19

Left Unsaid

 
“There you are.” Jackie’s chair was thrust back as she quickly stood up from her seat at the kitchen table. “We were wondering where you went. Is there something you want for lunch? I’ve got more sandwiches if you want.”
 
Neither Jackie nor Wes had seen when I left, so they didn’t yet know the circumstances of my disappearance. They had both been sitting around the kitchen table, probably just finishing their lunch. An untouched place setting occupied my usual spot next to Wes. My emotional state had calmed significantly, but I felt a dull throbbing in my head, and I had to focus on keeping my breathing nice and even. They probably wanted an explanation from me, but I intended to omit anything that could cause alarm.
 
“I’m not hungry,” I mumbled. I didn’t elaborate.
 
Jackie fingered a lock of long, black hair. “Did your call work out? Is everything okay?”
 
“Yeah, I got through to them. But, uh, it didn’t exactly go how I wanted. Just…I mean…my best friend didn’t take it very well. So I had to…get away for a bit. I was just out for a walk to clear my head. I didn’t want you to be all worried about me, though. I’m sorry if you were.”
 
“Oh, no, that’s fine,” she said. “You don’t have to apologize. The call, though—I’m sorry it wasn’t what you imagined. But we don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”
 
“Hey, are your arms okay?” Wes asked. “They look kinda scratched up.”
 
“Oh, yeah,” I replied casually, looking down to see the roughed-up patches of scales, a result of my frantic clawing back at the waterfall. “They’re fine. I just slipped and fell while I was out there. Pretty clumsy of me, but I’m okay.”
 
“Good, because I don’t know dragon first-aid,” Jackie quipped.
 
I forced a smile. “I’m pretty tough,” I said, rapping my knuckles on a chest plate. “It’d take more than a little stumble to cause real damage. Like, a lot more.”
 
“I bet,” she grinned, and then her face shifted back to the look of mild concern it wore when I walked in the door a minute ago. “You sure you’re not hungry?”
 
“Yeah, I’m fine. Really. I just, uh, I think I need to call my sister real quick. The way I left earlier, I would just feel better to talk to her again.”
 
“Do whatever you need to do.” Jackie started to busy herself in the kitchen, clearing the table and putting condiments back in the fridge.
 
I dug my phone and stylus out of my backpack and dialed Alex’s number as I walked out into the backyard. She picked up almost immediately.
 
“Josh, I’m so sorry about what happ—”
 
“Are Mom and Dad in the room with you?” I interrupted.
 
“What? No. I’m upstairs, in my room. Why?”
 
“I, uh, I want to…well, I have some things to say to you. Just you.”
 
“And? Let me guess, you don’t want me to tell Mom and Dad?”
 
“You can do whatever you want with what I tell you. I’m sure they’d get all worried hearing this from me, and I don’t think I can deal with that. I just trust you’ll know what to do. I’m not feeling too great right now, as you can imagine, but I saw how you had my back.”
 
She took a breath, probably thinking about what she could say to make me feel better. “You know Scott will come around, right? He just needs time.”
 
“That may be,” I replied. “But that’s not what I called you about. Things are going to be a bit different for a few days. I’ve been talking to that other dragon, Rofar, who wants to help me. I’m going with him to meet some more dragons and learn some stuff about what exactly it means to be one of them.”
 
A silent pause followed. “You’re sure about this?”
 
“Yeah. It’s happening. I’m meeting him tonight, and I wanted to tell you because I’ll be out of touch for a while. Well, not a while, but, you know…”
 
“Shit, Josh,” she exclaimed, more uncertainty in her voice than anger. “I don’t really know what to say, and I guess you’re set on doing this. I’m not trying to talk you out of it, I…I really don’t know. This has just been so weird for the past week. I guess it can only get better after what happened today. So, you should do whatever you think is best for you. Just don’t, you know, drop off the face of the earth or anything, okay? We’ll figure this out together, all of us.”
 
“Thanks. And thanks again for what you said earlier. That’s how I know it’ll be okay. I know you’ll take care of Mom and Dad. It’s been a weird week for me too, trust me.”
 
“Yeah, well, I’ll talk to you soon. Make sure you learn how to breathe fire and not fly into power lines and all the useful stuff.”
 
I gave a hollow laugh, appreciative of her effort to cheer me up, even if it had little effect. “I will. Give my love to everyone.”
 
