I kenned the critter:
A little hum of worry. A whole rock concert of bliss.
It struck me that I was the only one in this entire crowd who couldn’t fly or float on air.
A drop of something warm and wet hit my forehead, splashed onto my hands.
Bright red.
Blood?
I looked up, saw masses of it streaming across the dragon’s chest.
Blood.
Dying. Sooner, rather than later.
A long coastline stretched out to my right, amber in the late-afternoon sun. I could see islands to my left and some others, faintly, farther on.
Islands.
Mom’s island?
I dug through my pockets for the phone. Found the sets of coordinates. If the dragon would turn a little …
I kenned her again. Opening up to her. Trusting. Letting her feel my longing, see the map in my imagination.
Her thrumming presence filled me. My mind went huge and still and spacious. I tasted fire in my mouth; I leaned into the arms of the wind. I blinked, and saw back from forever—from when forests stretched clear to the sea, and the only hint of humans were the faint twists of smoke in the sky. I felt birds, great waves of them, inside me. They made a song of many threads, buoyed me up with a strange, wild joy.
The dragon banked south and, in a while, the sea rose up to meet us. The island rushed in, shore and trees and hills, then a patch of grassy weeds with a village in the distance.
The talons unclasped. I dropped a few feet, thumped down safe on solid ground beside the critter.
The dragon wheeled and came to hover above us, rowing her wings in the air among the circling birds.
Blood on her chest—an open, bleeding wound.
The critter strained up toward his mother. I gathered him in my arms. The dragon brought her head down to him, breathed her smoky breath on him. I could sense the kenning between them.
Then she turned the kenning on me.
It wasn’t words, but I caught her meaning. She wanted something from me. A promise. A promise to tend, take care. To protect her baby from the world. A promise that took in the whole of his lifespan, hundreds of years.
I promised—and meant it—though I had no idea how I would keep it.
But I would. I would.
Something moving, off to the side, at the top of a small rise. A man running. A big, bearlike man. I would know that run anywhere. More people coming now, some running, some walking. I searched for her and, among the stragglers, found her.
Mom.
The dragon gathered herself up, spread her wings wide, and skimmed above the shoreline to the sea. The birds followed, trailing away in a long line behind. She was low to the water, listing to one side. I was afraid she would falter, drop out of the sky. But she pumped her wings, laboring hard, and slowly lifted her ancient, broken body over the waves. She veered to the south, coasted low out toward the horizon.
The critter was keening for his mother. The critter whose name meant some precise kind of fire, a kind of fire we have no word for. I held him tight and watched his mother shrink and fade in the distance.
How could he survive without her, without her milk? How could I find him enough food when he was grown? How could I keep him safe from the people who wanted to use him, to kill him? How could I keep others safe from him? How could I protect him all those years he’d live after I was gone?
I’d have to find a way.
I turned toward the people coming toward me. More slowly now. They were clasping hands, Mom and Dad. Dead serious: not smiling, not angry, not afraid.
I waited, holding the critter close. Stepping off the edge of the world I knew, and dropping free-fall into a whole new life.
Windsong and smolder-breath,
Plummeting gyre,
Bloodscent and thrumming joy:
Heartful of fire.
—from “Dragon Dreams,” by Ghost Meridian
Hush little darlin’, don’t you cry.
Mama’s gonna buy you a nice MoonPie.
And if that pie don’t make you thrum,
Mama’s gonna buy you some bubble gum.
And if the flavor do not last,
Mama’s gonna buy you a Peanut Blast.
And if that nut bar fails to please,
Mama’s gonna buy you some processed cheese.
—from “Dracling Lullabye,” by Heart-Kludge
FLYING LESSONS
ONE YEAR LATER
SOMEWHERE ON THE OREGON COAST
At twilight, on an evening late in May, Dad backs the van into the old blimp hangar and throws open the rear van doors. I ken the critter to jump inside. Piper, with Luna on her shoulder, scoots onto the front seat with Mom and Dad; Stella and I ride in back with the critter. We drive through the little town where we live and out to a deserted spot by some cliffs on the coast. We wait there until dark.
