I PRESSED THE GREEN button near my head and warm, soft pink water came splashing from the metal nozzle. It smelled like roses, and a sense of calm washed over me.
I had never been in a shower quite like this one, until a few days ago. Grecian marble seats lined the walls with mosaic tiles placed in delicate and intricate patterns on the floor. The water cleared and rinsed my body mentally and physically. The flow, softer than before, caressed my skin, creating small waves across my still-bruised flesh. My skin had begun to flush in the heat, making my now greenish-yellow bruises darker and more pronounced.
The tension in my muscles and the pounding inside my head started to evaporate as the heat and smells enveloped me. At the moment, these showers were the highlight of every day.
I got lost in the string of thoughts swirling inside my head like an unrelenting vortex.
I’d always wondered about Dad’s stories and if Paegeia was really located inside the Bermuda Triangle. A part of me always felt that it could be real. I just never imagined it was. I still couldn’t remember the details, just that he used to tell them to me. The only thing I could recall was that Paegeia was a realm hidden from the human world behind an enchanted wall, a realm where dragons and magic existed.
During the past few days, Constance had tried to help me make peace with whatever was going on outside. She was beautiful, tall, skinny, and had that kind of smile that made you feel you could do anything, take on anything, even if it involved scaly beasts soaring through the sky. She also explained that the people of Paegeia had had to conjure the Wall nine hundred years ago to protect magic from other people—dark, selfish ones who wanted to harness and abuse the magic for themselves. Only after the Wall was erected had they realized that just the dragons could cross it. Once a human entered Paegeia, they could never leave. I looked at it like buying a one-way ticket to Neverland.
Still, Dad must have told me about this, but why I couldn’t remember it raised more questions.
The water continued to wash over me. I really struggled to accept Dad’s death. I felt responsible for it. No matter how many times that scene of him yelling at me to run played in my mind, and how many times I tried to tell myself it was what he wanted, I felt the opposite. I should’ve stayed. I could’ve helped, not knowing how; I should’ve been there to try. Matt wasn’t that far and, if I could’ve distracted the dragon, just maybe Dad might still have been alive.
His death, and the fact that dragons were real, were the reasons I had spent nearly five days sequestered inside this infirmary.
I hated hospitals, more than I hated moving, but Constance and Julia were really kind. Julia helped her with nursing duties. She was beautiful with big doe eyes and thick waves of black hair. She was funny too, and made me giggle more than once with her dry sense of humor. For some reason I imagined her as a goth chick on her days off, with dark makeup and wearing black clothes with lace-up boots and a nose ring or two.
The two of them had been my only company since I arrived here, other than Master Longwei. He was the headmaster of Dragonia, where this infirmary was located. He too popped in from time to time to check on my recovery.
We would have these long conversations of making peace with the past and focusing on the future crap that ended up making me feel more guilty.
His number one piece of advice: if I wanted to keep my sanity, I had to face whatever was out there. Today, I reluctantly decided to take that step.
I didn’t want to end up in the loony bin just because I couldn’t accept what was real, even though magic and dragons belonged only in fairy tales.
Fortunately, there was a silver lining around this dark cloud: my birthmark.
Back home, a mark like mine was common. Doctors diagnosed these marks as pigment defects.
My version was an ugly, dark splat above my knee that kept me from wearing shorts even during the height of summer. In Paegeia, it was something significant. The people saw it as an honor and, according to Julia, most humans would kill for one as dark as mine. I still hadn’t figured out what it really meant, but it was my ticket straight into Dragonia Academy.
I took a deep breath and climbed out of the shower. Goosebumps broke out over my flesh as the cool air made contact with my warm body. I quickly grabbed a large, white towel positioned on a hook next to the shower and tried to retain some of the shower’s warmth.
Then the doubt came as it always did just as I thought I would be okay with whatever was going on outside of these four walls.
What if I was already crazy and stuck in the loony bin they warned me of if I didn’t accept this? What if this was my mind’s way of dealing with Dad’s death? What if all of this was made up and I was really sitting in some white room, eating Checker chips and drooling on everything?
I closed my eyes and pinched myself. No, it was real, and knowing that also meant that Longwei was right. I must accept this. It was my life now, and unfortunately, my surroundings appeared quite corporeal.
“Elena, you okay?” Constance knocked softly on the door.
