When Dragons Lay PART 4 of 5
Rite of Passage: a Fantasy in 5 Parts
FROM PART 3:
At ground level, father and daughter witnessed only a swoosh that whistled by them, all but blurred and streaked and unidentifiable.
"What was that, Papa?"
That was me! Ezzie hurled at her, not knowing if their connection was reciprocal.
"Papa! Papa!" she cried. Someone's talking in my head! Am I bewitched from the thunderbolt?"
"No, no, add daft to your stupidity," he answered. "And more so from the loud crash so near. Mine ears ring, as well, but my brain's still there." And then again, "Just like your mama." He looked at her with disapproval, something to which she was immune by now. "Twenty years and you'll be long gone if you don't do it y'sef."
"Close the barn door," she pleaded, intending to put as much obstacle between her and the atmospheric witchcraft as she could. He laughed at her. She leapt forward to close it, then allowed a latch to trip, sealing them in.
"Is that better?" he asked her. "Can you be normal, now? Who am I kidding?" It was too much and the girl began crying. "Oh, God," he grumbled, "here we go again."
Tears welled up and then leaked from Ezzie's eyes.
The rain had now plateaued into a steady, mild sprinkling, as summer cloudbursts often do. The man and girl awaited a certain silence that would signal the storm was well past, allowing them to handle the animals without their getting spooked. The calm began to expand into quiet. The man reached for the door, but before grasping the latch, there was heard a knock. It was a firm, insistent knock, like a knock meant for someone specific behind it: someone who had better answer it; someone who--perhaps--owed someone an explanation.
He turned and looked at his daughter, accusingly, and she looked back at him blankly. "Who's that, Papa?"
"I dunno," he said with irritation. "Could be anybody. Not for you, I'm sure."
Me, that is who. So open this and show yourself!
The girl clasped the sides of her head. "Again! She speaks again!"
The man reached over her to unlatch the door, and its uneven threshold put it into motion on its own, complete with a descrescendo creak that ended to announce the young woman at the door.
"What sorcery is this?" Ezzie said out loud, looking at the young girl. (As young as she, as pretty as she, as tall as she, shaped the same.) "Wizardry places a mirror here," she said.
It was difficult to know who was the most astonished--Ezzie, the man, or his daughter. The man ran to the back of the barn and then returned with a pitchfork. "Be gone, doppelgänger!"
"It appears I belong here," Ezzie said. "No, that's wrong, isn't it? I...belonged here."
"Belonged?" the man's daughter asked.
"Shut your mouth, trollop!" the man commanded her.
"I am no trollop, Papa."
"No," said Ezzie. "You're a twin. My twin!" Ezzie turned to the man, likely her father.
The man dropped the pitchfork and collapsed onto the hay on the floor. He shook his head.
"Twinborns," Ezzie said to the girl. "You are my sister. My name is Ezzie."
The girl checked to see her father was not paying attention before she allowed herself to smile back at Ezzie. "I'm Mila," she said.
"Hello, Mila," Ezzie greeted her back.
"Where are you from, Ezzie?"
Ezzie swung the door wide open until it reached the front side of the barn with a bang. There, huddled silently, sat the dragon, easily the biggest thing on the farm. As big as the barn.
Mila gasped.
"Fear not, Mila. He's our brother."
"How could that be?"
He's my brother, and that makes him your brother, too. Ezzie now spoke with her in commontalk. The man looked up and stared at both of them, now that he could fit both in his field of view.
Hello, Mila, another voice added--a mighty voice. Ezra laughed. She turned her attention to the man. "You!" She shouted at him. He was aback, for it was his daughter's voice, but never had he heard it like this. Never would she have dared. He saw the dragon outside and began to tremble.
In the distance, a commotion of male voices approached, with shouts and curses.
"Your woman bore twins. Twins!" Ezzie repeated. "A blessing, and you threw one away! Even assured yourself of her destruction by placing her where it was said that dragons lay." She looked at Dragon; he looked back. "He does what I want. So you best tell me why. Why would you throw a child--your own child--away? Your daughter? A twin! Tell me or I swear to all that is holy that you'll boil!"
"Twins are a blessing?" he ridiculed. "A blessing and a curse," he seethed. "It's what killed her--" he jerked his head toward Mila--"her ma." Ezzie took a moment to address this sudden sorrow, long over in this family's story but new to her.
"A blessing," Ezzie repeated, glazing her eyes in grief. She had always longed to see her mother again. One day, one day, she had always said.
"A blessing only if they're both boys," her father snorted sarcastically. "One girl, well, aye, that happens, but two? At the same time? I have a farm to work, for God's sake. You can understand that, can't you? Anyone could."
The lobules and convolutions in the dragon's brain that held back dark things began to tremble and wobble, no longer able to completely contain the primeval mind beneath them. Shadowy thoughts began to churn, looking for escape.
TO BE CONTINUED…CONCLUSION
To quote Johnny Storm: “Flame on!!!” 🔥