The Dragon's Playlist

by Laura Bickle

  “I didn’t tell her. But she did not come back. Her son did, as a boy. He told me she had died in childbirth.” Afakos lapsed into silence, watching smoke drift up to the cavernous ceiling.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “It was a long time ago.”

  Beside the broken unicorn, I spied a sopping-wet mass of purple. I crouched down beside it, worked at the knot in the silver ribbon. I hoped the shell wasn’t broken, and held my breath as I peeled the wet paper from it.

  It was whole. The pink conch shell seemed to glow in the firelight. The crystals and gilding sparkled. Holding it carefully with both hands, I approached Afakos.

  “This is for you.” I placed it on the floor before him.

  He cocked his head, touched it with one claw. He sniffed it. “What is it?”

  I grinned. “It’s a seashell.”

  His claws curled around it. “It’s from the ocean?”

  “Yes. If you hold it to your ear, you can hear the ocean. Like this.” I picked up the shell and held it to the dragon’s ear.

  His eyes slitted shut in delight. A deep rumbling emanated from his chest. He was purring.

  “Magnificent,” he murmured.

  Afakos cuddled into the seashell, holding it close to his ear with his claws. I could hear him alternately purring and humming. I wondered if he could sing.

  “I had forgotten the ocean,” he said, his voice grown drowsy.

  I slowly walked around the cavern, examining the dragon’s hoard. I picked up a hood ornament from a Jaguar, smiled at a chunk of quartz the size of my fist that Julie would’ve dearly loved to have in her shop.

  “I’ve never seen the ocean,” I confessed. “Only on television… Where did you find all these things?”

  “Here and there,” he said, with a note of pride. “I find interesting things and bring them home. They’re all scraps from my adventures over the years.”

  Was it the same reflex that birds had to collect string for their nests? I fingered hubcaps and license plates, brushed a bit of tinsel that must have once belonged to a Christmas tree. Afakos may not have ranged far, but he had seen a bit of everything in his realm.

  I turned to ask him a question, but a thrumming snore emanating from across the room. He’d fallen asleep with the shell pressed to his ear.

  I smiled.

  Then I spotted something shiny underneath a garbage can lid. I reached for it, recognizing the general shape and composition. It was a miner’s helmet, with a glass lamp on the front.

  I smiled to see it. It was old, probably from the thirties or forties. I turned it over in my hands…

  …and something white rattled out of it onto the floor.

  I gasped and stepped back. It was a dusty human skull. It landed on its jaw on the rocky floor, breaking a tooth.

  I jammed my fist into my mouth to stifle a scream.

  I looked back fearfully at Afakos.

  He continued to snore in puffs and growls, dreaming his dreams of the ocean.

  CHAPTER 17

  I CRAWLED BACK INTO THE carnival car, but I couldn’t sleep. I lay there with the rough blanket pulled up to my chin, watching the dragon snore.

  I had deluded myself into thinking that Afakos was something other than what he was. He wasn’t human. He wasn’t caged by human constructs of morality and right and wrong. I wanted to think of him as a bear with a den, protecting his territory. I wanted to believe that.

  But, looking at the old miner’s helmet and shattered skull on the floor, I had to consider that Afakos might be capable of malice. That he was not a neutral force of nature. That he was capable of grudges. He had nearly killed my father. He could kill, and he’d demonstrated that he would, without sorrow.

  What would happen if he lashed out again? The miners were coming closer to his hoard. And even though it was worthless junk to me…it meant something to him. It was the debris of many lifetimes in this place.

  I felt, deep down, that he had the right to carry on more lifetimes here.

  But I didn’t want any more of my kind to get hurt.

  I watched him sleep, curled up to the sparkling shell with his tongue snaking out of his mouth. Maybe he was remembering a flight across the ocean, eons ago. I felt an instinctive sympathy for him. It was irrational. He wasn’t one of my own kind. Who was I to throw my lot in with a dragon?

  But…I thought of my family, of my town. I didn’t really feel like I had my own kind.

