The Dragon's Playlist

by Laura Bickle

  When I finished the song, I sat still with the instrument and bow in my lap. “Thank you for the gift,” I said.

  Afakos’s not-quite-human voice answered: “It was a fair trade for the thing you gave me. The music box.”

  “The radio.” I turned back to look at him and grinned.

  He sat in the dense foliage like a satisfied cat, his paws stretched out before him. My attention seized on those paws and dreadful claws, longer than my forearms.

  “Yes. It took some practice to operate the controls.” He clacked his long nails. “I can turn it on and off. But the dial is a bit tricky.”

  “I’m happy to change the station, if you’d like.”

  “We’ll see.” The dragon sounded noncommittal. If the book was any guide, he’d have the radio squirreled away with the rest of his treasures in a den. And I didn’t blame him for not wanting me anywhere near his home.

  But I had to ask: “Is Sawtooth Mountain...your home?”

  He cocked his head, one ear swiveling toward me. “I don’t know if I should answer that.”

  “I wondered. Because they want to get permission from the government to level the mountain.”

  Afakos’s ears pressed forward, and his eyes widened. “The whole mountain?”

  “Yes. Most of it will wind up in the valley.”

  His lips pulled back in a snarl, revealing white teeth. “They won’t leave me alone, will they?”

  His ears fell, resembling hound dog ears as they drooped.

  “Afakos...isn’t there somewhere else you can go?”

  “Where would I go?” He placed his head between his paws and sighed. “This is home. Always has been. My kind goes to the last wild places, where we can go to ground and remain undisturbed...but there are fewer and fewer of these places left.”

  I felt so much sadness for this creature that tears welled up in my eyes. I stood slowly and approached the dragon cautiously, a step at a time, steeling myself. He flinched back once. I came so close that I could smell the ash in his breath. Gently, I reached out to touch his nose. His skin was hot and dry, like a reptile’s.

  “How many of your kind are there?”

  He sighed, and when he breathed, hot air blew from his nostrils like the hand dryers in gas station restrooms. “Once, there were many of us. We were as plentiful as the herons and the salamanders in the Old World and the East. But we were reviled, slain, driven out. Some of us found our way to the New World, a blank slate full of wild places to call home.

  “I have been at this mountain for centuries, long before humans named it. I hibernated during some of that time, off and on. I last woke up as men and their machines came near, searching for coal. I avoided them at first, but when they come too close...” His lips curled, and smoke trickled from his mouth.

  A chill thrilled down my spine. I could understand defending one’s territory. He was being invaded. Problem was, he was being invaded by good men like my father and Jason.

  “They don’t know that you’re here. If you showed them...”

  “I’d become a sideshow circus freak,” he said bitterly. “No thank you.”

  “You would turn science on its head.”

  “And I would never know freedom again. If they knew I existed, they’d go searching for the last of my kind. The ones who went north, with the geese, beyond where men could once have reached them. Now, man’s reach is everywhere.”

  “I’m sorry.” It was the only thing I could say. And I wished it could’ve made things better.

  “No. We originally sidled a bit too close to humans for our own good, out of curiosity. Sometimes, it worked out, as with the copper-skinned men. They treated us as gods, and gave us a wide berth. With your people...” He shook his head. “This may yet prove to bite me in unintended ways, but...would you play for me some more?”

  “Of course.”

  Afakos settled down to the ground with a sigh. He placed his spade-shaped head on his paws and listened as I drew the bow across the strings. I had no specific song in mind, just experimented with the sounds of the wind and leaves, the rise and fall of Afakos’s breath. It felt sad, mournful, like the cry of a mourning dove.

  “That’s lovely,” Afakos said. “What is it?”

  “It’s my own composition. I think I’ll call it ‘Dragon Sonata’ when it’s complete.”

  The dragon smiled, showing his back teeth. “A dragon sonata.”

  “Yes. I haven’t written my own music for a while. I want to start again.”

  “And you should. Tell me, Diamond, how does a girl with your mastery of the subtle wind up in this rude place?”

