by Finley Aaron
And the snow does cushion the ground quite a bit, but that’s about the only good news. I’ve still got my arm half wrapped around my sister, and since I essentially fell off first and pulled her down after me, I land first, and she lands half beside, half on top of me.
If my own landing hadn’t knocked all the air from my lungs, hers would have. As it is, she rattles my bones with a jarring thud.
“What did you do that for?” She shrieks at me as she scrambles to her feet.
I cannot speak. There is no air in my lungs. I can’t see anything but blinding white. I can’t breathe.
“Pull me off the dragon’s back—hey!” Judy swipes snow from my face. “Are you okay?”
Now I can see mostly blinding white, and a bit of Judy blurred by swirling snow. I’m not sure how far we are from the cabin, but we’re no longer tucked away under the protective side of the mountain, insulated by trees.
We’re out in the open with the furious wind. The cold air forces its way down my windpipe, stinging all the way.
“Roo?”
“Sorry!” I gasp as soon as I have air. I suck in a deeper breath and add, “I slipped.”
Judy frowns. “I shouldn’t have let go. Where’s Master Sparks?”
“Probably went on after the antelope. He was so hungry. Guess it would be easier to catch it and then come back for us.” I’m still not exactly sure what the animal was, but I doubt Judy knows, either, so I just call it an antelope. I slowly ease myself up to sitting. It doesn’t feel like any of my bones are broken. “I can’t see more than ten or fifteen feet in all this snow. He could be pretty close to us.”
“Yeah. Where are we, anyway?”
I look around for some kind of landmark, but there’s nothing but snow and the shadows of a few trees in the distance. The trees tend to grow in belts around the base of the mountains. Above them, the peaks are bare. Below the belts, it’s mostly high plateau, covered in windswept snow. “We’re below the tree belt. Not sure if we’re still on Lizard’s Head Peak, or a mountain or two over. I don’t know how far we flew.” I stand unsteadily. The ground is uneven below the snow, and I don’t feel like I’ve regained my equilibrium from the fall.
“I was looking for animals—that’s how I spotted the, uh, antelope.” Judy clearly isn’t sure what that critter was, either. “The snow was so thick, I couldn’t see any landmarks or tell which direction we were flying. I don’t know which way it is to the cabin, or how far.” Judy looks as me hopefully, like maybe I’ll admit I actually know exactly how to get back to the cabin.
Since I was bitterly cold before I landed in the snow, and now I’m painfully cold on top of being just in pain, and since it doesn’t appear that Master Sparks is going to find us any time soon (where is he, enjoying roast antelope in the snow somewhere?) I put all my effort into coming up with a plan for getting back to the cabin, preferably quickly, and without getting even more lost.
I look around, but I can’t see anything but snow and shadows. How is Master Sparks ever going to find us? Even if he turned right around the second we dropped off his back, he’d have to be practically on top of us before he could see us.
The snow pelts my face, stinging my eyes even worse than it did on my walk home on Monday.
“I know how to get back!” I realize out loud.
“You do?” Judy looks sincerely relieved. “That’s great! How?”
“We’ll just teleport.”
The relief disappears from Judy’s face. “What?”
“Like how I got home from the library on Monday. Remember, that started this whole adventure? We’ll just teleport back to the cabin.” I kind of have to shout because of the wind.
“I can’t teleport.”
“Sure you can.”
“I’m not even sure you can.”
“Of course I can.” I turn my head away from her and peer into the blowing snow so she can’t see the uncertainty on my face. Okay, so maybe I’m not one hundred percent sure I can teleport back to the cabin.
Or even fifty percent sure.
Whatever. We need to get back, I don’t know of any other way back, I don’t know what became of Master Sparks. (I assume he’s looking for us, right? Or probably he’s going to eat first and then come back for us, since he was so very hungry earlier?)
