Jeremy passed beyond the curtain, into a place unlike anything he had ever seen before. The walls, if they were walls, seemed to be made of nothing but mist. A dim light suffused the area. In the middle crouched Tiamat. She looked frightened.
Jeremy was frightened, too. Frightened by the strangeness of the place, by what he knew was about to happen. But he could not turn back. Crossing to Tiamat, he put his arms about her neck and laid his head against hers.
I shall miss you so, he told her.
She nodded, and sent him an image of a crystal breaking in half.
"Now step away," said Mr. Elives crossly.
"I love you, Tiamat," whispered Jeremy. He stumbled back and watched as Miss Priest and Mr. Elives assembled the sticks and the strips of skin into a circle on the ground. They scattered the bits of eggshell across it. Mr. Elives gestured, and the circle tipped up, until it formed a glowing gate. The bits of eggshell floated within the circle, shining like distant stars.
"The time has come, milady," said Miss Priest softly.
Tiamat stepped forward. Jeremy could feel her slipping away from him. He closed his eyes. Don't go! he thought desperately. Don't go!
Suddenly Jeremy felt like he was being torn in half. He cried out. As he did, he heard an answering squeal of pain. Opening his eyes he saw an awful sight. Tiamat, half in the circle and half out, was shaking with terrible spasms. Light sparked and flashed around her.
"Something's holding her!" cried Miss Priest.
Mr. Elives turned to Jeremy. "Let her go, you little fool!" he shouted. "Let her go!"
Miss Priest ran to Jeremy's side. "Let her go, Hatcher," she cried. "She'll die, trapped between two worlds. If you love her, you have to let her go."
A great sob tore from Jeremy's throat. Go! he thought. Go home!
And then it was over. Tiamat was gone, and the place where they stood was plunged into darkness.
Miss Priest wrapped Jeremy in her cloak and guided him back into the shop.
"The side door will get you home more quickly," she said. Then, bending close to his ear, she whispered, "Be brave, Dragon Hatcher. Nothing you love is ever really lost."
Jeremy barely realized he had left the shop, until he found himself only a few blocks from home. The fog was gone, the full moon once more clear in the sky.
A warm wind whispered around him and the leaves overhead rustled with secrets. Jeremy didn't listen. Moaning, he stumbled to a tree and pressed his head against it.
Tiamat was gone.
Clutching the rough bark, he began to sob.
Epilogue
The summer dragged by in a blur of emptiness. Jeremy watched Specimen paint the window of Zambreno's Department Store. Although Specimen invited him to help, Jeremy couldn't bring himself to lift a brush. He hadn't done a bit of art since Midsummer Night.
Fat Pete returned in July, wearing a new scar and crankier than ever.
Howard and Freddy whispered to each other whenever they saw Jeremy in the park. But they stayed away from him, as they had ever since Jeremy and Tiamat had chased Freddy away.
Mary Lou, who gave up trying to talk to him, watched with sorrowful eyes as he moved further and further into himself.
His parents grew increasingly worried. When his mother asked, "Why don't you draw anymore, sweetheart?" as she did on several occasions, Jeremy only shrugged. He didn't know how to explain; he couldn't even explain it to himself.
He did not go back to the library, either. He didn't want to see Miss Priest. Not that he blamed her for the loss of Tiamat—at least, not much. He just didn't want to see her.
In August she sent him a note, telling him he could have the book she had loaned him. "It's not a library book," she wrote. "Rather, it is from my private collection. Keep it, as a thank-you for your efforts."
He thought often of the words she had whispered to him the night that Tiamat left. "Midsummer Night will break your heart, All Hallow's Eve may patch it."
What was that supposed to mean, anyway? Time heals everything? Big deal. He knew he would get over this, sooner or later. In a way. But nothing could convince him that life would ever be the same as it had been when he had had a dragon.
Summer came to an end. He started seventh grade, which meant a new school and new teachers. He moved through the halls as if he were just visiting, never becoming a part of it. He carried Tiamat's tear with him wherever he went.
In October, his parents decided to have a party.
"An old-fashioned Halloween party," said his father, trying to inspire some enthusiasm in Jeremy. "We'll have a bonfire in the field, fresh cider, real costumes—no store-bought stuff allowed!"
Jeremy smiled grimly, and helped with the preparations. His father lit the bonfire with great ceremony, announcing they were celebrating a night when magic was let loose upon the world.
"It's beautiful, isn't it?" asked Mary Lou, walking up to stand beside him. She was dressed like a witch.
Jeremy shrugged. The leaping flames reminded him of Tiamat. It hurt to watch them.
Several other kids from school were at the party, too. Jeremy said hello to each of them, but not much else. His eyes were continually drawn back to the bonfire. As he watched the dancing flames he felt something struggling to break free inside him.
To his surprise, Miss Priest was at the party.
"Your mother invited me," she murmured, when she saw him at the refreshment table. "I hope you don't mind."
He shook his head numbly. But when he got a chance, he fled to the barn. Crawling into the stall where Tiamat had stayed, he pulled the diamond tear from his pocket and began to weep. His eyes burned, and his throat felt like it was on fire.
The weeping passed like a storm. Lying on the straw, he stared into the darkness, listening to the noises of the party outside. He was drifting off to sleep when a swirl of color flowed through his head.
Shivering, he sat up. Suddenly the nearly forgotten scar where Tiamat's tooth had pierced his palm began to throb. Sweat poured off his brow. He felt like someone had pounded a wedge into the back of his skull and was trying to lift off the top.
