[stylist] Trials of an honorary Dragon. chapter 24 (new chapter)

[helene ryles]

Chapter 24
Painful passages by Liza Bronze

I woke up on a hard wooden surface.  My body felt stiff and painful.
It was completely dark.  I could tell from the cold and feel of the
wind on my face that I was outdoors somewhere.
I touched the wooden surface to find I had been sleeping on a bench.
It seemed familiar from somewhere so I reached out a hand to the left
to touch a metal rimed litter bin.  There was grass to the left, Grass
to the right, and in front was a sandy slope going down.
I knew where I was then.  I was at Stilosarka central park.  As if to
confirm this I heard a noise, which I guessed to be the sound of
ducks.  I often came here to feed the birds.  I must have drifted off
to sleep on my way to meeting up with Nadia.
At the thought of Nadia, I had a horrible memory of me fleeing with
her and Katrina.    As soon as we got to the dragon’s private
quarters, Nadia began to shrink.  She was growing feathers.   The next
thing I knew it was no longer Nadia at all but a raven.
No, that couldn’t be right.  I brushed the unpleasant memory away.
Nadia must be with Tan Darth.
I felt my braille watch to discover the time was three am.  If I
hurried now I could see Nadia before I went into work.
There was something about my job that I should remember, but I
couldn’t think what.
 I got up, pulling out my cane, and made my way carefully along the
path, out of the park.  Ever so often I would reach out a hand to my
left to feel for my next landmark.  My hand touched the intricate
pattern on the wrought iron gate at the entrance of the park.  My feet
touched cobblestones.  I crossed over, feeling for the brick wall on
the other side of the road, then along a couple of streets. It was so
quiet in the street that I could hear absolutely nothing, even after I
turned up my cochlear implant as far as it would go.
By the scent of the blossoms I guessed there should be a wooden fence
on my left.  I felt a sense of relief when my hand touched the rough
untreated wood.
I was about to turn into a gravel driveway when I sensed someone
following me.  I could not hear or see them, but I could smell a faint
trace of lavender perfume and I could sense someone watching me.
I walked straight past the gravel driveway.  At the end of the street,
I turned to cross the road, heading back for the railway station.
There was a bench there where I could sit and wait until it was time
to get to work.  Normally Tan Darth flew me to Keraina so I could
catch the train into work, which would be less suspicious if someone
was watching me, but that was out of the question right now.
 There was no way I could use the ladder going down, since my body
felt so tender and I was afraid of falling.  I wasn’t sure how I could
possibly have got to Tan Darth’s roof anyway.  It was a matter that I
had only just considered.  Walking was hard enough with my crutch on
one side, and my long cane on the other, but the lift operator would
not be around at that time of night.  I would just have to wait on the
bench.
My various aches and pains seemed to remind me of their presence more
insistently while I waited.  Especially my eye, there was obviously
something wrong with it.  I also had more time to think how badly my
life was going now.

I am experiencing living hell.  I'm not just referring to the physical
pain from my eye, or my various injuries.
Physical pain was nothing compared to the emotional pain I felt.
Like when I was trying to entertain the guests at Nadia and Sunniva's
birthday party.  I tripped over something and all the children were
laughing at me, including Nadia.  Now that really hurt.
I felt confused at the thought of the party since I had no
recollection of when that happened.  It seemed one of the clusters of
memories that I felt so desperate to push away.
It seemed Nadia had changed.  Where had my sweet little Nadia gone?
She had been refusing to wear her cochlear implant. I tried to accept
that, hoping it was just a phase she was going through.
Nadia's also decided to take up a vegan diet. Not that I have anything
against her following a vegan lifestyle. My dear sweet husband Vinny
is also Vegan.  If only she didn’t take her veganism to such extremes.
 I gave her a lovely model dog for her birthday.  I thought she would
be really pleased with it, but she didn't even thank me for it.  She
just asked me if it was vegan.
Nadia seems to really resent Vinny.   She said some really hurtful
things about him.  I can't understand how anyone can fail to like
Vinny.  He is the nicest man I’ve ever met.  He really helps me accept
my sight problems, and the fact I now need a long cane all the time
since I have so many blind spots.   I would never have coped with any
of that if Vinny wasn't there to support me.
It seemed that Nadia blamed him for the lack of time I could spend
with her, but he's got nothing to do with that.  Every time I visit
Nadia it puts her at risk.  Both Madrella and Beria are on to me.
There have been so many close calls.
If that wasn't bad enough there was my mother to deal with too.   I
used to think that it was just a matter of getting mother away from my
abusive father.  I thought she would be pleased, but she isn't.  She
keeps asking me when she can visit father in prison.  I took her to
stay with the Parvesh witches, but she complained almost constantly
about my mother-in-law and her bossy ways.  I tried inviting her to
Nadia's birthday party but she pulled her hand away.