“Just give me a minute,” I yelled as I towel-dried my long hair. The shower had felt great and the clothes Master Longwei had given me fit perfectly.
A quick glance at the price tags before I ripped them off revealed the name “Twigs” written in big bold letters. Master Longwei had dropped them off last night when he’d come to check on me. The jeans were the kind I had always wanted. They had the effect of being washed too many times that made them look really old. The emerald-green tee went well with the color of my eyes, and the flip-flops were the perfect size.
How had he known what size to get? With his fashion sense, I considered myself lucky to receive an outfit this ordinary.
Dad had never bought me the things I really wanted. It was always in and out of stores with him, too quickly to try anything on, so my clothes always ended up being too small or too large. My throat tightened up at the memory. I swallowed my tears, pushing him to the back of my mind. There was no more time for crying. I had to be strong now.
I pulled my almost dry hair back into a high ponytail, and took another deep breath before opening the door.
“Don’t you look beautiful?” Constance’s echo bounced off the walls around me. Julia stood next to her and gasped.
I knew I looked pretty good considering the circumstances of my arrival and, of course, the bruises.
“Are you ready?” Constance asked.
“As ready as I’ll ever be,” I mused. “Besides, I’ll go nuts if I have to stay here another day.”
Constance pulled me into a tight hug, crushing me against her stethoscope. “If you need anything, I’m right here,” she whispered softly into my ear. “Please don’t be a stranger.”
“And she doesn’t mean by breaking a leg,” Julia said with a mischievous glint in her eye.
“I could still end up losing my mind, and then you’ll be stuck with me forever,” I countered.
“Nonsense, you’re a tough cookie.” Constance smiled warmly.
“I’m going to miss you,” I said, feeling the emotions beginning to clog in my throat. Both these women had become something familiar and provided a sense of security. Leaving them behind to face the unknown—which in my head was my worst nightmare—pained me.
Julia leaned closer and grabbed me around the neck too. I was bowled over as I never imagined her being someone that was fond of close contact. “Believe it or not,” she said dryly, “I’m going to miss you, too. It’s too quiet here sometimes.”
I couldn’t help but smile.
A soft knock came from the door and we all turned to find Master Longwei waiting patiently.
Constance nodded once and he joined our small gathering.
They nodded back and forth a few times. It was as if he asked her for permission or something. Then the clothes popped into my head. “Thank you, Master, the clothes fit perfectly.”
“You’re welcome, Elena.” He had a huge grin plastered on his face. “Tomorrow we can go to Elm and buy more.”
“Elm?”
“A city close by that the students would call ‘awesome. ’”
We laughed at the way his nose wrinkled when he said it. He even got the rock and roll sign right; I had to give him credit for that.
“You ready?” he asked timidly.
I assumed that he didn’t want to tear me away from the familiar too quickly.
The corners of my mouth twitched slightly upwards, and I played with my ponytail as I moved slowly toward the door. Constance looked at me with anticipation. She was probably scared a dragon would swoop down and fly away with me to its nest or something. Julia’s expression, on the other hand, suggested she was waiting for a prank to happen.
Master Longwei whispered something. I hoped he alleviated Constance’s worries, but it only made me more nervous.
The first step I took was blinding. When my eyes finally adjusted, I found myself standing on a huge wooden deck. The smell of fresh paint burned my nostrils.
A part of me was still waiting for something to jump out of thin air.
I turned back and waved to the two women as I tried to process my surroundings.
Taking the first step off the porch made my throat dry and I swallowed hard. Please don’t let me see any dragons soaring through the sky!
“Are you all right, Elena?” Master Longwei stood next to me with his arms folded behind his back.
I felt unsure. Forcing myself to look away from the sky, I saw a big brass statue of a man. It stood right in the middle of a courtyard surrounded by cobblestone pathways that formed a wagon wheel with many intersections. We followed the paths through a small grove of oak trees, and a gigantic castle rose majestically in the distance.
Master Longwei stopped in front of the statue, launching into teaching mode. “This statue is of the founder of Dragonia and the greatest king that ever lived, King Albert. Who knows where we would be if it wasn’t for him.” He tapped the feet of the statue a few times.
We turned off the main path and took one of the smaller trails that led toward the entrance of the castle. As we walked, birds chirped from high up in the branches. The grass was a bright green; unlike any I had ever seen. It made me think of magic again. I had never believed in its existence until now.
