February Thaw (14 page)

"It is his name."

"But he hates it!"

"He's just looking for something to believe in. That's common enough."

"But he's hardly ever home anymore and when he is he spends all his time sulking in front of the television."

"Leave him be, Donna. It's harder for boys."

"What is?"

"Finding out who you are."

"I know who I am."

"You're a girl. And, you're the..."

"...oldest. Yeah, I know."

*

"But Dad, what do you know about these new friends of his?"

"Your brother is almost seventeen years old, Donna. He's capable of choosing his own friends."

She couldn't believe she'd heard correctly. "You wanted to know the family background of every person I ever spoke to."

"You're a girl. Boys need more freedom."

The habit of being a dutiful daughter closed her mouth on the reply she wanted to make, but only just.

"Was that all, honey? I really have to get this report done for tomorrow."

"That's all, Dad. Good night."

If they wouldn't listen, what could she do?

*

It moved like fire and air and water all at once and its beauty brought a lump to her throat. It lowered its head until she could see into the diamond strewn blackness of its eyes and it asked, "What is evil?"

Shing Li'ung
seemed to have learned English in the last month. She hoped it hadn't picked up any bad habits from all the television it had been exposed to.

It didn't seem to mind having to wait for an answer.

"Evil is hurting someone else," she told it at last.

"So," golden brows drew down and light glinted off a thousand pointed teeth, "by your definition it is sometimes necessary to do evil."

She had a sudden vision of taking a baseball bat to the side of her brother's head. "To prevent a greater evil, yes."

It cocked its head. "The young live life so simply," it said thoughtfully.

"And the old complicate life with the past."

It laughed then and the sound vibrated through her body, shaking blood and bone and tissue. While not exactly an unpleasant feeling, it wasn't one she was in any hurry to repeat.

"You are worthy," it told her, twisted back on itself and disappeared.

"Well, whoop de do," she muttered, and fell deeper into sleep.

*

Donna had taken the special eight week night course at Victoria College over her parents' objection and would have thrown that small act of defiance in Bradley's face – except she never saw him anymore. She left early every morning for the long transit ride downtown and, as Bradley had no classes until ten, she was gone before he got up. He was never home in the evenings, having suddenly acquired more freedom than she'd ever been allowed.

She'd seen his new friends only once when they'd dropped him off late one Saturday – or early one Sunday – and the noise of their talking and laughing had woken her up. From her window, she'd seen the red glow of a trio of cigarettes and heard how "...they wouldn't be allowed to take over our town. They can just fucking get back on the boats and go back where they came from." She didn't care who "they" were; she wasn't impressed.

"What?" Bradley had demanded the next day when she'd approached him. "You think they're not good enough for me 'cause I don't have an accent? 'Cause they know what it's like to be Chinese? 'Cause they're living with their heritage not hiding and pretending?"

"No one except you cares that you're Chinese!"

"My point exactly," he sneered and flicked the dragon pin with a fingernail. "You think you're so smart..."

"No," she snapped, "but I think Dad's going to kick your butt if he finds out you're smoking. You know how he got about it after Uncle Karl."

Uncle Karl had been a two pack a day smoker and had died at fifty-one, both lungs eaten away by cancer.

The new friends never dropped him off at the house after that, but Donna was sure nothing else had changed. Maybe next year, when he'd pulled even with her again and was at university too, they'd be able to talk. Meanwhile, she could only hope he didn't get into anything he couldn't get out of.

She was thinking of transverse vectors, not her brother, when she came down the steps of Victoria College and realized that, except for her, the night was empty. What had happened to the other thirty-seven students in the class? She'd stayed to ask a couple of questions, but she hadn't stayed that long. Had she? The echo of a stereo drifted down from the student residence to the east but the paths were deserted and dark and the subway a long, lonely distance away.

I'm being ridiculous.
She settled her bag more firmly on her shoulder and clamped it securely down with her elbow, the edge of enamelled tin cutting into her upper arm. The soles of her shoes made a soft squelching sound against the mat of fallen leaves that covered the pavement as she started towards Queen's Park Circle and the security of street-lights and traffic.
Once I get out onto the street, everything will be...

