Don't Slay the Dragon (The Chronicles of Elizabeth Marshall Book 1)

by Rachel Lucas

  After much begging and pleading from the lawyer, I reluctantly agreed to travel down to the state mental hospital, brave the demons of the past, and see what information I could gather from my one time best friend.

  Chapter Four

  The woman before me straightened up in her chair, squared her shoulders and gave me a cynical look up and down, sizing me up as though I was a fierce opponent. To say she looked hard was putting it nicely. She pulled off the cap with a yank and ranked her fingers through her limp red hair. Her eyes darkened to an icy green.

  “I heard you might show up. After all these years I doubted you actually would. Didn’t think you’d have the balls to show up here again.” She sneered at me as she said the last bit.

  “I thought I would see if I could come and help, Maxine.” She gave a very unladylike snort at that comment.

  Maxine was a tough broad. She was a trucker, hard as nails, tough as leather, a rough woman trying to survive in a masculine world. If you were to ask her, she would tell you about her numerous tattoos, covering both arms, her back, stomach, legs and feet. They were garish and violent pictures, with blood, skulls and torn flesh. Each had an elaborate story to tell, each a voice of their own. She would tell you about her piercings too, in her ears, face and tongue. Even some in places that I would rather not know about. If she had her way, a fresh Camel cigarette would be dangling between the fingers of her left hand. She would be using it to point at me as she spoke.

  “What a joke!” She smirked. “You disappear for all these years, not even a word from you in all that time, and you expect to come back and help now? What do you think you could do? Hold that stupid lawyer’s hand? Take notes at that farce of a trial?”

  I knew from experience that at this point her temper would just accelerate and her voice would rise in volume until everyone in the room would be able to hear every word. I needed to stop this before she got out of control and a nurse went for a syringe full of Haldol.

  “Maxine, I need to speak to Lisbeth.” I spoke in my most calm yet authoritative voice, striving to show little emotion besides firm control. “Can I speak with Lisbeth please?”

  “That little pansy is gone.” She gritted out harshly. “I sent her away, back to the La-La land where she belongs.”

  She tossed the sketchbook on the floor along with the charcoal then tried to turn her back on me. I knew it was important to maintain eye-contact. I had to keep her focus but without touching her. At least I had succeeded in distracting her enough to keep her temper from flaring.

  “Maxine, can I talk to anyone else? Can Beth talk to me, or Lizzy?”

  She gave me a frightening glare. The old saying “If looks could kill” came to mind. If that were the case I would have been burned to a cinder. I held my breath and waited for the impending explosion. One moment, then two, I waited, frozen and not knowing what would happen next.

  Gradually, the shoulders drooped, relaxed, then hunched in to a ball. She drew her knees up to her chest again and wrapped her arms around them. She hid her face behind her knees, head bowed, shaking slightly. I gave her a moment to adjust and watched as a pair of shy, inquisitive eyes peeked out behind the threadbare, denim covered knees.

  “Lizzy? Is that you?” I spoke as a mother would to a frightened child.

  “Catty?” Her voice was small and timid, the voice of a girl of seven or eight. “Where have you been?”

  I knew I could reach over and touch her hand now, Lizzy would allow that much. Her hand was cold and clammy, still clutching her leg. She allowed one finger to wrap around one of mine, a big concession for Lizzy. It was a sign of acceptance from her. I gradually relaxed a bit.

  “I’m sorry, I’ve been away. I got married and moved far away.” I tried to reassure her.

  You had to be very careful with Lizzy. She was fragile and easily frightened. She had been abused severely, in some ways I was even now still trying to understand. Lizzy wouldn’t talk to men, especially if they had dark hair or facial hair. The small details started to come back to me.

  “You left us,” she accused in a small voice. Somehow, that tiny voice was so much more condemning than the rude accusations from Maxine. The pain stabbed deep.

