Page 38 of The Heart and the Hawthorn

Then he frowned, a shadow crossing his face. Alarmingly slowly, he craned his neck bit by bit until he was so close to her, she was almost knocked out by the sweaty, meaty stench. Blood dripped in long, malodourous strands from his gigantic yellow teeth. As she trembled, doubting whether he wasn’t so full after all and maybe they weren’t quite as good friends as she’d thought, he sniffed her, streaks of lava rupturing around his pupils. He let out a globular cloud of purple smoke, right into her face, and she was wondering if she hadn’t made a terrible, bone-crunching miscalculation when he growled,

‘What is a Lucky?’

Chapter Twenty-Three

Frida almost swooned with relief. ‘It’s your name,’ she cried out.

But then his belly turned pale and his eyes dimmed. ‘But I have a name!’

His meaning registered. And when it did, Fireheart’s haunting voice washed over her.

You use a human name, and it is not his.

Fireheart had been talking about the Nuckelavee, but suddenly Frida realised she could have been talking about any of them. Fireheart could have been talking about herself. Frida hadn’t even thought to ask if Fireheart had another name. Shame gripped her as she gazed up into Lucky’s tremulous ore-filled eyes.

‘My dada gave me my name himself!’ he chirped, a quiver in his canary song of a voice. ‘It is lovely. Do you – do you want to hear it?’

Tenderness, guilt and compassion filled her aching chest. ‘I’d love that,’ she managed, sagging a bit as he beamed down at her.

‘My name is fire-spoken-and-soaring-on-exalted-sky-and-deep-notched-trees-with-great-hope-in-many-veined-hearts!’

She gave a shocked laugh. She could smell the flames, dancing across the bottoms of white clouds. She could hear rivers rushing past the gigantic rainbowed trunks of bronze-ridged trees. And she could feel the darkness of the shade, cool beneath a jungle canopy.

‘Your name is lovely,’ she said softly.

His eyelashes lowered. ‘Yes, because my dada gave it to me.’ Then he eyed her with serious concern. ‘But maybe your little brain won’t be able to handle it. It is a dragon name, and you are only a little bit dragon. I don’t want you to say it wrong.’

‘Oh no, I wouldn’t want that either! That would be terrible.’

His face fell even more. ‘But what will you call me?’ Wrinkling his snout, he ran his blue tongue over his lips. ‘L-u-c-k-y. Lucky.’ He perked up. ‘Yes, you may call me a Lucky, I think! I do not mind it, and I will wait until I see my dada to use my true name again.’ Although, his face cycled through emotions so quickly, it was impossible for Frida to keep up. ‘You don’t think he’d mind, do you?’

She had no idea. It was quite possible that his father would indeed mind, and the lump in her throat that seemed to appear every time she thought of his dada made it painful to swallow. In the end, she just told him that she thought his father would be really proud of him. And if it was really ok, she had become rather fond of the name Lucky.

Soon, the dragon was beaming again, that warm mauve colour like being wrapped in clouds at dawn. And then Frida told him her name, and said, ‘My muma gave it to me.’ She smiled sadly, remembering. ‘She liked flowers a lot. And art. The last bit, Rose, was my mum’s favourite flower. She changed our surnames; she had to go to the courthouse and everything.’ Frida felt a tightening in her chest, along with a swell of pride. ‘She said it meant you could do or be anything you wanted. And that I should always remember that.’

Lucky examined her incredulously. Then he snorted, a chirpy hot laugh. ‘Well, that is a very short name, little stink. Dada always said humans weren’t very smart, but I never realised quite how small-brained you really are.’

Frida laughed, properly this time, topped by a true Frida Rose nasal snort. His frill trembled and he looked delighted, rising up again on his back paws and towering above her.

‘Is it time for our adventure now?’

Frida nodded. His scales were luminous, and his raggedy beard shivered as he thrashed his tail. When he poked his long snout up close again, his whiskers tickled her cheek, and she could see every tiny grain in the scales around his eyelids, every golden eyelash. It couldn’t be that easy, could it?

‘I know what to do,’ he stage-whispered. ‘Dada told me, so you do not need to worry. I will be so good, and I will take you exactly where you need to go!’ He snuffled the top of her head proudly with his dribbly beard.

Maybe it was that easy, after all!

‘But you need to get rid of those first, ok?’

He’d twisted to look with narrowed eyes at the glass.

Frida gulped, drool oozing down her cheek. ‘The wards?’

‘The un-magics!’ The words fell like stones in a lake, echoing outwards. ‘We can’t go anywhere until they are gone. Horrible, horrible things.’

Frida gazed, frozen, at the impenetrable glass. ‘The un-magics,’ she whispered. Then she stepped back. Lucky was looking at her patiently with big liquid eyes. She tried to swallow but her throat was dry as she eyed the security cameras. It was entirely possible that this was being livestreamed on YouTube, like some kind of extraordinary Truman Show. Releasing a dragon was not only a fireable offence, but a criminal one too. She tried to think what Antony and Hamish would do in this situation, but all she could see were their slack faces wrapped in thorns for eternity. And Fireheart’s broken Jewel, the single shard lying in its little nest.

Find my Jewel, and I will do what you ask. I will help you put your world back together.