Rain and Hearth

There weren’t always dragons in the Valley.

They say that long ago, dragons inhabited the mountains – it was rare to see them in the valleys, especially the valleys like ours, carved from ice and snow.

The Water People had long lived in fear and suspicion of them and story has it that once every one hundred years, dragons would reappear again from over the Hidden Hills leaving drought and destruction in their path as they blazed through the cities and towns. Wherever they had blazed, fires raged in their wake.

Now, we hear on the news every day that the dragon habitats are disappearing rapidly. They are adapting to colder climates – they are seeking new territories to raise their families. They are infiltrating the valleys. Valleys just like ours.

Only a week ago my sister, Crystal and I dumped our bags in the hallway when we got home from school and Dad was home early from work watching the news, deep concern etched through every line of his face.

“They’re coming here. They’ll be here before the month is out.” He said and his voice was darker than I’d ever heard it. “There’s been a blaze through Everest.” He went on without taking his eyes off the television. Everest were our closest neighbours and allies, another ice valley just like ours only eighty miles west. “They’re coming.”

“Surely they won’t really let them into the schools.” My sister and I heard our mother’s fearful whispers to our father that night when they thought we were asleep. The very next day our school opened up it’s gates and we all watched the dragons swarm in.

They were different from us. I noticed immediately, although it was hard to put my finger on exactly how they were different. Their clothing, mostly: full of studs and metal chains, spikes and thorns, tattoos and scorch marks on their forearms. And their hair – shaved in patches, gelled into spikes, mohawks and jagged patterns that resembled their mountain ranges – or their flames.

I remember thinking they looked so much cooler than us although I would never have dared to say so. I wasn’t like the rest of my class – vehemently vocal about keeping them out of our school – our valley. Although I was frightened of them, I couldn’t help but be fascinated as well. And so I kept my mouth shut and I observed.

Until I met hearth, that is – and everything changed.

It’s the morning the dragons first come to our school and Mum telling me for the hundredth time as she pulls the car into the school parking bay -“Don’t forget to get this letter into the office now, Rain!” She swears as hot coffee sloshes out of the paper takeaway coffee cup and onto her hand, scolding her.

“I know, Mum. I’m already late.”

“It’s really important, Rain. We don’t want those dragons staying in your school. I spent a great deal of time writing that letter and I want your principal reading it today!”

“I will. I’ll take it now. I have to go.” I mumble, getting out of the car.

“Try not to talk to any of those dragons.” She hisses to me looking distastefully out the car window to where a group of male dragons are sitting on the school fence jostling one another and scowling at all the students as they file in through the school gates.

I scramble out of the car and hurry up the school path, clutching the straps of my back pack, avoiding eye contact with the dragons on the fence – all teenage boys. My shoulders are up around my ears.

“Hey nice glasses!” One of them calls out to me as I scurry passed. One of the others punches him in the arm and they wrestle one another to the ground, snarling at one another. The strong woody smell of smoke puffs from them and I cough discreetly as I quicken my pace to the school building.

Once I step inside the school halls, I gasp. Dragons are everywhere. So many more than I imagined.

Dragon boys with backpacks and converse sneakers, with torn jeans and faux fur collared jackets. Girl dragons with corduroy flares and short skirts and jeans and sweaters – just like us, I think, but then I see their throats – how they glow like embers, tiny smoke tendrils wisping from their mouths as they chuckle - even as they speak, and I feel my own throat go dry as I try to swallow. How can this much heat not be dangerous? I worry to myself and I vow to do as my mother says – try to avoid them at all costs.

Except I don’t know how I’m going to be able to do that. Every classroom has more than one dragon in it now and students clamour to sit in the front rows, clumping together so they don’t have to sit next to them. After dropping the letter of complaint from my mother into the school office, I’m last to arrive at English class and after a quick scan of the desks and chairs there is only one seat left. And of course, it’s next to a scowling male dragon.

