Sleeping Dragons

LYNETTE ASPEY

A long time ago, a girl just a tad older then Elaine in ‘Sleeping Dragons’ sat by a fireside and spun convoluted tales lo her indulgent father. These stories all concerned a kid with a destiny and a magical, far away realm in need of rescuing. Many years later, that same girl, now a middle-aged mother, discovered the treasury of myth that belongs to the Vietnamese people. She asks their forgiveness for having appropriated one of their ‘sons’ for her own purposes. In the meantime, Lynette continues her journeying, imaginative and otherwise, since home is a small yacht called Melika currently cruising the Caribbean, enroute to Neverland where kids don’t grow up and beloved fathers never die. If she finds it, she promises to send a postcard.

* * * *

W

hen I was a little girl, I thought that all babies hatched from golden eggs. I don’t mean that Ryan’s egg was made of real gold. Rather, it was like a smooth rock the colour of beach sand at sunset, and when Dad put it into my arms, my skin tingled. That it would hatch, after all the care I lavished on it, seemed perfectly natural to me, although Dad was surprised. He had brought it back for me from Vietnam as a gift, and it was supposed to be a dragon’s egg.

The first sign we had that something might be happening was when fine veins appeared in that smooth, hard surface and it started to leak. Soon after, I was disappointed to find myself with an infant brother instead of a baby dragon, but Ryan was hard to resist. When he smiled he looked just like a chubby Buddha, with soft black hair and honey coloured skin.

One day, Dad warned, someone might come to take him away but until then, he was our secret. It was an easy one to keep, living as we did a long way from anywhere, even by Australian standards.

I was seven years old, and Ryan nearly two, when the old man came. I remember being cross because Ryan had plonked his fat bottom into the middle of my play, sitting on my paper and chewing my crayons.

The afternoon sun was too strong for the old curtains to keep out, but I enjoyed playing on the carpet amidst the patchwork sunlight. There was the hum of insects and the squawk of birds in the eucalyptus trees outside. From my father’s study, I could hear the tap-tap-tip of his keyboard.

As usual, Yellow Dog lay stretched across the entrance to the hallway, from where he could keep an eye on us all.

“‘Ainie,” said Ryan, levering himself up the way toddlers do. “Knock. Knock.”

I didn’t bother looking up. “Who’s there?” Usually it was Dog, or Dad, or Dino the dinosaur, but instead of playing, Ryan trotted out of the living room, into the kitchen. When he had nearly reached the door, Yellow Dog rose up on stiff legs to follow. I could see them from where I sat; the little boy with his hand on the back of the old dog, looking out. A moment later, Yellow Dog started barking.

Then came the scrunching sound of boots, and a shadow appeared at the door.

“Daddy?” I called, but he was already there, standing with one hand on the wall, the other on his heart. He paused for only a beat, before a few long strides took him across the kitchen. He scooped the baby up and hugged him close. Yellow Dog’s hackles were bristling.

I got up and sidled closer. The shadow at the door resolved into a man-shape as I approached, the outline blurred by the dirty grey of the fly screen and the bright sunshine behind. I could see that the stranger was shorter than my father, but I had the peculiar impression that he was also much bigger. It was his shadow, I thought, noticing how it reached across the room. It fell over the dog and my father, and I was afraid to come any closer in case it touched me too.

The stranger stared at Ryan. “Băc Vüöng,” he whispered. King.

“Chüa Băc.” Honoured Grandfather. My father’s voice was shaking. “Băc cên gì?” What do you want?

“Your Vietnamese is still terrible, Jon Ashton,” said the shadow man. At the sound of his voice Yellow Dog’s hackles settled, as if a hand had stroked them down.

Ryan burbled from his perch on Dad’s hip. I think a cloud must have passed over the sun then, for the bright light suddenly faded and the stranger resolved into nothing more threatening than a sturdy old bloke with neat grey hair, bushy eyebrows and eyes like shiny black pebbles in a nest of wrinkles. “We must talk,” he said.

I remember thinking that Dad was acting very strangely. He turned and saw me standing in the corner, where the carpet became linoleum, the demarcation between our living room and the kitchen. He brought Ryan over to me and wrapped my arms around him.

“Don’t come outside, Elaine,” he said. Then, to the dog, he commanded, “Stay.” Yellow Dog sat back on his haunches, ears pricked. Dad stroked the dog’s wide, smooth head, slipped his hand under his muzzle and lifted his head up so that they looked eye to eye. “Guard,” he said, and then he went outside, shutting the fly-screen door firmly behind him.

Yellow Dog padded over to the door and lay down beside it. The crafty animal knew me far too well. I gave a few good tugs on his collar anyway, just for good measure, before Ryan and I lay down across his tummy so that we could watch and listen through the screen door. I was delighted to see his merciless baby fingers grabbing a handful of thick fur.

Yellow Dog, aware of the price to pay for his obedience, gave a huff of discomfort, settled his muzzle onto his paws and waited for Dad to come back and relieve him from duty.

I could only hear snippets of their conversation. The two men were standing side by side; my tall, fair father and the stocky, dark stranger. Dad murmured something and passed his hands over his eyes, as he sometimes did when he was very tired or sad. He kicked at the ground with his boot, sending up little clouds of red dust.

