The storm front was quick to move on and left plenty of rain puddles. Annette went to the low spot on her back porch and placed the feathered eyes on the calm pooled water. Soon the puddle acquired the familiar dazzling colors but it only showed grass and no Kalara. If the pool couldn’t target Kalara’s ring, then no spell could. Where could she be?
Annette was mad at herself. She never should have sent Kalara away to stay with Jenniffer, if only she hadn’t feared what would happen if she’d kept Kalara close by.... and now Kalara was lost to her. Jenniffer would soon regret losing her.
The night sky had settled in by the time Jenniffer showed up and Annette was more than ready for her. “You lost her? Tell me everything – leave nothing out.”
Jenniffer was smart enough to do as she was told. No good ever came from lying to the woman, her paraplegic ex-boyfriend was testament to that. She sat down on the chair by the front window and recounted the day, “... I had my eye on her, honestly, she was just walking along and I was tagging her from behind, giving her some space. I thought that would be better than having her resentment keep building up – you do realize she hadn’t left the apartment in two months? She was acting like her normal self, we had only parted ways for maybe five or ten minutes when she simply vanished. I saw it happen. I was watching her when she disappeared right before my eyes. I ran to where she had been and there was nothing there. I asked the other people who had been right there and no one saw anything. I searched the mall twice over. I found her purse hanging from a chair back in the food court. It was undisturbed with everything still in it. Here, I brought it for you.”
Annette rummaged through the purse, finally dumping it out on the coffee table. “Her ring isn’t here. Did you see her ring anywhere?”
“No, Annette, I looked for it and it wasn’t anywhere near that purse or in it. Do you think I’m that stupid? I know what you instructed of me and I did it. How can I help it if she vanished? She would have vanished with you too!”
Annette said nothing and allowed the uncomfortable silence to build. She knew that in the absence of speech the guilty would spill out their secret thoughts. ‘Let them stew in their misery’ was Annette’s motto. It would do no good to yell, screaming is for the young and foolish, a quiet reply is all that is needed to make a point. She lit her pipe once more, enjoyed several slow puffs and ruminated over a fitting punishment.
Jenniffer worriedly looked about for something to take her mind off of the moment. She hated it when Annette did this and refused to say another word. Anything more would only imply guilt. Her eyes found the large dream catcher that Annette had made a few years back, all the windows in the house were protected by them. This one spanned the whole window with a three foot diameter. The familiar dust it had collected while guarding the window had been cleaned off of the sinew webbing, but something else was different about it too. The adorning beads looked odd, more like raisins than clay. It looked like Annette had recently restrung the dream catcher.
Finally, Annette set her pipe down and spoke just loud enough for her venom to be heard “You are foolish and stupid. Stupid! I told you to keep her inside that apartment with your damned cats. You can’t even follow simple instructions. After all I’ve done for you..... you lose her?” She took a moment to regain her composure “Tell me, had anything odd happened lately?”
Jenniffer remembered Kalara’s dream, “Yes, I meant to tell you the next time you called, this morning Kalara had another dream, this time she was hunting and she heard the voice again. I told her again that magic isn’t real. She wasn’t upset from it and quickly forgot about the dream. Jenniffer dreaded the consequences of not mentioning that sooner.
Annette shivered secretly at hearing about Kalara hunting even though it had been a mere dream. She pushed that aside and leaned forward to pick up a small house spider that had come up from under the coffee table, and she watched it move to the top of her finger.
“Jenniffer, you should have called me about that rather than wait for me to call you. You say she disappeared before your very eyes...” The spider posed itself, ready to strike. “...Since you can’t use your eyes and body properly, I will.”
With that, Annette flicked her wrist and flung the spider onto Jenniffer, it landed on her shirt. The moment the spider touched its target, Annette’s spell began to unfold. The webbing of the giant dream catcher un-knotted itself and reached down to bind Jenniffer’s arms and legs. The “raisins” weren’t dried fruit after all, they were dried hearts of some small animal that began to beat in unison with Annette who had begun to sing a cursing chant. Jenniffer’s pulse joined the rhythm as the sinew tightened around her neck and mouth. She didn’t try to avoid the trap, she knew it was useless to fight the medicine woman’s magic; but her eyes told the truth, she was scared.