Reluctantly I purse my lips and cross to the chair, dumping my bag beside the table. The dragon turns his head toward me slowly and looks up at me with glowering menace, his predator eyes narrowed. His deep amber eyes flicker slightly. And I’m almost certain I see a throb of orange light up the skin at his Adam’s apple. Immediately my heart starts hammering at my own throat and I’m sure my pulse is visible on the skin of my neck.

I nod curtly to him, pull out my chair and sit beside him with my chin held high. I hope I look more confident than I feel.

Ms Neeme jitters into the classroom with stacks of homework folders which she dumps in a sliding pile upon her desk with a sigh before she looks up at us all. Her eyes slide across the room. Searching for the dragons, I think. Her expression notes two seated behind me, two girls – one with flaming red hair and another of charcoal black. And the dragon seated next to me. He is tall. Too lanky for the chair. His long legs stretched out underneath the table, his long fingers, painted with black nail polish, drumming on an open copy of George Orwell’s 1984. I steal a sidewards glance at him. He has an earing in his right ear – a dragon tooth, possibly real. And a tattoo running the length of his forearm from elbow to pinky finger of dragon spikes, their sharp spines increasing in size as they arc toward his elbow.

When I look up and find him watching me with faint amusement, I realise I’ve been caught staring at his skin and quickly snatch my eyes away. The whole of my left side closest to him feels tingly with warmth, as though bending toward his heat. I shudder and inch away slightly in my chair.

I cannot concentrate the whole lesson, my body seems to be reacting to the warmth radiating from the dragon next to me. It’s like my edges are smudging slightly, melting a little, and I’m grateful that I’m right- handed so that I can still make notes and give the illusion that I’m paying attention to the lesson.

Thankfully, he doesn’t talk to me and when the bell finally rings, I’m ready for it - I’m one of the first to scurry out of the classroom and into the cold fresh air where I take as many gulps as I can and feel the cool on my skin start to define the edges down my left side once more.

After school that day I head to my casual job at the 7/11 on Aquamarine Street. My shift starts at four o’clock and ends at nine – not too long - although I have a sick feeling in my stomach and I’m not sure why, but I’ve spent the day trying to stuff it down. I wish I can take the night off work but I go in anyway because more than anything I want to be an ice artist when I leave school and I’m saving my money to pay for professional classes I hope to take one day.

When I arrive, Caspian is just finishing up his shift for the day. Caspian is two years older than me and he’s already left school. I think my parents think he and I will get married one day. I’m not sure what to make of that – I see the way he looks at me – but I’m just not ready to think about boyfriends right now with school so close to finishing.

“Hey, Cas”, I smile to him as he looks up when the sliding door opens.

“Hey, Rain! I was just thinking about you! You alright?”

“Good, good, can’t complain.” I feel his eyes on me as I take off my gloves and hang up my jacket and backpack behind the counter.

“Hey…Would you like me to stay on with you for a little while tonight? Or come back when it’s dark?” Caspian asks me, sensing I’m not quite myself. I can tell from the way he looks at me that he’s heard about what happened at school that day. News travels fast in small communities. Especially when it involves the dragons.

“You don’t want you to be alone if there are any dragons about tonight.” He goes on.

I shake my head. “I want the money. Can’t get into ice school unless I have enough savings.”

“You’re not missing out on the ice sculptures this year, I hope?”

This week for winter solstice there is a festival going down on the frozen lake with musicians, puppet shows, food vending machines and ice skating but my favourite are always the elaborate ice sculptures the artists spend many months carving and how they light them up like glittering diamonds with millions of pinpricks of real blue and gold stardust.

“Of course not. I’ll be going down to the lake with my family tonight when I finish work.”

“Good. Well, I look forward to seeing you there, then. Perhaps I could buy you a snow cone?”

I only smile, grateful to be interrupted when Mr Morris comes to the counter to buy a new chisel.

“You coming down tonight, Rain?” He asks me, placing several dollar bills upon the counter.

“Wouldn’t miss it Mr Morris.”

“It’ll be you down there one year, doing all the carving, hey lassie?”

“I hope so, Mr Morris.”

He gives me a small smile and a nod and Caspian leaves through the door after him shoving his fists into his jacket. “Well, I’ll see you soon, then, Rain.”

