by Alan Marble
“True enough. I suppose it’s a matter of speech to say that we still lay eggs,” she offered with a shrug, her smile once more fading a bit, though at least this time it didn’t transform into a frown. “You still think it’s all made up, don’t you? That this is some kind of elaborate fiction that I’ve put together for you.”
Swallowing the food in his mouth, he frowned openly at her. “What do you think? I mean, honestly, this is an awful tall tale you’re trying to sell me here. Dragons, sorcerers, ancient clans and magic tokens? Come on.”
“Even now? After everything you’ve seen? The bull drakes? The coin mysteriously in your pocket again and again? You come on,” she said, her voice still carrying a hint of playfulness. “Do you think we’d really go to this extreme? We’re in freaking Omaha, Nebraska. Isn’t that an awful lot to do for a prank?”
“Maybe. But maybe you, or whoever put you up to this, is just insane enough to go through with it all.”
“All right,” she said, pausing a moment, her green eyes still on him, studying him. “Well in that case I have a question for you.”
Jonah squinted at her. “For me? What?”
“Why are you here? Why are you sitting at a picnic table in front of a truck stop a thousand miles away from home, Jonah?”
“Because you dragged me here,” he shot back.
She shook her head. “No, that’s not good enough. You’re an adult, and no one is tying you up and dragging you along. You could have gotten out at any of the gas stations we stopped at. You could have run off in Detroit. You could run off right now, flag down a cab, call someone back home for help, but you’re still here. Why?”
He had, indeed, thought of doing that on more than one occasion. It was a valid question, too, as to why he had not done so, and when she asked it he was forced to consider the answer, himself. There was still some strange compulsion to hear her story out, but more than that a weird curiosity driving him to follow along, to see what would happen, where they were going. Not that he believed a word of it, but in some way he felt compelled to see the story through. “I don’t know. I guess I’ve never really gone on a road trip before, so why not?”
“Don’t lie, Jonah,” she accused.
“I’m not lying,” he spat with a frown, flushing in his cheeks. “Hell, other than flying up to New York to visit my grandparents during the holidays I don’t think I’ve ever been out of Florida at all.”
Rebekah shrugged. “Maybe that’s true, but it’s not the reason you’re sticking around.”
“Fine. Maybe I’m a little curious as to where you are going with this, what it is all leading up to,” he confessed.
“It’s more than that, isn’t it?”
He frowned and shook his head. “I don’t know what you are talking about.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. But you feel drawn to it Jonah, drawn to me, drawn to the story, don’t you? Something about it is calling to you on a deeper level. A spiritual level. You can’t deny that it’s about more than just curiosity or the urge to go on a road trip,” she said, smiling.
“Sure I can,” he responded, a little impatiently. He didn’t like where she was going with that, and did not like the fact that, at least in some small way, it felt like she was speaking the truth. It was a bunch of nonsense, and he didn’t believe a word of it. He wondered if he should just cut it off there, not encourage her by continuing along, but he still felt that compulsion, despite what he said, despite whatever else he felt.
“Let me ask you something, then,” she said, once more having to push her bangs from her face, the warm little breeze fluttering at a napkin on the table and threatening to carry it away before she plucked it out of the air.
Jonah shrugged his shoulders a little noncommittally, not sure he was interested in the conversation any longer. “Okay.”
“Do you ever get the feeling that you’re different from everyone else? That there was something more going on than you could see or explain?”
“No.” He answered the question without any hesitation, his voice as flat as his expression as he looked back across the table at her, slightly confused with what she was trying to get at.
Rebekah kept her own gaze on him, her bright green eyes blinking slowly as she held her tongue for a moment, giving him the weird and slightly uncomfortable sensation that she was looking right through him. “You sure? I mean, haven’t you ever wondered why you look so much younger than everyone else your age, for example?”
Again Jonah responded with a little shrug. “I suppose I get a little tired of being carded all the time, but I haven’t given it a lot of thought, no.”
“And your health? I’ve been watching you for a while now Jonah and I know you haven’t ever taken a sick day from work. You never missed a class back in college, you’ve never so much as had to take a shot of cough syrup.” Pausing a moment as if she expected a reaction, she leaned in a bit closer. “Come on, tell me when the last time you felt sick.”
“Last night. Half a dozen times,” he shot back with a smirk.
Leaning back again, she shook her head with a mock frown. “That’s not what I meant.”
“Yeah, yeah. I don’t know,” Jonah confessed, tilting his head back to try and remember the last time he had a fever, the last time he had suffered a cold. A weird sort of sensation came over him as he realized that he was having trouble even thinking of a single time. “I … well, it was probably when I was a kid, or something.”
“Come on, Jonah, you’re holding back on me. Holding back on yourself. You know you’re different, even if you aren’t going to admit it to me. You age more slowly. You don’t get sick. Your weird obsession with silver,” she said, putting emphasis on the last word. “There’s probably more. You may not be a fan of running but I’d bet that you can go a long ways without getting tired. You’re a lot stronger than a skinny guy like you should be …”
Each little fact that she repeated was true. Things that he had not stopped to think about before, bits and pieces of his life that seemed unremarkable to him before were suddenly being presented as something out of the norm, and he realized that, on the whole, she was right. The more right she was, however, the more uneasy it made him feel, and he finally had to cut her off. “All right, I get it. What’s your point? Wait, let me guess. Somehow all proof that I’m actually a dragon and don’t know it, right?”