Annette rose up and came around the table to Jenniffer, grabbing a magnifying glass as she did. The beat of the chant continued even as she paused the horrible song to say “How far have you fallen from being the skilled daughter I always wanted? Let me just have a look into those stupid eyes and see if there is anything in you worth saving.” She peered into Jenniffer’s eyes and then backed away.
“You are pretty much useless to me, however I shouldn’t waste your perfectly good body on the compost pile.” Annette slammed the magnifying glass onto the coffee table, shattering the lens, and picked up the curse where she had left off.
Annette walked out of the room leaving Jenniffer firmly bound to her chair. Jenniffer couldn’t move, the spider was long gone and still the beating hearts kept time for her. There was no escape, she never should have agreed to help the witch, no matter what she offered. The sinew finally stopped its advance. She had been gagged with a throbbing heart in the back of her throat, her saliva was moistening it, making it gooey.
When Annette came back to the living room, she was carrying a cutting board with a nine-inch slicing knife on it. She sat down across from Jenniffer who could only watch and hear her step-mom sing her curse - hoping it wasn’t a death sentence.
Annette sharpened the slicer and peered down the length of the blade to make sure all remaining nicks were gone. She took a yellow cooking onion from her pocket, the stoutest, strongest variety on the market. Holding her face over it, she sliced and ate the onion to make her tears flow. She looked at her disappointing excuse for a daughter and laughed a sharp, cutting laugh. Her chant continued in perfect time with the beating hearts - the evil song filled the air.
Annette picked up the lens shards, reserving the longest two she could find. She rolled the shards down her own face, cutting her cheeks, unflinching, a mixture of blood and tears coated them. Then she took from her pocket two peacock eyes, the iridescent feathers reflected the dim lighting of the room, and soaked them on her face as she had the shards, singing all the while.
Jenniffer could feel the beat of the music on her throat and taste the hot onion from the air which was an improvement over the rotten, gummy hearts. She shut her eyes, refusing to watch anymore. But eyesight wasn’t needed for what happened next, she felt the wet, soft feathers cover her eyelids. She shook her head vehemently and leaned far back from Annette, but the strong sinew fought back, growing longer and tighter, immobilizing her head and curling like grape vines holding the peacock feathers in place. Jenniffer then heard the final notes of the curse as she felt the sharp prick of two bloody shards piercing her eyes.
Chapter 3
The magical journey from the anchor was startling. It was as though a giant fish hook had snagged Kalara and was yanking her to shore. She tried to see where they were going, but her eyeballs had been atomized along with every other body part making normal vision impossible. Only her consciousness remained intact; electricity held it together with thousands of spider-webbed arcs of lightning as her matter formed a cloud around her. Somehow she knew they were traveling fast, the wind was biting at her raw flayed-open mind; trying to break the connecting bolts. The intensity of the trip didn�
�t let up until they came to be standing on a table top hill with four wind-whipped trees that loomed over a wide desert plain, the landscape was identical to the sketch in the anchor.
Kalara was light-headed and held onto Ravanan for support. It took her a second to reconnect to herself. Her eyeballs worked – she could see again. She shook her head trying to sync with her newly reformed body then did her best to stand on her own.
Ravanan looked over at her, “You’ll be fine. Stay here. I won’t be long.” He walked some distance away from her and as he did his clothes disappeared. Then he knelt down with his fingertips barely touching the earth. All at once his fingernails grew and changed to black talons, his tan skin became brilliant blue scales and his dark hair whipped up furiously to become black horns. The bumps of his spine extended into black spikes and folded wings rose out of his back while his neck and tail bones lengthened so that his frame grew eleven times larger. His muscles tensed, his wings unfurled and he took off to fly a perimeter. The transformation took mere heartbeats to complete.
