by A Corrin
The only possible way to defeat them is to cut through them with a sharp water-based tool like a trident or a harpoon, but they must be vanquished swiftly, for their songs, lilting and sweet, entice many sailors to their doom, persuading them overboard into the water and then into the siren’s mouth—sailors being their only food source.
“Uugh!” I groaned and flipped way past the page.
“Jon,” Nikki said in a marveling tone of voice. She had turned to a page in the griffin book that was all taken up by a collage of faces. Young kids around my age, shadowed and unsmiling. Nikki went to turn the page, but I held it down and raised a finger in a wait gesture. I read silently:
Many youthful hearts, uncorrupted as of yet by the world, are called “griffin-hearted.” But only the wise, strong, and courageous can claim the honor of taking on a griffin’s form…
I stopped reading and let Nikki go on, reaching for another scone. Those kids’ faces had just been so real and forlorn, as if they had somehow aged into early adulthood. I returned to my book, wondering who those kids had been, and saw that when I’d flipped past the section on sirens, I’d landed on a section about creatures called “Rankers.”
A large picture showed a tall, thin, hooded and robed guy holding a rapier to his chest. Little was written about him, but what small amount of information there was, was interesting, however morbid.
Rankers are creatures born of nightmares and sinister thoughts, and they are the eternal foe of the griffin. They fight using an arsenal of dark powers; they can vanish into and control darkness, turn invisible, and anything else that will intimidate and cow their foe, for Rankers are essentially spirits that have no moral conscience, appetite, or heart, but a cunning disposition.
Rankers can only be vanquished by brave and determined hearts, but they are hard to find: each has its own “other self,” a disguise used to spy on their victims without taking on their mysterious and frightful cloaked form.
“What are those?” Nikki asked with distaste. “They look like grim reapers or something.”
“Rankers,” I murmured.
“I guess not all creatures are as good as mermaids, huh?” Nikki chortled. Thinking of the sirens I’d read about, I cleared my throat and muttered, “Nope, not all of ’em.”
Nikki and I snacked and browsed through the books until we decided to be productive and work on homework. Somewhere in the middle of the essay I was supposed to be writing about Jane Eyre, I nodded off and slipped into another world.
The grass was dry and warm. It prickled my face and clothes. The crusty weeds tangled in my eyelashes, and I lifted my head to open my eyes. Everything had that strange, wobbly quality that dreams usually have, like I was seeing things through a filter on my phone, but that sun was uncannily warm on my back and that grass was so realistically poky that for a few moments I was disoriented and dizzy. What the hell?
I sat up quick-like and found that I was in the middle of a ring of white flowers. What the hell? The ring was in the center of a meadow surrounded by very old-looking conifer trees. The uncannily fresh blue sky was cloudless. I began to sweat as the sun beat down hard on me.
Something moved off to my right, and I looked to see that it was an elderly, dark-skinned man with a long, full white beard and a bald head. He wore a white button-up shirt tucked into some old patchy jeans. His eyes were a wolfy-silver color, and the sun seemed to make them glow. He had been waiting for me to notice his presence, and now he smiled softly.
“Where am I?” I called over to him. When he didn’t answer: “Who are you?”
He ignored me and beckoned me over with his hand, still beaming. I stood and stalked closer.
He produced from his pocket a violet-colored pill that looked like a jelly bean and placed it in my palm, closing my fingers around it. He nodded in encouragement, and I gave him a sardonic, are you serious? look.
The man laughed. “Every dream needs a focal point,” he said, his voice rich and deep and warm. “If you dream about flying you focus on the mechanics of the flight. If you dream about riding horses, the focus is on the feel of the animal beneath you. I want to have a chat and I don’t want you drifting away. This will help you focus.”
He patted my hand, urging me to eat the bean. I looked around, feeling helpless. There was still no one else around, no buildings or streets that I could see that marked civilization.
