Hydra (23 page)

Ed takes my hands and looks at me with concern. When I swallow several times repeatedly and still can’t make words come out, he makes his best attempt to fill in the gaps with what he knows from what I’ve said before. “Yer afeared of gettin’ pulled under by something below ye.”

I stare at him for one dumb moment as I realize it’s the same thing, isn’t it? I’m afraid of being fettered, of being chained down, pulled under, of never rising up and becoming who I could be. I’m afraid of marriage pulling me down, holding me back. I’m afraid of loving Ed, because it would be like swimming in a lake that might hold water yagi. It would make me vulnerable to the thing I fear most—of drowning even though I can fly.

The confession comes out in broken, stuttering gasps, while rogue tears sneak down my cheeks, betraying the depth of my feelings. “Yes. I care about you, Ed. You’re very special to me, but I just can’t—” I shake my head, searching for the words that will help him understand. “I want to fly.”

“Aye.” His voice is rough and rumbly, but soft. “I want ye to fly, Wren. That’s who ye are.”

There’s a sound at the door, and I glance behind me to see my dad and brother with the camera equipment, on their way out the door. They’re coming outside. We’ve got things to do—water yagi to defeat, all the water of the world to save from them forever.

Ed gives my hand a final squeeze. “I understan’. I wouldna presume to hold ye back. Fly free, Wren. I havena got wings.”

The last bit of his words are buried as my parents and brother emerge from the house in a bustle of preparations and chatter. I catch the last of Ed’s statement with half an ear as I turn my face away from my family and hastily wipe away all trace of my tears before I face them. But even as I do so, I realize what Ed said.

He hasn’t got wings.

Wings. That wasn’t what I was referring to, not intentionally, not at all. But it fits, doesn’t it? Or does it? Ed’s already down the front cabin steps, hiking along the trail beside my father and brother, carrying the row boat between them, his strong shoulders taut as he totes the heavy vessel as if it weighs nothing.

He is so strong, and so determined to defeat the enemy that haunts me, no matter the risk.

I fall into step beside my mom, who gives me a look that says she can see my tears, never mind that I wiped them away.

“Everything okay? Did you talk to Ed?”

“I talked to Ed,” I confirm, watching Ed carry the boat ahead of us. The sinking feeling inside me says that whatever he took away from our conversation, wasn’t the same thing I intended. “I’m not sure if everything’s okay.”

“Care to tell me about it?”

“Not yet. I need to think.” I study Ed, walking in front of us, has calf muscles taut and well-defined, everything about him nearly perfect, as I try to analyze what he said. My heart is beating with this crazy sense of panic like I should be alarmed by his words, and I have to tell myself to calm down.

But maybe I shouldn’t calm down.

Maybe I should panic.

Because if I understood Ed correctly, he thinks I said the reason I don’t want to marry him is because I don’t want to be weighed down by a guy who can’t fly. Like maybe without him, I can go places I couldn’t go with him.

And while I didn’t mean that—didn’t even consider he might interpret my words that way—in some ways, isn’t it all still the same thing? I don’t want to marry because I don’t want to be weighed down, chained down, fettered. Regardless of whether it’s because of Ed’s winglessness, or just his presence, it’s the same thing, isn’t it?

So then I ask my mom that question that I’ve been wrestling with for days now. “Mom, are dragons relics? Do we even belong in this world?”

My mom doesn’t look shocked, but smiles almost as though she understands why I’d ask. “Yes, we belong.”

“How do you know?”

“Because for a long time, I didn’t think we belonged at all. I didn’t think I should marry your father and create a new generation of dragons—I thought dragons were evil.”

“Evil?”

“That’s how we’re portrayed in so many stories.”

We’re stomping along in the mostly-darkness behind the men. I can just see Ed’s strong back ahead of us, mostly out of earshot. “But that’s only because greedy people made up those stories. They’re lies. Lies to make people hate us and destroy us so we can’t protect our people,” I clarify.

“Precisely. We are remnants from an enchanted age, echoes of a world that once was and could be again, if the world would stop hunting us. We’re not pests. We were the true stewards of the earth from before the age of humans. And, I might argue, we kept it far better than they do.”

“So…we’re not relics?” I know that’s what she’s trying to say, but she almost makes it sound like we’re even more antiquated than I’d assumed.