I give him a wave and start restocking the shelves behind me.

I should have known the dragons would come in to my work – tonight of all nights – I could feel it.

It’s the same group from the school fence that morning, plus the two girls from my English class today… and the boy I had to sit next to.

They swarm into the 7/11 like hornets, their throats all aglow, the smell of smoke swirling in with them. I’m instantly on edge.

The two girl dragons make their way to the snacks isle and the boys head for the coffee and slurpies.

“Hey, Bon!” One of the boys yells to another, “Check this out! Think fast!” And he hurls a fresh made slurpie into the air for his friend to catch.

I watch this moment as if in slow motion. His friend, Bon is not expecting to catch the slurpie and when he clocks it coming for him, he only has time to duck, not to catch. The slurpie cup flips in the air and I’m expecting it’s contents to slam to the floor in a pool of messy pink liquid sugar but at the last moment, the dragon breathes a jet of fire from his mouth and the liquid in the air instantly heats to solid toffee. In the shape of three wolves. Which he catches one by one and starts juggling as he laughs. All the other dragons laugh, too.

Except the boy from my English class who is leaning against the wall looking bored and waiting for his friends.

Something inside me snaps and I start shouting.

“HEY!” I boom, surprised at the volume of my own voice, the strength of my anger.

“You can’t do that in here! You need to pay for that! It could have gone everywhere! I would have had to clean it all up! Come on! Pay for your shit and leave!”

There’s a beat of silence while all the dragons size me up and the one with the toffee wolves stops juggling and laughs cruelly.

“Hearth!” He yells to the boy from my English class. “Do you reckon I can get her with these?” He mimes throwing the hard wolf toffees at my face. “Where’s the bull’s eye? Her forehead or her chest?”

Bon and the other dragons start whooping and cheering, clapping and egging him on.

The boy from my English class is staring at me, expressionless.

“Come on, Hearth! What do you say?”

“Don’t be a dick, Char.” Is all he says. It’s the first time I’ve heard his voice. It’s lower than I expect.

“Hey?!” Char cackles incredulously and looks around at the rest of the dragons who are all smouldering and glowering - gesturing for him to throw his shit at me.

“You throw that and I call the police.” I try growling but I don’t know how confident my voice sounds now.

Char takes one more look at his friends and before I can even see what’s happened, I’m pinned to the wall behind me. The boy from my English class is standing over me, a shield between me and the dragons, and he’s holding the three toffees in one hand like he just caught them all. His other hand is on my shoulder and his dragon friends are all making disappointed sounds and saying “Let’s get out of here.”

I’m panting. In shock. “You – you caught those? All three?”

“Are you alright?” He takes his hand off my shoulder. “I’ll pay for the slurpie. And anything else.”

“Your name’s Heart?” I look him straight in his golden syrup eyes. He’s so close I can see how his long lashes frame his eyes. They way they curl back in thick arcs. The way they lie on his skin as he blinks. They way his eyes glow deeply in honeyed prisms like molten kaleidescopes.

“Hearth.” He corrects me and his eyebrows lift playfully. A cat toying with its mouse. He doesn’t break his gaze so I don’t either. I may be the mouse. But I will bite if I have to.

“It sounds like Heart.” I don’t back down but my voice sounds croaky when it comes out.

His lips curl in a lazy smile. “Rain, Rain, Rain.” He says my name like an incantation. Like a poem. But also like I’m a silly little girl. One who should know better. “I don’t have one of those.”

“How do you know my name?”

I don’t know if he’s about to eat me or kiss me. I’m terrified of either though I try not to show it. My mouth is dry when I swallow.

He leans in closer to my neck and I think he’s either going to smell me or bite me but instead he opens his mouth close to my skin and from the back of his throat he breathes warm air on my skin. I feel the hairs on the nape of my neck stand up. My body seems undefined for a moment, I feel my knees start to puddle. When he pulls away slightly, his throat is throbbing with a glowing orange light and I’m shaking.

