Ran off. That’s what Nicky says. A week before the fire. Couldn’t take it. The recession and all. No Job. No hope.
Mama says it won’t be forever, but I say he died. I can deal with it that way.
And besides, we don’t want him back.
So we got ready to head for Grandma’s farm up in the valley, with only the clothes we’d been wearing; our cat, Tambourine; and Mama’s track medals, all fused together. She found them when the firefighters let us go back upstairs to sort through things. Nicky grabbed a souvenir, too. His old basketball. It was flat and blackened, like a pancake someone left on the stove too long.
I looked around and there was nothing I wanted to take. Nothing. All that I cared about had made it through the fire: Mama, Nicky, and Tam. It was as if we could start afresh and all the rest of it had been burned away. But as we were going down the stairs—the iron stairs, not the wooden ones inside, which were all gone—I saw the most surprising thing. On the thirteenth step up from the bottom, tucked against the riser, was a nest. It was unburnt, unmarked, the straw that held it the rubbed-off gold of a wheat field. A piece of red string ran through it, almost as if it had been woven on a loom. In the nest was a single egg.
It didn’t look like any egg I’d ever seen before, not dull white or tan like the eggs from the store. Not even a light blue like the robin’s egg I’d found the one summer we’d spent with Grandma at the farm. This was a shiny, shimmery gray-green egg with a red vein—the red thread—cutting it in half.
“Look!” I called out. But Mama and Nicky were already in the car, waiting. So without thinking it all the way through—like, what was I going to do with an egg, and what about the egg’s mother, and what if it broke in the car or, worse, hatched—I picked it up and stuck it in the pocket of my jacket. Then, on second thought, I took off the jacket and made a kind of nest of it, and carefully carried the egg and my jacket down the rest of the stairs.
When I got into the car, it was the very first time I had ever ridden in the back all alone without complaining. And all the way to the farm, I kept the jacket-nest and its egg in my lap. All the way.
Grandma welcomed us, saying, “I’m not surprised. Didn’t I tell you?” Meaning that Daddy wasn’t with us. She and Mama didn’t fight over it, which was a surprise on its own. Neighbors of Grandma’s had collected clothes for us. It made us feel like refugees, which is an awkward feeling that makes you prickly and cranky most of the time. At least that’s how I felt until I found a green sweater that exactly matches my eyes and Nicky found a Grateful Dead T-shirt. There were no shoes Mama’s size. And no jobs nearby, either.
I stashed the egg in its jacket-nest on the dresser Mama and I shared. Nicky, being the only boy, got his own room. Mama never said a word about the egg. It was like she didn’t even see it. I worried what she’d say if it began to smell.
But the days went by and the egg never did begin to stink. We got settled into our new school. I only thought about Daddy every other day. And I found, a best friend right away. Nicky had girls calling him after dinner for the first time. So we were OK.
Mama wasn’t happy, though. She and Grandma didn’t exactly quarrel, but they didn’t exactly get along, either. Being thankful to someone doesn’t make you like them. And since Mama couldn’t find a job, they were together all day long.
Then one evening my new best friend, Ann Marie, was over. We were doing homework together up in my room. It was one of those coolish evenings and the windows were closed, but it was still pretty bright outside, considering.
Ann Marie suddenly said, “Look! Your egg is cracking open.”
I looked up and she was right. We hadn’t noticed anything before, because the crack had run along the red line. When I put my finger on the crack, it seemed to pulse.
“Feel that!” I said.
Ann Marie touched it, then jerked back as if she had been burned. “I’m going home now,” she said.
“But, Ann Marie, aren’t you the one who dragged me to see all those horror movies and—”
“Movies aren’t real,” she said. She grabbed up her books and ran from the room.
I didn’t even say good-bye. The egg had all my attention, for the gray-green shell seemed to be taking little breaths, pulsing in and out, in and out, like a tiny brittle ocean. Then the crack widened, and as if there were a lamp inside, light poured out.
Nicky came in then, looking for some change on the dresser.
