The Bone Dragon

by Alexia Casale

  He squeezes my fingers, but though his face is turned to me, somehow his eyes don’t meet mine. ‘It’s for us,’ he says quietly. ‘For you and me and Amy. Something to go in the living room.’ He pauses and his eyes drift back to the frames. ‘I want to put a big photo up on the wall. And then I want to get two smaller frames to go on the coffee table.’ His eyes move from the bits of frame on the wall to the shelves of standing picture frames. ‘I want to put that photo the waiter took of Uncle Ben and the three of us at your adoption birthday up on the wall,’ he says, but then he goes silent and just stands there staring blankly at the frames: just stands there and stands there.

  I lean into his side and my weight seems to push the next thing out of him. ‘And I want a photo of Adam on the coffee table,’ he says. ‘I want a photo of my son. And the family one that Ben took just before the accident. I want photos of my kids in the living room.’

  I feel the tears in his voice in my eyes and hug his arm tightly.

  ‘I want you to pick the frames, Evie,’ Paul tells me softly, and I realise he is looking down at me now: really looking at me and seeing me, instead of gazing vacantly as he has all morning while he thought this through.

  ‘But shouldn’t you and Amy . . .’

  ‘You know the sorts of things Amy likes. You won’t pick anything she’ll hate,’ Paul says, and there’s something a little sharp in his tone. ‘So it’ll just have to be good enough, because I want to pick it with you, Evie. I don’t want to talk about it and discuss it and negotiate it. I want photos of my kids. And I want my daughter to help me pick the frames.’

  I stare up at him but don’t know what to say. His eyes soften.

  ‘Amy won’t mind,’ he tells me quietly. ‘It’ll give her a start but she won’t . . .’ He draws in a deep breath and looks away then, but his hand comes up to stroke my hair. ‘This last week she’s talked about Adam. You’ve let her talk about him, Evie. And look at his pictures without . . .’ He takes another breath. ‘She couldn’t do that before. She just couldn’t. So I couldn’t. I couldn’t talk to her about him. Or to you. Even though Ben kept telling me I could. That I should. Smart man, your Uncle Ben,’ he says, making a funny gulping sound I know was intended as a laugh. His hand is slick with sweat in mine.

  ‘This week we’ve talked about our son. With you. With each other. And . . . And that’s how I want it, Evie. I want you to know all about your brother. And I want us to have his photo and your photo together in the living room where I can see them all the time. That’s what I want.’

  I stand there, leaning into him, until his breathing settles and he presses a kiss to my hair.

  ‘You did that, Evie,’ he says fiercely. ‘You fixed that. And I want you to pick the frames for the photos of our family.’

  ‘I’ve been thinking . . .’

  ‘Kind of the point when we’re doing homework,’ Phee says testily. I sigh. So does Phee, tossing her pencil to the side. ‘Sorry,’ she says.

  I bump her shoulder with mine and she grins at me wanly, then crosses her arms on the table and drops her head on to them. Her mum’s in hospital because of the operation to take out her tumour. Phee says she’s doing OK, but there’s still the radiation therapy to come.

  ‘I was thinking about what we could do to help your mum when she gets out of hospital,’ I say. ‘And I think we should cook.’

  Phee blinks up at me. She opens her mouth, closes it and then opens it again. ‘But we can’t cook,’ she says as if she thinks I’ve somehow forgotten this. ‘I mean, neither of us can. We’re rubbish.’

  ‘Yes,’ I agree. ‘But Lynne isn’t.’

  ‘So we’re going to turn Lynne into a kitchen slave?’ Phee says slowly. The contemplative look in her eyes sharpens into something mischievous and infinitely less sad.

  ‘I was thinking we could do a blog together,’ I try to explain, but my mind’s not really on what I’m saying as I grin at Phee’s grin. ‘A blog about cooking for teenagers who want to help their parents out for whatever reason. And we could make it all about cooking really healthy food.’

  Phee frowns. ‘And why would any of us want to do this?’ she says dubiously. ‘I was just going to keep doing the hoovering and washing and stuff when Mum comes home. And Dad’s getting the shopping delivered. Why would we want to cook when we can just get microwave meals or take-out or call my aunt?’