“Come on, Hearth! We’re all waiting! We gotta get down and check out this festival! You coming?” At the sound of his friend’s impatience, Hearth pushes himself away from the wall. He smirks at me, still holding my gaze.

“Well, I guess I’ll see you in English class.” And he turns and jogs out of the 7/11, disappearing with the other dragons.

I don’t get the chance to tell him I’ll probably see him sooner than he thinks – tonight even – at the festival. Oh god, please don’t let me see him there. Please don’t come anywhere near me.

I’m shaky for the remainder of my work shift and several times I have to go outside to breathe in the fresh air, just to feel my bones sharpen once more. I stand in the soft snow hugging my elbows and squeezing them tightly. This is my body. It’s all here in one piece, I have to keep telling myself. I don’t know what I’m afraid of but I touch my icy fingers to my neck and the cold from my hands feels soothing where his heat seemed to burn through.

Finally, it’s time to meet my family at the lake, I see them in their colourful knitted beanies and scarves and have never felt so grateful for their distractions -their excited faces as they point out their favourite sculptures, the glowing icicles and sprays of crystals showering magically through the air with the natural snowflakes. It’s truly beautiful here. My favourite time of the year. We pass sleds pulled by reindeer and wolves, bears juggling slippery silver fish, children with tongues blue from fairy floss or red from crunching snow cones and fortune tellers with jewel coloured crystal balls – luminous and opaline – in turns cloudy then shadowy as trance-like customers ooh and aah at the figures they find within.

I’m awed by it all and trying to drink in every sight, smell and sound but I cannot seem to shake the uneasiness I still feel.

I find I’m looking for dragons everywhere. Whenever I see them, my stomach flips and I have to remember to breathe properly.

My sister, Crystal is getting her face painted and while my parents wait for her, I wonder off down the hill toward the lake where there are more sculptures I haven’t seen yet – little cottages all carved in a row that you can walk through and sit inside looking out their icy windows to intricately carved gardens and vegetable patches.

I’m making my way through the little village when out of one of the little windows I see smoke spiralling on the other side of the lake.

Dragons.

Without realising what I’m doing, my hands are balled into my coat pockets and instead of walking back up the hill, I find myself drawn to a group of them. I realise I’m looking at them all, looking at all their faces, thinking how beautiful they all are, how different even from one another. I’m looking at them, but I’m trying not to stare. I’m looking – for him.

Hearth. And there he is. Standing with the same group from the 7/11 by one of the only new stalls at the festival this year -a stall run by dragons and it seems, only patronised by dragons, too.

One of his friends gives him a nudge on the arm with his elbow and Hearth, who had been chuckling about something looks up to see me, the smile instantly falls from his face as our eyes lock.

I find my legs won’t take me any closer but he says something to his friend and slowly approaches me, the closer he gets, the more a smile pulls at the corner of his lips.

“Molten dragon chocolate?” Hearth offers me, his cup outstretched - the smile on his face is also a challenge.

“What’s in it?”

“Spices.” He shrugs. “And hot chocolate.”

“You don’t say.”

“Too hot for you?” He challenges.

“Of course not.” I hold out my hand for the cup but he pulls it back. Before he hands it back to me, he cradles it between his two palms, his long fingers overlapping and bends his face over the cup. He opens his mouth and breathes over the cup, the same way he breathed upon the skin on my neck. He doesn’t take his eyes off me. Steam starts to swirl from the cup and after a moment the contents boils, bubbling like mud within a cauldron. Once it’s boiled, he holds it away from us both and fans it with his hand as steam spills from the cup in plumes like waterfalls.

“You might want to blow on it.” He says as he offers me the cup.

I take it from him. My eyes intent upon his. I can’t tell if he’s being friendly or menacing.

I blow on the contents and bring it to my lips with a bravado I don’t feel. I take a careful sip.

My tastebuds explode with a warm tang – chocolate, cinnamon, cardamon and something else. And it’s not the heat that scorches my throat as I swallow but this must be what it feels like to breathe fire, I think. I’m certain I must have steam coming out my ears. My eyes widen and immediately begin watering as I cough and splutter, wiping my mouth and dropping the cup to the icy ground with a surprised cry.