“Neat!” he said when he saw the light. “Do you know what kind of bird it’s going to be? Did you look it up in Dad—” And then he stopped, because all of Daddy’s books had been burned up. Besides, we didn’t mention him anymore. And since we hadn’t heard from him at all, it was like he really was dead.
“No,” I said. “And I don’t think it’s any ordinary bird that you would find in an ordinary book.”
“A lizard, you think?”
Never taking my eyes off the egg, I shook my head. How stupid could he be? With that light coming out? A dragon, maybe. Then the phone rang downstairs and he ran out of the room, expecting, I guess, that it would be Courtney or Brittany or another of his girlfriends named after spaniels. Talking to them was more important to him than my egg.
But I continued to watch. I was the only one watching when it hatched. How such a large bird got into such a small egg, I’ll never know. But that’s magic for you. It rose slowly out of the egg, pushing the top part of the shell with its golden head. Its beak was golden, too, and curved like one of those Arabian swords. Its eyes were hooded and dark, without a center. When it stared at me, I felt drawn in.
The bird gave a sudden kind of shudder and humped itself farther out of the egg, and its wings were blue and scarlet and gold, all shimmery, like some seashells when they’re wet. It shook out its wings, and they were wide enough to touch from one side of the dresser to the other, the individual feathers throwing off sparkles of light.
Another shudder, and the bird stood free of the egg entirely, though a piece of shell still clung to the tip of one wing. I reached over and freed it, and it seared my fingers—the touch of the feather, not the shell. The bird’s scarlet body and scaly golden feet pulsed with some kind of heat.
“What are you?” I whispered, then stuck my burnt fingers in my mouth to soothe them.
If the bird could answer me, it didn’t; it just pumped its wings, which seemed to grow wider with each beat. The wind from them was a Santa Ana, hot and heavy and thick.
I ran to the window and flung it wide, holding the curtain aside.
The bird didn’t seem to notice my effort, but still it flew unerringly outside. I saw it land once on a fencepost; a second time, on the roof of Grandma’s barn. Then it headed straight toward the city, the setting sun making a fire in its feathers.
When I couldn’t see it anymore, I turned around. The room smelled odd—like the ashes of a fire, but like something else, too. Cinnamon, maybe. Or doves.
I heard the doorbell. It rang once, then a second time. Grandma and Mama were off visiting a neighbor. Nicky was still on the phone. I ran down the stairs and flung the door wide open.
Daddy was standing there, a new beard on his face and a great big Madame Alexander doll in his arms.
“I got a job, baby. In Phoenix. And a house rented. With a real backyard. I didn’t know about the fire, I didn’t know where you all had gone. My letters came back and the phone didn’t connect and...”
“Daddy!” I shouted, and he dropped the box to scoop me up against his chest. As I snuggled my face against his neck, I smelled that same smell: ashes and cinnamon, maybe doves. Where my burnt fingers tangled in his hair they hurt horribly.
Grandma would be furious. Nicky and Mama might be, too. But I didn’t care. There’s dead. And there’s not.
Sometimes it’s better to rise up out of the ashes, singing.
Sea Dragon of Fife
WE FOUND the monster near McBridey’s well on Sunday, after the long kirk service in which Re
verend Dougal preached against the dangers of the sea. He preaches that one at least twice a year, and most parishioners never tire of it.
The monster wasn’t much, as monsters go. A couple of horns, a snubbed snout, nine stubby talons—one was missing, probably torn off in a fight—and a tail with three barbs, all quite worn. But as it was the only monster discovered in Fife this spring, we had to track him.
He died early Monday morning, not from his wounds but from the lack of a blood meal. We had tracked him to his lair by the trail of ichor, but we did not dare go in. We just waited him out, knowing that a hungry monster goes quite quickly. One minute snarling and swearing in his monster tongue, and the next minute dead. It’s never pretty, but it’s lucky for us; otherwise we’d be overrun with monsters. When we heard the thud in his cave, we waited another hour just to be sure. Then McBridey himself crawled in and stuck a good stout Anster hook in the beast. We towed him out to sea, trawling for a certain sea dragon.
