Snapdragon Book II: In the Land of the Dragon

by Brandon Berntson

  Rudy looked at her and nodded.

  “You don’t believe me, do you?” Masie asked.

  Rudy looked up as if pulled from a dream. His eyes grew wide. Did her overconfidence surprise him? “Uh…no,” he said. “I just don’t know what to say. I don’t know what to expect. I just…wanted to let you know that if there was anything I could do, Masie…if there’s anything you need…”

  Masie pursed her lips and nodded. “I’m not fine at all, Rudy, if that’s what you’re trying to say. I just don’t know how else to be.” Masie realized how blunt her words were, but couldn’t stop. “I could break down, walk around moping and crying, I guess, but what good would that do? I know the time will come for that anyway. I’ll deal with it when it gets here. Believe me…if they can’t find Seth, I know damn good and well what will happen. I won’t be able to handle it then. I know that for sure. There will come a time, probably soon, when I will break down. I don’t want it to happen, but it probably will happen. I’ll just snap, I guess.”

  Thinking about it, about Seth being gone—being permanently gone—Masie felt a whirlwind of emotions swirling inside her. Seth may never come home, and it would hit her then. She couldn’t afford any measure of defeat right now. As long as he was out there, as long as his body went undiscovered, she could keep hoping. Her brother was gone, yes, and no one knew why, where, or how. Nothing would change that, but Masie told herself it was only temporary. She had to tell herself this. She and her mother were being careful with each other’s emotions, trying not to say the wrong word, tiptoeing around the tension. They had to be patient. The next bit of news could go either way…

  “I’m sorry, Masie,” Rudy said. “I’m really really sorry. I just wanted…I don’t know…can I do anything for you?”

  Masie smiled. “Thank you, Rudy. Thank you so much. But, no. I just want to stay here. I want to wait. I don’t want to leave Mom. But…thank you.”

  Rudy nodded, dejection clearly visible on his face, wishing he had a more significant role to play here in the Auburn residence. With everything happening in his life, he must feel useless, Masie thought, to her, his family, even himself. She wondered what he did to stay sane.

  Rudy forced a smile and stood up. “Well, thanks for the soda. Call me, though, Mase, if you need anything. Even if it’s someone to talk to. Or if you need to get out of the house for a while, all right? I’ll be around.”

  “Thanks, Rudy. I’ll call you soon and let you know. I’m sure I won’t want to stay in this house forever. But thank you. That really means a lot.”

  Rudy nodded and moved to the door. Masie stood up and followed.

  For a second, she stopped, reaching out to touch his arm. Rudy turned, facing her. Masie wrapped her arms around his neck and hugged him tight. “Thank you,” she whispered in his ear, her voice thick. “Thank you so much.”

  “Call if you need anything,” he said, again.

  “I will.”

  Rudy pulled away and looked into her eyes. “Bye, Masie,” he said, and opened the door. He started down the steps, along the sidewalk.

  Masie held the door open and watched him go. He turned to wave as he made his way along the street, and Masie waved in return. She shut the door quietly. Tears brimmed in her eyes.

  Did it happen already, the feeling she had, that her little brother was not coming back? After everything she’d said, all she’d tried to do…she was falling apart just as quickly after telling Rudy she had to stay strong.

  Masie walked down the hallway, and into her mother’s room. Her mom was sitting on the edge of the bed with her hands to her face. “Mom, are you okay?”

  Samantha looked up, wiping her eyes, and faked a laugh. “I didn’t hear you come in.” She paused. “You know, Masie, for the first time in my life, I’ve been praying.”

  “Praying is good, Mom,” Masie said, and sat next to her mother, putting her arm around her shoulders.

  Samantha turned and kissed her daughter on the cheek. “Yeah. I wish I would’ve done it sooner.”

  “I love you, Mom.”

  “I love you too, sweetie.”

  Masie held onto her mother.

  The emotion came, and when it did, it was thick and heavy. As painful as it was, it felt good to finally let it out.

