Hydra (7 page)

“Last evenin’,” Ed whispers, “when I was runnin’ toward the bull, I thought I saw somethin’ through the rain. Your hand didna look the same as it does now.”

He saw me. I had started to change, and he saw me. Is this why he was willing to spend time with me today, even though, as the Sheehys attested, he doesn’t interact with anyone? He saw me, and instead of being repelled, he drew closer.

Why?

I close my eyes. I should not do this. It goes against every rule, against my better judgment. And if my parents found out, I’d get a lecture up and down and forever.

But when I open my eyes, Ed is still watching me patiently, his hand holding mine.

So I look at the hands between us, drawing his gaze to our linked fingers. And then slowly, subtly, I let my talons grow.

I am careful not to hurt Ed as my nails lengthen and sharpen in his hands. Bright red color suffuses my fingertips, and the outlines of scales emerge. I halt the process and meet his eyes.

They’re round with wonder, aglow with something I can’t name, but it’s a welcoming thing, so I push a little further, letting my fingers lengthen, the red color deepen, the scales on my fingers solidify. The rest of me is still human.

I don’t know if all dragons can do this trick, changing one part of themselves but not others, changing slowly by gradients, but I grew up practicing in front of a mirror with my sisters, challenging each other with weird combinations—only horns and tails, for instance, or mostly dragon with a human face—so I’m good at it in ways my mother, who never changed into a dragon at all until she was nearly the age I am now, will probably never be.

Ed studies my hands until, self-conscious, I change them back into human hands. Then he smiles at me, grabs a tackle box from the back of the boat, opens it up, and pulls out a contact lens case and a bottle of solution. “Hold this, if ye don’t mind.”

He places the case in my hands, fumbles with the solution until he’s filled both reservoirs, and then he plucks out his right contact, revealing an emerald eye which sparkles with such brightness it takes me a moment before I can look at it directly. He pulls out the other lens as well, and I’m staring into eyes that are green, vibrant, jewel-toned green, with just a bit of blue.

They are, quite possibly, the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.

Ed looks slightly sheepish, but hopeful.

I wet my fingertips with a bit of his contact lens solution, then reach up and pluck a lens from my own eye. I can see its ruby color reflected in Ed’s eyes.

With no case to save it in, I slip the contact back into my eye.

“Yer a dragon?” Ed asks in a whisper, as though he might be overheard, even though we’re alone in the lake, at least half a mile from the nearest person, though even the shore looks abandoned at the moment.

I nod, aware of what he’s guessed. He knows I’m a
dragon
, even though I only showed him my hands and one eye. Without prior experience of dragons, no one would know that’s what I am. They’d more likely guess demon or monster. “I can’t show you anything else, not here. Anybody looking for the Loch Ness Monster might see me.”

Ed glances around. There aren’t any boats nearby, nor tourists with binoculars. An eager grin flashes on his face and he hands me his contact case, then dives back into the water.

“Yer not afeared of sea monsters?” he confirms again.

“Not unless they attack me.”

“I promise not to attack. Yer safe with me.” He ducks his head underwater and then swims in a wide circle in that void space below the surface, where the water is not yet too deep for me to see him. And as he swims, his body lengthens and changes. His arms with their funny, nubby hands, turn to a sort of flipper. His neck stretches thick and serpentine, his tail undulates behind him.

For an instant, I see the Loch Ness Monster as every witness has ever described it, save for the kilt, of course.

And then he shrinks back to Ed and grins up at me, no different than moments before when he’d shown off his ability to hold his breath.

He grabs the edge of the boat and pulls himself back in, grinning broadly.

“You’re the Loch Ness Monster,” I whisper, the volume of my voice lost to breathless wonderment. I’d known, or at least suspected, that Ed was something special.

But he’s more than special.

He’s legendary.

“Shh. Aye, that I am.” He looks around to make sure he hasn’t been seen. The lake is calm and silent. “Will ye take me, then?”

“To the Caspian Sea?” I feel humbled that he wants to go with me. That he revealed himself to me, after so many thousands of tourists have searched for him for so many years.

