by Rena Rossner
The owl swoops beneath me as if to make sure that I don’t fall. But I am large enough to crush it. Large enough to devour it whole.
It is thrilling and terrifying at the same time. I am me but not me. Not a snake. I was never a snake. I was a dragon who hadn’t found her wings yet.
Like my father—but not like him. I am my own creature. A dragon of fire and air, not cloud.
My heart is beating so much faster than it usually does, and the air, which should be cold, feels good as it whizzes through what must be feathers. We swoop over countryside and Theodora hoots amid the high branches of the trees.
We see a stream that starts in a valley between two high hills and she dives for it, coming to stop on its banks.
I follow her lead.
I wish to hunt. She looks at me, and I can tell what she says. But I’m afraid to open my mouth. We have beaks, not mouths. I don’t know if they work in the same way.
I arch my neck up to the sky and wish my father was with me. I wish I’d listened to him. I wish I’d learned everything I could while I had the chance. A stiff-necked girl he once called me, who refused the yoke he placed on me, but he was only trying to show me the way. I wonder if he knew all along that this is what I am. I wish I knew how to ask him.
Theodora’s beak touches mine. Her eyes are wet and shining. She swoops up into the sky, crossing the light of the moon. My own eyes fill with tears. It starts to snow.
Theodora swoops down. But I see pride there, not sadness. She’s proud of me. Of what I’ve done. What I’ve become. She’s saying, trust me, let yourself feel, let yourself go, let yourself free. I knew you could do it. I open my mouth—there are so many questions I want to ask, but she huffs out a gulp which meets the gust of air that I let out—frost-tinged—and it is like a kiss, the way our breaths dance in the air. I take a deep breath of our twinned breath and realize that she breathes knowledge into my bones. She’s showing me the way.
My body starts changing again. My joints feel like they are popping. I hear a crooning— not the sound of an owl, but something more wild and free. The air around us shifts. My heart beats out a different rhythm and I look over at Theodora. Fur covers her body now, not feathers. Where her small beak was there is now a long snout, and cunning, ice-blue eyes with pointy ears that crown the top of her head. I look down and see that I have paws too—but they are a fiery red-orange. I look down at the stream. She is a great white wolf—as white as the snow that still coats the ground. But I am a fox. I jump into the air in what is more like a pounce. I did it! And the one person I want to show myself to isn’t with me.
She stares at me, her eyes wide.
I don’t understand what is happening, what has happened. I have so many questions.
Why am I a fox and she a wolf? What about our inner natures made this happen? Does Guvriel’s heart now beat in me? Will I ever stop pining for him? Nothing makes sense except that I’ve never felt as whole and free as I do now. I feel at home in my bones—in these fox bones and dragon bones that are mine and not mine. Teli. Only me. I can be whatever I want to be.
You are more powerful than any of us, Guvriel once said. And this is the first time that I think he may be right. It may be true.
We hunt, rooting out rabbits from the cover of tree limbs. There’s blood in my mouth and flesh in my teeth. Once satiated, we frolic on the banks of the river for hours, then dash into the forest.
I never got to experience this with Guvriel. He never got to teach me. He knew I could do this all along, but it’s Theodora who dragged it out of me—who found a way to finally make it happen.
Soon the sun begins to rise. Night is ending. A light snow starts to fall again. We race back to the castle. It is farther than I remember, but we are sleek and fast, and the distance we flew before is quickly covered by our speedy limbs. Snowflakes shine on Theodora’s fur like tiny points of light, and the closer we get back to the palace, the harder the snow starts to fall.
Theodora stops and puts her paw over mine. Her wolf eyes glow gold. She huffs out a breath that is more like a bark—a howl. I close my fox eyes. I feel my body shrink into itself and I shiver, as feathers replace fur and wings replace paws and I am sleek and scaled again. And so is she. Dark to my light. Black to my gold. But she isn’t an owl this time. She’s a black dragon. And she is glorious. We take to the sky together and fly in a straight line back to our room. We step onto the ledge, and before I can leap down onto the floor, my hand is entwined with Theodora’s again and we are naked and human and staring at each other, some snowflakes still visible in her hair and mine. Breathless and smiling, flushed from the exertion, but we are happy. So happy.
I open my mouth to ask how she did it, wanting to understand, but her mouth leans in for mine and there are no more barriers between us.
Theodora slides her arms around me, her hands in my hair, my hands on her body. Our limbs entwined. Dragon, owl, fox, wolf. Feathers and scales and fur and skin.
She pulls away from my lips, breathless, and says, “You called the snow.”
I shake my head. “Only God can control the weather.”
“You are more than you think you are,” she says, tracing a finger across my hairline and down my cheek.
“I have lost everything that I once was,” I say, shaking my head. “But you’re showing me the way back.”
“Come, there is still time before morning,” she says, and pulls me after her to bed.
