Page 96 of The Heart and the Hawthorn

She shook her head, swallowing bile and, after a few moments, said fiercely,

‘But Lucky can come back, right? Anytime he needs you. This is the past, and you managed to get us here, so you could do it again!’

The way the silver dragon continued to look at her, with such awesome quiet, the ore in his eyes shifting like rivers, she knew. ‘It’s a one-time deal?’

He inclined his fearsome bearded chin.

Suddenly she knew she’d been holding something so tightly to her chest, something so desperate and precious, so hopeful, that she could barely speak. It was the unspoken hope that somewhere, somehow, she could still reach her mum. Her mum was also somewhere in these pockets. She hadn’t admitted it to herself yet, but she’d been going to beg the dragon to send her to one of them. But as they stared at each other, the knowledge of his answer reflected in his ancient face, she could only choke out a single word. ‘Why?’

For a moment, even the silver dragon seemed at a loss. Finally, his voice broke the silence, clanging against her skin. ‘I am sorry. But there is a cost.’

The sound of bats whizzed through the treetops. ‘What is it?’ she gasped hoarsely. ‘I’ll pay it. I’ll pay it.’

‘It is too much.’

She was going to argue, but when she saw his expression, all hope bled out of her. She slumped. For a time, she said nothing. Then, with growing dread, she forced herself to ask, ‘Did Lucky have to pay something to bring us here? To bring me into the past?’ She stared up at him, terrified. ‘Or did you?’

He gazed at the fire-tarnished egg. He curled his tail a bit tighter around his giant snoring son, exhaustion marking every one of his wrinkles as his shoulders sagged. Then with a gnarled paw, he tapped the dark rock beneath and just said, ‘They are all down there in the earth. Remember this. All the people you love.’

She hadn’t thought it was possible for her heart to shatter any more than it had already, but she was wrong. It could. Maybe it would keep shattering forever.

But as the silver dragon looked at his son, from whom a steadily growing puddle of drool was emerging, she found herself nodding dumbly.

‘All of this is precious,’ the silver dragon told her. His silver scales stark against Lucky’s wild and wondrous purple.

Frida felt those glimpses of her mum slipping through her fingers, but she stared down at the black rock too, and breathed in the rich scent of the jungle, and the rich scent of the earth. Her mum was down there. She’d seen it. And then she managed to smile, licking salty tears off her lips. She’d had twenty-two years with her mum. It wasn’t enough, it wasn’t anywhere near enough, but she understood a bit more now. It was also endless. She and her mum would always be together down there in the dirt, long after she, too, had died.

So Antony was right after all. There was a heaven.

It went round and round.

The knowledge eased something in her bruised heart.

But she had to know. ‘Why are we here? And why did you ask Lucky to give me his magic? That’s what he said, that you told him to do it. But I don’t understand why!’

The silver dragon sighed, the sound coming from very far away, as though it rose from the deepest depths of the earth. ‘Fire-spoken-and-soaring-on-exalted-sky-and-deep-notched-trees-with-great-hope-in-many-veined-hearts did not have the strength to bring you home. I knew it. I will know it now, when I agree to do what you have asked of me.’

Frida blinked, surprised. ‘What I . . .’ Then she blinked again, the violet fiery patterns of the egg, more precious than anything, staining her eyelids. ‘What I’ve asked of you?’ The beginnings of another, deeper kind of understanding began to settle over her shoulders. ‘What do you mean?’ she asked warily.

The silver dragon just waited, solemn.

She gazed at him. Slowly, she got to her feet, unable to stay still. It was like an itch under her bones. She might have argued, might have claimed that she hadn’t asked anything of him yet. But her words on the top of the cliff came back to her, tumbling unchecked from her mouth.

‘I’ve already asked,’ she murmured.

Still, he waited.

She looked down at herself, staring at the faint purple light flickering beneath her skin. Ever-present now. ‘You will ask Lucky to give me this, in a hundred years, because I’ve already told you that’s what will happen.’ With a wild laugh, she slapped her forehead. ‘Sea and skies! When I told you about Dian in the zoo, about Lucky striking the tree, about Lucky sending us back in time . . .’ Her eyes again landed on the egg, her ears buzzing. ‘You didn’t know any of that. After Lucky hatches, you’ll only give him the instructions that you do, because I’ve told you that you will. Outside the cave when I first arrived.’ Her voice dropped, not sure if she should be terrified or awestricken. ‘The little stink who came to dinner. That’s what Lucky called me, the first time we met. You didn’t know any of this before I came here,’ she repeated. It spun and spun in her head, delicate and complex as Moth’s webs.

She remembered her mum’s words, rich as honey. I swear your eyes are purple, Friduska. You have magic in your DNA, I’m sure of it! Round and round it went. Her eyes had always been purple, even before she’d met Lucky. Because this had all already happened, was still happening, she was already magic, even before she was born.

As if the silver dragon heard her, he said in confirmation, ‘There is no beginning, or end. There is just time and dirt.’

Frida quickly snapped her mouth shut. Helplessly, she dropped to her knees before him. ‘Why?’ she asked again. ‘Why would you agree to any of it?’

A deep weariness settled over him. As he lay there, she took in the wan colour staining the delicate triangular scales around his nostrils, the fatigued slump of his wings, the frail length of his tail, slung tightly around one of Lucky’s paws. The night was velvet black, the glow of the egg winking like a campfire. She sank down on her heels. For a while, the silver dragon said nothing. Then in the stillness, he spoke,

‘There are humans not so far from here, you know.’