The Silver Dragon Chronicles Chapter 2

         I couldn’t process what I was seeing. The dragon kept on staring at me. As I reflexively thought of my name, the dragon cocked its head and said, Lily Spencer. That’s pretty!

         I stumbled up into an awkward sitting position. At this point I was leaning towards the hypothesis that I was dreaming or hallucinating. I tried pinching my arm like they do in books. I looked up, but nothing had changed. The little metal dragon was still alive.

         “Well,” I said, playing along with my believed hallucination. “What’s your name?”

         Ummmm……. The dragon furrowed its tiny brow as if trying to remember. Taiya. Yeah, that’s it!  As the dragon talked, I realized that the figure was definitely female. She pronounced her name like TY-ah.

         How could she forget her own name? I wondered offhandedly.

         Yeah, it’s shameful, isn’t it? Still, if you’d been frozen in place as long as I was, you’d probably forget a lot of stuff too.

         “What the heck?” I said to nobody in particular. That had definitely been Taiya interfering in my thoughts. “You can hear me thinking?” I’d had my suspicions when she found out my name, but this was almost solid proof.

         Yup.

         Well, that put an interesting spin on things. So, Taiya, what exactly are you? I asked. Better to start with the basics. If this was all just some weird daydream, then at least I’d make it an interesting one.

         I’m a Dragon Spirit, Taiya replied.

         No kidding. But what does that mean?

         Um... I’m a dragon?

         You have no idea, do you?

         Pretty much.

         I groaned. This was getting both more fantasy and more real by the second. You said you were frozen for a long time. Why?

         I wish I knew. But that was always how it was. I knew some things, like my name and what I was, but I never moved till today.

         As I mulled this over, I heard Mr. Hollis’s voice calling out, “How’s the display coming, Lily?”

Heavy footfalls marched over to where Taiya and I were, and I jammed the little dragon in my jeans pocket.

         HEY!  She cried indignantly. What was that for?

         Stay in there and don’t move, I thought fiercely.

         The shopkeeper’s head poked around a nearby bookshelf. “Any ideas?” he asked, completely oblivious to my wiggling pocket.

         “Um, yeah,” I said in a bad attempt at casual conversation. “I’ve got a few ideas. I think I know which ones I’m going to use.”

         “Good, good,” he said absently. “There was one model in the corner over here that I thought would work well.” He peered over the dragon case, looking at the exact spot that Taiya had been resting in. Oh, no.

         “Oh, you mean that one? Yeah, that’s a finalist. I’m not sure if it’ll work for the display. See, it looked a little out of place with the other ones I liked.” I waved my hand around the three other dragon statues I’d picked out. Whoa, slow down.

         Smooth. Very smooth.

         Not now, Taiya!

         Why not? The dragon was the perfect image of innocence. That kind of thing really gets under your skin.

         Just be quiet! If I’d sounded tough before, then now my thoughts felt downright murderous.

         “Are you all right, Lily?” Mr. Hollis said. The dark-haired man was studying me now; he could see something was different.

         “”M fine,” I said. “Just… I’ve got a lot of homework. Be working late tonight, that’s all.”

I tried to make it sound like the white lie was completely true. I wasn’t very successful, but the shopkeeper bought it.

         “Maybe you should go home, if you’ve got so much to do,” Mr. Hollis suggested.

         Inwardly, I sighed with relief. “Sure, if you can spare me.”

         He smiled. “I’ll manage.”

         With Taiya nestled in my pocket, I hurried out of the store.

                                                                            ~~~

         I leaned over my dilapidated math textbook, trying to focus on x equals three-fourths y and y equals one-half of 24. What should’ve been a basic problem was made nearly impossible by Taiya’s constant chatter and questions. She’d already come frighteningly close to breaking half the inanimate objects in my room. “What’s that?” became the mantra of the afternoon.

         What’s that? Taiya would ask when I pulled out my science notebook.

         What’s that? I’d hear again when my electric pencil sharpener purred like a kitten.

         What is that? She asked when some nasty-smelling fumes from Garrett’s room escaped through the closed door.

         An experiment gone way wrong, I replied.

         What’s an experiment?

         Oh, great. I’ll tell you later. Hopefully that would hold off the questions.

         “Garrett, Lily, time for dinner!” Mom called a few minutes later.

         I groaned. It was almost seven PM and I had barely finished half my homework.

         "Here, stay in here and don't move this time." I said to Taiya as I gently picked her up and placed her in my pocket, talking out loud to emphasize the point. There was no way I was going to let a six-inch-long dragon loose in my room.