We lie in each other’s arms and Theodora lazily draws circles on my shoulder, then down my chest, ending at my breast. I shiver.
She leans over and kisses my cheek. “I love you in all of your forms. A love like ours comes once in a lifetime.”
Tears wet my face. Is she right? Or do I contain enough love for many lives, many forms.
My heart is a country riddled with borders, with room for many kinds of light. Many kinds of love.
“Can I ask you something?” I say, tracing patterns of my own onto her skin.
She quivers, then grins. “Anything.”
“If you can change yourself into different forms, why can’t you turn yourself into a man? Wolf to owl to dragon and back again—why not woman to man?”
“It doesn’t work that way.”
“Why not? I don’t understand.”
“I can only be what I am—nothing more. When I am an owl, I am still me, when I am a wolf, I am still me. A dragon—still me. When I am Theodora, or Theodor, I am still me. That doesn’t change. People will always put you in a box when they see one form or another. But you see and accept everything that I am—that is why when I’m with you, I can be whatever I wish to be. You see all of me. Others only see what they want to see.”
“I still don’t understand. Does that mean that when anybody other than me sees you as a wolf, they don’t see a wolf?”
“No. They see a wolf.”
“Then why can’t they look upon you and see a man?”
“Because their eyes don’t let them. Because people are so blinded by what they think I should be that they can’t see me as anything else. I don’t want to be a man; I just want to be me. Theodora and sometimes Theodor, in pants and sometimes in a dress. Sometimes a wolf and sometimes an owl—and only a dragon when I need to be. When I am with you, the masks fall away.”
Tears wet my eyes again. On Purim, we used to wear masks. The men and the women. It was the one day a year that we could be whatever and whoever we wanted to be. So many masks.
“Come,” Theodora says, rising out of bed.
“What? Why?”
“I need to show you something.” She takes my hand and tugs me out of bed.
“I’m tired and it’s almost morning. Can’t we just rest here together?”
“Only for a moment—we won’t leave the room this time, I promise…”
She leads me over to the window and opens the shutters. “Look,” she says.
I see that it’s raining now—the sun is rising, but there are cloud
s on the horizon.
“You did that,” she says.
I roll my eyes at her. “Can we go back to bed now?” I turn away. “It’s just rain.”
“No, Sarah, look,” she says, using my real name, as she turns my face to look back out at the sky. She reaches over and wipes away my tears and, as she does, I see the sun finally rise and the clouds drift away.
“My father was the Black Dragon,” Theodora says. “People saw him as a great leader, a man who made the first steps to declare Wallachia’s independence from Hungary. He spread the word of Christ, but he was fiercely devoted to the old gods.
“The Dacians say that one of their Gods, Zalmoxe, turned a man into a wolf to protect his people from invaders. They called them the Daoi—People of the Wolves. My father’s banner was a wolf with a wide mouth—they said that when the wind whistled through its mouth it sounded like the howl of a wolf, calling his people to battle. But there was another figure on his banner—a Black Dragon. The flag bearer who carried the wolf wore a helmet in the shape of a wolf’s snout, and his armor was made of scales that moved.
“The serpent is sacred to our people too—winged serpents covered in holy fire. When I met you…” She pauses to stroke my cheek, then closes the window, and I don’t know if it’s frigid inside or not because my blood runs cold at her words.
“When I first saw you in the clearing, bright and shining, a fiery serpent, I thought perhaps that you were one of his creatures, a long-lost sister, perhaps. But you are not his creature. And I knew then that I had to understand you—who you were and where you came from. Perhaps the same root lies at the heart of every culture and civilization…” She pauses again.
“But tonight is the night of St. Andrew, the first night of the Dacian new year. On this night, the heavens open. The seen and unseen, light and darkness meet, and time renews itself. What’s inside is outside. I wanted to know if the power of tonight would help you discover the source of who you truly are.
“My father didn’t get to finish his work. There was a dark side to him—he tried to entomb his own wife and unborn child in the walls of a monastery in the belief that it would keep the walls from crumbling. Some say that as a punishment for his crimes he turned into the dragon that haunts the skies today. But you’re different. You’re a creature of light.
“The people here, they light candles in their windows tonight to fend off the evil spirits of the undead. They bake pumpkin pies and corn bread. Tonight is the night when the transparency of the borders between the worlds is lessened and revealed. Secrets are unraveled. Forecasts are made for next year. If it is clear and warm tonight, it will be a mild winter. If it is cold, it will be a hard winter. But you… you break all the rules. What are you, Sarah? I love you with everything I am, but I need to know.”
Teli, I hear the voice inside my head again. The inner voice I’d been searching for since I met Guvriel that first night in the forest. But the one thing my father told me—the only thing: Esther did not reveal her people, or her nation—and I’m being asked to betray that now. I feel trapped. Caught in this cage of a palace. Theodora brought me back to myself; but it is not her palace that has caged me now. Not her seed in my belly.
