But that didn’t matter. I still felt like my whole messed-up life had more hope than it did half an hour ago.
After I checked to make sure Wulfie had made it back inside, I told Jenah the whole story from the beginning while I slopped out the garage and she petted the dragon’s warm hide. Moonfire purred, and before long Jenah got comfortable enough to drape herself along the dragon’s translucent side, in full-body contact with the thrums.
When I got to the part about crashing into Sparkle in the hallway, I pulled out my phone and showed Jenah the picture of ol’ Right-Angle Nose.
“Spooky,” said Jenah. “I don’t understand it.”
“Me neither,” I said. “But I’m hanging on to it. Anything that helps me balance out what she knows about me … What?”
“Not to put mustard in your aura,” said Jenah, “but you could’ve photoshopped it.”
“I didn’t. Sparkle knows it, too.”
“If she thinks about it, she’ll realize that’s an easy way out for her.”
I surveyed my phone glumly. “Photographic proof ain’t what it used to be.”
“Not when images can be anything you want,” said Jenah. “Change reality with a mouse click. Pretty much like magic, isn’t it?”
“It is not,” I said. “Magic is evil.” The memory of the fight with the witch overwhelmed me with rage. “And Sarmine keeps wanting me to work evil spells like her, which is doubly stupid, because she knows perfectly well I don’t have witch blood.”
Jenah cradled her fishnetted knees. “Have you tried any spells?”
“No.” I glared at her. “And don’t start with that maybe-we’re-really-related thing. I told you we aren’t. You don’t know what I saw when I was five.”
“You found out you were stolen?” said Jenah.
“Let’s just say that Sparkle and I saw her perform one of her particularly nasty spells,” I said. “That’s when I knew we weren’t alike. At all.”
Jenah pondered this. “Okay,” she said. “But that wasn’t what I was going to say. You mentioned several times that witches are paranoid and hide things from each other and the world, and honestly, probably from themselves, too. Right?”
“So?”
“So maybe the thing about having to have witch blood isn’t strictly true,” Jenah said. Moonfire arched her neck and Jenah resumed her scale skritching. “Maybe that’s one of those paranoid lies witches spread to keep their secrets safe.”
“I’m not sure,” I said. “Though it doesn’t seem totally off base, either.” I picked up the bristle brush and began scrubbing sheep bits off the garage wall. (You try tearing into a whole sheep with dragon jaws.)
“You were surprised I could see Moonfire,” Jenah pointed out. Suddenly she sat up straight. “Holy cow,” she said. “Is the dragon talking to me?”
“Did you see something?”
“A dragon flying over a mountain range. Settling in a cliff high up. Looking out to sea. Is that her?”
I put down the scrub brush and looked at Jenah with renewed admiration. “I don’t think everybody can understand her,” I said. “I mean, I can, but I’ve grown up with her.”
“And I know I don’t have witch blood,” said Jenah. “It’s like when I sense auras. Except a trillion times clearer and more obvious.” She settled back against the dragon again, closing her eyes. “I think she’s glad to meet me. I get a sense of … lonely?”
You’ve probably realized I’m not perfect by now. (I know, right?) One of the traits I hate more than anything is jealousy. But every so often it tries to sneak in. I stomped on the twinge that tickled my belly, hard. I was glad Jenah could commune with Moonfire. I was glad it came naturally for her, and apparently clearer and better than for me. At least, I was determined to be glad. I attacked the sheep stain with firm scrubs.
“She is lonely,” I said. “She misses her kind. The last few female dragons.”
“It’s probably hard being imprisoned here,” Jenah said, not pointedly, just thinking out loud.
“She’s not…” But then I stopped. I mean, I’d always thought of her as sort of a pet. But she couldn’t be, not really. Elementals had human intelligence, and humans couldn’t be pets.
Wulfie was an abandoned cub that the witch rescued. One of her few good deeds, though we’ll have a heckuva time figuring out how to send him to kindergarten, with him being human only once a month. I was unfairly and maliciously bartered for. Wulfie and I would have a hard time leaving till we were eighteen and legal in the human system, but other than that we weren’t slaves and we weren’t pets.
But what about the dragon? Was she free to go?
I leaned against the wall, flipping the brush back and forth between my hands. The wall was cold on my back, but the dragon’s heat was warm from the front. Like a campfire. “Ask her.…” I said slowly. “Ask her if she likes it here.”
Jenah was silent, listening. “She says the garage is as good as a cave,” she said, “And also she has one friend here. That’s you.”