by Ty Burson
Steve hesitated. He hadn’t told her about spying on his dad; he’d been afraid he would get in trouble. So, he took a deep breath and shook his head no.
Granny stroked his hair and smiled, “It’ll be okay.”
It occurred to Steve in that moment that unless he told her everything, it wouldn’t be okay. So, he told her about hiding in the truck and watching his father the night he dumped the fish guts into the weird, breathing hole. And for some reason, it made him feel better. Better even than when he told his friends; maybe his grandmother could help him understand what was happening.
Granny rose and paced back and forth along the porch. To Steve, it seemed like she was trying to make up her mind about something. “Stevie,” she started, “there’s a lot to tell you. You may not be able to understand all of it; I’m 72 years old and even I don’t understand all of it, but we’ll try, together.”
She sat back down and scooted her folding lawn chair next to Steve. The chair was completely out of place among all the natural wood furniture, but Granny claimed the other stuff was beginning to hurt her butt. “All right,” she began, “let’s start by going back a long time ago. You know that your dad’s side of the family came from Portugal, right? Even though we’ve lived here for quite a long time, we can trace our family back hundreds of years to a little fishing village in the home country. That’s where the story really starts.”
She dipped two fingers into her drink, pinched out an ice cube, and flicked it at the semi-domesticated raccoon that had been drawn to the porch by the lingering smells. She gave the little critter a disapproving look and continued, “The story goes that the village, though very poor, was also very lucky. You know how dangerous it is to fish out in the open ocean, don’t you? Imagine how it was back then, a couple of hundred years ago. Back then, villages lost men to the sea all the time. But not in this village—in this village, the fishermen almost always returned safely.”
Before Granny could continue, she was interrupted by the striped bandit, which must have climbed around the backside of the porch and located a piece of discarded cake. It was presently standing on its hind legs, delicately licking its sticky fingers, a small pile of crumbs at its feet. “You’re going to get sick, you little thief,” Granny scolded. “Anyway, what was I saying? Oh, yes, the people of the village. They had hard lives, but for the times they lived in, they lived well. Do you understand?”
“Kinda,” Steve said.
Granny smiled, “Short history lesson. I promise. Because it was so long ago, life was harder than it is now—many more people died young from disease and such. A lot of them had trouble getting enough to eat. Things like that. That was generally the case for all of Europe. Our family’s village in Portugal was exceptional, not because it was any easier to be alive, but because the things that could happen, the accidents and tragedies that came with life at that time, happened a lot less often.”
Steve thought about the time he’d been riding his bike, and how Dani, even with her training wheels on, had ridden directly into his path. He’d dodged her, barely, and ran into a neighbor’s mailbox. His mom had run out when she heard the noise, but, while the mailbox was dented, Steve had been totally fine. “It’s like when you know you should have gotten hurt, but you didn’t.”
Granny nodded her head, “That’s part of it, yeah. You see, they were lucky. They had a talisman—do you know what that is?”
“It’s like a magical object?”
“Yes, an object or something that has some power attached to it. In this case, it brought luck—”
Steve jumped up and blurted out, “It was a dragon!”
Granny stopped suddenly, her brows shooting up in surprise, “Yes child, that’s exactly what it was.” Her eyebrows crash-landed, the skin between them wrinkled, “What made you think so?”
“I, well, everything. When I was little, I used to dream about dragons all the time. And yesterday I saw an old sketch book that I had and I used to draw them too…”
“Go on,” Granny prompted.
Steve couldn’t hold still; he was practically bursting with excitement, “I-I-It was a dragon that Dad was f-f-feeding the fish guts to. I know it was, I mean, I didn’t see it, but I bet that’s what it was. You know, the smoke and e-e-everything. But Granny, dragons aren’t real. I mean they’re in movies and books. Justin says there are dozens of dinosaurs that were like dragons, but not real, actual dragons.”
Granny smiled, “With all due respect to your friend, they are real. Or, at least this one is.” Granny thought for a moment, “You said you used to dream about dragons?”
Steve nodded and she continued, “Was that back when you used to stutter all the time, before all the speech therapy?”
Steve stopped wriggling in his seat, “Yeah, I think so. Why?”
Granny mused, “Hmm, well, that would make sense…Oh, sorry. Let me get back to the story, first. Okay, so our village lived this way for a long time, protected from most of the awful things that ravaged the rest of Europe. Protected,” she paused for effect, “by their own dragon. But the dragon still needed things to live, like food. So, the fishermen brought it part of their catch, kind of like an offering, and, as a result, the creature kept them safe.”
Steve thought for a minute, “How? How does a dragon make someone lucky?”
Granny raised an eyebrow, as if she had never considered the question before. “Well, now that you ask, I really don’t know. But, as I understand it, the dragon slept as it does now, and—simply by being there—made them lucky.”
Steve felt slightly disappointed: what good was a sleeping dragon? It should have been a dragon that breathed fire and soared through the sky. “Wait, how did it eat if it was sleeping?” Steve asked.
“I imagine the same way it does now. I suppose it’s like when someone sleepwalks; they move around and function without being fully awake.”