The phone beeped as I disconnected. Hanging my head, I exhaled deeply as I stared down at the blades of grass sprouting between my talons. “At least Alex knows what’s going on. She’ll know how to keep our parents from worrying too much. I’m just tired of being the subject of everyone’s anxiety.” Well, there was nothing I could do about that. In any case, I probably concerned myself too much with the feelings of others when I needed instead to keep a close watch over my own mental health.
 
With the call completed, I stepped back inside the house to find Jackie and Wes still in the kitchen. I returned my phone to my bag and approached the table, not sure what to say. Jackie was drying dishes with a washcloth while listening to the radio, nodding her head slightly to the music. Wes sat on the floor while Winter rubbed against his legs; the cat purred and nudged the boy into giving her a satisfactory petting. However, when she heard the first click of my claws on the kitchen floor, she made a beeline for the back hallway and vanished around the corner.
 
Wes looked at me pleadingly when he noticed I had returned. “Hey, Josh, can we go back out in the woods? I’m gonna miss being out there with you.”
 
An image of the deer’s body flashed in my mind’s eye. It’s belly gaping and empty, teeming with insects and reeking of death. What was wrong with me? I had to use all my self-control to keep my expression steady and avoid raising suspicion. Quickly dismissing the thought, I said, “Okay, sure. If your mom says it’s okay, we’ll go on another little adventure.”
 
“It’s fine. You two go and have fun.” Jackie mussed her son’s hair and shook her head. “I still can’t believe you were out there every day last week playing with a real dragon, and I had no idea!”
 
“Awesome!” Wes exclaimed. “Let’s go.” He scrambled to his feet and ran to put his shoes on.
 
I smiled and called after him, “I’ll meet you in the yard.”
 
He tumbled out the back door a few moments later and wasted no time climbing onto my back. Entering the forest, I took us toward the river, purposefully avoiding the spot where I slaughtered the deer. We mostly let nature do the talking as we walked. At the first, brittle-sounding footfall on the rocky river’s edge, I stopped and simply enjoyed the view of the currents rushing by. It felt as if my worries were retreating bit by bit to travel far away in the river’s flow. Wes hopped down and started scanning the ground for rocks to skip on the water. Soon we were both flinging our flat missiles across the water’s surface. My paws weren’t particularly well-suited for skipping stones, however, so I soon gave up and started making little rock sculptures on the ground. Wes joined in, and we passed a good bit of time sharing our improvised creations.
 
Finally, we did some more tree-climbing. I showed Wes my little game of launching myself out of the top and gliding down to earth. My roars and his joyous cries echoed through the late afternoon stillness. I imagined coming back out in the winter and rolling around in the snow. Wes would breathe out plumes of dragon-smoke with each breath as we walked with crunching steps through the forest. I would make us a fire to keep warm out on the cliff-top where we could watch the shortened days slip away before our eyes.
 
“Watch it,” I told myself. “You’re going a bit too far into the future. What about your own family? Surely they expect you to come back by the time winter arrives.” I hadn’t really allowed myself to think about this logically. I couldn’t stay here forever—I couldn’t do that to my family. But, up here, it was so much easier to be myself, whatever that meant. Open space, with hardly a soul around if you knew where to go. It was a place I didn’t want to leave behind for a life spent trapped inside my house again.
 
“Josh, are you okay?”
 
I glanced over to see Wes standing a few feet away. I had been so lost in thought, I didn’t notice him walking up to me. “Yeah, I’m fine,” I said with a quick smile. “I was just looking at how long the shadows are. Maybe we should head back.”
 
We walked back side-by-side as the thick trees cast a premature darkness over us. Wes asked me a few more questions about my upcoming trip. Where would I be going? How many other dragons were there? What kind of magic could they teach me? I did my best to answer him, but all my responses were some elaborate form of, “I don’t know.”
 
“You’ll have to remember everything, so you can tell me about it. I can’t wait to hear your stories!”
 
“I bet they won’t be as good as your mom’s,” I replied.
 
“Maybe, but yours will be real.”
 
We shared a little laugh at that. Soon, Jackie was welcoming us back with dinner already cooking. The warm, golden scent of grilled cheese brought back memories of my own mother.
 
“How many sandwiches do you think you could eat, Josh?” Jackie asked.
 
“I’ll actually be fine with one.”
 
“You sure? I have plenty of stuff to make more.”
 
“No, thanks,” I assured her. "I think I’m still full of French toast.” But I knew the real reason. Still, I wanted to eat something so I didn’t seem rude. I figured I could force down a single sandwich.
 
