The Blind Dragon

by Noah Harris

  Clara had appeared in the doorway, pulling it open so fast it seemed to have been open the entire time. She was dressed in a white linen suit, and her fingers were adorned with large gemstone rings of every color. Her earrings were heavy, weighing her earlobes down with their dangling crystals, and her white hair was pulled and twisted onto the top of her head. She wore simple sandals on her feet that Shaeffer knew were probably a dozen times more expensive than they looked at first glance. Her fingernails were bare and long. He could imagine her clicking them impatiently on glistening wooden tables. He was sure, as he looked her over in admiration, her style effortless and extravagant at the same time, that she was doing the very same to him.

  Then she spoke, her eyes twinkling kindly.

  “We will have tea in the greenhouse. Is that acceptable?”

  “Of…of course,” Shaeffer said in surprise, and she nodded, then turned around. He followed her uncertainly, looking around him in awe when he was sure there was no one around to watch him do so. The lobby was floored with pink marble so polished he could see his reflection in it, and adorned with a huge crystal chandelier that matched the crystal fixtures casting a warm glow over the walls. They walked past an enormous spiral staircase made of gleaming chestnut, and he tried to eye the pictures on the wall leading up the stairs. He didn’t recognize Konrad in any of them, so he just followed Clara out to the patio.

  The stones were intricately laid and seemed to guide his eyes toward the expansive rear gardens. The lawn was vast, an emerald green that he was sure rivaled no other backyard. It opened up into what seemed to be a forest, although he wasn’t sure, a forest in the middle of Houston? Even New York City’s central park wasn’t a bona fide forest. What surprised and impressed him the most, though, was the hedge maze in the center of the lawn. He could see statues of marble, poking their heads over the hedges, ones he thought he even recognized from the few art classes he took in college before dropping out to model. Priceless collectibles.

  He remembered, from stories he read as a child, that dragons were like magpies. They collected treasure, gold, gems and money. He wondered if that was a stereotype, something offensive, and decided to keep it to himself as Clara walked into the greenhouse, which was more of an outdoor parlor, its panes made of obscured glass that looked like it had webbed cracks all over it. He followed her inside and sat carefully opposite her at the little wrought-iron table in the middle, once she had chosen her seat.

  “Any favorites?” she asked, opening a wooden box filled with different herbs. Shaeffer shook his head with a polite smile.

  “Anything is fine,” he said quickly, and she glanced up at him.

  “Very well,” she said, and then she closed her eyes and randomly jabbed at one of the compartments. “Green, my favorite.” She packed some of the herbs into two metal tea-strainers and plopped them into tiny ceramic teacups without handles.

  Shaeffer watched as she revealed a tea kettle and then sat down contentedly with it in her lap. Her hands were covering most of it, but he could see the design regardless, black lacquer with shimmering gold traced through it, like veins or roots. The kettle began to steam and he nearly gasped, realizing she had heated it with her hands. Magic. The dragon queen of it all.

  She lifted it and poured the water into their cups, the fragrance of the tea leaves wafting into the air. She hummed happily as she inhaled, but Shaeffer kept looking at the kettle. With her hands removed, he could tell that it wasn’t just a design, the kettle looked like it had been cracked, shattered even, and was only barely being held together with this golden mortar.

  “In Japan,” she said suddenly, then blew on her tea. He looked up at her quickly, mimicking her movements, exhaling slowly on his tea. “In the 1400s, it became the fashion to repair broken pottery with gold.” He looked from her, back to the kettle, while she sipped her tea. He wasn’t sure what to say, but thankfully she didn’t seem finished. “Kintsugi, they call it. Rather than throwing away something that’s broken, or pretending it never was, they realized that our history isn’t just what makes us who we are, it’s what makes us beautiful.”

  Shaeffer stared at her, feeling that familiar ache in his throat as she stared at him with a small, knowing smile on her face. It was more than that, though. It was kind. He lowered his eyes to his cup of tea, blinking back the tears that had sprung into his eyes, and nodded.