“I’ve never seen anyone sleepwalk. Have you Granny?”
“Sure, one of your great uncles used to get up and wander around the kitchen in his…never mind, it’s not important.” Granny continued with her story, “Anyway, so, while the whole village contributed to feeding the dragon, one family was chosen to be its caretaker. They were responsible for seeing to its needs—feeding him, soothing him when his dreams distressed him.”
“How’d they know?” Steve asked.
“How’d they know what?” she asked.
“That it was a boy.”
“Wait here.” Granny stepped into the house and returned a few minutes later with a thin, battered book. She placed it on the redwood table and carefully opened a worn-leather cover to reveal yellowish pages that did not look much better. Steve leaned in close, unable to read the faint writing.
“Everything we knew about the dragon was passed down from one generation to the next,” Granny said. “Eventually someone wrote it all down. This book is all that’s left, and it’s very old, very fragile.”
“Is that what was in your room?”
Granny nodded.
“How can you read it?” Steve asked.
“Oh, it’s not as hard as you think, but it is written in Portuguese.”
“What’s it say?”
“Basically, everything I just told you, and what I’m about to tell you. But in it, the dragon is always a ‘he.’”
“He didn’t have a name?”
“They called him Dragao, which is Portuguese for dragon.”
“That’s lame; it’s like naming your dog, Dog.” Steve started to reach for the book, but Granny shook her head and he pulled his hand back.
“You said they soothed the dragon’s dreams. What did you mean, that the dragon has nightmares or something?”
Granny leaned back and folded her arms over her stomach. “Stevie, the world was, well I suppose it is, a terrible place at times. When the dragon sleeps, he dreams of the world, and sometimes the terrible things are too terrible, even for it. The caretaker knows the magic words to ca
lm the dragon and remind it of the good in the world.”
“Wait, so my dad knows magic?! Is the book full of spells?”
“Your dad only knows what he needs to take care of the dragon. And the spells in this book wouldn’t do him any good.”
“Why not?”
“He doesn’t read Portuguese either.”
Steve was a little disappointed.
Granny smiled. “Anyway, the caretakers knew when he was upset and what to say to keep the dragon asleep and content. But for some reason, the village, or whoever was supposed to look after the dragon, started neglecting their duties. Maybe people stopped believing, or maybe they simply grew lazy, I’m not sure. The book simply says that one day the dragon woke up and that, while a sleeping dragon brings good fortune, an awake dragon brings devastation.”
Steve’s eyes glassed over for a second as he thought about the dragon waking. “It was in pain.”
Granny paused, “What?”
“It was in pain,” Steve repeated. “When it’s awake, it’s in pain.”
“How do you know that?” Granny asked.
Steve slowly shook his head. “I don’t know. I just do.”
Granny’s eyebrows collided with each other, again. “You are probably right. Anyway, apparently it woke up and emerged from its cave and took flight. Storms and lightning descended on the village for days, and during that time the dragon hunted down all the fish from the sea so the few fishermen brave enough to weather the storms couldn’t catch anything. Other things happened that the people couldn’t explain: fishing nets rotted, crops were so water-damaged that they couldn’t be harvested, and a nasty fog settled in that made people sick, especially the children.”
“But I thought the dragon was good,” Steve insisted.
“It was, honey, but only when it slept, only when it was content. When it woke up, the dragon brought the village to its knees.” She continued, “Eventually, the village elders met to decide what to do. An old man volunteered to go to the great cave and confront the dragon. What he did to pacify the dragon, no one knows, but they say when he returned he spoke with a severe stutter. The dragon stayed in its lair after that, and things returned to normal. It was decided that the old man’s family would become not only caretakers, but protectors. Caring for the dragon, but also protecting the rest of the village from its awakening. And so luck returned to the village—at least for a while.”
“So, he stuttered like me?”
Granny nodded, “He was one of your ancestors.”
“And then what happened?” Steve asked.
Granny swept a scouting ant off the table. “A terrible sickness, a plague. A disease so awful that even the dragon’s good luck could not protect the village. It was a disease that was decimating the rest of Europe, killing thousands or more. For a while, the village remained safe, but eventually its people began to die too. Fishermen became ill and, although they feared waking the dragon, they couldn’t feed it. As the village weakened, so did the dragon.”
Granny paused and glanced out at the yard, where darkness had swallowed up everything but the slight glint of moonlight on the figurines, “Come on inside, it’s getting dark out here and the bugs won’t leave me alone.” Steve followed her inside, where she pointed to the dusty couch. She returned the book to her bedroom and turned on a light by the fireplace. Little picture frames of various sizes sat prominently on the mantle while piles of hardbound books, paperbacks, and magazines cluttered the floor. Dark paneling covered the walls. The floors were battered hardwood covered by carpet runners to hide the worst of the wear and tear. Faded red lampshades emitted a pinkish color, and although the room was dark and cluttered, Steve thought it was cozy.
Steve couldn’t wait any longer, and asked, “So what happened to the village? And the dragon?”
“Everything changed. Everyone in the village either died, or left. Well, almost everyone. Our family, those who had survived anyway, were the last to leave, that much I know. They caught a boat going to the Azores and then on to America.”