  “I know Lizzy, and I’m so very sorry. I’m here now though. I’m here to help. Can you help me, Lizzy? Can you tell me why you’re here?” She hid behind her knees again and gave a small shake of her head. Lizzy probably wouldn’t know much, she was usually kept pretty sheltered by the others. I wasn’t sure what she would be able to tell me, but at least she wasn’t as mouthy as Maxine. I knew that if I continued to question her she would just withdraw further. I had to find a way to draw her out. “Have they been treating you ok here, Lizzy? Have you felt safe?”

  Again, she gave a little shake of her head. It was sometimes hard getting her to talk.

  “There’s a man that comes here sometimes.” Her voice was a small whisper. “He comes to see Lisbeth. I don’t like him. He asks her questions. It upsets her. I stay away when he’s here.”

  A strange man? Could that be Mark Jacobs, her public defender? I remembered that Lizzy had a fear of most men.

  “I have something to show you. Do you wanna see?” Her bright green eyes now peeked back out from behind her knees. There was just a hint of a mischievous smile on her narrow face. It wasn’t unusual for her to change subjects quickly.

  “I’d love to see it,” I told her gently.

  She hesitated briefly then jumped up with the energy of youth, scooped up the sketchbook and charcoal off the floor then started walking away. When I didn’t immediately follow she looked back then waved me forward. Reaching back, she linked one of her fingers through one of mine and began leading me through the main common room and down the hall towards her own room.

  The hall was wide and bright with the fluorescent lights. There were several bulletin boards along the walls, filled with calendars and upcoming events. They had tried to make it a bit more cheery, more colorful, but no amount of construction paper and tin foil could change what this place represented. Sadness, depression, mental illness. Several doors down we stopped at was must have been her room. There were two twin beds on opposite sides of the small square room. She must have had a roommate but they weren’t here at the time. The room seemed quite bare at first, with just a few personal effects. There was a worn but comfortable quilt on her bed, a few small stitched pillows that didn’t match but seemed to suit her.

  The most fascinating thing in the room was the various pictures and sketches on just one side of the room. They covered the walls in a haphazard jumble of colors and shapes. They ranged in style from the finely drawn fairies I had seen Lisbeth drawing earlier to very basic crayon and finger painted pieces that looked like they belonged in a Kindergarten classroom. There were unicorns and elves, wood sprites and mermaids. They all belonged in a fantasy world of Lisbeth’s own making.

  Lizzy took me over to stand before one picture in particular. It was a simple child’s drawing, done in bright crayon on a yellow piece on construction paper. Two stick figures stood side by side, one with orange-red hair, and tiny green dots for eyes. The first one touched finger to finger with the other stick figure, this one with curly yellow hair in spirals and blue dots for eyes. There were happy smiles on both faces. A bright circle sun shone from the corner and the words “Best friends” was spelled out in blue crayon in a simple child’s print.

  “I did this.” She gave a shy but proud smile. “Do you like it?”

  The simple picture brought back a flood of memories. The drab gray walls of the mental hospital faded away, years stole by, eons it seemed, though it was hardly fifteen or so years. I was no longer in the sad little room with the colorful pictures but in a brown hall, floors and walls carpeted in the same drab brown. Back to where it all began. Back to one of the most terrifying places to a young teenage girl. Junior High School.

  Chapter Five

  The first few weeks of Junior High were just mi
serable if you were a seventh grader. Add to that being shy, feeling terribly awkward and immature, and having few friends, and you have a recipe for disaster.

  I came from a family of five. My parents weren’t bad for being parents. Dad worked at the local military base as a civilian. He didn’t talk much about what he did for a living, only seemed content to have a reliable job where he could be home with his family by a certain time each day. My mother was a stay at home mom. A little old fashioned these days but always there when she was needed and great at chasing us all wherever we needed to go.

  I had an older sister, Meghan, but she was in high school now and didn’t want to have anything to do with her quiet younger sister. We had never been very close. I think she had always been angry to see another child come into the family and take the attention away from her. Zach was my younger brother. He was still in elementary school and was more likely to stir up trouble than anything else. I was the middle child. Great.