  And Afakos had shown me kindness. I remembered being carried by him through the forest, trees flashing past. I recalled the expression on his face when he heard music. I remembered the silver mirror. He wasn’t without emotion, without sympathy or goodness in him….

  Was he?

  When the fire had burned down to embers, Afakos awoke. His moonstone eyes fluttered open, and he stretched. Bones along his spine cracked and popped as he arched his back and kinked his tail.

  His gaze fixed on the helmet on the floor. His pupils dilated.

  I swallowed, and my fingers knitted in the blanket. But I forced myself to ask: “Did you kill him?”

  “Yes.” He cocked his head and batted at the helmet, like a cat with a bell. Something rang in it, a piece of bone or glass. “I remember it. A man came here, with dynamite. A long time ago.” He looked at me then, unblinking, as his claw closed around his trophy. “I could not allow him to leave with what he knew. I crawled up behind him and snapped his neck.”

  I lifted my chin. “Is that to be my fate, then? To have you snap my neck and shake me like a mouse until I’m dead?” There was no mistaking who was the cat here.

  He pulled his foot away from the helmet. “No. I’ll take you back to where I found you.”

  My brow wrinkled. “Why?”

  His eyes turned to the ceiling of the cave. “This place is ending. I know it. And it will end in death and fire.” Smoke trickled beyond his teeth. “And I like your music. It should go on in the world.”

  I released a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding.

  “But see that you do not come looking for me again.” His eyes narrowed. “I can make no such guarantees the next time we meet.”

  I remained stubbornly silent, but he still let me go.

  I followed Afakos down his worming passageways, guided by the dim light of embers behind his teeth. His scales slid along the sides of the tunnels, loosening dirt that flew into my eyes. I scrubbed my face with my sleeve. I swore he doubled back on our tracks more than once, to confuse me. My ribs ached as we walked, and he slowed his pace, but he made no effort to carry me again.

  The soft gray light of early morning burned scaldingly bright after the soft darkness of the dragon’s lair. I tried to memorize the edge of the mountain, but he led me away quickly, and I had to hurry to catch up. The underbrush grew thick around me, soaking me with last night’s dew and rain, and I couldn’t see the sun to tell which was east or west. He circled around me, and I turned on my heel until I became dizzy.

  And then he disappeared. I saw a black wing and the outline of a tail disturbing the brush.

  “Afakos?” I called.

  He didn’t answer me. I felt a stab of panic at the idea of being lost, but I could see the roof of my car against a sweetgum tree. It was covered with leaves from last night’s storm. I reached into my pockets for my jingling keys.

  “Thank you,” I whispered.

  I trudged back to the car and sat behind the steering wheel, wincing. When I started the car, the dashboard clock told me it was five a.m. I had to get away from here before anyone saw me and asked why I was torn and bloody. I’d figure out what to do about the torn and bloody part later.

  I backed down the forest road. The ground was soft and muddy from the rain, and I feared getting stuck. But my little car inched and grunted down the slope and took me back through the gate. I was still unmanned, and breathed a sigh of relief.

  I had left no trace of my adventure.

  But I was certain that
there would be hell to pay when I got home.

  *

  “Where in the hell have you been?”

  My mother pounced on me the instant she heard the door slam. I ignored her and headed for the stairs, ready for a hot shower and some antibiotic ointment.

  She reached for my sleeve, yanked me around to face her. Her face was bright red. “Where have you been? Jason’s been out looking for you all night. We called the sheriff, and—” She broke off when she saw my bloody shirt.

  I yanked my arm away from her. “I’m fine,” I snapped. “I went for a walk and got caught in the storm.”

  “Where? With who?”

  “None of your business,” I snarled.

  “If you’re under my roof, it is my business.”

  “Whose fault is that, now—me being under your roof?” Bile rose in the back of my throat. “Either I’m an adult you expect to contribute to the household, or I’m a child to be in bed at seven o’clock.”

  “I expect you to behave with some respect, damn it.”