A wide firebreak of bare earth surrounded our house and, beyond that, nothing but bush - scrubby saplings and tall ghost gums, their skin of bark peeling away to reveal smooth, silver trunks. The afternoon breeze was heavy with the smell of eucalypt.

“He is too vulnerable here,” I heard the old man say.

Dad muttered something, shoved his hands into his pockets.

The stranger laughed out loud. “Hide him? And if you could, what do you think he will become in that time?” He gestured towards the house. “You cannot protect them both.”

From somewhere close by a kurrawong warbled, and another joined in chorus. I breathed in the tangy bush smell. The whumpf whumpf of Yellow Dog’s panting was loud in my ears.

Dad’s voice was a low, angry hum.

The old man shook his head and it appeared to me that dust motes danced around his shoulders. Dad’s hands came out of his pockets and clenched into fists and his voice rose. “You think I’m going to give him up? Just like that?”

“It is a mistake to think of him as your son.”

I glanced down at Ryan. He had stopped torturing Yellow Dog, his attention captured by the old man. I wondered if he knew they were talking about him.

“I have guarded his secret all my life, as my ancestors have done for thousands of years. His destiny is not with you.”

“The egg came to me legitimately,” said Dad, sounding desperate.

“And my daughter will pay the price of her betrayal. Oh yes. In the meantime, where is the proof that this child is yours, eh?”

Dad started to say something else, but the old man held up his hand. “I do not blame you for what happened and I do not threaten lightly. It is my duty. I must take him back.”

Dad put his hands back in his pockets. I caught the words: “Not now, so sudden, let me.”

The old man was quiet for a while, then he nodded. He looked back at us and waved, as if he was the nicest person in the world, before walking off down the rough dirt road and quickly disappearing amidst the ghost gums.

* * * *

Dad hardly spoke for the rest of the evening, and I knew that look on his face well enough not to pester him. After he had put us to bed, I heard the creak of the veranda’s old wooden floor at the back of the house and the slap of the screen door.

I got up and went to my window, hut I couldn’t see anything, so I padded out to the verandah, stepping carefully in the dark, knowing which floorboards would not complain. The night breeze was cool and pleasant. I pressed my nose against the fly screen, careful not to breathe in too deeply in case the dust made me sneeze.

He was standing in the yard, naked, head thrown back and long brown arms wrapped around his pale chest. I could see his shoulders and the muscles down his back all bunched and bulging. He was looking up at the stars, and he was crying.

I stepped backwards, sorry for having spied on him, and my foot came down on the wrong floorboard. It betrayed me with a loud creak.

Dad turned towards me, although I don’t think he could see me in the dark, and there was so much pain in his face that I was sure I had done something terrible.

“I’m sorry, Daddy.”

“What are you doing out of bed?”

I said the first thing that came to mind. “You didn’t tell us a story.” Which was true enough.

“Go to bed, Elaine.”

“But, Daddy,” I whined.

“Now!”

I fled back to the bedroom and dived under my blankets, burrowing as deep as I could. I counted the long minutes before I heard the footsteps outside my door and breathed a sigh of relief.

The bed tilted down as he sat next to me. He gently pulled the covers from over my head, and tucked them around my shoulders.

Dad had put on his dressing gown. He toyed with the frayed edge of its belt while looking at the cot, where Ryan slept. “I do have a story,” he said.

I snuggled up against his knee and he absently re-tucked the edge of my blanket. “A long time ago, there was a man called Kinh Duong and he was the ruler of the Land of Red Demons. Kinh Duong fell in love with the daughter of the Dragon Lord of the Sea, and they had a son, whom they named Lac Long Quan. In time, Lac Long Quan grew up to become the Dragon Lord of Lac, and he ruled the land of the Red River delta. One day, Ti Lung, the Earth Dragon, warned him that there would be trouble with the people in the north unless he found a wife from those lands to keep the peace. After a long search, Lac Long Quan met a beautiful woman called An Co.”

“That’s a funny name,” I said.

“And you think ‘Elaine’ wouldn’t sound strange to her?” He asked. “Do you want this story or not?” I nodded enthusiastically. “Okay, then. Au Co had already lived for a long time and some even believed that she was immortal. Even so, she married Lac Long Quan and it seemed that they were happy, but then she did something strange.”

At seven years old, I could imagine things very weird indeed, but Dad no longer seemed happy telling me this story. He looked down at his feet for a long time, absently picking at his dressing gown.

“Something strange?” I prompted.

Finally he said, “The story goes that instead of babies, Au Co had a hundred eggs, from which were born a hundred sons.”

My skin tingled with the memory of Ryan’s egg.

“The Dragon Lord loved his wife,” Dad continued after a pause, “but she didn’t want to live in the lowlands, where he ruled. She craved the high places of the world. So, Au Co took fifty of her sons and went into the mountains, leaving Lac Long Quan and their other fifty sons in the delta lowlands.”

“She had another egg, didn’t she?” I interrupted again. “Or maybe the last one didn’t hatch.”

“I don’t know, ‘Lainie,” he said softly.

The baby stirred in his sleep. Chubby fingers opening and closing like caterpillars.

“You won’t give Ryan to that old man, will you Daddy?”

“His name is Mr. Pham,” he said, standing up.

“But-”

“Enough!” Then, in a gentler voice, “Go to sleep.”