“Some say that when a storm comes,” Theodora continues, “it is the Black Dragon who brings it. It is said that there are red-haired mountain men who know secrets of the heavens, that they control a white dragon—their cloud riders call the dragon to them and they fight the Black Dragon in the skies. Mother tells me that Father fought one—that they were out to restore balance, to ensure that the mad king’s emotions didn’t control our skies and the future of our crops. And in the end, the great white wolf and all his followers retreated to the sacred mountains to nurse their wounds. But you are not made of cloud. You are pure fire and air. Are you of that stock?”
“I wonder,” I say, “if every nation has its dragons.” My mother taught me that there are an infinite number of ways to tell the same story. She was always telling stories, and I don’t think I understood her power, which was a quiet strength but no less important than my father’s. Which is true? Which is fantasy? We see what we want to see. That is what I can give her.
“We fled our homes in fear and left our past behind us. But I know my father tried to defeat the Black Mist that infected our town and the hearts of the people in it.”
These are the words I can give her.
“But my father was defeated. The Black Dragon won that day. Or so he believed. I know one thing to be true—a dragon of light is always at war with a dragon of darkness—without darkness, we would be blinded by the light, without light we would live in darkness. We need both to survive.” As I speak the words, it is my father’s voice I hear.
“Both sides need each other to survive,” Theodora repeats softly.
“There is no good and evil, no light and dark, no man or woman. Every one of us contains multitudes,” I say. “Every one of us contains a spark of God.”
Theodora takes something out of her pocket. It is a silver ring carved with vines.
“This is for you,” she says, and closes my fist around it. “No matter what happens, keep the ring, always. I will always be with you, draga mea.”
My mouth pulls into a frown. “What do you mean? Where are you going?”
She opens my hand, takes the ring, and places it on my finger. It joins the emerald ring that I still haven’t taken off.
“Now, you will always be mine,” she says.
But as I stroke the ring with my thumb, I question if I want to be owned by anyone.
The dragon inside me speaks up for the first time. And it says that it wants its wings to beat free.
Laptitza
I pray in the words I used to know
The words that used to be a comfort to me
Praise Hashem from the heavens
Praise Him, all His angels
The words I used to use the bless the moon
To call on the stars in the sky
Praise Him, sun and moon
Praise Him, all bright stars
I beg the heavens
Listen to me
As I dance toward you
Hear my cry
Though I cannot touch you
I hear babies crying.
The voice of my beloved came suddenly
“Where are they?”
I call out, but no one comes.
I get up out of bed,
leaping over mountains
skipping over hills
trailing sheets behind me.
He was standing behind the wall
I walk the four corners of my room.
Observing through the windows
“Where are my babies?” I cry out,
but there is no one here.
Peering through the lattices
“Nikolas?”
A song of ascents
No answer.
I raise my eyes to the mountains
I go out onto the balcony.
From whence will come my help?
I’m not dressed for winter.
My help is from Hashem
maker of heaven and earth
Someone came before
and helped me change
out of my nightshift
and into a gown,
He will not allow your foot to falter
she brushed my hair
and tried to wash my face,
Your Guardian will not slumber
but she didn’t know where my babies were.
Behold! He neither slumbers nor sleeps!
I held her arms and begged her
to bring my babies to me—
Hashem is my Guardian
she ran out of my room, crying.
Hashem is the shade
I think I hurt her,
At my right hand.
but I must know
where my babies are.
My breasts are swollen.
They’re leaking
milk,
By day the sun will not harm me
Nor the moon by night.
still no one brings
my babies to me.
I look up at the sky,
Hashem will protect me
from all evil
He will guard my soul.
but where the stars
used to be
I see only leaves.
Two aspen trees
have sprouted overnight
and the wind in their leaves
Who is this
sounds only like the cries
Who rises
of my babies.
From the desert
My sons.
Clinging
Where are they?
To her beloved.
I go back inside
and draw the cold black drapes.
He didn’t come for me.
I put my faith in the heavens;
I swore I’d never marry anyone
but I did.
And now I’m alone.
Even the heavens
have betrayed me.
I no longer want
to see the sky.
Who will bring my babies to me?
I feel empty, where only yesterday
I was full.
I knew in my heart
that he would come for me
But now I feel
I don’t know anything at all.
I want to bar myself,
from the light
of the midnight stars.
I have no one else
to turn to.
Perhaps if I step out
onto the balcony
and fall,
a star will catch me.
And let us all say, Amen.
Light and darkness are the same.
—The Book of the Solomonars, page 15, verse 2
Some evil is so unspeakable that the only way we can fight it is by telling a story. Over and over again, until history stops repeating itself.
Laptitza
I am still out on the balcony,
but before I can take another step,
I hear something behind me.
