I went first and told Jane about everything that I'd seen and heard, starting with when we got out of the car. I shared my surprise at Kimiko's first words to me, "What took you so long?" Then I went through what Jane had done and said when she heard about the fire and the locked door at the back of the building. I ended up with the dragon and the piles of ash.
That got her attention, and she turned a bit ashen herself when she heard it. She didn't say anything about it yet though. Instead she soldiered on and told me what she'd experienced, starting from the same place.
Not surprisingly there were a few discrepancies.
She had no clear memory of saying anything at all, just that she'd felt uncontrollably angry when those two male prisoners had said whatever it was that had amused them so much. Unlike me, she had heard what they said. It was: "Looks like they didn't find the hidden door. There's gonna be some fried enchiladas in there along with the ashes."
"Then Mama, one of the women leaned over and whispered something about being charged with murder. Next one of the men said, 'What murder? We were sitting in our office, getting our vegetable inventory straightened out, when those well-meaning but terribly mistaken officers burst in and arrested us. We had absolutely no idea of what was going on in the other part of the building. Shocking, just shocking!'"
"That was when they laughed Mama. I don't remember anything after that until I found myself leaning on you."
She also didn't remember getting back to the car. (Actually, neither do I now that I think of it.) From there she said that she was asleep until she felt the car shaking when we were on the ferry.
"I wonder why the car was shaking so much. Do you know Mama?"
I almost did a spit-take with the juice I was sipping. "It's a little hard to explain Janie. Let's go into that later. It wasn't anything of any importance."
I contrived to look innocent, but I think that the smile on my face gave me away. Jane hit me with one of her trademark "I'll get to the bottom of this eventually" looks, then got back to the subject at hand.
She started with some rapid fire questions.
"How big did you say the dragon was? What part of it was which color? Stripes, bands? Scales of one color outlined in the other, or distinct colors like on the dragon in your tapestry? You said you could see through it?"
"It looked to be about 150 meters long! The body was silver. The toes, mane, and whiskers were black. Yes, I could see through it."
Jane continued with a number of other questions. After a few minutes, she finished up with: "European dragon or Chinese?"
"Why does that matter?"
She sighed at me again. "Mama, please just answer the question."
"OK, OK. It was a Chinese dragon. So what?"
"European dragons are associated primarily with destruction of various kinds. They're not known to have power over the weather, but I wanted to be sure.
"Chinese dragons are mostly all associated with natural forces. All of them are associated with rain, but...."
Jane started to chew on a lock of her hair as she thought.
"Hmmm. Mama, did you by any chance see anything else moving around under or just inside the clouds?"
Thwacked myself on the forehead with my palm. OW! I should have remembered from the last time. What an idiot!
"Yes. I did.... I'd completely forgotten about it. It didn't seem particularly important. It was moving very fast and was only about...oh....maybe 10 meters long. And, no, I don't remember anything else about it. I was sorta distracted by that gigantic dragon at the time."
More hair nibbling, fairly intensive this time. If she kept it up, she was going to need to have it trimmed.
"I remember now. Silver dragons are considered Yin. For our purposes we'll just say that Yin represents the female forces of nature. They are associated with the moon, trust, wisdom, and female warriors."
"The reason you could see through the dragon is because it wasn't really there. It was an illusion."
"Watcha talkin bout Willis?"
"Oh god, no. Please. No stupid lines from ancient TV shows right now. OK Mama?"
"Oh, all right..." And here I thought it was perfectly appropriate. Jane just had no sense of humor sometimes.
Another stern look, then she let it go and smiled at me. "All right, it was sorta cute, but this is serious.
"OK, here's the skinny. Dragons come in a range of sizes. Some as are small as six or seven meters long, and a very few are up to 30 meters, and those have heads about the size of your body....well of my body anyway."
I glared, she said, "Gotcha!" Then she bounced a couple of times and got back to business.
"So 10 meters is a somewhat smallish dragon. However, this one is obviously very powerful, being able to call up a very focal, but very powerful storm that fast. Not to mention some very potent, pinpoint lightning strikes."
"You said nothing about thunder except BEFORE the lightning. That many bolts of lightning hitting all at once should have blown out every window in a 2 or 3 block radius. Did that happen?"
This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.
"No.....there wasn't a single broken window. And I didn't hear anything either. There was just this amazing light show and then those piles of ashes."
"Hmmmm...... perfect control of all the energy strikes and no sound. All right, that must be it. That dragon had to be Gin-long. I find it interesting that it's the only dragon with a name that combines Japanese and Chinese. 'Gin' is 'silver' in Japanese, and 'long' is 'dragon' in Chinese."
"That one is a 4-toed dragon. You know about the meaning of the toes Mama?"
"Ah, actually, I haven't a clue."
Jane threw her hands up in the air in a "what can you do when your parent is hopeless but you love them anyway" gesture.
<
"OK. Look. Three toes are female and are usually, though not always, the smallest dragons. Five toes are the males. Usually the largest, never the smallest. Four toes are neuter and are intermediate in size. They're usually the scholars and the ones with the most precise control of their powers. It's probably because they don't have hormones messing with their heads.
"That doesn't mean without egos though. Gin-long has always felt a bit inferior about being one of the smallest neuters, which is probably why it projected that ridiculously large illusion of itself.
Then the oddest thing happened. Jane's posture changed to more of a sprawl, and her voice deepened.
"Dae ye ken?