He closed the door firmly behind him when he left the room. I turned over on my side and saw that the moon was just rising. Some of its pale light filtered through the sparse trees outside, and caught the bars of Ryan’s cot, making a shadow bridge across the space between us.

* * * *

The next day, we drove to Wallindah for supplies. Ryan sat in the middle of the front seat, strapped into his baby chair. He had a terry-towelling hat pulled down over his forehead to shade his eyes, one chubby fist gripping his beloved dinosaur. He was chuckling, happy to be going on a car ride. I was happy too, because I knew that he would fall asleep almost straight away, and it would be nice to have Dad all to myself.

I remembered to bring some cushions to sit on, so that I could see out the window, and so that the bouncing of Elsie, our ancient Landrover, wouldn’t make me bite my tongue.

Wallindah is a typical one-street town, with a hardware store, a bakery, and a general store that is also the post office. It has a petrol station and a farm equipment supplier and two pubs. A few cars and trucks were parked in the street, some with panting dogs lying underneath. There were only a few people moving around. It was the middle of the day, and sensible folk had retreated out of the heat into one or the other pub.

Dad parked in front of the general store and told me to stay in Elsie with Ryan. He made sure both of us had our water bottles and left my window wound down. The sun was behind us, but it was hot and I was sure my bottom was melting into the pile of cushions.

Dad opened the back door and Yellow Dog jumped out, happy to stretch his legs and find something to pee on.

Ryan woke up as soon as we stopped. I could tell, from the way his eyes followed Dad into the store, that he was preparing to yell up a storm. I knew just how he felt. Since it was going to happen anyway, I couldn’t be accused of having started anything. I snatched away Dino and threw it out the window.

Ryan’s dark eyes narrowed vengefully, even as his face crumpled into an agony of distress, and his little legs started kicking in fury. I felt a rush of joy at having triggered such a reaction, but the anticipated yells never came. Distracted by something outside, Ryan suddenly forgot his tantrum.

“Caw, caw,” he said.

I turned, and there, looking in at us through the dusty windscreen, was a huge crow. It tilted its head to one side, studying us from a bright, black eye. Its beak was half-open, probably from the heat, but it seemed to me that it was smiling at us, or laughing.

Ryan kicked again, bouncing his little body up and down against his restraints. “Caw. Caw.”

I didn’t like the bird. “Shoo!” I said, and lunged forward, wanting to scare it away. It hopped back a few paces, lifting its wings slightly, and then ruffled its feathers. It turned its head to one side and studied me, then hopped up to the windscreen and tapped its huge beak against the glass. Tap, tap, tip.

Elsie was old but well built, Dad said, and I knew that there was no reason to be afraid of a stupid bird when I sat behind solid, reassuring glass. I quickly wound up my window anyway.

Ryan leant forward in his chair, staring at the bird. He waved a chubby arm about as if he, too, wanted to shoo it away.

The crow watched him for a moment, and then bounced away on its skinny, leathery legs. Its claws click-clicked on the dirty metal of Elsie’s hood. It jumped onto the metal frame of the bull-bar, at the front of the car, turned around, jumped into the air and flew straight for us. BANG! It hit the glass in a fury of exploding black feathers, beak and claws.

I screamed and threw myself over Ryan but he didn’t even whimper. When I looked into his eyes, they were as black and round as those of the bird. I scrabbled for the door handle, suddenly desperate to get out of the car. Behind me Ryan cooed, “Da, Da.”

There was Dad, with Dino in his hand, staring at the bloody smear on our windscreen and the crumple of black feathers on the hood. He looked down at me from beneath the wide brim of his hat, and we connected in a moment of instant understanding.

Run away, I thought. We have to run away.

He put the shopping in the back seat, letting the dog jump in, before going around to the front. He lifted the bird by a broken wing and dropped it on the ground. He jumped into the car, and without a word, handed Ryan his toy, checked our restraints, then gunned Elsie’s engine and drove out of town as fast as the old car would go.

Ryan squawked in my ear, making his Dino noise, “Raar, raar”. I steeled myself to look into his eyes but I saw nothing there except baby innocence and stubborn insistence.

“Daddy, why did that bird want to get at Ryan?”

“It was probably sick in its head, honey.”

I looked over at my beloved father. His face was hot and red, his hair dark and flat from having sweated beneath his hat. His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. He usually drove with one arm out the window, but both hands were clenched on the wheel.

“Where are we going?”

“Sydney.”

I didn’t need to ask why. I turned to stare out my window, letting the flow of familiar country pass by in a blur, knowing that he did not believe what he had said about the bird.

“Ryan killed it,” I said.

He glanced at me, eyes squinting. “Don’t be silly.”

“He did!” Dad kept his eyes on the road, but he was frowning. “I think the old man sent it.” I continued.

He shot me a quick look. “What?”

“The crow. It was watching us. It had his eyes.”

This time he really looked at me. “A bird is just a bird.” he said.

I stared back. “And babies don’t really hatch from eggs?”

Between us, Ryan was pulling Dino’s legs with his grubby little fingers. He looked up at me, from beneath the floppy brim of his hat. “Raar, raar,” he said.

