Chapter 3
Witches didn’t wear wedding gowns. I felt fraudulent as I gazed at myself one last time in the mirror in Papa and Griselda’s bedroom. Who was this young woman with her brown hair topped by a garland of white roses? Her sleeveless lace-top dress belted at the waist with a thin band of silver and pearl beads and frothed to her feet in a light spill of white satin. She didn’t look like me. Yes, I wore flower garlands on my head frequently, but never such an intricate and formal white silk dress.
Papa’s wife, Griselda, had made me this gown. The whole village would attend the ceremony, which would take place on the village green. My coven had labored for hours to create a magical garden, complete with a flowery wedding arch beneath which Donovan and I would bind ourselves together forever.
A soft tap on the door startled me away from my contemplation of the stranger in the mirror.
“Come in,” I called, my voice unsteady. I smoothed my palms across my satin skirt, the fabric whisper-soft against my skin. What would life be like on top of Zodiac Mountain? The dragons lived in the interconnected caves that honeycombed throughout the mountain. I pictured wretched darkness lit by weak candlelight where the sun never penetrated. Hard for a witch used to working beneath the blue sky as she dug into the rich, brown earth. My breath caught in my throat. For a moment I couldn’t breathe, feeling the phantom weight of the mountain rock bearing down on my chest.
Did the dragons stay in dragon form more than human? Would I be alone among caverns full of beasts with glowing eyes and sharp talons? What would Donovan think of his witch wife? Would he resent me? Hate me? Perhaps he had a dragon lover. She would despise me and make my life unendurable.
Panic clawed at my breastbone like a great dragon’s claw. I frantically sucked down air, my legs weak.
Papa appeared in the mirror, his lined face grave.
“Weddings should be joyful celebrations.” He placed his strong hands, rough from woodworking, on my shoulders and stared at me in the looking glass. His gaze never wavered. “I’ll not have my daughter do anything against her will. Not for the dragons’ protection, not for the king’s fancy. Say the word, Marley, and I’ll take you deep into the forest where no dragon—no one—will ever find us.”
His words thrilled me. For a moment I even considered taking him up on his offer, but better sense and fairness prevailed. “Your life is here, Papa. With Griselda and the boys. I can’t let you throw everything away to come hide in the forest with me. No dragon or soldier would ever find us, but we’d still live in fear of being caught every single day.”
I placed a hand on his and smiled at him in the mirror. “That’s not a life, is it?”
“Will it be a life for you on top of Zodiac Mountain?” The bitterness in Papa’s voice hurt me. I didn’t want anyone suffering for me. This was my burden alone to bear. Perhaps it wouldn’t be awful as I’d been imagining. Maybe living with dragons would be a grand adventure. My heart always skipped a beat when I thought of Donovan’s jewel-green eyes. I couldn’t let myself believe the kind, understanding boy had been warped into a cruel man.
“King Leopold believes it will be. And who are we to question the king?” I asked. I rubbed my cheek against his. “Besides, many a villager has married a dragon and gone to live on top of Zodiac Mountain.”
“The dragons haven’t married anyone from this village in years. No one you know will live on the mountain. They marry outside their kind only to increase the gene pool.”
“And not for love?” Wistful longing choked my words. Love for witches was always a fleeting adventure meant to produce children, not lifelong romance. It must be the same for dragons. Their human mates aged and died. Perhaps dragons reserved their true love for other dragons.
“I don’t know the hearts and minds of dragons. But I do know yours, Marley.” Papa choked up as he wrapped me in a tight bear hug. “Never tell your sister this, but you’ve always been special to me. She’s a witch all through, just like Kelly. But you—you’re different somehow. You see things witches won’t see. Both sides. As much as it hurts me to see you scared like this, I know that if anyone could make this marriage a success, it would be you.”
Tears clogged my throat, and I buried my face in his broad shoulder. I hoped he was right. Only, it took two to make a marriage. A wife could try as hard she could, but unless her husband met her halfway, the union was doomed to failure.
“Marley, honey, it’s time.” Mother strode into the bedroom, her blonde hair bouncing in curls against her bare shoulders.
Papa stared at her for a moment, hunger plain in his gaze. “Kelly, you look as beautiful as you did the day I met you.”
Mother cast him a warm smile. “Gerald, save the flattering compliments for our daughter. She looks just like you. I’ve always been glad about that.”
I moved away from the mirror to find my shoes, white satin flats with white ribbons sewed to them that I wrapped around my ankles and calves before tying in a bow behind my knees.
As I straightened, my parents both stared at me with adoration. Tears pricked my eyes. It wouldn’t do to cry and ruin my makeup before the ceremony. Besides, I wanted to look my best for Donovan. What would he think of the little girl all grown up?
Two summers ago, I’d indulged in a fling with a village boy named Clive, who was my age. I’d hoped to conceive a baby, but that hadn’t happened. That autumn he’d met a girl from two villages away and married her by winter. I hadn’t been with anyone since him, and the thought of making love with Donovan both thrilled and frightened me. He was no village boy easy to wind around my fingers. He was a dragon, and, like Papa, I didn’t know the hearts or minds of dragons even though this one had let me glimpse into his soul twenty years ago.
Now all I could envision was the terrible hardness of his eyes as his gaze raked over me in that field without a glimmer of recognition.
Mother stepped before the mirror and adjusted the garland of red roses on her head. She caught my glance in the glass and winked—our secret code that everything would be all right.
“I think we overreacted when we first brought back the news a witch must marry a dragon.” She turned from the mirror, her red skirt swirling. “Griselda tells me every Saturday the dragons bring their human families to the Great Oak. People from villages all around wait there with carts and horses to bring their sons, daughters, and grandchildren home with them for the day or the weekend.
“So you tell that new dragon husband of yours to wing you back to the Great Oak next Saturday. We’ll be waiting for you. We can have lunch in the village with your father and his family, then we’ll go home. We’ll have a ritual. What do you say?”
Today was Saturday. Seven days from now I could return. Not a long time at all. Some of the tightness in my chest eased.
We walked arm in arm from my father’s cottage to the village square. Along the way I noted the cottages and storefronts I’d seen all my life, yet never really focused upon. Thatched roofs and half timbers, bright flowers in baskets. Sunlight bathed the village, renewing the earth. Spring blossoms drifted from the cherry trees lining the square, the breeze sweeping them beneath our feet as we walked.
Was I different than the other witches? What did that mean? Papa said I saw both sides of a story. Witches didn’t? I thought of Eleanora defiantly planting the tuber and the coven deciding, once they learned of the tubers’ magic, that simply giving one tuber back to the dragons would right any wrongs. Refusing to hear the dragons’ side, because giving all the tubers back would mean aging and normal lifespans again. Once my coven had tasted near immortality, they couldn’t give it up.
And the dragons? What of them? Why didn’t they want to share? Their one and only magic was the tuber, but surely it couldn’t make much difference to them if a few witches lived a millennium far away from Zodiac Mountain and their lair?
One thing was certain. Now that I would marry into the dragon world, I could find out their side.