To my relief, she seemed to let the issue go. Moments later we were starting to eat. Jackie observed my untouched sandwich and said, “Are you a little nervous, Josh? To be going to a new place like this?”
 
“A little, I guess.”
 
“When exactly do you leave?”
 
“Probably after dinner. Not too long now.”
 
She raised her glass of water. “Well, let’s give you a proper send-off, shall we? Here’s to Josh. Wishing you a safe and fulfilling journey.”
 
“Oh, we don’t have to make a big deal about it. I’m just going to be gone for a few days; this is just temporary. I have to meet some new people—well, new dragons, I guess—and learn a bunch of new things. I’m new at this, remember? I don’t know a lot of things that a dragon should know.”
 
“You’re very open and positive about this. I think you’ll be just fine.”
 
“Thanks for that. Thanks for everything.” I took a bite of my grilled cheese and thought about how lucky I was. Sure, there were bad things that had happened to me, but I had seen how destructive negative thinking could be. I owed it to myself to keep a sense of perspective. Most of the time, it seemed like my own thoughts were the only thing I could control. And even those sometimes felt like they belonged to someone else.
 
The rest of the meal left me feeling well enough. It was bittersweet having to say goodbye to these people who welcomed me like I was no different from them. It was bittersweet, but it also gave me hope. This was a place I could come back to—a place I wanted to come back to.
 
I had finished helping clear the table when I looked out the window to see the light was fading fast. “Well, I should probably get going. I think I’ll have a lot of flying to do.”
 
“Come here then; don’t be shy,” Jackie said as she opened her arms. “And you too, Wes.”
 
The boy hugged my waist tight as his mother gently placed her arms around my neck. She looked into my eyes—small wrinkles converged around her own blue irises as she smiled. “Be safe.” It was a half-whispered command.
 
“I’ll be in good hands—or paws, rather,” I joked nervously.
 
“I’m still going to worry about you a little. I’m a mother; I can’t help it.” She sighed, then chuckled, “Wes, you can let him go now.”
 
I lightly patted the boy’s head as he released me. “You’ll be good for your mom?”
 
He nodded vigorously. The angry cuts on his forehead flashed into view for an instant as his hair flipped out of the way. My stomach knotted as I was transported back to that terrible night. It was reassuring to see how they had moved on. “Mmm,” I hummed distractedly, “good.”
 
Jackie pointed into the other room. “What do you want to do with your bag? Are you taking anything with you?”
 
“I think I’ll just put it out in the shed with the rest of my stuff,” I said, walking over and hefting the backpack onto my shoulder. A few more steps brought me to the back door, and opening it raised an audible protest from the hinges. Evening air flowed over my scales, bringing with it the woody scent of the outdoors. I took a few steps into the yard before turning back.
 
Jackie leaned against the frame of the back door. “Goodbye, Josh. By the way, I hope to have this door fixed by the time you get back.”
 
Wes gave a small wave. “Bye, Josh!” he called out.
 
I smiled, returning the wave. “Bye, and thanks again. I’ll see you soon—and I’ll bring back some stories!”
 
Jackie scooped the boy up into her arms and nuzzled his cheek. She looked out at me once more, fixing me with a serene gaze before closing the door. I felt a powerful surge of longing sweep through me at that last image of familial closeness. A breeze sighed around me, bringing me back into the world, and I turned away. I quickly placed my belongings next to a woodpile in the small barn and walked back out into the yard. Unsure of what to do next, I faced the expressionless wall of trees, charcoal-black against the watercolor sky.
 
A feeling passed over me. It was fleeting and hard to describe. I would say it felt similar to seeing a shadow of someone approaching in the corner of my eye, but it took place entirely within my mind. A presence brushed against the edge of my awareness. It was warm, friendly. Then it spoke.
 
“Come to the river. I will wait for you there.”
 
The voice in my head was familiar. It was Rofar. He said no more words, but his athka remained at the periphery of my mind, hovering like a vague thought that I couldn’t quite pin down. Although I had experienced this kind of spiritual communication with Ares the previous night, it still threw me a little. I wasn’t used to this mental connection; the other dragon’s presence made me a little dizzy. Still, I had my instructions, so I set out to meet him.
 
