Excerpt: Primiodnes’s Traveling Cavalcade of Oddities

22 Ymeoha
There was the requisite fuss as Sam called to everyone and the word spread that Tegan had been found. She feigned exhaustion and asked Sam to take her back to her ‘van so she could rest. Devorah was there, waiting to be exercised. Tegan ached to go about her day as normally as she could, but knew that if she went outside, people would expect her to explain herself. She couldn’t just say that it was nothing. And James would be by, James who thought she was mad, James who had probably asked Brice to set her up with a good psychologist, had probably thought she was just having trouble with her mother…and she’d trusted him. She’d believed them both.
Only there was the slightest nagging in her head. That perhaps there was something. That perhaps this voice she heard sometime wasn’t another presence, but was only her own awareness. Her madness seeping out.
She shook her head to clear it. It couldn’t be so. The people in the motorway stop - they’d been scared of something, all right. All she’d done was hand over her change. Her mother - her mother wouldn’t lie to her, would she? Was her mother even capable of making up the sort of thing she’d described?
These thoughts and others twisted Tegan’s head around until she slept, and dreamed.
* * *
It was late afternoon when she woke up. Devorah was sound asleep next to her. She’d lost the day; anything her mother or Sam might have had in store for her would not be done. That was almost a relief, the way Sam was acting it was hard to tell if spending time with him would be a bane or a boon.
In any case, there was one thing that needed to be done, and that was to get some exercise for both her and the dragon.
“C’mon, Dev, wake up. I dare say you’ve had enough sleep and should stretch your limbs and get some exercise before dinner,” she whispered in the dragon’s ear. There was no result, so she shook the dragon’s head gently.
Don’t you see it yet?
“See what?” Tegan said out loud, not realizing that she was answering a voice only she heard.
“Ah, you’re awake. Want a cup of tea or something to eat, Teeg?” Beth had been reading in the front of the ‘van, but her voice carried effortlessly through the entire vehicle.
“Oh, no, Mum, nothing, thanks,” she answered. She shook Devorah a little harder.
That’s no good.
Tegan’s head began to ache, and her hand began to get warm. The leather glove trapped the heat in, and, desperate, she ripped it off.
There now…
She put her hands to her temples, trying to push away the pain. “What have you done?” she asked Adoula.
“What, love?” Beth called from the other side of the curtain that separated quarters from the lighted living and dining aread.
And in that moment the heat and the voice ceased. The colors in the world ceased. Her mother’s chatter and the heavy sleeping breaths of the dragon and the sounds of the highway close by and the hummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
run run you must run
you must to break away
take the dragon
the chains are still in the caravan
the bullhook
(no not the bullhook i would never use i would never hurt)
the bullhook take it
fasten the chains tight, tight, or she will get away or she will not obey you
there’s another one there, for a collar, you didn’t use it before but you will need it
wake the dragon just touch her you will wake her it will only take a touch with all the power
oh, so much power
(my head is spinning)
push the woman aside
you don’t need her any longer
(mother, i'm sorry, mother!)
keep on, keep on
lead the dragon, take her away from here
whisper these words to her
Iona tal kee op
on her back now, you know how
tal kee op
you must help her, she has not before flown
urge her
run, dragon, run
jump
tal kee op
the wings, use the wings, stretch the wings
tell her!
(where are we going?)
just going
keep going
look down on them all
look how small they are
they are insignificant
we will fly
(my head)
rest Ymeoha
* * *
Ymeoha woke next to Iona on the top of a cliff. Ymeoha stretched her arms and stood. It was the dark of night. She could hear the sound of waves below them. Walking to the edge, she saw the water, lit by the moon, crashing against a shore. Parts of her felt this place to be unfamiliar, frightening, solitary, but those parts she told to be silent. This was a place of power.
Iona had killed a deer, and was eating from its carcass. The raw meat was far from appetizing to Ymeoha, however. She would have to build a fire. She looked for dry branches, leaves, anything that might be of use, but the cliff itself was grassy with no tall vegetation. Spring had left everything lush and green. But there were…yes, these berries could be eaten. They would do, for now, until she found other ways of securing food. The dragon was fed. With the dragon she could go anywhere.
Memories. There were so many of them, so jumbled. It would take time to sort out which ones belonged to her. There were names – James, Devorah, Sam, Primiodnes, Mum – but they were just sounds, echoes, dim forgotten forgettable dreams
There were other names, too, which resonated more. Ymeoha was the strongest, for it was her own. Iona, the dragon. Klee. Who was Klee? Someone important. Someone she must seek. Where was he? Perhaps he was here already. Perhaps that was why she was here.
The heat took over, and she returned to sleep.
* * *