The critter is excited. He knows something is about to happen. Something new. He bounces around, chasing his tail, crashing into the sides of the van, making it creak and shudder. Then he offers me his new rope toy and, at the last moment, snatches it away. Like a puppy, except he’s seven feet long now and those pointy spines of his aren’t so flexible and rubbery anymore. They’re hardening up—sharp and seismic treacherous. He butts my stomach, buzzing me with hyper, twitchy kens, until at last I coax him to lie across my lap—head and shoulders off to my left, tail and back legs off to my right, and wings right there in front of me.
When I massage his wings, he settles down. He loves it when I massage his wings.
Stella hops off my shoulder and alights on his neck, greeting him with a whistle. I smooth the translucent skin between his wing ribs, rubbing Vaseline into the rough spots, kludging the little tears on the edges with stretchy surgical tape. I sing to him, trying to hide how scared I am, and he begins to thrum.
Now that he’s calmer, it’s safe for Piper and Luna to come back. Luna perches next to Stella; Mom passes around little chewy treats—dragon treats and human treats. We sit there, chewing, thinking our own thoughts.
The critter loves his chewy treats. We know what to feed him now, to keep him healthy. Mom did some research, and through trial and error we figured out what he should eat and what vitamin and mineral supplements he needs.
Piper leans into him now. They’re kenning, I can tell. “Good, Kindle,” she says. “Good boy.”
Kindle. We had to call him something. Mom got the name from one of those old dragon novels she has, the ones with the floating and the kenning.
But for me, Kindle isn’t big enough. It’s not ancient and powerful and joyful. It’s not, like, sublime. It’s just a watered-down translation of the name I felt in the cave that day, eavesdropping on the critter and his mother. Failing that, for me, he’s the critter.
Now he’s really relaxed. Piper and I ken the birds back to our shoulders, and I slip the critter into his harness, the one with the GPS tracker. I ken him happy flying thoughts, the way I used to, before he knew how to fly on purpose. Before he knew that flying was a thing that—being a dragon—he probably ought to learn to do.
Dad turns to me now. “Ready?” he asks.
Ready? I’m scared out of my phaging mind. I want to say, Do we have to do this now? I want to say, Let’s just go home.
“Yeah,” I say.
Dad turns on the headlights. Mom hops out and opens the van’s back doors. It’s dark, a moonless night. Wind seethes in the fir trees, and I can smell the sea. A mist is rising; it swirls in the headlights like milk.
The critter bounds out, sniffs at the air. Piper and I climb out with our birds. I squat beside the critter at the edge of the cliff. When I synch with him, I like buzz all over. I can feel it; he wants to fly.
I tell him: Go.
He gathers himself together, spreads his wings, and drops straight off the cliff.
Free fall.
I hold my breath.
He reappears in the mist over the water
, soaring.
It’s magic to watch him fly. He wings straight out west, over the waves. Soon, he’s swallowed up by darkness and fog. I stay with him, kenning. He’s in bliss mode, surfing on full-out joy.
Does he know now that there’s no cable attached to his harness?
Does he know now that he’s free?
The kenning fades. Out of range.
“He’ll be back,” Mom says to me. “I know it.”
Dad holds out the GPS monitor for us to watch.
Still heading west.
We wait.
It’s only a tiny circle of us who know where we are, know what’s happening here tonight. There’s Mungo, who raises funds. Taj, doing good work with the microbes, so maybe someday we can clean up a small part of the mess we’ve made of the planet. Aunt Pen, who loves us and knows how to keep a secret. And Sasha. I let her in, and I refuse to close her out.
