Free The Book of Water by Marjorie B. Kellogg

loud. She couldn’t have gotten farther away from him unless she’d left the room. But then he thinks,
Well, that’s good
. She’s safer that way. She looks innocent, but she isn’t.
    He realizes that accepting the notion of dragons still doesn’t give him a clue about what to do next. He’s pretty sure the fishermen won’t venture into this “haunted” boat at night when the dead might walk, so he’s got till dawn to decide. If he got up real quick and quiet and just slid out through the locker room just to his right, he could slip past the mob alone and be away, free of all this crazy business in a flash. He wouldn’t have to worry about how there could be dragons and girls from Mars. Or wherever. But then he’d never have the whole story. And think of the songs in it. It might just be his big chance in a whole other way. He’s got to play it out for a little while, or he’ll wonder about it for the rest of his life.
    But he can’t just lie there waiting for whatever’s due to happen next. He’s never been much for lying in bed, which is what’s got him in this trouble in the first place—like, if he’d plopped down for the midday snooze with everyone else instead of going out prospecting for supper, he’d be the same old N’Doch he was this morning. But now—and this is what really concerns him, ’cause he knows it like he always knew when the first winter rains would come: inexplicably, in his gut—he knows that since the silver dragon swam into his life, his life’s never gonna be the same.
    N’Doch contemplates that one for a while. He’s always thought he wanted his life to change. Now he finds himself hoping the longer he lies there, the longer he can keep this new life from starting. It was okay when he thought he was acting. Eventually everyone’d pack up the cameras and go home, and his life would be still his life, only better. But now that it seems that he really does have a dragon on his hands, it’s another thing altogether. Because, hey, what do you do with a dragon? You don’t exactly take it home with you like a stray dog. Feeding a dog is hard enough, or keeping it from being someone else’s dinner . . . but a
dragon?
    On the other hand, who’s to say his old life was anything worth holding on to?
    This thought makes him roll over in involuntary revolt. He’s surprised by the depths of rage he suddenly feels about his lot in life. He’s not sure where it’s come from. He thought he was getting along okay these days, apart from wanting so bad to be famous and not be hungry so much of the time.
    But the rage is real, and so strong that it propels him to his feet before he can stop himself, and across the floor to glare belligerently at the communing dragons, without a clue why he feels he should challenge them with it. The abrupt motion reminds him of his arm. While he stares at the dragons, he sneaks his right hand around to check out the gash.
    It’s gone. He looks, steps sideways into a patch of moon, and looks again. His skin is smooth. No blood, no scab, not even a scratch.
    N’Doch clenches his eyes shut, raking his memory. Did the short brother miss after all? Was he so scared, he just thought he’d been hit? No, no. He remembers the hot sear of pain, his panic about infection and the bright blood messing up his precious gym floor. He
remembers
this.
    When N’Doch looks up again, the dragons are staring at him, taking no notice of his rage and confusion. The big one is a horned tower of shadow with a luminous glance. The little one is silver with moonlight and her eyes are dark. N’Doch hears a note start—long, soft, an oboe, he’d say, if he was hearing it outright instead of in his head. But it’s impossibly sustained, which is why it holds him. He’s waiting for the next one, for the pattern to develop, for the melody to show itself.
    Instead he gets pictures, and this is where he decides he must be still asleep or maybe delirious. Either way, he’s