I hid the second time the dragon-man came.
Courage has never been my strong suit, and that was triply true of teenage me. So, when I sensed him coming (dragons have a strong presence), I grabbed my school books, my homework, my Mithae tracings—anything that might give me away—and wedged myself haphazardly into the nearest closet.
Grammy didn’t blink—or at least, I would be surprised to find out if she did. Likely she had known he was coming long before I did, and watching me hide in closet was far from unexpected. If I had to guess, I’d say she was wondering why I didn’t go to my room. Simple—there are many open windows in our house, and I didn’t know which direction he was coming from. Crawling was an option (to avoid the windows), but I didn’t have an accurate read on how far away he was, and I did not want to be caught on the floor when Grammy opened the door.
Which she did, as I finished awkwardly piling my stuff on top of me and achieving a decent position in the cramped space. Like him or not, Grammy had a strict philosophy of hospitality; the furthest that philosophy could be bent was to leave him knocking at the door while she took her sweet time chopping potatoes. Eventually, I heard the faint clatter of the knife on the cutting board, an even fainter sigh, then her slow, measured footsteps from the kitchen to the front door.
“Well, well,” she drawled, the door creaking open. I could picture her wiping her hands off on faded jeans. “To what do we owe the pleasure?”
Grammy had the voice of a smoker, even though she hated anything related to cigarettes. That roughness was probably caused by yelling at her hapless Warden trainees, I guessed, or a throat injury from her Warden days. It rasped even when it was smooth, and cut you on its edge even when it was soft.
“Oh, I’m just here for a… friendly visit,” the dragon-man replied. “If I might be permitted to take some of your time?”
His voice was rich but hard, like something dug out of the ground and polished.
“I don’t know how much of that I have left,” Grammy said drily, “but I won’t deny you a smidge. Come on in.”
“You’re too kind.”
They both had same hidden quality to their voices. Maybe it was just because I knew that there was more going on than either were admitting, but their polite smoothness was built from the same deflection tactics, as if luring the other into complacency.
I knew Grammy was covering her distrust, her dislike, and even her fear of what the dragon might do if provoked.
I could only wonder what he was covering.
Tracing the footsteps in my head, I heard as the dragon-man kicked the mud off his shoes, entered, walked down the hall, through the kitchen, past the countertop dividing the kitchen in two, and into the “dining space.” It wasn’t particularly important or spacious, so calling it a dining room was a stretch, but it was separate enough from the kitchen that it felt like it’s own thing.
There was a dining room, of sorts, but that was reserved for Thanksgiving, when we had enough people in the house to justify using so open of a space. It wasn’t that big, though, and these days we’d taken to having family gatherings in the homes of better-off family members.
I knew some of my aunts and uncles had been trying to persuade Grammy for years to get a better place, bigger, closer to the city. She just said that she couldn’t; not right now. I didn’t know what that meant, and I was too afraid to admit that I’d been eavesdropping to ask her.
Any extra thoughts were cut short as chairs scraped out from the table, directly in front of the closet door. While it had been obvious that of course they’d use the kitchen table, in retrospect, that probably should have shaped my escape attempt a bit more. If I’d had more time to plan, too, perhaps I wouldn’t have chosen so small a place to be trapped in, considering there was no telling how long this would go on for. Grammy was terse, but indirect; she could spend hours in a conversational battle, and only she knew if she had conquered by the end of it.
Smells of cleaning supplies clogged up my nose, and I felt the vacuum digging into my side; when pushing my way in I had shifted the dustpan attached to the broom, and now it balanced precariously against my knee, threatening to slip and fall down and take my homework with it. The papers stuffed on top of me wanted they would slide off on their own journeys, and I had the horrifying mental image of one of my messy, in-progress math quizzes sliding out from under the door and bumping into their shoes. Grammy could not see those quizzes. Not yet, not until I was done and had finished correcting all of my mistakes. If they saw it now, they’d both think I was an idiot.
Gripping my papers tighter and willing myself not to move, too worried I’d mess up to even try to reposition the broom, I listened as Grammy offered (and the dragon-man refused) both tea and coffee. They finally settled on his accepting a glass of sweet iced tea.
