Margery’s Dragon

The doctor was in at midnight. There came the rush of footsteps. Solemn, hurried whispers. Bianco’s grip making the banister creak. The crickets in the yard chirped as they would any night, unbothered by all that was moving and shifting within the little house at the end of the lane. And, still, Margery’s heart beat it all out. Her world was spinning like a roulette wheel, horrible past merging with horrible present.

She followed her husband and the doctor upstairs, old floorboards groaning. An oil light was on in William’s room, once George’s room. It contained all the same toys from those days, the same blue and yellow wallpaper. The rocking horse sat in the corner, with George’s tiny Sunday coat draped over it like a saddle. William was too small, even with a chair, to reach the nursery’s fireplace mantle, and so the toy soldiers were still arranged the way George had liked. One day, near the end, he’d asked Bianco to place them. In fact, nearly everything had been kept as it was; all was the same except that a peg which had once held a pair of skates was now bare. 

Margery thought she’d learned her lesson after George, that she’d been a fool not to watch him on the ice, and that if she could only be less of a fool with William then he’d be safe. But how was she to have prevented this? What were the steps she could have taken? She could not see the map as she had with George. The fever had left nothing to trace, had come from no discernable origin. So Margery only stared as her husband and the doctor bent over the boy in the bed. They observed his red skin and the swelling on his neck. His tongue was covered in bumps. All the while, he watched with half-lidded eyes and clutched a stuffed dragon. 

The dragon was worn, patched in places with fabric from a skirt Margery had decided she could part with. Or, perhaps, she’d wanted to part with it. Its mint green, dotted pattern struck her, and then it was like George was there, holding on to that dress as they walked into church. So she used it to mend wounds on his favorite toy. Materials collided and they all had pieces of George in them. Now, Margery couldn’t stop watching the toy rise and fall against William’s chest. There was the favorite possession of a brother he never knew. The dragon had been left on the stairs the day they’d lost George, as though waiting, and seeing Margery finally come home, covered in melted snow, defeat apparent in her slow, slight-swaying motions. Bianco had stayed outside on the porch, talking to everyone; she’d been able to hear the mournful conversation. But the dragon’s question was louder. 

No, she’d responded, he won’t be coming back. 

“Liquids,” said the doctor. “Get him water. And calamine lotion will help with the rash.”

“Is it…” Bianco’s voice was porcelain-fine. His eyes fluttered across Margery, a movement so evanescent she hardly noticed. “It’s not fatal?”

“Not typically.” The doctor’s words were slow, metered. “It’s scarlet fever. Many children survive. But you have things you must do. Keep giving him fluids and soft foods and, when he’s well enough to move, could you take him somewhere with open air?”

Margery and Bianco shared a look. 

“We have some family in the country,” said Bianco. “A cottage and dairy.”

“That works fine,” said the doctor. “And while he’s gone, clean out this room. Wash the floors and fixtures and burn the toys.”

Margery caught the bed frame. “But that’s” – the wrought iron was cold on her fingers– “so dramatic, isn’t it?”

“It’s what many doctors are now suggesting in order to control this,” he said. “It’s the extremity of the solution that will prevent the spread.” 

But George, she wanted to say. George was in these things. In the rocking horse and the coat and the tin soldiers. In the dragon. 

She turned back to the creature in her child’s arms. Olive flesh with mint polkadot scars. Its button eyes held the lamplight like liquid. 

Bianco’s hand was on her shoulder. He knew what the dragon was asking too, and he was saying yes. They had to. They would. 

—

While William recovered, Margery thought almost entirely of George. He’d used to terrify her late at night, when she peered into the nursery and thought his bed empty. But, always, he had rolled himself into a ball under the covers near his pillows. When she peeled back the blanket, she saw blonde curls. He’d run around outside with the dragon in his hand or in a little wagon. It suffered heat and rain. But those things would never kill it, George had said. Because he had to be the one to slay the dragon. It’s what was shown in the storybooks and in the cathedral window. As soon as he was old enough, he’d face the dragon as a foe. Until then, they could be friends. So was his logic. 

She hadn’t named him for Saint George, but she’d never told him that. It was too lovely to let him believe, to let him smack the books as she read them and go, It’s me! People, Margery understood, only had so long to think themselves special. Destined for greatness, reincarnated heroes and princesses, the figures of legend. Then things fell into focus and you were one of many, not particularly talented or pretty or interesting. One day all the gorgeous misconceptions died. But George sometimes resurrected them for her, when he grabbed her mint dress and pointed to Saint George at the cathedral entrance and said, “Me! And you’ll be the mama of a dragon-slayer and have a hundred polkadot dresses!”

Margery sat at William’s bedside for hours, always watching the dragon. A fated foe but also a sole friend. How that had pained her. While alive, George had always been a bit odd. And she’d thought this an adorable thing until she’d realized that he didn’t think so– because other children didn’t think so. He got a little too excited over things. He spoke with a strangeness in his voice, a thick lisp. If you took in his words, you knew he was clever and creative, but the sponginess of his voice– if you didn’t listen past it– made him stupid. 

And so Margery watched him play alone. At neighborhood picnics, he ate Marlborough pie beside her, away from the other children kicking a ball around or playing cards. Once the dragon had sustained a severe blow, its arm nearly ripped off— hanging by brown thread. George never told Margery how it happened, but she had suspicions. It’s okay, he told her, When I kill the dragon, princesses and saints will like me! 

Maybe Bianco had answered the dragon’s question. But Margery had her own answer. No, she said, you aren’t going to burn. Then she leaned in and, breath held, eased the toy from William’s sleeping grasp.

She hid it in a vanity drawer. Having it in there gave her a paradoxical emotion, something between peace and anxiety. The dragon was protected, but the weight of her secret was exhausting. She began putting William’s— George’s— toys into sacks for burning.

