by Finley Aaron
“You’ll be safe?” She asks again. “Judy? Rudy? You’ll do everything Master Sparks tells you to do.” She looks at the two of us each in turn, then eyes Mike with her stern professor face that says she’s not tolerating any funny business. “You’ll make sure nothing happens to them?”
I give Mom another view-blocking hug before Mike has a chance to reveal the slightest concern or hesitation. “He’s the best-equipped in the world to keep us safe. There’s nowhere else we could possibly be safer.”
“Rudyard is correct.” Master Sparks gives another of his trademark bowing nods. “They will be as safe as they can be.”
Perhaps sensing our resistance, Mom turns her attention to Judy. “You promise you’ll have no trouble coming home on Sunday?”
“Sunday afternoon.” Judy gives Mom a hug, too. “We’ll come straight home.”
“Straight home,” Mom repeats, while Judy and I hug Dad.
Finally, she seems satisfied, and the two of them climb into the car and drive off, the Bronco bumping cautiously down the rutted tracks.
“Will we be okay?” I ask Master Sparks as the Bronco rolls out of sight.
He turns back to the cabin, not meeting my eyes. “As safe as you can be. Let’s get to work.”
Though I’d like to press Mike for a more specific answer, there’s a note of finality and maybe even warning in his tone. Besides that, he’s quickly back in the cabin, where he teleports through the trap door, into the secret tunnel. From there it’s a quick walk to the stone wall, and another teleportation through to the training facility on the other side.
We warm up with some basic martial arts sparring. On previous days, we’ve moved on to weapons training, but today, Master Sparks gives us the command to stand at attention, and we both turn to face him. He bows and we bow in return, our hands flat against our sides.
It’s the familiar protocol that’s been ingrained in us through years of martial arts training.
But that’s the only thing that’s normal about it. Rather than giving us instructions on what we’re supposed to do next, Master Sparks just stands there. He doesn’t look impatient, like he sometimes is in class when kids are being squirrelly. No, he looks sort of…unsure? Pained? Weary?
Finally he confesses, “I had trouble sleeping last night.”
“I thought changing into a dragon was supposed to make you exhausted?” Judy’s able to get away with talking out of turn just as easily as she goes unreprimanded for saying things that would get me into trouble.
It’s not entirely fair, but I don’t mind because she asked one of the big questions I would have liked to ask.
“It does.” Mike sounds more tired than irritated with her question. “But I was troubled by my thoughts, which kept me awake.”
“Are you worried about us?” I ask the question quietly.
“Yes.”
“About our safety?” Judy clarifies. She reaches up to play with the necklace our mother left for us before we hatched. It wouldn’t be unusual that she’s playing with it—she’s touched it countless times in the last few days, as though she still can’t believe she found a link to our mother. But we’re supposed to be standing at attention, which means our hands should be flat at our sides. Not playing with necklaces.
Judy must be worried.
Obviously, so is Mike. He nods in response to Judy’s question. “Before you knew what you were, there was very little chance anyone would ever find you. You look like anyone else, act like everyone else…there was almost nothing to link you to your mother. But now…”
Judy fiddles with the necklace again, and I catch a glimpse of its half symbol.
There are links now, aren’t there? The necklace is just one of them.
Master Sparks lets out a long sigh, his rigid posture drooping like he’s deflated a little. “At ease,” he tells us.
I relax.
Judy grips her necklace with her whole hand. “Do you think we need to go into hiding?”
“You’ve been in hiding,” Mike reminds her. “Living with Donald and Muriel has proven to be an effective cover. I don’t think I could provide a better one.”
“Then what are you thinking?” I ask.
“If danger finds you, it will most likely catch you unaware. There is almost no likelihood that I will be close enough to help you, or even to know what’s happening.”
“That’s why we’re training,” I speak the words softly, because obviously, if our training was good enough, Mike wouldn’t be worried.
“You’re kids. Two kids against a dragon. You’re great at self-defense, and I’ve shown you the best moves, the most promising, most effective…but you’re still two kids against a dragon. And not just any dragon, but an ancient one who has captured many others, more skilled than yourselves, over the years.”
“If a dragon attacks us,” Judy’s voice wavers only slightly, “we don’t have to stand and fight. We can teleport away.”
“Dragons teleport,” Mike reminds her.
“But if we teleport out of sight, the dragon won’t know where we teleported to.”
“But if the dragon is your father,” Mike frowns, then shakes his head. “I don’t know.”
“What don’t you know?” The worry that’s been beating with a dull thud inside my ribs now feels like rising panic inside me.
“What the limits are. What other dragons are capable of.” Mike shakes his head again. “My Native American dragon friends claimed they could teleport to a loved one, even if they didn’t know where that loved one was. It was the familiarity between them, and not their familiarity of the place, that made that possible.”
“So, you think our father…” Judy’s voice cuts out, and she swallows.
“Different people have different skill sets, different aptitudes,” Mike sounds like he’s backpedaling. “Some people are good at math, some at music, some are athletically gifted. Not everyone is capable of the same feats others may accomplish with ease.”
