The Dragon and the Witch (5 page)

Chapter Eight

First, a wet tongue lapped at my face and fur nuzzled into my neck, and then I felt strong hands sliding under my body and picking me up, pulling me into his chest. I knew it was probably Piku waking me for my birthday, but when the darkness behind my lids turned light, I opened my eyes against the morning sun.

Tolbalth held me in his human arms. Piku casually strolled in front of him with a slow exhausted walk. I knew my tiger and when he was tired, he had a way of dragging his back paws against the ground. I closed my eyes and opened them again, wondering if this was all part of my dream, too. But it wasn’t. The sun was still there, Piku still dragging his paws and my father’s jaw still set into a hard line.

“What’s going on?” I tried to wipe the sleep from my eyes. “Why am I outside?” I glanced down at my exposed toes and tanned feet. “Why are you carrying me?”

Tolbalth stopped and placed me down on my feet. I stumbled, but he reached out and caught me. Piku nuzzled my arm and vibrated with a moaning growl.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

Tolbalth crossed his arms over his chest. “You scared me half to death. That’s what’s going on.”

“What? How?”

“Do you think that being eighteen means you can do what you want? You knew the rules.”

“Father, I don’t know what you’re taking about. Why were you carrying me?”

He ran his hand through his hair and back down over his face. Shifting his eyes from mine to Piku’s, he met my gaze again. “I went in to wake you up this morning for breakfast and you were gone.”

“Gone? What do you mean, I was gone?” The worry lines around Tolbalth’s eyes and mouth spoke volumes. “I don’t understand.”

He didn’t say anything. Instead, he took a deep breath.

“Father, say something.”

“You were gone, Zadie. Your bed was empty and I wasn’t sure where to find you. You scared me to death.”

“I don’t know how that happened.” What bothered me more than anything was the fact that I couldn’t remember last night. I went to bed and the next thing I knew, my father was carrying me toward our place. “Maybe I blacked out or something.”

“What were you doing in the cave at Crens Peak?”

I turned around and saw the cave he had warned me not to go inside of for years. Everything came flooding back to me. My dream. Inside the cave. The chant and even the feeling of being alone. “I don’t know. I followed
her
. But I
thought
I was dreaming.”

“You weren’t dreaming. We’ve been searching hours for you. Hours!”

“I-I’m sorry. I don’t know what happened. You were calling to me and she was there. Her nightgown was bloody and the man that recited that chant, he was there, too. I mean, it was a dream, wasn’t it?”

Tolbalth stared at me. Finally, he spoke, “I’ll be gone most of the day. But I’ll return tonight to make you dinner for your birthday. Don’t leave our area.”

I swallowed at the seriousness in his tone.

“I’ve been worried about you enough for two days.”

I nodded, running my hands through Piku’s fur. My father ran and shifted into his dragon taking off in flight. I watched until I couldn’t see him any longer and I turned to Piku. “I don’t know what happened.”

“He came searching for me, Zadie. He needed me to help track your scent. You scared him to death. I’ve never seen a dragon with that kind of love for a human.”

“Why did my mother bring me Crens Peak and leave me there?”

“Why do you care?” Piku shook his head and sat back on his hind legs. “I’d tell that woman to take a hike. She’s not the one who spent four hours trying to search for you. She’s not the one who pulled you out of that cave and she’s not the one who will be there when you need her.”

“Yeah, but why? Why did she leave me?” I glanced down at Piku. “There are so many unanswered questions.”

“Maybe there are no answers, Zadie. Maybe the past should be left alone and you should focus on the future.”

“Easy for you to say, Piku. You weren’t left for dead in a forest when you were born.”

Piku released a growl. “You’re my best friend and I love you enough to spend four hours trying to find you. But you’re one stubborn girl. If you keep searching for answers, you might find something that you don’t want to know.”

He had a point. I was risking my way of life for answers that might have a negative impact on me. But there were so many nagging oddities lately that I almost felt like my mother was trying to tell me something. As if she’d traveled a long journey to warn me of someone. Stubborn or not, I was going to get to the bottom of my dreams, powers and strange things that I’d been going through. I honestly believed I had no other choice.

Chapter Nine

“I think I’m a witch,” I told Piku, staring off in the other direction so I didn’t have to see him roll his eyes or cringe. He had a way of pulling me back to reality when my mind started off on a road that made no sense, but right now, I didn’t want to be pulled back.

I truly thought that I might be one of those vile things. When he didn’t respond, I glanced down to my left side but he wasn’t there. “Piku?” I whipped around. The white tiger sat stoic with his head tilted as the breeze ruffled his fur. He used those beady eyes to stare at me. “What? Why are you looking at me like that?”

“That comment is so far out in left field, I’m not sure I even remember what you said.”

“I’m serious.”

“What in the name of the land of Golth would make you think that you’re a witch?”

“First of all, why am I able to actually communicate with you? Humans can’t do that. Why can I? I mean, Tolbalth can’t talk to you and he’s an animal like you are.”

“Wait a minute, missy.” He shook his head and stood. “Your dragon of a father is nothing like my kind. That’s like comparing lizards with birds.”

I shoved my hands on my hips. “You know what I mean, Piku. I spoke to Rounili when he was shot. And I’ve had various conversations with other animals, too.”

“Okay, so you’re a freak of nature, Zadie. Not a witch.”

“But what about the bullet that I removed from Rounili’s side? How do we explain that one? And last night—”

“Last night, you walked in your sleep out to that cave alone.”

“I wasn’t alone.”

Piku huffed, which sounded more like an irritated growl. “Don’t go telling your father that you’re a witch. He’ll burn the idea out of you.” He moved past me and kept walking. I turned to follow him.

