The Dragon of Lonely Island

by Rebecca Rupp

  The dragon settled itself more comfortably in the grass. “The pain is going,” it said. “Thank you, child. You have done well. I think I shall go to sleep now.” The green eyes closed for a moment, then flickered open. “Sing to me,” the dragon said sleepily.

  So Mei-lan sat and stroked the dragon’s head and sang to it, a peaceful, sleepy song about crickets and moonbeams and white incense-smelling flowers that open only on starry nights. And soon the dragon slept. Mei-lan covered as much of it as she could with her sleeping quilt and silently tiptoed away.

  Every day Mei-lan returned to the mountain to care for the dragon. She brought it tea and rice, and ginger-flavored soup with pork and bamboo shoots, and more green salve for its wound. One afternoon she even hauled buckets of hot soapy water up the slope to the thicket and gave the dragon a bath. Its golden scales began to gleam and sparkle again. While the dragon was healing, she sang it songs and told it stories, and — since the dragon was a good listener — she told it about her life at home and how hard it was to be thought of as a worthless girl. She told it about the loss of her pet cricket, Moon Singer. Telling the dragon all these troubles didn’t change things, but it made her feel better. Just talking to the dragon gave her a feeling of strength and peace.

  Then one day, as she came down from the mountainside, she found the village in an uproar. News had come from the North. The messenger even now was sitting on a bench in the town square, mopping his face with a handkerchief and drinking a glass of rice wine. Everyone seemed to be talking at once and faces were fearful. Some of the women and the smallest children were in tears. “The Mongols!” Mei-lan heard over and over again. “The Mongol horsemen are invading!” “The Mongols are upon us!”

  Mei-lan felt a pang of terror. Ever since she was very small, she had been told frightening stories about the Mongol horsemen — the fierce barbarian tribes from the North who killed and burned everything in their path. In some stories, they rode monstrous black horses with flaming red nostrils and eyes and carried battle-axes, swords, and spears. The villages they passed through were left smoking ruins, with not so much as a cat or dog still alive. People said “The barbarians are coming!” as a joke when any small disaster or trouble approached. Father even said it at the annual arrival of the tax collector. But a real invasion of the vicious warriors was a terror beyond imagining. There were no jokes in the village now.

  At home, Mei-lan found her parents frantically packing, preparing to flee into the hills. The family’s few valuables — a bag of coins, six silver spoons, the jeweled pin shaped like a butterfly that Mother wore in her hair on special occasions — were hastily wrapped in a quilt. Father was tying together a bundle of tools. Plum Boy — clutching the precious cage containing Moon Singer — and Little Peach —wide-eyed with fright — were sitting on the floor next to a sack stuffed with clothing.

  “Go pack some food for our journey, Mei-lan,” Mother snapped as she rushed frenziedly about the house. “Rice and meat. A bottle of green tea. Anything you can find.” Mei-lan turned obediently toward the kitchen, where fresh rice steamed in the family cooking pot —and then, with a quick glance behind her, slipped out the door and began to run toward the mountain, faster than she had ever run before.

  The dragon was awake and watching for her as she crashed through the thicket and collapsed at its feet, gasping for breath. For a few moments she was unable to speak. The dragon was concerned.

  “Child, what is wrong?” it asked. “What has happened?”

  Mei-lan hid her face in her hands. “The barbarians are coming! The Mongols from the North! They will kill us all and burn our village! Oh, please, please, most Honorable Dragon, can’t you help us?”

  The dragon frowned. “I have little love for your village,” it said. “They failed to aid me in time of trouble. Some of your villagers, in fact, refused to believe in my very existence.”

  Mei-lan looked up at the dragon. “I know they did wrong,” she said, “but they are not wicked people. Most of them knew nothing about this. There are babies and little children in our village who never hurt anybody. Oh, please, Great One, do not let the barbarians kill us all.”

  The dragon was silent, its eyes half closed as though it were listening to some hidden inner voice. “It is always important to help those in need,” it said. It reached out a polished golden claw and gently touched Mei-lan’s cheek. “Go help your family, Little One,” it said softly. “I will see what can be done.”

