The Dragonstones Trilogy

“It will be okay.” Daddy said, although his face told a different story.

“Daddy, what’s going on?”

“Nothing you need to worry about.” Her dad reached into his coat pocket and drew out a necklace, or what Sara thought was a necklace. In the dark, large blue stones glowed happily and bright, despite the worried tension filling the air.

“I need you to keep this safe for me. Can you do that?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Now, go hide!” Daddy’s voice had an urgency in it.

Sara found Mommy on the couch. She had heard the whole exchange. “Where’s your secret hiding spot?” She asked Sara.

Wordlessly, Sara let her mother to the computer room. She didn’t know how her mommy would fit. The room was bathed in a warm glow for a second, then returned to its previous darkness. Sara felt a plate land in her lap. A small voice told Sara to hide. Even though she couldn’t tell where it was coming from, Sara could tell it was her mom’s. Sara could sense danger building, becoming something tangible.

She squeezed into the small space behind the computer, and waited. Sara didn’t know what she was waiting for, but she waited. The necklace she had been holding glowed brighter. Sara could see the plate near her foot. Had her mom turned into a plate?

Sara heard the front door opening, and sat on the necklace to hide its light. She heard footsteps, and was it darker than usual?

Someone came into the room where Sara and her mom were hiding. A man with pale skin starred at the spot she hid behind. Dark energy seemed to ooze from him, like he was the source of it. No, not dark energy, dark magic. After what seemed like forever, he left. Some other people dressed entirely in black dragged in something heavy. Sara heard muffled grunts and curses.

Sara peered through the wires. The thing they had been dragging was her dad. Something dark splashed onto the carpet. Sara hoped it wasn’t blood. Daddy looked at Sara. His eyes showed some fear, but mostly hatred towards his attackers.

“Where is it?” the man oozing blackness asked. His face showed he had little patience. Daddy said nothing. “It’s not on you. Did you give it to your wife, who is in this room?” Daddy’s breathing sped up.

“Or maybe it is with your daughter,” the man said thoughtfully. Daddy stopped breathing. The man motioned, and his team started toward Sara. When they were almost upon her, something blue tackled them.

A dragon, blue scales shining, savagely clawed and bit the men. Sara covered her eyes, trying not to look. A sudden thought came to her. What about Daddy? Had the dragon gotten him? Panicked, Sara looked at the spot where her father had been.

He was not there. The dragon now stood triumphantly over its prey. It turned to look at Sara. Strangely, Sara felt no fear. The eyes were her father’s. They told her everything words could not. Sara realized that he was injured, maybe even fatally.

The man oozing black had watched from the corner of the room, and Sara had forgotten about him until now. His raspy voice stated, “You have it. I can feel it.” He wasn’t talking to Daddy, though. He was talking to Sara.

Sara looked around frantically for someplace to hide, some way to disappear. She could sense the malice coming from him as well as she heard his voice. Daddy growled, and got ready to pounce. With one small gesture, a black cloud enveloped Daddy. Daddy shook his head and roared in frustration. Use the necklace, Sara. Sara heard Daddy’s voice in her head. “What do you mean?” she asked him.

After an eternity that lasted a second, his eyes rolled back, and his breathing stopped. Even from where she was, Sara could see the change. Daddy was dead. He collapsed onto the floor, his eyes dead and lifeless, his scales losing their color.

The man oozing black was unmoved by what had happened. Almost greedily, he stepped toward Sara. He was literally drooling. A string of spit fell to the floor. Sara was almost hysterical. What had Daddy meant? Use the necklace. Maybe she should wear it. Sara reached down and picked up the glowing necklace. She struggled with the clasp, but got it on. The man’s steps faltered, and horror colored his face as the necklace glowed brighter and brighter. A song filled the room, a tune Sara had never heard before. Sara looked down, at the necklace, surprised. Sara felt herself changing. She looked down at her hands. They were covered in green scales and claws. Sara stood up on all fours, and starred at the man.

