A Dragon's Clutch

by Alica Mckenna Johnson

  “Are you the child of the prophecy? The Jewel who will open the doorway to Akasha so we can go home?”

  “I am.”

  She nodded. “Good. I have waited more than two thousand years for someone to come and open the portals. I should like to see Akasha again.”

  “The portal is in the north, in Hokkaido. I can’t remember the specific place.”

  She held up a tiny hand. “Hush, child. I remember crossing the portal four thousand years ago to bless the Phoenix King and his human bride’s first child. They also had onyx black hair streaked ruby red, eyes of peridot flecked with gold, and skin kissed by pearl and copper. Their Jewels, they called them, like you are their Jewel now.”

  “Yes,” I nodded.

  She looked me over and sniffed. I guess gray yoga pants and a cable knit sweater didn’t impress her.

  “I shall tell the others so those who wish to leave will be ready and by the portal waiting for you.” She flew out over the balcony. “And I will tell the guardian you are who you claim, but you will still be watched. We do not allow strangers with such powers in our home lightly.”

  “Of course, I understand, and thank you for giving us a chance.” Yay, I passed the first level of inspection. I sipped my jasmine tea. I loved the slightly bitter floral taste. The other faeries fluttered up to see the prophesied Jewel of the Phoenix King and Queen. None of them seem impressed.

  * * *

  Bodies lay around me. I couldn’t open the portal to Akasha. No help was coming. I couldn’t save anyone. Laughter echoed along the cave walls. Icy fear filled me. The vision swirled, the screams and cries for help faded.

  The sky was the wrong color. I wasn’t dreaming in Akasha, but this wasn’t a normal dream either. It looked fake like a badly colorized black and white movie. Sitting on the grass I opened my empathy. A desire to connect, and a wrongness was all I felt. A snake slithered over my leg. It didn’t do anything so I ignored it. Another came winding around my wrist. I’d been seeing snakes in my dreams lately, but this was the first time they touched me. Was some snake being trying to reach out to me for help?

  “Is anyone here?” I called out, my voice echoing as if I was in a bare room and not outside in the grass. “I’ll try and help you if I can.”

  Another snake came up. It coiled, began to rattle, and lunged.

  Knocking pulled me out of my dream.

  “Come in,” I said rubbing my leg where the snake almost bit me.

  “We’re headed out to lunch, want to come?” My aunt Anali asked. Her shoulder length dark brown hair framed her round face. Her aqua blue sari shone in the neutral colored room.

  It sounded like a request, but it wasn’t. I looked at my laptop, I had a lot I needed to work on, but it would have to wait until I had soothed my aunt’s and uncle’s worries. “Let me freshen up and I’ll meet you guys in the front.”

  “Okay, but hurry. Your uncle is sure he can remember exactly where he and your mother ate the very best soba noodles when they visited here twenty years ago.” Her hand rested on her belly, which rounded with the baby. Her first three months had been difficult but now in her fourth month she felt much better.

  “I’ll be quick.” Uncle Gavin made sure to take me to all the places he and my mom had gone whenever we traveled close enough to them. My mom had died, well she was murdered, when I was five. My mom hid me in the foster care system in San Francisco and my uncle found me last year when I turned fifteen and my Phoenix powers emerged. He felt guilty for the time we had been apart. Some days he gets this sad look in his peridot green eyes, and I’m sure I could talk him into buy me diamonds he is so consumed with guilt.

  I washed my hands and dried them on a soft white towel. I didn’t blame Gavin. After all, my mom had changed my name and gave me a fake birth certificate in order to protect me from the Sons of Belial. And we were finally figuring out how to be a family. I was even excited about the baby and becoming a sister/slash/cousin. Walking down the stairs I wondered how many feet had helped wear the center of each step into a soft curve. I ran my hand along the railing and didn’t feel much of anything, just whispers of serenity and happiness. Best hotel ever. What if all of Japan was this emotionally clean?

  “Ready?” Gavin asked putting on a beanie, his bright red hair sticking out and falling over his shoulders. “I know exactly where I’m going. It’ll be so much fun.”