  The road leading out of the village was crowded with people, their faces pale with fear. Babies, too frightened to cry, were carried on their mothers’ backs. Old men pushed two-wheeled carts piled high with kettles, pots, and pillows. One woman carried the family’s prize pig; another carried a round straw basket containing a fat hen and her six yellow chicks. Mei-lan saw the doctor go by, carried in a lacquered chair on poles by four terrified servants, and the mayor, riding a fine white horse with silk ribbons in its tail and a jade-studded leather bridle.

  Suddenly a great cry rose from the back of the crowd. “Faster!” someone shouted. “Faster! Run faster! The Mongols are upon us!”

  The mayor set his spurs in the sides of his whinnying white horse. “Save yourselves!” he bellowed, as he galloped frenziedly forward. “Run for the hills!”

  Mei-lan looked behind her. There in the distance a great black cloud rolled threateningly along the ground, advancing swiftly toward the helpless villagers. It was a cloud of dust, thrown up by the pounding hooves of horses, the steeds of the fierce Northern invaders. As they thundered closer, the sun glinted off the spikes of their steel helmets and the murderous points of their spears. The villagers could hear the clank and rattle of swords and the gleeful shouts of approaching victory.

  It was hopeless, Mei-lan realized. The villagers could not possibly outrun their deadly mounted pursuers. She looked at her mother, clutching Little Peach in her arms, and at her father, who, thrusting Plum Boy behind him, was pulling an ax out of his bundle. All around her, people were shrieking and wailing in terror. The noise of hooves and the wild cries of the riders grew louder and louder. “They’ll slaughter us all!” someone screamed. “We’re all going to die!”

  Mei-lan closed her eyes. “Oh, please, Honorable Dragon,” she whispered, “oh, please, come now.”

  And as she stood there, her eyes squeezed tightly shut, the sounds changed.

  The shouts of the invaders stopped, replaced by gasps and cries of surprise and shock. The drumming rhythm of the charging hooves faltered, slowed, and came to a halt. All around her, one by one, the villagers fell silent, except for one long indrawn breath of wonder.

  Slowly Mei-lan opened her eyes. Then she, too, gasped in awe. There in the sky above their heads loomed the great dragon, its vast wings outspread, its scales a blinding dazzle of pure sun gold. It threw back its magnificent head and its voice roared and echoed off the hills and mountains: “GO BACK WHERE YOU CAME FROM, ACCURSED, AND TROUBLE US NO MORE!” Then it opened its great jaws and loosed a thunderous sheet of red flame. “BEGONE!” it bellowed, “OR BE DESTROYED!”

  The invaders, so brave and bloodthirsty only moments before, gave a great moan of horror and fear. Frantically they wheeled their horses around and, hardly daring to look behind them, fled back the way that they had come. The dust stirred up by their headlong retreat hung in the air. The dragon roared once more, a deep, rolling wave of ground-shaking laughter. Then, golden wings glittering, it descended to the earth and faced the astounded villagers. The dragon studied each one in turn — the mayor and the doctor, the farmers and their children, the woman with her squealing pig, the old men and the babies, Mei-lan and her mother and father, Plum Boy and Little Peach — and the villagers, speechless, stared back. Then, like a field of grain bending before the wind, they all bowed low to the dragon.

  Now that the barbarians were gone, the mayor had recovered his dignity. He dismounted from his white horse, adjusted his pale green coat embroidered with swallows and chrysa
nthemums, brushed people aside, and advanced importantly toward the dragon. “O Great One,” the mayor began, but the dragon, with an expression of scorn, waved him aside. Its jade green eyes swept the crowd and rested on Mei-lan.

  “Come here, Small Daughter,” the dragon said.