I smelt the lavender perfume more strongly now.  A hand touched mine.
I started as I felt the fabrics of a tunic brushing against me.
"Sorry to make you jump like that. It's Katrina here.   Are you ready
to go yet?" a pair of hands asked using tactile sign language.
"Ready to go? Ready to go where? What are you doing here anyway?" I
asked in confusion.
"I‘ve been following you to make sure you were ok.  You were very
upset after your appointment with the eye doctor, and you were
diagnosed with Glaucoma…” Katrina explained.
After that a tide of unpleasant memories came flooding back to me.
I would not have seen Nadia at Tan Darth’s place since she had left months ago.
I remembered that awful party that should never have happened.
I had wanted to make things up to Nadia, but the party went wrong
right from the start.  There were supposed to be two powerful witches
there, but Van’s human companion wouldn’t stay for the party.
“This is too bad; I wanted to spend some time alone with my dragon.
The witch clan that I am staying with produce children in plague like
proportions.  I wanted a brat-free break with my dragon, so you are
just going to have to call the whole thing off,” she stormed.
Van’s human companion must have left straight after putting the
protective charms on her dragon’s property.
I couldn‘t possibly call off the party.  I’d already told Nadia I was
throwing a party for her.  Plus there were physical problems with me
not being able to see the screen of my large print Mincom any more.
Then after struggling to run that dreadful party, my sister Madrella had come.

“So where is Nadia?” I asked Katrina.
“I can’t say.  I can assure you thought that Nadia is ok.  The girl we
took with us wasn’t Nadia.  It was Wendy Krum.   My aim was to get
Madrella and Beria away from the real Nadia as far as possible.  I’m
waiting for a phone call right now, telling me where Nadia is, so I
can take you to meet her before she goes up north with me.  She will
be safer there," Katrina told me.
"No, I’ve already had to be separated from Nadia while my wounds were
healing.  I would worry too much if she was too far away.   She's
getting resentful enough as it is.  If I abandoned her altogether she
would never forgive me," I told her.
“She’ll get over it.  You won't be abandoning her anyway, just having
a break. Right now I can tell that your nerves are getting really
frayed.  Lapses in memory are always a bad sign.  Your eye condition
isn‘t helping things either," Katrina told me.
“I’m going to go completely blind now aren‘t I?” I asked Katrina.
 “Not necessarily, although that could happen.  It would have been
less likely to happen if your mother-in-law had booked you an
appointment when she first noticed your sight deteriorate.  She
noticed months ago, but unfortunately she was too fatalistic to
consider the possibility that something might be done about your
sight, so she helped you improve your blind skills instead,” Katrina
explained.
I remembered that, my mother-in-law had been very insistent that I
improve on my long cane technique and other blind skills.  She bought
me a braille watch as an extra wedding anniversary present.  She said
I would definitely need it in the future.  I'm not sure if she was
referring to my delicate eyes or whether she could forecast the
future.   I greatly resented her over bearing approach to my life, but
as far as long cane skills go, I'm now very glad mine have improved.
 “This fatalistic approach is typically Nazdonian, particularly
amongst the older generation,” Katrina continued, “They accept
whatever life throws at them as being fated to happen that way.  It’s
one of the reasons that there are so many disabled people in Nazdonia.
The rate of blindness is particularly high in comparison to the rest
of the world.”
“I thought that was because of the lack of modern medicine,” I commented.
“Well that’s part of it, but there are a number of other reasons
besides.  People assume in a nation with so many witches, that the
witches would be bound to make everyone perfect.  It doesn’t happen
that way since magic is more likely to make things go wrong, then put
things right.  My husband does a lot with his weather magic to help
the local villagers, but this is an exception rather then a rule.  In
general witches keep themselves to themselves.  There is a lot of
inbreeding amongst the witch clans.  For example, the high incidence
of blindness in the Parvesh clan is due to inbreeding and so is the
high incidence of Deafness in the Krum clan.  Plus some of the less
scrupulous witches use their magic to blind others with.  They even do
it to their own family members.”
I went quiet after that, hoping for a change of subject.   Madrella
hadn’t even bothered to use her magic to blind me with.  She had
simply used her fists.
At that moment I heard Katrina’s mobile phone ring.
“I’m sorry Liza; I’ve got some really bad news for you.  It’s about Nadia…”