I finally came face to face with the hulking castle rising on the horizon. It was built out of a dark gray stone that looked weathered with age. The entrance to the Academy reminded me of a painting I had once seen of a sixteenth-century castle: three towers were connected to the main building, soaring into the sky like New York skyscrapers. Two of them had a million windows right to the top. The third one reminded me of Rapunzel’s tower, except this one had an entrance at the bottom. Climbing up the walls were bright green vines, providing a touch of color with small violet blooms.
The Academy definitely looked elite, the kind that probably had board members and a few sororities. A bird launched itself from a branch above my head, flapped its wings in my direction before it flew away. I jerked my head up, searching the sky once more. Still no dragons. I breathed a sigh of relief at this small comfort.
I looked back down, catching Master Longwei searching the skies too. He grinned broadly as he caught me staring at him. I looked away and I locked onto a giant gate to our far left. Rooted in place, I stared at it for a brief second. The metal vines curling around the beams moved. Metal flowers blossomed, and I narrowed my eyes. They were definitely metal. Then I saw what was behind those gates.
I closed my eyes and prayed that they were playing tricks on me. When I opened them, it was still there. So much for that. “Is the school built on air?”
Master Longwei roared with laughter. “Sorry Elena. The look on your face is priceless. Yes, and we’re safe up here.”
“What’s holding it up?” I whispered, afraid that, if I spoke any louder, the entire Academy would drop to the surface.
“Magic,” he said with a soft voice.
“Magic?” My right eyebrow arched slightly and I took a deep breath. Sometimes it was easy to believe, but at other times, logical thinking took hold and I struggled to believe any of this was real.
“This is Paegeia, Elena. You are going to learn strange things here that science cannot explain. You need to have an open mind, and try to accept it.”
I glared at the gate again. The roses and vines still moved around the beams, but didn’t hide that clouds were gliding by. The effect made it impossible to think of any plausible reason for an entire Academy to rise above the air.
“What if we fall?” I asked, fear lacing my words.
“We haven’t for the past hundred years.”
I took a deep breath, trying to move my thoughts away from the academy-stuck-in-the-sky thing. I looked up one last time just to make sure that there were still no dragons.
Master Longwei glanced at his watch. “Elena, we need to get going. Class will start soon.” He took bigger strides and I had to run to keep pace with him as we entered a door three times my height.
We picked up my schedule from the woman seated at the reception desk. Horn-rimmed glasses rested haphazardly on the tip of her nose. She greeted me with a welcoming tone, encouraging me with words meant to instill confidence. Yeah right, she’s probably never been to the other side where things are normal. What does she know?
I had to run to keep up with Master Longwei as he hurried down a long passage. The narrowed hall held that old dusty smell often found in basements. A golden statue of a dragon with its head bowed stood sentry at the end of the passage.
We walked into a spacious lobby, with two sets of staircases leading to what I assumed were separate wings of the castle. Dragon paintings and armored statues were stacked meticulously against the wall. The students who passed us greeted Master Longwei with chirpy “hi’s,” followed by soft whispers and pointing fingers as they laid their eyes on me. It was the first day of school all over again, and heaven knew I’d had my fair share of those.
I almost lost Master Longwei in the throng of students as he ran up the staircase to the left and came to a sudden stop in front of a row of doorways.
We entered a wooden door with a woman embracing a dragon engraved on it that led to another set of stairs.
“This place is really big,” I mumbled, annoyed, knowing I would never learn my way around all the staircases and passages.
“It has to be. Where do you think everybody stays?” Master Longwei said. “These are the girls’ dormitories. Boys are on the right.”
We entered the new space and climbed three separate staircases. By the time we reached the fourth set, my lungs felt ready to burst. He finally stopped at the door with a gold ‘4’ woven in an intricate braided design, while I silently suggested the construction of an elevator.
Placing his hand against the door, he pushed and it opened slowly into a cul-de-sac with three doors. He knocked on the first one and we waited.
The door eventually opened.
“Good morning, Master Longwei,” a girl said in a chirpy tone, her toothbrush still in her hand. Her cropped black hair and big brown eyes lit up when she saw me.
“Good morning, Becky, may we come in?” he asked politely.
“Yeah sure, where are my manners?” She took a step back, encouraging us to enter.
We entered a room with three gigantic poster beds, two on the right wall facing another positioned across the room. They were stunning, with white lace hanging from the top that cascaded down wooden beams and pooled onto the floor.