The room was now completely blue, leaving shadows nowhere left to hide. The light almost hurt Sara’s eyes. The only thing out of place was the man who had killed Daddy. His face showed raw fear. Sara ran toward him, and savagely clawed, bit, and kicked him. Sara didn’t know why she was doing it. Something told her it was the only way to protect herself. Sara would always remember his scream when he shrieked, “No!” before he dissolved into the shadows. Sara felt sick. Had she just killed that guy? Granted, he was trying to kill her, but five-year-old Sara had never taken a life before.

After that, it all went black. Sara woke up in her bed. Mommy was sitting near her. “Mommy, what happened?” She asked, just before remembering the night’s events. She felt near her neck for the necklace that had somehow saved them. It wasn’t there. “Where’s the necklace?” she asked.

“What necklace?” Mommy asked with a perfectly straight face.

“The necklace that glows blue.”

“I’ve never seen a necklace like that.”

“Then what about the bad guy who disappeared when it glowed?”

“What bad guy? Are you sure you didn’t have a bad dream honey?”

“The bad guy that killed Daddy.”

“Daddy died a few days ago. He was really sick. He came home to say goodbye.” Daddy hadn’t seemed sick at all. “I’m sure you just had a bad dream. There were no glowing necklaces, no bad guys.”

“But you were a plate.”

“No. I was not. Now go to sleep,” Mommy said in exasperation. Sara knew better than to argue, but she also knew that it wasn’t a dream.

Sara woke up. It was still dark outside. Pale moonlight streamed through the window in her room. Something was wrong. Sara could sense it. She looked around. She didn’t see anything. Sara suddenly felt the stinging in her fingers that stated her body was transforming.

She looked down and saw her skin changing. The fangs were already out, and green scales were now her skin. Sara was almost expecting it. Sara looked up, and jumped, as she always did when she was startled.

He was there. Sara shook her head. She blinked, squeezing her eyes shut then opening them again. He was still there. Sara was sure she wasn’t imagining it. Standing at the foot of her bed was the man oozing blackness, the man who had invaded her nightmares for so long. He didn’t say or do anything, and when daylight timidly entered the room, he seemed to dissolve into the shadows. Sara could only stare. Sara wondered where he could have gone to. She shook her head. It was probably better not to ask.

Sara glanced down at herself and noted the green scales her hands were covered in. She hadn't changed back. If she had been a human, Sara would have sighed. She shook the covers off of herself and fell out of her bed. Two legs weren’t working very well, and Sara had to crawl on all fours to get to the bathroom. As she looked in the mirror, she realized that she looked like a dragon, just as those people had thought. A small, human sized dragon. Sara reminded herself of her suspicions that she was going crazy. This seemed to support the theory. She looked back into the mirror. She appeared to be a normal person again. A human, and she hadn’t felt anything change at all. Yep. She was going crazy.

Trying not to think about it, Sara did her hair, and started out the door, but felt like she was forgetting something. Her back and shoulders felt lighter than usual. Then Sara realized what she was missing. She had forgotten her backpack! Sara walked back inside, and made sure that she had all the essential school supplies. Sara almost laughed out loud at her forgetfulness.

The bus came on time today, and Sara noticed that there was a new bus driver. Sara hoped he was going to stay for a while. She could get used to being on time every day. At the next stop, James got on. Sara blinked. She hadn’t noticed him on the bus before. James’s hair was wet, and Sara looked out the bus window. It had started raining.

James made his way to the back of the bus, where Sara was sitting. His soggy shoes squeaked and squished with every step. When James was near her seat, he asked Sara, “It okay if I sit here?”

Sara nodded, and James sat down, the moisture from his clothes sinking into the seat. Sara noticed how loud the bus was, and chose to continue their conversation from before. “So, why did you glow yesterday?”

James looked at her in surprise, then laughed. “You didn’t forget? I knew there was a reason I felt drawn to you. I glowed because you were humming.”