  ‘Because we could write all about cooking so you can eat healthily.’

  Phee rolls her eyes. ‘You said that already. And I bet there are a million webpages that do that already anyway.’

  ‘But think about it: we could all work on it together.’

  Phee drops her head back down on to the table. ‘And?’ she prompts.

  ‘And we can write about Being Healthy.’

  Phee sighs. ‘I got that bit. What I don’t get is why you think this is a good idea.’

  ‘Maybe if Lynne thinks about teaching other people about healthy eating – about meals that aren’t low-cal because they need to be good for people like your mum who need enough calories, but they’re healthy for normal people who don’t want to get fat, like your dad – maybe we can get her to start, you know, focusing on Being Healthy. Not dieting, just eating things that are good for you. But we could make it about teaching other teenagers how to do that.’

  Phee rolls her head so she’s facing me again. ‘Your pitch stinks,’ she says. She yawns and sits up, stretching her arms above her head. ‘But the idea’s good,’ she concedes. ‘We get her to do it to help me . . .’ Phee tilts her head to one side and then the other. ‘I wonder if we can make it count for that public service bit of our Duke of Edinburgh thing. It’s about the only way I’m ever going to finish. I mean, I was going to do some volunteering on Mum’s ward, but it’s just too depressing. Plus I don’t really care about it any more to be honest. Lynne’s never going camping ever again, so it’s not like we’re going to do our Silver and there’s not much point just having a Bronze level.’ She wrinkles up her nose, then nods. ‘OK. We’ll cook. If Lynne’s helping, it’ll be decent and that’ll be good for Mum.’

  ‘And Lynne will have to eat if we’re doing all that cooking.’

  Phee does the head-tilt thing again, but this time it worries me. There’s something calculating in her expression. ‘You’re feeling good, aren’t you, about all this? Keeping me company when I’m stressed about my mum. And trying to help Lynne with her eating thing.’

  I shrug, frowning. ‘I like helping, if that’s what you mean. It’s not like I want you guys to be unhappy though, just so I can feel useful.’

  Phee rolls her eyes. ‘Duh,’ she says. ‘The point is that it makes you feel good, helping us, right?’

  ‘Duh,’ I return, making a face at her.

  ‘So when do we get to feel good for helping you?’

  I stare at her. ‘You started cycling to school every day just because you knew Amy would only agree to let me if we went together. And you’re going to come riding with me next week. And you and Lynne took me out after the thing with Sonny Rawlins . . .’

  ‘So?’ Phee asks. ‘I’ve got to get to school somehow. And I want to go riding. And as for the Sonny Rawlins thing, we took you out one time.’

  ‘But I don’t need . . .’

  ‘Evie,’ Phee says and it stops me dead. ‘It’s really nice that you want to help. But friends tell each other things. They share their secrets. I know you feel left out sometimes: we know that,’ she stresses when I open my mouth to interrupt, ‘but the reason you feel left out is that Lynne tells me everything. And I tell her everything. And you never tell us anything important.’

  In the pause Phee gives me to respond, I open my mouth again but nothing comes out.

  ‘The reason it’s sometimes me-and-Lynne and then you on the side is that you know everything about us but you don’t trust us to know anything about you.’

  ‘You know about . . . about Adam, and about me being adopted and . . .’ I trail off a
t the look of exasperation and hurt on Phee’s face.

  ‘Evie,’ she says, ‘you know about when my dog died when I was four, and when Lynne’s gran died when she was seven.’

  She opens her mouth to go on, then stops, closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. When she opens her eyes again, the exasperation is gone, replaced with determination. ‘You know about how we used to think it was “good tidings we bring to you and your king” instead of “kin”. You know what my first My Little Pony was. Maybe we can’t help much ’cos it’s all stuff that’s really serious and we wouldn’t know what to do. But maybe it would just be nice if your best friends knew things like why you were so upset when you broke that stupid glass at Lynne’s birthday party that you went and cried behind her dad’s shed for an hour and then pretended you’d just been in the loo. Or why you freeze up if one of the teachers comes and looks over your shoulder at your work and then you can’t concentrate for the rest of the lesson. Remember that time you didn’t realise Mrs Poole was standing right behind you? You shouted at her. And you never shout at people, Evie. We know that. What we don’t know is why things like that upset you so much.’

