Lenna and the Last Dragon

by James Comins

  Chapter One

  Pigs

  or, Sleep Light This Night

  The roof of the barn creaked under the weight of the endlessly-falling snow. Lenna’s feet burrowed into the yellow prongs of the straw pile, trying to keep warm. The dragonscale comforter clinked as she turned over and over. Wool blankets bunched around her skinny legs. On the far end of the dark loft lay the other servant girl, Binnan Darnan, who smacked her lips and snurfled into her pillow. Wind rose up outside, whistling through the gears of the heavy barn doors below. Chill tendrils of wind trailed in and climbed the ladder to the loft. Lenna shivered in the moonless early spring, waiting for the thaw. She finally slept, dreaming of a perfect world where no one ever hit her.