The snow is so thick. We’re going to be difficult to find. Sure, dragons have great eyesight, but they can’t see through things, not even snow. In this storm, even if he knows pretty much exactly where we fell, it could take him a while to find us, and I’ve been freezing for a while now. I don’t feel like sitting around in a snowdrift hoping somebody finds me. I need to act. Soon.
The bottom line is that teleporting is our best chance to get back to the cabin before we catch our death of cold, or before Mom starts to worry even more and maybe even concludes her worst fears about us falling off the dragon have been realized (which they have, but I don’t want her to know that, obviously).
Anyway, whatever teleporting is or isn’t, I suspect there’s a strong element of mental focus and maybe even confidence required, which means I need Judy to believe I can teleport, so she’ll believe she can teleport, so we can actually teleport.
That makes sense, right?
Judy cups her hands to her face and starts shouting. “Master Sparks! Mike! Mike Sparks? Mom? Dad? We’re out here!”
“I’m not sure if that’s such a good idea.” I shuffle through the snow until I can face her directly again. Wow, my feet are so cold they feel stiff. I can barely wiggle my toes, and pain shoots through them when I try.
My fingers are stiff, too.
We need to get back to the cabin.
Judy ignores me and starts to shout again, “Master Sparks!”
“Seriously, you’re going to draw the attention of bears or mountain lions or something.”
“They’re hibernating.”
“That’s why you don’t want to wake them up. Then they’ll be grumpy. And hungry. Let’s just go.”
“You don’t know which way it is back to the cabin.” Judy’s fur-lined hood flutters around her face. Her skin is red from the cold. That’s better than blue, but it’s still not a good sign.
“Hold my hands, envision yourself back at the cabin, and let’s just do this.” I try to hold her gloved hands in mine.
She shoves her hands under her armpits, which is not a bad idea since it’s probably warmer there. “What makes you think I can do this?”
“We’re twins. We’re both dragons. If I can do it—”
“So, teleporting is a dragon thing?”
“Of course.”
“Master Sparks never said a peep about it.”
Since Judy won’t take my hands, I shove my gloves under my own armpits, and stomp my feet in an attempt to restore feeling. “There’s tons of things Master Sparks hasn’t gotten around to explaining, like how he met our mother, or where that tunnel behind the secret door in the cabin leads to.”
“Maybe that’s where the footprints lead.” Judy’s eyes light up.
“Where?”
“The footprints in the tunnel,” Judy says, like that’s an explanation.
“Where do they lead?”
“Nowhere.” She says, like it’s obvious.
Great, now we’re stuck out in the snow and my sister is starting to go bonkers from the cold. Is that the first stage of hypothermia? Insanity? Maybe the second or third.
Where is Master Sparks, anyway?
I’ve got to get Judy back to the cabin.
“The footprints don’t lead anywhere because the person who made them teleported away—probably through the wall, or something,” Judy explains.
“That actually makes sense,” I realize with relief. “Okay, see now? It is a dragon thing. Teleporting. You can do it. We need to do it. Take my hands and try, okay?”
Judy reluctantly shoves her gloves into mine.
“You have to believe.” I try to instill in her the importance of
this point. “Close your eyes and picture yourself inside the cabin.” I close my eyes and start picturing. “Imagine yourself back at the cabin. Feel the warmth of the fire.”
I feel it! I feel the warmth of the fire!
I’m inside the cabin.
And I’m alone.
Chapter Eleven
Mom and Dad are outside on the stoop. I can hear their voices through the drafty cabin door, and see a sliver of them out there through the window as they watch the distant sky, waiting for us to return. They’re discussing whether letting us fly on Mike’s back was a good idea.
Dad’s assuring Mom that everything will be fine.
I love my dad, and I’m grateful that he supports us and believes in me, but it turns out, he’s not always right.
Where is Judy?
Alone on the mountainside in a blizzard, of course.
But where? Now I’ve got to go find her.
If I don’t get her back, Mom’s worst fears will be completely realized and Dad’s faith in me will be proven wrong. Also, Judy will probably freeze to death.