  Phee reaches over then, and takes hold of my hand. ‘Maybe your best friends should know about all those everyday things that just aren’t normal for you. Maybe we’d be able to help. Just like you and I know when Lynne’s upset because she thinks she’s somehow got fat in the space of an hour, and how to calm her down when she decides that something she ate is going to make her put on a stone by tomorrow.’

  The doorbell goes then. I’m so relieved that I almost miss the look Phee and Lynne exchange when Lynne pops her head around the kitchen door. It takes me a minute to figure out what it is: it’s the look I would have given Phee if Lynne had arrived just after I proposed the blog idea.

  Phee just grins when I break down in giggles.

  ‘What?’ Lynne asks, hands on hips, looking disgruntled. ‘What did I miss?’

  I am watching for the look on Ms Winters’s face when she realises that Uncle Ben is in the kitchen. Although by the time she turns to me she has wrestled her face into something that I think is meant to be disapproval, that’s only after I’ve seen hope and pleasure, perhaps even excitement, in her eyes. In any case, the failed attempt at disapproval soon shifts into something that is closer to resignation.

  She turns to greet Uncle Ben, who’s come into the living room to say hello, and there’s a sudden intensity in both their eyes. That sense of recognition that isn’t quite recognition. And it’s nothing like when Phee sees that guy from the Lower Sixth she says she’d do anything with if she had half a chance, or when Lynne pauses the TV to ogle an actor she fancies like crazy: it’s not an avid look they’re exchanging. There’s just something shared there: not exactly heated, but strong all the same. They keep trying to force their expressions into normal, polite, slightly disinterested friendliness, so I can’t quite put my finger on it, but I suppose that doesn’t really matter.

  ‘Just going to the loo,’ I say, grinning at Ms Winters.

  Her face says she thinks she should glare or take another shot at the disapproval thing, but all I get is something fretful and uneasy: it’s in her hands, playing with the knot of her string belt, as much as in her face. I smile as encouragingly as I can, giving a little quirk of my eyebrows before I hum my way down the hall to the bathroom. I stand in front of the sink for as long as I can bear it, grinning at myself in the mirror.

  I thought about saying something encouraging to Uncle Ben before Ms Winters arrived, but I’m saving that for later, when I can fish for information. Not that it’s really necessary. Whatever that not-recognition thing they’ve got going is, it’s obviously significant and not just a one-off.

  I expect Ms Winters will try to make things difficult but, for once, I rather think she’ll be a bit half-hearted. That’s not usually her style at all, but her failure to pull off disapproving or embarrassed in favour of resignation seems fairly definitive to me. Besides, Uncle Ben’s pretty single-minded when he wants to be. I figure if I explain it to him and make it clear just how happy about the whole thing I am, then it’ll all come right. I’ve just got a feeling about it.

  I mean, I know these things don’t usually work like that . . . and it’s not like I think it’s love at first sight exactly: it’s that recognition thing, whatever it is. There’s something about it, and the fact that they both have it, that tells me that whatever’s going to happen is going to be relatively straightforward. Once I set Uncle Ben straight, he’ll sort the rest out. I just know he will.

  I wink at myself in the mirror then hum my way back down the corridor to find Uncle Ben leaning against the kitchen table, sipping from a mug and saying, ‘I’m sure Evie won’t mind delaying your lesson for five minutes if there’s one of my world-renowned triple chocolate caramel brownies in it for everyone,’ while Ms Winters frets at her belt with one hand and her bracelet with the other.

  So of course I say, ‘Hand it over then. No way I can concentrate now.’

  And what can Ms Winters say to that?

  I’ve had a funny sense of anticipation all day. I have no idea why. It made me so distracted I got told off by four different teachers. Sonny Rawlins started sniggering at one point, but Fred told him to shut up, so it was a really good day even though I was so preoccupied by the afternoon that Phee asked me whether I was sad about Fiona and her parents or something and whether I wanted to talk about it. Of course I told her that school lunch break wasn’t exactly the best time – and the cloakroom certainly wasn’t the best place – to have any sort of serious conversation at all. I know she meant well but then I was distracted about that too.