Rebekah flashed him a slight little smirk. “You’re catching on pretty quick. Being clever happens to be a common trait among dragons. Just like the rest of those traits.”
Jonah rolled his eyes and shook his head. “Right. Look, that’s all fine, but it’s not that hard to pick a few random things out of my life and pretend they are ‘common dragon traits’. You could just as easily have said that having brown hair and blue eyes are common dragon traits, too. Doesn’t prove a thing.”
“Maybe. But brown hair and blue eyes are pretty common. Those others? Not so much.”
“They aren’t all that rare, either,” he protested. “Besides, if I were something other than a regular, everyday human then my doctor would have noticed. I’ve been to the doctor before, you know. Annual checkups, and I’m as healthy as can be. Nothing weird like being cold blooded.”
Rebekah laughed softly at that, in that irritatingly attractive way. “None of us dragons are cold blooded, Jonah.”
“Right,” he responded, shrugging his shoulders.
She allowed another moment of silence to pass before she spoke up again, this time a little softer, almost reverently. “And the visions? You’ve started having them, too, haven’t you?”
A little caught off guard, he glanced back up at her skeptically. “Visions?”
“Visions. Dreams. Ever since you came to have the token.”
“I don’t know what you are talking about,” he answered, a little defensively.
The smile that she passed him was sincere and disarming, but he did not want to feel disarmed. It made him feel more open, more vulnera
ble than he cared for. “Surely you have. It’s always strongest when you first are united with the token. Visions, fragments of memories left behind by those who held it before, those who were members of the clan you were chosen to represent. A legacy of those who have gone before you, Jonah. You know what I am speaking of.”
Instantly he knew exactly what she was talking about, and the fact that she had zeroed in on that little fact made his blood suddenly run cold. For a fleeing moment he found himself wondering if there were a grain of truth to what she was saying, but he shook it off with a bit of a grunt. “You people are just … playing with my head.”
“And what about last night? How could you explain that? You saw me get tossed right through a car window and come out with hardly more than a scratch. That’s gotta count for something,” she said with a sort of smirk.
“Just means you’re … hard headed.” Annoyed, he gathered up the remnants of his meal and stuffed it all back into the paper back, getting out of his seat to drop it in the wastebasket nearby. “We’ve probably been here long enough, right? Shouldn’t we get going?”
“Changing the subject,” she accused, but got up out of her seat as well. “But you’re right. Long drive ahead of us.”
“Big surprise,” he muttered, stalking his way across the parking lot toward the SUV, pausing to look back to her before he got there. “Mind at least telling me where we are going?”
“Page. Small town in northern Arizona.”
He shrugged as he reached the vehicle, stepping around and getting in the passenger’s seat, buckling himself in. He waited until she was in and had the car started before speaking up. “And what’s there?”
“A friend. We’re picking him up.”
“And then?”
She maneuvered the car out of the parking lot, turning onto the ramp that would take them back on the interstate, heading westward once again. “Then we’re going to a Convocation.”
“Of course,” he said, shaking his head, settling into the seat with a sigh as they set out on yet another long drive. The scenery began to bleed away in a blur outside of the window, another long slog across the country to look forward to. Still, Jonah was not interested in passing it all in silence if he could help it, and in spite of his better judgment he still had a few lingering questions gnawing at him. He’d have to get them out. “Mind if I ask you a few more questions?”
She had just been about to reach for the controls to the car’s stereo, turning to glance at him curiously with her bright green eyes before she shrugged. “All right.”
“You’re trying so hard to convince me of this whole dragon thing. I don’t really know why. I’ll grant you that some weird shit has been happening the past few days,” he allowed himself to say, slowly, keeping his eyes trained out the window. “But I’m not going to buy the story about dragons. It’s just too much.”
“I thought you had questions.”
“I’m getting there,” he said, frowning, shaking his head a little. “I was just going to say, why don’t you go for the obvious? If you’re a dragon, just show me. Prove it to me.”
She turned to look at him with a little frown. “Well, to be honest, if it were up to me I’d do it in a heartbeat. I’m kind of tired of you playing the part of Doubting Thomas over there in spite of all the evidence around you.”
Her answer caught him off guard. He had expected her to spout some more nonsense about how it wasn’t the right way, how he had to learn to fly on his own, something like Abe had spouted the night before. Something about her candor was both refreshing and disarming. “You say that like you don’t have a choice in the matter.”
“I don’t. I was told to try and convince you in any way that I could short of just showing you. Something about you having to find out on your own.” She shrugged, keeping her eyes on the road. “Pain in the ass, if you ask me.”
“So … this whole thing, everything you’re doing. It’s all about taking orders.”
A brief moment of silence passed before she answered. “What’re you getting at, Jonah?”