I have to get back to her, wherever she is.
Okay, I don’t know if it’s possible to teleport to a person, or just to a place, but I really don’t have much choice right now. Granted, if I end up on the wrong mountainside, I could be the one who freezes to death, but I can’t let negative thoughts like that creep in. I just have to hurry up and try, before my parents turn around and notice I’m inside the cabin all alone.
Judy. I’ll just imagine Judy, imagine her as I last saw her, all red-faced and blustery on the mountain, where my feet were up to the knees in snow, and white flakes assaulted me out of the dark empty sky.
A gust of snowy cold smacks me in the face, and I’m standing on the mountainside, alone.
“No!” I scream.
Distantly, I hear a voice.
“Roo?”
“Jude?” I spin around. There are our footprints from earlier, and the smashed-in snow where we fell, and a trail of footprints headed off toward some trees.
“Roo?” My sister calls again, louder this time.
“Jude! Hey, Jude!” I bound toward her.
She’s under the low-hanging branches of an evergreen tree, stacking sticks and wood in a sheltered spot out of the wind.
“What are you doing?”
“What does it look like I’m doing? I’m building a fire. You’ve got skills, I’ve got skills. We each have to use the skills we have.”
By this time, I’ve reached her side. It’s significantly less blustery here under the canopy of trees. It’s also very tree-scented, like crushed pine needles and woodsy sap. “Why didn’t you teleport with me?”
“I tried.” She brushes the snow off a few more sticks, then leans in and starts blowing fire at them.
“You should have tried harder.”
She gives me an annoyed look and blows stronger flames. Unlike the tiny tendril of flame I watched her blow before, she’s now got some serious flamage coming from between her lips.
“Don’t hurt yourself,” I warn her.
She shoots me another annoyed look. With a crackle, the flames take hold of the sticks. She stops blowing fire and starts adding slightly larger sticks, one at a time, positioning them carefully so they’ll catch fire. “I’m fine. Anyway, how awesome is this? It’s a signal fire so Master Sparks can find us, but in the meantime, it will also keep us warm.”
“There was a big fire going back at the cabin,” I remind her.
“You’ve got your skills, I’ve got mine.”
“But I think we both have the same skills,” I argue.
Judy raises a dubious eyebrow. “Blow fire.”
“Me?”
She gives me a look that says you can’t do it, can you? But instead of that, she says, “Find me some more sticks. This is going to burn quickly.”
So I start finding sticks in the sheltered area under the trees, and then I try my best to blow fire on them. I picture how Judy looked when she blew fire.
I blow air.
“I’ve got my skills, you’ve got yours,” she concludes, and takes the sticks from me, tossing them on her fire. “How can you expect me to know how to teleport, if you don’t know how to breathe fire?”
The flames are flickering pretty good now, enough that I’m no longer worried about the wind blowing them out.
Still, “We’re going to need more wood to keep this going. This tree is alive, which means the wood is green and won’t burn easily.”
“Find me some more sticks, but don’t go far,” Judy instructs, her attention focused on feeding sticks.
I step out of the protective shelter of tree branches, and the wind smacks me hard in the face, reminding me just how dangerously cold it is out here. I look around, but I can’t see more than ten feet in any direction.
Wait, no. There’s something in the air in the distance, a blur of green light beyond the snow. “Master Sparks!” I cup my hands to my mouth and scream for all I’m worth.
Judy bumps into me from behind. “I thought you said that wouldn’t work?”
“I think I may have seen him near here. He’s flying low. I think he’s looking for us. Scream with me. We have to get louder than the wind. One, two, Master Sparks!”
We both cup our hands to our mouths like improvised frozen megaphones, and we shout with everything we have in our lungs, but I’m not sure if there’s any point to our efforts. The wind is howling loudly, and each flake of snow acts like a tiny sound buffer, soaking up all the decibels we emit.
Besides, Master Sparks was probably too far away to hear me when I saw him. He’s big and he glows. We can see him before he can see us. How is he ever going to find us?