Way too many people found out about the critter last year. We’ve had to move, we’ve had to hide, we’ve had to go mostly off the grid. Mungo bribed Anderson to close his site. He promised him something, but he won’t say what. The buzz is dying down, but the blogosphere’s still humming with talk and pictures and even songs about our journey.
Sometimes I wonder about Josh. Sasha told me he saved us, up there on the mountain.
I wonder what he thinks about the critter now. If he’s glad he escaped.
I wonder if he ever thinks about me.
I used to think we were outsiders, before, keeping the kenning secret. But I had no idea.
Sometimes I like to imagine those little kids with their birds. Stretching back in time, who knows how far.
They knew all about lonely.
They knew all about scared.
Still they nurtured it, the kenning. Cherished it. Kept it alive—something rare and seismic strange. Not for any practical reason. Just purely out of joy.
“Look,” Dad says. “He’s turning around.”
He is. I can see it on the monitor. Piper claps her hands, jumps up and down. Mom squeezes my shoulder.
I breathe.
I will him to keep coming this way. Soon, I feel Stella stretch up, alert, on my shoulder. Then Luna lets out a little chirp. A second later, I can feel his ken. His high spirits have dissipated. He seems lost and a little scared.
Good. A little scared is good.
I ken to him, and he greets me with relief, lets me guide him back in our direction.
I know he won’t be like this forever. He’s wild—a dragon—and he won’t always consent to being told what to do by the likes of me. Someday, he’ll want to be free.
But where?
Is there a place for him—a place where he’ll fit in, where he won’t harm what’s already there, where he’ll be safe?
Are there others out there, others like him?
I have no idea. None of us do.
We’re all pretty much in free fall around here. All learning how to fly. Making it up as we go along.
We stand together now, at the edge of the cliff. Staring out over the Pacific—into the fog, into the dark—waiting for the dragon to reappear.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
It was a lizard that got me going again with dragons. For years I’d toyed with the idea of a near-future sequel in the Dragon Chronicles series, but nothing really popped until my daughter, Kelly, a microbiologist/environmental engineer, told me about a rare lizard whose saliva has microbes that might be able to degrade environmental toxins into compounds that are completely safe. Lizard spit! That was it, for me: a way to return to my Chronicles and re-explore, through dragons, what we may lose when a genome disappears.
So many people helped me with this book! My agent, Emilie Jacobson, shored me up with eloquence, loyalty, and determination. Kelly Fletcher spent hours on the phone teaching me science and exploring alternatives; she vetted the manuscript twice for accuracy. My editor, Karen Wojtyla, was ever perceptive, wise, and kind.
Tricia Brown and Ryan Fisher shared their expertise on Alaska and showed me the location of the dragon’s lair. Bill Lewis gave me insights into flying; Jack DeAngelis, into beetles; Jesse Olmsted, into tattoos; Joanne Mulcahy, into the Kodiak Archipelago. Mark Kullberg showed me how to dig out a petrified dragon egg and crack it open with a rock hammer. Many thanks as well to Anita Fore and Richard Crone.
I’m seismic grateful to all my smart and generous draft readers: Ellen Howard (double thanks!), Bruce Clemens, Hannah Fattor, Jerry Fletcher, Pamela Smith Hill, Cynthia Whitcomb, Laura Whitcomb, Emily Whitman, and Kate Whitman; and to the challenging and helpful comments of my critique group, including Margaret Bechard, Carmen Bernier-Grand, Nancy Coffelt, David Gifaldi, Becky Hickox, Eric Kimmel, Winifred Morris, and Dorothy Morrison.
Thank you, one and all!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
SUSAN FLETCHER is the acclaimed author of the Dragon Chronicles, composed of Dragon’s Milk, Flight of the Dragon Kyn, and Sign of the Dove, as well as the award-winning Shadow Spinner, Alphabet of Dreams, and Walk Across the Sea. Ms. Fletcher lives in Watsonville, Oregon. Visit her online at SusanFletcher.com.
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