The Dragon Tree (7 page)

             
She looked at her fingers. It wasn’t water.

             
At her waist, the oversized harness was twisted awkwardly. Too much of her weight was balanced on a single buckle. As the buckle bent slowly into a position it wasn’t meant to bend, one strap slipped through as if it were greased.

             
Eva’s body lurched to one side as one of her legs came free of the harness. Her sudden sideways inertia and the weight of her upper body sent her tumbling, and she ended up with her feet above her head.

             
“Hiro!” she screamed, awoken from her temporary confusion. “HIRO!”

             
The rope was far out of reach. She was dangling by only one leg.

              On the plateau, only the sound of Eva’s scream could tear Hiroki’s attention away from Billy’s bizarre contortions. He scrambled back to the edge of the cliff and dropped to his belly to peer over the edge.

             
“Eva!”

             
One moment he couldn’t see her at all. Only the taut nylon rope that hugged the cliff face then disappeared under an overhang. But a moment later, the rope scraped against the overhang and Eva swung into view just beyond. He saw one foot pointing up at him, locked into place above the harness. The rest of Eva’s body was flailing chaotically below the harness. He caught a glimpse of her terrified eyes just before she swung back out of view.

             
“EVA!”

             
Without thought, Hiroki swung his legs around and lowered them over the edge of the cliff. He latched onto the nylon rope as he found his first footholds, but the sound of the rope scraping against the rocks brought a rush of horrifying imagery to his mind: frayed strands of nylon; a sudden snap; two teenage bodies plummeting toward the water with nothing to catch them but cold Pacific air.

             
The rope couldn’t hold both of them. He let go.

             
One foot at a time, Hiro. Get a grip.

             
His inadvertent pun made him laugh. Laughing while hanging onto a sheer cliff face by the tips of toes and fingers was inexplicable, but Hiroki didn’t over think it.  He tried not to think at all. His world had just gotten very small, and only two things existed in it: Eva and certain death.

             
“I’m coming Eva!”

             
He was still going very slowly – one handhold or foothold at a time – but he was going
less
slowly every passing second. He felt the uneven surface of the rock pressing against his stomach as if prodding him to let go. He felt his pants ride up above his calves and up above his waist. He felt his shirt flapping crazily in the wind that buffeted the rocks to pry him off and send him soaring. None of it mattered. Only Eva mattered. He was getting closer.

             
“Hiro, please!” she cried from out of view.

             
“Just hold on!”

             
He eased away from the rocks to look down between his legs. Just in time to see her foot slip through the harness.

             
“NO!”

              A strange calm came over Eva in the instant she started her fall. She had heard that one’s life flashes before their eyes in times like these. Perhaps the calm was her mind’s way of preparing for those memories and allowing her to enjoy them – the last pleasure she would experience before her life was snuffed out by the greedy water below, so eager to swallow her whole.

             
But no, there were no memories for Eva. There was only the calm and a rush of vivid observations. She smelled the salty coating on the rocks before her and the sour stench of algae on the rocks below. She heard the seagulls circling the harbor in search of any edible morsel. She tasted the blood from her lip as she bit it. She felt the rush of cold air as it whipped through her clothes and covered her skin in goose bumps.

             
As she fell past the rocky shelf protruding from the cliff face, past the rocky curtain that shielded it from direct view, she saw the gnarled black roots that had dug their way through the rock to point defiantly skyward. She saw the black trunk of the tree that grew underneath the shelf in thick, braided cords like a tangle of black wire. She saw the trunk flair outward in all directions, its branches like thick black snakes slithering into the abyss. She saw the coarse black fruit hanging like macabre ornaments from the branches. She saw a single drop of blood red juice that formed on one piece of fruit and readied itself to join in her fall.

             
And then she saw a bulky form leap over the edge of the cliff above Hiroki – too strangely-shaped to be recognizable – and plummet toward her with an otherworldly screech.

             
Her moment of perfect calm ended when she felt her body snatched out of its freefall by powerful hands the size Volkswagons.

             
But no. They weren’t hands.

             
She was too close to the creature to see its full form. For her, there was only an expanse of scaled blue flesh that heaved with rapid breath. There were only thick black claws – gleaming like polished marble – that clutched her body firmly but somehow failed to slice her open. There was a great blue wing stretched translucent over arcing bones that flapped angrily.

             
There was gray water, and brown cliffs, and gray water and brown cliffs as the creature that held her in its paw spun wildly – out of control – down and down and down. And then there was only the gray water and white foam and the press of blue flesh as Eva’s protector plunged into the harbor like a boulder.

CHAPTER EIGHT

             
When the hulking creature had appeared above him, Hiroki lost his grip on the cliff. He swung his arms wildly until – miraculously – his right hand brushed the nylon rope. It was swinging loose now that Eva’s weight no longer held it taut, but he managed to wrap three fingers around the rope and hung on for dear life.