“Why would my humming have anything to do with it?”

“Do you believe in magic?”

Sara struggled with herself for a minute. It was such a simple question. Either yes or no. Did she believe in magic? She was reminded of all the voices that had told her it was just a dream, that–

“There is no such thing as magic. There never was,” the school counselor said in exasperation. Five-year-old Sara was sitting in the school’s counseling office. When she had first met him, Sara had thought that he would believe her, if anyone would. Five months with over two visits a week later, it turned out that the counselor had a limited supply of patience for “nonsense,” as he called it.

“Yes there is,” Sara stubbornly insisted. “It killed Daddy.”

“No there is not!” the counselor insisted. He almost shouted the last word, startling Sara. She wanted to run away before she calmed down again. Sara felt pain in her hand. She looked down. Why were her hands different? Oh well, it didn’t matter. Sara held her hands in front of the counselor’s face. “See? Magic.” She said. She could tell from his face that he didn’t believe. “Your hands are very nice,” he said, his face showing no surprise at the claws in Sara’s hands. Now that she thought about it, his face hadn’t shown that he could see the claws at all.

Had she been crazy even then? Sara mentally shook herself and answered before she could stop herself. “Uh-yeah. I guess so.” She said.

“To simplify it, I can use magic through music. I can even get energy out of it. My one drawback is that I glow whenever I’m around it.” James’s face seemed to light up as he talked about something that should have been crazy, his eyes more than anything else. They were good eyes, a nice shade of blue. . .

The bus stopped at their school, and James was the first to get off. “Tell you more at lunch,” he said.

Sara felt a surge of annoyance that grew into irritation at James’s procrastinating. First “tomorrow,” and now it was “at lunch.” Grumbling, she got off the bus, and went to class.

When lunch break finally came, Sara was at her seat with only a banana. Sara figured that she would be so busy asking questions, she wouldn’t eat that much anyway. James located her, and sat down in his usual spot, acting perfectly normal.

Sara tried to wait for a few minutes, but it was James who spoke first. “You know that I can use magic now. Did you know that there are different kinds of magic?”

“It makes sense.”

“To start, there is light and dark magic. Both sides can do some pretty bad things, and dark magic is more prone to turning evil, but I do know of a few fairies that turned to the evil side.”

“Would dark magic include someone oozing blackness?” she blurted, before she had time to think the question over. Mentally she kicked herself. Why was she blurting out all the stupid stuff to James? He was going to think she’d lost it if she kept this up.

James looked up from his lunch. His blue eyes bored into hers, the blue of them both piercing and sincere. “Yeah,” he said. Sara could tell that he wanted to ask her how she knew anything about dark magic, but wanted to be polite. Sara was grateful for that. “Then,” he continued, “there are other ways to narrow down what magic you use.”

“I don’t use magic,” Sara said quickly.

“Hmm,” was all James said before he went on. “Anyway, those smaller things include how you channel your magic. All magic needs a channel. There are people who thrive on a certain thing, like me. Music and I get along pretty well, but others may respond to heat, a certain element, a condition of the weather, how others are feeling, and so on. Another smaller way is spells gestures, and incantations. These are the most limited, as you can only do so many things. After that are people who work with spirits. There are different degrees of that magic, but some spirit seers have become pretty powerful.”

“Is that it?”

“Pretty much. There are exceptions, but they are very rare, like so rare you’ll probably never see one in this lifetime.” James said.

“Why are you so eager to tell me all of this?”

“I like telling people about magic. It’s different to talk to someone who can actually see it for once.”

“Most people can’t see magic?”

“Well, they could if they tried. People see what they want to see.”

“What do you mean?”

“Most humans aren’t ready to face the truth that magic exists, so when they see magic, their brain comes up with what seems like a reasonable explanation for what they are seeing.” Sara remembered all of the people who had told her that magic didn’t exist. At least now, even if she was crazy, Sara wouldn’t be crazy alone.