Dragontime

Fun horror story about Dragon Hill at Uffington

“Nothing grows on Dragon Hill. Thanks to St George,” I said. But Ella just looked at me. She was bored stiff. “He slayed the dragon there and its blood…”

“Okay.” Her okays were guillotines. I shut up. There was nothing else to do here but the hills. First you climbed them. Then you got ‘the best view for miles around’. Trouble was, that view showed you there was nothing for miles around. Just a bunch of fields until you got to the sky. I held up my phone. Turned up the song. I still dream of Algernon. I wake up crying.

“Kate Bush went Cloudbusting there.” It was my best hope of showing off, even though it was way back in my mum’s time. I may as well be boasting about a famous sabre-toothed tiger.

“Okay.”

“You girls shouldn’t be cooped up inside on a day like this.” Mum was in the doorway, mop and bucket in her hands. It was my second day of knowing Ella and already we were ‘you girls’. But we didn’t look like ‘you girls’, she looked like a rich brat and I looked like her tag along. But I wasn’t the tag along. That was Ella. I was only here in the first-place cos Mum felt sorry for her. I hadn’t wanted to come back. But Mum’d guilt tripped me.

“That poor girl is on her own day in, day out,” she’d said yesterday, as the mansion slowly got small behind us. She’d been too full of pity to put her foot down. “Haven’t you heard of compassion?”

“Haven’t you heard of Never Smile at a Crocodile?”

“Jenny!”

Ella stretched her spindly legs, rose from the leather sofa, and swished her hair.

“It’s a glorious day out there,” Mum said. “You girls could do with a bit of sun.”

“I’m staying pale so I can camouflage into the walls,” I said. Mum put down her mop and bucket and stalked into the room, collecting ashtrays. Five ashtrays. I felt a pinch of guilt – a goodly pinch. Maybe Ella was a poor girl after all? Maybe she was all cigarettes and tears?

“What’s the point of living here if you don’t make the most of it?”

“Mum doesn’t give up. We can go now, or we can wait until she chases us outside with her mop,” I said.

“Okay.” I followed Ella. She smelled of smoke and credit cards. Even her boredom was a better class than mine. Mine was just ordinary pleb boredom. But hers was from Paris or Dubai or wherever Prada was selling it.

“How do you find your way around here without a ball of wool?” But Ella just gave me a look of the finest disdain. Disdain bottled in the Italian region of Disdaino, no doubt.

We walked to the White Horse. It was pretty busy. It always is when its sunny. It was one of those August days that make you swing your arms. The wind felt like a song on the radio. A song from those 80s stations Mum got me into. I sing when I feel like it and I don’t care who I embarrass, so soon I was belting out the tunes. But then Ella was joining in, and she was just as bad as me. We sang all the way to the car park. And we were laughing by the time we joined the queue for the ice cream van.

“The van dates back to Neolithic times,” I said as Ella took off her sunglasses to study the menu. “In the Iron Age they used to bury their dead with Cadbury’s flakes to feed them on their journey to the other world.” The National Trust lady was looking despairingly at me, so I waved at her. Ella paid for the ice cream. I was glad cos it was a rip off. We wandered onto the hills.

“Watch this,” Ella said. She pushed her whole ice cream into her gob, cone and all.

“How did you do that?”

“It’s what they teach you in private school,” she grinned. Ice cream dripped down her chin. Now Ella was a laugh, I didn’t mind that she was beautiful. “Don’t you agree it’s money well spent?”

“And I thought you were all harpsichords and archery.”

We drifted over to Dragon Hill. The sun made us sit down: it was too heavy on our backs. I would’ve stretched out, but I knew I’d just end up rolling down the hill into the vale like one of those giant wheels of cheese bonkers people chase. Ella ran her hands on the dried-up earth.

“See. Nothing grows,” I said. “It’s big news around here cos we haven’t had anything else to talk about since it happened.”

“I bet I could get something to grow on it.”

“Who do you think you are? Alan Titchmarsh?”

“Better.”

“Then why haven’t I seen you on the telly?”

“You will.” And she flashed a paparazzi smile.

When we got to hers, she herded me out the back. It was green on green. Oaks old enough for pirates to park ships in their branches. Willows in the shape of the wind. She led me past shadows that cost more than my family home, and then we stopped at a wall.

“This is my garden.”