“We come from a
greater
age, Wren. We come from the age of dragons.” My mother’s voice is infused with a sort of wistful pride I’ve not often heard from her. “But the real reason we belong, the reason why we have a place in this world, even if we’re a little ancient and outdated, is because we need each other, and our people need us. You know, your grandmother Faye didn’t want to be a dragon anymore, either. She went to Eudora to become truly human, but then she realized Eudora was wrong. And then my father rescued her, and she laid my egg, and she had someone to care about, more than just herself and the abstract concept of belonging. She had a child—me—and it gave her life purpose.”

“So, if I lay an egg, my life will have purpose?”

“No. Well, yes, but you don’t have to lay an egg to have a purpose, though the seeds of the future lie dormant inside you until you give them life. You just have to learn to love—yourself, another person, another dragon.”

The last couple of my mom’s words get completely lost as we look over our heads at a streak of fiery light. A blaze of yellow and gold, orange-tipped like a flame, shoots across the sky, headed toward the northern end of the lake.

The dragon.

Ahead of us, Ram looks like he’s about to change into a dragon and take off after it. My mom runs up and catches him even as my dad holds him by the arm, tethering him to the earth.

“Don’t go!” Mom tells Ram. “Felix and Zilpha are lying in wait at the cave. They’re hiding. They’ll watch the dragon and follow it. If you fly up there, you’ll spook it.”

My brother has this crazed look on his face like it’s taking all his restraint not to change into a dragon. He’s even sort of panting—which is really bizarre because Ram is always completely stoic. He doesn’t get upset or emotional or caught up over anything.

But right now, he really, really wants to go after that dragon.

And I know why. He hopes it’s a girl dragon. Or even if it’s a boy dragon, he hopes maybe it could lead him to a potential wife.

In my head, theoretically, I’ve always known all my siblings wanted to find mates. But seeing it now, the strain on my brother’s face, the way he watches the dragon fly past and then stares after it in the direction it disappeared, the visible battle on Ram’s face as he fights the urge to fly after the creature—it gives me a new perspective. It’s like the difference between hungry and
starving
. There’s wanting-to-get-married and then there’s
wanting-to-get-married
.

And I almost feel a little like I’ve been missing the point this whole time.

But we’re almost to the lake already, and the guys have picked up their pace as the trees open up toward the lake and the walking is easier. Also I suspect Ram is hurrying because he hopes if he gets to the lake in time, he might catch another glimpse of the yellow dragon.

After a bit more walking the men reach the shore and lower the boat into the water, hopping in from atop the highest rocks, just out of the reach of the grasping hands of the water yagi.

It’s completely dark out now, as dark as it can get in the middle of the Siberian night.

“Let’s walk around toward the north shore,” my mother suggests. “But we’ll have to be careful not to spook the fiery dragon.”

The men are preparing the camera and grasping the oars, soon to push off, and I feel this frantic sense that I’m not ready for them to leave yet. I’m not ready for Ed to go in the water, to face the teeming yagi, not yet.

“Are you sure that’s wise? Maybe we should just go in the boat, too.” I suggest, in a voice loud enough for the men to hear.

Ed looks back at me with surprise. “The lake’s full of yagi.” He knows I’m afraid of them, and it’s clear in his voice he can’t fathom why I’d want any closer to them.

“I know.” What I don’t say—what I can’t bring myself to say, is that Ed’s on the boat, so that’s where I want to be, never mind that the lake is teeming with creatures bred to kill me.

For a long moment, Ed and I look at each other in silence. I’m wrestling with all the unspoken things I don’t know how to say, and he’s giving me that patient look that says he’s waited six hundred years to hear me speak, and he’ll wait as long as it takes.

Yes, he has a real look for that.

We’re in the midst of this silent communication when a streak like a shooting star lights the woods on the far side of the lake, and the yellow dragon rises up above the trees, flying swiftly south, nearly over our heads and on into the distance.

My brother Ram kicks his shoes off.

“What are you doing?” my dad asks.

“I’ve got to go after it.”

“But Felix is after it,” my mother notes. Sure enough, I see my little brother’s scarlet-red form rise up from the north shore, into the air, and past us as he flies after the dragon.

“I’ve got to go,” Ram says again. “I wasn’t going to be much help with this project. You’ll be fine.” He looks after the red light that is Felix, already growing small in the distance. “I’ve got to go.”

He leaps into the air, morphing into the form of an indigo-blue dragon, and flying after the other two.