Will be..
.

Between her and the street, a shadow moved. It could have been the trees, tossing in the wind.

One foot lifted to step forward, she paused, and turned and started moving quickly along the darker paths that cut between the university buildings.
I'm being ridiculous,
she told herself again but she couldn't make herself believe it.

"Hey, Chinadoll."

The voice came from behind her, from the way she had so suddenly decided not to go. Her legs moved faster; not running, not yet. The buildings around her were locked and dark. The only safety lay three hundred twisting meters away where the paths came out onto the blaze of light that was University Avenue. Three hundred meters.

She started to run.

A hand grabbed hold of her jacket and jerked back hard. She went down, arms flailing wildly in an effort to keep herself moving forward. Moving away. Moving to safety. Then a larger, heavier body landed on top of her.

"Hey, Chinadoll, I don't want to hurt you. I just want us to have some fun."

The hand he clapped over her mouth when she opened it to scream smelled of deodorant soap and the cuff button of his leather school jacket dug into her cheek. He was blonde. He was clean shaven. He was smiling. His breath smelled like peppermints and beer. He shifted his weight, grinding her head through the pad of dead leaves and into the concrete.

"Now, we can get something going here if you'll just stop..."

She didn't so much stop fighting, as stop moving. In fact, at that moment, she doubted she was capable of movement. Her eyes were open so wide, they hurt.

"Hey! What're you staring at?"

Red and gold it towered up behind his shoulder. Beautiful. Terrible. Impossible.

Real.

Blood splashed against her face as talons dug deep and lifted him skyward. He twisted against their grip for a second, staring down at her in disbelief. Then he screamed.

Donna screamed with him. And when he stopped, she went on screaming.

"ARE YOU HURT?"

The voice rang through her head like a gong, impossible to ignore. "I, I don't think so."

"THEN WHY DO YOU MAKE SUCH A NOISE?"

"I, uh, I..." She got slowly to her feet, head craned back, eyes still open painfully wide. It was like sitting too close to the screen in a movie theatre; too much to take in all at once. The smell of ginger made her want to sneeze.
I'm not afraid,
she realized.
I was, but now I'm not
. She took a step back, and then another, and then, in the red/gold light that came off the dragon, caught sight of the broken body crumpled across the path, one massive forefoot still resting negligently across its back. "Oh my God, you killed him!"

"YES."

Her exclamation had been purely instinctive.
Shing Li-ung
's placid confirmation transferred her growing sense of wonder into outrage. "You can't do that!"

It cocked its head to one side and regarded her with mild curiosity. "WHY NOT? I HAVE PROTECTED YOU AS I PROTECTED YOUR GRANDMOTHER."

"You just can't kill somebody like that!"

It looked down at the body. "YES, I CAN."

"Well," she threw her shoulders back, "if that's the kind of protection you offer, I don't want it."

Great golden brows drew in. "BUT I MUST PROTECT THE HOLDER OF THE TALISMAN."

"Do you have to kill people?"

"I MUST PROTECT YOU."

"But you don't have to kill people!"

The shrug rippled the full thirty foot length of
Shing Li-ung
's serpentine body. It didn't look convinced. "YOU HAVE BEEN GIVEN THE TALISMAN."

"Then you must obey me?"

"NO. I MUST PROTECT YOU."

"I don't believe this," Donna muttered and brushed her hair back off her face. It came away damp and sticky. Her heart back in her throat, she held it out and in the dragon's light she saw it smeared with blood. "I don't believe this!" But this time she wailed the words as whatever cocooning the dragon's presence had offered peeled away.

An echoing wail came from behind the surrounding buildings, from the street.

The sound brought a new panic.

"The police! Someone called the police."

"YOU WERE MAKING A GREAT DEAL OF NOISE,"
Shing Li-ung
observed.

"But what do I do? He's dead!"

"ARE YOU IN DANGER?"

