In the Midst of a Dragon

         Ophelia Adams had gone by her middle name, Miranda, ever since a sixth grade field trip to see Shakespeare’s Hamlet at the children’s theater. She bitterly blamed all subsequent teasing on her mother having been an English major. Adams was the surname her school records showed, and it was her stepfather’s last name; Drake was her father’s, but she had never met him.

         “You look just like him,” Miranda’s mother would sometimes murmur, referring to Miranda’s thick black hair, long nose, dark blue eyes, and unconsciously graceful movements, but that was all the mention she ever made of Kevin Drake. Colin Adams was the father Miranda knew.

         Of course, all of that was the very last thing on Miranda’s mind after school the day following her seventeenth birthday. She got home and—as was her usual routine—jogged up the stairs to her room, dropped her backpack on the floor and plopped down on her bed to read. Miranda was a great lover of books; today she was re-reading an old favorite entitled Dealing with Dragons.



         Miranda found she had dozed off when she woke to the sound of her name. Her room was dark. Still half asleep she blinked several times at the digital clock that told her 5:00. Then Miranda moaned. She must have slept through the afternoon and all the night! Why had no one woken her for dinner? Why was her dad suddenly calling her Ophelia? There it was again. Was it Colin’s voice?

         Miranda rolled out of bed and stood, stretching and yawning. She went to the window, because he was calling her from outside.  Pulling back the curtains, she was shocked fully awake.

         Miranda beheld a huge, slitted, blue eye framed by shining scales. It filled the whole window, blocking daylight out. Miranda’s reflexes told her body to leap back, run, hide, but she did none of these things, for the eye held her immobile.

         It blinked a large, leathery, blue lid and Miranda found herself standing in the air high above her house. She looked down at her neighborhood, traced the familiar streets with her gaze. It occurred to Miranda that she ought to be terrified. She looked at the dragon and could not look away for a long time.

         It glided in slow, graceful circles around her, its scales glinting with ethereal iridescence in the setting sun—one moment shimmering cobalt, and the next solid, bottomless purple. The creature was enormous, bigger than her house and the neighbor’s put together, but somehow not frightening at all. Miranda was entranced by the flawless, powerful muscles working perfectly beneath its skin with every wing beat, and how elegantly its body curved to maintain the same circular path. No fantasy novel in the world could ever have prepared Miranda for anything so glorious.

         “Ophelia.” The deep voice spoke again, softly, caressing the name like a precious gem or a wonderful secret. For the first time in her memory, Miranda was not ashamed of it. She did not think she ever would be again.

         “I suppose it was too much to hope you would recognize me in my true form,” rumbled the dragon, half to himself. The circle became a slow downward spiral, and as the dragon’s altitude lessened so did Miranda’s, but so gradual was their descent that she felt no change. Miranda did not look down until her feet touched—

         Grass. She stood now in an unfamiliar, emerald valley surrounded by gentle hills. There was no mark of civilization anywhere to be seen.

         The dragon landed softly about sixty feet away. As Miranda watched, his outline against the orange heavens began to blur and shift, scales melting and running together, and then it seemed to Miranda that he was made of smokeless, fluttering, blue flames. In the midst of the dragon-shaped fire stood a man with dark hair, dressed in a black suit and blue tie. The moment he stepped out of the blaze, it vanished behind him like a blown-out candle flame, and left no scar upon the grass.

         Miranda found that she had already begun to cross the distance between them, had worked out the answer before it was given. How many things about her this explained! Her insatiable interest in mythological creatures, her excellent night vision, her quick reflexes, her partiality to red meat, probably even her lifelong wish to learn to hang-glide were suddenly accounted for. Why had she never guessed the truth?

         Then reason began to kick in; Miranda halted. Thus far she had accepted everything happening to her without question, but was it not more likely that she was still asleep in bed, dreaming all this?

         When he saw that she came no closer, he closed the gap himself with slow, graceful strides. He stood before Miranda, waiting patiently for her to speak. She had recognized his features at once, not only from her mother’s photos, but from her own reflection. “Father…?”

         Kevin Drake beamed and embraced his daughter. Miranda found that his suit smelled faintly of sulfur and spices, and he was solid and quite real.

         “I suppose it’s a lot to take in, Ophelia dearest,” he said. His voice had not changed with his shape. “You’ve come to the age of hatching. It’s time you tried your wings.”

         Miranda had no desire to protest— or opportunity to — as her father surged suddenly into the sky, taking her with him.

         She felt as though she had left her body down on the ground. Miranda soared, marveling at the ease with which she moved.

         The earth and time flashed by into insignificance beneath the two dragons—one dark blue and purple, the other opalescent white and lavender.