All That Glitters

You can never forget the first time you see a Dragon. It doesn't matter how many years have gone by or how old you were - it stays frozen in your mind just like when it first happened.

I must have been pretty young, I guess - just a small lad "ankle-high to a suckling pig," as they used to say. I thought of myself as quite grown up, though, because I had a baby brother and compered to him, compared to Bren, I believed I was halfway to manhood.

We had been told very clearly to stay away from the woods. We lived in the last house on the street before the village gave way to forest, and Mama warned us over and over to stay in the yard when we played. There were Witches in the woods that would roast us and eat us. There were Gypsies who would hold us for ransom. There were Wolves who would hunt us down like sheep.

Of course all of this just made us more curious about what lay beyond the wooden posts and pickets. It sounded strange and dangerous - just the sort of place for a brave adventure. Bren and I would stand by the fence for hours trying to peer through and see for ourselves what lay beyond. That is how we discovered the loose board. If we pushed it aside it was just big enough for us to squeeze through one at a time.

One afternoon I decided I would give it a try, but Bren held back.

"Don't be a spook-mouse!” I said. “If you're not coming I'll go alone!" I started to push through the gap.

"I'll tell Mama," threatened Bren.

I knew he was serious. He had told on me before.

"Then she'll switch your legs," he announced.

I thought it likely she would, so I didn't go. Instead we pretended the back yard was the woods. The spiders were Witches catching children in their webs. The salamanders were Gypsies hiding their captives under the logs. And the ants were packs of Wolves, traveling through the forest one after the other until they were able to surround a little boy and begin their feast. We found a dead bird and kicked it over just so we could see all the ant-wolves running off in every direction. Unfortunately, we arrived too late to rescue the creature from its attackers, so we piled dirt over it and marked the grave with a twig.

The day I saw the Dragon, Mama decided we needed an afternoon nap. Right after lunch she led us to the bedroom we shared, tucked us in and closed the door. She didn't insist on a nap every day, but I realize now that when she did it was more for her benefit than for ours. She just needed a little bit of time when she wasn't constantly pestered and when she didn't have to worry what trouble we were getting into while not pestering her.

I wasn't the slightest bit tired and I told her so.

"Just try closing your eyes or a few minutes," she suggested. "Even if you don't actually sleep you can still rest your little muscles."

Well I tried closing my eyes, but even after what seemed like an hour (it was probably only five minutes) I was still awake. Bren had drifted off immediately, but here I was with no one to whisper to, restless and BORED.

After a while I decided that I was just going to get up and go outside to play in the sunshine. Why let the day go to waste? So I crept out of the bed, quiet as I could be, and slipped out of the bedroom. At any moment I was expecting to hear Mama's voice asking what I thought I was doing, but before I knew it, I was out the back door and running into the yard. Then I realized that if I played in our usual spots, Mama might see me through the window. There was no help for it. I was going to have to go through the fence and into the woods. I squeezed through the gap behind the loose board and made good my escape.

Stepping through that fence was like entering another world. It wasn't neat and tidy and carefully trimmed like the yard behind our house - it was a place that was overgrown and shaggy and wild and colorful. There were so many colors I had never seen before. Trees of all shades of green covered with moss, strange alien flowers drooping over my sandals, mysterious sounds emanating from all directions. I was entranced!

I found a path which connected to another path and soon I was deep in the forest, well beyond sight of our house or any other sign of civilization. I just couldn't stop looking at all of the wonderful new sights - a new wonder lay around every twist in the path.

After a while I began to realize that nap time was probably over, perhaps long over, and that Mama would be wondering where I was. I had better start finding my way back, even though there was most likely a switching in my future. The problem was that I did not exactly remember which way I had come. No matter which direction I tried, nothing looked familiar. I began to feel a little frightened. What if I never found the right path and had to stay here for all time? Also, my legs were feeling tired now. Maybe I should have tried harder to take that nap.

Finally I decided that I had better just sit down to rest and maybe get my bearings. I found a large tree stump beside the path. Just as I was about to lower myself onto it, it moved!

The stump had eyes that burned like coals. And it had a mouth full of sharp, pointed teeth. And it had a long neck that lifted it up off the ground well above my head. And that is how I met the Dragon.

The stump/Dragon looked down at me for a long time And I looked back up at it. And finally it spoke to me. It didn't actually pronounce any words like a human would, but I heard the words in my head. They actually sounded a lot like Mama's voice.

