Back to the beginning

We’re back where we started. The fires have died away. All the northern realms of this wooden land are ash, dotted with plumes of smoke. I wonder if it will rain in the turned world?

The tunnel entrance looms before us, a gaping black mouth. The sun’s low, moving strangely. Time is awry here. In front of the tunnel mouth, Kathy is dancing. As a child, so she told me on the flight back from the remains of London, she studied ballet. But her bones grew to big for that delicate art and so she took to caving instead. I asked her why – don’t big bones get in the way when you’re underground? She said it didn’t matter, because underground was where she fitted in.

So why dance now? I didn’t ask, but then I didn’t need to. Tonight we’re going into the tunnel. For Kathy, that means leaving everything behind. With the world turned to wood, maybe that doesn’t mean much. But it means something to her. I think she’s dancing to remember. And dancing to forget.

It’s an eerie dance, all long limbs and slow turns. The sort of dance that could change the weather. It’s beautiful, and that’s one reason I can’t take my eyes off it. The other reason is that I’ve seen it before, performed by a tiny heap of faery bones in the depths of the tunnel we’re about to consign ourselves to.

I wonder how the bones knew.

As for the tunnel … it scares me more than I can say. I crossed worlds and times to reach it, and the instant I found it I couldn’t wait to get out. Will it even let me in again? I have no choice but to try, because somewhere in its depths, my son is held captive.

So here I am, the last dragon left in the world, with a human companion whose ancestors once wore wings and who is dancing her dance of departure in the last light of the failing sun, in a world that has turned to wood, about to enter the tunnel of all ends. All I have to carry with me is my name: Monajjfyllena. It’s precious little, but it may be enough.

If not, you won’t be hearing from me again.