He nods solemnly. “I’ve never met another sea dragon.”

“Sea dragon.” I repeat the term he used. Not
monster
. That’s only the name people have given him, because they were afraid of him, even though he was more afraid of them, of being found out or attacked or studied by them. It’s a sad truth about the world we live in, and only reinforces why I conceal my identity. How very precious, then, that I can share who I am with Ed, and he with me. But I have to clarify. “You’re the only one? The only sea dragon?”

He nods. “I’ve known a few dragons, the regular kind, with wings to fly. Have ye got those?”

“Yes.”

“That’s all there is. Dragons. Winged dragons that fly. No other sea dragons. I’ve researched all I can about myself. There are myths, of course. Ye might call me a hydra. That’s what the sea dragons were called in the myths from long centuries ago.”

“Hydra?”

Ed shrugs. “It means sea dragon. Some hydras had nine heads, or three, in the myths. But I’ve just got the one. Never met another kind, or another hydra at all.”

I clasp his hand again. For all its strangeness, it’s oddly familiar. Ed is more like me than anyone I’ve ever met, outside my own family. I want to hold this hand and not let go. At the same time, I hate to deliver disappointing news. Still, I’d rather he know now than find out later, after he’s gotten his hopes up. “I don’t think the creatures that attacked me in the Caspian Sea were hydras. They were smaller. And not so serpentine.”

“Ach.” Ed uses an exclamation, more clearing-of-the-throat than word, that I’ve heard other Scots use. It’s a sort of acknowledgement, and in this case I take it to mean,
that may well be
. “I didna expect to have too much I common with any creature that would seek to harm ye. Nor did they sound from yer description like they’d be my own kind. But I’ve got to have a look, just the same. Ye ken?”

Ken.
He’s used that word a few times now. It’s like the second half of
reckon
, to
think
. But more than that, to
understand
. Do I understand why Ed would want to travel all the way to the Caspian Sea and risk his life to find creatures that may or may not be like him?

“I ken.” I ken on a level I can’t even put into words, and I want to do everything I can to help him, whether that means carrying him on my back all the way there, or explaining to my mother why we won’t be around for a few days.

“Shall we head back to the castle, then? Or did ye want to see more of the loch?”

“I’ve seen more of the loch than I’d hoped to see.” I squeeze his hand before I let go.

For a second Ed looks at me, his green eyes welling with unspoken things, more than words could ever speak. Then he opens the contact lens case and slips the dusky disks over his eyes, hiding himself from the world again.

Maybe we should be making plans for our trip, or talking logistics, or something practical like that, but the whole way back to the castle, rowing the boat and then driving in the truck, all I can do is sit in silence and absorb what I’ve discovered.

Ed is the Loch Ness Monster. Excuse me,
Eed
is a hydra who happens to occasionally inhabit Loch Ness. I wonder how old he is. I wonder if he knew my grandmother, too, or if just the Sheehys did. I wonder if sea dragons are the same species as regular dragons. Probably not, right? I mean, Ed doesn’t even have wings. It’s not like he and I could ever have anything romantic between us.

He’s safe. He’s totally safe. I can be friends with him without any awkwardness, because we’re not even the same species. I don’t have to worry about developing feelings for him or ruining my plans to stay single forever.

But I don’t say any of this aloud, some of it because can you imagine how awkward that conversation would be? But mostly because I’m still absorbing everything, and I need this silence, this undisturbed, sacred quiet, to come to terms with all I’ve discovered. More than that, I need to prepare myself for what’s to come.

Because finding out Ed is a hydra is just one step toward my goal of learning what attacked me in the Caspian Sea. We’ve still got to get there, a journey of about 5,000 miles. And then Ed’s going to go in the water. Into that deep, dangerous water.

And while he does that, I’m going to, what? Hover nearby? Go with him in the sea? The thought makes the blood chill in my veins. I mean, I nearly died down there. About the only thing more terrifying than going in the water, would be trying to float on top of it like when I was attacked from below.