"I am a Dragon. Are you afraid?"

I answered back just by thinking, "Yes. Very afraid."

"Good," replied the Dragon. "You would be no use to me if your brain didn't work right."

"I just want to go home," I said/thought.

"Of course you do. And I can help you if you help me."

I saw that the Dragon was smiling. Its scales were brown and rough like tree bark, so it was easy to understand why I had mistaken it for a stump. Its eyes were glowing even more brightly now.

"I don't want Mama to switch my legs." I hadn't meant to say it out loud, but the Dragon heard me think it.

"I can help you with that, too, if you help me," it said.

"How do I help you?" I said/thought.

"I need you to bring me some gold."

"What is gold?" I truly did not know.

"It is something hard and soft at the same time. It is the color of the sun. Don't worry, you will recognize it."

I did not understand the description, but I wanted the Dragon’s help, so I nodded my head.

"Now promise you will bring me some and you can go home."

"Why do you need it?" I wanted to know.

"I cannot sleep without a nest of gold under me."

"How long has it been since you slept?"

"A very, very long time." The Dragon was smiling again, but it was a sad and weary smile.

I made my promise and the Dragon was satisfied. But then it had one final request.

"You must promise another thing. Do not tell anyone that you met me here."

When I asked why, the answer was, "It would be bad for me and bad for your village, and so bad for you and your family as well."

I felt a small twinge of fear when it mentioned my family.

"You are a smart boy," the Dragon told me. "I know you are a very smart boy."

And then I was lying in the bed I shared with Bren and I was hearing Mama's voice.

"You are a very tired boy," she was saying. "You've been asleep so long. But it's time to get up now."

I sat up and looked at her.

"I was asleep?"

"Of course you were. Don't you remember lying down for your nap? Get up now. Bren has been out in the yard playing all by himself and I need you to tell him to come in for dinner."

Dinner already? I had been away for quite some time. Or asleep for quite some time.

I found Bren out by the grave of the bird we buried. He had dug the poor thing up and was poking at it with a stick.

When I asked him what he was doing he told me he wanted to see how much the ants had eaten.

"You mean the Wolves," I said, and we laughed.

“It's important to know," he assured me, "in case we’re ever attacked by a pack of ants."

"Bren, I need to ask you something. Was I asleep in bed when you woke up?"

"Yes, you were right next to me but you wouldn't wake up."

"I'm not sure how I got there," I confessed. "After you fell asleep I got up and went into the woods."

"You did?"

I assured him I wasn't lying and explained how I had slipped through the gap in the fence. Then I broke my promise to the Dragon. I didn't really think of it as "telling anyone." Bren and I always shared everything.

"I saw a Dragon in the woods."

"What's a Dragon?"

See I didn't break any promise. He didn't even know what a Dragon was!

"It's a kind of animal from the stories and legends."

"But it’s real?"

"Yes. Otherwise I couldn't have seen one."

"How do you know it was a Dragon?"

"Because it told me."

"But what did it look like?"

"Kind of brown and scaly. I thought it was a tree stump."

"Maybe it WAS a tree stump. Or maybe you were dreaming. That's what Mama tells me when I see strange things, even when I was awake."

"No, I wasn't dreaming. The Dragon was real. But Bren, please don't tell Mama. Promise?"

Bren promised, but the first thing he did when we got inside was to tell Mama about my "dream." Now my promise was truly broken. But maybe if they thought it was only a dream...

Mama wasn't terribly interested. She said something like, "That's nice," and then reminded us that Papa would be home from the fair the next day.

But Bren wouldn't leave it alone.

"Mama, are Dragons real?"

"No, of course not. They are just made up for stories to scare little children."

"How about Witches? And Gypsies? And Wolves?"

“Well, those are real. And they live in the woods, like I told you. So stay out of the woods."

Bren gave me a look of triumph, as if Mama's words had proved me wrong and him right. Dragons were not real.

After dinner I asked Mama what gold was, and she just laughed and told me to wait and ask Papa.

When Papa arrived the next morning, Bren and I ran out to greet him. He was singing to himself and seemed to be in a happy mood.

"Your Papa is a rich man today," he told us.

I thought this a good opportunity to spring my question.

"Gold? You want to know about gold? It's easier to show you than to tell you!"

He reached into his pouch and pulled out two tiny disks no bigger than my fingernails.

