Tasa continued to check in on her periodically, despite her protests. He kept his campus visits brief, rare, and under a crescent moon. Since he was the only connection to her past, she tolerated his comings and goings, even if she didn’t have much patience for what he had to say.
“You look terrific as a dragon,” he would usually start with.
“I look like a monster,” she would counter, in the far reaches of the campus arboretum.
“Monster is a relative term,” he would try to explain. “Dragons are not prehistoric animals. They represent an evolutionary leap.”
“So we’re superior to normal people?” she would scoff. “I can see where this is going.”
They bantered like this, one rejecting her heritage and the other urging her to embrace it.
“Monster,” she would tell him.
“Champion,” he would counter.
“Disease.”
“Power.”
“Misguided.”
“Unharnessed.”
And so it went on. He would stay for about an hour or two and then go, and then come back two months later, and then disappear for another month, and then return three months after that. She made other intelligent friends at the school, though she found none could challenge her with the same intuitive probing that Tasa could. She began to wonder about him. How old was he? What did he look like as a human? Did he have a last name? But their discussions engaged her so much that she never thought up those questions while he was around.
One evening early in her sophomore year, they were resting in a copse of trees not far from the western edge of campus. He gave a short nod toward a dormitory across the athletic field. “There’s a group in Evans Hall I think you should meet.”
She paused from scratching her scaly back with a birch branch long enough to spot the old brick dormitory in the distance. “What, in there? Who are you talking about?”
“There’s a cluster of rooms on the third floor that has been dark every crescent moon for September and October. We walk by that side all the time, and they’re never around during a crescent moon, and they’re always around when it’s not. Haven’t you noticed?”
She shrugged. “I guess. What, you think they’re dragons?”
“Duh!”
“Get real. It’s a coincidence.”
“Why don’t you go up there and find out?”
“What, now?” She held her wings out.
“Of course not, you can’t camouflage like I can. Once this moon’s done, go introduce yourself and talk about what you’ve been through.”
“I don’t want to talk about that.” At least not with anyone else.
He tilted his head, sensing her reluctance. “Winona. You’ve been here over a year. I can’t be here for you all the time. You have to find others like yourself.”
“I’ve told you—I don’t want to find others like me. I can barely stand you!”
Nevertheless, a few days later her fist rapped on the door to one of the third-floor rooms in the southeast corner of Evans Hall. The young man who opened the door was gorgeous, over six feet tall with reddish-brown skin and a braid of long, black hair. He wore a clean, gray T-shirt and jeans weathered by nature, not a fashion designer. His eyes were dark, his face bright.
He smiled when he saw Winona. “Hey,” he said as if he knew her.
“Hey,” she said back. “I’m . . . I mean, I noticed you around campus. I thought I might track you down and . . . There’s a dance this weekend.”
He raised his brows, but his face remained friendly. “Do you know my name?”
Her eyes strayed to the door and the small dry-erase message board on it. “You’re either Danny or Moj . . . um, Mojee . . .”
“Motega.” He laughed as he followed her gaze. “My friends have bad handwriting.”
She stuck out her hand, terrified. “Winona Brandfire. My handwriting is very neat.”
Motega Brave-eyes came from northwest Minnesota, not too far from where Winona was raised. He was in his junior year deep into his studies in geology. Having surpassed most of his fellow students (and a professor or two), he was undertaking a course of independent study.
“Geology?” she wrinkled her nose over her cup of chai latte as they sat in the student center together, later that afternoon. “So, you study rocks.”
He let out an easy chuckle. “I like learning about what’s under our feet. The ground we stand on feels so solid to so many of us. That’s an illusion. The earth is constantly moving and churning. It’s a wonder we don’t fall off it.”
“I’ve felt like that,” Winona admitted.
“So what’s your major?”
She flicked her hand at him, rubbed her dark locks, and took another sip of latte. “I don’t need to pick one until next year. I’m leaning toward history. There’s this American studies course I’m taking, Minnesota in the Nineteenth Century. I like it.”
“Why? Is the professor good?”
She shrugged. “She’s fine. More than that, I’m finding the lessons of history intriguing.”
“Such as?”
“People’s first impulse is always to hurt each other,” she blurted before she could stop herself. Noticing he didn’t seem to mind this darker turn in the conversation, she continued. “Take the European settlers as they moved across the Great Plains. With all that land, and no one could say where it ended, why start planting flags and killing those who were already here? Before Europeans showed up, people lived in peace here.”
A corner of his mouth curled up. “I think you may have an overly sanitized view of the cultures that roamed these lands before 1492. Some Native American groups got along fine with each other, for thousands of years. Others didn’t.”
“That only proves my point. Everywhere you look, people have been going after each other with guns, or axes, or . . .” Or pitchforks and fire, she almost said.
His sigh was heavy. “True enough. Since before written history, people have been splitting themselves into tribes and . . .” He put his own drink down and stared across the cluttered tables and chatting students. “And it only gets worse.”