  “I grew up here. I went away to university to study music, but I came back.” Trapped, like a fish in a bowl beside a window overlooking the ocean.

  “Why?”

  “My father was hurt in a mine accident. He can’t work anymore.”

  The dragon’s eyes narrowed. “When? Where?”

  “Three weeks ago, on the south face of the mountain.”

  The dragon fell very still and silent. Only the tip of his tail lashed the leaves. “I shall be honest with you, Diamond, since you have been honest with me.”

  I lifted my chin, steeling myself. “Okay.”

  “Someone was using explosives on my mountain. It awoke me from a very sound slumber. In my ire, I waddled through my secret passages, searching for the focus of the assault. Imagine my surprise when I found men digging a shaft into what I might have considered to be my living room.”

  My hands balled into fists, and my fingernails dug into my palms. “And you acted as anyone would when their home was invaded.”

  The dragon nodded. “I brought that corridor down with fire and heat. I gave no thought to whether the intruders would survive. But...I am sorry if I hurt or killed any who were dear to you.”

  I bowed my head and cried. I cried hard, my eyes screwed shut, the pain echoing in me in waves.

  “My father.” I hiccupped. “My father was in there. Almost killed. He can’t walk, can’t breathe on his own...”

  Scales slithered across the rock. When I looked up, I found myself in a black embrace. The dragon’s tail was coiled around me. Afakos had gathered me to his chest, and his luminous eyes were level with mine. I struck him with my fists, but it was like pummeling a car. Useless.

  “I am sorry, Diamond. But I cannot say that I would have done anything different.”

  I wiped snot on my sleeve. “This is your home.”

  He blinked slowly. “It is. Though I wish there were another way.” He looked off into the distance. “Diamond, I would ask one thing of you.”

  I sniffled. “What’s that?”

  “Don’t stand too close when the mountain comes down.” He looked down at me then. “I would hate for there to be no more of your music in the world.”

  Though I owed him nothing, less than nothing, I agreed.

  *

  I should have hated him.

  I had every reason to. I wanted to. I wanted to, with every fiber of my being. I wanted Afakos to be a monster, like in the pictures it art books I’d seen of St. George slaying the dragon from hell. In those depictions, he held the squirming dragon under his heel and pierced its heart with a spear.

  I was conscious of the power I wielded. I was like St. George with his spear. I had never had power before, of any type. Briefly, I fantasized about bringing the police up to the mountain in a fit of revenge, of calling Afakos with my violin and them destroying him in a hail of bullets.

  Afakos was, after all, the root of my problem. He had hurt my father, which was why I’d been summoned home, which had perhaps wiped out my future as a musician. My carefully-planned future was facing ruin, and he was to blame.

  I struggled with this idea, wrestled with it in the dark of night, staring at my ceiling. I felt that, on some level, I was applying human vengeance and morality to Afakos, who was not human. The book said as much. He was behaving like an animal, like a bobcat or a buzzard,
unencumbered by my sense of right or wrong. He simply enjoyed what he enjoyed. When his nest was invaded, he lashed out. I could sense no hate or malice in him, if I closed my eyes and tried to be objective. Just a pure, utilitarian motivation.

  But Afakos had brought something to me. Something incredible. He’d brought me magic.

  And that was valuable to me. Selfishly, I considered its weight. My family was disintegrating. College had been supplanted by a job at the mine answering phones and pushing paper. And there was Jason, who I wasn’t even sure I wanted.

  Magic might be more valuable to me than anything else.

  I returned to the Enchanted Broomstick first thing on Saturday, my day off. The new window had been installed, and Julie was fussing over some cardboard boxes in the middle of the floor.

  “You’re not moving!” I blurted.

  Julie smiled. “Sort of. I decided to move from my apartment into the upstairs of this house. I think that would be best.”

  My gaze slid to the new window. “But...” Why would she put herself in the line of fire like that?

  “I can be here to protect the store. The upstairs is fusty, and the roof leaks. There aren’t any appliances. But...” She put her hands on her hips and surveyed the room. “I’ve decided that this is home. And I’m gonna put my roots down.” She nodded, as if trying to convince herself.