  Masie prayed for Seth and his friends. She prayed for her mother and for the town of Ellishome, and in the months ahead, Masie Auburn would bear testimony to the answers of those prayers.

  CHAPTER IV

  With Ellishome miles away, six companions made their way into a vast stretch of marshlands before the foothills began. The water was murky and heavy, pulling them down into the thick mud. Gnats and bugs pestered them, flying close to their faces. The wind was cold and cruel, lashing against their cheeks, and the rain began to fall. A white egret walked with strange, mechanical movements across the wetland.

  The ground seemed cracked and porous with dirt, as if—under the marshes—another world made of dry desert sand were trying to emerge.

  “You’ve got to be joking, right?” Kinsey said, eyeing the land with disapproval.

  The rest of them stopped and stared

  “Marshlands,” Malcolm said.

  “Marshlands, my foot,” Albert said. “It looks like desert to me.”

  Malcolm looked at Albert. “What are you talking about?”

  “What do you mean, ‘What am I talking about?’” Albert argued. “Do you not see desert sand?”

  Malcolm raised his eyebrows. “No, I see marshes. I see wet. I see mud and water.”

  Albert turned to Seth as if the Bearer of the Black Sword held the answers. “What do you make of this?”

  Seth shrugged. He didn’t know what to make of it any more than the rest of them. “I suggest we keep moving.”

  The weather had the same effect. Seth was sweating profusely, his coat sticking to his neck, but it was also cold with rain. Were they in a desert, or was it cold?

  “What do you see?” Seth said, turning to Gavin.

  “Marshes,” the boy said.

  “You?” he asked Kinsey and Eddie.

  They both replied with the same word:

  “Desert.”

  “I think we’d better keep an eye out,” Seth said.

  As if in answer, the earth shifted under their feet, trembling with the sound of thunder, then settled again.

  “What the hell was that?” Gavin asked, eyes wide.

  The others looked around, coming to a halt again.

  “I don’t know,” Eddie said. “But I think we should find some shelter fast. I don’t like this. Something’s out there…”

  They started moving again, putting emphasis into each hurried step, but the weight of their packs hampered them. Eddie fell into the marshes, mud splashing his face, his pack wet and soiled. Albert stopped to help. Gavin, too, in obvious pain, couldn’t keep up with the others, and lagged farther behind.

  “How much longer before we’re out of this?” Albert asked.

  “The foothills don’t look much farther,” Malcolm said, moving at a steady trot, his pack jostling behind him.

  Seth’s feet continued to sink into the marshes the more he ran, but the pack was too heavy. The mud sucked his right boot under. He grabbed his foot above the ankle and tried to pull his foot free. Seth fell backwards and splashed in the mud.

  The ground, with the reverberations of thunder, trembled.

  “I’m stuck!” he called to the others.

  Gavin caught up and tried to get him loose.

  “Come on!” Malcolm called from up ahead.

  The pounding grew louder. Seth felt himself sinking farther into the ground with each violent tremble. He was able to put a face and shape to what he’d seen the night before. The monsters were the size of dinosaurs.

  The sky was gray, but a wave of black swarmed in across the land under the clouds, turning the day to sudden night.

  It shouldn’t have surprised Seth when he looked. Forked tongues lashed
from featureless faces. Massive hands of black claws reached out from under the clouds. They hovered above the ground, shifting back and forth above the earth, and moved toward them at incredulous speeds in motions similar to the wind. Gangly arms stretched wide from a mass of jumbled teeth.

  Seth watched the beasts closing the distance. The sky darkened, but where were the thunderous, booming sounds coming from?

  Seth stared at the towering shapes, paralyzed and awed by the massive creatures.

  Kinsey was suddenly there, kneeling beside him, tugging at his leg, but it wouldn’t budge.

  “Come on!” Malcolm screamed again from up ahead. “Run!”

  The earth continued to rumble. Five beasts moved in from the east, a hundred yards away.

  Kinsey screamed:

  “Come on, Seth! Help me! I need your help!”

  Seth tried to loose his foot, but the more he tried, the deeper he sank. The beasts rushed over the ground, the air filled with an insane garble.

