by JJ Jones
The mask was what really caught my attention. It was covered in feathers, but they were painted on with delicate brush strokes. The cream of the background contrasted beautifully against my mocha skin and when I looked in the mirror, I no longer felt like myself. I would be lying if I told you that it wasn’t the most freeing thing that had ever happened to me.
The mask hid who I was and gave me some of the confidence that I would never have had. My fingers ran over the smooth ceramic of the mask and down over the silk of the ball gown. My fingers gingerly touched my hair that had been carefully piled on my head in waves and twists. I didn’t want to ruin it so I was careful. “Is that really me?”
The maid was approaching me with makeup now, a tube of lipstick in her hand. “Sure is, dearie, just be still.” She shushed me and got to work. I had no idea how long I had been under her tender ministrations. “There, and you should be just late enough to make an entrance. I’m sure they all are eagerly awaiting your arrival.”
“Who is waiting for me?”
“I don’t think it’s my place to say,” ” With those words, the woman pushed me back out into the receiving hall and I was announced to the ball.
CHAPTER SEVEN
“May I have this dance?” His hand was held out in my direction, with his other arm behind his back. The slight bow just made it all seem so much more unreal than it had before.
I had been startled by the question. The truth was, I had spent the first half hour in the ballroom wringing my hands in a corner that was pretty much unoccupied. I had been hiding from the party. I wasn’t exactly born into this kind of life and I knew that I would never again come to one of these functions, once I had managed to escape. At that point, I was just trying to figure out how to get out of the building.
“Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t see you.” I tried to back away, but there was a wall behind me.
“I should’ve announced my presence a little clearer, milady.” He smiled at me from under his mask and I wondered what his face looked like. He was wearing a glorious doublet, pale cream with golden buttons and a golden mask. It looked a little too much like he belonged in the hall of a king in the Middle Ages. I didn’t exactly like the idea of a prince charming, but he was speaking to me, so I figured that I had to answer his question.
“No, it’s fine. You just surprised me a little.” I was trying to cover whatever faux pas I had made.
“Let me make it up to you.” The offer was a little frightening, but still intriguing. “Please allow me this dance.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t know how to dance.” That was the truth. I hadn’t really done any ballroom dancing since I was a freshman in high school. I hadn’t found it that interesting then and still didn’t have much of a taste for it. I didn’t waste my time watching reality shows about dancing, there were so many other reality shows that I could waste time on instead.
“Wonderful! We shall be perfectly scandalous together.” There was a naughty hint in his voice, and I kind of liked the idea of turning this entire pretentious event on its ear.
“Fine.” I found myself smiling as he led me out onto the floor. I tried to find the rhythm of the music, but I’m afraid that I couldn’t feel the classical beat that was playing. I stepped on my partner’s toes more than once.
“You weren’t kidding.” His voice was soft after the third time that I had almost tripped him.
“I never kid about things like this.”
“So can you dance at all?” He asked the question and I considered the answer carefully.
“I do some pretty decent bobbing around in the clubs, but not really. I mostly just try not to look like an idiot.”
He chuckled and I quickly found myself dancing with another man. This one was dressed as some sort of animal, his mask covered in fur. His entire costume was hard for me to identify, however, it was just a bit too abstract for me to figure out. His conversation was formal, the kind that would be expected in a sort of magical event like the one that I had now found myself, It was formal and so incredibly boring.
My dress was slipping under my feet, causing me to trip and stumble. I had to take a break. This wasn’t working out well. I needed to take a break and excused myself at the end of the song. There was a small bench along the wall and I sat down on it, reaching down to the hem of my dress so that I could rub my aching feet. I was trying to be discreet, and I started to listen.
“Who does she think she is anyway?”
“Are they even sure that it’s her?” The voices were coming from all around me.
“She doesn’t belong here. A dragon blood would be comfortable.”
The accusations were painful to hear, but I couldn’t help but wonder if it was the truth. I didn’t belong here, and that was becoming abundantly clear. There were too many people treating me like a spectacle. I was either an object of revulsion or some sort of living museum exhibit to watch and ogle over. I didn’t like either possibility very much. I wanted something better from my life, the problem was that I had no idea what better was in my case, but I did know that better was not where I was living at present.
My eyes searched for the exit, or really, any quick escape route. I knew that going through the big double doors would draw too much attention to the freakish girl who didn’t belong in this event, but I did see a door to a balcony and it was open. I tried my best to stay under the radar as I moved through the people to the only source of escape that I could see. The balcony was deserted, but I couldn’t find a way down to the ground below.
I tried to remember when I had gone up any sort of stairs, but I couldn’t remember anything like that. I had thought that I had been on the first floor, but I was looking out at some sort of courtyard. It must have been the back of building, but I was still confused as to my spatial orientation. I was just trying to figure out if I could land safely on that hill right below the balcony.