  History. He remembered life back home, before he’d found himself or someone had found him. The kids at school, their nicknames, their abuse. His father shouting at him, his mother holding back tears but saying nothing. He remembered that day, the worst day, the first day, the day no one knew about except the people back home. The day he would never speak about again.

  He’d held onto the letter all day, tracing its graphite hearts with his thumb until they’d smudged. The hallways at the high school were crowded, people leering at him or else ignoring him. But today he’d found this letter, this love letter, slipped through the slots in his locker, and read it more times than he could count.

  Shaeffer,

  I know that people make fun of you for how you look, and all the names they call you. I think they’re all terrible. They’re blind, too. They don’t see how beautiful you are. I do, but I’m scared to admit it or else I’ll get bullied, too. Meet me after school out at the football field, under the seats. I’ll be waiting there.

  Your Secret Admirer

  Upon first reading it, he’d nearly torn it up and thrown it out. But what if…what if. The hearts drawn in the margins were pressed hard into the paper, he could feel their outlines on the back of the note. What if.

  He’d held onto the note so tightly throughout the rest of the day that it had become crinkled, sweat-stained, smudged, by the time he headed out to the back lawn and under the bleachers. He’d looked around, expecting to see someone just as outcast as him, someone he might not have noticed in his daily misery. But no one was there. He could hear the crickets starting to chirp.

  “Hey, Caterpillar Boy,” came a voice, a familiar voice that sent fear shooting through his limbs. The dumbest nickname these braindead bullies could come up with, and it still caused him to fold in on himself in terror because of what usually followed the name-calling. “Did you get my note?”

  The boy, Connor, and his friends had come up from behind Shaeffer, and now he was surrounded. He felt like he was in a movie, every movie he’d ever seen where he rooted for the protagonist at the beginning and felt jealous of them and bitter, by the end. There were no happy endings in real life.

  “Yeah, I did, but that’s not why I’m out here,” Shaeffer lied desperately.

  “Oh, really, what a coincidence this is, then,” said one of the other boys maliciously, and Shaeffer took a step back as they came closer. He knocked his head on one of the hollow, metal seats, the clang echoing in his ears. “Fucking idiot,” the boy said, and the others laughed.

  “We should teach Shaeffer a lesson,” said another.

  “But which one?”

  “Not to be a gullible fag,” Connor hissed, his crooked teeth leering. Shaeffer looked past them, wondering if he’d be able to outrun them, but before he could even begin to form a plan, Connor’s fist had connected with his stomach. He fell backward into the mud, feeling it soak into his hair, his clothes. The other boys surrounded him, kicking him with their steel-toed boots and punching him wherever they could reach with their hardened, scarred knuckles. He gasped for help, for them to stop, please, why, why are you doing this, please stop, and then, finally, they did. Connor spat on his face and laughed meanly, and the others joined in as they sauntered away, leaving Shaeffer lying there in the mud and his own blood.

  He felt like hours had passed before he could get to his feet, and he staggered home, dragging his backpack painfully along the ground because his ribs hurt too much to sling it over his shoulder.

  “Where have you been?” his mother asked shrilly, and he looked up at her, lip quivering, tears refusi
ng to slip down his cheeks because they were getting stuck in the dried blood and dirt on his face. “Honey, what happened?” she gasped, rushing to him and falling to her knees. She lifted the bottom of her apron and wiped his face, making him wince. His lip was split.

  “Where’s Dad?” he asked weakly, dropping his backpack on the ground as she wiped his forehead and tried to help him get his muddy clothes off.

  “He’s…why? Shaeffer, who did this to you?”

  “Where’s Dad, Mum?” he asked again, looking up at her with serious eyes. Her gaze wavered, and then she looked over her shoulder.

  “He’s in the living room. Just be quiet and I’ll get you cleaned up, okay?”

  “Shannon!” his father’s voice boomed from the living room, slurring his mother’s name. Shaeffer looked up at her, eyes wide and pleading. Her hands quivered as she balled up his soiled shirt. “Where’s my bloody dinner, already? And bring me another,” he shouted, and then a crushed beer can came skidding into the kitchen along the tiles.