  Mei-lan set down her bundle and walked forward until she stood at the dragon’s feet. The dragon reached out a golden claw and very tenderly smoothed Mei-lan’s hair. “This child,” the dragon said, “fed me when I was hungry and healed me when I was hurt. She comforted me when I was lonely; she cheered me when I was sad. She saved my life when her elders”— the jade green eyes rested briefly on the mayor, who turned red, and on the doctor, who looked at his feet —“would have left me to die. For her sake, I saved the village.” The dragon rose to its full height and flexed its glorious golden wings. Very solemnly, it bowed low to Mei-lan. “Thank you, Small Daughter,” the dragon said.

  There was a murmur of awe from the villagers. Then the dragon bent its long neck until its head was level with Mei-lan’s. Quietly, in a voice that only Mei-lan could hear, it said, “Hold out your hand.”

  Shyly Mei-lan held out her right hand, palm upward.

  The dragon delicately stretched out a golden claw and pricked her hand, precisely in the center. Mei-lan gasped. There was a sharp, stinging pain, then a lovely feeling of spreading warmth. When she looked down at her palm, there was no wound. Instead, shining in the cup of her hand was a tiny indelible pinprick of glowing gold.

  “We are bonded,” the dragon said softly. “You are a true sister, a Dragon Friend. You will be honored in our memories as long as there are dragons here on earth.”

  For one last time, the golden claw stroked her hair.

  “A long and happy life, Small Daughter,” the dragon said. “Remember me.”

  Then, in a rush of incense-scented wind, the dragon, shining even brighter, rose into the air. For a moment it hovered over the village. Mei-lan, craning her neck upward, saw it nod majestically to the villagers. Then the golden head turned toward her. The dragon smiled and one jade green eye — the right eye, which only she could see — winked. And then, between one breath and another, the dragon was gone.”

  The children stirred. The dragon stared sadly into the darkness over their heads, as though seeing through the gray stone walls into another place and another time. Suddenly it shook its head, as though waking from a deep dream.

  “Did Mei-lan get her cricket back?” Sarah Emily asked.

  “Indeed she did,” said the dragon. “Indeed she did. That very night Plum Boy brought Moon Singer to her bedside. He put the cricket in its tiny cage into Mei-lan’s hands and said, ‘I am sorry, Honorable Sister.’ And then he burst into tears. So Mei-lan hugged him and told him that if he would like, he could put his sleeping quilt right next to hers so that they could both have Moon Singer chirp them to sleep. . . .”

  “She was nicer than I would have been,” said Zachary.

  “Ah,” said the dragon softly. And then, almost as if it were talking to itself, it said, “And from that day on, in that part of China, people continued to value their sons, but their daughters — oh, their daughters —they were treasured.”

  “What happened to Mei-lan?” asked Hannah. “When she grew up?”

  “She became a master weaver,” the dragon said. “She was the first woman ever to do so. It was a job traditionally held only by men. But she was very talented. She was particularly known for her silkscreens, which had a pattern of bamboo and golden dragons. One of her screens was even sent to the palace of the emperor, as a wedding gift for his eldest daughter. Some of the older people in the village never approved of Mei-lan, of course. Being the first is always difficult.”

  The dragon reached out a golden claw and gently touched Hannah’s hair.

  “It’s never easy to lead the way, my dear,” the dragon said.

  The golden lids began to droop over the jade green eyes and the dragon’s head began to sag. The children rose quietly to their feet.

  “Dragon,” said Hannah softly, “may we see you again?”

  The dragon roused itself. “I do need my rest,” it said. It yawned sleepily. Its eyes closed, then opened again, glowing green slits in the darkness. “But the others will be eager to meet you,” it murmured. The green eyes opened a fraction wider.

  “If you could just manage to keep our little meetings private?” it asked, in a slightly stronger voice. “There have been some unpleasant experiences. . . . The unpredictability of the adult world . . .”

  “Do you mean hunters?” asked Sarah Emily.

  “Hunters,” the dragon repeated reflectively. “Hunters. In a way, my dear. Hunters, et cetera.”

  “That means ‘and so on,’” Hannah whispered hastily, before Sarah Emily could ask.

  “We won’t tell anybody,” said Zachary. “We promise.”

  “Thank you, my dear boy,” the dragon said.