He clawed at the stall wall in a panic, until, suddenly, he understood what was happening. Tiamat was back!
"Ti?" he called. "Ti, where are you?"
Here! she whispered inside his head.
He spun around. She was nowhere in sight.
He turned again. Where are you? he thought desperately, terrified by the idea that he had lost the ability to see her.
Here, she repeated. Right here with you.
Finally he understood. She was not back in this world; she was still in her own world, where she belonged. But she was back inside his head.
Even better, he was inside her head. He was seeing through her eyes, feeling through her skin.
What he saw was a world filled with dragons.
What he felt was big.
We are big! announced Tiamat happily. Then she spread her wings—his wings—their wings, and threw herself from the edge of a cliff. Jeremy's heart lurched with fear. But the leathery wings caught an updraft, and with a sudden rush Tiamat began to soar upward.
Jeremy looked down from a dizzying height. The air was filled with dragons—great beasts of power and majesty, creatures with jeweled eyes and burnished skins. He caught another current of hot air in his wings and spiraled upward, looking out over a world of ferocious beauty. High volcanic mountains capped with plumes of smoke and ash were feeding fire to the sky. Dragons soared and wheeled above and between the mountains, spiraling up on
the currents of hot air that filled their leathery wings, like sparks spiraling up from a bonfire.
The world of the dragons.
Tiamat's world.
And now, suddenly, his world, too.
I missed you, he thought to Tiamat.
Arid I you, she replied. She said it in his mind, and she said it out loud, and when she spoke it was with a tongue of fire. Her flames curled through the sky,
and in them he read the promise that he could return to this world every night. When he dreamed, he would dream of dragons. With Tiamat he would slither into jewel-studded caves, soar through ash-dark skies, and study ancient mysteries.
Fire in his eyes, Jeremy rejoined the party. When Miss Priest saw him she smiled. Reaching into her cape, she withdrew a ring and slipped it onto her left hand. In the light of the bonfire, Jeremy could see that the stone set in the ring's top was a tear-shaped diamond. He raised a questioning eyebrow, looking more like his father than he would have guessed.
Miss Priest smiled and nodded, and touched her lips with her finger. Then she turned and vanished into the night.
The next morning, Jeremy went to his desk. Humming contentedly, he arranged his pencils in front of him. Then he took out some paper—and began to draw.
A Note from the Author
"I desired dragons," J. R. R. Tolkien once wrote, and it seems he was not the only one. There is some powerful pull about these great creatures, something that sings to the imagination.
In one very real sense, I wrote about Jeremy and Tiamat because, like Professor Tolkien, I desired dragons. Yet I must confess that when I started the story, I had no idea how much dragon I was actually going to get. The truth is, I thought "The Dragon's Egg" (as I originally planned to call this tale) was going to be a short story. But I tend to get carried away—which is why Jeremy Thatcher, Dragon Hatcher ended up a novel.
I originally had the idea for this tale back in 1982, shortly after publishing The Monster's Ring, the first book to feature Mr. Elives' magic shop. I liked the store so much (basically, it's the magic shop I wanted to find when I was a kid myself) that I thought it would be fun to write other stories that sprang from a youngster buying one of Mr. Elives' unusual items. My plan was to make a book of such yarns, to be called Tales from the Magic Shop. Brainstorming one October afternoon, I came up with about a dozen things one might buy in the shop.
The thing is, every time I tried to write one of these ideas, it would get out of hand. Before I could finish the first version of "The Dragon's Egg," I could tell it was going to be much longer than I had intended. Still clinging to my first deluded notion, I started dividing it into chapters, thinking it could be the anchor story for the collection, maybe thirty or forty or fifty pages long.
But no, it insisted on being a book, or at least book length. And since I didn't have a publisher for it at that point, and had other books I was obligated to write, I set it aside. There it might have stayed— unfinished, unknown, and unloved—had not my friend Jane Vol en called one day to tell me Harcourt had engaged her to edit a new line of fantasy novels.
"If you could write a book like The Monster's Ring for me, that would be great," she said, litde knowing that I was longing to return to the world of Mr. Elives' magic shop!
That this book has been as successful as it has is in no small part due to Jane's editorial pushing and advice. For example, the first version ended with Jeremy saying good-bye to Tiamat outside Mr. Elives' shop, instead of going behind the counter with her. And she was no bigger than a dog when she had to return to her own world—partly because I hadn't figured out how Jeremy could cope with her if she got any bigger. (No night flights for Jeremy in that ver
sion!) Jane wisely pushed me to do more. In the end, it took thirteen drafts to get to the book you are now holding.
Strange as it might seem, research was an important part of the process. I believe fantasy like this works best—feels more real—when it is grounded in folk tradition. Therefore, much of the dragon lore in this book comes from tales and stories told about dragons over the centuries. For example, while having Tiamat be invisible to everyone except Jeremy and Mary Lou was an easy solution to the problem of how to keep people from finding out about her when she got bigger (a problem I didn't have until the later drafts, obviously!), it was not until I found an old French tale with a dragon who was only visible to some people that I felt comfortable using it. The milk trick, too, comes from the old lore. Other things—such as the use of Tiamat's teeth and skin to create the door that would return her to the world of the dragons—were my own invention. That's part of the fun of doing something like this: building on what has come before.
Another part of the fun is finding out how many others there were like me—others who also desired dragons.
May your hearts take wing!
Bruce Coville, Jeremy Thatcher, Dragon Hatcher: A Magic Shop Book
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