  “Let me help you with those boxes,” I said.

  “Thanks.” She grinned at me.

  The back stairs were old and worn, smelling of dust and mildewy wallpaper paste. I expected more of the same upstairs, but Julie had been busy. The floor was empty, windows open. She’d scrubbed the floors with lemon cleaner, and the walls smelled of paint. There were two bedrooms and a bathroom with a clawfoot tub and a faucet that dripped in a curiously perfect E flat note. We carried the boxes into the bedroom with eastern windows. Sun poured in, making rectangular squares of light on the floor. Quartz crystals perched on the windowsills like white birds.

  The orange cat trotted ahead of us and stretched out in the sunshine, yawning.

  “I think she’s very happy to have you here,” I said.

  Julie smiled. “She came with the house. I’m going to have to pick a name for her. Something suitably magical. I’ve been thinking about Rhiannon.”

  “Why Rhiannon?”

  “She’s one of my favorite Welsh goddesses. A justice goddess. She was originally a horse goddess, and rode through the fields so fast that no man could catch her. One man, Pwyll, chased her for years until she eventually allowed him to catch her. They married and had a son.”

  “Sounds like happily ever after.”

  “Not so much. Pwyll’s house was cursed, and the child disappeared one night while Rhiannon was sleeping. Panicked, the nurses smeared Rhiannon with the blood of a dog. When she awoke, she was accused of killing her son and eating him.”

  “Yikes.”

  “Yeah. Rhiannon was sentenced to be a beast of burden, to carry visitors to and from the castle like a horse, while she told the story of her punishment. She bore this punishment for seven years.”

  “What really happened to her son? He just...vanished?”

  “No. A child was discovered outside a stable by one of Pwyll’s country lords. He was adopted by the childless lord and his wife. When the child grew, he exhibited godlike abilities, and the lord realized he could be no other than Rhiannon’s son. The son was reunited with Pwyll and Rhiannon. She was released from her penance and got to move on to the living happily ever after stuff. Some even think she was the Lady of the Lake who gave Excalibur to Arthur.”

  “Wow. Tough lady.”

  “Yes. Her story’s about endurance. That things are not always as they seem. Rhiannon spent a long time being vilified, but she did so with grace and the hope that justice eventually prevails.”

  “Things seem a bit more clear-cut in myth,” I said. “Right and wrong.”

  “Not always. Imagine poor Rhiannon. During those seven years, I imagine she endured a lot, maybe and even questioned her own sanity. She probably loathed herself and despised her punishers. But she was redeemed in the end. And now she’s called upon as a goddess of justice.”

  The cat squirmed on the floor and chirped. I knelt and rubbed her belly. “I hope she’s a fierce defender.”

  “Fingers crossed. I’m hoping not to spend any more money replacing windows.” Julie looked up at a damp spot in the ceiling. “I’m going to have to get the roof fixed soon, and I think that’s probably something beyond Will’s building know-how.”

  I followed her gaze. “I thought he was a student.”

  “He is. But he also did some stuff for Habitat for Humanity. Which is more experience than I have with a hammer and nails.”

  I made a noncommittal noise and rubbed the cat’s tummy again.

  “You’re not sure what to think of him,” Julie said.

  I glanced up, startled. “No, I’m not. Sometimes... I don’t know who to trust.”

  “You never do. Things are always in flux. Which is why I like the Tarot cards. They tend to force me to see things a bit differently than I may want to. Gets me out of my pre-programming, if you will.”

  “I don’t have that gift of insight...but I understand the pre-programming.” I sighed.

  “Help me move the rest of those boxes and I’ll deal the cards for you again.”

  I hesitated. I was concerned about the idea of substituting the judgment of those little scraps of printed cardboard for my own. But the last reading had been eerily accurate. I’d abandoned my studies. Reunited with Jason. And faced a dragon—though I was still struggling with my own devils.

  “Okay.”

  The remainder of the heavy lifting went quickly. Rhiannon assisted, finding a box full of clothes with a loose flap. She chirped happily and proceeded to make a nest in Julie’s sparkly blouses, her tail draped over the edge.