Completely stunned at the magnificent dragon she had just seen, Kalara sat down and tried to focus on the most basic functions of life; checking that her whole body was there. She was dumbfounded. The man had been telling the truth and he was big.
‘...nine ten.’ she counted to herself, happy that all her toes were present.
Kalara didn’t recognize the terrain. She didn’t know what to think. There was shock at seeing a mythical being, elation that he had come back for her, worry that she didn’t know where she was, fear that she might actually be laying in a coma on the floor of the mall and there was the bizarre feeling of being separated into billions of pieces, and the attraction at seeing a very well-toned man bare his body before her. It was all too much for her to take in.
Ravanan made three full passes around her, the third engulfed Kalara in a wide dome of faint, glittering blue fog that covered the entire hill they had landed on. It was beautiful and all around her, touching her, blocking her from the outside world. Kalara rose up and took a few steps to explore the feeling. The blue fog was neither moist nor dry, but in perfect balance with the weather. She could move through it with no hindrance. She reached out to collect a sparkle that was slowly hovering near her face, it evaded her grasp just as a dust particle would in a sunlight beam.
Kalara peered into the millions of sparkles, mesmerized by them. As she did the blue fog in the distance seemed to be coalescing into a thicker cloud. She refocused her eyes, trying to see better into the glittery cloud. Suddenly she realized it wasn’t a cloud, but the shape of a massive blue dragon coming towards her. It was as though he had appeared from out of nowhere because she hadn’t heard him land.
She watched him approach. From inside her mind Kalara heard the dragon’s full title, Ravanan of Kynasteryx Diamid the Malefic Azure, as it heralded before him.
She stood transfixed as he drew closer still, close enough to eat her.
Ravanan did not come to stand before Kalara. Instead he circled her, keeping his blue eyes trained on her tiny human form. Amidst the quaking of his footfalls he cast “ARMOR”. The look of his blue scales changed, they became blurry, as a thin layer of super dense air coated him with magical protection. His tenseness was palpable.
Something was up. Kalara broke the uncomfortable silence that hung in the air. “Ravanan, what is it? What happened back there at the mall?”
“What happened?” Ravanan flung her question back at her. “You tell me what happened.” He kept walking slowly around her. “I don’t suppose you want to tell me who dismissed me do you?”
“What?” Kalara burst out. “How should I know who it was? I was worried it would happen to me too!”
“Really.” He said with a deep, flat tone. “Come now Kalara. Some dragon must have known where you were..... saw us together..... and then cast a dismissal spell on me.” Ravanan’s voice was thick with suspicion. “Now I wonder, who? I know it wasn’t you, at least not directly.” he sneered at her. “Tell me who it was.”
Kalara was silent and wide-eyed, fear washed over her.
With a defensive ire he continued “I sensed your surprise when I came back. You didn’t think I would did you? What trap did you have planned for me? Who is helping you? And why?”
“I don’t....,” Kalara shook her head, “You are helping me... you were...or so I thought.” She was confused and growing more afraid. She had no idea where he had brought her to, and she was alone against him.
“Enough! You can stop the game Kalara.”
The blue glittery mist grew brighter, the hairs on her arms raised up. Kalara looked away, a tear escaped from her eye. The longer she looked at the beautiful glitter, the more it seemed to be changing into something more than just glitter, perhaps tiny electrical sparks – but how was that possible?
Then Ravanan stopped his pacing to face her dead on. “What were you doing there? And don’t tell me you have no memory. What an absurd story! What are you planning? Why did you leave the territory?”
The barrage pierced Kalara’s mind and unseen pressure points compelled her to speak. Kalara could not believe he was doing this. She didn’t know what to say. Her eyes welled up with tears. “I’m not planning anything! I promise!”
The pressure increased and so did the pitch of her voice. The mist was definitely brighter and becoming charged. She spoke quicker. “I don’t know who you are. I don’t even know who I am. Dragons aren’t supposed to be real. I’m not even sure I’m really here. I don’t remember anything of my past. Nothing. I swear it!”