  “Yeah, right,” I said. “That’s what you said in Munich. If it hadn’t been for the Askafroa we ran into we would have never found our way.”

  “Oh ye of little faith. I have directions from Miu.” Gavin waved a piece of paper.

  “Well, get in the taxi,” said Anali wrapping her gray shawl around her shoulders. “I’m hungry.”

  “Here, please,” Gavin said handing the driver the piece of paper.

  “Hai,” the man said, placing his white gloved hands on the wheel and drove, calmly, into traffic using his turn signals and stopping at yellow lights.

  “We’re in the twilight zone.” I’ve been all over North and South America and a lot of Europe, but never had I been in such a clean, polite taxi. White lace doilies decorated the backs of the seats and a vase of flowers sat on the dashboard.

  “The Japanese are very polite people,” Gavin said. “I’m hoping you kids soak some of it up while you’re here.”

  “Gavin,” said Anali. “It isn’t the kids’ fault you got into and lost a prank war with them.”

  “Yeah, and I wasn’t even part of it. ‘Cause I’m not stupid enough to get involved in a prank war.”

  “Is that why the boys aren’t coming with us? Are you still upset that you and Michael lost?” Anali asked.

  “First, we didn’t lose—we decided to stop the war,” Gavin said. “Michael is very busy as the manager of our troupe; he has too many responsibilities to have his time occupied by pranks.”

  “Oh, yes, of course,” I said.

  “And I thought it would be nice to have lunch just the three of us. The boys can take care of themselves. And we could have won, if we had been willing to crush their delicate egos.”

  The boys, Taliesin, Kayin, Sasha, and Shin were all circus performers with fans who gave them their numbers after shows and even followed them on Facebook. People stared at them as they walked down the street, their beauty and muscular form attracting every eye. It would take a lot to damage their egos.

  “So tell me about when you came here with my mom,” I said, changing the subject. The memories I had of my mom and dad were faint; only the journal of quotes and life lessons my mom left for me connected me to her. Gavin had given me my dad’s family home in London for my sixteenth birthday. We had spent several days going through family photos and listening to the butler and cook tell stories about my dad and my grandparents. Gavin’s the only blood family I had left, well until their baby is born. Thankfully, Anali had welcomed me into her heart as well as her life, and with the boys and the circus I was creating my own unique family. Of course being raised the foster care system I wasn’t sure what a real family was supposed to look or act like, so that made things extra fun sometimes.

  “We came the summer before she went to college. All I wanted to do was go to the arcades and the manga stores. Gabrielle and my parents made me go to museums and temples and other cultural stuff.” Gavin smiled. “I think the only thing we both agreed on was sumo wrestling was oddly fascinating, and this soba noodle place was amazing. Our parents hated both.”

  “So other than the noodle place, what was your favorite part?” Anali asked.

  “I got Gabrielle to go with me to an arcade after she made me spend the morning at the Hello Kitty store. Anyway we spent hours on one of those dancing games. We hadn’t seen one before. Our legs ached the next day we’d played so long, and our face hurt from all the smiling and laughing we did.”

  “Here,” said the driver with a bow of his head.

  “Arigato,” Anali and I said as we slid out of the taxi.

 
; “It looks exactly the same.” Gavin took Anali’s hand and led us to a small door. We all had to duck to enter.

  “Konnichiwa.” A small women waved us to a table.

  We sat on the floor and tried to read the menu, all in Japanese. Anali and I both turned to Gavin.

  “When I was here last time we relied on your mom’s Phoenix gift of languages. This time I had Miu write it down for me.” Gavin handed the paper to the waitress who bowed and went to the kitchen, returning a moment later with hot tea for each of us.

  “Sometimes I wish I could understand all languages.” One of my Phoenix gifts is being able to understand other languages, but only if a being from Akasha is speaking, or wrote it down. My powers all revolve around connection, and the magic connects us enough so I can understand them, but it always gives me a headache if I translate for too long.

  Gavin leaned over the table. “Your mom used to pretend she couldn’t understand what was being said because she thought it funny to listen to people talk about us. Well, most of the time. Some people got rude and she would turn bright red.”