“So our father,” I start again, swallow, try the same sentence from another direction. “We don’t know what his skills are.”
“We don’t know,” Mike admits.
Judy’s holding her necklace like it’s some kind of talisman that gives her the strength to speak the words we’ve been dancing around. “If he learns we exist, he may be able to teleport to us, even if he doesn’t know where we are.”
Chapter Fifteen
We stand in silence. I’m trying to think of a way out, a reason why the theory doesn’t hold water, a means of escape if the possibility proves to be true. I imagine Master Sparks and Judy are doing the same thing.
Nobody says anything for a while.
“We don’t know for sure he can do that,” I whisper finally.
“But we don’t know he can’t,” Judy notes.
“We have to assume,” Mike starts again. “We have to train, to prepare, with the assumption that it’s possible he may be able to teleport to you no matter where you go. The best defense is, of course, the one we’ve been taking all along. The one your mother initiated when she came here to lay your eggs. As long as he doesn’t know you exist, you have little to fear.”
“But the whole point of training us is so we’ll be prepared if one day he does learn we exist.” My words come out like a heavy sigh.
Master Sparks nods. “That is what kept me awake last night. I have to question the assumptions under which I’ve been training you. Yes, you need to learn how to fight, and fight well. Yes, you need to be able to teleport away quickly and effectively. But more than that…”
Judy and I lean in slightly. Mike’s voice has been getting softer, almost like he doesn’t want to say the words out loud, either.
But he can’t leave us hanging forever. “What?” I ask.
“You need to know how to change into dragons.”
We’re too shocked to speak for a few seconds. Then Judy asks, “What about our eyes? You said once we change, our eyes will change
and give us away, and we’ll always have to keep them covered. We can’t risk that.”
“You are correct,” Master Sparks acknowledges. “If you change all the way into dragon form, your eyes will change. I don’t want you to go that far.”
As he speaks, he stretches out his hand and extends his fingers. At first it just looks like he’s sort of pointing at something, but then I notice the tip of his index finger is green. That finger grows greener, longer, and pointier. The fingers next to it slowly change as well, fanning out like palm fronds.
His talons glint in the glimmering firelight. The emerald glow travels down his hand, past his wrist, and up his arm, toward his elbow. As the color suffuses his skin, his hand swells in size and his arm elongates.
Then he flicks his fingers inward and the green color retreats. In an instant, his hand is back to its normal size and color, and he snaps his fingers, turning his palm upward like he’s presenting us with something.
“Do you think we can learn to do that?” Judy asks in an awed voice.
“If you can learn to do that,” Mike answers, “you should be able to change completely into a dragon sometime in the future, if ever you need to.”
“And our eyes won’t change?”
“I don’t believe your eyes will change as long as you don’t change more than one limb, but we can monitor that. The point is,” Master Sparks meets our eyes, and his voice becomes deadly serious, “it is a truth as old as dragons themselves, that the best defense against a dragon, is another dragon. I wish the two of you could remain in hiding forever, and maybe you will be able to. But if you ever encounter another dragon and you need to defend yourselves, I want you to be able to. Would you like to try?”
Judy and I both agree. First Master Sparks gives us a long lecture about the importance of never letting anyone see us changing into dragons, or even sprouting dragon claws. Then he moves on to telling us things about technique and process, which mostly has to do with focus and visualization, which isn’t too different from the teleporting techniques we’ve been learning, but it’s also apparently very tricky. We spend the next couple of hours glaring fruitlessly at our fingertips, trying to visualize them sprouting talons.
In the midst of our attempts, we discuss with Master Sparks the implications of being dragons.
I, for one, am very interested in flying.
“Shouldn’t we also practice flying?” I ask.
“How are we going to do that without wings?” Judy challenges.
“We could at least practice in human form. Surely there are some techniques that carry over.”
Mike shrugs. “You are both good swimmers, yes?”
We both nod.
“Flying and swimming are not all that different. Air is thinner than water, so you move faster, but the body angle principles are the same. You’ll use your wings more than your arms, of course.”
“But how do we use our wings?”
Master Sparks frowns. “One moment.” He steps away to the changing room near the hot springs hot tub, and returns a few minutes later having taken off his coat. He’s dressed a bit like a sumo wrestler, with some kind of cloth wrapped around his waist and between his legs.
Judy suppresses a laugh. “What is that? It looks like a diaper.”
“This is a mawashi.”
“Like sumo wrestlers wear?” I ask.
“That is exactly what it is. The cloth is thirty feet long, which means if I expand into dragon form, there is enough fabric to adjust with me. But for now, I simply wish to show you my wings.” Mike turns his back to us, and with a rippling sound like a flag snapping in the breeze, his wings unfurl.
The rest of him is still human, save for some greenish scaly skin on his shoulder blades, around the point where his wings popped out.
With exaggerated motions, Master Sparks explains the physics of flying with dragon wings. “Eventually,” he assures us, “you’ll get used to flying without moving your arms—but it won’t hurt anything if you just use your arms in the beginning. But if you have to change into a dragon and fly without practice, pretend you’re swimming. That will be the easiest way.”
