The Dragon Tree (22 page)

             
To demonstrate his point, Hiroki peeled off to one side and performed a pristine barrel roll. He tucked his wings against his slender body and corkscrewed like a spiraling football, picking up speed the faster he spiraled.

             
You see? He may be strong, but you and I are agile.

             
As Hiroki leveled off his flight and extended his wings again, Eva swooped down from above. She was only twenty feet above him and matching his pace perfectly.

             
It’s not a contest, Hiro. We’re all only beginning to learn what we can do.

             
You think it’s not a contest to Billy?

             
Hiroki dipped his wings left and right. Eva matched his every move, perfectly mimicking him. He screeched with delight and went into a new series of moves, more complicated than before. He lifted his tail to use it as a rudder and swung hard to the right. Before Eva could fall in above him, he inclined his body and darted upward at a steep angle.

             
You can’t shake me that easily, Hiro!

             
Eva was right behind him, climbing the same steep angle. He tucked his wings against his body again and performed another barrel roll. This time, she did the same. They spun higher and higher in perfect tandem, like twins. Like they were born to fly together.

             
This is too easy!
Hiroki shouted with his mind.
Follow me!

             
Hiroki spread his wings to arrest his climb, then pinned them again as he upended himself. He pointed his snout straight down and let gravity do the rest. Despite being smaller than Billy’s dragon body, his new body was still very heavy and picked up speed quickly as he plummeted toward the ground.

             
Eva hesitated for a few seconds before upending herself to follow him down.

             
They burst through a gap in the foliage at a quick speed and had only a moment to pull up before striking the ground. But both their bodies performed on instinct, requiring no thought or effort from them. Their wings shot out like parachutes and brought them – instantly – to a near stop. They held themselves in suspension for only a second then swung their bodies horizontal and darted forward along the ground.

             
The trees whipped past Eva so fast it felt like they – the trees – must be flying. All she saw was a blur of brown and green and black, but in her dragon form her mind could process all of this information instantaneously and chart a safe path through the obstacles. Hiroki was every bit as capable. He flew a similar course just fifty yards to her left, dipping to one side to slip between two tree trunks that were close together, ducking to squeeze under the diagonal bridge of a fallen tree. Eva performed maneuvers every bit as daring. Branches heavy with leaves slapped at her from all sides as she brushed past them with lightning quickness, but her tough skin absorbed every blow with no discomfort.

             
If only I could run a cross-country race like this!

             
She hadn’t intended to send the thought into Hiroki’s mind, but she was still too new to telepathy to control the phenomenon.

             
Why would you ever want to run again
, asked Hiroki,
when you can fly!

             
Hot blood coursing through her veins and cold air surging over her aerodynamic body, she had to admit that Hiroki was right. Her life on two feet could never offer thrills like she was feeling in this moment… this perfect moment…

             
But then her father’s face flashed in her mind. Her mother’s face followed an instant later, and the faces of Myra and Anita. They were the reason she had to return to her human body. They were the reason she could never leave that life behind entirely.

             
She felt as though she might cry, but wasn’t sure how to cry while in her dragon form. Her big black eyes would unleash tears the size of oranges if she could muster any, but she doubted this body came equipped with tear ducts.

             
Save your tears for later
, Eva, she said to herself.

             
She slowed her flight until she was merely gliding between the trees. She wasn’t sure of the time but she was suddenly weary of flying.

             
What are you doing, Eva? Don’t fall behind!

             
I’m going back to the campground, Hiro. I have to get home.

              She found Billy’s mind in the great expanse of the mountain terrain – a single psychological landmark – and followed it like a beacon. When she arrived at the hole in the foliage that she and Hiroki made wider a few hours earlier, she circled quietly for several minutes. A deep melancholy washed over her, a feeling of loss she couldn’t understand.

             
There was no time to indulge her sadness. It was getting late.

             
Billy had been sitting behind the wheel of the Buick, but he stepped into the road when Eva landed. He reached into Hiroki’s backpack, removed a handful of leaves Hiroki had not ground into powder and sprinkled them on the ground in front of Eva’s yellow head.

             
I need the sheet, Billy.

             
Billy nodded and pulled Eva’s sheet out of the back of the Buick. It was a mere scrap of cloth compared to her twenty-foot-long body, but he draped it across her back anyway. She clawed the ground restlessly for a few moments, her black eyes locked on Billy, before she finally lapped up the leaves.

             
Billy held onto one corner of the sheet while she changed, carefully adjusting its position so she ended up fully covered by the time the last of her dragon features were gone. As she climbed to her feet, he helped her wrap the sheet tightly around her naked body.

             
“Thank you,” she whispered. “I feel so strange. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

             
Billy wrapped his arms around her. “You don’t have to explain. I think I understand.”

              On the ride back to Alpine, Eva closed her eyes and leaned against the window. She was already losing the details of her flight through the forest with Hiroki. Already the blur of nighttime colors she had seen felt like the fog of a fever dream, not reality.

             
The tears she had been unable to shed while flying came out in a torrent. Eva was disgusted with herself for being such an emotional wreck, especially in front of Billy. But then she felt a warm hand clasp her fingers.