  To make matters worse, we had moved during the summer. It wasn’t far, just to a neighboring town. Our house was bigger, the neighborhood was nicer. The problem was that all the girls my age had already formed their cliques. No one wanted to hang out with the “new girl”.

  If that wasn’t bad enough we now lived in the busing zone for the junior high and high schools. That meant getting up an hour earlier when it was still dark outside, standing in line at the bus stop with all the other girls that wouldn’t speak to me, then getting to school forty-five minutes early with nothing to do but sit on the hard floor in the hallway and try to get caught up on any missed homework.

  That’s where I found myself that cool, fall morning, wandering down a near-empty hallway at the school and hoping that the bell would just ring thirty minutes early. I just wanted to go hide in the back of my Utah history class and disappear. I was good at that.

  I was staring down at the stack of books in my arms. They were there more to hide behind than because there wasn’t room for them in the backpack slung over my right shoulder.

  This particular hallway was where the school media center was located. Sometimes Mrs. Olsen, the head of the media center, would open it early and I would go in and look for any new books. This morning it was closed and still dark inside. Sitting on the floor next to the door was a thin girl. She sat crossed-legged, shaggy red-orange hair partly covering her eyes. She had on a flowing, brightly colored pink top. It was terribly out of fashion and should have clashed horribly with her hair, but somehow she made it work. She had black leggings and black sandals.

  At first she didn’t seem to notice me. Her attention was entirely focused on a two-inch long glittering crystal dangling from a thin golden chain. She held just the chain, touching nothing more. She sat so still and quiet, totally concentrating on the different facets and the rainbow of colors they gave off.

  I was just about to walk past and find somewhere else to hide out until the bell rang when she spoke.

  “You can move it without touching it.” Her voice was low and hushed. If we weren’t the only ones in the hall I would have thought the voice had come from someone else. “You know, with your mind. I can.”

  I looked around, wanting to make sure there wasn’t anyone else here she could be talking to.

  “Wh-what?” I wasn’t usually a stutterer, but I couldn’t imagine why she would be talking to me.

  “It’s called telekinesis. Moving things with your mind. It’s not that hard to do if you try. You start out with something small, like this crystal. Put all your mental energy into making it move.”

  With hardly a conscious thought, I soon found myself sitting on the floor next to her, arms wrapped around my books and staring just as intently at the crystal. I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do. Just sit and stare at it? Was I supposed to say or think something specific?

  “Crystals have special powers and mystical properties.” She continued in the low, careful voice. “Some believe they have a healing energy. Some believe they have a deep connection with the earth and nature. Look! It’s starting to swing. We’re making it move.”

  Sure enough, the crystal was showing slight movement, swinging back and forth between the two of us. It was hard to tell if we had really made it move with our minds or if she was just making it move slightly from the chain she held in her hands. One way or another it was an interesting concept.

  My life up to that point had been very normal, closer to boring actually. I was really good at blending into the background of everyone else’s daily life. Quiet and bookish, a straight A student, I could disappear into a crowd or a classroom with little effort. My hair was a nice blond color, curly and long, mostly so I could hide behind it. My eyes wide and blue and I thought a bit big for the rest of my face. That color combination wasn’t bad, but it was run of the mill in the Utah area.

  Now across from me was this bright, colorful girl, full of whimsy and imagination. Her green eyes were full of light and curiosity, her smile full of laughter and mischief.

  “My name’s Lisbeth by the way. It’s short for Elizabeth, but don’t ever call me that. Only my mother calls me Elizabeth and I hate it when she calls me that.”

  Chapter Six

  That began my journey into the world of imagination and fantasy. Every morning and even at lunch would find us outside the media center or inside in a back corner next to the outdated encyclopedias. Often we were joined by others, other outcasts that didn’t quite fit into the mold of junior high school. We would sit around and talk about fascinating topics. Dragons and unicorns, medieval sword fighting and jousting, mythical creatures and magical powers. Sometimes we would discuss books like “The Lord of the Rings” or “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe”. Other times we would talk about the mystical energy around us all and the amazing power of the human mind.

