Upended

There weren't always dragons in the Valley. Some say it's my fault they appeared. I couldn't speak on it one way or another, but I do know that a lot of things changed when I arrived there. But that was no one's fault. After all, change is a sign of life.

I came from a place called Valley Druhall that lay nestled between several high mountains and surrounded by glittering lakes. There, the people were tall, slender and dark-skinned. All the women had their hair cut short, and all of the men wore six long cornrows that hung from their heads like heavy ropes. The old legend was that dragons would seek to kidnap women with long hair, but they feared men with long hair because ancient warriors from the mountain tribes endowed with a powerful magic wore those six ceremonial braids in their hunts for hundreds of years. Of course, no one had seen any sign of dragons in Druhall. They were little more than stories parents told children to teach lessons about bravery or discipline. Most doubted they were even real, and others believed they had all died off. But even if there were no dragons, there were many other dangers for long-haired girls.

When I was born, it became apparent that my hair would not remain short when it was cut. It was a big, curly black crown on my head after just two days. By the time I was four years old, my mother had given up on trying to keep my hair short and had resorted to tying it up beneath a colorful scarf to keep it hidden. But one day that winter, Apeka, the wise woman in our village, paid my parents a visit. It seems she knew something that we didn't.

"Apeka," my mother gasped when she opened our door. "What a surprise! I definitely wouldn't have expected you to visit us.

The brown, bent woman bowed slightly to my mother and gave her a toothless smile.

"Life is just full of wonderful surprises, my dear," she said. "Is your husband in?"

"Actually," my mother told her, "he and the hunters just left for the last Chase of the year before the snow winds come. But my Dali is here."

"Then let me see her," Apeka smiled, waddling over the threshold.

I had been hiding behind the curtain that separated our spacious sitting room from my bedroom. When I saw Apeka approaching me, I ducked out of sight and giggled. She swept the curtain to the side, knelt down in front of me, and asked, "Well, who is this precious young lady? Aren't you absolutely beautiful!"

I let out a delighted squeal and clapped my hands together. Apeka gathered me into her arms and lifted me into the air. The motion knocked my scarf from my head, and my hair, which my mother had twisted into several tight knots all over my head, sprung free from its restraints. Apeka studied me with as much awe and adoration as I'd expect to see in a new grandmother's eyes. I immediately decided that I loved this woman, and I opened my mouth and let out another excited scream.

"Oh, you are just lovely!" Apeka exclaimed with delight. "And your hair... oh, it would be a crime to cut it. What do you think, my love? Do you like your hair?"

My mother approached with a bit of a pained smile and said, "She doesn't talk yet. All she does is squeal like that. I feel bad because... well, I'm not sure how to communicate with her."

Apeka laughed and said, "Well, then she is truly a special child. You're blessed, Hana. Very blessed indeed. In fact, seeing her hair and feeling her spirit, I wonder..."

"Wonder what?" my mother asked, clearly nervous.

"Well, I wonder if your daughter might be a Bard," Apeka said. "When a little girl's hair resists being cut, it's a sign that her spirit is strong. And when she grows and you find that she's few in her words, well, it's best that she speaks in song."

Then Apeka began to sing a low, beautiful melody with no words. Her voice was magical. It rose and fell over scales, climbing octaves and a crescendo in a single breath. I felt a stirring deep in my heart and I opened my mouth to sing with her. My voice was weak and timid compared to hers, but I kept singing. She harmonized with me, and my mother watched with tears in her eyes. When we finished singing, she whispered, "That was incredible."

"It's just the beginning," Apeka declared proudly. "I'll be back after the snow winds, before the rain winds in the spring. When I return, I'll bring your daughter to live with me. Cherish your time together now. Though you'll still see her in the village, she won't be a little girl anymore. And one day, when you see her, you'll likely find that your daughter and your world look nothing like you could ever imagine."

Apeka handed me to my mother.

"Take care, sweet girl," she said to me. To my mother she added, "Take care of each other. There are trying times ahead, and we'll need someone with a spirit like this little girl of yours."

Apeka was right about trying times. That night, the snow winds came, fiercer than anyone had seen them in 100 years. Most of the hunters were lost that night, and when the few survivors staggered back into our village, my father wasn't with them. I would never forget the way my mother howled that night, almost louder than the wild blizzard raging outside our trembling walls. It snowed nonstop for what felt like weeks. Food was scarce. Sickness swept through the village. My mother received word of more and more people passing every day, most of them children. Even my mother fell ill, but thankfully, she was able to recover. I wouldn't have survived that winter without her. My mother held me tight every night so that we could keep each other warm. To her delight, I started to speak just a little bit that winter. But to her dismay, the only words I would say often were "snow" and "father." Eventually, I composed my own little melody with just those two words, and I sang it every day until the snow winds stopped. When they finally did, Apeka returned just like she said, and my mother spoke the last words I would ever hear her say.