* * * *

Ryan soon fell asleep again, the dinosaur slipping by degrees from his curled fingers, his long lashes nested above the curve of his chubby cheek. A line of drool spooled from his soft lips, spiralling down to the car seat.

We stopped to fill up the tank and get some snacks. I was mad at Dad for taking us away from home, and took it out on him by pinching Ryan until he woke up, cranky.

Yellow Dog and I both needed to pee, so I let the dog out of the car and we both took off in search of a toilet. When I got back, Ryan was happily chewing on a biscuit and Dad had found a bucket of water and a sponge to wash the windscreen. I watched as the crow’s blood mixed with the soapy water, trailing down the filthy glass, carving red channels like river deltas into the caked dirt, until it was all washed away.

That night we stayed at a roadside motel. There was a ‘No Pets Allowed’ sign, so we kept Yellow Dog hidden in the back of Elsie until we could sneak him into our room.

“You love Ryan, don’t you?” I asked, as Dad herded me into bed. Ryan and I shared the double, but he was already asleep, lying flat out on his tummy.

Dad looked unhappy and tired. “Of course.”

“I bet Mr. Pham doesn’t.”

Dad gave me an exasperated look. “‘Lainie, I’m tired. Please don’t try it on.”

I knew I had to keep the whine out of my voice, I had to make him understand. “I’m not, Daddy. It’s just that I don’t care about Mr. Pham, or his ancestors. Ryan hatched for us and we love him. That must mean he was meant to be with us. Doesn’t it?”

Dad stared at me for such a long time I became upset, thinking that he was mad at me for listening to his conversation. Suddenly he got up and went into the bathroom. I heard him washing his face. He came back in and sat down.

“Ryan needs someone who understands his nature,” he said. “Someone who can help him become what he is meant to be.”

I was crying now. I wanted to stay serious and calm, instead I wailed, “But you’re his Daddy!”

Disturbed by our voices, the baby stirred and hiccupped, but he didn’t wake.

“What are you going to do?” I whispered.

“What I have to,” he admitted. “I will make sure that Mr. Pham has everything Ryan needs, and then we’ll say goodbye and go home.”

I felt my temper rise, the one that Dad said was just like his. “He’s my baby dragon!”

It was only later that I realized what I had said.

Dad understood. He was a good listener. He looked away. “I love Ryan too,” he said, “but I should never have taken the egg-”

The burn of my temper was already fizzling out. I groped for something to say. “Did you steal it?”

He shook his head. “If someone tried to sell you a dragon’s egg, would you believe them?”

I shrugged. Why not?

“I didn’t, but I had promised to bring you back something beautiful, and although she told me the stories, she didn’t believe them any more than I did.”

“She?”

He gave me a small smile. “Mr. Pham’s daughter. I liked her, and I wanted to help, so I bought the egg.” This time it was his turn to shrug. “She used the money to leave her village, and I don’t think Mr. Pham, or I, will ever see her again.”

I didn’t want to think about my Dad liking anyone’s daughter. “Do you know any more stories about Au Co?”

Dad rubbed his eyes. Sighed. “A short one, then sleep. Deal?”

I accepted with a serious nod. “Deal.”

He gathered his thoughts for a second. “Do you remember those nights, when we counted stars, and I told you that around some of them are worlds?”

I nodded. Of course I remembered.

“Well, somewhere out there is a world called Kandoarin, and that is where Au Co came from.”

“How?”

“I don’t really know that part. The story goes that Au Co had a special power, something called Kansaith, which meant that she could travel long distances very quickly.”

“Like flying?”

“No-one knows. Au Co was the only person to ever come here from Kandoarin, and that was by accident. She used her power during one of Kandoarin’s eclipses, but the forces that she harnessed were too great for her to control. Instead of travelling from one part of her world to another, she tore a hole in the fabric of space.”

Yeah, right. “Are you making this up?”

“Okay, so I’ve modernized it a bit in the retelling,” he admitted, grinning. “That’s what happens to myths.”

“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “I like the idea of Au Co falling through a hole in the sky.”

Dad was in full storytelling mode now. “Maybe she did fall out of the sky, but before she could get here, she had to build some sort of bridge.”

In my mind’s eye, I saw the arc of the Milky Way. “Do you think it’s still there?”

“Even if it is, I don’t think it would be the sort of thing you or I would recognize. But Au Co only came to Earth because she couldn’t go back to Kandoarin.”

“Why not?”

Dad sighed, a little theatrically, I thought. “How am I going to finish if you keep interrupting me?”

I ran my finger across my mouth, zippering it shut.

“Better,” he said. “So, Au Co realized that she had done something terrible. There are dangerous things living in the cold between the worlds. One of these things slipped through the hole that she had made and attacked Kandoarin.

“She was the only one who had the power to destroy it, or force it back through the rift, but she was too afraid, or too tired, to fight. This thing from space coiled itself around Kandoarin’s heart and made the mountains tremble and cities fall.”

I loved it when Dad waxed lyrical, but outrage forced me to break my vow of silence. “She ran away!”

Dad took an alarmed look at Ryan, and put his finger to his lips to shush me. “Maybe there was nothing she could do,” he said quietly. “The tragedy had happened, and if she tried to go back it would only kill her. Instead, she used her skill and power to survive. She found herself washed up on Earth, where she had to learn how to live amongst people very different from her own. That takes courage, doesn’t it? She never tried to use Kansaith again. Maybe she was afraid of making the same mistake, or perhaps she had used up all her power, but Au Co spent the rest of her life thinking of what she had done, and wondering how she could make it right again.”