It was Angus McLeod’s wife, Annie, who baited the lines for us, sitting on the stone stairs in front of their house and smoking her day pipe. A braw woman, that, not a bit afraid of any land monster, though even dead it was quite a fright. Most of the women in the titles would have run screaming from it. But Annie was a fisherman’s wife and had seen a lot in her life. Besides, she’d just that spring lost her two oldest sons to a great sea dragon, one of the ferocious deep-sea meat-eaters. They’d been plucked off their father’s Zulu in front of his disbelieving eyes. Annie was not about to lose Robert, her twelve-year-old, who was next off to sea. She wanted that dragon caught and cooked. So she baited the hook with as much ease as she baited the sma’ lines with mussels for her husband’s boat. Not a blink out of her, not over the monster’s horns or snout or talons or barbed tail. All the while the smoke from her pipe curled about her head like a halo.
"Done,” Annie said, standing and stretching. Like all the McLeods, she was never one for excess conversation.
We loaded the bait monster into McLeod’s own Zulu and the little boat wallowed a bit under the weight, but it was no heavier than a load of haddock, I suppose. And then we were off, the red sails floating nicely on a flanny wind, with its soft and unexpected breezes. Annie waved to us from shore, her other hand tight on young Robert. He was pulling away from her a bit. Twelve is big enough for a man, but she was not about to let him go till that dragon was dead.
It was a mackerel sky, so we didn’t need much sail. Still, a Zulu’s red sail can look like a banner, and so we flew it to signal that dragon we were coming. It looked a bit like the old clan banners the Highland men hoisted when they went off to fight at Sterling and at Bannockburn. Lord, we were sure of ourselves. Besides, we’d our guns with us, and a couple of harpoons as well. And a barrel of gunpowder. We would not be snatched up, like McLeod’s two boys, without a fight.
But we had to come home early, the bait taken—snubbed snout, nine talons, and all. And not so much as a dragon’s claw to show for it. McLeod was in a foul mood, for the dragon had taken not only the bait but a bit of his red sail as well. He was as “thrawn as a wulf,” so his wife said when we landed, meaning he was contrary and angry and not to be fooled with. He snapped at her and she threw a bit of netting at him. So he took himself off to the pub and did not come home until the wee hours of the morning.
Annie knew better than to wait up for him. But she should have stayed awake on account of Robert. That boy had been growing in leg and thigh and heart since his brothers’ deaths, and he would not be treated like a bairn, a child, anymore. He had madę up his mind. He was stubborn, like all the McLeods.
When the old man came home from the pub past midnight, his Zulu was gone. And gone, too, was young Robert.
Annie was weeping on the shore in the moonlight, crying, ‘‘Robert, Robert...” and even occasionally “Robin..." which was the bairn’s name she had had for him. Her skirt was kilted up and soaking wet, for she had been in the sea after him... But he had never looked back, not even to wave. He did not dare. He was afraid if he saw his mam crying and calling for him, it would unman him, or so he said later.
He had gone without bait, except for his own self, and with no help at the oars but the good Lord above. He’d gone to get that brother-killing dragon or die.
McLeod tried to bring Annie inside but she continued to weep on the shore till all of Anster was awake. And then didn’t all the women weep with her, for there was not a one of them in Anster who didn’t count the boy gone for good.
“If he is lucky,” McAllister said, “he’ll be drowned first.” He didn’t say “and eaten after,” but we were surely all thinking it.
At first light we went out in three swift Fifies to look for him, but no trace of boy or boat did we find. So we had to return home to mourn him like his brothers, with McLeod and his Annie weeping in one another’s arms on the pier. A weeping man is a sore sight indeed. But we were too soon with our burial, though we didn’t know it then. And what we would hear from Robert after was a story indeed.
Robert had sailed north and then west till the wind dropped like a gannet into the water. He just sat there in the Zulu, becalmed, with nothing to do except to think. He was remembering his older brothers, Jamie and Matthew, who had been his idols, the two of them as alike as twins though a year or more apart. They both had had sweethearts in Anster, fisher lassies who had not taken their loss with any ease, but still came to the cottage and sat with his mam and talked of Jamie and Matthew as if the boys were somehow still alive.
