Jon was smiling; he didn’t seem to mind. Finally, Kay realized she’d have to put her foot down or her parents would take pictures all night.
“We really need to get going. We’re supposed to be meeting Tam and Carson,” she said hopefully.
“Oh, gosh, I didn’t realize how late it is,” Mom said, glancing at her watch. “Of course you should get going. Have fun.” Kay hugged her mother, then her father.
He said, “Kay, back by midnight, right?”
“Right.”
Then she and Jon piled into his car. Jon was chuckling.
“What?” she asked.
“When your dad’s the sheriff and he says be home by midnight, you don’t have a choice, do you? He could send the cops after you.” His expression turned thoughtful. “Do you think he’d really do that?”
Kay’s father had pulled her over for speeding once. That was all it had taken.
She said, “I think we’d better plan on being back by midnight.”
If you wanted to go to a dance with a friend, there had to be an easier way.
The gym had been done up with a ton of streamers and balloons. A disco ball had been temporarily suspended from the ceiling. It still looked—and smelled—like the gym. The football team had won the game earlier that day and were acting rowdy, screaming at one another, mostly incomprehensible phrases, except for an occasional “Saints!” Now that Kay thought about it, calling the closest high school to Dragon the Saint Georges struck her as being kind of rude. The football players’ girlfriends stood to the side, pouting and looking embarrassed at the team’s rowdiness, a few people danced to recorded music, and lots of others stood to the sides, sipping fruit punch from paper cups and nibbling on cookies. Like any other school dance. While lots of people managed to look nice in their new dresses and suits, many others looked exactly what they were: uncomfortable.
On the other hand, this was about as fancy as Silver River ever got.
Kay and Jon leaned against a wall and watched the drama.
Jon pointed to where Principal Reid, who always wore pressed dress suits in dark, respectable colors, even while chaperoning a dance, was tapping Carson on the shoulder. Carson and Tam stopped making out on the dance floor. It was the third time Reid had split them up. They returned to dancing in the acceptable manner: her arms across his shoulders, his hands on her hips, six inches between them. Reid had been known to measure with a ruler.
They’d been making out during one of the fast songs.
“I give them ten more minutes before they get stopped again,” Jon said. “Or before Reid kicks them out.”
Kay grinned. “If she hasn’t yet, she’s not going to.”
“They’ll just find some place where no one’ll bother them,” Jon said.
When a group of them went out for a movie or a game or to hang out, that’s how a lot of the evenings ended up: with Tam and Carson going someplace where no one would bother them. They were kind of famous for it.
Jon called it exactly. Ten minutes later, when the next slow song came up, Tam and Carson were at it again. Reid marched toward them, but before she reached them, Carson took Tam’s hand, and they ran off the dance floor and out the door together.
“They didn’t even say good-bye,” Kay said. Never mind. Kay would hear all about it tomorrow or Monday, how they’d parked at a trailhead outside of town or sneaked into Carson’s attic. The attic actually stored an old bed that they used, but then they had to be quiet, and how hard was that when Carson was just so hot.
Reid had other targets by this time. Chaperones watched the dancing couples like hawks during the slow songs. The scene made Kay nervous. She didn’t know whether she was relieved to be outside that whole game or sad that she was missing out on something. Jon hadn’t asked her to dance a slow song yet. She half hoped that he would, but was glad that he hadn’t. The whole evening was confusing her.
By ten o’clock it was clear one of the football players had smuggled in some kind of alcohol and was passing a flask among his friends, because the team got more rowdy, the girlfriends got giggly, and the smell of it was starting to seep in among the smells of sugar from punch and cake and sweat from the gym. More people were dancing, the talking got louder, the music got louder, and the faculty chaperones were looking resigned. At least the punch hadn’t been spiked. Her parents would just love her coming home drunk and wouldn’t take “It’s not my fault” as an excuse.
About that time Jon rested a hand on her shoulder. “You want to go outside and get some air?”
She nodded, and they slipped through the gym door to the parking lot, after retrieving their coats from the coatrack.
They just walked, following the sidewalk around the school, even though Kay’s strappy high heels weren’t great for walking, and her feet were cold. As long as she kept moving, she’d be okay. They walked shoulder to shoulder, looking up at the sky, the stars. The air was cold enough that their breath fogged. Kay’s ears tingled with cold. She hugged her coat tightly around her.
“Are you okay?” he said, after they’d walked the length of the sidewalk in silence.
“Yeah, I’m fine. It’s so beautiful out.” On clear nights like this, the sky was black, rich and depthless, and millions of stars sparkled.
They turned the next corner; she couldn’t help but look out past the football field and highway to the forest beyond, and to the mountains in the distance that marked dragon territory. She thought of Artegal, wondered where he was and how hard he had to work to keep from telling anyone about them. She wondered if any of his people suspected.
There seemed to be a glow among those far mountains, almost like a touch of sunset, but it was north instead of west. It seemed to flicker, orange and yellow, like a distant campfire.
Jon looked to where she stared. “Is it the northern lights?”