“Okay,” I said in my most Ella deadpan. But inside I was furious with envy. A secret garden. Like in the book. It even had a door hidden in the ivy. Ivy she had to push aside to find the keyhole. And the key was so old and ornate, I considered nicking it and heading for The Antiques Roadshow. Let’s face it, it was the only way the likes of me was ever getting on the telly. The door opened slowly and creakily. The garden was better than the book. It was better than the woods in bluebell time. It was a twilight made from flowers. The scent was waves, cool and coaxing. I don’t know many flowers cos I’m not an old lady, but all the greatest hits were there: roses and orchids and bluebells. And in the middle was a huge magnolia tree in bloom. The gnarliest magnolia I’d ever seen, like it had grown from Merlin’s staff.

“Told you I was better than Alan Titchmarsh,” Ella said.

“Did you really do this?” I studied her amber eyes and there wasn’t a lie in them. “Well then, Titchmarsh isn’t fit to borrow your shovel.” And I bowed to her all the way, with my palms on the ground. When I stood up, my hands were filthy. “Is this ash?” I wiped them on my jeans. She just shrugged and introduced me to the blue roses. They were sighingly beautiful.

“You can take some home if you want,” she said.

“Maybe when I move into a castle.”

I was wrong about Ella - she wasn’t a princess; she was a weirdo. But sort of a genius, too. If someone who grows plants can be a genius. She was the Mozart of flowers. We sat on one of the low branches of the magnolia tree. I swung my legs. There was so much peace in the garden, it was hard not to drift off.

“Don’t tell your mum but I haven’t been to school in ages,” she said.

“I won’t. She’ll grass you up to your dad.” Mum thought a lot of Ella’s parents cos they paid her triple the usual rate. But so they should. Mum was the only one keeping an eye on her.

We wandered inside and plonked in front of the telly. Ella liked the same 90s stuff as me. Friends, X Files, Baywatch, Quantum Leap. And when it was the intro of Quantum Leap, I looked over at her and she was almost teary.

“You okay?” I asked.

“He just wanted to put right what went wrong,” she said. And she was proper emotional. Such a weirdo. But I didn’t mind. I liked her. I went back the next day, and the next and so on. We ate magnums in the magnolia tree. And every time, she shoved hers in her gob in one go, and pulled out the stick like a cartoon cat with a fish bone.

“Do you dislocate your jaw?” It never stopped being impressive. “Is your dad a python or is it your mum?” I laughed. But she didn’t join in. I was an idiot joking about her parents. Of course, she was touchy – they didn’t bother with her. She might as well have been an orphan in one of those Victorian stories. There weren’t even any photos. And I’d had a proper nose around the mansion. But nothing. Not even a wedding pic.

“Let’s go to the White Horse,” she said, jumping down.

“I vote Quantum Leap and pizza.”

“Veto. Let’s plant something on Dragon Hill.”

“It won’t grow.” I shrugged, but she was already off in a corner of the garden. She was kneeling and digging, but with her hands. She wasn’t even using a shovel. I was a bit grossed out. I guess that’s why I’ll never be a genius gardener. Or genius anything else. There was ash coming up in billows and it caught in my hair. I was coughing and spluttering by the time Ella stood back up, a mutant bulb in her hands. The look in her eyes was creeping me out, so I didn’t ask her what it was. And what would it mean to me, anyway? I only knew three flowers.

Luckily, it was cloudy and stuffy, so the White Horse wasn’t that busy. We got a few looks when Ella started scraping at the hilltop with her nails, but nothing I couldn’t shut down with my glares. I’m a pro at glares. Though deep down, I was right embarrassed. At least, if Ella had a shovel, we’d look less bonkers. I got a bit shuddery cos suddenly her fingers seemed like claws. So I stood up, and added folded arms to my glares.

“Finished.” She dropped the bulb into the hole. I helped her fill it in with the dust. But when I got up, there was ash all over my arms. I brushed it off and it went on my t shirt. Mum was going to kill me.

We trundled down the hill. The sky was changing colour to match my t shirt. The clouds were grumbling like they’d eaten a dodgy takeaway.

“So, pizza and Quantum Leap? Let’s have a sleepover.”

“I’ll just grab some stuff from mine,” I nodded.

It didn’t take long to reach my two up, two down.