The air around them started popping with sparks. Ravanan roared “WHO DISMISSED ME???!”
Kalara’s hands flew to cover her ringing ears. She screamed back “I DON’T KNOW! Why are you doing this to me? I have nothing you want and I’ve told you all I know.”
She had offered everything she knew. She couldn’t give anymore, the next step was death. Not only did it feel as though she was drowning in deep water, but it looked like it also, everywhere around her was the electrically charged blue mist and the giant blue dragon blended perfectly with it.
He was turning up the pressure and Kalara’s body was about to collapse under it. She didn’t want this and didn’t know how much longer she would last. Maybe she really wasn’t there. Maybe it was all in her head and she was laying in the mall. The crushing pressure felt real enough though. The commanding power from Ravanan was impressive and even in her current predicament Kalara was in awe of him.
The pressure continued to increase slowly, at an imperceptible rate, like the slow turning of a screw as Ravanan analyzed her answer. Then he dug deeper with icy cold prying tendrils to force out information from every crevice of her brain. “Who is watching you Kalara? What color are his eyes? Why are you helping him?
“WHAT IS HIS NAME?” Ravanan’s voice rolled across the plains. Or maybe his voice was in her head, Kalara was getting dizzy, she couldn’t tell the source anymore, just the pounding, ringing, dizzying pressure from her inquisitor.
A shiver ran down her spine, she closed her eyes and screamed out. “I don’t know! I didn’t know I was being followed. All I had been thinking of is that you must know my past and could help me sort out my memories. I’m so sorry! When you disappeared back there, I didn’t know what to do.” she wailed. “I wished you would come back and had no way of finding where you had gone.”
Revisiting her despair caused Kalara to shudder with gasping sobs against the pressure. Her world was going black – at any time now she would pass out. She waited for it, for anything, something would have to give and it would most likely be her life.
Even with her eyes closed, she knew the angry dragon was still there. What had she gotten herself into? What did Ravanan want with her? Finally she felt a release and dropped limply to the earth.
When Kalara opened her eyes again the blue dragon was where she remembered him, standing right in front of her. His massive head was above her some ten feet i
n the air. He spoke with disgust. “The human body is so small, bite size really.”
Kalara wiped the old tears from her face, not saying a word. She didn’t want any of this. He went on “Of all the forms you could have taken, all the places you could have went, why a human up in Anarchelos Vya?”
“I told you – I don’t know.” she answered angrily, not looking at him.
“It does appear that your mind is missing. You really don’t know anything about yourself.”
He went on “You think what you know is actuality and truth, but what I see is a game, nothing more than a temporary situation that you have placed yourself in and you had another dragon help you do it.”
Seeing that Kalara did not deny it, Ravanan spoke further. “My banishment could only have been caused by a very serious and high level spell. It seems as though you were bait for me, or that some other dragon doesn’t want me near you. Which is it I wonder.”
Again Kalara said nothing, she was rubbing her chest where it hurt the most.
Ravanan watched her. He could see that her once strong mind was now hindered with fragility and fear, even though it was inconceivable to him that a powerful dragoness would allow herself to be victimized for any reason.
He was getting nowhere with her. Ravanan rose up to walk away.
That got Kalara to talk. She said “So what now? How do I get back home?”
“You’re not going back there.”
“I’m not staying here.” The tone of her voice was obvious; she deserved to be taken home.
“Finally, a truth from you. You are coming with me so I can get your memories back. We’ll leave after the sun rises.” Ravanan started to leave.
“Wait, don’t walk away. The night is early, let’s talk – and without the use of pain.”
Ravanan the Malefic Azure contemplated her demand. After some thought, he responded “You are ordering me? I don’t think so my little Kalara. You should be grateful you are even being rescued. I need to eat, I’ll be back. Gather some wood and then I’ll hear your words.”
The Cursed Dragon Page 4