I was staring at it when I saw it breathe. I swear it was moving up and down, just like a chest taking a breath. It was then that I realized that I was not looking at a hill. It was a living, breathing thing that was bigger than my car. In fact, I was pretty sure that it was about the size of a whale, but this was closer than I had ever been to a whale. My eyes were wide as I stared at it. I was worried to say the least. I saw some twitching muscles; at least I thought that they were muscles.
It was shadowed and dark, but I was certain that the hill below me was starting to move. It took a while for the creature to begin to shift into better lighting. I noticed the scales first, a bit of light flickered off them and the color was brilliant and green, but I didn’t have much time to focus on the shimmering green scales. There was something rising from the mass and it took me a long while to realize that it was a head, shining with the same green iridescence and covered in gently sloping spikes that accentuated the jaw and the edge of the skull. It was strange to see the sharp ice picks blend so smoothly into the creature’s elongated face and come together to form a long snout with large flaring nostrils.
It was looking at me now, staring with bright yellow eyes, but there was something else in them. This was no rabid beast that loved to eat people. No, there was a softness and intelligence hidden behind the ferocious demeanor. Still I shuddered at the majestic stature as the wings fluttered and stretched out and the great mystical beast uncurled his body. I reached my hand out, down towards the large creature and he stood and stretched his head to reach me. I was too far off the ground. I couldn’t reach him. My fingers were just shy of the beast, and I realized that it must be twenty to thirty feet from the grassy courtyard that I was stationed over, and still the dragon’s head reached to within feet of my arm. This thing was huge and I knew that I should have been afraid.
The wings unfurled fully, stretching out to their widest span, and it looked like they stretched for an eternity. I fought to take it all in without having to move my eyes or head, but it was just impossible to do.
“Are you alright?” I heard the
words from behind me, but it took a moment to register that something was being said. The delay didn’t stop my startled reaction, however, as I turned to face whoever had interrupted my hallucination. I was already starting to reason myself out of the wonder that I had seen before I could respond.
It was a man in a mask. There was something about him that struck me as so familiar and yet, strange. I just couldn’t place it. I didn’t know who he was, directly, but I knew that I had seen him before. “I- I’m fine.” I stuttered and stumbled, taking three times as long to say those two words as it should have taken.
“I just wondered. I hated to see you out here alone.” It was Toby, I realized that the voice was so familiar and I could hear the whooshing of wings below me. I looked up to see the dragon taking flight, soaring into the sky like a giant reptilian hawk, wings spread wide and blocking the moon and several small clouds. I watched in awe. “He’s magnificent, isn’t he?”
“Did you see it too?” I was probably more shocked by the fact that it might have been real than the fact that Toby was at this affair, or that I had just seen a dragon. “Does that mean it’s real?” I had been whispering, but I didn’t know why. Something about this moment felt sacred, like it shouldn’t have been disturbed. It was a close encounter of the mystical kind and I was still kind of in awe of it.
“Yes.” It was all he needed to say.
“Really? What was it?”
He laughed. “It was a dragon.” Toby reached his arm out to me, a comforting gesture with the crook of his elbow pointing my direction. “Let’s get you inside. It’s getting chilly out here.”
I took his arm and followed as he led me back into the room. The grand ballroom looked different, somehow; a little more muted and much less intimidating. I wasn’t scared of the people in the room anymore. There was something even more awe-inspiring and I had almost touched it out on that balcony. I held my head up high and followed Toby through the room, not even questioning why he had been there. I didn’t care where my invitation had come from at that moment. None of it mattered. What was important was the fact that he was there and I no longer had to feel like there was this great secret that had been hiding from me for my entire life.
He led me through the room and I floated into an unattended set of rooms. I beheld one of the bedrooms in silent admiration as he opened the door. The truth was that the room looked like it had been waiting for me. I hesitate to use the word fate here, but it is the closest one that I know of.
“Do you need anything? Some water, maybe something to eat?””
“No, I’m fine.” I felt flushed and warm, but not exasperated. I felt free and I looked at Toby before stripping off my mask.
He removed his as well. “I can’t stand these things.” I didn’t want to have a conversation so I kissed him. It was a hard kiss, brought out by the eager revelation that had made its way into my world. For some reason, my loneliness had faded in the instant that I had realized the fact I was no longer alone. There were others who saw the magical beasts that had clouded my vision for the past week.
I didn’t even notice the door opening.
*
I looked up at the sound of the clearing throat. Alistair was there, unmasked and vibrant in his shining glory. I wondered why he was frowning, but I realized that he had seen me kissing Toby. That probably wasn’t the best situation for me to find myself in at the moment. I struggled to find my mind in the darkness of the room. The dim light from the door cast a realization in me then. These men could burst into combat at any moment and there was nothing that I could do about it. I struggled to find my senses, but it wasn’t going to happen without a fight. There was so much violence already going on in the fencing stares of the two men and I wrestled my mind into forming some kind of plan.
