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The Dragon That Was Not There

Maggie was 14 when she decided to defeat the dragon. No one else had even come close. All the men had failed.

And it was ridiculous because everybody knew the dragon was just an illusion. Even his name, Prism, was a hint. The dragon had been conjured by a curse designed to trap the villagers in their dreary little ash colored town, aptly called “Dim Wood Village.”

The illusory dragon blocked passage to the greater world. Maggie knew a little about the greater world through oil paintings that decorated the castle walls, rendered by artists who had been there, before the curse had gone into effect over two decades ago.

Maggie sometimes imagined herself walking into the paintings. They were worlds of color: the dusky greenery of windswept fields, the cool blues of lonely oceans, the reds and yellows of wildflowers, and mountains whose snowy tops swept toward cloudy skies. Maggie wanted to dip her toes into the receding shallows of ocean,  reach out and hold the flowers, pick berries from the vines.

Yet every man who had tried to get past Prism had not only failed, but died. Some had had heart attacks, and others had died by their own hand.

Maggie thought the men must have been awfully dumb. No matter how scary the dragon looked, could the men not have simply closed their eyes and continued walking, until they reached the other side unfurling with beauty, sunlight, oceans, and snow-topped mountains?

It was the Other Side that Maggie cared about, even more than the bragging rights of having defeated a dragon. Maggie was already a princess, which meant she had it better than most. She ate well and had jewelry and servants. But the castle was dreary. Sure the architecture was grand, but despite the tireless work of servants with feather dusters, a layer of ash always seemed to cover everything.

Plus she had noticed that no matter how rich people were, they all had the silly habit of dying.

They were all the time catching one plague or another, or doing something stupid like sword-fighting drunk. But no matter how prudent they were, or foolish, every life ended the same way, and ended quickly. And the kinder people were, the quicker their deaths seemed to come.

Her mother had died before Maggie ever got to know her well, and it had taken so little, just a simple wooden wedge-shaped block that Maggie had left near the top of a stairway. She had only been seven, and had forgotten to return her blocks to her toy box. Her brother had been there with Maggie; they had both watched her mom slip  and heard her scream as she fell, which was abruptly silenced.

Maggie had expected that her mother would only skin her knee like Maggie did when she fell, but Maggie had been wrong. Two days later her mother had died.

Her brother who had watched it all happen would not speak to Maggie for days, which hurt because Maggie felt enough shame and grief already. She would have liked the support of her brother, a shoulder to cry on, someone who shared her memories.

Her father, the king, was always distant, always busy. At the funeral, his greatest comfort to Maggie had been a cold kiss on her forehead and a light pat on the head.

He had not blamed Maggie, but his comforting gestures had not comforted. So Maggie had used her caged pet parakeet as a therapist. Maggie loved to take him out and hold the tiny bundle in her cupped hand, and stroke his soft feathers, and speak softy to him. Blue Boy had been a patient listener, a little pulsing ball of plush blue feathers with a fast heartbeat.

But one day when she went to seek his counsel, she saw him at the bottom of the cage. Looking closer, Maggie saw that his head was contorted at an unnatural angle. His eyes were open, but Maggie knew he what his stiffness meant. Despite her grief, Maggie had not cried when her mother died. But now a sob broke free.

She sank to the floor, and another sob came. Before long, her tears were unstoppable, every muscle in her throat constricted. She wept not just with her eyes but with her whole body, each cry rising to a final mewling pitch where it tapered to a fine point, before a new one began from down deep.

As her tears flowed, a familiar voice returned her to the world. “Now maybe you know how it feels,” Eric said, “to lose someone you love.”

The words had sent an electric jolt through Maggie. What did he mean? She had loved her mom and missed her desperately.

The shock had stopped her crying, and a cold shell descended over Maggie. She had shut down and would not speak to anyone for almost three months.

Maggie supposed her trauma was one reason she thought about death so much, far more than other people. And why she longed to experience life outside her ash-colored town, and why she could not let an illusion stop her.

Though a girl, Maggie was no stranger to fighting real things. With her sword, she had killed a rabid wolf once in order to save a toddler. If she could do that, surely she could deal with an unreal dragon.

Which was more than she could say for the adults around her. The idiots had actually written books with theories on how to defeat Prism. One was titled The Problem of Prism: How to Vanquish an Illusion. But the book had not told how. It was just a transcript of arguments that had taken place in court.

She had read other books. In one of them she learned that whenever anyone had tried to strike Prism, the sword had passed right through him. And when they shot arrows at him, the missiles had failed to make contact. But Prism could not touch anyone physically, and his fiery breath could not burn his victims.

