The Dragon Keeper (34 page)
“Yeah, I know.”
“I figured you would.” Meg paused, enjoying the unexpected easiness between them, knowing it was more than she deserved. “Anyway, she reminded me of someone, a fellow agitator. I bought myself a subscription, so you’ve got twelve months to get it published.”
“Look at you, bossing everyone around, acting like you know best. Soon they’ll put you in charge of the whole damn island.”
They talked for a while longer about what her job was going to be like, the daily grind of the fair circuit, where Ben was going to live in the fall. Maybe because they hadn’t really talked to each other in so long, or because they’d had more than a month apart, or because there was a thousand miles between them—whatever the reason, something had changed. They weren’t lovers and they weren’t friends, but on her last night in America, Ben wished her well, and it seemed as if he meant it. And when she told him to lay off the pot and take care of himself, she meant it, too.
She hadn’t felt any nerves or nostalgia driving through Los Angeles this morning. She’d already left her home far behind; this was just the last U.S. stop on the way to a new, unknown home. At the port she got through customs fine with the whole freaking book of required permits and visas, but the coast guard had been a little more difficult.
“The permits allow you to take the lizards, ma’am, not these other undocumented animals.” The officer shook the container and tried to peer through the opaque lid.
“What am I supposed to feed them? I can’t exactly take them to the dining room with me and give them table scraps.”
“I don’t know. My cousin had an iguana, and it would eat just about anything. Loved mashed potatoes.”
She leveled him with a glare. “Well, I’ll just call the government of Indonesia and tell them their
Varanus komodoensis
specimens died at sea because the American coast guard is afraid of crickets.”
After a few more threats and a telephone call to his supervisor, he eventually let her board the ship, crickets and all, but the hatchlings’ tank had to be stored in a quarantine hold. They absolutely refused to let her keep them in her cabin and only granted her the clearance to visit them twice a day to check the heater, humidifier, and ventilation system.
“What am I supposed to do with the rest of my time?”
The ship officer shrugged and locked the quarantine door. “Go say
bon voyage
.”
Now, as the United States and everything she knew disappeared into the horizon, the edges of something started to unfurl in her chest. It was a foreign, wild feeling, but she let it grow anyway, trying not to kill it the way she’d killed everything else. Let it breathe. Let it go. The last stripe of land vanished into the ocean. She waved good-bye to no one and leaned over the deck railing to look in the other direction.
Ahead, the water moved, choppy and blue on the horizon. It was the water she’d read about all of Jata’s life, where the great Komodo kings destroyed their bindings and cages and smashed their way into the ocean, escaping into the waves that called them back to the rocky shores of Padar and the forests of Rinca. Without knowing anything else, they chose freedom over life. Staring at the water, Meg heard what they’d heard as the waves broke against the ship. She felt their desperation and their hope, even if it was the hope of the damned, for the first time in her life.
As if it sensed the feeling, the baby fluttered deep inside her abdomen. The doctor had said it was too early to feel anything, that such fluttering was just indigestion or a cramp, but when the hell did a cramp flutter? Besides, this was the same doctor who told her the birth control patch was foolproof. She wasn’t exactly buying stock in that guy. Automatically her hands cupped her belly, rubbing the skin through her shirt.
“I’m glad, too,” she said to the ocean.
All those weeks of nausea and bizarre dreams, and she’d only figured it out a few weeks ago, after her breasts had started to throb every morning. A child.
She hadn’t told anyone about the baby before she left because, for one thing, she didn’t know who to tell—according to the date the doctor had given her, the father could have been either Antonio or Ben—but also because it didn’t matter. Even though she’d enjoyed talking to Ben on the phone last night, it was obvious their relationship was spent, and she hadn’t spoken to Antonio since that day at the hospital. She’d already packed up and left town by the time he returned to work, although just after she’d crossed the Minnesota border she’d gotten his one-line e-mail on her phone:
Learn how to write, Yancy
. It made her smile, but she didn’t write back. If and when she did, she wasn’t planning on mentioning the baby. Neither Antonio nor Ben were daddy material, and especially not to her child, not after everything that happened. Telling them and then moving to the other side of the world was just cruel. And maybe she was harsh and cynical, but she had never been intentionally cruel. This baby was hers and hers alone. After all the chaos and grief of the last two months, this was the one thing that finally made sense to her—starting a new life with all of her fatherless children.
She leaned farther over the railing and looked ahead to the open water and overcast sky. A plane climbed through the clouds and roared ahead of the ship toward the place where West became East, where her baby would be born. The kid would have so many questions someday. How much time would she have to fit the pieces together and try to make sense out of events that rebelled against logic? That defied all human knowledge of nature? Somehow she had to stand in the place where humans met animals, where the planet’s conquering species struck the reptiles’ unyielding will to survive, and explain a miracle that she could never fully understand.
Rubbing her stomach gently, she watched the waves crash against the hull and whispered into the wind something that felt like a beginning. “Once there was a woman who didn’t like people very much, and her best friend was a dragon, a very special dragon … ”
Acknowledgments
The Dragon Keeper
owes its life to some very special people. Midge Raymond and John Yunker of Ashland Creek Press, for their faith, hard work, and enthusiasm. My mom and dad and all my family (that means you, too, Liz) who have always given me their unconditional support. Philip, who puts up with me no matter what. Sheila O’Connor, who was water and sun when this book was just a tiny seed of a story. Mary Logue, for her invaluable critique and encouragement. Dr. Steve Reichling and Michelle and Mike Wines of the extraordinary Memphis Zoo, who gave me a glimpse into their dragons’ lives. The Komodo research and scholarship of Walter Auffenberg in
The Behavioral Ecology of the Komodo Monitor
; Dick Lutz and J. Marie Lutz in
Komodo, The Living Dragon
; and editors James B. Murphy, Claudio Ciofi, Colomba de La Panouse, and Trooper Walsh as well as all the contributors to the comprehensive
Komodo Dragons: Biology and Conservation
. Phillip Watts, et al., whose “Parthenogenesis in Komodo dragons” in
Nature
inspired the fictional diagrams in the book. George David, who began the ESP program that allowed me to learn the tools every writer needs. And, of course, Flora and Bubchen, who inspired it all. Thank you.
About the Author
Mindy Mejia was born and raised in a small-town-turned-suburb in the Twin Cities area. She received a BA from the University of Minnesota and an MFA from Hamline University. Other than brief interludes in Iowa City and Galway, she’s lived and worked in Minnesota her entire life.
Mindy generally focuses her fiction writing on the novel, though she also writes short stories, which have appeared in
rock, paper, scissors
;
Things Japanese: An Anthology of Short Stories
; and
THIS Literary Magazine
.
The Dragon Keeper
is Mindy’s debut novel. She’s currently working on a murder mystery set in rural southern Minnesota.
About the Publisher
Ashland Creek Press is an independent publisher of books with a world view. From travel narratives to eco-literature, our mission is to publish a range of books that foster an appreciation for worlds outside our own, for nature and the animal kingdom, and for the ways in which we all connect. To keep up-to-date on new and forthcoming books, subscribe to our free newsletter at
www.AshlandCreekPress.com
.
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