I stepped out of the backyard and into the forest, feeling like I was crossing a definite line between two worlds. The world of humanity was behind me, and I would not return to it for some time. My front legs felt the earth’s coolness once more, reminding me how comfortable I was on all fours. If I imagined myself trying to fit in with the other dragons, this would be the only way to walk. Butterflies started up in my stomach, an unwelcome reminder of how nervous I really was. I didn’t look back, though. My eyes were focused directly ahead, betraying nothing. I followed the straightest line that would lead me to the river, my awareness of Rofar getting slightly stronger as I went along. I didn’t really know how to discern the direction of a nearby dragon’s athka, but I had a sense I was getting closer.
 
A few minutes later, I emerged into the ribbon of river-cut land carved from the forest. The sunset burned a bold rainbow of hues across the sky. Bit by bit, the horizon’s warm orange bled into a delicate lavender overhead as the colors painted the evening sky. I figured the particles of ash from the volcano had something to do with the dazzling display. At least there was some beauty in the eruption, not just bad omens.
 
Rofar stood a few paces downriver, beneath the shadowy cover of the trees. It was the first time I had ever seen him outside a dream, and, even in the shadows, his scales practically glowed with rich, blue colors. I saw in his posture not a single trace of unease; the dragon looked as calm and casual as if we were old friends meeting for a coffee. He took a few graceful strides toward me, dipping his head slightly as he approached. As he did this, his spirit radiated a wave of cordial energy into mine that actually put me more at ease. “Good evening, Ayreth,” he said. “It is good to see you again.” The dragon’s words were as smooth and peaceful as any stream that fed the river.
 
“You, too,” I replied. “I’m, uh…I guess I’m ready to go.”
 
“Excellent. It is a rather long journey to return to the clan, but it will give us time to talk.”
 
“Aren’t you worried about being seen? Or, what about my spirit? Can you keep Ares from following me?”
 
“Do not worry. These are things that are quite easily taken care of with magic. I can make the preparations right now, if you give me a moment.” He closed his eyes and became very still. I looked down at my paws, not sure of what I would see or feel. There was a slight tingling at the base of my neck, but otherwise, I felt no different. After a moment, Rofar flicked his tail and gave his head a gentle shake as he revealed his azure stare once more.
 
“Now we are invisible to human eyes. And I have placed a temporary concealment on your athka. Only I will be able to communicate with you.”
 
“Good, thanks. So, how long will it take to get there? And what are we going to talk about?”
 
“All in good time, young one,” the blue dragon stated with a hint of amusement. “Are you sure there is nothing else you need before we take off?”
 
“Anything else I need?” I asked myself. Even the few possessions I brought from home were back in the little woodshed. They had no place in the clan, and were of no use to me now. The only thing to bring was myself, a mostly empty vessel ready to be filled with new knowledge. “I don’t think so. I’ll just follow your lead.”
 
“Very well, then. Come, Ayreth; let us fly.”
 
Rofar’s wings rose fluidly from his back as he turned away from me. His sturdy paws drew a dull, rasping noise from the stony riverbank as he took a single, running bound. Then, the blue beast muscled his way into the air with expert wingbeats. The river provided a clear path to climb, and Rofar was suddenly bathed in amber light as he rose above the trees.
 
I didn’t hesitate before following him. My ascent may have been a little less skilled, but I soon reacquainted myself with the liberating tenor of flight. A smile played across my muzzle. Rushing to catch up with Rofar, I thought, “I have no personal belongings, no knowledge of dragon life, and no idea where we’re even going. This should be an interesting adventure.” I had so many questions. As the forest below receded into a dark, rolling fabric, I tried to sort out my feelings. The butterflies were still there, but I now focused on a deeper emotion that flowed beneath the surface: hope.
 
The sky in front of us was laced with thin clouds. I looked back, craning my head to see what I was leaving behind. In the distance, I saw the smoky pillar still rising from the active volcano. It was black, so black and so tall. I was just happy we were going in the other direction. Turning back around, that sight was forgotten as I saw my companion soaring majestically beside me.
 
Rofar wasn’t even looking at me, but I could see the contentment in his eyes and in the corners of his mouth. When he noticed my gaze after a moment, he broke into a grin. A full, broad, squinted-eye smile, which I gladly returned. “Yes,” I thought, “I will choose hope.” As the sun slipped lower, the two of us steadily gained elevation. If I could have frozen that moment, it would have felt to me like there was nothing wrong in the whole world. All the chaos was far below us. Up where the dragons soared, every wingbeat was enveloped in calm. I held the impossible wish in my mind that it could last forever. Of course, I knew that every flight must come to an end, but I resolved to enjoy this one for as long as I could.