by Kavich, AC
“You correct, Hiro,” said Hideo. “We talk dragons.”
Hiroki was too shaken up to continue driving in circles, so he pulled his Buick into the parking lot of Alpine High School.
“Alpine sucks,” Billy muttered under his breath.
The foursome climbed out of the car and wandered to a nearby swing set. The boys each grabbed one of the three swings without a thought, but Eva made sure to offer Hideo a swing. Only when he declined did she sit.
“I tell what I know. You tell if I correct,” Hideo offered.
Billy pumped his legs and swung higher. “Sounds fun, sir, but did I really get out of bed early for this? I mean, I need to rest up before tonight.”
Hideo turned to Hiroki, his always-sharp eyes even sharper than usual. “You correct. This boy not smart.”
“Oldest person who’s ever insulted me,” said Billy with a grin.
“Go ahead, Mr. Tanaka,” said Eva. She was sitting still on her swing, her toes digging into the dirt. “We’re listening.”
Hideo took up position in front of the three teens, his fingers laced together behind his back. “I go first, young Billy, so you know I speak true. I not just hear you story and nod pretend knowledge. Understand you?”
“Understand me,” said Billy. He earned an angry glance from Eva for his sarcastic tone. “Sorry. Yes, I understand.”
Hideo nodded and began. “Kids find strange tree with strange fruit. Get juice on clothes. Get clothes in Hiroki Buick before was my Buick. Correct?”
“You’re right about the tree, Grandfather,” said Hiroki. “You could be right about the juice from the fruit. Some might have leaked out and gotten in the car. But it would have been a very small amount. Not enough for you to smell, I don’t think.”
“I smell dragon blood before,” said Hideo. “I know smell.”
“Where did you smell it?” asked Eva, leaning forward in her swing.
“My grandfather possess blood. Glass vial. From his grandfather and his grandfather’s grandfather. So on. Pass down. Understand you?”
The three teens all nodded.
“Blood very old. Thousands year old. Since before Japan is Japan. Pass down every new son. Smell stays strong. I smell as boy.” Hideo turned to Hiroki. “Your father smell too.”
“My father?”
Hideo nodded solemnly. “He smell when he become man. When I sure he become man. Older than you, Hiroki. Took father long time stop acting little child and become man. Longer than took you.”
“Hiro’s car smells the same as the vial of blood your family has passed down through the centuries?” asked Eva. “To me it just smells like an old car.”
Hideo glanced back at the Buick, parked in the nearby lot. He sniffed and wrinkled his nose as if he could still smell it. “Strong. Stronger than morning, this morning. Blood in vial never smell so strong like this.”
“Where’s that vial now, huh?” asked Billy. “If it even exists.”
Hideo’s eyes narrowed and he took several steps toward Billy, who was still swinging high. Billy panicked, afraid he was going to hit the old man with his legs, but Hideo stepped out of the way and calmly grabbed the swing’s chains. The chain abruptly halted its movement in Hideo’s grip, but Billy went flying.
“Not smart boy, I no accept disrespect from your mouth.”
Hideo stood over Billy as he climbed back to his feet and brushed dirt of his pants. Billy had never noticed before, but there was no frailty in the old man’s body or voice. He could have been forty-years-old for all the intensity in his eyes. Had he always looked so young? Billy wasn’t sure.
“Grandfather, where is the vial?” asked Hiroki.
Hideo let go of the chain and sat down on the swing he helped Billy vacate. “Buried. With father.”
“With my father?” Hiroki asked. “Why would it be buried with my dad?”
Hideo’s intense eyes went soft as he looked at Hiroki, his beloved grandson. The resemblance between them was uncanny, despite the generational difference. “I no could accept his death, Hiroki. I no could accept. Blood powerful. This much I know. So I bury with your father. I hope… I hope somehow…”
Eva covered her mouth with her hands, her eyes welling up with tears. “You thought the blood could bring him back?”
Hideo’s eyes were moist as well. His shoulders slumped and he lowered his head, suddenly unable to look at the three teens. “Yes,” he whispered.