  “Okay, sweetheart, just give me a minute,” she called over her shoulder, and then whimpered when she saw the bruises starting to bloom on Shaeffer’s chest and ribs. “Oh, honey, oh my…”

  “Shannon, for fuck’s sake!” his father bellowed, and then came the telltale squeak of his recliner folding down.

  “Mum,” he said, his voice hushed and urgent. His father entered the doorway between the living room and the kitchen, filling it up with all his anger and drunkenness.

  “What’s this?” said his father, weaving.

  “Shaeffer…Shaeffer got in a fight. It’s those boys at school again, Will, they’re torturing him, you have to do something,” she said, standing up quickly and rushing over to him. He shoved her to the side, so hard she fell into the table and whined in pain, watching in terror as Shaeffer’s father approached him.

  “Is this true?” he asked. “You got in a fight?”

  “Yes,” he said, looking at the floor.

  “Yes, what?”

  “Yes, Dad.” His father eyed him, looking at the bruises on his ribs for the longest time.

  “It seems more like you got the shit kicked out of you, as usual.” Shaeffer looked up at him, his father’s face red and veined, and then he was staring at the ceiling, and he could hear someone screaming in his head, two people screaming, and he couldn’t feel his hands or his feet. The back of his head felt wet, and he couldn’t breathe.

  “His ribs,” his mother screeched, and Shaeffer raised his head, his vision failing him. “What did you do, his ribs, Will! His head!”

  “Shut up!” He blurrily watched his father swing at his mother, watched her body fly backward, watched her head slam into the oven, watched her body slide to the floor, watched blood gush from her ears, her nose and her mouth. “Shannon?”

  “Mom?” he mumbled, tasting blood in his mouth, like he was tasting his mother’s blood, feeling what she was feeling. He couldn’t sit up. There was a searing, mind-numbing pain in his chest, now, one he couldn’t identify. It felt like it was everywhere.

  “Look what you did, you little fuck,” his father moaned. “Look what you made me do.” He was cradling her, on the floor, his hands ruby red with her blood.

  Then the cops were there, and then he was in a foster home, and his father was in prison, and then he was scouted by a modelling agency. He didn’t remember anything else, and he didn’t want to. He wanted to be the new, beautiful Shaeffer who didn’t have a tragic, ugly past. But maybe Clara was right.

  “And so, I got this teapot from Japan, the last time I traveled there,” Clara said, and he realized he’d been staring into his tea, which was now only lukewarm. He sipped it, and looked up at her. History. He wondered what hers was. She’d gotten the teapot in Japan…and mentioned the 1400s. How old was she?

  “Did you…when did you get the teapot?” he asked, trying to be tactful. She looked at him curiously and then laughed, loudly, her mouth wide. He could see her yellowing canines, longer than even Konrad’s, which he’d only noticed after finding out about shapeshifters.

  “I am not that old, boy.”

  “I’m so sorry,” he said quickly, covering his face with one hand. “I’m trying to…it’s a lot to get used to.”

  “So I take it you know Drake Street’s big, grand secret,” she said, that twinkle back in her eyes. He nodded, smiling half in embarrassment and half in worry. Was he not supposed to know? She nodded.

  “Good.” He let out a breath, took a sip from his room temperature tea.

  “There is a second thing I would like to know; it is the main reason I asked you here.” He nodded encouragingly, feeling better that she approved of his being in the loop about Drake Street’s “big, grand secret.” The way she’d said it made him feel privileged to be a part of it.

  “Anything,” he said.

  “I want to know the truth about your relationship with Konrad. And, come to think of it, a third thing, how is Konrad healing?” He watched her sip her tea casually, her dragon’s eyes watching him over the rim. He looked down at his own tea, then back at her, Konrad’s plea echoing in his head. No one can know until I know for sure. No one. But her eyes seemed to bore holes into his, so deep she could read his mind, and he felt his resolve crumbling. Maybe it would be better for Clara to know, so she could help.

