Star Dragon

 

            “There’s a dragon outside!” Abe ran into the house and threw his arms around his older brother, Tristan.

            “What?” Tristan hugged his brother’s small six-year-old body to him. “What are you talking about?”

            Looking up with frightened eyes, Abe explained. “I was going to bring in some more firewood, but there’s a long white dragon in the sky with six tails!”

            Tristan cocked his head curiously. Abe had a great imagination, but he didn’t usually scare easily. “Can you show me?”

            Abe hesitated before nodding his head. Both boys walked out the front door, and Tristan noticed it seemed too light outside. Had they left out a lantern? They walked towards the end of the house near the woodpile, and suddenly Tristan stopped looking for a forgotten lantern. Mouth gaping, he stared up at the night sky with its millions of stars. There was indeed a dragon up there! A giant ball of light illuminated the night with six streaks of light fanning out behind it. “What?” Tristan barely breathed.

            Abe was holding on to Tristan, saying, “I told you it was a dragon! Do you think it will come get us?”

            After staring for a few minutes, Tristan finally said, “Go get Pa and Grandpa.” Running footsteps sounded behind him as Abe ran to the barn where the men had been working. Soon they were all gazing up at the impossible thing.

            Grandpa was the first to speak. “I always told you boys there were dragons, didn’t I? This one is even bigger than the one I saw when I was a boy.”

            Tristan shook his head, disbelief on his face. “But that was so long ago. I never really believed you before.” He felt Abe’s hand grasp his own. He squeezed it when he felt it shaking.

            “Well, it was nearly fifty years ago,” Grandpa continued. “I was smaller than young Abe here.” He gestured towards Abe.

            “What did it do?” Abe asked in little more than a whisper.

            Grandpa put his hand reassuringly on Abe’s head. “The great dragon watched over us for a month before it finally left.”

            “Did it ever attack anyone?” Pa’s voice had a hint of worry in it.

            “No, it just stayed and looked down on us. Some said that it had come to make sure we were living righteously.” Grandpa smiled at the memory. “Once the dragon appeared, everyone showed up to church. No one wanted to anger the sky dragon, but it didn’t take long for people to forget about church after the dragon left.”

            “Is that why it’s here now?” Tristan asked. “To get everyone to go to church?” He looked at Grandpa skeptically.

            “Well, it definitely couldn’t hurt. You wouldn’t want to anger the dragon, would you? This one is much bigger than the one I saw as a boy. That one only had one tail.”

            Fear prickled down Tristan’s neck. The thought of the huge dragon crashing down on their farm made him want to do anything to prevent that from happening—even if he had to go to church.

            The four of them stared at the night sky for at least an hour. They finally decided they could go to bed since the dragon didn’t seem to be getting any closer.

            It was three months before the dragon finally left. Although they had grown accustomed to being under its watchful eye, everyone was relieved to know that they had passed whatever test the dragon had set for them.

            Tristan never saw another dragon. He never knew that there was another word for it—a comet. He told his children and grandchildren all about the great white dragon that breathed out fire as it flew through the sky. As he got older, fewer and fewer people believed his stories. He insisted that dragons were real and powerful creatures, even when everyone around him tried to convince him otherwise. He was confident in the truth.