“This is a dream, right?” I asked. My voice sounded muffled and distorted. My head was foggy.
“Of course,” the man said in a friendly way.
“If this is a roofie or something, I’m gonna kick your ass,” I said to the old man, and he guffawed at me. I licked the pill, then swallowed it before I could change my mind. It didn’t make me feel any better or worse, and it tasted minty and slightly herbal.
“Good,” the man said. “Now keep thinking of that pill, the taste of it, the feel of it in your hand and going down your throat and we can chat for a bit.”
Immediately my mind started to clear. It was the strangest feeling—I recognized that I was dreaming, but I didn’t wake up. If anything the sensations of that meadow became more real. The air was a tangible element against my skin. Gravity held me firmly to the ground. The vanilla-like scent of the flowers filled my lungs. It felt like I had just stepped from my world into another.
“This is the weirdest dream I’ve ever had,” I remarked faintly, looking around at the trees. Would the dragon from my other dreams come blasting out of the clouds? Would the man who murdered my mom rise up out of the long grass?
“I don’t have long,” the stranger said to me. “But I want to help prepare you for what’s coming.” His silver eyes hooked me, and I returned my attention to him. The taste of mint still chilled my mouth.
“What’s...what’s coming?” I asked.
The man blinked. “Change.”
I stumbled a little bit as the ground swayed beneath me, like I was about to faint. The man stuck out a hand and gripped my shoulder.
“Listen, kid. Things are getting bad and they’re only gonna get worse. You’ve been chosen by Michael, one of the Celestials, to take the throne.”
“The hell’re you talking about? What throne?”
The man didn’t appear pleased at my tone. He tightened his grip on my arm.
“Listen. You’ve been chosen because of who you are, and what you’re capable of. But there are...people out there that don’t like who you are and they hate what you may become. They’re going to try coming for you, and you need to be ready. You need to take care of yourself until you’re ready to come here.”
“Come where?” I snapped. This guy was really getting on my nerves. The ground shook again. I stumbled but caught myself this time and the stranger let me go. “Is this about the dragon? Where’s the dragon? Do I need to fight it again?”
This time the man smiled as if he were proud of me. He gave me a long, searching look and said, “No, son. But you will be ready soon.”
“When?”
“When your eyes begin to reflect your heart. This is the sign Michael has granted to let you know that the time has come, and to let the world know that someone will sit on the throne again.”
“Who are you?” I asked again.
“My name is Peter,” the man said. “See you soon, son. It’s an honor to finally meet you.”
The ground bucked and I woke up on the carpet of Nikki’s room with my face on the paper I’d been writing.
The first thing I did was suck in a long, loud breath as if I’d just come up from underwater, and Nikki gave a leap of surprise where she sat reading on her bed.
“Sheez, Jonathan!” She laughed, clutching her heart.
I scrambled up onto my hands and knees, massaging my eyes. “Whoa, what a trip!” I said. Sudden energy zipped through my limbs like an adrenaline rush, and I stood up and started to p
ace.
Now Nikki looked concerned. She set her pencil down and leaned forward. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” I said, breathless. “I just had the most lucid dream.” My foot brushed one of the new books and nudged it across the floor. I looked down at them. The red one was open to the title page, and I saw the author’s name scrawled neatly beneath the weird symbol: Peter Malone. I laughed at myself. It hadn’t been real. It couldn’t have been real. It was just the result of a combination of confronting Garrett, reading the books, and dreaming of fighting dragons.
That’s what I told myself. I wasn’t sure I believed it.
Chapter Five:
Moving Shadows
I had dinner with Nikki and her parents that evening, which was a somewhat nerve-wracking affair on my part because Nikki’s dad questioned me persistently about my career aspirations, my grades, and whether or not I understood the importance of a 401K. Afterwards she offered to drive me home, but I didn’t want to chance her seeing Dad, so I declined and started the long walk by myself in the darkness.