"That's gold," he announced. "And someday your Pap will have a lot more of it!"

He gave each of us one of the disks and went inside to talk to Mama.

I examined my gift. It seemed to have a man's face pressed into one side and some kind of bird on the other. I held it up over my head and determined that it was indeed the color of the sun.

“What's this for?" asked Bren.

"It's gold," I said.

"But what’s it for?"

"I'll take yours if you don't want it."

Bren refused to surrender his disk, but later on I found it lying on the ground so I added it to the one Papa had given me. I had two pieces of gold!

Now my problem was to find my way back to the Dragon so that I could give it the gold I had promised.

***

Mama actually helped me with that. A few days later, Papa had gone away again and Mama had "errands" to run, so she invited Gammer Gurton over to "keep her eyes on us."

"Now you boys mind Gammer," she told us. "I'll be back soon."

Gammer was very old, probably older than anyone I had ever met. She had a long nose and chin and wrinkled skin with lots of strange bumps and marks on her face. She wore thick glasses and her eyes were kind of a milky blue. She looked exactly like a Witch!

I would never have said anything, but Bren was a lot braver. He came out and asked, “Gammer, are you a Witch?"

Gammer didn't seem upset at all.

"Do you know what a Witch is?" She asked in return.

"Witches live in the woods and they cook and eat children," I volunteered.

"Oh, no, dear. Who told you such nonsense? Witches don't all live in the woods. And they help people."

"How?" asked Bren. "What do they do to help?"

"Well I have some friends who are Witches," Gammer said carefully. "And they know a lot about herbs and plants that can make sick people feel better, or even people who aren't so sick."

"What plants make people feel better?" I asked.

Now she was in her element. "I have some right here," she told us. "It is almost nap time and this will help you sleep."

She pulled out a pouch with some small seeds and dried leaves and roots in it.

"I'll need to heat up some water," she said. "I think I know where your Mama keeps her teacups."

As she made her way to the kitchen, I had a sudden inspiration. I knew how I was going to go back to see my Dragon.

"What are you doing?" Asked Bren as I took out a handful of the plant mix and tucked it into a fold of my shirt.

I shushed him and sat back innocently as Gammer returned carrying a tray loaded with three steaming cups.

"I think I'll have a sip of this myself," she said and poured some of her mixture into each cup.

"Oh dear me," groaned Gammer. "I forgot to bring the honey. Don't worry I know where it is."

As she shuffled back to the kitchen, I quickly poured the extra plant mix I had "borrowed" into the cup that was closest to the side of the tray facing her end of the table.

"Here we are," she told us as she returned. "Now just take a little sip to start. The honey makes it taste less bitter."

She added quite a bit of honey to her cup, and I noticed that she drank it down in large gulps. As for myself, I put my lips to the cup but didn't swallow.

Gammer sighed. "I suppose you'd better put yourselves to bed," she mumbled. "Gammer's feeling a little drowsy."

"Come along, Bren." I urged him into the bedroom and tucked him in. He was asleep by the time his head touched the pillow.

I waited a few moments to make sure Gammer was fully asleep as well, and then I was on my way.

***

My Dragon looked sadly at the two tiny disks I had brought. It didn't even try to smile.

"Yes, that's gold," it agreed. "But not nearly enough. I will need a lot more."

"My Papa said he had more or will have more," I said/thought, trying to feel cheerful.

It didn't really help. The Dragon seemed impossibly weary. I could tell it still hadn't been able to sleep, because its eyes were losing their glow.

"Did you keep our meeting a secret as you promised?" it asked.

"I only told my little brother," I answered honestly. "And he thought I dreamed it."

"Well, there is someone coming," the Dragon informed me. "And this time I can't help you get home."

Its face seemed to fade away before my eyes until it looked exactly like a normal tree stump.

I dashed onto the bushes, hoping that I could find another route to the connecting trail, but before I had taken more than five or six steps, a strong hand gripped me by the arm.

"What have we here?" A man's voice with a strange way of speaking. "You come with me, boy. There is someone who wants speech with you."

He hauled me off in the opposite direction. I noticed that he wore an earring and that even though his clothes were tattered, his boots were of fine soft leather. He smelled like an old cookfire.

"Are you a Gypsy?" I asked as he urged me along.

"Depends on whose asking." Again that strange way of speaking.

"Well I'm asking, obviously." I answered.

"Save your breath for walking."