“That wouldn’t work,” said Billy. “Your son would have to drink the blood for anything to happen. And if he was already dead – if he was already, uh, passed away – then he couldn’t drink the blood.”
Eva glared at Billy. He backed up a step in case Hideo lashed out at him again. But Hideo remained in the swing with his hands folded gently in his lap.
“Was foolish hope. I know. Hope of mourning father. Of desperate father.”
Hiroki hurried to his grandfather and dropped to his knees in front of him. He reached for his grandfather’s spotted hands and gently took them in his own. “Grandfather, even if he had been alive to drink the blood… It would have been bad. He would have changed.”
Billy and Eva exchanged a panicked look, afraid that Hiroki was about to reveal the previous night’s harrowing events. Hiroki didn’t look back at them. He was focused only on his melancholy grandfather.
“I know, Hiroki. I know what does the blood.”
“How, Grandfather?”
Hideo looked up at last. “When my father show me vial, I not yet become man like he hope. I not believe what he tell me. I not believe warnings.”
“What do you mean, Grandfather?”
“I defy my father,” said Hideo with a shudder in his voice. “I taste the blood.”
And then he told them his story.
Hideo was a headstrong sixteen-year-old when his father first sat him down in the family’s stone garden and entrusted him with the truth about the glass vial.
“It is blood, Hideo,” his father had whispered as if worried that someone might be listening from beyond the walls of their home. “From the body of a mighty creature that once roamed this world in great numbers. Those creatures died out, but their bodies remained entombed in the earth in the very spot where they died. Their bones turned to roots, and the roots grew into trees. The blood ran through the branches of the trees and pushed out fruit. The juice of the fruit, Hideo. The juice is the blood of the creature.”
“Where are these trees, father?” Hideo asked.
“My grandfather’s grandfather, men from his age may have known. But now? No one alive remembers where the trees grow. Each one is hidden. They wait, in every corner of the world, to give new life to a dead monster’s bones.”
“What kind of creature?” Hideo asked with a childish sneer.
His stern-faced father turned slowly and pointed at a gray stone sculpture perched on the corner of the property wall. It was a dragon – the sigil of the family for centuries – and it snarled at any trespasser who might dare to climb the wall and enter the garden uninvited.
“One sip of blood from the dragon will transform the man who drinks it,” Hideo’s father said. “The dragon will be reborn… in you.”
“Have you ever tried it?” Hideo asked. “To know what happens, I mean.”
His father shook his head impatiently. “This world has forgotten dragons, my son. They are no longer welcome among us. There is great power in the blood. Great suffering, as well.”
His father’s words didn’t sounded like truth to Hideo. They sounded like nonsense. He considered himself a modern boy who was far more interested in science and American music to be bothered with ancient folklore and crude superstition.
His father was furious when Hideo smelled the blood and proclaimed that it smelled like a rusty fender. He thrust the vial back into his father’s hand, nearly spilling a few precious drops. His father stormed back inside the house and declared that Hideo was a foolish boy who didn’t deserve the knowledge of
their ancestors.
A week later, Hideo was listening to swing music on his mother’s record player while his parents were at temple. He danced his way into his father’s private room and spotted the cherry wood box that housed the vial.
He thought he heard the vial buzzing.
It’s just old wine. And it’s turned to vinegar, by now, if it’s as old as father says.
Hideo lifted the vial from the box and sniffed it for a second time. It still smelled like a rusty fender, but there was something vaguely alluring about the odor this time. He brought the vial closer to his nose. And then, almost accidentally, he tipped the vial sideways. He stuck out his tongue just in time to catch the single drop that slid from the vial and drew it back into his eager mouth.
Hideo’s spotted hands were still folded in his lap as he recalled the story for Hiroki and his friends. Speaking the words out loud seemed to transport him back to his father’s private room and to bring the taste of the blood back to his tongue.