  “Adult or child?” I challenged her. “If you want me to be a child, I’ll quit my job. If I’m to be an adult, you need to get off my ass.”

  “I will not tolerate you speaking to me that way.”

  I leaned down and put my face two inches from hers. “You don’t really have a choice, do you?”

  She slapped me.

  It startled me more than hurt me. I think it startled her, too. She blinked back tears.

  I lifted my hand to hit her back, fury welling in the back of my throat. God, I wanted to.

  In the next room, I heard my father’s voice. It should’ve been a bellow, but came out like a sigh: “Leave her alone.”

  I didn’t know which one of us he meant. But I let my hand fall. I turned and stalked off to the bathroom without another word.

  I’d been given some mercy today. I supposed that it cost me nothing to spread it around.

  I showered and tended to my wounds as best I could. I cried when I poured hydrogen peroxide into the cuts along my ribs. The steam and water from the shower had opened them a bit, and they wept red rivulets down my skin to the bottom of the drain.

  I stuck Band-Aids along my side, considered whether or not I should go see a doctor. The wounds looked better clean than they had last night in the dark. I resolved to watch them for infection. In high school, I knew a guy who had pierced his nipples himself with safety pins. He’d been cool for about two minutes until he’d accidentally torn one out. I remembered the blood and the paleness of his face.

  And I wasn’t that hurt. My cheek held the silhouette of a red handprint. I hoped it would fade before anyone saw it. It would just raise too many questions.

  I wanted nothing more than to collapse into my bed, pull the blankets over my head, and fall into the muzzy forgetting of sleep. I dressed quickly in a t-shirt and sweats. I crawled under the covers, my gaze landing unfocused on the hole in my unicorn collection, and it seemed those shards still ached in my skin. The silver mirror Afakos had given me occupied the center place of honor, but it only reflected the blank ceiling. I fussed and turned over, trying to find a comfortable position that didn’t put too much pressure on my ribs. When I rolled over, I was face-to-face with my grandfather’s violin case.

  I squeezed my eyes shut and let the tears come. My parents’ voices murmured dully below me. no doubt deciding what to do with their now-rebellious daughter. I’d never given them any cause for concern before, but that really had more to do with me than their parenting style. I’d had too many goals to jeopardize by being reckless.

  But now… Now, things were different.

  The screen door in the kitchen banged, and a third voice joined the murmur soup. I peeked through the window to see Jason’s truck.

  Excellent.

  I reached under my bed for my shoes. I was in no mood to argue with him, either. I had both feet out the window by the time my bedroom door opened.

  “Di?” Jason asked.

  Damn. I was too slow. I gazed longingly at the trees beyond the window frame. And I felt a flash of irritation that he hadn’t bothered to knock. It was like he owned this place.

  “Are you all right?”

  I perched at the bottom of the windowsill. “Yes.” I turned away my cheek with the red mark on it.

  Jason sat down on the edge of the bed. He reached out and turned my chin toward him. His jaw tightened. “What happened?”

  “Mom happened.” My hands balled into fists on the hem of my t-shirt. I didn’t want him to see or inquire about the rest of my wounds.

  He frowned. “We were worried about you.”

  “And I’m sorry for that. I needed some space to breathe.”

  “Where did you go? I couldn’t find you anywhere.”

  “Out in the woods. Got caught in a storm and slept in the car.” That lie was close enough to the truth to remember.

  “The police said they’d ticketed your car in proximity to a bunch of protestors squatting on state land a few days ago.” To his credit, he made it a statement of fact, not an accusation.

  I lifted my chin. “I needed to be away from everyone last night. And I mean everyone.”

  His hands locked together over his knees. He took a deep breath. “Is there someone else?”

  My jaw fell open. I wanted to say: Yes, yes there is. A dragon the size of a tree with a compulsive hoarding problem. But I said, “Of course not.”

  Maybe he read the lie in my eyes. Or maybe it was just that we knew each other that well, and he could sense that I was hiding something, without knowing exactly what.