“What happened to the dragon? Did it get sick too?”
“That old man’s son, remember the old man who made peace with the dragon? He went to his lair. By now he was an old man too. His dragon was dead, but the shriveled body was wrapped around an egg. The man took the egg, along with his remaining family, and left.”
“How big was the egg? How’d they get it all the way America?” Steve wondered aloud. “All this is in that book?”
“Some of it, though many of the details have only been passed down by word of mouth through the generations, like how and when the dragon hatched—a whole other story. I’m not sure it’s all completely accurate, but it’s all we have. My aunt was the one who told me about all of it. She was also the first one to add anything new to the book in a long time. Something she did after the dreams started…”
Steve leaned over the couch’s arm rest and propped himself up on his elbows, “Dreams about what?”
“The past. Things about the dragon.”
“Do you dream about the dragon too?”
“Sometimes, yes.”
“Of what happened, a long time ago?”
“As best as I can tell,” Granny stated.
Steve had about a zillion more questions zipping through his head. Ordinarily he wasn’t interested in history, but all this had captured his imagination. He was about to ask some more questions when his Granny spoke up, “Now that we’ve gone over all that, I want to get to what has been happening to you.” She waited to see if Steve was paying attention before continuing, “As you have probably guessed already, your dad is this dragon’s caretaker. The night you followed him, he was doing what he has done since…well, for quite a while now.”
“You mean he feeds the dragon fish guts?” Steve interrupted.
Granny smiled, “Yes, and more. You said he was acting like a zombie, and you heard him chanting, like in church. He was talking to the dragon, keeping it company.”
“But he didn’t sound awake. It was like he was talking in his sleep,” Steve insisted.
Granny considered, “I have never gone with your father, so I can’t say with certainty, but I think he does go into a kind of a trance. That’s how my aunt described it, and it makes sense from what you tell me. You should ask him about it.”
“But, what about the stuff that happened to me? How come if Dad is supposed to keep the dragon company this weird stuff is happening to me?” Steve asked.
“I think the dragon has chosen you to look after him next,” Granny answered.
Steve’s heart began to pound a little faster. He stood up from the couch and began pacing the room “So that’s why I can tell bugs and animals what to do?”
“Come over here and sit down. You’re driving me nuts bouncing around like that.” She scooted over and took his hand in hers. “Stevie, under normal circumstances, you would be the likely candidate to take over for your father; it usually passes from father to son, though not always.” She paused, a sad look spilling over her face before she continued, “You said you’ve had strange dreams, which might be about the dragon, and you said that the morning you followed your father that you thought the dragon spoke to you. Ordinarily, that would be enough. When the time was right, you would go with your father and see if the dragon accepted you. Then, it would be your turn. But there’s a problem with all that.”
“Problem?”
Granny took his face between her hands, “Dragon protectors are never children, Stevie. If the father was killed and the son was too young, the guardianship passed to an uncle or a cousin, but never to a child. You shouldn’t have been having these dreams or showing these signs until you were much older.”
Steve bolted straight up, “Is something going to happen to my dad?!”
Granny looked surprised, but took a moment before answering, “I hadn’t even thought of that. I don’t think so. The guardianship only passes after something happens, never before. An
d like I said, you really are too young. If something were to happen to your dad, then the responsibility should pass to someone older. The truth is that caretakers usually live a long time and, usually,” she added with emphasis, “one of the benefits of caring for the dragon is typically a long and healthy life. Luck surrounds your father and those around him.”
“We’re not lucky,” Steve insisted. “I heard Dad talking to one of his friends about how poor we are.”
Granny sighed, “Stevie, don’t mistake having money with having luck. Have you ever broken a bone? Or spent a night in the hospital?”
Steve thought again about the mailbox incident. “Well, no.”
“What about Dani, or your mom?”
Steve thought about it. He realized that, in fact, they were all pretty healthy, and, actually, pretty happy. “You’re right.”
“See, Stevie, the luck isn’t about being wealthy. Actually, those who try to use the luck that way often get corrupted by it; a few of your ancestors gave into that temptation, and paid the price. You see, it’s very harmful to the dragon, and tends to backfire. But anyway, back to your dad—I really doubt anything bad is going to happen to him. I think it’s something else.”
“What is it?” Steve insisted.
“I have an idea. I believe it’s tied to your stutter. I think you speak its language. I think that when you stutter, the dragon hears you and helps you.”
“But, I don’t stutter much anymore,” Steve replied. “I almost never unless I get too excited or angry…Oh!”
“Exactly,” Granny continued. “I think you are communicating with the dragon whenever you start to stutter, and the dragon gives you what you ask for.”
For a moment, Steve thought about asking for a new TV, but wasn’t sure how that’d work. “Hey, wait a minute. I didn’t ask for the dog to attack those teenagers, or ask the ants to bite Joey and Alphonse.”
Granny’s eyes narrowed, “Didn’t you?”
Steve thought about it. Did he wish for something to happen? Yes. But he certainly didn’t plan for ants to bite his cousins. “Maybe, Granny, but I didn’t know--”