But before we even have to worry about that, we have to talk to my mom. I’m not going to attempt to hide our trip from her because I’ll have to be gone long enough she’d notice and worry. And besides that, she’s made many journeys of some distance before and might have some tips for me. And there’s also a part of me that feels like somehow, even from 5,000 miles away, I’ll be safer if my mom knows where I am.

Ed rolls the truck to a stop at the gate and I hop out to open it. When I climb back in, he asks, “Want me to roast a cow for lunch?”

“The Sheehys won’t mind?”

“I only ever eat me own cattle.” He explains, making a thoughtful face as he guides the truck along the rutted track. “If I’d known what ye were last evenin’, I’d have cut ye a bigger steak.”

“It’s okay. My appetite’s usually only big when I’m a dragon. We flew to Scotland on a plane, not as dragons. My mom has this thing about going through customs and getting all our paperwork in order when we enter a new country for the first time.”

“We’ll take a plane to the Caspian Sea, no?”

Having just endured a transatlantic flight to get to Scotland, I make a face. “This will be a short trip. I’ll use my wings, thank you.”

“I canna fly.” Ed reminds me, his tone apologetic.

“You can ride on my back.”

“I’m heavy.”

“It’s okay. I used to fly around the village with my friends on my back all the time, even when I was a lot smaller than I am now. It’s only really hard when you’re taking off, especially if you have to climb. If I can catch a good tailwind you won’t cause me any more trouble than flying into a headwind. Part of it has to do with aerodynamics, too. If you tuck in close to my neck where you won’t cause much drag, I’ll hardly know you’re there.”

“’Tis a long journey.”

“Not quite five thousand miles as the crow flies. We’ll have to take it in stages, but I should be able to make it in two nights.”

“And during the day?”

“I know of a safe place where we can rest halfway there. I’ll need my sleep then, for sure.”

“And ye’ll need yer strength up. I’ll roast ye a cow for lunch.” Ed parks the truck in a garage converted from the old stables. “Meet me in the courtyard in half an hour?”

“I’ll see you then.”

I hurry away to find my mother. She’s probably going to be freaked out by my plans, not because she doesn’t trust me, and not because I’m not perfectly capable of taking care of myself, but just because she’s my mom and worrying about me is part of her job description, or something like that.

Fortunately she’s not too hard to locate. She’s in the sitting room of our suite, basking on a sofa in front of a cheery fire, reading one of the many novels that weighed down her suitcase. She’s got her shoes off with her feet at the end of the sofa nearest the fire.

“Hey, Mom?”

She holds up one finger. This is her longstanding signal that she is aware someone wants her attention, but that unless the house is literally on fire or some other life-threatening emergency, she wants to get to the end of the paragraph she’s reading before anyone interrupts her.

So I wait, planning what I’m going to say, until she lowers her finger and tucks her bookmark into place.

She smiles at me. “You and Ed have a good morning?”

“It’s
Eed
.” I correct her pronunciation. “We had a great morning. He’s the Loch Ness Monster.”

“Really?” She sits up a little straighter.

“Well, technically he’s not a monster. That’s just what people call him who don’t know him. He’s a hydra.” I answer matter-of-factly, like I even know what a hydra is. “Anyway, since he’s a sea dragon, and he’s kind of an expert on sea monsters, he wants to go check out the Caspian Sea with me. You know, to learn about whatever it was that attacked me last summer.” I try to keep my voice calm, like this is all completely normal. I don’t want my mom to freak out. But my heart is running in terrified circles around my ribs, and she can probably hear that in my voice.

She sits up even straighter. “Is he also an expert on seaweed?”

“Mom, it wasn’t seaweed, okay? This is precisely why Ed and I want to go check out the lake—because he wants to know what other sea monsters are out there, and I need to prove that I was attacked by something real.”

My mom sighs. “Two things, Wren. One: if there’s nothing there, then you’re wasting your time and going for no reason. And two: if there
is
something there, if these creatures really did attack you, then they’re dangerous. Why would you purposely go where it’s dangerous?”

“So we’re just supposed to avoid the Caspian Sea forever, now? If I find out what’s down there, we’ll know. We’ll know for sure that it’s dangerous and why, so we can learn how to protect ourselves.”