Chapter 44

  Leah Walker

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  Eric had always seemed big to Leah, but now he is small, small, small. Frisby Wiser sits on his shoulder, and as much bigger than Frisby as Eric was, that is how much bigger than Eric the other dragon is. It is huge! It looks like it could eat Eric right up. The big dragon is all black and gray, surrounded by a dark mist, but Leah can tell what it really looks like. Its eyes are streetlights, its wings are the plastic tarp covering unfinished buildings, its claws are tractor shovels, its teeth are sharp steel beams, its skin is crumbling concrete on a metal frame. It looks scary, unlike Frisby. It looks mean. It looked like it will eat Eric right up! But Eric is just standing there, holding something in his hand and looking up at the dragon.

  Leah tries to shout a warning to him, but can not speak.

  The dragon turns its red gaze toward her for a moment. SILENCE, it says, and its voice is so powerful that it knocks Leah right into another place.

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  A scary man. A terrible, horrible, scary man, with guns and a big coat and a big hat. He laughs a lot, he smiles a lot, but he is not laughing or smiling now. He is screaming. Screaming, and darkness is all around him, going into and out of him, and Leah is afraid. She does not understand what is happening.

  The scary man does not want the shadow. He rejects it, but cannot stop it. It forces its way in. It sinks into his bones, it turns his blood black, it becomes the darkness inside his own skin. There is a snake nearby, but it is not really a snake, and the snake is realizing that it might have just made a very big mistake.

  The scary man has been hurt. He has been lied to. He was in love. Now there is no love. Now the scary man is done screaming. Now he is on the ground, not dead, panting. He chuckles, and something is wrong with his voice. The sound makes Leah whimper in fear. He moves, and something is wrong with the way he moves, like he has no more bones.

  The snake runs away, and the scary man follows. Leah runs away too, though all she needs to do is take a single

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  and she is in the rain. She sees lights before her, below her, far below. Lights around her, somehow streaming through the falling rain. She sighs in relief. No scary man here. No dragon.

  People are here, though! Some of them she recognizes; others look like huge butterflies walking around.

  One of the people is Eric. He is holding a girl’s hand! Well. The girl is very pretty.

  “Eric!” she says. “Hi.”

  Eric hears her and looks around, but doesn’t see her. He says something to the girl next to him, but Leah can’t hear what he says.

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  There are people arguing here, in some fancy place with chairs and paintings, lit with a warm light. It would be a cozy place, a fun place, if not for the argument. They are shouting, all trying to talk at once–the tiger, the frog, the wolf, the shark, the bird. The lizard is laughing, laughing. Some of the animals are missing, and that is partly what the argument is about.

  Leah watches them from an open space to the side of the room, unseen though in plain sight. She is nervous not to make a sound that they might hear. She remembers the frog, and the frog is friendly, but she is sure that the shark would sniff her out and kill her.

  Leah hears something behind her. She turns and sees another: the spider. The spider has purple jewels in her hair and on her face like extra eyes. She is not joining in the argument. She sits alone in a wooden chair, staring with blindfolded eyes at a featureless wall. A huge book is in her lap. The book has colorful birds on it, and her pale gray fingers are on the last page of the book, trembling. She is crying, her blindfold is damp, and Leah wants to help.

  “Are you okay?” Leah whispers.

  The spider turns her head to look right at Leah, right through her. “Who are you?” she asks.

  “I’m a dragon!”

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  She is afraid, but he is there with her, a big man with a beard and two canes and two great enormous hands with letters on the fingers. She always feels safe around him, even when she is afraid.

  And she is very afraid now, because everyone else is gone and she doesn’t know what has happened to them. All of her brand-new friends, especially the fat man that laughs a lot, are missing. Probably in danger!

  The bearded man’s name is Dwayne, which Leah thinks is a funny name. He hums a song and holds her, and she begins to be less afraid.

  “Now we need to go,” he says softly.

  She shakes her head. NO. It is too dangerous out there, outside of this small room they are hiding in.

  But he nods back. YES. “Leah,” he says, “I heard you’re a dragonfly.”

  She shakes her head again. “Dragon,” she squeaks.

  “Are you a dragon, Leah?”

  She nods. Somewhere, not far away, thunder shakes the walls. Bad thunder.

  “Dragons aren’t afraid, Leah. They eat their fear.”

  “They…eat it?” She speaks in awed wonderment.

  “Oh, yes. They gobble it right up. By thunder! They bite down hard on their fear, and they don’t let go no matter what.”

  She ponders this.

  “Are you a dragon, Leah?”

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  She is falling! Falling down, down from somewhere way up above. She can’t remember why, or what has happened, except that it is something bad. Something bad has happened, and something important is on fire, and she is falling.

  Glass falls all around her, sparkly in the darkness. Bricks and metal and chunks of stone fall with her. She can’t see the ground, but she knows it is down there. She knows she will reach it soon, and if she isn’t stopped, then she will be like Kate was when Kate fell off the balcony. And that is a sad thing to think about, but Leah is not afraid, because her big brother Eric is down there! She can’t see him, but somehow she knows. He is down there, running hard, and he will catch her for sure, even though other people are falling too.

  She will be safe, she knows. She will always be safe when Eric is around! She closes her eyes and enjoys the fall.