I used the time to myself to think about all of the strange things that were happening and tried to figure out why and when they’d started. I’d always had pretty wild, vivid dreams, ever since I was a kid. But the one I’d had at Nikki’s was something else. It had felt so real.
When I made it to my house, I saw that Dad was already home from work. That was a good thing—it meant he was probably safely passed out in his favorite armchair. I entered with silent steps and poked my head in the living room again to check on him. Sure enough, there he was, snoring like a freight train. The television was stationed to the news and I lingered a moment to listen to the reports. More weird things were happening across the world—and not just crimes but catastrophes too: an earthquake had leveled a town in Texas; floods were obliterating villages in South America; a freak lightning storm had taken out some Russian farmer’s entire herd of cattle.
No one had any explanations. The reporters made weak half jokes about it being the end of the world, but most everyone seemed convinced it was global warming, or an indication of shifting tectonic plates or a harsh winter. I wasn’t so sure, but there wasn’t much I was sure about at the moment. A part of me felt like I was missing something—like I was looking too close at a string, not realizing that it was connected to a bunch of others, forming a web.
I took some generic, over-the-counter sleep meds that I found in Dad’s bathroom and for the rest of the evening until they kicked in, I read from my new books about dragons, unicorns, the wingspans and types of griffins. The books didn’t give me any answers, but they helped to distract me from the strong feeling that, like Peter had said in my dream, big changes were coming.
I felt much better the next day after a night of dreamless sleep. Avoiding Dad, I snuck outside and caught the bus to school, where I met my friends in the cafeteria. I was still the recipient of a lot of unwanted attention and a few underclassmen heralded me as “Hero He’klarr” when I passed their table, but for the most part the popular topic of my snowboarding adventure had transformed into something else: word had finally gotten out about my confrontation with Garrett in the diner and the rumors were spreading like wildfire.
“Did you actually hit him?” one of my classmates asked under her breath in English class. “I heard Jonathan gave him a concussion,” I heard someone else tell their friend on my way to algebra. “Jonathan needs to be careful,” a junior said sagely to her friends as Tyson and I passed her on our way to PE, “Doesn’t Garrett, like, collect knives or something?” I wondered exactly how many kids in the school had anticipated the storm between Garrett and me to break and for someone to put the bully in his place. And what did Garrett think of all of the talk? Although he and I made it a point to try and stay out of each other’s way, I doubted he’d approve of all of the unsavory gossip going around on his behalf.
But that was another thing. Garrett had seemed pretty eager for a fight, but I hadn’t seen him at all the past couple of days—not even a glimpse. He wasn’t a paragon of perfect attendance or anything, and maybe he was just staying home for whatever reason, but after our heart-to-heart in the restroom of the diner I had the feeling that fighting me had become his top priority. Was he scared? Waiting to jump me in between classes?
As I dressed down into my sweats in the locker rooms off the gym, my mind started to overflow with everything that had happened over the past few days. Thoughts circled my mind on a loop: Garrett wants to fight. I want to fight him. Nikki says that means I’m giving in. Am I? Am I still a hero if I want to get in a fight with someone? What do I believe in? What do I stand for?
I thought of the books Josiah had given me. Was I a monster? Something angry and violent and sadistic like a...what were they called...Ranker? Or was I a knight in shining armor? A griffin?
When I closed my locker and made to enter the gym, Tyson took my arm and pulled me aside. His face was serious and concerned, which was so out-of-character for Ty that I did a double take around the emptying locker rooms, expecting to see Garrett emerge from a bathroom stall and square up for a brawl.
Instead Tyson asked, “How do you feel?”
“Um. Tired, I guess?” I frowned at him.
He grunted. “Your dad give you another rough morning?”
“No, he was asleep when I woke up. What’s with the questions?”
“You seemed a little out of it. I wanted to make sure the rumors weren’t getting to you. Wanted to check if your head’s in the game.” Tyson gave me a wan, supportive smile.