"Are you holding me for ransom?" I persisted. "Because my parents are too poor to pay anything."

"Save your breath," he repeated.

After a while we came to a clearing in the woods. There was a painted house on wheels and an old woman sat on its steps in front of a small table.

"Amma, I have brought him," said the man. He pushed me forward and bowed to the old woman.

She looked at me for a long time. Then she said, "We will see if he is the One." Her voice was dry as a broken twig and she had the same odd way of speaking.

She brought out a small package from her skirts. Unwrapping the silken cloth in which it was bound, she drew out a stack of small cards of stiff paper. They had a design painted on the back, and I could not see what the front of the cards looked like. She spread them on the table.

"You will close eyes and touch each card," she told me. "Then pick up the right one."

"How will I know which one is the right one?"

"You will know. You will feel. Now begin."

She seemed impatient, so I closed my eyes and quickly ran my hands over the cards.

"They all feel the same," I complained.

"Cards speak with different voices," she replied. "You listen for one with loudest voice."

This made no sense to me, but I kept running my hands over the cards. Suddenly I felt something like a pinch from a hot set of tongs. I cried out and one of the cards fell to the ground.

"Which card? Which card?" the old woman muttered as she retrieved it from the dirt and brushed it off.

"Ah look! You are Bringer of Wealth!"

She showed me the picture on the card which had pinched me. It showed a young man carrying a gold disk just like the ones I had given to the Dragon.

"Page of Coins," added the man who had kidnapped me. "He is the One!"

The old woman stood up and pushed the table aside. She wasn't very tall, but I was shorter and had to look up to meet her eyes.

"Anyone know you came into woods?" She asked. "Family? Friend? Neighbor?"

I wanted to be defiant and lie to her, but the Dragon's look of despair when I showed it the tiny bits of gold had plucked all hope from my heart. I shook my head and looked down at the ground.

"Excellent," she hissed like a snake about to swallow a mouse. "Roman, lock him in vardo and hitch up horses. It is time to go."

The man, Roman, gripped my arm again and pulled me toward the wagon.

"It is well past time for you to go." The voice seemed to ring out from all sides at once. There was something familiar about it. Gammer Gurton suddenly appeared on the steps to the wagon and blocked the door.

The old woman seemed unsurprised. "Gammer Gurton, how nice to see you. It has been long time."

"Not long enough," replied Gammer sternly. "Let the boy go and leave these woods."

"You have no authority over Cingari. Go and give orders to Witches instead."

"I am the Protector of these woods and of this boy, even though he tricked me with my own potion. You have been warned twice. Next time there will be no warning and you will burn."

Gammer made a strange motion over her shoulder and a bright flame appeared on the corner of the wagon. Roman let go of my arm and ran to find a pail of water to douse the fire.

The old woman sighed and said, "Yes. We go now. You take boy, but maybe keep better watch."

She shuffled to the front of the wagon to help hitch the horses.

Gammer climbed down the steps and took my hand.

"Let's be off," she whispered and then we were standing in front of the hearth at my parents' cottage.

"Now finish your tea and then go to bed," she suggested as if nothing unusual had happened. "No need to mention any of this to your Mama."

I had new respect for Gammer and obeyed without complaint. The tea brought a heaviness to my eyelids and arms and legs, but I felt a strange tingling and soon I was looking down on two sleeping forms, my own and Bren's, from somewhere near the ceiling. My body was at rest but my mind was moving around the room.

I heard Mama come home and speak with Gammer. I let my mind move to the font room and watched Mama let Gammer out the door. She added some wood to the fire and then went into the kitchen to make herself some tea.

Soon afterward I heard Papa come up the walk singing to himself. Once again he seemed very pleased. He came inside, threw off his cloak and shouted, "I am home, my love."

Mama come in and he greeted her with an embrace, but she pushed him away.

"You've been drinking."

"That I have. And I've been gambling, but I won. And now all will be well. Our fortune is made."

"You say that every time," Mama complained, and then went into her room and closed the door.

Papa shrugged. His spirits still seemed high and he drew a piece of parchment from his pouch. He went into the kitchen and spread the parchment on the table Then he found a piece of clean cloth and took a burnt twig from the stove. Carefully, he copied each line on the parchment onto the cloth. I looked over his shoulder and saw that the parchment had a design that reminded me of the paths in the wood. There seemed to be some pictures of trees and rocks and then on one side a curving one that I thought represented a hill. Under the hill, Papa drew some tiny circles that looked to be piled on top of one another. Gold disks? He was drawing a treasure map!