On clear nights, or when the aurora was particularly strong, the northern lights were visible in Silver River. But she shook her head. The glow was too red and too close to the horizon to be the aurora. Visible among the hills, shadows moved, dipping in and out of the light in graceful figures, visible in brief flashes.
“It’s them,” she said.
A few times a year, the dragons grew active, and their skies lit up. People assumed it was their fires reflecting off the mountains. No one knew for sure, and no one knew why. Nothing ever came of the nights of fire. No attacks, no demands, nothing to tell if the dragons were angry. Maybe they had their own festivals, their own holidays. Like Christmas. Because no one had a good explanation for it, it was probably one of the reasons people had stayed jumpy about dragons, even after all this time.
The activity was well within dragon territory, so the human authorities couldn’t do anything about it. Kay imagined how many dragons were needed to make the mountains glow like that.
Shivering suddenly, she wrapped her arm around Jon’s for warmth. He didn’t pull away. They walked on.
It felt almost like dancing, this walking arm in arm. She felt warmer. Wasn’t sure it was all from him.
After a dozen steps, he looked at her and said, “Does this mean you want to be more than just friends?”
A few more steps. She had to think. This was Jon, her climbing buddy, her friend. It was hard thinking of him outside of that. She wasn’t sure she wanted to be one of those figures Principal Reid accosted on the dance floor. She wasn’t sure if that was really what being boyfriend and girlfriend meant. This was all way too much to explain to Jon right now.
“I don’t know. Is it okay if I don’t know?”
“Yeah,” he said after a moment. “I think I know how you feel.” He gave her arm a squeeze.
Arm in arm, they went back to his car.
Kay groaned when she saw the light on in the living room. Mom or Dad or both were waiting up for her.
“It’s not midnight yet, I know it isn’t,” Jon said, looking at the clock in the dash in a panic. It read 11:30.
“No, it’s not
. They’re just being uptight.”
“You’re sure it’s okay? You’re not going to get in trouble?”
“No. They said midnight, they meant it.” She gathered her coat around her and paused before she opened the door. “Thanks, Jon. Thanks for bugging me until I said yes. I had a good time.” She did have a good time; maybe the best part was just walking with Jon outside, watching the stars.
“Good. I’m glad.” His smile glowed. He really was glad. “Maybe we should do it again sometime.”
“Maybe we should.” This sounded serious. She considered: Was she reluctant to say yes because she was scared? Was that all?
Maybe that was what made her lean forward and kiss him, just a light press on the side of his lips, before she could scare herself out of it. He blinked at her, mouth open, startled. His hand touched hers.
“Bye,” she said, and scrambled out of the car before he could say anything. She ran to the front door, but looked back once. He was watching her through the windshield. Quickly, she went inside and closed the door. She stood there, listening, until she heard his car start and drive away.
Behind her, a newspaper rustled. Her father, sitting on the sofa in the living room, set aside his reading.
“Hi,” he said.
She smoothed out her coat, trying not to be self-conscious, and wondered if she was in trouble after all. Maybe her father had set his clock fifteen minutes ahead, just to be sneaky. “You didn’t have to wait up for me.”
He shrugged. “I know. I just wanted to make sure you had a good time. Did you?”
“Yeah, I did.” She shoved her hands in the pockets of the coat and sat on the edge of the armchair across from him. “We saw lights. It looked like fires in the mountains over the border.”
“Hmm. That’s the third time this year.”
“You keep track?”
He smiled. “It’s hard not to. We get probably a hundred 911 calls about it the nights it happens.”
“But there’s nothing you can do about it,” she said.
“We tell people we’re monitoring the situation. If telling us about it makes them feel better, well, I can’t argue, can I?”
“It’s weird. It feels like they’re watching us.”
“I’m sure they are watching us,” he said. “They’d be stupid not to. And I don’t think they’re stupid.”
They’re not, she almost said. They read. They make art. They could talk to us, if they wanted to. She pursed her lips, trying to find the right way to ask—without letting on about her secret.
“We do the drills, the jets patrol—is it because we really think they’re going to attack?” If most of the dragons were like Artegal, she didn’t believe they would.
“It’s hard to say. We just don’t know enough about them.”
“Do you think there’ll ever be another war with them?” What had been banter in the hall at school had become an appalling idea.
“I hope not. The way I see it, my job’s keeping the peace. The more peaceful it is, the better I look.” He grinned.
She must have been staring off into space, frowning and thoughtful, because her father said, “You’re not worried about the dragons, are you?”
Yes. At least, she worried about one dragon…. “No,” she said quickly. “Not any more than usual.” She tried to figure out how to change the subject. Her father did it for her.
“You’re sure you had a good time? You seem a little down.”
“Oh no, I was just thinking.” He gave her a questioning look, prompting more detail. She’d be better off calling it a night and running away to her room. She took a deep breath and said, “How did you know? You and Mom, I mean. How did you know you wanted to be together?”
He leaned back against the sofa, glancing at the ceiling. Avoiding the question, she thought. He’d say something trite and tell her to go to bed.
She was surprised when he shook his head. “I don’t know. It’s not something I can put into words. We just knew. Well, I knew. She took a little persuading.” His smile turned wry.