  “Eavesdroppers never hear any good of themselves,” I said. “It is important to respect people’s privacy. Even if they’re speaking about you, that doesn’t mean it’s mean or intended to be cruel, but maybe they’re confused or venting, or trying to sort out how they feel. So even if you can listen into a conversation or read a private journal, it is best to respect other people’s privacy.”

  “I haven’t heard you quote your mom’s journal in a while,” Gavin said.

  I shrugged. “You told me that my mom wrote the journal while she was pregnant.”

  “Yeah, she was scared she’d be a horrible parent and forget to teach you important things.” Gavin shook his head and laughed. “She was frantic to get all the quotes and her thoughts on them written down before you were born.”

  “And it helped a lot. In the past everything that came up in my life seemed to be helped by my mom’s journal, but now,” I shrugged, “life seems a lot more complicated, and things have come up that mom didn’t prepare me for.”

  Anali reached out and squeezed my hand. “Your life has gotten a lot more complicated than any of us had planned. And while I don’t have answers for everything I am happy to listen and try our best to help.”

  “Both of us will,” Gavin added.

  “Thank you, that means a lot.” I blushed and felt grateful. After Avalon, had it been a fight, battle, skirmish, altercation, I didn’t know what to call it. All I did know—I was the leader and I had failed. So many people got hurt. Some died. Visions of lifeless eyes filled my mind. Everyone said it wasn’t my fault, but they were wrong. Ramsey, a selkie and my first boyfriend, lost so much that day. A knife to his back pulled out his magic and life-force sending it to Cartazonon. It forced him to go to Akasha to heal. Ramsey’s brother and band mates had been killed later by Cartazonon in order to replenish his power and life-force. If I had been a better leader, a strong leader, none of this would have happened.

  “So how are things? You seem to be doing well,” Anali asked.

  Translate into I haven’t seen any more signs of depression that the books told me to look out for but I’m still worried. “Good, I finished the English, world government, and world religions classes on the plane.”

  “You’ve been doing a lot of school work,” Gavin said.

  I sipped some tea and shrugged. “It goes quickly when I don’t have classroom lectures to sit through and students goofing off to slow everything down.”

  “Well, your grades are wonderful, and I’m glad to see you focused on your education.” Anali smiled at me.

  “Thank you.” I wanted school done with. It didn’t help my destiny—well, except for my newest class.

  “How are you liking the leadership class?” Gavin asked.

  “It’s very interesting. Right now I’m reading about how to support people by understanding their strengths and weaknesses.”

  “Since you finished a bunch of classes, what’s next?” Anali asked.

  “Well, the next is Shakespeare, economics, and photography. I’m halfway done with chemistry and started the next semester of French.”

  “That’s wonderful.” Anali sipped her tea and rubbed her belly. Did all pregnant women do that?

  Gavin frowned. “It still seems like a lot of school work.”

  “Is that a bad thing?” Right after the battle of Avalon I’d wallowed in depression. I’d allowed it to affect my day to day life. First it had been Gavin and Anali always there, always checking up on me then the others started in. How are you? Have you eaten? Are you sleeping well? Falling back on what I’d learned in group homes, I forced myself to meet the basic requirements eat, sleep, show interest in a few activities, and do well in school. Add in not self-harming or thinking of killing myself, and I was left alone. Until now.

  “Of course, it’s not a bad thing.” Anali assured me glaring at Gavin.

  “No, but you don’t seem to get out and do much,” Gavin said.

  “I’m out now. And I do go out. But Kayin and Shin are dating so they need time alone. Miu has other friends. Taliesin likes spending time alone.” I shrugged trying for teenage nonchalance, but fearing yet another hurdle would be set up in proving I was okay every day.

  The waitress brought our meal. It felt like a blessing.

  “This looks great, what is everything?” I asked hoping Gavin would be his easily distractible self.

  “Okay,” Gavin said with a smile. “In the small bowls is fresh grated ginger, green onions, and shiso leaves. Put whatever you like into the sauce. Next you dip the cold noodles into the sauce, just a quick dip and slurp them up.”