"Your spirit was the fire that kept me warm all this time," she told me. "I'll never know another winter with you."

"Snow father, snow father, snow father, no father," I chanted to myself as I knelt to the earth, ducking beneath the thick, twisted branches to avoid snagging my untamed hair. It was summer, my fourteenth summer, and I had been living with Apeka ever since I learned that my mother had died. The day Apeka first came to get me, she whispered as we left that my mother would be going to see my father. I didn't understand what she meant at the time. Then a few days later, we got word that my mother had passed in her sleep. Many thought she'd died of a broken heart and had just held out through that harsh winter for my sake. I chose to believe that she'd connected with my father's spirit somehow and he had simply come to get her so that they could be together.

In the years following that winter, spring and summer seemed to shorten. There were more cold weeks each year, and even when it was warm outside, it was almost always raining. But today, it was a beautiful summer day and the sun drenched the whole valley with a hopeful kind of glow. And I was singing my favorite song among the trees in my secret place. Whenever I came here, it felt like the trees opened their arms to me, and that everything in the air leaned closer to listen to me sing. Most of my songs had no words. Although I could talk now, I often found it difficult and frustrating to speak my thoughts aloud. I preferred to hum, sometimes adding words I could say easily to the melodies I composed.

"Snow father, no father," I murmured quietly. "Mother went home. No more snow, father. Mother's alone. No, no, no snow, father. Mother has hope. No more snow, father. No more alone."

The weather hadn't been this pleasant in a very long time. As I sang, I stroked the leaves around me, most of which were still drenched from last night's rain. There were mushrooms everywhere. I liked mushrooms. Apeka had taught me a lot about them. She told me they would grow everywhere if the sun didn't shine for a long time. Of course, she was right. She was right about most things. She also warned me a long time ago that wearing my hair out would likely earn me disapproving looks from other people in the village. It was true. I'd heard many people whisper that a girl with long hair brings bad luck. Some superstitious people had even gone as far as calling me a bad omen, saying that the harsh winters and shortening warm seasons arrived soon after I did and got worse as my hair grew. Apeka told me not to listen to them. She believed I was the opposite. She encouraged me to let my hair be free, saying it was symbolic of my spirit. And she welcomed the changes in Druhall. She taught me to do the same, so I loved to come to the forest and observe the different trees as they grew over the years, and see how the vines and ivies clung to their branches, and watch as the leaves changed colors and then scattered across the ground when summer ended. And today was a special day. I could watch the few flowers that managed to grow in the waterlogged forest as they leaned toward the stretching sun rays.

"No more snow, father," I sang quietly. "No, no more snow. No more snow, father. No more alone."

Suddenly, a screaming crow flew high over my head and startled me. I jumped to my feet and followed it with my eyes. Then I glanced in the direction it came from. Moments later, an entire black cloud of crows rose shrieking from the treetops. It didn't occur to me that something had frightened them. I was too busy watching their wild wings flap with frenzied energy. I called out after them, imitating their cry, and then laughed when a low-flying bird seemed to reply. But then, a hot blast of wind ripped through the trees with a roar, tearing leaves and branches from their trunks and flinging them away. I screamed and dropped to the ground. When the wind stopped, I was too shaken to stand up, but I looked around and saw leaf litter and tree debris scattered all over the forest floor. Some of the trees were stripped bare. The sight made tears spring to my eyes. I didn't have long to sit there and cry, however. There was a heavy rumbling that churned my stomach and rattled my bones. I didn't know what else to do, so I cried out, "Apeka! Apeka!"

Another hot blast swept through the trees, and I shrieked Apeka's name again. I knew she wasn't nearby. Not knowing what else to do, I closed my eyes and sang out a single note as loudly as I could with my lungs flattened to the shaking ground. The hot wind stopped abruptly. I kept singing. It was a song Apeka had taught me, but I couldn't form the words, so I just sang the melody. The ground gave one final lurch before stilling. I slowly opened my eyes just in time to see a massive, dark shadow rise up from the trees and then vanish into the sky. My heart was racing. I had no idea what I had just seen.

But I had to know. I fought my way to my feet and ran back toward the village, staggering and stumbling as I went. As I sprinted through the streets, I saw many of the villagers standing outside of their houses, their eyes glued to the sky. Many looked terrified. Others were in awe. When I passed, several followed me with their eyes and started to whisper. Voices of terror and confusion rose up all around me. Finally, I reached Apeka's hut on the edge of the village. She was standing outside the door waiting for me, and she wrapped me in a tight hug when I reached her.

"It's alright, love," she whispered, gently stroking my hair. "You're alright. Everything's going to be fine. Don't worry."

In tears, I mustered, "What... what was... the shadow? What was the shadow?"

She released me from her embrace and looked me in the eye.

"That, my dear," she said, "was a dragon."