“How’s the weather down in your neck of the woods?” Grammy asked. I heard the tap and the rush of water as she put on coffee for herself.
“A bit damp,” was the reply, with a faint, fake laugh. “Same as here, it would seem.”
We didn’t know where he was staying—assuming dragons stayed anywhere. It was unlikely he was at a motel. So was he implying that he was nearby, in the woods, where the weather would be the same? Watching us? Aware of everything we did?
“Mmmm. I’d imagine.” Grammy did not seem perturbed.
“And how has your family been?” His voice was trying so hard to be sincere, it made my skin crawl. It was amazing how such a simple, subtle question could sound so dangerous.
“Same as they were a few days ago,” Grammy replied.
“I’m glad to hear it, I think.” Again, the small, unnatural laugh. “I’m not seeing your grandson this time around.”
Me. As glad as I was to be spying, I wished myself anywhere else in the house; the closet door suddenly might be cardboard for all the safety it realistically offered me. I focused on breathing as quietly as I knew how, clenching loose fabric from my shirt into a fist.
“Oh, you know,” Grammy said dismissively. “He’s somewhere about, I’m sure. Probably hiding from a dragon.”
They both laughed politely, as my skin warmed. Grammy knew exactly where I was, I was sure of it. Was she needling me, or the dragon-man?
The chuckles faded. “So,” he asked with an intense deliberation that weighted his casualness, “you kid, of course, but… have you seen a dragon around these woods?”
Did he know that we knew? I didn’t know. I hadn’t heard the whole of their last conversation. If he was trying to be secret, would we be in danger now? If he even suspected we know, would we make it out of this? We had wards around the house, of course, but would they even register to him? My backpack rose and fell against my chest with each straining breath.
“Dragons?” Grammy chuckled. “In these woods? This isn’t good terrain for a dragon, so I wouldn’t know what one would be doing all the way out here.”
“Oh, really? It seems a nice area to me.”
“Too damp,” she said. “And too close, with all the old trees. No cave big enough for an adult, either; leastaways, none they could get through the entrance of. And folk ain’t the most accepting of new blood around here.”
I wondered if that was the closest she’d get to telling him to scram. My fingers worried my already too-thin shirt.
“You know a lot about dragons, I take it? Odd, isn’t it? Since, as you say, there are none around?”
“I like to do my research,” Grammy replied, not rising to his too-smooth tone. “Being prepared pays off better than not. Are you interested in dragons?”
That all but confirmed she hadn’t told him what she knew. Probably wise in the long run, but it was sharpening my breaths into a rough ache against my throat.
“Only specific ones,” he replied with a chuckle.
The kettle went off with a shrill scream. I jolted, half out of my skin before I realized what the sound meant, then froze, holding my breath. I couldn’t see, so I didn’t know if there were any glances sent my way; I could only hope that I hadn’t made noise discernible to the kitchen table, and that the dragon-man wouldn’t violate hospitality by poking around in people’s closets.
If he was so worried about people knowing about dragons, what would he do if he found me spying? Some of the oldest horror stories Wardens had were about the wrath of dragons, burning, incinerating, destroying—forces of nature more than anything that could be fought. He had made no indication he was here in secret, but that didn’t mean he was telling us everything.
I curled further into myself, papers almost upsetting as the backpack shifted further. Thankfully, I was still a long way from crying or teeth-chattering, but that could change annoyingly fast. With an effort, I focused back on the fabric between my knotted hands, and not on grinding my teeth into my lip.
The silence outside the closet stretched towards snapping. Either Grammy was fixing her pour-over coffee, or the dragon-man was creeping up on the closet. Or both.
Beyond the door, I heard the shifting of a chair, but it wasn’t enough for someone to stand up—that would make the chair scrape. Right? Suddenly, sounds felt foreign, unknown, like I no longer knew what they were. Maybe it had just sounded like a little shift, but how often had I paid close attention to the chair? How could I be sure what—
“So, what manner of friendly chit-chat would you like to get to now?” Grammy’s voice came from the kitchen. I jolted again.