             
He spun himself around in time to get a clear view of the beast before it plunged into the bay. The pale blue wings were at least forty feet long from tip to tip, their elastic thickness fluttering with wind resistance as the beast pumped them frantically. The heavy body between the wings was a darker blue, mottled with uneven rings that were darker still. The creature’s tail hung uselessly at the rear of the body, but Hiroki could make out short plates protruding along its length.

             
He could not see the creature’s head from his angle, but he cringed fearfully and painfully at its cacophonous screeching. Seconds later, when the creature plunged into the water, the boom of the impact snuffed out the screeching.

             
So massive was the creature that struck the water that the splash it caused reached up the cliff wall all the way to Hiroki’s legs. His jeans were soaked and his shoes filled with cold water that sent a chill up his spine.

             
“Eva!” he screamed, unsure where she had gone. The horrifying creature had blocked his view of her for the precious moments it would have taken for her to complete her deadly fall and strike the water.

             
The tears came fast to Hiroki’s eyes. He tried to blink them away and focus on the rope in his hands, but his sobs only worsened. He managed to reach the rock shelf above Billy’s mysterious tree, and swung himself to the side to plant his feet on its surface. As the sobs wracked his entire body, he collapsed to the ground.

             
“Billy! Can you hear me? Billy!”

             
Even as he called out Billy’s name, he knew it was futile. The realization came to him with crystal clarity. The magnificent creature he had seen – the
horrifying
creature – that was
Billy
. He had seen the early stages of Billy’s transformation. He had seen Billy’s skin turn gray then eerily blue. He had seen the scales push their way up from somewhere under the skin. His black and bottomless eyes had been so unnaturally wide on his face.

             
Billy had transformed into a
dragon
.

             
He struggled to his feet and wiped away his tears. Unsteady on his feet, he crept closer to the edge of the shelf and leaned to one side to peer around the rocky curtain that shielded it. He could see the interior edge of the harbor where the cold Pacific water lapped against a rocky, crescent-shaped beach.

             
And there it was, lying still in the foaming surf. There
he
was.

             
Billy.

             
The dragon.

              Hiroki’s climb down from the rocky shelf was much easier than the climb from the plateau to the shelf. There were deep grooves running almost horizontally in the cliff. It made his descent nearly as easy as walking down a flight of stairs.

             
When he reached the rocky beach, he shuddered as an offensive image entered his mind: Eva lying on the jagged rocks below the cliff. If she fell straight down, she could not have fallen past the rocks into deeper water. Her body would be broken on those rocks, her raven hair across her face and her limbs nudged by the rising tide.

             
He couldn’t bear the thought. He didn’t have to.

             
“Hiro!”

             
He spun around to see the owner of the voice he knew so well. There she was. Eva! Her clothes were soaked through and there was a thin trickle of blood on her forehead, but even on her wobbly legs she was able to stumble toward him.

             
Hiroki forgot his own fatigue and sprinted to meet her. He wrapped her in his arms and lifted her of her feet, swinging her back and forth like a child. He wasn’t especially strong – not as strong as Billy or Aidan – but the exaltation he felt at seeing her alive and well gave him the strength of ten men.

             
“Okay, not too rough” she chuckled. “I’m pretty sore.”

             
“You’re not dead,” he muttered so softly it was almost a whisper.

             
“I’m not dead.” She kissed his cheek and pulled out of his firm embrace. “He saved me. Billy saved me.”

             
She turned and pointed at the creature – at Billy – lying in the shallow water. His tail and haunches were submerged, but one wing floated on the surf and his enormous head had plowed a trench in the rocky beach. His eyes were almost closed, but their lids fluttered as he rolled his head their direction and blinked.

             
“How do you know it’s him?” asked Hiroki. “You didn’t see. On the cliff, you didn’t see what was happening to him.”

             
“Help me get him out of the water.”

              Eva hadn’t known she was good at holding her breath until she
had
to be good.

             
The dragon’s plunge into the bay displaced so much water that there was a momentary vacuum around her. She instinctively filled her lungs with air and closed her eyes as the water rushed back in from all sides and enveloped them both. It was roiling in all directions at once, like the inside of a washing machine. She was ripped from the dragon’s paw in the first few seconds and watched, amazed, as the mighty creature slipped deeper and out of view.

             
She kicked hard for the surface and broke through just as her air ran out. Gasping, she flattened her body and swam for the cliffs. She couldn’t see the beach above the cresting harbor whitecaps, but she was familiar enough with this body of water to pick a good line. Her tired legs gave out when the beach was in sight, and she crawled the rest of the way to solid ground.

             
The creature had returned from the depths of the water and had been swept up on the beach twenty yards to the north. The moonlight wasn’t strong enough for Eva to make out any detail, but the shapes she saw were unmistakable: she was looking at a dragon.

