Ranger
by Kris Faatz
Part 1 appears in this issue.
conclusion
This time, the flame hit the edge of the quilt. I thought how good the bright gold of it looked with the pinks and greens. It would splash and disappear, and Helen could touch the place, just like during the night, and feel that it was hot.
Ranger! Her thought was a shout. Oh no!
The flame didn’t disappear. A piece of it caught hold of the quilt edge, licking and chewing at it, getting bigger.
Helen snatched up her pillow. Once, twice, she swung it over her head and slapped it down on the quilt edge. The flame vanished. Where it had been, the cloth had turned brown. A little curl of smoke rose up from it.
Why did you do that? I said. I wanted to watch it.
It was burning! Helen caught up the brown piece and pushed it under my snout. Don’t you know about burning? Look!
Her thoughts showed me how flame could eat up cloth, how it could chew and swallow paper and wood, leaving only a scatter of ash behind. Don’t dragons know that? she demanded. You can’t go around setting things on fire!
The flame was so pretty, but I said, All right. I’m sorry.
Someone tapped on the door. “Nell? Are you awake?”
My father, Helen said. I crouched behind her pillow. She swung out of bed, into the shaft of pale yellow light that came through the window, and padded out of my sight. The door opened with a squeak.
“Morning, sweetheart. I didn’t wake you up, did I?”
Silence. I wondered if Helen could think things to her father, the way she did to me. But her mother hadn’t done that. Her mother had spoken aloud.
The voice said, “Your mother’s fixing breakfast. She wouldn’t take no for an answer. Maybe come have some?”
More silence. The voice gave me a strange feeling. Last night, just before I’d fallen out of the air over Helen’s bed, my wings had thrashed themselves into a knot trying to hold me up. This voice was just like that. Fighting to do what it couldn’t.
“Well,” it said, “come on down if you want. Your mother would like it.”
The door shut with another squeak. Helen came back and sat on the edge of the mattress. I won’t go eat, she said. Her hands twisted together in her lap. I don’t want to.
I climbed over a hummock of quilt to sit beside her. Why not?
Helen sighed. She gathered her long hair away from her face and coiled it up at the back of her head. Mother doesn’t try to make me talk. From her dresser, she picked up a few thin metal sticks — bobby pins — and pushed them into the coil of hair. Dad’s not so patient. He thinks I could do better if I tried.
I didn’t understand. Do better at what?
Getting better. The words sounded tight, bitten off. Feeling better.
That heavy, solid, slick-sided thing, the rock in the streambed, was right in front of me now. Feeling better how?
Helen tugged a drawer open and dug around in it. She tossed clothes onto the bed, yellow shorts and a white blouse, and got dressed fast, wadding up the nightdress and shoving it under her pillow. She yanked her quilt straight, so hard I had to snag my claws on it to keep from rolling over.
Helen, what’s wrong?
I don’t talk about it. Her face was flushed, her lips shut tight. I shouldn’t have called you Ranger. That was stupid. The whole thing is stupid.
What do you mean?
Her bare feet slapped on the floor. She jerked the bedroom door open and disappeared into the hall. I pushed off the bed and glided after her, caught between joy — my wings worked! — and anger. What was the matter with her?
She wasn’t going down to her parents in the kitchen. Her thoughts let me see how she would go straight outside into the pale yellow morning, to walk until she couldn’t anymore. Waves of anger and hurt rolled from her mind to mine, slapping and sloshing at the base of that tall, smooth-sided rock.
I pushed myself higher into the air. My wingtips brushed the ceiling, but I cleared the top of her head and lowered myself to hover at her eye level. When we were snout to nose, she stopped walking.
Helen, what’s going on?
She swiped at me, trying to knock me away. My wings tugged me out of her reach. Ranger. Of all the stupid things. You’re not real. You can’t be.
Now I really was angry. You want me to show you again?
We were right in front of the other shut door, the one she had rushed past last night. Now I knew it was made of wood. It would burn. I opened my jaws.
Helen’s thought shouted, Don’t! Not that!
Am I real, then?
I don’t know. Her eyes were full of tears. I don’t know. But don’t do that. Don’t burn it.
All this while, sounds and smells floated up the stairs to us. Something sizzled. I caught a whiff of a rich, smoky scent that made my mouth water. The two voices, Helen’s mother and father, talked quietly back and forth. Her father said something about “Nell,” and her mother answered in a murmur I couldn’t make out.
I pushed against that stone in the riverbed, digging at it for a way in or through. What’s stupid? I asked, eye to eye with Helen. Why shouldn’t you have called me Ranger?
A tear spilled over her cheek. As she rubbed it away, her eyes moved from me to the shut door.
What’s in there? I said.
Her lips tightened again. Nothing.
Footsteps downstairs, moving toward us. Helen said, Dad’s leaving for work. He might come up here first. He can’t see you.
I didn’t care. The footsteps stopped, practically underneath us. I heard Helen’s father say, “I’ll see you tonight,” and her mother answer, “Yes.”
What’s in there? I asked Helen again. Show me.
No.
Show me. I was right up against the rock now. I felt a tiny crack in it, just enough to let me burrow my claws in. If you don’t, you know what I’ll do.
Another sound from downstairs: another door, rasping open and clicking shut. Helen’s mother’s footsteps went away again. Helen was crying now, tears slipping down both cheeks. If you are real, she told me, dragons are nasty, you know that?
Maybe we are.
She bit her lip hard. Fine. Only for a second. Her hand shook as she reached out. She took hold of the knob and pushed the door open.