“Oh, nothing in particular,” the dragon-man said. His voice sounded like it usually did, with every word studied before leaving his mouth; it didn’t sound like he’d been startled out of investigating the closet, or like he was waiting outside the door. “Just thought it would be a good idea to be more… familiar with each other, in case you do decide to work with us.”
Swallowing, I tried to take a deep breath and relax all the muscles I was clenching.
“Now that you mention it,” Grammy said, her voice approaching the table, “I do think there is some room for ‘friendly chit-chat’ there. After all, with a deal of this kind, we all want to make sure we’re on equal footing.”
Wait. A deal? What kind of deal? What would a dragon want from us—and why was Grammy listening to him? Willing myself to not miss a single word, I pressed my ear closer to the door.
“Of course,” he replied. “I wouldn’t dream of it any other way. Do you have any specific concerns?”
“Well, to be frank, I don’t quite—”
My concentration abruptly shattered, cellphone dinging and vibrating urgently against my leg. Scrambling for the device, my heart thundered—certain my cover was fully demolished—I blundered my way to volume controls to switch the sound off. It nearly shook out of my hands.
It was a text, from Mara.
[U free to chat?]
I gulped, flipping the phone open. If I didn’t answer, she’d send another text, following up on whatever topic she had in mind. It was imperative I cut her off.
[No. Hiding.]
My fingers juddered like they were trying to shake their way off my hand, prolonging the two-word text to a frankly ridiculous degree. I double and triple-checked the volume before settling it on my stomach and tuning back into the conversation—which I had missed a huge and vital chunk of.
The dragon-man was talking. “—at your suggestion, I took the liberty of writing down some notes about how this all might look. If that interests you, I have a copy with me now.”
How what might go?
“I think I might just find myself inclined to give it a look,” Grammy said with an oddly satisfied tone.
There was movement, chairs creaking as weight shifted, and the sound of something opening or unlocking. Possibly a briefcase—he’d had one with him last time. Grammy hummed thoughtfully, and the sounds fizzled down to just the occasional rustling of paper and the odd clink of a glass or mug.
I swallowed a groan, gripping my shirt again. I had missed all of the important discussion in my unwarranted panic, and now they’d stopped using words. I could ask Grammy later, but again, I wasn’t sure how much I wanted to admit about my spying. Not that she didn’t know, but I didn’t want to bring it up and acknowledge that me hiding in a closet had happened; she’d have words to say on the subject, and on how noisy I’d been.
An insistent and too-loud buzz cut off my thoughts, again. Studiously avoiding bumping into the door—and having the broom fall against it—I once again reached for my phone, cursing my short-sightedness. While I had successfully turned off the sound, I had forgotten to account for vibrations.
Mara again.
[Lol. Hiding from wut?]
A spike of defensiveness shot through the intensity of blood throbbing in my head, as if I could hear her laughing at me. Did she think this was a joke? Most people did. Or my cousins did, anyway.
And sure, it was stupid, but it wasn’t like I could help it. Not to mention, what else were you supposed to do when a dragon came to town?
[A dragon,] I shot back before disabling vibrations. [Talk later.]
The response came before I had even exited settings: [FR???????]
Yes, for real. Why would I lie about hiding from a dragon? Like, it made sense to hide, but it also looked pathetic. Especially since I was sprawled unheroically in a closet, cleaning supplies threatening to topple over onto my head, and my homework in a hopeless mess across my knees, backpack, and part of the closet.
[LATER!!!] I texted back, hoping the exclamation points weren’t too rude, and carefully flipped my phone closed.
Outside the closet, any sounds were the same as before—ruffles of paper, drinks being drunk, people existing in a space. What was Grammy even reading, and why? Was it a deal, a proposal, a contract? How long was it? That last question was becoming more and more important, since I suspected that Grammy intended to meticulously read the entire thing, right there, at the table, in front of the dragon-man and my closet door.