“I can see the past, too. Like things that have happened. But I think I must have touched something from the past to have the vision come to life. If you look at the facts, you’ll see that I’m right.”

“You’re not right, so stop telling yourself that you are.”

“My mother is visiting me for a reason, Piku, and I’m going to find out why.”

“You’re going to push your father to no return is what you’re going to do. Then our land will have to deal with an irate dragon with a mean streak and a deadly set of fire-induced lungs.”

“You make him out to seem worse than he really is.” We walked side by side toward the ravine my father had taken me to the day before.

“No, I make him sound nicer than he is. Let’s remove
mean streak
and say that he’s an irate dragon with a death wish to kill everything in his path.” Piku glanced down where I was staring. “What’s this?”

“It’s a test.”

“What kind of test are you going to do with a ravine of old bones?”

“You knew about this place, didn’t you, Piku?”

“Yeah, who doesn’t? It’s not a place anyone wants to visit, Zadie.”

I narrowed my eyes at the tiger, staring him down. We’d been friends since I was five years old and he’d never told me about this place. “And you never told me about it, why?”

“Why would I? It’s not like I was there when it happened. Although, it was only twenty years ago when this slaughter took place.”

Irritated, I huffed. “I’m going down there.”

“Down where.”

I pointed toward the gully.

“No you’re not. All that’s down there is death, Zadie.”

“Well, death and I are going meet face to face then.” I carefully took a step on the steep slope, sliding a few inches and using my arms out to my sides to steady myself.

“If you kill yourself, what am I going to tell your father? He’ll hunt me down, skin me and use my fur as a scarf.”

I glanced back at his worried face. “Piku, I won’t kill myself. I’ll be careful, you just stand guard and make sure my father doesn’t sneak up on us.”

“Great,” I heard him say to himself, “I get to deal with the real-life, fire-blowing, edgy dragon while you deal with harmless skeletons.”

“I heard that, Piku.” I laughed when I heard him huff. He turned his back toward me and stood guard, the way I had asked him to do.

Turning my attention back to the hill before me, I masked my fear. I wasn’t trying to be rebellious by going down in a gully full of dragon skeletons. Instead, I wanted to see about this new power of vision. It had happened to me in the cave with my mom and the day before in a dream. I believed it also happened when I’d first touched the blade of the dagger my father had given me. Somehow, someway, I believed I was able to see into the past. Heck, stepping into a traumatic place such as this, should tell me if I was able to visit the past.

When I made it to the bottom, I turned to Piku and raised my hand, waving at him. “I made it.”

“Good, now hurry,” he yelled down to me.

I said to myself, “Yeah, yeah. I’m hurrying.”

I wasn’t sure what I’d expected, but standing among hundreds of dragon bones in a sunken part of the land left me with an eerie feeling that moved through my body. The quiet left a hollow sound around me. I thought I could hear their cries, but it was my imagination of a time when they’d fought fiercely but helplessly for their lives.

I kneeled next to a pile and pressed my open palm over a ribcage. Nothing happened. I wasn’t able to see the past or anything associated with the bones. A part of me felt deflated, wondering what had caused me to see what I thought was the past in the cave the night before.

The way the bones lay, intertwined with other dragons, broke my heart. A clump of bones twisted together like an impossible jigsaw puzzle. I took careful steps out of respect, trying my best not to land on any of their bones as I maneuvered through the graveyard.

The area was devoid of insects and animals. As if there were an unwritten rule that the land of death was off-limits to anyone or anything. Yet, I’d invaded that land without permission from the living or the dead.

Each step was strategically planned as I glanced around the barren field. Where there was once a gully thriving with life, today it was a reminder of the battle between dragons and humans. But I sensed more. And that feeling in the pit of my gut threw me off-kilter.

I glanced up at Piku. His back toward me, he continued to keep guard. And I continued to walk through the graveyard of massive bones. A constricting feeling clenched my throat and potent tears stung my eyes.

“Tell me my gift. Show me my gift. Do something,” I yelled.

In my careless anger, I tripped over a massive thighbone and stumbled forward, planting the palm of my hands against an erect rib bone, and impaling one hand near my wrist.

“Oh, my God.”

I dragged my hand from the bone as I watched my blood shimmer while it dripped down the length of the rib. Then as if the grave came to life, I stood in the middle of a thriving field of colorful dragons swooping down toward me, yet moving through me.

Their massive bodies navigated the skies with colorful wings spread and their presence grand. Taking three steps back, I witnessed them intertwining in a dance that mesmerized me into a frozen statue watching the life around me. They weren’t just in the gully, they owned the land and commanded life in a way that I could have never imagined. And although they weren’t really there at that moment, I knew I was watching the past.

A female dragon stood at the top of the gully, staring downward with her youngling tucked under her wing. She stared past me, past the gaping hole in the ground and I watched her carefully. She had spotted something—something disturbing. With a step backward, she cocked her head and then lunged her neck forward, bellowing fire into the air.

It was a cry to be heard and it was the reason I turned at the same time as the other dragons to see what they saw. I gasped and covered my hand over my mouth. Along the ridge at the top of the trenches, thousands of men armed with every weapon known to man stood their ground. War paint on their faces, a sign that their time had come. And it was at that point when I knew I was standing in the middle of the epic battle between human and dragon—between life and death.

As if gasping to catch my breath, I sucked in air and everything disappeared—my world and theirs grew dark, cold and lonely. Everything became nothing and that darkness consumed me. I fell to my knees and landed beside the bones that had shown me their colorful life, even if it was only for mere seconds. Finally, the curtain to my world of the past was closed and everything faded to nothing.