* * *
The dream left the girl’s head and found it could fly.
* * *
It was another bedroom. The bed looked like Helen’s, except that the quilt had darker colors, like a forest instead of a garden. There was a dresser, and a window, and what I knew was a desk, with what looked like pieces of paper spread out flat on it.
This was his room. Helen’s thought sounded thin and squeezed. My brother Jack.
I glided past her to land on the desk. My claws scrabbled at the dark metal surface. We shouldn’t be here, Helen said. She stood by the door, one foot out in the hall. I never come in here.
I peered at the pieces of paper. Each one had a picture on it. I knew they were pictures, because she did, but I didn’t know what they showed. What are these?
Photos. Helen took one step toward the desk. Come on. Let’s go.
Not yet. My claws drove deep into that crack in the stone. I would hold on until I found a way to break it clean open. With my snout, I nudged one photo. What’s this?
Ranger. I hadn’t known you could hear tears even in a thought. Come on.
I’m not leaving. I wrapped my claws around the edge of the desktop. You know what I’ll do if I want.
I had learned a lot. The desk was metal, like her bedstead. It wouldn’t burn, but these photos would. Helen knew it, too. She took another step toward me, her face set, a flushed spot hot on each cheek.
I nudged the same photo again. Tell me what this is.
The picture didn’t have any color in it except gray, fire-ash gray, on a white background. It showed a person — a boy, I knew — standing next to something a little taller than he was, something that had a blunt nose and long arms that stretched out to either side.
Helen came up to the desk. She lifted the photo by its very edge and held it in front of me.
That’s my brother. Jack. The thought was flat and cold. That’s him and his plane.
Plane. She didn’t want to show me, but a few images crept around the edges of the big stone. I saw just enough to know what planes were and what they did. Her brother had been able to fly.
He called his plane Ranger.
I was still gripping the edge of the desk, but in my mind, I dug my claws a notch deeper into that rock and pushed on it as hard as I could. Why is that my name?
Never mind. She set the photo down on the desk as gently as if it could shiver into pieces. Come on. We’re going.
No.
I aimed my snout at the center of her brother’s photo. My jaws opened and the golden flame spilled out, ready to chew and swallow and leave only ash behind. In that moment, three things happened at once.
Helen shouted, “No!” A full shout, loud enough to make the air ring, the first time I had heard her voice. Her hand darted down and snatched the photo out of the way. And as my flame splashed harmlessly on the desktop, the rock in the riverbed split open.
Pictures streamed from her mind to mine. My brother Jack.
The boy sat on this bed, in this room, holding the girl tight. The words “enlist” and “pilot” made trails in the air. She pressed her face against his shoulder, her fingertips digging into his shirt. His face was so much like hers, the same shape framed by dark hair, the same dark eyes. He promised her he would be home before she knew it. Meantime, he would write to her every day. He would tell her all about his plane and how the world looked from up in the clouds.
Outside the bedroom, footsteps were coming down the hall. Running.
The boy slipped gloves on his hands and pulled goggles over his eyes. His plane waited for him, sleek and ready. “All right, Ranger. Let’s do it.” He climbed inside and the plane roared awake. I watched it jounce along a gravel path — airstrip — fast, faster, until its nose aimed for the sky and it rose effortlessly on those silver wings.
“Nell. Lamb.”
Helen huddled on the bed, crying, the photo dangling from her fingers. Her mother went straight to her. The pictures in my head swamped me, but I knew I had to get out of sight. Neither woman heard the thump when I landed on the floor or saw me crawl into the safe shadows under the desk.
The boy’s plane glided through a dark sky. A flash came out of nowhere; a noise tore at the clouds. The plane’s nose spouted fire. Broken, burning, it fell.
“Lamb.” Helen’s mother took the photo from her and laid it on the quilt. The pieces of the plane drifted down like glowing leaves. They seemed to make no sound when they reached the ground.
“Mama.” Helen’s voice again. “I can’t. I can’t.”
The same words over and over, “I can’t I can’t I can’t,” while I watched what was left of the plane — Ranger — burn itself out with the boy inside it.
Helen’s mother held her. “I know,” she said. “I know.”
The pictures finished. I huddled in my corner under the desk. On the bed, Helen and her mother held onto each other. Daylight came in through the window and made a long streak on the floor.
Helen’s mother reached across the silence. “But,” she said, “we can. Every day, we do.”
Helen lifted her head. From my corner, I could see her flushed face and the dark line of an escaped strand of hair against her neck. She whispered, “I don’t want to.”
Her mother touched her cheek. “Neither did I, but we still do it.” Her smile looked exactly like her daughter’s, here and gone. “If I’ve got you back, lamb, it’ll get easier. I know it will.”
Helen reached out for her mother’s hand. Her fingers trembled. “Okay.”
* * *
It’s not every day you pop into existence. It’s not every day you leave it, either.
The girl dreamed until her dreams found a hold in the world, to shape it with claws and wings and fire. Helen and her mother and father walk together now, carrying her brother’s memory between them. Maybe, as her mother says, that weight will get lighter one day.
And what about me?
I’m glad for my time here. So much to see and learn. In truth, though, this world doesn’t have a place in it for dragons, even when they’re as small as I am. Already, I can feel where-I-was-before calling me back.
I’ve said all the words I needed to say. Soon, then, my dragon-shape can drift apart and I will be released, back into motes of light and eddies of the background hum of all things.
Copyright © 2024 by Kris Faatz
