The Bone Dragon

by Alexia Casale

  The snag in my nail is proving stubborn. I work at it with my teeth to no avail, trying to ignore the fact that Amy has clearly told Ms Winters more about Fiona than I’d realised. Ms Winters just sits there, waiting patiently for me to answer.

  ‘What difference would that have made?’ I say eventually.

  ‘Maybe she was hoping . . .’

  ‘She knew what would happen,’ I snap then, before Ms Winters can continue. ‘She didn’t go so that there would be someone to look after me.’

  ‘But you do recognise that she was grieving for your father. People do strange things when they’re desperate, especially if they’re also ill.’

  ‘They told her to go and she went. That was it. She just did what they said. She always just did what they said.’ I shove my nail back into my mouth to stop myself saying any more. The rough edge catches on my tongue. I swallow away the ferrous bite of blood.

  ‘But she did marry your father, Evie,’ Ms Winters is saying. ‘Reading between the lines of what you’ve told me, that must have been very much against her parents’ wishes.’

  ‘It was Dad’s idea,’ I say as I return to digging my right thumb nail under the catch in the left. ‘He joked about it once, though I didn’t really understand it. How they ran away to get married, like she was a princess and he was a commoner. How Fiona looked over her shoulder the whole way to the registry office as if they were about to be chased down.’

  ‘Perhaps, by that point, she couldn’t believe that she would ever be able to escape her parents.’

  ‘She didn’t, did she? He rescued her.’ The blood on my tongue tastes like acid as I swallow it away, swallow it away.

  ‘Do you think your father knew about Fiona’s parents?’ Ms Winters asks, and I can tell that she’s got her teeth into this: there’s no hope now that she’ll let go till she’s said what she wants to say, asked what she wants to ask. It’s just like in class when there’s some really interesting thing she wants us to work out for ourselves and she just keeps pushing and dragging at us until we inch our way there.

  ‘I expect he just thought that they were over-protective. A bit controlling. He hated my . . . Fiona’s mother.’ I feel my lips twist into a smile like a sneer. ‘Why wouldn’t he? But he just thought she was horrid. Just ordinary horrid.’

  I want to ask Ms Winters if she thinks my father knew what would happen to us if anything ever happened to him, but I can’t bear to. Even if he didn’t know about Fiona’s parents, he had to have known how spineless she was. And still he went racing through the fenland lanes on his motorcycle until he killed himself in a drainage ditch.

  Fiona hadn’t stopped him. Maybe she didn’t even try. Sometimes I wonder if she ever asked him not to go, told him not to go so fast. Begged him not to risk leaving us. Even though she knew exactly what would happen without him around to make sure she stayed rescued.

  Suddenly my right thumb nail slides deep into the catch in the left, opening it up, tearing the nail away down to the quick. I put my thumb in my mouth. Suck away the blood with spit already sweet and thick with it. The taste explodes on my tongue.

  When I wake in the darkness to the feeling of being watched, I smile as I roll on to my side.

  The Dragon is stretching its wings as if it is stiff after a long day in the pot.

  ‘Should I leave you here, in my room, during the day?’ I ask, as I scramble out of bed to put on my clothes, impatient to get out into the night.

  The Dragon continues stretching, pushing its chest down and then arching its haunches up, spreading its wings wide and flicking its tail. As you wish.

  As carved bone, the Dragon is pinkish but, when fleshed out, becomes the blue-white of moonlight.

  ‘Where are we going tonight?’ I ask, as I scoop the Dragon on to my shoulder and push open the window. Tonight, I remember to pull it slightly to so that Amy and Paul won’t feel a chill in the corridor if they wake in the night. Maybe it’s silly but I can’t shake the feeling that if they catch me Dragon-dreaming that will be the end of it. And I won’t let it be over. Not yet, when we’ve only just begun. So, even though it’s all a dream and even though I know they won’t come in to check on me anyway because they know how lightly I sleep, I’ve made my bed so that it looks like I’m still there.

  I manoeuvre down the garden wall then hurry across the grass and through the woods to the river. For a moment I stop, staring up the towpath to the left. Seven miles . . .

  We go to the right, the Dragon commands.