  Gavin locked his forearms under Seth’s arms, trying to lift him out. Kinsey continued to pull on his leg.

  The monsters shrieked, a stentorian cry like pterodactyls. The shapes moved in the air directly above them.

  His foot finally came free like a suction cup. Seth backpedaled, falling onto his back, and on top of Gavin. He scrambled to his feet, reaching down, and helped Gavin up. Together, the three of them ran through the marshes as the creatures moved in. Shadows, arms of black, tangible ribbon reached outward, encircling Seth, Gavin, and Kinsey. Black entered his mouth and lungs.

  Underneath, the ground continued to quake.

  Gavin tripped and fell, his face planted in cold, wet mud. Seth stopped, grabbing Gavin’s hand, and helped the boy to his feet, then hurried after the others.

  The marshes came to life, and Seth tripped once again. A hand grabbed his ankle and wouldn’t let go.

  A crushed, eyeless face stared at him, a boy in racecar pajamas. A clump of black blood was spit onto Seth’s face. The dead boy’s eyes crawled with spiders.

  “Let go!” Seth shouted, and reached behind him, unsheathing the sword. He kicked at Sadie, raised the sword and swung it on top of the dead boy’s skull, splitting his head open.

  Kinsey was next to him again. Sadie fell forward, motionless. Scrambling, Seth got to his feet with the help of Kinsey, and they ran through the bog. Gavin was several feet ahead of them.

  This could not be Ben’s world. Somehow, the Dragon had opened a doorway.

  “Come on!” Kinsey shrieked.

  The earth continued to boom all around them. The shadowy monsters closed the distance, descending through the air. Hadn’t one only been inches from his throat?

  In answer, a claw nipped at his collar. The creatures were right behind them now.

  The earth shook, trembled, and split. Fissures erupted across the marshlands. At Seth’s feet, the bogs separated as massive excavations tore through the ground.

  Ben and the Dragon were warring with one another, locked arm in arm in a cataclysmic battle. Their fight unraveled in the world at their feet. Seth and his friends were pawns, while the timeless figures—forever linked—waged an endless war upon the other. Entities collided, leaving a trail of tragedy and destruction in their wake. Seth and his companions were not merely trying to make it out alive, but were running, literally, through Ben and the Dragon’s battlefield.

  The ground continued to split. The wails of the beasts turned to cries of rage. Ben had laid a trap while trying to save Seth and his friends at the same time.

  One by one, the shadowy creatures were sucked into the ground, gateways of tangible, bright light. Blinding pillars shot upward and penetrated the shadowed beasts, then pulled them into the darkness. As Seth looked, the fissures began to close, trapping the monsters below.

  “Come on!” Malcolm continued from up ahead.

  Another howl ripped the air apart, a defiant scream.

  Seth held tightly to his sword, reached out, and grabbed Kinsey’s hand, and together, they continued to climb into the foothills.

  ii

  Just because you can’t see me doesn’t mean I’m not there.

  He heard this clearly, as if one of his friends were speaking just next to his ear.

  In silence, they trudged farther west, the land sloping upward. Boulders jutted sporadically from the ground through tall, pale grass, shrubs, and sagebrush.

  Seth and the others stopped when the land began to rise. They were out of breath and looked behind them into the steaming fissures below. Not a single monster was visible. All was quiet. The only sound was Seth and his friends’ labored breathing.

  “What happened to the desert?” Albert asked, between panting breaths, his face—like those of his companions—was glossy with sweat. He put his hands on his knees.

  “What the hell is going on?” Gavin asked, also trying to catch his breath.

  Seth had an idea, but was unsure how they’d respond. “Ben helped us,” he said.

  They looked at him.

  “He made the cracks in the earth,” he said. “I don’t think the Dragon is just a dragon. We’re gonna have to prepare for anything.”

  A distant howl traveled across the marshlands below.