Satisfied with his work, Papa rolled up the cloth and stashed it under a loose floorboard in the corner - a hiding place Bren and I had discovered ages before. He went to the front room and sat at the hearth for a while, but he seemed restless. Soon he climbed to his feet, threw on his cloak again and lit a lantern with an ember from the fireplace.

As the front door creaked shut behind him, I was suddenly back in my body and fully awake. I slipped out of bed, pulled on my pants, and crept into the kitchen where I retrieved the cloth Papa had left there. Soon I was in the woods on my way to show the map to the Dragon.

***

It was a dark night, but Gammer's tea seemed to help my vision. I found my way easily through the trees and stood breathlessly before the Dragon's stump. Its glowing eyes eyes were even dimmer than on my last visit, but there was a new softness to them when I unrolled the map and pointed out the hill with the pile of gold. There even seemed to be a moist ring around them that leaked drops down its cheek.

"Yes, that is where the gold is," it said. "I could feel that it was near, but I could not find it."

"You will be able to sleep soon!" I thought/said.

"But why," it asked, "why bring this to me when your Papa won the map in a game?"

"The gold is not for Papa."

"No, the gold belongs only to fire," it agreed. "It will burn away the soul of a man until there is nothing left but greed."

"Come with me to the hill. We’ll find your new nest!"

"My body is too weak," replied the Dragon. "But there is a way I can travel with you. Dip your finger in my tears and rub them into your own eyes. Then I will see what you see."

I took some of the drops from under its eyes and when I touched the corners of my eyes everything was black for a moment. Then I saw even more clearly than before but there were no colors - just pinks and grays, which was more than enough in the dark.

I felt the Dragon's presence with me as I returned to the path. The moon had risen now, and I could already see the top of the hill just above the treetops.

There were Wolves howling somewhere paying homage to their moon goddess. As I got closer to the hill, the howling sounded louder. Then, with the hillside looming directly in from of me, I saw them.

The pack had encircled a tree and clinging to the lowest branch, just out of reach of eight sets of snapping fangs, was Papa.

The Wolves turned their attention to me as soon as they sensed my arrival. I must have seemed an easier victim than the man in the tree. Still, their caution showed that maybe they were somehow aware of the Dragon who rode with me. They had me at the center of their circle now, and one of them, the leader of the pack, slowly inched toward me, saliva dripping from its jaws around its lolling tongue.

As it crouched down ready to pounce, there was a strange sound like wind blowing down a chimney and drawing flames from a dying fire. The howling changed to yelping and the Wolves scattered in every direction. I could feel the Dragon smiling even though I couldn't see it.

Papa climbed down from the tree and came over to hug me.

"Well done," he said, although he had no idea what had happened. "How did you find me?"

"I followed the map, Papa. But that gold is not for you."

"Not for me? Who is it for?"

"It belongs only to the fire. The Guardians tried to warn you."

"Guardians? You mean the Wolves?” We could hear them howling in the distance. “Will they come back?”

"Your tree is still there if they do," I pointed out.

Then I used the same words I had heard so many times from him and Mama.

"I need to go and take care of something important. I will be back soon."

I walked over to the hill, which shone in the moonlight as if it was made of gold itself. There was a large boulder part of the way up the hillside, a boulder much too big for Papa to move, even with my help. It must have been blocking the opening of the cave where the gold was hidden.

I rubbed my eyes and brushed off some of the Dragon's tears, then I placed my hands on the boulder so that it could be identified when the Dragon came looking for it.

When I came back from the hill, Papa had reclaimed his perch on the tree branch.

"Time to go," I called, and we retrieved his lantern and walked home together.

"From now on," vowed Papa, "I'm only gambling for silver.”

***

I dreamed of the Dragon one more time after that. Gammer had come back to "keep her eyes on us" and shared some more of her tea. Again I seemed to leave my body behind so that my mind could travel unhindered along the trails to the hill across the woods.

The boulder was no obstacle for my mental form. I easily entered the cave in the side of the hill, where I saw the Dragon sprawled asleep like a scaly brown shadow across a pile of gold coins and plates and cups of all sizes and shapes. I noticed another shadow resting beside it, a shadow shaped like an enormous brown scaly egg.

At that point I realized for the first time that my Dragon was not an it. She was a she!