The Season of the Dragon

We were three seasons into living at the gray Cape Cod house in Maine. Despite its name, it was nowhere near Cape Cod and even a few hours from the nearest ocean shore. It would have looked great on Maine’s rocky coast, the gunmetal gray logs, squared off and vertical; the roof steeply sloped black shingle; the doors and trim a pop of color in that not-quite-terracotta that had become trendy in the 2010s. And then there was the chimney rising on the left, mottled shades off red and brown that would curl smoke from the top during the harsh Northern winters. This two story home in the middle of a dozen acres of field and trees was to be the family homestead, the farm from which the children could go off and have their adventures and know that they could return to whenever they needed. Rent would be paid in chores and the terrible fate of keeping the old people company.

I had tromped up and down the driveway for three seasons. It was white when we arrived, steep banks of plowed snow marked a safe path more than ny layer of gravel. By May we had seen gravel, the mud, and finally the grasses that went from sickly yellow-green to verdant emerald. The same flow of life had come to the limbs of the trees. The white-barked aspens quaked their leaves in the breezes. Across the one lane road, oaks and maples made way for pines and tamaracks, a few serviceberries and black cherries hidden among them. As the last house on the road, we knew only the passing of hunters and game, four wheelers and dirt bikes tearing by the old quarry, and the occasional dump truck with a load of rock.

Three seasons had passed - winter, mud, and summer had faded and we were fully into autumn when I finally saw it. I had stood at the mudroom door, sipping my morning coffee while the dog released an endless supply of zoomies on the lawn. Looking up from the blur of white fur, I happened to settle my gaze on the woods and there stared in confusion for I don’t know how long.

Aren’t they supposed to be European here?

Dragons, that is. The one I stared at was distinctly Asian in its proportions. The body was long and sinuous, undulating across a great many trees. Shimmering scales of red and orange caught the light. Lines of inky shadow shifted about its body, calling out hints of depth and whispers of ancient magics we mortals had long forgotten. Ff we ever knew them.

We stared at one another, the dragon and I, until Poppet scratched on the glass of the screen door to be let in. “C’mon, girl,” I said, unnecessarily, as she darted in before the door was even open enough for more than squeezing through. The dragon was still there when I looked again before closing the door.

In fact, the dragon was still there when I showed my husband later. We stood in the open bay of the garage hitting our vapes and surveying our woman. I pointed down the long driveway and asked, “Do you see it?” I could. I couldn’t not.

For more than a month, though not quite two, we said hello to the dragon every day. It never crossed onto our property, remaining in the woods across the street. At night it disappeared, swallowed by the shadows, barely glimpsed under the searching beams of the full moon. By the time the snows started, our dragon was wasting away.

Red and gold became brown. Brown became gray. Gray turned to white. The days became shorter, the nights longer.

By the time a new year was birthed, our dragon was no more. There’s some part of me that thinks it’s memorialized on some COVID roster, a fatality of that terrible year. Or maybe it went home to quarantine and decided not to come back.

That’s ok, Dragon, I was miserable company the next fall, anyway. But if you’re in Berlin this year, there are trees in the park across from my apartment. You could nest there and say hi.