“What was in that? You prick. Why would do that?” I splutter. I glare at him and for a moment he looks taken aback.

“I’m sorry.” He says and he looks sincere but his mates are all howling with laughter and so I can’t tell if he’s still toying with me or not.

“What was in that?” I demand again squaring up to him. Throwing his stupid friends my best death stare. None of them seem deterred by me. In fact, they seem to like it.

“Horseradish. Ginger root.”

“And?”

“Chilli.”

“And?”

“Whiskey.”

“You prick.” I say to him again. I lift my face to the sky to catch a whirling snowflake on my tongue. It’s not enough. When I look back, he’s still watching me.

“What?!” I spit at him.

He shrugs.

“What’s going on here?” Caspian’s voice says from behind me.

“Nothing. Just trying to –“ Hearth does that half smile thing again.

“What?” Caspian presses him, taking a threatening step toward him.

“Make friends.” Hearth says. But he’s looking at me. His voice a low rumble.

“I was looking for you. I bought you a snow cone.” Caspian turns to me, holding out the blue cone. I’m so grateful, my parched tongue so dry, I take a massive bite, holding the sugary ice in my mouth until it melts.

“Let’s go, Rain. Your parents are looking for you.” Caspian makes to place an arm around my shoulders and I’m not sure why but I don’t want him to. Not when Hearth is watching us with such intensity. I shrug out of his way.

He looks disappointed but happy that I turn to leave without protest, he rests a hand lightly on my back and says loudly so the dragons can hear, “Don’t worry about them, Rain. They don’t have any common decency. They might breathe fire, but their hearts are cold as ice.”

When we make it back to my family, Crystal is happily bounding toward me showing off her new face painting. She’s glittering like scales of a mermaid in swirls of purple, aqua and silver.

“You look amazing.” I tell her, trying to shake loose the feeling of Hearth’s eyes that I can still feel on me and the taste of dragon chocolate – still hot on the back of my tongue.

“Rain! What’s that on your neck?”

“I- what? Nothing!” I say, my hand flying to my neck.

“Is that a hickey?” Mum demands, her eyes flashing in shock and concern.

I catch my father’s eyes and see a flicker of amusement dance across his face.

“What?! No! Of course not!” I insist, tightening my scarf around my neck, my cheeks flushing in shame which I’m sure they all pick up on.

“Rain’s got a boyfriend!” Crystal sing songs behind me, pointing to Caspian who thankfully is out of ear shot, talking to Mr Morris about one of his ice carvings.

“Stop that!” I spit out whirling to reprimand her.

“It was just a joke, Rain, Jeez, lighten up!” She shakes her head looking stung.

As we walk away, I hear the dragons all erupt with cruel laughter and when I steal a look over my shoulder, they’re all throwing their heads back like wolves to howl at the moon - but instead of howling, they blow fire into the sky from their throats in bursts like blow torches. One and then the other and then altogether. When they laugh, smoke rolls from their mouths. Embers cascade.

“Those horrible dragons.” My mother shakes her head with a sigh. “What’s to become of our beautiful valley?”

I catch Hearth’s eye as we leave. His arm is slung around Flame’s shoulders, the girl dragon from my English class. Her red hair is burnished in the firelight. She and all the dragons are looking at Bon and they’re laughing as he twirls his fire, breathing out hot sparks in menacing nightmarish patterns and shapes that morph and dance around the fire before combusting and dying out.

I look at Hearth, though and he’s the only one who is still looking at me. I swear I’m the only one who notices his throat is throbbing with glowing light. I feel his eyes on me all the way back to the car and until I’m out of sight.

And I wonder to myself, why did he do that? Why did he stick up for me at the 7/11? Why did he breathe his heat on my neck, scorching my skin? Why did he make me drink his dragon chocolate? And why is he still watching me? Almost like he wants to hurt me?

I don’t know anything. I’m so confused. I only know that I hate him. I hate him with such ferocity that when he was near me, my heart hammered so much my ribcage is now bruised and beneath my ear - where he singed me – my skin burns, it burns, it burns.