So what was the big deal? Her plan was terribly simple. She would leave her sword behind, just in case Prism did somehow make her want to die, which she doubted would happen. And if Prism somehow managed to scare her, she would simply close her eyes and keep walking. And if his roars made her want to run, she would cover her ears and walk through him. Why did the adults never think of the obvious?

On the morning Maggie had decided to liberate herself, she rose and packed a few items in a cloth sack: some iced cakes and bottles of water. She did not know if the land beyond would yield food and water right away, and she had to survive long enough to find them.

To get to Prism she had to climb a wood-slat fence, adjusting her long yellow skirt as she went over. No one tried to stop her. The fence was there because most towns people did not want to be reminded of the dragon. They craved separation. They did not want to glimpse his fiery breath on their way to the market.

After Maggie had landed on the other side of the fence, she followed a long dirt trail and heard snuffling. From where she was she could see a flash of bright sea-green scales, and she headed toward them. As she moved closer a heart-jolting roar split the air.

She hesitated, but only a moment. The faster her heart beat, the braver she was determined to be. Her original plan had been to close her eyes and cover her ears, but now she wanted to look into the demon eyes of the dragon that for twenty years had kept everyone locked in a sooty village, and walk right through him. Her adrenaline swept her into ecstasy. She felt invulnerable.

As she moved forward, Prism loomed larger and larger. He was indeed formidable-looking. His giant head swiveled as he scanned the field for any newcomers. He towered over every house in the village, and he spread his wings with violent beats that went beyond mere flapping. His eyes did not look demonic, just wild and relentless.

When Maggie got within a few yards of him, she released a long satisfied breath. She had gotten far. Now it was a matter of mind over sight. She lifted her chin and began walking toward Prism as the dragon looked at her with apparent interest.

As she got closer, the dragon roared, reared his neck back, and blasted a jet of flame from his mouth. She jumped at the surprise but did not feel a physical burn.

But behind the flames, the dragon blurred. The green of him shifted to blue and she saw that she was walking into a soft wall. When she looked up Prism had transformed.

It was not the wild eyes of a dragon she saw. She was looking at Blue Boy, magnified, the way he had looked the day she found him at the bottom of his cage, his feathers in disarray. The head she saw now lolled unnaturally to one side.

Maggie drew in a sharp breath, staggered back, and nearly tripped on the hem of her skirt. She groped at the air for support as tears blurred her vision.

“Not real,” she whispered. But she did not believe it. What she saw was real. Prism had cut his visage from the fabric of her memories, which she accepted as true.  She vaguely remembered what she had originally planned, and closed her eyes and pressed her palms flat against her ears, but she could still see Blue Boy behind her eyelids.

She had expected fear, but not this, not sadness, not remorse, not self-blame. She thought if she did not get away from him immediately, she would die, would have to die, yet something inside her pushed her legs forward.

She tried her best to remember why she had come: her dream of rolling sunlit oceans and magnificent wildflowers, and boundless blue skies. But even if she made it to the other side of Prism, she knew he would follow her. He was inside her now.  Maybe he had been inside her all along, and how could she escape herself?

\”I am tough,” she told herself, but her voice broke when the giant Blue Boy opened his beak wide. What came out was neither a chirp or a roar. It was not the scream of a dragon or a bird. In it was the plea in the voice of her mother, the way she had sounded the day she had fallen down the stairs.

Maggie went forward, but a swooning dizziness came over her. “Blue Boy,” she said before the world went black.

She woke in her own bed, and heard a shuffling sound. Looking around, Maggie saw a woman servant sweeping the floor. “Ah Miss, you are awake,” the servant smiled. “Excellent, your father will be so pleased.” The woman studied Maggie more closely. “You were terribly lucky.” The servant shook her head. “And also very foolish. Did you think you could succeed where the strongest have failed?” The servant sighed.

Failed. Maggie groaned at the word, but it was true; Maggie had thought it would be so easy. It should have been easy to defeat a dragon that was not there. But now she knew that an illusion could hurt you.

Where had she gone wrong?  She had thought the problem was fear of Prism, but fear was the easy part. Fear could be dealt with, pushed down, ignored. But not so with pain, raw, mind- crushing pain.

If she faced him again, she would have to prepare for the hurt that had made the world spin too fast and made her fall. She had one consolation, that unlike the others, she had lived. A 14 year old girl had lived.

A tear rolled down her cheek.  She would not go back to Prism today or tomorrow or even next week. Her memories had overwhelmed her. She would have to recover. But she looked with longing at the oil painting on the wall across her room.

It showed the shore of a billowing ocean, a cresting wave tipping its foaming fingers toward land. For a moment, Maggie could almost see the wave rolling forward and hear the crashing sound it made. She loved that sound because she had never heard it, though her elders had told it happened at every moment of every day. Some day she would feel the cool water on her toes and savor the drama of sea water crashing and receding. Some day she really would.

Just not today.


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