  “You were gone all night.”

  I put up my hands. “Look, we’ve all been through a lot. Can we just talk about this later?” My voice shook. We’d made no promises to each other, but I couldn’t deny the commitment I’d shown him in my actions, in the dark, in the tree house.

  “Okay. Later, then.” He stood and kissed the top of my head. He wrapped his arms around me to hug me, but my ribs ached, and I flinched. His arms dropped.

  I knew he took this as evidence that I didn’t want him to touch me. “Jason…”

  He turned and left without looking at me, closing the door softly behind him. That sound was so much louder and more painful than a slam or slap.

  I buried my face in my pillow and cried myself to sleep.

  *

  I went back to work the next day. There was no point taking another day of bereavement leave when I got more grief at home. At least while I was at work, people left me the hell alone. The red mark on my cheek had faded, but I think I would’ve gone back even if it hadn’t.

  “Sorry about your loss, kiddo,” Peters had said, handing me a purple orchid plant with a silver bow around the pot. I was quite sure his wife had picked it out. He immediately fled the trailer, probably afraid I would do something girly he was completely unequipped to handle. Like cry.

  And he gave me a much better gift—the avalanche of work that had accumulated in my absence. It took my mind off Grandpa, forcing me to process massive amounts of inane and obscure details: overtime calculations, sick leave conversions, memos, and mail.

  A phone call that afternoon managed to disturb my shuffling of paper. I picked up the receiver and cradled it against my chin.

  I chirped mindlessly into it: “Good afternoon, this is Di. How can I help you?”

  “This is Sam Summers with EPA Region 3 in Philadelphia. We’re working on the permit for Sawtooth Mountain, and we’re waiting on some first quarter sample data from you to finalize our recommendations.”

  I sat up in my chair. “What kind of sample data?”

  Paper scraped over the phone. “We’re missing the last set of water sample data to ensure Clean Water Act compliance.”

  My brow wrinkled. “I thought I saw that on the boss’s desk last week. Give me your fax number, and I’ll send it to you right away.”

  I copied down the number and rummaged through my filing cabinet. I fou
nd a folder labeled “Water Samples” and some papers dated two weeks ago. I didn’t understand much of what they said, but I recognized the names of local streams and salinity and measurements for the amount of selenium present in the water, plus other minerals, metals, and dissolved oxygen.

  I spread them out on my desk. Some were highlighted. I had no way of interpreting them, other than a vague sense of curiosity about the yellow marker slashes on the page.

  Peters returned to the trailer, his boots clomping on the plastic runner.

  “Boss?” I stuck my head around the corner. “EPA in Philadelphia called about some water sample data they need faxed to them.” I held up the yellow-spangled stack of paper. “Is this the one you want me to send?”

  He snatched the papers out of my hand. “Not those. I’ll take care of it.”

  I blinked, afraid I’d done something wrong. “Okay.” I scurried away to make fresh coffee.

  He returned to his desk, but the incident stuck in my mind. I watched him dig through the water samples file drawer, and an hour later, he handed me a stack of paper.

  “Go ahead and fax them these.”

  “Sure thing,” I chirped.

  Our fax machine was old and took forever. After several aborted attempts last week, I’d discovered the only way to make sure it sent all the pages was to feed them in one at a time. Otherwise, it would suck in two or three, and jam. And then I’d look like a moron when the recipient called and bitched about not getting all the pages.

  I patiently fed the machine. One sheet. Two sheets. Three sheets.

  Then I noticed something funny. The first page of the report was dated two weeks ago—the same time as the report I’d offered to send.

  But the numbers on this page were all wrong. Different from the one I’d seen earlier. There was no highlighting. And it seemed the numbers on this page were much lower than the ones I’d seen in the original report.

  I peered back in Mr. Peters’s office. He was typing away at his computer. I opened my mouth to ask, but thought better of it.

  I returned the fax to the file and laid the transmittal report in his inbox. “All sent.”

  “Thanks, kiddo.” He glanced at the clock. “You taking off?”