He sighed softly before he responded. He wasn’t quite sure what he was getting at, himself, and wasn’t really sure why he felt the need to broach the subject in the first place. “Look. You saved my ass last night, and it’s not even the first time you’ve done that. I’m … not really sure how I feel about that. Thankful,” he added, a bit hastily. “But confused.”
“Why confused?”
“I guess I just don’t understand why,” he muttered a little meekly, looking back out the window again, trying to gather his thoughts. “Why’d you do it. Stick your neck out like that for me. They order you to do that? Put your life on the line?”
“No,” Rebekah answered, a little hesitantly, as if she were carefully choosing her words. “They asked me to protect you but no one made me promise to do it at my own peril. What was I supposed to do, though, stand by and watch them murder you? Besides. You been watching over someone as long as I have been watching over you, and you can’t help but to grow a little fond and protective of them.”
Jonah felt a weird little lump in his throat and a heat in his neck that made him uncomfortable. Seeking to deflect the rise in emotion, he teased, “Makes you sound like a stalker. How long have you been … watching me?”
She laughed softly, that same laugh that was so easy on his ears. “Just a few years. And don’t worry. It’s not like I’ve been sitting in a dark room across the street, watching you through a pair of binoculars while you shower. At least not often,” she said, turning to look at him with a sly grin and a wink, teasing him right back.
It worked, as the flush in his neck reached his cheeks. He closed his eyes, too embarrassed to look back at her, holding a hand over his face. “That’s not what I meant …”
“You sure about that?”
“Please,” he murmured, sounding exasperated.
With another soft laugh, she shook her head. “All right, all right. I’m sorry. Didn’t mean to make you blush.”
“I’m not blushing,” he lied, keeping his gaze fixed out the window. She was merciful enough not to press the issue any further, and when he had mustered enough courage to turn around and look at her directly again she was once again focused on the highway in front of them. A smile still pulled at the corners of her mouth, but it was a genuine sort of smile. For a long moment he just watched her out of the corner of his eye, trying not to look like he was staring, realizing that once again he was finding himself admiring her in spite of the conflicting emotions he felt.
“Well,” she finally offered, breaking the silence again. “I guess you could say that no one’s holding a gun to my head and making me do what I do. Yeah, they ask me to do it, but I suppose I do it because I want to, too.”
Jonah felt like he should leave it at that, but at the same time was not comfortable just leaving things hanging in silence. Without much forethought to where he was going with the conversation, he simply managed to blurt out the first thing. “So, ah, how old are you?”
Turning to level a sharp look at him with her green eyes, she blinked. “Why would you ask me that?”
“I guess … I mean, like I said, just thought it might be nice to get to know you a little better …”
“By asking me how old I am?”
Immediately uncomfortable, he found himself fidgeting in his seat again. “Well, you’ve been going on about how we’re all older than we look …”
“Look, Jonah. Even you are old enough to know that asking a woman’s age is never a good thing to do,” she said with a serious tone.
He couldn’t tell if she was mocking him or not. He waited to see if she’d laugh it off and say she was kidding but when she did not, he felt himself growing increasingly discomfited, folding his arms over his chest. “I’m sorry.”
Rebekah did, in the end, offer a good natured little chuckle but it was a bit on the muted side. “Well, fair bit of advice, then. There’s better conversation star
ters than asking a lady her age. If you’re up for a little tutoring I suppose I could offer you a few pointers,” she added, her tone softening and a grin creeping up on her face once more.
In a way it irritated him even more to think that she might be willing to offer him advice on how he might approach other women. He realized he was developing more than a passing interest in Rebekah, for reasons that were simply beyond his understanding; with the exception of a few difficult to interpret teases, the interest seemed to be only one way. He wasn’t comfortable with his feelings on the subject, and pushing them down, simply shook his head. “How far do we have to go?”
Shrugging, she looked back over the dashboard. “Going to take most of the day.”
“May as well see what’s on the radio, then.”
EIGHT
A light rain had begun to fall over the last few hours of their trip, just as they had crossed into Arizona and passed through Monument Valley. It was beautiful in a strange, stark fashion, the way the low-hanging clouds hugged against the massive sandstone buttes, occasional breaks in the clouds forming fleeting rainbows against the gray sky. It was the sort of thing that Jonah had only seen in old western movies, in dazzling collections posted online by various accomplished photographers. The kind of scenery that he could only have imagined.
After a time, however, the novelty had worn off and the drive had become a monotonous trek through washed out reds and browns, punctuated only by the occasional small town or shack on the side of the road hawking “authentic Indian jewelry”. When they passed by a power plant, its trio of smokestacks rising up from the ground like sore thumbs, even the familiar and drab industrial architecture seemed a welcome change to the scenery.
At last they rounded a small butte hugging the side of the highway and came across signs of civilization, turning at the first stoplight he had seen in hours, and they had arrived at their destination. Page was a fairly small town; it took them only a few minutes of driving along the main drag, passing by a row of churches and the brief commercial center of the city before they turned off along a quiet residential street.