“She didn’t!” I whispered fiercely. “She got married and had eggs instead.”

“She was a long way from home,” Dad said patiently, “and you watch too much television.” He came over and gently pushed me down, pulling the blanket up to my chin. “Anyway, that’s how the story goes. It was all a very long time ago. Since then, the Red River delta became the land of Van Lang, then the kingdom of Nam Viet became Vietnam.” He finished tucking me in and stared down at Ryan. “All that time, Au Go’s descendents guarded the last egg, until even they stopped believing in the stories.”

I leant over and stroked Ryan’s hair, until it occurred to me that it was the colour of crow’s feathers. I looked up at Dad, disturbed by the thought. “Is he going to breathe fire when he grows up?”

Dad got up and turned off the light. “We had a deal, remember?”

“But-”

“Sleep!”

Something woke me up later that night. Through bleary eyes I saw Dad carrying the baby around on his shoulder, a half-empty bottle in one hand, singing nonsense tunes in a soft, exhausted voice.

* * * *

Dad was short tempered with the both of us the next day. I thought that was unfair, since it was Ryan who had kept him up all night. It wasn’t my fault that it was hot in the car, and boring. Even Yellow Dog demanded breaks more often than usual.

I watched the scenery change from countryside to dense forest. “What do you think Kandoarin is like?” I asked, wanting to fill the silence.

“Da,” said Ryan. He leaned against his seat restraints, and started to wave his hand backwards and forwards beneath the sunlight streaming through Elsie’s windscreen.

Dad took off his sunglasses, squinting at the road while he rubbed one eye and then the other. He scratched the stubble on his cheek.

We caught up with the traffic ahead; a red Toyota tailgating a long, wide truck, waiting for its moment to overtake.

“Maybe like here,” Dad said after a long pause. He took a quick glance down at Ryan. “Probably different.”

Ryan looked up at him, finger shadows danced across our laps. “Da, ook.”

Dad’s smile was the saddest thing I’d ever seen. The lines around his mouth had deepened. He brought his eyes back to the road and gave a jaw-cracking yawn. “I’m going to have to take a coffee break soon,” he said.

“How different?” I demanded, feeling ignored.

Ahead of us, the driver of the red Toyota had still not succeeded in overtaking the truck. I could see him arguing with the woman next to him, even while he moved the car out into the opposite lane to check for oncoming traffic. He nipped back into his lane just in time.

“Bloody idiot,” said Dad.

“Da, ook,” said Ryan. “Uddy idiot.”

I giggled.

“Oh well,” murmured Dad. “Just get on with it,” he told the red Toyota.

Ryan turned to me. He pointed to the truck. ‘“Ainie, ook!”

“It’s just a stupid truck,” I said. “Bloody idiot.”

“Elaine,” Dad warned.

Ryan was jumping up and down in his seat now. “Ook! Ook!”

Yellow Dog started whining. “Oh, for goodness sake,” exclaimed Dad. “What is it?”

The red Toyota pulled out into the other lane and started overtaking the truck.

“Bang. Bang,” Ryan said softly. He looked up at me, put his hands to his ears. “Bang, bang, ‘Ainie.”

There was a loud crack, followed immediately by a BOOM! A cloud of dust billowed as the truck swerved first one way then the other. Its front tires hit the verge, kicking up a cloud of dirt and pebbles that spattered and clicked on Elsie’s hood and windscreen.

“Shit,” swore Dad, breaking hard. Ryan and I were thrown against our seatbelts and I felt Yellow Dog hit the back of my chair with a heavy thump. Dog and I both yelped.

The road was suddenly strewn with long, thin shreds of rubber, writhing like big black snakes, and the front of the truck listed to the right. It swung across the road and caught the Toyota, dragging the small car underneath its high chassis. The truck’s huge, double tires locked into a skid, jammed against the already crumpled Toyota. There was another agonized screech of metal, and a horrible crunch, as the truck’s load shifted, and, in slow motion, it twisted and started to go over.

Elsie shuddered and jounced, slowing but still carried forward by her momentum. Dad shouted something I didn’t understand. I could only hold my breath as the distance between us, the mangled Toyota and the overturning truck, shrank.

Then we hit the oil. Elsie’s brakes locked, we spun and slid sideways even as the truck landed with a crash and a long arc of sparks flew out like firecrackers. The accident was still happening; smoke, dust and burnt rubber, my father’s shouts and Ryan’s high-pitched wailing filled my world.

The wreckage ahead of us became a creature of motion and form. As we slid towards it, I saw a face emerge; not the face of a person, but of something dark, alive and angry. The cloud of dust and smoke opened at the centre, became a mouth into which we were sliding. Smoke belched out of its jaws and the vague shape of the red Toyota was its tongue. The bright sunlight pierced the clouds, and became two hot, white eyes.

Beside me, Ryan struggled against the pressure of his seat restraints. He was gasping, his hands pushing palm outwards. His ‘go away’ sign.

Go away! Go away!