The carpet had plain, dark brown shag so lush my flip-flops almost disappeared. A fancy chandelier cast a majestic glow. I was sure now that magic existed, and it was somehow responsible for this magnificent bedroom.
“Becky? I want you to meet Elena,” Master Longwei said as he began the introductions.
“Hi, Elena, welcome to Dragonia.” She sounded as if she’d drunk ten Red Bulls for breakfast.
I smiled at her nervously and my greeting came out barely louder than a squeak.
“Just show her around, and please don’t let her get lost. There are still many things she doesn’t know. Try to tell her as much as you can,” he explained.
“Master Longwei,” Becky intoned. “You always do this to me.” A slowly emerging whine replaced her overwhelming hyperactivity.
“I thought talking to someone her age would help her to understand our world better. I’m much too old for this, and don’t know how to be cool about stuff. You two speak the same language, Becky,” Master Longwei replied.
“Fine, I’ll try.” She raised both her eyebrows and took a long, deep breath. “Thank heavens she knows about the dragons.”
Master Longwei ignored Becky’s comment as he turned to me. “Good luck, Elena, and if you need anything, don’t hesitate to come and see me. I’ll see you tomorrow morning for some shopping.”
Becky gasped. “Are you going to Elm?”
“Yes, and if you manage not to freak her out today, you can come too,” he said.
She bounced up and down, barely able to contain her excitement.
I really liked her. She had an air of a pixie rushing on adrenaline. “This is your room, Elena, I hope you like it. Enjoy your day, girls.” Master Longwei disappeared back through the door we had just come through.
This is my room .
I repeated the thought over in my head a million times and waited for it to finally sink in. Becky closed the door, and my eye caught the small lounge with a big-screen TV hidden in the corner.
She led me toward the empty bed. “Here’s your bed. I will help you with the linen.” She gave me a soft smile. “I know they’re huge, but there’s a reason for that.”
“Where’s the other girl?” I referred to the other bed that was obviously already occupied.
“Sammy is an early riser and you’ve got Vicky’s spot. She’s on a self-discovery quest,” she said, as if I was supposed to know what that meant. “I have a bit of a problem with the first, second and third time my alarm goes off. I love the snooze button way too much.” Her nose wrinkled up. “So, I bet you have a lot of questions, huh?”
“I did, but my mind has gone blank.”
“Yeah, I know the feeling.”
I was glad that she offered to help with the bed. I didn’t know how I would’ve managed it all by myself.
“I heard that you have a very dark mark.” She lifted up her sleeve, showing me the light brown stain on her arm. “You can barely see mine.” She promptly waited for me to show her mine.
“Mine is above my knee.” I gestured to my newly acquired jeans.
Her smile dropped instantly.
“Can I show you tonight?”
She nodded, and her smile went all the way up to her eyes. “So, your dad was really a Copper-Horn?”
“Yes,” I said in a soft whisper.
She gave me a one-sided smile. “I’m sorry that he died, Copper-Horns are extremely lovable. I can’t imagine who would want to hurt one, not to mention kill one.”
Tears formed in my eyes, and I wiped them away quickly before she could see. “Did you know my dad?”
“No, he must have left when King Albert died. Many dragons left when he died,” she explained sadly.
“King Albert…he’s the guy who built this school, right?” I tucked one of the corners of the linen underneath the heavy mattress.
“Yes, he was also the true ruler of Paegeia, and the greatest king that ever lived. He was betrayed by his best friend but nobody likes to talk about it.”
We finished and fell breathless on top of the freshly made bed.
She looked at her watch and jumped up. “Yikes, is that the time?” She grabbed her backpack with one hand and my arm with the other.
I practically flew out the room, through the main door and down the stairs. My feet skidded off the steps as she dragged me behind her and I prayed that I wouldn’t fall on my face, or worse, break my neck.
“We are so late. Master Longwei is going to kill me,” she said, panting with exertion.
We ran into the reception area, and I gave her a hand with the door.
We managed to open it wide enough for both of us to squeeze through. More buildings appeared on the other side, which made the castle begin to look more like a school.
She darted around the first corner, down another hallway and stopped. She turned around. “You ready?” She opened the door and ushered me into a hall filled with other students. I felt as if I was drowning. Good thing I was a fast swimmer.