But what else can we do? I count again, and this time the two of us scream even louder, more frantically.
An instant later, a green dragon zooms into view. He scoops us into his arms and holds us for a moment, before crouching down on the snow and helping us clamber back onto his shoulders.
Carefully, almost delicately, he flies us back to the cabin and drops us in front of our worried parents. Then he flies off again.
Probably to fetch his supper, assuming he can find it.
“Come inside,” Dad insists, holding the door open wide.
Mom shuffles us through ahead of her. “Okay, I admit. You were right. You were fine. I’m so glad you were fine. Did you have fun?”
Judy and I exchange glances. As usual, I can read everything on her face.
Do we tell them?
How much do we tell?
Is this the first of many secrets, because they can’t understand what it means to be a dragon?
I tug my gloves off so my hands can soak up the warmth of the fire. “Flying was fun, but it’s awfully cold out there.”
Judy and I peel off our boots and winter things, and hang them up to dry. Then we stand near the fire, as close as we dare.
“It was really cold out there,” Judy adds.
Mom yawns. “It’s terribly late. At some point we’ve got to catch some sleep.”
“When is Master Sparks coming back?” Dad asks.
“He didn’t say,” Judy answers slowly.
“He can’t talk when he’s in dragon form,” I remind them. “I think he went back for his antelope.”
“You think?” Dad’s tone says he’s not comfortable with the uncertainty behind my statement. “Did he kill an antelope?”
“I’m not sure what it was,” Judy confesses. “Some big deer-like thing.”
“He left us in the snow when he went after it, so we couldn’t see exactly what happened.” I’m staring at the fire, hoping nobody minds that I made it sound like Mike knew exactly what he was doing when he let us slide off this back.
“So you didn’t even see the kill.” Mom sounds distinctly relieved. She’s not a fan of blood and gore. “That’s smart of him. If he went back to eat it, he may be a while. Why don’t we all settle in to bed? Who knows
when he might come back?”
“I am tired,” I admit reluctantly. For all the excitement of the evening, it’s been a full day, and it’s crazy late by now. Plus, I think teleporting must make me tired, or something, because ever since I made the quick trip to and from the cabin, I’ve felt completely drained.
Besides that, my sleeping bag is made for sub-zero weather. The fire is nice, but it only warms one side of my body at a time. The thought of being wrapped in warmth is tempting.
“Let’s settle in and rest,” Mom advises. “Who knows when Master Sparks will be back?”
Dad pulls the cot out from the bedroom. “I’ll sleep on the floor. Muriel, you can have the cot if the kids want to share the futon?”
I feel kind of guilty about Dad sleeping on the floor, but he insists, and anyway, I want to discuss a ton of things with Judy, so we roll out our sleeping bags on the futon, with our heads at the end of the room away from my parents, where we can whisper to each other and they won’t be able to hear us over the sounds of the wind and crackling fire.
But once we’re settled in, I’m not sure what to say. “We’re dragons, huh?” I whisper finally.
“I guess,” Judy whispers back. “I mean, I probably wouldn’t have believed it, but obviously that’s what Master Sparks is. Not a hologram.”
“Do you think Mom actually thought he was a hologram?”
Judy sighs. “She’s way too smart for that. No, I bet she was just in denial. She’s been tense this whole trip.”
“She’s afraid she’s going to lose us somehow.” I know Judy knows that—she already assured Mom that no matter what we find, she’ll always be our mom. It’s just that Mom’s fears are bigger than Judy’s assurances.
“You heard what she said to Master Sparks, about the mystery in us, and then when he asked her what she’d observed—she knew we were different. All along, she knew we’re different, but she never told us.”
“What good would it have done? She didn’t have any answers to give us. She made the right choice.”
“Did she? What about our other mom? Our biological mother. What was she thinking?”
“Master Sparks said our mother didn’t realize there would be two of us.”
“She hid us from our dad. What’s he like?”