I moaned. The mouth of the smoking monster closed in around us and I waited for the crunch, knowing that it was going to hurt. I felt a pressure push me back against my seat, the Landrover stalled, and then there was nothing but dead quiet.

The darkness began to shred as light wove its way back into existence. Dad’s breathing was a hoarse whisper. I think he was trying to speak. His hand touched my arm.

“I’m okay,” I tried to say, but nothing came out except a croak.

The tattered smoke and dust cloud thinned and then blew away, revealing wreckage, but no monster, except the accident’s carnage and Elsie, safe - on the other side of it.

I looked across at Dad, slumped in his seat, his hands clenched to Elsie’s steering wheel. Then he sat back and took a shuddering breath. He started the car and drove us off the road, on to the verge. “Stay here,” he said.

He got out of the car, took a few steps and vomited. Hands on knees, he breathed deeply and then managed an unsteady shamble back to the accident.

I unclipped my seat belt, turned around and knelt over the back of my seat. Yellow Dog was still in the space between the seats. He looked up and whined, too shocked to move.

‘“Ainie?” Whimpered Ryan. I looked at him and his eyes were huge and wet. “Raar, raar,” he sniffled. He rubbed his nose, spreading snot across his cheeks. I pulled out the hankie Dad kept behind his car chair and wiped it away. He pawed at me, wanting to be released, so I unclipped his belt. He crawled onto my cushions and we clung to each other.

The police and ambulance came soon after and Dad returned to us. He sat in his seat for a long while, staring out the window. “Those two people are dead,” he said quietly, and then he turned to look at Ryan.

He leant over and picked him up, put him back into his seat and clipped him in. Ryan protested until Dad kissed him on the cheek, pressing his nose against the little boy’s soft skin. “Thank you,” he murmured.

A policeman appeared at Dad’s window. He handed Dad a piece of paper. “Here’s the station address, Mr. Ashton, if you recall anything else, let us know. You’ll probably be asked to appear as a witness.”

Dad took the paper. “Of course. Thanks.” The policeman nodded, glanced curiously at Ryan and me, before turning on his heel.

“Did you tell them what happened, Daddy?”

“The truck’s front tire blew-out, the driver lost control and hit the Toyota,” he said. “They know what happened.”

“But, we were behind the truck, and then -” I faltered, my voice trailing away.

Dad started Elsie, looked over his shoulder, and pulled out onto the road. Something crunched as he mishandled a gear. “Yes,” he said. “Aren’t we lucky.”

* * * *

That evening, we were lost in Sydney city. Dad pulled a tattered old streetmap out from the glovebox, studying it during stops at traffic lights. He seemed to know where he wanted to go but ‘they’ had apparently changed the road system since he had last visited the Big Smoke. I drifted in and out of sleep, with my head against Ryan’s chair and he with his head slumped to his chest in deep exhaustion.

I woke when Dad opened the door on my side and gently lifted me out. Monkey-like, I wrapped arms and legs around him, my head on his shoulder. Holding me with one arm, he unclipped Ryan from his seat and, with a practiced scoop, put him up onto his other shoulder. He kicked the door shut.

Through half-closed eyes, I could see tugboats and rotting hulks moored alongside huge wooden pylons. There was the slap of water against slippery stone walls and the smell of spilt diesel. I heard the familiar eek of rats and the scuttle of things disturbed by our passing. Yellow Dog whined and pressed close to Dad.

The warmth of my father’s body and the broad expanse of his shoulder lulled me back to sleep. I tucked my thumb into my mouth and remember nothing more until the morning.

* * * *

I woke up to sunlight slanting through a broken glass window, on a comfortable mattress, with a soft blanket tucked around me. Ryan was asleep next to me, curled up around his thumb and Dino, a rich smell wafting up from the gap between nappy and back. I crinkled my nose and looked around.

We were in a warehouse. Narrow shafts of light found their way through the mismatched corrugation of the roof and dirty glass windows high on the walls, spotlighting clouds of dust. Aromas came from everywhere; hanging baskets full of herbs and grasses, drying flowers hung from the rafters and from the rusting iron girders that crisscrossed the space above, a wok set upon a huge old fashioned iron cooker in one corner.

Scattered around the warehouse floor were an expanse of garden ornaments and strange relics of all shapes and designs. Carved stone beasts with tusks and huge eyes crouched next to plaster flamingos. Fat, grinning Buddhas sat next to toga-draped Venuses. In the spaces between there was a sense of pressure, like an oncoming thunderstorm. The air felt electric.

I saw Yellow Dog lying on a patch of carpet in the corner, near a stove and small washbasin. A door opened behind him and Dad came through, ducking his head beneath the doorframe, with Mr. Pham close behind. The old man was dressed in loose, white cotton trousers and a long overcoat with wide sleeves. He looked comfortable and cool.

Yellow Dog’s tail thumped on the carpet. Mr. Pham paused to pat him, but he ducked his head away. I could see his thick fur shivering, like it did when flies annoyed him. Mr. Pham stood, with his hand outstretched, until Yellow Dog whined and rolled onto his back.

I heard the old man chuckle and didn’t like it. Dad didn’t seem to care. He stood listlessly to one side, stoop-shouldered, one hand leaning against the edge of the stove. He had changed his shirt for a clean t-shirt but he still looked bedraggled, as if with one small push, he too might roll over.