Kay wondered what her mother would say if she asked her the same question. His answer didn’t help much. It was the same thing Tam always said: It just felt right.
Kay just felt confused.
Her father said, “I like Jon. He’s a good kid.”
She’d have to tell Jon that, so he could stop worrying about Sheriff Wyatt coming after him. Kay smirked and said, “So you want me to go out with him, too.”
“If you’re ready. I don’t want you to get involved if you don’t want to.”
She sighed. “But how do I know if I’m ready?”
“Sorry, kid. Can’t help you with that one.”
He seemed smug. He had that look that adults got when they thought their kids were being cute. She sighed again.
He came over and kissed the top of her head. “I’m going to hit the sack. Don’t forget to turn the lights out.”
“Night, Dad.”
She followed suit a few minutes later, carefully hanging her dress in the closet before going to bed.
6
The weather turned cold. Snow fell, and the edges of the creek at the border froze, forming a crystalline skin that crept out over the running water. Kay went to their meeting spot bundled up in her parka, with scarf, hat, gloves, and thermals under her clothes.
Artegal didn’t seem bothered by the cold at all. His breath blew out through his nose in billowing clouds of fog.
“So I guess dragons are warm-blooded,” she said to him by way of greeting.
He tilted his head, curious. “Warm-blooded? Of course, blood is warm.”
“Well, yeah. But it means you’re not really reptiles.” She tried to remember all those science class notes and wished she’d paid more attention. “Reptiles are cold-blooded. They can’t keep warm by themselves, so they have to sit out in the sun. Warm-blooded animals maintain their own body temperature, so they can be out in the cold. People have always wondered about dragons. No one’s been able to get a blood sample or take their temperature or anything to find out.” Imagine getting a dragon to sit still for that.
“Reptiles. Small, scaled creatures. Snakes, lizards.”
“Yes.”
They sometimes still had trouble with vocabulary. But the more they talked, the more he learned. She could tell he was getting better. She wondered sometimes if she wasn’t the best person in the world to be helping him—plenty of people were smarter. He could be learning so much more from them. Then again, the really smart people didn’t do things like go climbing on the border of Dragon. Maybe she was exactly the right person to be here. She’d earned this chance.
“We are to them as you are to mice. Like them, but far removed. We have scales like them, but we have more.”
Like speech, for example, though only some dragons learned to speak human languages—like Artegal and his mentor. Kay was getting answers to questions her mother faced in her work monitoring the border, and the scientists would love this. As if she could tell anyone. She didn’t even dare make notes, in case someone found them.
She said, “We see a glow sometimes, to the north toward the mountains. Like something’s on fire. It was there last week. I could almost see dragons flying around it.”
He rested, his wings folded to his side, propped up on his elbows, back legs tucked under him, and tail curled around his body. He nodded thoughtfully, but said nothing.
“Nobody knows what it is,” she said, hinting. “We know it has something to do with dragons, but we don’t know what.”
“We see a glow all the time from your town. Lit up, all night long.”
“Streetlights. We can’t see in the dark, like dragons can,” she said.
“Used to be humans didn’t go out at night at all.”
“Well, now we do. Now we can.”
Artegal resettled himself, flexing his tail and shifting his forelimbs. He seemed to be considering how to answer.
Kay sat on her u
sual rock nearby, so they could look at each other at almost the same level. His expression seemed uncertain, though she could have been wrong. He couldn’t think that she’d been sent to spy on him, any more than she thought he was sent to spy on her and learn more about people—right? They’d found each other by accident.
“You don’t have to tell me if it’s a secret,” she said.
“It’s like singing,” he said finally. “Like a choir.”
She tried to imagine a dozen dragons like him, raising their necks, tilting back their heads, flames pouring from their open mouths along with music. Music that sounded like roaring. It was an odd image.
“Is it like a celebration? It must be special. It only happens a couple of times a year.”
“Yes. A ritual. Births. Deaths.”
“What was last week?”
Again, he hesitated. This was one of the questions the scientists—and the military—kept asking: How many of them were there? How often were they born—or hatched? How much did we have to worry about them building up numbers and overwhelming us?
“A birth,” he said after a long moment.
She felt an odd thrill that he trusted her with the information.
“Congratulations,” she said.
He tilted his head in the way that made her think of a smile. “Thank you.”
“Have you done it yet?” Tam asked.
It was the first day back at school after winter break. Kay was reacquainting herself with her locker, wincing because she’d forgotten to bring home a baggie of cookies that someone had given her for Christmas. They were probably stale. Tam was leaning on the locker next to her, making demands.
Kay and Jon had gone out a couple of times during the break. They went to a movie and grabbed dinner at the Alpine Diner. They’d gone cross-country skiing the day after a big snowfall on New Year’s. They hadn’t done anything they wouldn’t have done when they were “just friends.” The presents they’d given each other were the same kind of thing they’d always given each other. She gave him a CD; he gave her a box of chemical hand-warmers, perfect for days of winter hiking or cross-country skiing. She hadn’t expected anything like flowers or jewelry—she wouldn’t have wanted anything like that, not from Jon.
Voices of Dragons Page 4