  Phee and I had riding after school and I felt calmer after that. It helped that between getting cleaned up and having dinner there wasn’t time for Amy or Paul to notice that something was up with me.

  I went to bed early but here I am, still lying awake two hours later, listening to my audiobook for the second time.

  Finally the Dragon comes leaping off the bedside table on to my chest and sits regally down like a sphinx, staring at me just as cryptically.

  Tonight is the night of our dark moon.

  ‘Where are we going?’ I ask, moving to sit up.

  The Dragon sinks a claw through my nightie. I feel it scrape against my skin.

  You are going to sleep now.

  ‘But . . .’

  You must go to sleep now, the Dragon repeats.

  ‘But can’t you tell me . . .’

  That, says the Dragon, would violate our contract.

  I roll my eyes. ‘I hate it when you talk about our contract. You never make any sense.’

  I make as much sense as is good for you and no more, says the Dragon.

  ‘But I don’t understand any of it!’ I protest.

  The Dragon smiles. That is precisely the point.

  ‘Urgh,’ I say. I am tempted to roll over but know that the Dragon would not appreciate the insult at all.

  Remember that night in the rain and thunder spent among the horses, says the Dragon. Remember the horses in the storm and the mist.

  I see the mist curl up around the horses’ legs. I remember the velvet-soft nose against my palm. I smile, on the cusp of the fall into dreaming.

  ‘This is the third dark moon since I wished you,’ I whisper to the Dragon. ‘When’s it going to be our special one? When will we have done enough planning and preparing that we can do something important?’

  The Dragon smiles down at me. Three is a very special number.

  ‘Third time lucky?’ I mumble around a yawn, the mist from the dream welling up around me, thickening as it drags me down into sleep.

  When you have planned so carefully, there is no need for luck, says the Dragon. Sleep now. Our dark moon is nearly upon us and you must be dreaming when it comes.

  The mist creeps out of the darkness and wraps around me, but, as I sink down, I dream that I am throwing back the covers and s
itting up, while the Dragon sails across the room to the window and crouches there, looking back at me.

  Come, the Dragon commands.

  ‘Evie? Evie darling, are you all right?’

  It is morning. Bright daylight.

  I hear the bedroom door creak open as I roll my head to the left. Amy peers in at me.

  It’s a school day, I realise.

  I sit up, yawning, feeling limp and wrung out. I ache, but oddly it’s my legs that are most sore. My legs and my arms. I try to remember the Dragon waking me for our dark moon adventure, try to remember what special thing we did that has left me so stiff and achy, but nothing comes. I remember my edge-of-dream vision of the Dragon launching itself into the air like the night it ate Sonny Rawlins’s bike. But then the next image that pops into my mind is a glimpse of my bike. For a second, I remember the feel of the handlebars shuddering against my palms as I bump over the tree roots at the bottom of the garden. The sound of crumbling concrete grinding under my weight as I turn on to the canal towpath. And I remember my heart pounding, pounding, pounding like when you’re being chased in a nightmare . . .

  And a sudden thrill, like jumping through ice and soaring from the top of a mountain at the same time.

  I frown, but even these vague memories are making me feel sick to my stomach somehow. I push the lingering images away.

  When I move to stretch, I find myself wincing. Before the Dragon, I used to have nightmares all night long and wake up feeling like this: like I’ve been running all night from the things in my head, some of them memories and some just normal nightmares. Often they get mashed together, one nightmare running into another. It all drifts away like smoke after a fire has gone out when I wake.

  ‘Are you feeling OK, darling?’ Amy asks, perching on the edge of the bed and reaching to feel my forehead.

  ‘Think I had nightmares,’ I say around a huge yawn.

  I’m tireder than when I went to bed last night. And grumpy. Because it’s been weeks, months even, since I’ve felt like this. It’s the first time I’ve slept badly since I summoned the Dragon with my wish.