  The golden head dropped, as the dragon settled itself more comfortably on the cave floor.

  “Do come again soon,” the dragon murmured. “It was nice to have visitors. To tell the truth, I have been lonely.”

  There was a smell of smoke and a dragonish snore. The children began to tiptoe softly backward, toward the cave door.

  Hannah, for a moment, lingered behind. “Good night, Honorable Dragon,” Hannah whispered.

  The dragon stirred in its sleep.

  “Good night, Small Daughter,” said the dragon.

  The children emerged from the cave entrance, blinking their eyes in the sudden dazzle of sunshine. Zachary sat down abruptly on the rock ledge.

  “Incredible,” he said. “Fantastic. Amazing.”

  He turned to his sisters. “Did it really happen?”

  “It really happened,” said Hannah. “To us.” Her face was glowing.

  Only Sarah Emily was subdued.

  “I guess it was stupid of me,” she said. “To be so scared, I mean.”

  Hannah shook her head. “It wasn’t stupid at all,” she said. “We were all scared at first.” And she reached over and gave Sarah Emily a little hug.

  Zachary said, “Let’s come back tomorrow.”

  But the next day it rained. And the next day. And the day after that. The sky was heavy and gray, the color of charcoal or pencil lead. Water thundered on the roof and poured through the gutters. Mother, who was happily involved in The Secret of Silver House — the governess had just been discovered, strangled, in the conservatory — was oblivious to the weather, but Hannah, Zachary, and Sarah Emily, who had no such homicidal occupations, were beside themselves. Each morning, as they woke to the roar of rain and more rain, their spirits fell lower and lower.

  “We’ll never get back to Drake’s Hill,” Hannah moaned in despair.

  “I wish we could just sleep through this weather, like Fafnyr,” fumed Zachary.

  They quickly exhausted all their usual rainy-day activities. They played checkers, Parcheesi, and Monopoly, but they couldn’t quite keep their attention on the games; and they read — or tried to read —all their favorite books. They spent one afternoon in the kitchen, helping Mrs. Jones make apple pie. But they spent most of their time in the strange little Tower Room.

  “Just wait until you see it, Hannah,” Sarah Emily said excitedly as the three children, Zachary clutching the iron key, climbed the dusty back stairs. “It’s the most wonderful room. Zachary thinks it was Aunt Mehitabel’s when she was a little girl.”

  “She must have had some reason for sending us the key,” Hannah said. “Something she wanted us to find. Something special.”

  “I think we’ve already found something special,” said Zachary. “A box. A treasure box.”

  “But we can’t open it,” said Sarah Emily.

  “What does it look like?” asked Hannah eagerly. “Do you think it has something to do with Fafnyr?”

  “Come on,” said Zachary. “We’ll show you.”

  Carefully he unlocked th
e door to the Tower Room. He climbed the iron ladder, with the two girls close on his heels, and thrust open the trap door. The children scrambled out onto the wooden floor.

  “What a marvelous room,” said Hannah, getting to her feet. “If this were my house, I’d live up here.”

  She stood at one of the little round windows for a moment, gazing longingly out at Drake’s Hill, now rain drenched and wreathed in clouds. Then she rapidly circled the little room, running a finger over the head of the painted wooden doll, tapping the brass gong, lifting one of the pink conch shells and holding it curiously to her ear. “You can hear the ocean,” she said.

  Sarah Emily picked up a shell, held it to her ear, and listened. Her eyes grew round. “Is it really the ocean?” she asked.

  Zachary snickered and Sarah Emily’s face fell.

  “I guess it was a stupid question, wasn’t it?” she said.

  “No,” said Hannah. “It wasn’t. Here, try two shells.” She held the second conch shell to Sarah Emily’s other ear.

  “Now it sounds like two oceans,” Sarah Emily said.

  “It’s not really,” said Hannah. “I learned in school that all you hear when you listen to a shell is the sound of the blood rushing through the blood vessels in your ear. But it’s nicer to pretend that it’s the sound of the real ocean. As though the shells were remembering where they came from.”