  “Well, the truth about our relationship,” he started awkwardly, bouncing the foot that was crossed over his other leg. “We met at the exhibition. You and I met there, too,” he said, and she nodded, that funny, conspiratorial, kind but guarded smile gracing her face again. He decided to skip the embarrassing story of their first night, that failed encounter. “I went back the next morning to…to check on him, because there was a bad review that came out. And Fiona was there, and when he eventually let us into the apartment, we saw that he was hurt. He’d blinded himself with these chemicals, I think it’s called…”

  “Photic retinopathy,” Clara said, and he nodded, a bit confused. “Fiona told me.”

  “Right, so he got hurt, and then Fiona told me to watch him, and I did, and that was kind of the beginning of it all. We just got attached to each other, I guess. I really…I trust him, more than I’ve ever trusted anyone. And he trusts me, I think. I hope.”

  “I think you are safe there. Fiona tells me he is very fond of you.” He grinned bashfully, uncontrollably, and then looked to the side to avoid her eyes.

  “That’s, um, good to hear,” he said, but she only continued to watch him, expectantly. “And then, well, with Konrad healing and all, and him not wanting anyone to know about it, we kind of walled ourselves up in his loft. He’s doing better, he’s acclimating to it, but…”

  “His art.”

  “He keeps trying, but it’s not the same. He can’t see what he’s doing, and there’s no passion in it, either. It’s suffering. He’s suffering. It’s like he lost his meaning.” Clara nodded gravely, looking around the greenhouse.

  “As a dragon,” she began, putting her tea down with a clink. “Your eyes are everything. We are apex predators. We navigate by smell on the ground, but in the air, your eyes are all you have. And it’s a long way down.”

  Shaeffer nodded, having heard Konrad lament his inability to fly with the others, to look down at the ants walking on the sidewalks, to see the moon, closer and still so far, above him. It was like, after Shaeffer had found out this secret, Konrad had been able to let him into the other half of his life. He didn’t understand it, never would, he’d never flown like that, had never been a predator, but he could tell how much it was affecting Konrad, even if he couldn’t wrap his mind around why.

  “As an artist,” she continued. “Konrad’s always worked in flame. With it. Around it, inside it. It’s not just visual…it’s destructively visual. He tells stories, his stories, with light, sparks, fire, color. You’ve seen it.” Shaeffer nodded again, feeling more comfortable with this explanation. This was the human side of Konrad. But his comfort with the to
pic didn’t ease his confusion, Clara said he’d seen it himself, and she was right. So why continue talking about it? Why not find a solution? “You grew up unhappy,” she said, and he stared at her. Had he told her that, at the exhibition, in his blackberry-smashed state? Or had she read his mind, as he’d feared? “You know what it is to live without beauty. And what it would be like to return to that state.”

  He swirled the dregs of his tea in his cup, thinking about it. It might be nicer, easier. Less stress, less attention, less pressure. But then…it would be a return to that day, and the life it had been borne. He looked up at her, found her staring at him with those intense eyes, telling him without words that she could see more deeply into his soul than he thought.

  “Konrad was born a dragon and an artist. There is no before, for him. You want to care for him and be his eyes, but you miss something crucial. That darkness he sees isn’t just blindness, it’s the future.” Shaeffer felt himself shrink into the chair. “He is making himself up from scratch. Telling himself like he’s a story, a new one. And you’re a part of that,” she said, and waved her long-nailed, frail hand toward the kettle, gold and black, reconstructed.

  Shaeffer felt his cheeks flush, feeling clammy in the muggy warmth of the greenhouse, pleased by her insistence of his importance in Konrad’s life but not entirely sure about his place in it. He looked back at the teapot. Konrad, the shattered pieces, him the sparkling gold that kept those pieces together. Was that who he wanted to be? Someone else’s glue?

  He looked back at her, trying to form some kind of response, good or bad, but she only smiled at him, like she knew what he was thinking.