“In the game? Ty,” I lowered my voice as the last three guys left the locker rooms, chatting about their web design class. “Garrett doesn’t want to play tennis, okay? This isn’t pro-wrestling. He wants a full-blown fight.”
Tyson waved his hands in the air like I was an over-excited dog that needed shushing and said, “Okay, okay, okay, yes. I know. And I know I stopped you at the diner and I know that Nikki doesn’t want you to fight. And Vince would kill you if you got kicked off the team. It’s just… We all knew this was going to happen sometime, right?”
“Who’s we?” I nudged around him and led the way out into the hall. We cut through the gymnasium toward the doors that would lead outside to the track and Tyson gestured broadly at the underclassmen playing basketball.
“We, you know...Ben, Vince, Lia, Kitty...everyone in the school. It’s about time, too.”
I scoffed. “No pressure.”
Tyson seemed insistent that I get the point he was trying to make before our shoes hit the track rubber. “Even before what happened with Nikki, Garrett’s made it his mission to kick you whenever you’re down. And you’ve gotten in fights for a lot less than the hell he’s put you and Nikki through. It’s like you’ve been saving this fight.”
I didn’t say anything, but I considered his words. Had I been saving this fight? Or avoiding it for Nikki’s sake? Neither of those felt right. I didn’t want to make Nikki angry or do anything to jeopardize the hard work I’d put into getting on the team and maintaining a positive school record. But my enmity with Garrett went deeper than a petty dislike and a stupid fistfight. I remembered the vacant, crocodilian gleam in his eyes at the diner and felt a prickle of fear crawl along my skin.
“I want to fight him because I hate him,” I murmured, and Tyson leaned closer to hear me better. “But that doesn’t mean it’s the right thing to do.”
“What if it’s the only thing to do?” Tyson replied just as softly. “You can’t reason with someone like Garrett. He almost killed that kid on the slopes for a laugh. Nikki had to see a counselor for a few weeks after the things he said he wanted to do to her.”
I lowered my eyes, feeling the heat of old anger creep up my cheeks. Garrett had been forced to go to counseling as well, and somehow he’d ended up convincing his teachers and the school psychologist that his lascivio
us words had been the result of deep-seated trauma and self-loathing. They’d made him write Nikki a ridiculous apology and signed him off as genuinely repentant.
Tyson elbowed me, watching me think. “Garrett’s your Everest,” he said. “He’s the dragon you have to vanquish.”
I looked up sharply. The vision from the past few nights, me gearing up to slay a fire-breathing monster, flashed through my mind. Maybe fighting Garrett was the right thing to do. Maybe this was my chance to be that knight in shining armor. To not only defeat the dragon and spare myself future misery, but to defeat the dragon because it meant sparing others, like Carl and Nikki and anyone else Garrett tormented, as well.
“Huh,” I said thoughtfully. “Thanks, Ty. It’s a lot to think about.”
Tyson clicked his tongue at me. He patted my back and started trotting over to his girlfriend Lia. “No prob. Whatever you decide, just promise me that you won’t start anything until I get back from the wedding, okay? I wouldn’t miss this brawl for the world!”
The next morning in English class I texted Tyson goodbye and told him to have fun at his sister’s wedding, even though he’d already caught the flight and wouldn’t get my message until he landed. My teacher, a man who before had harbored a noticeable dislike for me, called my name as “Hero He’klarr” for attendance. He gave me a sly smile, and I worked my facial muscles into what I hoped was a pleasant grin and returned to doodling mean caricatures of him and his horrific ear hair in the margins of my notebook.
Twenty minutes into class the intercom beeped on, and everyone silenced and perked up, hoping for an announcement worthy enough to release them from the torture of trying to understand Shakespeare. The principal’s voice was somber and forlorn. He started out by clearing his throat. Bad sign. I anxiously tapped my pencil’s eraser on the desktop.