         Fine, fine, keep your hair on.

         Once Taiya was safely hidden, I trudged down the hall to the kitchen and sat at the ordinary-looking wooden table. Mom was setting a pot of green beans on the table alongside the meat loaf and freezer tater tots. Garrett emerged from his room and settled across from me.

         “What were you working on?” I asked him with disgust, remembering the putrid stench that had emanated from his room.

         “None of your business,” was his distant reply. Just as well. If Garrett had decided to explain, which rarely happened, I probably would’ve understood exactly none of it.

         Two minutes later, Dad showed up, hurrying through the door in his usual frazzled state. It was obvious to anyone who knew him that he’d been working on something new- he wore one brown and one black shoe, his belt was unbuckled, and it looked like he hadn’t shaved in a few days.

         “Hi, Dad,” I piped, but he didn’t hear. Garrett was talking to him, something about the next high-school science competition. Dad was completely immersed in Garrett’s conversation until Mom gently reminded him that everybody needed to eat. My dad sat down and we started to pass the serving plates. Dinner provided an opportunity to explore something with Taiya I hadn’t thought of yet.

         What exactly do you eat?

         Taiya rolled her eyes. Same as all dragons. Meat. But not a lot. I don’t need a ton of food to be full.

         When nobody was looking, I snuck Taiya a scrap of meat loaf, which she devoured. Ahhh. That’s good stuff. Your mom can really cook.

         Glad you like it. I couldn’t help smiling. I doubt you could have if you’d seen the stuff of myths and legends complimenting my mom’s culinary skills.

         “So Lily, how was school today? And the shop, did you do anything interesting?” Mom asked me in an obvious effort to even out the conversation and steer it away from science that only MIT graduates and Garrett would understand.

         I froze. Sometimes I got lucky, but nine times out of ten I was a terrible liar and was found out instantly. And with Mom that statistic went down to ninety-nine times out of a hundred, mostly because she read people as if they were open books.

         “School was fine,” I said slowly, trying to sound honest. “Same as always. I had a lot to do at the shop today. I set up the display case.”

         “That sounds great! What did you put in it?”

         Uh-oh. “Dragon statues, remember the little figurines in that case?” My voice came dangerously close to rising an octave.

         “Yes, I remember. What does you display look like?”

         Oh come on, universe, why did she have to feel the need to talk about this today of all days? Taiya scurried around in my pocket, trying to escape through the thin slit in the fabric.

         Come on, I wanna see! she whined. I not-so-subtly clapped my hand over the pocket opening. Lucky for me, nobody noticed.

         I scarfed down the rest of my food and left for my room with the lame but true excuse that I needed to finish my homework. As soon as the bedroom door shut behind me, I didn’t hold back on the onslaught of frustrating thoughts I’d had for the past half hour.

         Taiya, you don’t get it, you’ve got to stay hidden!

         Why?

         Because things would get very bad if people found out I had a walking, talking, three-inch-tall dragon in my back pocket.

         Why would things get bad?

         Because dragons aren’t supposed to exist. I hadn’t yet taken the liberty of explaining much of the situation to her.

         But you knew what I was. Remember?

         Of course I remember. Hard to forget. People think dragons are just old magic stories. Fairy tales. People know that magic- In light of recent events, I changed the wording of my thoughts. People believe that magic doesn’t exist. Scientists can find perfectly rational, explainable, logical reasons for the existence of everything. Me, now I’m not sure what to think.

         Magic’s real. Can’t you feel it?

         I don’t know, I replied. I really don’t know.

         I abruptly broke off the conversation, taking the time to glance around my room. Twin bed with a plum-colored quilt spread over it, plain wooden desk and chair, small mirror balanced on the desk, and a cluttered dresser. I avoided the mirror, knowing exactly what I would see- a pale, thin face with gray eyes and curly, raven-black hair that fell a few inches past the shoulders. Not particularly good-looking. Not that I really cared all that much.

         Having figured out how to hide my mind from Taiya, I finished the second half of my homework relatively quickly. The little dragon spent the time curled up on the bed, eyes half closed.

I think it was about nine PM when I finished an essay rough draft and scrambled under the covers. I opened my mind again, but Taiya was too exhausted to even ask questions. I softly moved her so that she was covered by the quilt and she fell completely asleep almost instantly.

         I spent the last few minutes of the day wondering at Taiya’s odd choice of words, Magic’s real. Can’t you feel it?

         What could she have meant by that?