into the wind. “Sure, I feel the wind.”
“Good, that’ll help. Just don’t fly into any rocks and you ought to be fine.”
He shoved me in the center of my back, and I fell forward into the empty air. Wind tore at me as I plunged over the edge. Time slowed, and vivid details jumped out at me. The rocks below were layered and grey, and even as I tumbled through the air, I spotted sea shells imbedded in the same surface I would splatter across if I didn’t figure out how to fly in two nanoseconds.
Fire rushed from my lungs with an overwhelming taste of ammonia, and I blew out a fireball, setting my shirt ablaze. The flames ate away at me, licking up my sides, fuelled by the rushing wind. Almost as suddenly, my burning clothes peeled away. A second set of arms unfolded from my shoulders. Air caught around my flapping arms.
Wings! I had wings!
Air scooped into my wings, but they couldn’t stretch out like I’d imagined. It was like trying to run in a pair of really tight jeans.
With one last tear, something snapped free, and my wings sprang open.
I flapped frantically, and at the last minute, I veered away from the rocks. My claws scraped across the fossil-filled stone, and I pushed out into the air over the valley. The wind rushed around me, and I flailed desperately. My wings knew more than I did, however, and they carried me away from the cliff and spiraled down.
Joe flew next to me in his gryphon form. “Now, flap your wings to stay aloft.”
I drew my wings down, and the surge yanked me to the left. With wings to catch the wind, the air suddenly had substance, like water, but it rippled around me unexpectedly. A tiny tweak of my wing sent me veering toward the ground, but I recovered before I hit dirt. I climbed through the sky until the air was cold, and we soared across the desert valley. I was free of gravity.
The distant mountains grew less distant, and Joe spiraled down onto the rocky crag at the top. He shouted directions, but the wind stole his words away before they reach me. He cleared the landing spot and watched expectantly.
I swooped down toward the mountaintop. The rocks rushed up at me, and I had a second of panic. If I missed, I’d brain myself on the rocks. If I made it, I’d brain myself on the rocks. I scooped my wings and curled up at the last minute. I’d lost a lot of height, so I pounded the sky with my wings, circling around for another try. As I came up again, I spotted a pile of feathers curled into the rocks just below the summit. Before I could think about remembering to say something, the peak came at me again. I back winged, scooping the air and flapping hard. I caught the edge of a boulder with my back leg, and I curled my toes over it, clutching tight. My claws squealed against the rock’s surface, but held. I folded my wings back, and the airstream lost its purchase on me.
“Not bad for your first molt!” Joe yelled over the wind.
“Is that how you train all your children?”
He laughed. “No, just the ones with talent.”
I blinked, but I had a desire to scratch my scales clean on the rocks. I sank to my belly, and moved across the stone to ease my itching. I wanted to roll like a dog but felt like that might somehow be considered rude. Instead, I surreptitiously smoothed my elbows along the rocks as though sweeping away stones and dust. The rock beneath was polished smooth, and as I pushed aside a pile of sand, I found a half buried scale the size of my head. It was dark blue and dull. The luster of it had faded in the sun, and one side was cracked.
“Your father came here often.”
“This is his?”
“Yes. I come here and think about back then, and wonder what went wrong.” He looked back toward the Aerie for a moment, before he turned his blue eyes on me. “So, tell me what happened. I’ve never heard his side of the story.”
“I’ve never met him, you know that?”
“I do.” His words came out in a puff of air that twitched up the feathers on the back of his head. “No flying creature would leave their children without knowing how to fly, not even a dragon. That, more than anything, tells me you’ve never met your father.”
“How do you stay hidden?”
“Luck and tales. We don’t fly during the daytime very often, and there’s a risk.”
“What if the government finds you?”
“There’re no laws against being a gryphon. I studied law for a time. I even passed the Bar some years back.”
The idea of the leather clad biker wearing a suit and buried in books made me laugh. A gout of flame escaped my snout. Joe ducked out of the way, smoothing back his feathers to keep them out of the fire. I snapped my jaw shut, and smoke tricked from my nostrils in lazy trails.
“You need to learn control,” he said, feathers slicked back hard against his body.
“Sorry.”
“Don’t say you’re sorry. Do the deed; learn control. You’ll puke less after.”
I felt something like the heated flush of blushing. “You know about that?”
“Your father complained about it.”
“Did you know him well?”