You couldn’t every have called my position “comfortable,” and it was rapidly losing any charms it had. My back and neck strained against the unnatural angle I had squirmed into, my legs were itching to be extended, and the balls of my feet on the closet wall burned with the odd pressure. Any thought of leaving the closet, though, was out of the question. This might be cramped, but it was a thousand times better than crawling out and facing those on the other side.
As the seconds ticked on interminably, though, with no change to the movements in the dining space, I decided some movement was worth it. Well, almost decided. Movement risked noise—and I was not as capable of silence as most of my family—and noise risked detection, and detection risked them finally doing something about me instead of politely ignoring me. I was still convinced they had heard the text notification from earlier; what that might mean for my future, I wasn’t sure. A lecture from Grammy, perhaps, or the dragon-man hunting me down later this week to make sure there were no loose ends to whatever secrets he was keeping.
But maybe if I could shift my feet, surely that wouldn’t make much noise. Not as long as I was careful of the broom and didn’t let it slide off.
For several moments (likely a lot shorter than they seemed), I kept motionless. They were right there.
Tentatively, I moved my leg, eyeing the broom. Instead, my phone tumbled off my stomach, clattered to the floor, and sent my heart into overdrive again.
The closet door jerked open—I hadn’t even heard Grammy move her chair, but now she was looming over me. With the door removed, I lost my balance, tumbling over and scattering my papers across the floor. Fighting the urge to hide my head in my hands, I rested on my elbows, looked down at the floor, and waited.
“If you’re going to hide,” Grammy said, drawl edged with theatric civility, “then I’d thank you to be polite enough to do a good job of it, instead of forcing everyone else into pretending you’re not there.”
I winced, the presence of the dragon-man’s overly-shiny shoes lurking in my peripheral.
“So why don’t you join us for a spell?” Grammy asked—as if it were negotiable. “You’ll be able to hear better, at least.”
Avoiding her eyes, I stiffly pulled myself onto my knees, set my fallen backpack against the wall and began the humiliating hunt for my homework, both inside and outside the closet. Part of me wanted to bolt to my room, but she might come after me to make sure I joined the table. Another part of me wanted to just get up and sit at the table and pretend nothing had happened, but I knew the ungathered pages would haunt me. So, I’d just… finish this as quickly as I could.
The shoes moved, and I looked up, horrified, to watch the dragon-man lean down, raking his unblinking copper eyes over my homework. Worse than a poorly-started math quiz, he was looking at my wobbly recreations of a Mithae rewrite. He bent further, slowly, the light shining off his bald head, and picked the page up in one long, fine hand that seemed larger than my whole head.
Trying to ignore him, dreading what he might be thinking, I desperately fumbled for the rest of my papers, wobbling hands shoving half of them away by accident, crumpling others into awkward creases. By the time I had sat down at the table with an armful of disorganization, the dragon-man had placed the paper on the table, over top of whatever document he’d brought for Grammy. Meanwhile, Grammy had got me my own cup of sweet tea, and was sitting back in her chair, impassive, waiting for the room to return to order once again. But I could tell she was watching the dragon-man, and eyeing the Mithae rewrite he still frowned at, one finger on the corner of it. His nails were shorter than I expected.
I couldn’t fathom any conceivable interest a dragon might take in my magic homework—beyond amusement at how rough and poorly framed it was, how the rewrite’s tail trailed awkwardly, scribbled in undignified swishes and turns down the length of the paper.
“Here’s a thought to add to the deal,” the dragon-man said in his too-curated voice, like he was trying to act surprised over something he’d been waiting for all day. “I don’t suppose your grandson needs a Mithae teacher, does he?”
My eyes widened, my brain lagging on its attempt to process words that did not sound real. Before my mind had fully caught up, a snatch of relief arrested growing fear—at least it was outlandish enough that I was safe. Grammy didn’t trust any sort of illdýr, so she’d never let me be in such close—
“Hmmmm.” Grammy crossed her legs, “that is indeed a thought.”
It was against her nature to directly contradict guests, unless circumstances were dire—but this was far too circuitous and slow for my liking. I swung towards her, staring, as she tapped her fingers on the table.
It was not a good sign.
I really should have just hid in my bedroom when I’d had the chance.
End of scene 1.