  By the river’s edge the reeds writhe as one creature attacks another with a piping scream. Heavy cloud blocks the moonlight and in the darkness the rising mist isn’t white, but grey and green and blue. It is gathering over the fens now, coming at me in drifts, now faster, now slower: rushing at me, diving around me. Chilling my face. Caressing my hair. It pulls away and for a moment the air is clear, then it is thick once more, twisting about me in gossamer strands as if I’m being wrapped in cobwebs.

  It seethes about my waist as I wade out into the fields, fixing my eyes on the rising and falling boundary between the blanketing, swirling greyness and the wet, dark night. Anything could lie below the mist and still it teases at all the normal things of a night on the fens, tempting them down into a stranger place, where things aren’t quite what they seem: ceaselessly shifting, changing, defying all the rules.

  And somehow there is so much to feel and smell and see and hear and taste that I forget to hurt. There’s too much here and now for pain. Suddenly I am empty.

  And it’s like breathing in light.

  I am gone from myself.

  Unravelling into the mist, I become nothing. And there is respite. Finally, there is respite. As if the world has stopped turning and at last there is a space out of time where it’s not pain on pain, hurt on hurt with each breath.

  The Dragon is making a soft, breathy noise of contentment, like purring. We wander on.

  By the time we turn back to the canal, the mist is thick and heavy, boiling over from the fields, foaming down to swirl and roil above the dark, slow water. I laugh, raising my arms as I spin round and around until the wind drops and the mist dissolves, the last remnants flowing, snakelike, away to the river. Dizzy and stumbling, I watch as the wind whips up a little spiral of grey-green vapour, like an arm raised briefly in farewell.

  In the morning I wake, expecting to be tired. But I feel light, refreshed. This time, though, I can’t stop myself from opening the wardrobe to check. My trainers, hidden at the back, are damp and pungent.

  ‘And finally a toast. To my beautiful, brilliant niece. One of a kind. Quite possibly the only girl in the world who, when she becomes a household name and some idiot interviewer complains that bone jewellery is cruelty to animals, can righteously retort, “It’s my bone, so I can do what I like with it!”’

  ‘Ben!’ Amy complains, her mouth turning down in a disgusted pout.

  Paul pats Uncle Ben on the shoulder, laughing. ‘Our one of a kind,’ he echoes, raising his glass. ‘Happy adoption birthday.’

  I grin and steal Amy’s glass to clink to his. It’s not actually my official adoption birthday, but we decided that the important date wasn’t when the paperwork came through: that didn’t happen for more than another year ’cos there’s so much rubbish that has to be done to make these things legal. The date that matters is when I came to live with Amy and Paul. All of my time with them counts.

  ‘Evie dear,’ Amy says awkwardly, ‘I don’t think you should . . .’

  ‘A few sips won’t hurt,’ I say. ‘Here, I’ll toast with water for you.’

  She shakes her head, smiling, as I pass her glass back. ‘I’m so proud of you, Evie. You’ve been so brave,’ she says, because it’s the kind of thing Amy does say semi-regularly, not just once in a lifetime, and without ever blushing. It might just be my favourite thing about her. I can never quite decide between that and the fact that Amy really would do anything for me. I’m sure of it. If a car tried to mow
me down, she’d jump in front of it. She and Paul would sell the house and everything they own if I were sick and the money could make me well.

  When I first came to live with them, while the adoption was still in its probationary period, I thought I knew what the deal was: I’d live with them, become theirs after a fashion, but it wouldn’t be like they were really my parents. I knew it just didn’t work like that.

  Only it did. With Amy and Paul, it really did. It didn’t even take a full year for me to realise that when I made them angry, they didn’t even think about the fact that they didn’t have to put up with it: that they could take me back and be rid of me. They just didn’t think it. I could tell. And that’s when I realised I could tell them about all the things that hadn’t mended right in my ribs: about the way they moved funny, and about the pain.

  Of course I didn’t tell them then: it took me months and months – so many months they became years – to work out how to tell them. I knew that the first time I mentioned having an ache in my ribs Amy wouldn’t think anything of it. The plan was to mention it again about a week later and then perhaps a few days after that. I’d let myself brace my hand across my ribs occasionally, then more regularly. Eventually, I’d say something more about it really hurting and then . . .