“I knew his mother.” His eyes searched the sky for the past, and I wished he could hand me his memories. Then he sighed, and, finding the sky empty of old friends, he turned back to me. “You’re not the first dragon to sun on that rock.”
“What was she like?”
“Your grandmother?” A laugh escaped his beak. “She was fierce, refined, beautiful–for a dragon–and motivated. She wanted to bring all the Kin together. She thought if we worked together we could overcome our differences and learn how to live with humans. In the open and everything. After she died, your father took up her cause for a time. That’s when I knew him. He was like a darker copy of her, stormcast to her sunny day.”
I held my breath and waited for more straws of my family to fall from the gryphon’s beak. The wind moaned through the rocks, and the desert seemed like a very lonely place, full of terrible dark secrets. How could they live here? There was more life in Albuquerque, and that was full of dead lawns and dormant trees.
“I’d like to hear what you know of that night. It has long haunted me,” he said. “I thought he was like his mother, and I’ve often wondered if my folly was in trusting him as I believed in her.”
“All I can tell you is what he wrote in the letter.”
“I’m all ears.”
“He said that he lit the fire because Kurt Stein knew where the Aerie was. He was trying to clear people out. His letter said Stein had captured Hazel, but she was growing weaker.”
Joe closed his eyes. A deep keening noise rose from his throat, and I tilted my head.
“What did the letter say about Hazel?”
“It said she was weak, and being drained. He said he checked on her frequently, but Stein was using her blood to fuel a spell.”
The feathers on top of Joe’s head shot up like a cockatiel’s. “Spell? What spell?”
“A spell to control the trolls and my father.”
Joe hopped to his lionish feet and paced. “But what does an investment broker need with trolls?”
“In his letter, my father wrote that Stein had stolen my grandfather’s memories.”
Joe stopped pacing, his eyes wide. “Stein is the thief?” He looked back and forth, as if checking the sky for this evil figure. “We have to go, there’s no time to lose.”
“Wait!”
At the sound of Felix’s voice, we both turned to the cliff’s edge.
Felix hauled himself up over the edge, claws scarring the rocks in his hurry. He mantled his golden feathers. “What about Mom? Did he say anything about Lucia?” Felix’s feathers glinted in the sun as they stood up and smoothed down like a dog perking his ears.
“Damn it, boy, we have more important things to do.”
“More important than Lucia?”
Joe snapped his beak. “We have to move everyone. The whole clan. Today.”
Felix�
��s eyes darted from his father to me. “Did he say anything about Lucia?”
I shook my head.
Joe fretted, caught in his guilt. “I gave him directions to the shop. We have to hurry.”
“I’m going after Mom and Lucia,” Felix said.
“No. You’ll help your clan, not chase dreams. There’s no way to know if she’s there, or even still alive.”
“What if Jessie’s with them?” Felix asked.
Joe stopped, and the tension that held his body reminded me of a bow, poised to shoot. “There was no mention of Jessie or Lucia. And the only–only!–mention of your mother said she was weak. That letter could have been written years ago.” He curled his neck, tucking his beak into his chest, before shaking his enormous head. “No. We have a responsibility. We have to move the clan. Besides, where would you look?”
“Pier 22 1/2,” I said.
They both looked at me as though surprised to see me still here. I shrank down to the stones.
“Felix, you don’t know what you’re talking about. The thief is very dangerous. Even if you went, you would have no way to defend yourself.”
Felix ruffled his feathers. “I’d be going with a dragon.” He pointed a paw at me. “She breathes fire!”
“She’s just a girl, and the thief has power over her kind. Dragons don’t come back.” Joe turned to me. “It’s what happened to your grandmother.”
My mouth went dry, and the cruel desert wind stung my eyes. My grandmother. “She fought?”
Joe’s brows drew together. “She thought we could change the world.” He shook his head. “When the thief took her, she fought. The fire scorched the ground. So many people died.”
Felix narrowed his eyes. “We’re not trying to change the world, Dad. I just want to save Mom, and Jessie, and Lucia.”
Eyes pinching shut, Joe shook his head. “No! He’d steal her, and then you’d just be fighting everything. We have to protect our people.”
“But Dad–”
“No! I’ve been down this road before. We are going to protect the people we have.” His breath came in a deep gulp, his voice cracking. He coughed, and when he spoke, he pitched his voice low and hard. “You have a duty to the clan. We will protect our own. And that’s my final word. I forbid you to leave, even after we move the Aerie. I won’t lose anyone else.”