Right there, Winona nearly spilled out what she really was. Something made her say instead, “So are you going to this dance with me or not?”
He showed a perfect row of teeth. “Absolutely.”
“Are you ever going to say where we’re going?”
“We’re almost there,” he answered.
“Why all the secrecy?”
“It’s our third date,” he explained. “I thought we might do something special.”
“Huh.” She assessed him carefully from the passenger seat, making him laugh.
“I only mean, I wanted to find a place where you and I can . . . intersect.”
“Intersect? Is that what the boys call it nowadays?”
“No, no! I’m not expecting—I only mean—look.”
She followed his finger across the windshield and toward a sign that read:
WELCOME TO HISTORIC FORESTVILLE
“This place was founded in 1853,” he explained. “It was a thriving rural trade center until the railroad took lines of commerce too far away. There’s plenty here for a history student.”
Winona studied the bluffs through the window as he recounted a scene from millions of years ago: miles of melting ice, carving out bluffs from the soft walls of rock, forming caves and sinkholes deep out of sight. The steep topography had created all sorts of climate and soil conditions, with southern slopes warmer and drier. There were forests and prairies, savannas and oak woodlands. She felt her shoulders relax as he continued to tell her about spring-fed streams, and the trout and minnow one could still find around here.
“This place is beautiful. How did you learn about it?”
“I’ve been to this state park a few times for class. There’re twelve miles of caverns down that way. We’re in the karst region of Minnesota. The crevice formations are anywhere from two hundred to five
hundred million years old.”
“Wow,” she whispered through the car window. “That’s a lot of history.”
“Where I come from, folks don’t care much about geology.” He cleared his throat as he parked the car. “I wanted to share this with you, Winona. Because there’s something I want to tell you about myself.”
Smiling, she reached over and placed a finger over his lips. “Let me guess. In a few days, you’re going to change.”
His face froze. “How did you know?”
“I have a confession, too. I came to you because—” She paused, wondering if he would forgive her small deception. “It wasn’t just about the dance. I came to you because I noticed you were gone sometimes . . . like me. You and your friends—Danny, your roommate, and Rick and Pete next door, and Jodie and Katherine next to them—you all leave during crescent moons.”
It got quiet in the car. Behind Motega’s stunned expression, brown leaves whipped against the car window. Winona bit her lip and pulled at her ear. I’ve ruined everything.
“I thought we were careful,” he whispered. “We’ve taken so many precautions . . .”
“I’m sure no one else has noticed. I only did because—”
He didn’t look at her. “It’s not safe anymore. We’re going to have to move on.”
She grabbed his hand, startling him. “Please don’t go,” she begged. “You’re the first one like me who . . .” What? Burned a town down? “Who’s actually like me.”
“You don’t understand what some of us have been through. A few years ago, a young woman named Glory Seabright attacked our reservation.” He didn’t notice the effect this name had on her. “She had a small army of warriors with her, unlike any we had seen. They were coordinated, they were skilled, they cut off our escape routes and . . .”
“I know,” she interrupted him with a soothing touch on his sweaty forehead. “Motega, I know. I lost my brother and my mother to these same people. They don’t know you’re here. I would never tell them. You can trust me.”
The fright in his dark eyes faded a little, and he saw her as if for the first time. “I should introduce you to the others. I mean, really introduce you. Next crescent moon. You’ll join us?”
She laughed nervously. “Can we just get through this third date?”
They got through it fine. Forestville was lovely, and the grounds of the state park were covered in a rainbow of fallen leaves. Because of his connections with the staff, he managed to get off-season access to the caves, and they finished their date among the dimly lit stalagmites. There, they laid out blankets, had a quiet picnic, and fell in love.
Three days later, the evening before the crescent moon, Winona visited Motega’s room and found the door ajar. He and Danny were inside, facing away from the door and talking to a screen. Winona couldn’t see the screen because her boyfriend’s head was in the way, but it was obvious someone was talking back.
“This is my call,” a deep and calm voice was saying over the speakers. “You’re half a continent away. I’m in the best position to assess the situation, and—”
“Why not kill her now?” Danny shouted. The baldness of the statement made Winona take a step back through the doorway. “She’s killed dozens of us, maybe hundreds, in a few years. Every month you wait, she and her disciples will kill more.”
“There’s more to her than that,” the voice answered. “There’s got to be more to all of this than what we originally planned. Maybe I don’t have to kill her. Maybe I can neutralize her.”
“I don’t know what you mean by neutralize,” Motega admitted, in a voice more composed than Danny’s. “I want to remind you of the promise you made: to stop this killing machine. Our numbers are dwindling, our people scattering. Soon a crescent moon will mean nothing.”
“You’re one of our best, Motega. I respect what you’re saying. But you’ve accepted me as your leader, and you have to trust my judgment. I can stop her. My way.”
Motega caught Winona in his peripheral vision. He did not move, but a sad smile crossed his lips. “All I ask,” he said before shutting off the screen, “is that you remember history.”