  But the very first time I mentioned the pain – just a passing comment about an ache – Amy whipped around from making dinner, wiping her hands down her clothes, and hurried over to me.

  For a minute, I’d been sure she would just lift my shirt and, though I knew Amy wouldn’t do anything more, it went all cold. But even though I hadn’t told her anything then – anything at all – she knew better than that. She just always knew what not to do, right from the very start when we’d met by chance at the local Social Services office. Sometimes I wonder if she sort of knew everything I eventually told her all along. I think she might have. Not what happened exactly, of course. But somehow she knew enough, right from the first day I came home with them.

  So she didn’t touch me, just crouched down by my chair. ‘Can you show me, Evie darling? Do you mind?’ she asked.

  And so I was the one who lifted my shirt and showed her. ‘Here. It moves here,’ I said. ‘Feel,’ I said, making the invitation to touch.

  Five minutes later, the GP was on his way out for a home visit. Just like that. And then I knew that I could tell Amy things, little things, and she would understand: she would know all the things I couldn’t say.

  And she did.

  And, really, that’s my favourite thing about Amy: she understands without my having to say any of those things that can’t be said without pain welling up as dull and dirty and deep as a freshly re-broken bone.

  Some things should never be said. Not out loud in clear, simple words. You talk around them. You leave gaps and blanks. You use other words and talk in curves and arcs for the worst things because you need to keep them like mist. Words are dangerous. Like a spell, if you name the mist, call out all of the words that describe it sharp and clear, you turn it solid, into something that no one should ever hold in their hands. Better that it stays like water, slipping between your fingers.

  ‘Ben, do you really have to persist with this horrible idea of making the dragon into a necklace?’ Amy is saying. ‘I know you and Evie think it’ll be rather a good joke, but other people might think it’s morbid.’

  ‘Ninnies like you might think it’s morbid,’ Uncle Ben retorts. ‘Other people, even if they don’t get the joke, will just look at the beautiful carving your talented daughter has accomplished – with the help of yours truly, of course – and think it’s a work of art.’

  ‘A rather unusual work of art,’ Paul concedes, as Amy looks beseechingly at him.

  A waiter comes up then, so of course Amy, Paul and Uncle Ben launch into an argument about who will be paying . . . until it turns out that Uncle Ben left his credit card at the front desk when we came in. I’m busy weighing the fortune cookies that came on the little tray with the bill, trying to sense which one feels luckiest.

  ‘Got a good feeling, that one?’ Paul asks, turning away from the waiter and leaving Amy to carry on the argument with Uncle Ben. They’ll probably be at it all the way out to the car.

  I grin and shove the rest of the little foil-wrapped parcels in his direction, ripping into mine and crunching the cookie open.

  ‘O, Highest Oracle! Great Oracle! Tell us, O Mightiest of Mighty Oracles, what hath the future in store!’ Uncle Ben cries.

  ‘“Dreams are the fire that warms the soul. Let them guide you,”’ I read.

  Uncle Ben nods sagely. ‘Works for me. Here, Great Oracle! Reveal to me my fortune.’

  I grin and tear open his cookie. ‘“When opportunity presents, seize it.”’

  Amy groans. ‘As if my brother needed any encouragement.’ But she smiles as she passes her cookie to me.

  ‘“A friend is a present you give yourself,”’ I read.

  ‘Oh, I like that,’ Amy says, looking relieved. But then Amy is always doing things like not walking under ladders and, whenever we see a single magpie, it’s always ‘Hello, sir, and how is your lady?’ It always makes me laugh: sometimes I wonder if that’s the real reason she says it.

  Paul puts his arm over my shoulders, bending his head close to mine as we contemplate his fortune. ‘“You are almost there,”’ I read.

  ‘Oh, good,’ Paul says. ‘Saves me the humiliation of having to ask directions.’

  ‘Hey ho, we’ve got a spare. Think that has to go as payment to the oracle,’ Uncle Ben says, tossing the last cookie across the table to me.

  ‘Well, that’s one way to save her the effort of breaking it open,’ Paul says as I tear into the foil package and the cookie crumbles out in pieces. ‘What’s the final word?’

  ‘“Determination is all you need now.”’