  “This is so lovely,” Anali said as she added ginger to her sauce.

  I picked up the white porcelain bowl of shiso, a diced green leaf that smelled slightly citrusy, and I added some to my sauce and put in ginger and green onion. The purple-gray soba noodles sat on a bamboo mat twisted into a cone shape, topped with fine strips of nori seaweed and sesame seeds. Using my chopsticks, I grabbed some noodles, dunked them in the sauce and slurped. “These are delicious,” I said gathering some more noodles.

  “Yes, very good,” said Anali adding more ginger to her sauce.

  “They taste exactly as I remember them.” Gavin smiled sadly. “Your mom searched all over New York for noodles that tasted like these. As far as I know, she never found any.”

  “Thank you for bringing me here,” I said before taking another bite. I’d have to bring the boys, they’d love these.

  “Of course,” Gavin said.

  We ate for a while, watching people walking past. Kids holding their mom’s hand, groups of teen girls and boys in stylish clothes always separated by gender, workers, business people, older couples with silver hair, and occasionally a monk and people dressed in kimonos would wonder by.

  “So, have you had any dreams lately?” Anali asked when we had finished eating and were sipping tea.

  I shrugged. “None since we ran into the Sons of Belial in Austria. And that one was short. Ever since Cartazonon figured out who I am, he watches for me and sends me away from him. I know he’s plotting something, I’m just not sure what.”

  “I’m sure you’re right, but I’ve enjoyed not having Cartazonon trying to capture us and suck out our magic,” Gavin said.

  “They don’t seem to be hunting magical creatures hardly at all either,” Anali said. “At least not for a while.”

  I shuddered remembering the last time I saw Cartazonon suck the magic and life out of someone. I should be happy I hadn’t had to see it in months, but I knew he was plotting. He wanted me to join him. And he desperately wanted Taliesin. I played with the bracelet Taliesin gave me, the crystal bead clasp glowing a soft lavender-blue color.

  “I have been dreaming about snakes. It’s not every night, and sometimes it happens when I nap. Anali woke me just in time today. One was coiled and read to bite me. It’s very weird.”<
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  Gavin frowned. “That is odd. We’ll have to look into it. Thank you for telling us.”

  “Course.” I had learned my lesson. Full disclosure of anything that might affect the group. And if I wasn’t sure and it seemed private, I went to Anali to see what she thought. She always respected my privacy, and acted as the group’s peace keeper. No one but Gavin argued with her, and I don’t think he ever won.

  “Try not to worry too much, it’s possibly a reaction to all the horror movies you watch,” Anali said.

  “True,” I said. “We did watch Slither and Anaconda a few weeks ago.”

  Gavin grunted. “That could be it, and you didn’t seem to like the cruise very much.”

  “I don’t like the being on the water. Maybe if I knew how to swim.”

  “Wait, you can’t swim?” Gavin asked.

  I shook my head.

  “We should teach you how,” Anali said. “It’s an important skill. I’ll ask Miu to help me find classes for you since we’ll be in Tokyo for a while.”

  “Do I have to? I’m not sure Phoenixes are supposed to like the water.”

  Gavin frowned. “It doesn’t bother the rest of us, and you seem to like the water just fine.”

  “Kayin doesn’t know how to swim very well either.”

  “We’ll get him lessons too,” Anali said in a voice that let me know she was done discussing the subject.

  “Fine,” I sighed and looked out the window. I hoped Kayin wouldn’t be mad at me for ratting him out.

  “We do need to discuss something else,” Anali said, her voice soft and apologetic. Their nervousness bounced against my shields; whatever was coming they didn’t think I’d like it.

  “Okay.”

  Gavin cleared his throat. “You know that we’ve been planning to stop traveling in a few months. The doctors all said it would be best for Anali to be settled by the time she’s six to seven months along?”

  “Yes,” I nodded. “The cirque will take a break and we’ll all go to India.”

  “Yes, well, things have changed.” Anali glanced at me, her amber brown eyes sad. “My empathy is getting all tangled up in the baby. I’m having difficulty protecting myself from other people’s emotions.”