It did not occur to Robert as he sat in the dark on the ocean that he, too, would most likely die there in the dragon’s great maw. Lads that age have no fear in them, even fisher lads who have the sea in their bones. He rowed a bit, then rested, then rowed a bit more.
When the sun came up, he was far from sight of land. The sky was first red, then blue, above him, the water black below. Robert had been out on the water from the time he had been a babe in arms, but never this far out on his own. Still, he trusted his own skills and his father’s little Zulu, it being sturdy and competent like himself. The sun had warmed him by then, so he took off his oilskin. His jersey was coat enough. And it was that small thing that saved him. The Lord’s ways, as Reverend Dougal likes to say, are as unfathomable as the deepest part of the sea.
No sooner had Robert shrugged off his coat and set it on a hook on the mast then a snaky green head and neck, as tall as the mast itself, lifted out of the sea and ripped the oilskin from its resting place. Used to men in their coats being a soft prey, the dragon had mistaken skin for man. Its great hinged jaws, fringed with rows of teeth, opened and closed on the slick coat and carried it triumphantly back into the sea.
Now, Robert was a quick lad—though no quicker than Matthew or Jamie, just luckier. As soon as he had gotten over his startle, he grabbed up the threaded gaffing hook and leaped over the side of the boat after the beast. Though he had never been a horse rider, knowing only the white mares of the sea—those great waves that break on the East Neuk shore—he landed astride the sea dragon’s neck and knew enough to hold tight with his thighs and grab ‘round with his arms. The sea dragon’s scales were as cold and as slippery with foam as a fish’s, and the edges of each scale sharp as a honed knife. In the sun the dragon glowed with iridescence, like a hundred sharpened rainbows under him.
Robert had but a moment to be frightened at what he had just done. And a moment to realize that his legs and palms were being slivered. Then he remembered his brothers, whose bodies had never been found.
“You great lump of putrescence!” he cried. “You murthering, heathenish fish!” It was a long speech for a McLeod. Paying no attention to his own wounds, he reared back, holding on to the neck with his legs and one hand, and set the hook with all his might into the monster’s glistening eye.
The pain of that must have been something horrendous, for the dragon screamed, a sound so loud it was heard all the way to Arbroath, where the fishermen mistook it for a foghor
n though the day was fully dear of the haar, the sea mist.
The dragon tossed its head back and forth, its scales now aglitter with green blood as well as foam. Robert was flung off on the third toss, but luck held him again in its fist, and he landed against the Zulu’s bow. Climbing back into the boat, he realized he still had the rope end of the hook in his hand. This he made fast three times around the mast, then he tied it with his father’s best knot. Then he sank down, exhausted and bleeding from a hundred small cuts.
But there was no time to rest or to tend his wounds for, in its agony, the sea dragon had headed down to its watery lair. And if it had gone all the way, that would have been the end—of Zulu and Robert, both. But the hook—luck three times—had caught up under the monster’s eyebone, and the pain when the rope had pulled tight was so great that the dragon gave up its dive and turned back to the water’s surface, where it fell onto the flat of the sea. There it began to swim, paddling awkwardly—for it was a deep-sea creature—into the east end of the firth, tail and flippers lashing the water into a froth that bubbled onto the beaches as far west as Queens-ferry, and upsetting a bevy of pleasure boats out for the day.
Of course it dragged the little Zulu behind, with the exhausted Robert hanging on to the gunnels in terror. But there was nothing he could do except pray.
The morning and afternoon sped by and night was coming on, and the dragon kept swimming westward, towing the boat and Robert in its wake.
They passed the Isle of May after dark, startling puffins off their nests, then circled three times around Bass Rock, and all the while that dragon tried to rid itself of its unwanted cargo. Then it headed back east again and out to the open sea.
That hook, made of cold iron, held fast in the fey creature’s head. The Zulu, being of good East Neuk make, did not break up. And Robert, like a true Scot, went from terror to anger to cool courage. His wounds stopped bleeding and scabbed over; his heart scabbed over, too. He became a man on that first night, and something even greater by dawn.