             
She should have been terrified, but her treacherous climb and perilous fall had cured her of fear – at least for the moment. She wrapped her arms around her torso to stave off the evening chill and stumbled up the beach toward her animal rescuer.

             
Teen feet away, she finally got a good look at him.

             
“Your eyes are different, but they’re still your eyes,” said Eva with an excited lilt in her voice. “You saved me, Billy.”

             
Billy’s massive black eyes were locked on hers, but he struggled to keep them open. The fall had been as nightmarish for him as it had been for her, despite the protection of his huge body. He was exhausted at the very least, if not injured. He tried to lift his head to acknowledge her, but couldn’t.

             
“No, don’t. Just lie there.” Eva looked back at the cliffs and saw Hiroki’s slender form descending at a rapid pace. “Hiro’s coming.”

              Billy’s dragon form was so massive, there was nothing that Hiroki and Eva could do to help him out of the water. They struggled under the weight of one broad wing, their knees wobbling as the icy surf churned around their feet. But it was a valiant effort by Billy to drag himself ashore that finally brought him out of the water.

             
There was a large indentation in the base of the cliff. It wasn’t quite a cave, but it offered some shelter. A breathless Eva guided Billy toward the shelter like a ground controller on an airport tarmac. He trudged through the rocky beach on colossal paws, huge belly inflating and deflating with every strained breath, then collapsed against the rocks.

             
“How do I not have my camera?” asked Hiroki with a shiver. “Oh my god, of all the times to leave it at home— I need photographic proof later to convince myself that this is actually happening.”

             
“You know it is,” said Eva with a mischievous smile.

             
“Do you think he still has his own brain? Not that it would be a good thing, exactly, to have Billy’s brain. But at least it’s still a
human
brain.”

             
Billy rolled his head toward Hiroki and struggled to open his bony jaws, exposing the violet cavern of his throat. A rumble started deep within his neck and worked its way up to the gaping mouth.

             
“Um, Billy—” Eva protested.

             
The rumble turned into a guttural growl and exploded from Billy’s jaws like the bellow of a foghorn. A column of hot gas billowed out just behind the growl and ignited in a brilliant orange flame that illuminated the underside of the shelter.

             
“Okay, I’m sorry!” Hiroki howled as he backed up a step.

             
“I don’t think he’s mad,” said Eva as she moved closer to Billy. She worked her way toward one muscular ear – as long as she was tall – protruding from the side of his head. There was a nest of wiry black hair inside the ear, shorter than the whiskers beside his flaring nostrils but thicker. “I bet you can hear my heartbeat with ears this big,” she whispered.

             
Billy grunted. She took it as affirmation.

             
“I don’t think he can speak, Hiro. If he tries to speak, he just growls.”

             
“And lights us on fire!” Hiroki kept one eye on Billy’s mighty jaws and flaring nostrils as he backed up against the shelter wall. He leaned against it and crossed his arms. “Of all the people to turn into a mythical creature. How long before he sets Hudson on fire just to watch it burn? No, he’ll go straight for Alpine. Alpine sucks, right Billy?”

             
“Leave him alone, Hiro.”

             
“Leave him alone? You almost died because of this asshole!”

             
Eva walked over to Hiroki and placed a hand on his elbow. She waited for him to look at her before speaking softly. “No one made me climb down the cliff. I almost died because of me. And he
saved
me.”

             
“I was trying to save you too, you know.”

             
Eva nodded her head, sudden tears in her eyes. “I love you for it.”

             
Hiroki was so thrilled by her words that he had to look away. But the moment was short. He looked up again and saw Billy the dragon – the dragon! – staring right at them. No privacy at all! He shook his head angrily and slipped away from Eva, embarrassed now.

             
“We have to get out of here,” said Hiroki bitterly.

             
“Your parents will freak out that you stayed out all night—”

             
Eva shook her head. “The cross country team is having a team building overnight. I’m supposedly there right now... bonding.”

             
“We still have to go or we’ll freeze.”

             
Eva shook her head. “We can’t leave him like this.”

              Eva and Hiroki collected all the driftwood they could find up and down the beach. They dumped it in a pile at the edge of the shelter, then stared at it for a few minutes with no idea how to light it. It was damp and probably wouldn’t ignite even if they had matches and gasoline.

             
Then Billy started grunting.

             
Hiroki immediately understood what he meant. He picked up a chunk of wood, cautiously dropped it in front of Billy’s lolling head then bolted for cover in anticipation of a blast of fire.

             
It took Billy a moment to harness his physical capability – so new to him – and produce fire. At first he merely growled and gurgled and burped. But after a few failed attempts, he finally coughed up a cloud of sparks and the log ignited.

             
Eva clapped excitedly then rubbed underneath Billy’s chin to thank him.

             
Hiroki watched the display of affection while he used the flaming log to light the rest of the driftwood. He shook his head disgustedly, but soon found himself laughing instead.

             
It’s like being jealous of a golden retriever
, he assured himself.