“I drink only one drop. The change no occur until following night. Father and mother have guests for tea. I feel sick and pain, cannot walk or stand. Like body turning inside-out. Like bones break and grow, same time. Skin stretch, turn hard. Terrible itch and color.”
Billy listened intently, amazed to find that the words coming out of this old man’s mouth in broken English so closely matched his experience from the previous night. “What color, sir?” he asked. “What color did your skin turn?”
“Green,” Hideo answered. “Mother put me to bed and hurry guests leave. Apologize for me. Worry for me. Father, he worry much more. He run to cherry wood box and look vial. See blood look less than before. Know right away.”
Hideo shook his head, the memory painful.
“Father try carry me to stone garden. Too heavy. Bones turn to lead. He beg me crawl. I do crawl, cry so much pain. Outside, under moon, change faster. Terrible change too late to stop. My body… I still not grown man, but become something greater than man. I become the blood. I become the dragon.”
Eva drifted close to Hiroki and reached for his hand. He hardly felt her fingers laced with his.
“Pain from transform much smaller than shame. Father’s tears as watch me change. Mother’s fear as wings and tail and teeth. Did not fly. Only hid in stone garden. Sheets from all bed in house to cover me. Leather straps to hold fire in throat. Father pace garden until sun return. Until change change back.”
When Hideo went silent and lowered his head again, Hiroki and Eva lowered their heads as well in deference. Not Billy. He was so restless with energy he could hardly stand still.
“The next night, though. Tell me you went flying the next night,” Billy pleaded.
Hideo shook his head. “I never fly. I never change again.”
Hiroki nodded eagerly. “It only lasts one night, then. That’s good news. Eat the fruit once – the blood – and you only change one time.”
Hideo shook his head again. “Once blood inside you, blood never leave.”
“Then how did you never change again?” Eva asked, perplexed.
“Father had two vials,” Hideo answered. “Second vial… antidote. I take antidote every day, many years. My mother, my father pray at temple their son will die before antidote run out. I pray same. When antidote does run out, I grown man with wife and baby son. I fear dragon blood inside body change me again. I fear what horror I do to my family, my town, my world. But no. Enough time pass. Dragon blood too weak. I pray thanks. I pray much thanks.”
“What is the antidote, Grandfather?” Hiroki asked.
“Blood of tree, poison. Leaves of tree, antidote.” Hideo slipped off his swing and began the walk back to the Buick. His shoulders were slumped and his eyes on the ground, a deep melancholy coloring every step he took. He stopped halfway to the car and turned back, locking his eyes on Billy. “Car smell not from fruit. From you.”
Billy nodded, a hint of a smile on his face.
Hideo inhaled slowly, still staring at Billy. “Very dangerous, play with dragon blood. Very dangerous.”
Hideo climbed slowly out of the Buick, once again looking his age. He was clearly downtrodden as he shuffled back inside Hiroki’s house without saying goodbye. The three teens remained in the Buick, eager to speak to each other after the silent drive back from Alpine High School.
“Tell me we’re going out to the cliffs right now,” said Billy giddily. “It’ll be dark in a couple of hours.”
For once, Hiroki agreed with Billy. “Exactly. We only have a couple of hours to collect leaves from the tree and for you to eat them.”
“What?!” Billy laughed. “You’re out of your mind, Hiro. I’m not eating any of those disgusting black leaves.”
“You had no problem eating that disgusting black fruit! And look what it did to you. Maybe you forgot how painful the change was, but I watched the whole thing. You looked like you were dying. You looked like you wanted to die just so it would be over.”
Billy laughed out loud and leaned into the front seat, uncomfortably close to Hiroki behind the wheel. “You’re just jealous,” he said. “You’re jealous, and you’re scared. If you had any balls, you’d eat the fruit too and see for yourself what it’s like up there.”
“Get out of my car,” said Hiroki. “You’re walking home.”
“No, Hiro, you coward.”
“I said get out, Billy!”
“And I said no. What are you gonna do about it?”
Eva had been ignoring the boy’s argument, too focused on Hideo’s story to care about their bickering. But she looked up and saw how close Billy had gotten to Hiroki and how furious Hiroki had become.