“None of that will even be an issue if we can’t figure out how to turn into dragons,” I remind him. I’ve been trying for hours by now, without the slightest hint of success.
Judy picked up teleporting much more quickly than this.
It has me slightly worried. “Are you sure we’re not too old to learn how?”
“Too old?” Master Sparks frowns. “I don’t know that there’s an age limit, although, now that you mention it, all the dragons I ever knew learned how to change from a young age. It could be that it does get harder as you get older. However, you may also be having difficulty because you’re only trying to change one part of yourselves. That’s a more advanced trick, generally, than changing your whole body.”
“And we don’t dare try changing our whole bodies,” Judy bemoans. “Are you sure we’re not just wasting our time? What are the odds we’ll even need to know how to change? If we meet a dragon, we’ll teleport away and hide.”
“You know it may not be that easy,” I remind her through gritted teeth, as I focus all my energy on trying to make my fingernails grow into talons.
“Besides that, there are many advantages to being a dragon, which could save your life someday, even if you weren’t attacked,” Master Sparks points out. “Hunting is far easier in dragon form than human, and you don’t need any specialized weapons. You can breathe larger flames.”
“And you can fly,” I add.
Master Sparks nods. “Flying has distinct advantages, not just for hunting, but also for covering large distances. It’s a more energy-efficient way to travel than teleportation, because you can use the air currents to your advantage.”
“You can also hunt while you travel, can’t you?” I ask.
“Yes. Dragons are also able to withstand conditions a human cannot,” Master Sparks continues. “In dragon form you are fireproof and bulletproof. You can withstand freezing temperatures that would send you into hypothermia in human form. And though the two of you are sturdier than your peers in human form, once you take on your dragon shape, you will be nearly indestructible.”
“It sounds great,” Judy glares at her fingers, which haven’t changed in any visible way. “I just can’t seem to make it happen. I can picture myself with talons and green scales, but—”
“Green?” Master Sparks repeats.
“Dragon green,” Judy stops glaring at her hands and looks at Mike. “Like you?”
“Oh.” Mike chuckles. “No, I doubt you will be green. Although, I guess it is possible. No, dragons come in all different colors. Your mother was a yellow dragon. Sunshine yellow.”
“My mother is yellow?” Judy holds her necklace and looks wistful, like she’s trying to imagine what our mother looks like in dragon form.
“Do you think we’ll be yellow, too, then?” I ask.
“Not likely. The color of a dragon has very little to do with family line or where you’re from. My parents were shades of bronze and red. It’s not like mixing paint colors. The families of dragons I’ve known were all different colors, too.”
“Do you think we’ll be the same color, since we’re twins?” Judy asks.
“You came from two different eggs. You’re more like litter mates than twins—not identical twins, anyway.”
“So, we don’t know what color we are?”
Master Sparks looks thoughtful. “Your eggs were rather purplish and bluish. They were the first dragon eggs I’ve seen since before my siblings hatched, but now that I consider the question, it seems to me there is a connection.”
“Your eyes are the same emerald green as your dragon scales,” I remind Mike. “It would make sense that our eggs would have a similar related color.”
Judy grins eagerly. “Were we both purplish-blue, or was one more one than the other?”
Mike gets a faraway look on his face
, and he taps one finger against his chin. “One was more purple, a mellow, plum purple. The other was a dull silvery blue, like pewter, but with distinctly blue undertones.”
“Which one of us was which?” Judy presses.
Master Sparks points at Judy. “Purple.” Then he turns to me. “Blue. Will that help you visualize?”
“It should.”
This time, as we focus on our fingers, I’m trying to picture them turning the exact color Master Sparks described. Maybe knowing the right color really does make a difference, or maybe we’ve just been focusing long enough, but as I stand there, focusing with all my might, my fingernails turn a pewter blue and lengthen to tips.
“I’m doing it,” I whisper in awe.
Judy looks at my hand, then meets my eyes. “It is possible. What are you doing differently?”
“Just picturing it—the right color, this time.”
“I’m picturing mine,” she insists, glaring at her hand with an intense expression.
Before my eyes, her fingernails turn into purple talons, and the skin around her fingertips turns a scaly purple.
Encouraged, I imagine my fingers taking on the lizard-like look of a dragon’s hands.
And they do.
Judy lets out an excited yelp and turns to her own hand, spreading purple scales up her arm, past her wrist, to her elbow.
Master Sparks has been watching us carefully, monitoring our eyes, especially, to make sure we don’t change too much. “That’s probably enough now. You don’t want it to spread too far.”
I let out a long breath, and my hand shrinks back to its normal pale-brown appearance.
Judy does the same. “Wow. We did it. We actually changed!”
“We did,” I clap my hands to my forehead, a little dizzy, either from the rush of changing, or possibly from concentrating so hard. “I don’t know if I could do it again.”
“Hopefully you won’t ever need to,” Master Sparks assures us both. “But now you have a better idea of what to do. I don’t want either of you experimenting with changing in the future—if you go too far, your eyes could change, and then we’d lose the advantage of having kept you human all these years.”