  I sat on the floor in the sunshine, and Julie brought two glasses of lemonade and her cards. The lemonade was sweet and soothing, and the warm light glistened in the glasses, making the ice cubes crackle.

  “Go ahead and shuffle when you’re ready,” she said.

  I wiped my hands, slick with condensation, on my jeans. I shuffled until the cat began to snore in the box, then handed them back.

  Julie cut the cards and put a card down before me. “This is you,” she said.

  The card showed a young woman dressed in a fur cloak and fur hat. She was standing in a snowstorm with a sword lifted. She didn’t look at all like me: her hair was brown.

  “This is the Page of Swords. She’s about vigilance. A discreet person. She encourages you to be careful, to gather information, but keep your own counsel.”

  I swallowed. Maybe I was to keep my own secrets.

  “These are the people around you right now.” She laid out four more cards in a cross around the Page. The first one was a dark-haired knight, holding a star, standing before a luscious field of corn.

  “The Knight of Pentacles is in your heart. He’s a young man. Reliable, methodical. He’s also tied to the element of earth, and represents wealth. He’s a pragmatic guy who knows how to make and hold onto money. He works hard and sees things realistically. He may seem a bit boring and lacks imagination.”

  I recognized him immediately. “That’s my ex-boyfriend.”

  She turned over another card. “This person is in your thoughts.”

  Another knight. This one was fair-haired and was riding away on a white steed, moving toward the sunset with his back turned to the viewer.

  “This is the Knight of Wands. He cuts an impressive figure, all gold in the shining sunlight. He’s all about adventure, passion, and charm. He’s an ideal lover, and acts on his emotions...all of them.

  “That can be something of a problem. While the Knight of Wands is great in the bedroom, he tends to be a bit superficial. He’s thrilling, but has the attention span of a gnat. He’s easily distracted by the next horizon to conquer. He
could be a little shallow.

  “He’ll rock your world, for a day or even a season. But after that, consider him gone.”

  I said nothing. Was the Knight of Wands Will?

  Julie continued. “This next person represents your roots. Where you came from. This person is your rock.”

  She turned over a card that depicted an old man standing in darkness, holding a lantern. “This is the Hermit. An older man. Someone who’s isolated from others. Someone wise and eccentric.”

  “My grandfather. He’s in the nursing home.”

  “And the last card represents someone who understands you on a deep, intuitive level. Who understands your creative processes.”

  She flipped over a familiar card: the Devil. Its eyes glowed brightly as it watched the man and woman chained before it.

  I frowned. The eyes still looked like Afakos’s eyes.

  Julie’s fingers remained on the card. “Be careful who you trust, Di. This is a very dangerous time for you. Beware of deception...and of deceiving yourself.”

  I stared at the cards for a long time, drinking my lemonade. After a silence full of dust-motes and cat snores, I asked Julie if I could leave a message for Will. She found a legal pad and a pen for me.

  I scrawled a note on it, folded it tightly, and handed it back to her. She made no move to open it, but I’m sure she’d seen what I’d written:

  “I’m ready. Show me the truth.”

  CHAPTER 13

  I knew I could trust Grandpa.

  I’d trusted him with a great many things throughout my childhood: secret crushes, fears, hopes for the future. I didn’t speak of these things to anyone else. Not now, and not then. We played music, and I listened to his stories. He’d always been my oracle, and it was up to me to contemplate those notes and words. Today was no different.

  He greeted me with open arms, and we played. We went through most of the Moody Blues’s Nights in White Satin album, and my troubles seemed lost in song as I worked to keep up with him.

  Then, he began to play a song I hadn’t heard before. I laid my bow down on the bedspread and listened, eyes closed. The song was distant, sad. It reminded me of folk music—simple, meant to be unaccompanied—but it lacked the rousing tempo needed for dance. He worked the strings differently than a violin should be played, almost like a sihu or a sanhu. The meter was all off—not a familiar European time. An Asian pentatonic system. And lovely.