“I’m preparing early,” she told Bianco when he asked her about it. “I want to get it over with.” But it was a simple ruse— let them believe the dragon had been bagged up. William was the only problem.

“Can I say bye-bye to my dragon?” he asked weakly. “Can I hug him?”

She told him no but her reasons were feeble, always hashed together unsteadily. I don’t remember which bag it was. Oh sweetie, it’ll make you sad. I’m too exhausted to look for it right now. Then, when she was alone, she’d slide out the drawer and look at the creature that lay among the perfumes and powders. She’d smile a little bit, and she took that for happiness. 

William never caught on. But Bianco did. 

He approached the subject at night, and she saw it coming. He hovered behind her as she took off her makeup and unfastened her hair. She saw him in the mirror; his lips were pressed into a line but he tried not to catch her gaze. Finally she turned.

“Did you want to talk, darling?” 

A sigh. “That seems prudent.” He almost left a gap for her to speak again, but then shook his head and charged in: “You shouldn’t keep the dragon.”

She thought she’d be more anxious about this conversation, but instead she felt cold. “Nobody would find out.” 

“It isn’t safe.” 

“Come now! Those orders were overly-cautious. Some sanitation with soap and water, that’s enough.”

“You’d risk—” But then he squeezed his eyes shut for a moment. When he opened them, they had a steadfast glow in them. “It’s not just about that. It’s about you. You need to be rid of it.”

Her cold composure was warming, boiling, furious. She shot up straight. “Why?!” she demanded. “Isn’t it normal? It’s natural for mothers to keep mementos of their dead children. George loved it! He adored it! How could you— why don’t you understand? We’ll wash it! Then it’s all I’ll have of him!”

“You have photographs,” he told her. “And the clothes we boxed up. It’s just that the dragon…”

“What? What about the dragon? Tell me what!” 

He began to answer and got out the bare breath of a first word before he reoriented. She could almost see him take another route through his thoughts, trying to find an explanation when the simple ones weren’t strong enough. 

“How well do you know William?” he asked at last.

She blinked. “What do you mean?”

“Do you look at him much?”

“Of course. I–”

“Or is it the nursery that you visit so often? Is it the dragon?”

“You’re being absurd! I know what you’re trying to say and it’s absurd!” Her breaths were wobbling. 

“I know you love William,” he said. “I know how scared you were when he got sick. I do know. But you refused to take down the nursery, you said it was for another child. That was the reason. But you’re in there more than he is. And the dragon…” Bianco swallowed. “Margery, sometimes I think awful things can be good for us. I think William’s scarlet fever could end up making us better off.”

“No–” She approached him at last, shaking, hands raised. Her eyes felt warm, her throat raw. “No– you can’t say it was good that William got so ill! It wasn’t good that we wondered if we would lose him! It wasn’t good! It isn’t good that we’re going to lose all of George’s things! His stuff!” She was crying now, aching, and speaking on heaving breaths. Rattling inside herself.  

“I’m saying” – he caught her gingerly by the hands, thumbs running over the lines on her palms– “bad things can crack us out of worse things.”

Crack. Had he used the word intentionally? The sound of ice giving. Bracing cold and the fall to unkind depths. Sinking and eventually surrendering to the breathlessness. She had been so long without air and wouldn’t die. The ice had closed up over her head, and to break it would be to scream and thrash. 

Margery sat at the edge of the bed. Her arms hung loose. Finally, with a weak baby bird of a voice, she said, “Let me do it then.”

—

The evening before they left for the country, a bonfire was lit in the yard. In went the rocking chair and tin soldiers and all the other toys. Orange light lapped across the street and the side of the house. Margery watched years blacken as she squeezed the dragon against her chest, then she turned and walked down the path that led to the lake. Her breaths plumed in the cold air and the crickets were back to their music. The last time she’d gone to the lake, she’d been running. Now she walked slowly enough to capture the details, the way the ground sounded against her heels and the stars overhead following trails of their own, across currents of black and navy blue. 

Bianco had left a lantern at the lakeshore for her. She made a circle of stones and filled it with twigs. Then she took some fire from the lantern and lit the campfire. 

Cold wind stirred the flames and kicked up grey waves on the lake beyond. She ran her fingertips over the dragon, the velveteen and the stitches and the patches of a rayon dress. There was that all too familiar heat behind her eyes when she turned to the fire. 

She heard echoes and saw ghosts. George’s thick voice that she loved so well because nobody but him seemed to have it. There he was, eyes drawn away from the pulpit so he could look up at a man in armor, rendered in silver, yellow, and red glass. The window cast a beam that washed him in burning colors. 

Margery held the toy up, as that man held his sword. She was trembling and that wouldn’t do– that wasn’t how dragons were meant to die. So she breathed and let the air finally come, fortifying her. That window was in her mind, she was before it on the steps. And a voice within her said,

Me. And you will be the son of a dragon-slayer and have a hundred saints for your friends. 

She screamed and threw her arms down– the sword falling– the dragon dropping from her hands– the flames shaking and spitting sparks. Margery was wailing and couldn’t stop; she wanted to cry for as long as she could. The air nicked her tender face; it stung the places the salt and water had made raw. Her vision was blurry but she kept wiping her eyes, intending to watch the dragon go, losing her voice until the next short sob. She released and released and released, a woman bucketing water out of a sinking boat, until Bianco approached from behind and held her wet hand. Then she was on dry land, sniffling and tired. They doused the fire and covered it with soil. 

Together, they walked back up the trail just as slowly as Margery had the last time, but it did feel different, like a long night was turning grey. William was waiting at the house with a neighbor. Tomorrow, they’d take him to the cottage and dairy, to the place where soldiers could retire after a long fight.