“Enough, you two! This is no time to be fighting! There are four people in this town who understand what’s happening to Billy – only four – and all four of us have to stick together!” She grabbed Billy around the stomach and pulled him into the back seat. When he landed heavily on her legs, she howled and pushed him off. “Billy, you’re an idiot if you think we’ll let you change again.”
“Hey, I’m not an id—”
“Yes you are! And Hiro, you’re an idiot if you think your personal issues with Billy are more important than the most incredible thing that’s ever happened to any of us. That tree and that fruit and everything else your grandfather told us…” She trailed off, a swirl of contradicting emotions getting the best of her. “Both of you just… just go back to the cliffs and collect the leaves. Billy will eat them tonight. Just tonight, so we have time to learn more and figure out what to do next.”
“I don’t want to eat ‘em,” said Billy with mild defiance.
“But you’re going to anyway, right?” Eva asked. “Promise me, Billy.”
Billy looked at Eva for a few quiet moments, impressed by the authority she was showing. She wouldn’t take any crap from him or from Hiroki, and Billy liked it. “Yeah, okay. I guess I promise.
“And you, Hiro. You promise to help him.”
Hiroki crossed his arms and grinded his teeth, still fuming. “Fine,” he muttered.
Eva nodded and eased open the car door.
“Where are you going?” asked Billy.
“Yeah,” Hiroki added. “You’re coming with us, aren’t you?”
Eva shook her head ‘no’. “I’ll meet up with you later if I can, but I’ve got a wedding to go to.”
“Aidan’s brother,” said Hiroki, remembering his promise to get Eva home on time to attend the ceremony.
“Tell that asshole I said ‘hi’,” said Billy, his middle finger sticking straight up.
CHAPTER TEN
She’d stayed out too long with Hiroki and Billy. Now she had to scramble to get ready in time for the wedding. She jumped into her dress – deep pink with a chiffon wraparound – and hustled into the bathroom barefoot.
Anita and Myra followed her into the bathroom and refused to leave, so Eva had to share her curling iron and her makeup with them. Their babysitter was on the way to watch them while
Eva and her parents attended the wedding, but the twins didn’t see that as a valid reason to not get dressed up. They marched after her as she raced back into her bedroom.
“Where are my pink heels?” she asked as she dug through her closet. “Anita! Myra! Where are my pink heels?!” She looked down to see that each of the twins was wearing one of the heels that matched her dress and one blue shoe. They took off running, laughing hysterically as their thin ankles wobbled.
Aidan’s house was up in the hills overlooking Alpine. With its extensive grounds and multiple standalone buildings – guesthouse, stables, ten-stall garage, etc. – it was more of an estate than a single family home. There were a few other houses halfway up their street, but at least half a mile of open land separated those “neighbors” from Aidan’s family.
The Humphries were Alpine royalty. They needed their privacy.
“So this is what a whole mess of seafood buys. Humphries Fresh Frozen Fish, yum yum!” cooed Rosa. She cooed the whole way up to the house, and cooed anew every time there was something new to see. When she saw the formidable gates at the base of the long winding driveway to the house proper, she gasped and clapped her hands. When she saw security guards minding the gates, she nearly passed out. “Oh my goodness, look at the side of that chimney! It must be eight feet across!”
Eva followed her mother’s eyes up to the roof of the main house where, sure enough, there was a stone chimney so wide and imposing it could have been a castle tower.
“Imagine how much wood it must take to heat this whole house,” Salvadore muttered, unimpressed. “I doubt they ever even use it.”
A valet took the key to Salvadore’s SUV and the three members of the Diaz family followed a trail of rose petals around the side of the house.
The back yard had been transformed to accommodate the day’s festivities. There were nearly two hundred white chairs arranged in two sections, all facing a dais built of redwood and draped in muslin. A full orchestra pit separated the stage and the guests who were taking their seats, the musicians tuning their instruments in anticipation of the ceremony’s imminent beginning.