I went to the mattress and knelt next to Ryan. He stirred, opened his sleepy, dark eyes. His thumb came out of his mouth with a sucking sound and he gave a little sigh of resignation, “‘otty?”

I nodded and he rolled over onto his bottom and opened his arms to be picked up. There was a damp squishing against my hip, and I grimaced, trying not to take too deep a breath. Ryan’s head was against my shoulder, his soft hair fluffy against my cheek.

“Ryan’s needing a change,” I said, taking him towards Dad, but Mr. Pham intercepted me with ease. With a firm hand, he herded me back to the mattress. He produced a nappy and a small towel from one voluminous sleeve, and pins, wipes and powder from the other.

I stared at him in astonishment, wondering what else he might produce, but that seemed to be all for now. He put the towel down on the floor and gently prised Ryan from my grasp. With practiced hands, he quickly cleaned and changed him, while Ryan gazed up solemnly.

I saw Dad staring at us, with the same look on his face that I had seen when he had cried to the stars.

“Daughter, please take this to your father.”

My name is Elaine I wanted to say. I took the folded nappy but didn’t move.

“Ryan used Kansaith yesterday,” I said. It sounded like an accusation. I sensed the words hanging in the air, amidst the flowers and the baskets, heard faint whispers bounce from Buddhas and stone creatures, echoes that sounded like a breeze through dry grass.

I lowered my voice. “What is this place?”

The old man glanced around. “It is an edge,” he said.

“That doesn’t make sense.”

Mr. Pham pursed his lips. “A shore, a threshold - a door.” He lifted Ryan to his feet and spent a moment admiring his handiwork. “And here,” he said with pride, “is the key.” He studied the little boy for another moment, as if he were memorizing every crease, every fold of soft skin. Ryan squirmed, wriggling to get free.

‘“Ainie,” he pointed to the strange collection of things surrounding us. “Ook.”

The old man smiled at this. “He knows. Oh, yes. He can feel it.” He cocked his head sideways, looking at me in a way that reminded me of a bird considering its next meal. “Can yon feel it, daughter? There is great power in the relationship of simple things to each other.” He looked from me to Ryan, back again. “I had not considered that such power might also exist between children.”

Relationship of simple things - was he calling me stupid? “What about the crow that attacked us,” I demanded. “And yesterday - I saw a face, with big jaws and white eyes.”

“What about it?” He asked. “Perhaps you have one of those overactive imaginations, eh?”

I know it was you, I wanted to say. You’re trying to scare us. I shook my head firmly.

Mr. Pham was still kneeling, so we were eye to eye. I studied that broad face, as brown and lined as drought-cracked mud, with cheekbones so high they cast shadows. His long silver hair was drawn back from his face into a ponytail, and beneath grey eyebrows bristling with unruly hairs were eyes so black I could not see the pupils. Strange eyes.

Ryan’s eyes.

“I don’t like you,” I said.

The old man nodded. “Good. I don’t like you, either.”

Ryan had crawled onto the mattress to retrieve Dino. “When he grows up, I’m going to teach him to fly,” I declared. “And he’s going to breathe fire.” And eat nasty old men, I finished silently. At that point, Dad came over, clearly intending to scold me. He went to take my arm, but Mr. Pham motioned him away and he stopped in his tracks, swaying like a drunk.

“Daughters need a firm hand,” he told Dad. “They must be taught respect.”

Mr. Pham rocked onto his toes, rising gracefully to his feet. He didn’t look so old any more. “Are you a sorceress? You will need to be, if you are to hide from that which hunts him.”

“I’m not scared.” Of you.

His bushy eyebrows drew together. “You should be.”

Ryan decided to rejoin us, bouncing his way across the mattress on hands and knees. Gripping his toy with one fist, he put his other arm around my leg. “‘Ainie-ay,” he sang in his lispy voice.

I put my arm around his shoulders. “Ryan hatched for me.”

“And you think that I am jealous?” He seemed to think about it for a moment. “Perhaps,” he admitted, “if I permitted such feeling. But I do not. Nor grief. Such things must be put aside.” He gestured at Dad; fingers moving in slanted light, shifting dust motes and shadows.

“We have to go now, ‘Lainie,” said Dad in a toneless voice.

I pulled Ryan closer and he hugged me back. He pointed Dino at the old man, “Raar.”

Mr. Pham’s eyes narrowed. Suddenly he raised his arms and the light in the warehouse dimmed. A copper coloured gloom descended upon us. The sleeves of his white tunic slid back to his shoulders, revealing muscled, brown arms and a fine layering of tattoos, like glittering scales.

I quailed. “Daddy?”

“So, you would teach him?” Thundered the old man. “And when Kandoarin’s eclipse comes and its doom awakens, what then? Tell me, little girl, will the Youngest Son be ready?”

Between us, dust motes danced as if the air was fluid, their movement captured in shafts of filtered light, whirlpools of motion, like froth stirred into coffee.

A low, deep sound pulsed above my head, the beating heart of some great beast crouching amidst the rafters and beams. The shadows deepened, melded into a darkness that pooled around our feet.

“Already the hunter is stirring. Without me, it will find him, and crush him, and all will fail.” He lowered his arms and the throbbing sound dimmed, became the panicked beat of my own heart.