Neither of the men with me looked happy, but they were no longer looking at me. Instead they stared at each other, intent on watching their opponent carefully. I quickly made a plan to escape. I just needed Alistair to move from his place in the doorframe. I couldn’t see another way to get out of the room. There was just too much of his manly frame blocking it. A part of me wondered if I could slip between his legs, but the skirt that I was wearing wouldn’t allow that. I frowned and slipped my eyes off the possible fight and looked around the room carefully. The window was shuttered and barred for security, but there were two other doors in the room. They were both closed and I had no idea where they led, but I felt the need to take that chance.
I darted across the room, heading for the closest door, but as I reached the handle, I tripped on my floor length skirt and started to tumble. In an instant, Alistair was there to catch me, preventing me from hitting the floor, and placing me gently back on my feet.
“I have to go.” I rushed the words.
“The closet isn’t going to get you out of here.” He pointed to the door that led to another room. “You “You should try that door.”
It felt a little better that I wasn’t going to be held prisoner in the room and I vacated quickly, almost too quickly for my responses to be fueled by anything other than a pure terror of a woman being caught in a compromising position. I hadn’t found myself there before, never like this, never caught in this web of strange occurrences and unnaturally handsome men that seemed willing to fight for me. I had always considered myself an enlightened woman, but how does anyone really deal with this sort of thing.
It took a while, but I found my way outside, thanks to the helpful advice of several servers who looked like they knew their way around the place fairly well. They helped me, with some strange looks, as I escaped the strangest party that I had ever been to and made my way down the steps and to my car.
I felt lucky that I had not been blocked in and quickly started up the engine as I saw Alistair and Toby both run out of the door looking haggard. I didn’t wave as I made my way to the gate where they let me out of the place, and drove for home.
I counted three dragons flying overhead as I drove. It was strange, but I could tell the difference between them, but I didn’t know how. I had always assumed that all dragons looked the same and they were the same ones that were in the books that my mother would read to me as a child. I tried not to gawk as I drove. Getting into an accident at that moment wouldn’t do me any good as I carefully navigated the streets of Kansas City and made my way to my apartment. I swore that I would never return to that place and I was done with Alistair and Toby. There was something a little too strange going on, but I would be lying if I said that a part of me didn’t regret that decision. A growing kernel of curiosity bothered me. It was clear that the two men knew each other, but I had no idea how or why I had been placed in this position at this point in my life.
The roads felt empty, deserted and for some reason the loneliness was starting to return. I don’t know how to explain it at all, but it was how it happened. The magic was starting to fade and I realized that I had left my clothes behind at the ball. I was still wearing the impossible dress. Some of it must have been real, but for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out how much of it was real. How much was some kind of strange illusion that was going to come crashing down around me.
Maybe a bunch of people would start jumping out of hiding places only to tell me that I was on some reality show being punk’d or some other such nonsense.
My home was quiet, undisturbed and frighteningly normal. I couldn’t tell if I was glad for that fact or not, because even at that time I didn’t know what I was feeling at that intense moment. Something was very strange as I looked out the window, wondering if there were more dragons hiding the darkness.
I saw nothing in the sky, but there was something moving around in the bushes, making strange shuffling movements. It was nowhere near as large as the dragons that I had seen, but I could swear it was looking at me. I didn’t know how I could tell; it was just a shadow in the darkness.
“I must be seeing things again.” I promised myself that I would not give into the delusions.
It was easy to convince myself that I was going crazy when I wasn’t being confronted directly with the truth. And the truth was that there were dragons in the world. By that truth it was easy to see that there must be other fictional creatures living out there, surrounding me every day, but I had never truly seen them before.
I wondered how this strange knowledge was going to change me and still wasn’t convinced that I had lost my mind sometime in the past week. I hoped that Barbie and the other girls from work were going to laugh at me at work on Monday.
CHAPTER EIGHT
A week had passed from the magical party that I had attended. I still wasn’t sure if I had truly seen a dragon beneath that balcony, and it was getting easier to doubt as time went by. The further removed from the situation that I found myself, the more comfortable I was with the concept that I was actually losing my mind. It wouldn’t be so bad, I promised myself this as I continued on. I wouldn’t miss the excitement or the dragons. It was all a lie. I tried so hard to tell myself that it was the truth. I wanted it to be the truth. I wanted my life to be normal again, for things to change for the better, but I honestly had no idea what better was going to be. I was confused to say the least. The world felt like it was falling apart and I knew that change was a frightening prospect, something that I dreaded more than the prospect of getting out of the boredom I lived in constantly now. I didn’t know how I felt, but I feared everything that was going on around me.
I was happy when the flowers arrived. Once again, they were a dozen roses, an unimaginative arrangement if I ever saw one, but that’s the way it was. Alistair seemed to thrive on traditional romance, and while it excited me, I still found it a rather lazy way to go about things. Still, I didn’t blame him, I just didn’t think he knew any better, but if I had a choice, I would live with a simpler version of romance.