             
“While I was sitting in the car, waiting for you… It reminded me,” said Billy, his voice soft. “It reminded me of the last time I saw my mother.”

             
Eva wiped away her tears and turned to look at Billy. His face was slack as he stared through the windshield, his eyes tired.

             
“On my ninth birthday, my parents threw a party. They gave me one of those party hats – a paper cone with an elastic chinstrap – to make me feel like it was
my
party, but there were no other kids. It was just my parents and their friends, drinking beer and barbecuing. They all wished me a happy birthday, but pretty much ignored me. The party went all day and into the night. My dad started asking people to leave, but my mom… she didn’t want the party to end. They had a big fight about it, right in the front yard, right outside my bedroom window. By the time they were done screaming at each other, everyone was already gone. I don’t know if they saw me watching from my window, but maybe… maybe…

             
“A few days later, when my dad was on base, my mother drove me to the grocery store. The whole way there she was talking, talking really fast and not paying attention to traffic. She was apologizing that my birthday party was so bad and blaming it on my father. She said she wanted to make it up to me. So we would go to the store and I could pick out whatever I wanted. Candy or ice cream… whatever the birthday boy wanted.

             
“When we got to the grocery store, though, my mom didn’t get out of the car. She parked and turned off the engine, but she just sat there behind the wheel. She was still talking, but so quiet that I couldn’t hear what she was saying. Talking to herself. And she was crying. I remember very clearly that the stuff on her eyelashes – her mascara – it was running. She looked bad. She was pretty, my mom, so I didn’t like to see her looking bad.

             
“She told me to wait in the car while she went in the grocery store. I said I wasn’t sure what I wanted yet, but she promised to get me one of everything. Whatever the birthday boy wanted. She took a piece of paper out of her purse and wrote something on it, then folded it and put it in my shirt pocket. She told me it was part of my birthday present and I had to count to one thousand before I looked at it. Then she blew her nose and gave me a kiss, and she went in the store without me.”

             
Eva couldn’t take her eyes off Billy. He was squeezing the steering wheel so hard that his knuckles turned white. His eyes were damp, reflecting the moonlight.

             
“I counted all the way to eight hundred before I finally opened the note. It said, ‘Go inside the store. Ask a woman to call your father.’ There was a phone number at the bottom. Our phone number.”

             
Billy slowed the Buick and took a turn onto a paved road. They had reached the eastern edge of Alpine where a few cars were on the street. He straightened up in his seat and tried to focus on the road, but Eva saw that he was still lost in thought.

             
“That’s the last time I ever saw her,” Billy whispered. “Sitting in Hiro’s car, I started counting just like I did that day. Counting out loud like a stupid kid. I… I wasn’t sure you were coming back.”

              Eva had tried to stay composed while Billy spoke, but she finally burst into tears. She lifted Billy’s hand and pressed it against her heart. “I’m so sorry, Billy.”

             
“When my dad picked me up from the grocery store, he was still wearing his uniform. He didn’t say a word to me when we walked out to the car. He didn’t say a word to me on the drive home. But I remember how scared he looked. It was the only time I ever saw him scared.”

             
“Of course he was scared. He loves you.”

             
Billy gulped down the lump in his throat. “Better clean yourself up. We’re almost at your house.”

***

              Billy checked the time as he backed out of Eva’s driveway. It was 10:30pm, well before her curfew. And well before Hiroki was expecting him on the cliffs.

             
He sat at an Alpine stoplight long after it turned green, deciding which direction he was going to turn. If he turned left, it would lead him to the harbor cliffs. If he turned right, it would lead him into the mountains.

             
He turned right.

              Three hours later Billy parked the Buick on the shoulder of a dirt access road above Grays Harbor. There were ruts where Hiroki had parked more than a week ago to hike down to the beach. Billy marched down the path, unaware he was following the same path down that Hiroki had taken.

             
If not for the dragon blood pumping through his veins – and the unnatural strength it gave him – he never would have been able to climb up the grooves in the cliff. Not under the weight of the chainsaw he had liberated from his father’s timber site. The strap for the behemoth machine dug into the flesh between his neck and shoulder. Only the plastic cover fixed over the metal teeth of the blade prevented it from cutting him as it bounced against his back.

             
A full week without transforming had given Billy time to set aside the thrill of flying and consider – really consider – the consequences of eating the fruit. It was one thing to change into a dragon when you wanted to make the change. It was another thing all together to have no choice but to change. They had the option to eat the leaves and prevent the change, but what happened when the black powder ran out? There were three of them – three who needed the leaves – and they had no idea how many years might go by before the leaves permanently purged the transformational blood from their bodies. If the powder ran short and the tree was bare, if they got desperate, how far would any of them go to hoard the powder for themselves?

             
The warnings from Hiroki’s grandfather had meant nothing to Billy that first night on the swings, but his words had since returned to Billy’s mind. And when he interrupted them this afternoon and once again pleaded for them to be cautious? Billy had been listening very intently when the old man pleaded with them to destroy the tree.