  Paul stiffens beside me, but it is Uncle Ben who gives a heavy sigh and says, ‘Well, in that case, you’re set for life, Evie.’ But instead of grinning and quirking an eyebrow as he says it, he sounds tired. Weary. As if having determination is a heavy sentence and not a compliment. As if there’s something sad about it and he wishes something different for me.

  I frown, turning to look up at Paul. He pulls me closer and presses a kiss to my forehead. ‘You could teach the world about determination, Evie,’ he says. ‘Amazing girl.’

  It makes my throat hurt, so I look down again at the fortune and close my hand about the Dragon. The bone warms in my palm.

  ‘Well, that was a lovely, lovely meal, Ben. Even though you really must stop being so impossible about paying,’ Amy says brightly. ‘But I, for one, need to take my bursting tummy off home to bed.’

  ‘Can’t argue with that,’ Paul agrees, rubbing his belly as he pushes back from the table.

  As Amy and Paul collect our coats from the waiter, I lean against Uncle Ben, yawning. He ruffles my hair, reaching over me to take a mint from what looks like a goldfish bowl on the counter.

  ‘Want one?’ he offers.

  I shake my head, watching as he takes a second, tosses it into the air and catches it in his mouth.

  ‘Ben!’ scolds Amy, rolling her eyes. ‘Could you stop teaching Evie bad habits for just a couple of minutes?’

  Uncle Ben pulls a face. ‘I suppose. Maybe. Actually, I’m not sure. It might be too painful. Perhaps even dangerous . . .’

  Amy throws his coat at him.

  ‘Or I could just get you teaching Evie even worse habits,’ he says cheerfully. ‘Clearly I can do that.’

  ‘Yes, clearly,’ Amy says, but she is smiling, flushed from the wine they had with the meal.

  I yawn again, slumping against the counter. There’s a little tray next to the goldfish bowl filled with business cards and matchbooks. I pick one of the little booklets out, opening the flap and running my finger across the red-tipped matches.

  ‘Evie, darling, do you really want matches?’ Amy asks anxiously.

  ‘Just as a memento,’ I say,
closing the little booklet and slipping it into my pocket.

  ‘I don’t think that’s necessarily the best keepsake, darling. And you’ve got your fortune-cookie messages . . .’

  Uncle Ben rolls his eyes at me and moves to put his arm about Amy’s shoulders. ‘Sister dearest, please stop pestering my niece. Those sorts of matches are always useless. They won’t do her any harm.’

  ‘But what if . . .’

  ‘Matches, especially rubbish ones like those, don’t light themselves, Amy.’

  Amy looks to Paul, who grins. ‘Worrywart,’ he says and Amy relaxes, taking my coat from him and helping me into it.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ I say. ‘I promise not to burn our house down.’

  Uncle Ben’s mobile goes as I turn to follow Amy upstairs. I hear him say, ‘Speaking,’ though I also hear the unspoken ‘Who is this? What’s going on?’ But it’s the ‘What do you mean, “damage”?’ that stops Amy too.

  ‘Is everything OK, Ben?’ she calls, starting back down the stairs.

  He turns at her voice, but I can see the response is automatic: his eyes look past us both and there is a dark scowl on his face. Then he blinks and focuses. ‘Oh,’ he says and blinks some more. ‘Yes. Yes, everything’s fine,’ he tells us. ‘Hang on one moment,’ he says into the phone, then presses it against his chest. ‘No worries,’ he tells Amy, smiling. ‘Off you go to bed.’

  But then he turns away again – ‘Sorry, didn’t catch that. Just talking to my sister’ – and there’s an odd tone in his voice, something wrong about the way he’s standing: big and angry. Looming somehow. Almost intimidating. I shiver and hurry up the rest of the stairs ahead of Amy – ‘Evie, don’t trip, darling. Please go slowly.’ By the time Amy is putting my drink on the bedside table, it’s clear she’s forgotten all about the strange phone call and Uncle Ben’s even stranger reaction as she cautions me about accidents and trying to run about too soon after the operation.

  I take my time in the bathroom, washing my face, doing my teeth. Listening out. A few minutes later, someone comes running upstairs, two at a time by the sound of it, and I quickly shut off the water.