  Lisbeth’s only family was her mom and she worked for this “New Age” book store downtown called “Divine Light”. Lisbeth was a constant source of information about all things enlightened. She would be just as likely to be talking about telekinesis and teleportation as she would elves, trolls and angels. The topics gave us all an escape, gave us all a window into other worlds where acne, being unpopular, being ignored and bullying didn’t exist. Through it all, Lisbeth was the center of our strange little group. Normally an outcast herself, I think she reveled in the sudden attention.

  For me it was a place where I could bloom. I felt comfortable talking with the other people in this small crowd. I could express ideas, sit and draw and sketch, or stare at dangling crystals like everyone else and actually fit in. I learned a love of writing and we would often compose fanciful poems and read them aloud to each other. I discovered too that I was a fairly decent artist. My imagination was more colorful than I had ever known and my lagging confidence grew as my efforts were complimented by those around me.

  The members of our clan would change from time to time, but the two constants were Lisbeth and me. We were inseparable. Although a year older than me, we seemed to be kindred souls. There was never a disagreement between us, never a cross word. It felt so good to have a friend that accepted me exactly on my own terms and who knew I felt the same way about her.

  My parents weren’t quite sure about my friendship with Lisbeth. While we lived in a nice new subdivision up on the hill, she lived about two miles away, across a busy main street and in a small trailer park tucked partly under an overpass. Most nights and weekends found me riding my ten-speed the two miles across the way. I would dutifully stop at the busy main intersection and walk my bike across the street as my mother demanded, then dart on towards Lisbeth’s small single wide trailer.

  It was always easier going over there. There were no grouchy big sisters or annoying little brothers in the way. Their small home was cluttered and aged with every possible surface being utilized, but it was also unusual and colorful. There might be bright beads dangling from strings in a doorway, a sheaved jeweled dagger mounted on the wall, or an oriental dragon
stitched on a dark red silk pillow.

  Barbara, Lisbeth’s mom, seemed to be a throwback to the sixties, with free love and free thinking flowing through her. Her red hair had more brown in it than her daughter’s, but she liked to keep it long or tied back with colorful scarves. Once thin, she had now thickened as the years had gone by and her blouses and skirts became more loose-fitting and flowing.

  Barbara was a fair artist herself and while Lisbeth favored fairies, elves and wood sprites, Barbara favored dragons. There were several framed pictures on the walls that she had done in oils and pastels. They were always fierce-looking creatures with jagged scales, sharp talons and dripping fangs.

  They had a complicated relationship. Barbara seemed very controlling with Lisbeth. Her daughter was her entire life. She seemed to waver daily between being the authoritative parent figure and trying desperately to be Lisbeth’s best friend. At times they seemed to have a loving, caring mother-daughter bond. But that was usually rare. Lisbeth had enough of her mother’s free spirit that she didn’t want to be controlled. Most of the time they both seemed to thrive on the contention between them. They each knew what buttons to push with the other and knew just when to push them.

  Barbara seemed to genuinely enjoy my company. At times I think she viewed me as another daughter, one more respectful and biddable than Lisbeth. I feared she would compare the two of us and in her own mind find her own daughter lacking. At least they usually got along while I was there. I seemed to be a buffer, sometimes the referee. It must have been hard for two fiery, opinionated, red-headed females to live in such close quarters for so long.

  My time with Lisbeth was spent exploring magical worlds limited only by our imaginations. Sometimes, on weekends, mother and daughter would travel to Salt Lake and attend gaming tournaments where they would be involved in intricate fantasy board games for hours on end, or go to a medieval festival where they dressed for the time period and watched sword fighting and jousting. I always wanted to go, but my parent’s forbid me. It was a world as foreign to them as another planet. They really didn’t want me getting any more involved in this strange, magical world than I already was.