Danny looked up as the call ended. He was a short man with a red crew cut, and his cheeks flushed as he recognized Winona. Without a word, he got up and left the room.
“I’m sorry,” Winona offered. “The door was open, and—”
“He’ll be okay. He’s not angry at you. That conversation was difficult.”
“Who was that?”
“A new hope, for all of us. He’s out east right now, a student at Harvard. This was not the right time for introductions. I hope you understand.”
“It sounds like he’s made contact with Glory Seabright. You plan to kill her?”
“As you heard, that’s under debate.”
“I hope your leader knows what he’s doing,” she said with her throat tightening. “Because my brother had a plan, too. And it didn’t work out so hot for him.”
“He’s very good,” Motega promised. “And he’s not only my leader, Winona. He’s yours, too. He belongs to all of us. He’s someone you can be proud of.”
“Motega . . .” She trailed off, uncertain of what she wanted to say. “It’s taken me some time to trust what I am. What we all are. Even now, I can’t talk about it comfortably. The idea that all we do is kill, and destroy, and terrorize . . . I can’t take it. I need to know there’s something more to us. I need to know we’re capable of more.”
He took her trembling hands. “We are. But I meant what I said, Winona. We are in a fight for our lives. Your best hope is to join us. You can only stay alone for so long.”
“I . . . I need time to think.”
Before he could say another word, she was running out of the room.
“Winona!”
The voice she heard as she left Evans Hall was not Motega’s—it was, to her surprise, Tasa’s. The red creeper did not camouflage as he followed her over the moonlit grounds.
“Tasa, what are you doing?! People will see you!”
“Winona, we’ve got to talk!”
She looked up. “How are you in dragon form? The moon’s only a bit less than half—”
“That’s not important. Let’s get into the woods so we can talk!” He grabbed her by the hand and dragged her past the nearest trees.
“All right, now. What’s the big deal?” His brusque manner had irritated her, and her ear ached where she was pulling on it.
“Winona, you’ve got to leave this school. It’s dangerous.”
She gaped, incredulous, at his horned face. “Is that a joke? Tasa, I found friends here. Friends you told me to make. Why—”
“I don’t trust them,” he said. His eyes would not meet hers. “I’m sorry. I made a mistake. Please don’t make it worse.”
“What’s wrong with them?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “Just pack your things and head home.”
“This is home,” she reminded him. “I have nowhere else to go.”
“What about Crescent Valley?”
“Mom mentioned that place, but I don’t know how to get there. Do you?”
He hesitated, which gave her time to think about what she was saying. “Wait a second—I don’t know why I’m considering this! You’re overreacting, Tasa. So am I. I’m going back to my room and going to sleep. And tomorrow night, I’m meeting with Motega and his friends. We’re going to form a community of dragons that doesn’t need to kill people.”
“This isn’t about killing,” Tasa hissed. “It’s about survival.”
“I’m done listening to you, Tasa. I’m going home, and you should go home, too.”
“Winona—”
“Good-bye.”
The next morning, Winona could barely contain herself. She hadn’t slept, not out of fear or worry, but excitement about the coming crescent and what it would mean for her and Motega.
She blundered through her classes, not paying attention to
any of the lectures or discussions. Since she lived across campus from Motega and had a different major, she had no plans to see him before evening. They would meet deep in the upper arboretum, near the old faculty picnic grounds. While different people changed at different times at the crescent’s onset, Winona was fairly sure that by the time midnight came, they would all be in dragon form.
It was just before six in the evening when she made her way past Evans Hall and Bell Field and crossed Spring Creek on her way into the forest. She raised the hood of her old sweatshirt, so that her ears would be protected against the autumn wind. The chill was nothing compared to what she felt when she reached the small clearing where they had agreed to meet.
There was indeed a dragon there—Motega, she presumed, from his dark scales and proud bearing. He was larger than Tasa, and the three horns at the back of his head were in a symmetrical formation. Handsome, she couldn’t resist telling herself.
Also in the clearing was something Winona had never seen before: a steel-blue wolf spider, its legs sprawled out in an eight-feet span, dark green pools glistening all over its head.
Both creatures turned to face this woman who had burst out of the forest. Terrified of the way the spider fully faced her, with limbs tensed and ready to spring, she darted away to seek shelter back in the trees. Behind her, she heard Motega calling after her.
“Winona, stay with the others in the trees! I will handle this!”
As she lay hidden under the lowest boughs of a thick pine tree, she watched the two creatures fight. The spider leapt over the dragon’s fire, landing on indigo scales and delivering a sharp bite. Winona winced, but fortunately the bite didn’t seem lethal. The dragon’s tail reached up and flicked the intruder off. The giant arachnid went sailing into the trees, and the dragon pursued. Great jaws opened, and a sheet of flame scorched the oaks and maples where the enemy must have been. Despite her hatred for violence, Winona couldn’t help feeling her heart lift. That will end it! He’s won! Then an unearthly scream went up, and a strangled voice came:
Seraph of Sorrow Page 27