Mr. Pham held out his hand to Ryan. “Băc Vüöng,” he said. “Come to me.”

“No!”

Startled, I saw my exhausted Dad draw himself up. Yellow Dog had come to heel. He crouched at Dad’s feet, brown eyes focused on the old man, lips slightly raised over sharp canines.

Dad’s voice was hoarse. “I don’t care what you are,” he said. “Do not threaten my children.” He rubbed a hand across his forehead. “I’ve had enough.”

Mr. Pham nodded stiffly. “Yes. It is time for you to leave.”

“Right,” said Dad. “Ryan.”

He immediately left me and waddled over, lifting his arms. Dad hauled him up, put him on a hip.

“Elaine.” I gleefully dropped the dirty nappy and rushed to take his hand.

“I nearly made a terrible mistake,” Dad said. “I was afraid of things I half-believed. Now I do believe, and you know what? I don’t care. I don’t care what he is. I am a father. That is my duty. C’mon Dog.”

We turned our backs on the old man. The door was just there, we were headed towards it. I felt the brush of Yellow Dog’s fur against my leg. I felt like skipping.

We walked fast, but I hadn’t realized how big the warehouse was, our efforts to reach the door only seemed to push it away. Dad stumbled to a stop. “You bastard,” he muttered.

“Daddy?”

“It’s okay, honey. Everything will be okay.” We turned around again, slowly.

I was half expecting a drum roll, or Mr. Pham to sprout fangs or wings, or perhaps the beasts of plaster and stone to come alive. As Dad said, I watch too much television.

Mr. Pham was just standing there. A strange, magnetic old man, with eyes that glittered in the weird light and a shadow that stretched across the warehouse, pooling around our feet like black ink.

“The Youngest Son knows what he must do,” he said. He lifted a hand and motioned. Come. Ryan wriggled out of Dad’s arms, as impossible to hold against his will as an eel. In a blink, he was out of our reach and toddling over to the old man. It happened so quickly. He took a few steps away from us and suddenly he was enveloped in dust motes twisting into forms that swam in the air and shimmered like a mirage -multicoloured scales, the curve of horns and claw, the glint of black eyes.

The old man threw back his head and laughed out loud. Then, with a conqueror’s flourish, he went down on one knee. As he did so, his shadow shrank back, like a dark tide receding. He put out his hand for Ryan to take and I knew that the moment he did, they would disappear, like Alice’s rabbit.

Into that outstretched hand Ryan gravely placed Dino the dinosaur. “Uddy idiot,” he said cheerfully. Then he turned around to come back to us, leaving the old man stranded in confusion, holding a thoroughly gnawed and misused rubber toy. Mr. Pham looked straight at me and I saw his fury, felt the heat of his intent across the space between us.

A wide, cheeky grin split Ryan’s face as he put up his arms, ready for take-off.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” said Dad, scooping him up.

Mr. Pham surged forward, only to be met halfway by a bristling, furious Yellow Dog, flashing canines full of promise. So we stood, my father and I, and the dog, in a little triangle, and we were as one.

“Simple things,” I reminded the old man.

“Willful, disobedient child,” he said to me. He looked at Dad and his face was suddenly very sad. “Your love will cost you dearly,” he said. “I would have spared you the suffering.” He locked eyes with Ryan, and then he opened his hand, letting Dino drop to the ground. It bounced once, and vanished.

Like a screen coming down between us, the gloom gathered around Mr. Pham, softening his form, blurring his features. He stepped back, into the shadows.

We turned and rushed for the door and this time nothing conspired against us. We emerged into a tiny shop front, stacked full of rolled-up carpets and dusty furniture. A pair of floor-to-ceiling windows, half-covered in tattered posters stuck to the outside, faced out onto yet another bright, sunny day.

There was old Elsie parked outside. We were going home. Nothing bad had happened. Dad had kept us together and I sensed that I had changed. I felt grown-up, a big sister, strong in ways I couldn’t describe. One day, Au Co’s youngest son will cross his bridge, but not yet. For now, he chooses to be with us, and that is a powerful magic.

I looked up and saw my little brother gazing down at me from over Dad’s shoulder. “Knock. Knock,” he said.

I grinned back at him. “Who’s there?”

“Me!” He announced. Lifting his hands, he curled them into claws. “Raar.”

Number 3 Raw Place

DEBORAH BIANCOTTI

It’s new,” Ted apologized. The bank clerk stared flatly ahead. “Never heard of it.”

Seated behind Perspex, she was blurred around the edges like a crayon drawing.

“Maybe because we’re the first to move in?” Ted offered.

The clerk didn’t care. She pushed a thin piece of paper under the Perspex and it came out sharp. Clean and white; not blurred at all. He was surprised.

“Should I fill this in?” he asked. He smiled, encouraging her to smile back.

She didn’t. Only kept staring; the thick lines of her eyes unmoving. Ted wondered if he should take the form to a bench, or fill it in right there. Did she have to witness his signature, after all? He looked around to see what others were doing, but there was no one else. So he wrote where he was, using a pen on a string that was too short. He wrote with his hand all cramped up-Then he slid the form back under the security screen and watched its edges blur. Like handing it to a deep sea diver; perspective skewing where the water began. The woman took the form with soaking fingers and held it in front of her face. She seemed to read it okay.