Her laugh hung on the edge of hysteria. "I am if I stay here. I'll end up in the psycho wards. I didn't kill him, Your Honour, my grandmother's dragon did."

"IF YOU ARE IN DANGER, I MUST PROTECT YOU."

In the next instant, she stood on the front porch of her parent's house in Don Mills, safe in the suburbs, miles away from the savagely murdered body of a young man.
And barely a month ago I was freaked by my grandmother dying peacefully in bed...

Her hands shook too violently for her to open the door so she leaned against the bell.

"Keep your pants on, jeez, I'm... Donna?"

"Mom? Dad?"

Bradley dragged her inside and managed to hang onto her as she sagged against him. "Mom's at Aunt Lily's and Dad's working late. Christ, Donna, you're covered in blood!"

"Not mine."

"Not yours?" His voice which hadn't cracked in years shifted an octave on the second word. He lowered her onto a chair and gripped her shoulders so tightly she squeaked in pain. "What happened to you!?"

"What happened to me?" Donna shrugged his hands away and dragged the canvas bag down onto her lap, turning the dragon pin into the light. The tiny golden claws were tipped with red. "What happened to me?" she repeated, just barely holding on to coherency. "Oh, nothing much happened to
me
."

*

"...and then I was home."

Bradley sighed, a long exhalation that released all the interruptions he'd wanted to make but hadn't throughout her story. She wouldn't let him touch the dragon so he sat and stared at it as she turned it over and over between fingers puckered by almost thirty minutes in the shower.

She looked up at the sound and waited for him to speak, wondering what he was thinking. Would he think she'd gone crazy? Had she? But he didn't speak and she couldn't read his expression. The silence lengthened until she broke under the weight of it. "Well?"

"I need a smoke."

"No, you don't!" The response was automatic older sister and it snapped her past some of what she supposed had to be shock. She sighed in turn and felt the knot in her stomach begin to ease with the wavering breath. "Bradley, please..."

He spread his hands. "I want to believe you," he said simply.

And he did. Donna recognized his expression now. Hope. A desperate hope. She thought she'd done all the crying she could in the shower. She was wrong.

"Jeez, Donna, don't. I mean, you're all right, right? Like that guy didn't hurt you and you're okay. You said,
Shing Li-ung
came in time. I mean, jeez, please Donna, stop crying."

Because it was upsetting him, she tried. It took a few minutes. "Why don't you believe me?" she asked when she finally regained control.

He shrugged, watching her nervously in case she should break down again. "Well, I mean... a dragon?"

She rubbed her nose on the fuzzy purple sleeve of her old bathrobe. "You're the one who's always going on about Chinese heritage. Dragons are a part of that."

"Yes..." He turned that over, accepted it.

"And you know I never lie. Not even when it would keep me out of trouble. Even when it would keep us out of trouble. You always said it was one of my most annoying habits. If I never lied before, why now? And why about something so... so extreme."

"Why indeed?" His sudden smile illuminated the room. "Donna, this is awesome. A dragon, a real dragon."

"No, Bradley..."

"Kae Bing. And what do you mean, no?"

"It isn't awesome, at least not like you mean. That boy is dead."

"So?"

"Dead!" she repeated. "And
Shing Li-ung
killed him."

"He deserved to die."

"It's not that simple," she began but she saw suddenly for Bradley, for Kae Bing, it was that simple. "Look, you can't just go around saying that some people deserve to die."

"Can't I?" He jerked to his feet, hands balled into fists. "Well, maybe Saint Donna can't, but I can. Get some sleep and forget about that round-eye punk, he got what he deserved." Half out of the room, he paused and looked back. "Oh, and I wouldn't tell Mom or Dad about this. They wouldn't understand."

Then, to Donna's surprise, he bowed to the bit of enamelled tin she still held in her hand.

*

The boy's name had been Alan Ford and all three city papers had a full report of his death. The tabloid even had colour pictures. Not one of the papers mentioned a thirty foot long, scarlet and gold Chinese dragon although all of them mentioned multiple knife wounds.