"The neuters are also the ones most involved with child-rearing and every one of them absolutely adores children! And they're verra verra protective of the wee bairns. When you add in the fact that they can literally hear a pin drop a mile away, and given what those trash said about the children still inside the building....
"Well, anyway, that's why there was nae danger for anyone else outside. There were children all over the street. Gin-long, the darlin', would take no chances of harming them. Everyone did get drookit, but that's a small price to pay for the rescue and getting rid o' those gingin craws.
"And that's why there was no thunder. That wasn't really lighting, just some tightly focused energy work"
I was barely getting all of this. Mostly I was listening to Jane's voice bouncing back and forth from her usual soprano to what sounded very like a male tenor.
Next I wondered why she was talking as if she knew this particular dragon.
"Ah, Jane, where did you find out all of this about the dragons?"
She looked puzzled for a second and then said, "Oh, I read about them some time ago on the internet. That's why it took me a while to recall it all. I don't remember exactly when. Good thing I did though, isn't it?"
"Yeah, sure. I mean, yes. It's a very good thing you did."
<
Bah. You're no help.>>
"OK, we have that part sorted out," Jane said briskly.
"Now let's move on to the part about you hearing voices."
"Not voices, a voice. Female. Considering what we saw on the TV, as compared to what we know that you did, I'd say that we have no choice but to accept that "She" is real."
"True Mama. That then, quite logically, leads to the question: 'Who or what IS she? That's the problem, isn't it? We have absolutely no data to go on that would allow us to pursue that particular question.
"However, we can assume, with fair certainty, several things about what she can do.
"1) She is capable of speaking mentally to you. We certainly know that Kimiko can do that. We can also be quite certain that Kimiko is not the being who did this.
"2) She can alter the perception of a number of people at once. We know that because everyone we saw interviewed described the same thing.
"3) Either due to lack of capability, lack of time, or -- possibly -- lack of understanding, she gave everyone the exact same memories. People don't work that way. Everyone who sees something sees it slightly differently based on their past experiences. There should have been a number of small differences in their descriptions, even if it was just because people were standing in different places.
"4) She can also affect recording media. She didn't make any mistakes there though. The illusion created looked different from various camera angles.
"5) She was either working together with the dragon or she saw what it was doing and arranged things so that the dragon remained undiscovered by providing something on the ground that explained the events that transpired.
"Can you think of anything else Mama?"
I rubbed my head. "No honey, that seems to hit all the crucial points.
That's when the lightbulb lit up. I really, REALLY didn't want to go there, but, given the situation, there wasn't much choice.
"Jane. I think we're doing the best we can here to avoid addressing the REAL question."
"What do you mean Mama, I think we're doing a pretty good job of analyzing things."
I shook my head. I could understand why she didn't want to think about it, but sometimes you have to just bite the bullet and dive into painful things.
"Jane. I love you very, very much, but I guess I'm going to have to figuratively smack you upside the head with a two by four. Listen sweetie. Don't think, just focus on what I say and LISTEN.
"What have we been talking about? We're doing a very human thing, sitting and talking and analyzing, trying to make things fit our preconceived notions. But let's be real, shall we?
"We're going to have to accept that what we've thought was real for all of our lives is only part, and maybe only a small part, of what is real."
"What the flaming heck are you talking about Mama? You aren't making any sense at all!"
I put my glass down and walked over to her and hugged her gently. "Jane. Think. Think really, really hard. We're talking about dragons. They really DO exist. I don't think we're in Kansas anymore. Whatever world we're in is a whole lot different from what most other people live in. It's frightening but exciting at the same time.
"We're also talking about disembodied voices that can affect people's minds and our recording media."
Then something else popped into my mind, "And maybe, just maybe, move things from one place to another without moving through the intervening space...."
This time it was Jane's turn to say; "Huh?"
"Honey, neither of us remembers going from the street to the car. We just found ourselves there. How did we get there? Right now, I don't have an answer."
"Oh......"
"I think I need to show you something. Do you remember when I 'quizzed' you about the dragon in my room? And then how I ignored you when you noticed that it had changed?
"I think that we ought to go have another look at it, right now. I can't say why, but I think that it might be a good idea."
"I have an idea that you're right Mama. Let's go."
So we did. Down the hall, around the corner, and into my room. And there it was. The same as always -- not.
The claws on the left forefoot were now all gold, all five of them. I had no idea when it sprouted the last one. The toes and the wrist were a deep, ebony black. The claws on the right forefoot were all gold now too, and there was just a tiny border of black on the toes at the base of the claws.
"Oh boy...... And another mystery rears its head. Or rather, I guess it's time to think about it."
"Mama. When did you first notice a change?"
"Ummm about a month ago."
"And how many times has it changed?"
"Counting today, 3 times."
"Well it seems to me that the the most likely thing is that it's some sort of "heads up" message. A warning that there's about to be some change in your life."
Jane chuckled again. "Considering what we've just been through, I think that we can consider that hypothesis as proven."
She took a deep breath and relaxed. So did I, for a moment.
"Ah. Well.... Jane...sweetie? I have just one, little question for you then."
"Oh, what's that Mama?"
"If your hypothesis is correct, and the changes are sort of a warning of things to come, wouldn't the fact that it just changed again today mean that something more is heading our way? And wouldn't the fact that this change is bigger than the others mean that whatever is coming next is also going to be bigger?"
She looked at me. I looked at her. Then we both let out our patented, battle cry: "OH SHIT!!!"