  Seth and his friends continued to stare into the bewildering landscape. Smoke rose from the sealed cracks just like a battlefield.

  iii

  The ground leveled off. Boulders, high grass, and brush surrounded them with few trees. Clouds moved sluggishly across the sky, the wind blowing cold with stronger gusts. Once again, a light mist began to fall.

  Seth looked at his friends. He wondered if they were experiencing the same shift, a tugging back and forth between light and dark.

  After what seemed a long hour of quiet, Albert finally spoke:

  “What do you think really happened back there? I mean, what was it exactly? We should have been dead.”

  Malcolm shrugged, keeping his thoughts to himself. Seth wished the boy would say something. He’d grown accustomed to hearing Malcolm’s voice as a sign of leadership.

  “We’re moving through two worlds at the same time,” Gavin said.

  Seth looked in Gavin’s direction.

  “I think Ben and the Dragon are battling each other even now,” Gavin continued. “I think they’re fighting, and as they fight, I think the nightmares come to life. I think it was the result of Ben and the Dragon doing battle. As long as they continue to war with each other, we’re going to be in the middle of it. We’re going to see the results of their battle in the land around us.”

  Albert looked at Gavin with perpetual awe. The chubby boy’s mouth hung open. “How did you come up with that?”

  Gavin shrugged. “It just came to me. Just because my mom beats the crap out of me doesn’t mean I’m stupid.”

  Seth smiled, putting a hand on Gavin’s shoulder. The boy raised his eyebrows as if to say, ‘I thought it was obvious.’

  Seth matched Gavin’s stride step for step, slowing when the boy needed to catch his breath, but he already looked better than he had yesterday.

  Seth walked with Gavin Lolly as they headed into the hills.

  iv

  Magic moved through Seth, making him feel lighter than air. At least, that was what he told himself. The land, though brimming with atrocity, owned a quality he could only define as magic.

  This is no longer presumption. This is you, and this is me. We are here together forever now. Dreams await us, Seth. Do not doubt your potential. You are the maker of great and mighty dreams, too. Believe it.

  A change took place inside. He wasn’t sure if he was terrified of it—trying to will it away—or if he should let it run its course.

  A banquet hall filled his head, the sound of laughter, mugs of ale clashing together as foam sloshed to the floor. The vision made him smile, but it faded just as quickly.

  The wind began to calm, and the rain, too, was tapering off again.

  A connection—something c
onsuming and powerful—surfaced between he and the land. Maybe wars and battles were happening inside him as they were happening between Ben and the Dragon.

  The day darkened. Stars belonging to constellations Seth couldn’t recognize appeared in the night sky. A grove of trees to their left offered ample shelter in case it rained again, and they stopped for the night. A shallow creek snaked over polished stones.

  Taking off their packs after a long day’s journey, they breathed easier after the weariness of the day. The six of them plopped, exhausted, onto the wet ground.

  “I’m starving,” Albert said. “I could go for a big, hot, juicy steak.”

  “How about a handful of sunflower seeds,” Eddie said, holding out his hand. Albert raised his eyebrows, wondering if it were a joke. Eddie shrugged, took it as a no, and plopped the seeds into his mouth.

  Seth unlaced his boots, pulled them off, along with his socks, running his blistered feet through the grass. The sensation was luxuriant, the cold grass on his raw toes, reminding him of the times he’d walked barefoot in his backyard. He closed his eyes and leaned his head back. The others looked at him, raised their eyebrows, and did the same. Under the cool, soughing wind, the six of them ran their toes through the grass.

  “Ahhh,” Albert said. “Good idea, Seth. That’s perfect. Better than a cup of coffee.”

  “You like coffee?” Eddie said, grimacing.

  “Sure,” Albert said. “Mom let’s me drink coffee all the time.”

  “No wonder you’re so obnoxious.”

  Albert pointed to Eddie and frowned. “What’s with this kid?” he asked.

  To the west, the mountains were noticeably closer. Seth wondered how much farther the palace was. The clouds darkened as the sun began to set, a purple hue to the tops of the mountain peaks. The sky turned a deep, lush red.

  “Don’t you think it’s weird?” Seth asked.