“Well.” My father’s lips form a thin line. “Eudora’s not likely to miss that show. Let’s get moving.”

“Maybe I should come in the boat,” I volunteer. “Now that Ram’s gone?”

My mother’s hiding a hint of smile. “I think that’s a fine idea. I’m still going to tromp around to the northern shore and see if I can’t find out what’s become of Zilpha and Jala.”

I think she thinks I just want to be in the boat because of Ed, so of course she’s encouraging that. Maybe there’s something to her theory, but that’s the least of my concerns right now. I’ve
got
to get in the boat. And quickly. We need to destroy the water yagi before Eudora shows up to investigate how her fiery dragon got chased away.

Clambering out onto one of the high rocks, I reach for Ed. He takes secure hold of my wrists and I clasp his as well. Rather than think about the yagi swarming beneath my feet, I gaze into Ed’s eyes—into the steady, timeless eyes of a dragon, the first dragon I’ve ever known outside of my own family. Something inside my heart swells with the joy of knowing and being known.

I step into the boat. Ed holds me with one arm, steady against his solid body, while he uses his other hand to lever the oar, helping my father push the boat away from the rocks.

“Settle in, now. It’s no time fer an accident,” Ed warns me once we’re safely away from the rocks. He keeps hold of my arm until I’m safely seated. Then he and my dad row out to the northern end of the lake, their oars heaving through the churning water, moving the boat forward at a rapid clip.

Their rhythm slows as we reach the northern end of the lake. I’ve been fiddling with the camera equipment, doing what I can to ready it to watch Ed’s progress. I’m really not comfortable with what he’s about to do. I mean, I know we need to destroy the operation that makes the water yagi. And we need to do it soon. And Ed’s really the best man for the job, maybe the only man.

It’s just that he’s doing it
for me
. He wouldn’t even have known about the water yagi if I hadn’t told him. He only ever investigated them in the first place because he knew they scared me. Then there’s that whole part where he could die an ugly, nasty death, being eaten alive by these unnatural creatures.

So I guess it only makes sense I’m not comfortable with what’s about to happen.

Ed, however, doesn’t falter. He shucks off his shoes and in a moment is stripped to his kilt, ready to go.

He is so gorgeous.

While Ed prepares to get in the water, my dad starts lowering the camera equipment into place. I’m holding the small monitor, and now it lights up with a view of the creatures beneath us. I can see the outline of the cave or underwater stream or whatever it is that Ed thinks the creatures are coming from. It’s a murky outline with only darkness beyond. And Ed’s going to go there.

I don’t like it.

“All ready then?” Ed asks, his body poised as though he’s about to dive in.

“It’s so dangerous,” I admit, almost in spite of myself.

“It’s got to be done,” Ed reminds me patiently.

“But what if something happens to you?”

Ed shrugs. “I’ve lived a long life. Donna suppose the world would much miss me.”

His words are so blunt, so unexpected, for a moment I’m too stunned to even know how to reply.

And then he dives into the water.

That’s it. No good-bye, or reassurances, or anything. I mean, I guess my dad gave Ed a sharp nod, kind of like a signal that everything was ready. And, granted, we weren’t getting anywhere with our conversation, not any further than we’ve ever gotten, but still.

He’s gone and he might never come back, and I’m not okay with that.

Something desperate heaves inside of me.

Ed! Where is Ed? Is he okay?

I study the small screen in my hands, which is now my last link to Ed. My dad trained the camera toward the cave opening, and there he is. Ed is swimming. I can see clearly as he swims—in Loch Ness Monster form—swiftly toward the cave opening, then through, and out of sight.

“Now what?” I ask as my father, who watched Ed’s progress on the screen from over my shoulder, sits down on the row boat bench seat beside me.

“Now we wait.”

I’m not satisfied with his answer.

“Do you think he’ll be okay?”

“He’s got a better chance of succeeding than anyone else.” My dad states succinctly. That’s his way. He doesn’t make false promises or offer hollow platitudes. And while his assessment is, I’m sure, correct, it still offers me little reassurance.

We sit there in silence for what feels like forever, and my concern grows. I need Ed to survive, to come back to me.

I need Ed.

But all I see on the screen are writhing water yagi. Nor is there any sign of activity elsewhere. At one point I think I catch a glimpse of my mom through the trees on the north shore of the lake, near the cave, but it’s wicked dark out, so who knows?