“We don’t have a secret garden, but we do have a soda stream. And mum says I can have a telly in my bedroom when I’m fifteen.” I bowed low to welcome her. “We don’t need lots of space. It’s just me and my mum and Swaggers.”

“Swaggers?”

“He’s a stray who adopted us. Mum used to say ‘look how he swaggers in’, so it ended up as his name. You can have a cuddle with him. I’ll just be a sec.” I pushed the living room door open. Swaggers, the soppiest ball of fur and purr, was zonked out on the sofa. I darted upstairs. I was shovelling my pjs into my rucksack when I heard an almighty row. I bolted into the living room. Swaggers was spitting and hissing. His back was arched, and his fur was standing on end. He’d gone mental.

“I only stroked him. You said he was friendly.” But Swaggers was yowling like someone got water on him or fed him after midnight. Then he started wiggling his behind. We skedaddled.

“Will your mum and dad be okay with me staying?” I asked as I switched her massive telly on. The five ashtrays were overflowing. Why hadn’t Mum cleared them? Ella gave off a fat silence that made me swing round to face her.

“All my family are dead.” Gordon Bennet! Her face twisted. Her eyes flooded. I grabbed her into a hug, tight as tight. She was shaking so much I could barely hold onto her.

“Ow!” I jolted away. Her tears were scalding. Right through my top. I pulled my t shirt down and my skin was red. Ella was wiping her face. And she had that Easter Island look that meant she’d shut up for good. Was it true? But Mum had emails from Ella’s dad. I’d seen them. Long winded pompous things. But that didn’t mean he’d written them. Mum never said she spoke to him. And who would lie about their family being dead? Talk about a case for Mulder and Scully. I bit the cheese off my pizza.

“Watch this,” Ella said, and she put a whole slice into her mouth.

Ella ransacked her wardrobe and soon we were decked out in Dolce and Gabbana and wailing 80s classics and doing cat walks down her hallway. I was the Prada Pleb which would be my superhero name, too. And then we were knackered and flopping onto her giant four-poster bed, and she was snoring. You wouldn’t expect that much noise to come out of such a skinny person. It was like sharing a bed with a bear. And not a grizzly, a cave bear. Pleistocene Park, ahoy. If someone’s snoring keeps you awake, you’ll allowed to record them: it’s the law. So, I got my phone out and I didn’t feel guilty. Don’t be a cave bear if you don’t want people to record you.

But somehow, I fell asleep. Cos the next thing it was morning. And Ella was opening the curtains.

“Some people stand in the darkness afraid to step into the light,” she sang.

“Blech,” I cried as the sunlight assaulted me.

“It’s time for Hillwatch.”

It was growing. Poking right out of the dusty ground. Out of our magic hill. There wasn’t much to it – it looked like the tip of a blade of grass. But it was there. Ella knelt by it and her face was proper glowing. Like she was made out of Christmas tree lights.

“Told you I could do it.”

“How did you? It didn’t even rain. And what about George and the Dragon?” I was miffed. I made fun of our claim to fame but it was who we were. If the hill wasn’t bare, it was like the dragon was never there.

“Saint George who?” she grinned.

“I guess Kate Bush Cloudbusting is all we’ve got now.” I folded my arms.

“I still dream of Algernon. I wake up crying,” she sang. But I was in incredible sulk mode and didn’t join in. She glanced at her phone. “Come on, it’s ice cream o’clock.” And it was.

Mum and Swaggers were on the sofa when I got home.

“What have you been up to?” She was dunking Cadbury Dairy Milk into her tea.

“The White Horse,” I shrugged. Obviously, I wasn’t going to tell her about Ella’s mutant bulb. “Do you ever talk to Ella’s dad?” I snapped off a row of chocolate squares from the bar. She shook her head. That was that. I had no choice but to snoop around. Mum got her bank statements in the post like she was ninety. You’d think she’d be tidy cos cleaning was her job, but all her stuff was higgledy-piggledy. I couldn’t even listen to any tunes cos I had to keep an ear out. She’d go mad if she caught me. Ella’s surname was Dragua. So that A. Dragua had to be her dad. Or not? Had she set up the bank account pretending to be him?

The following day, I didn’t want to go back to the no longer enchanted hill, but my phone pinged.

Ella: Some people stand in the darkness afraid to step into the light

Me: Don’t you worry it’s gonna be alright

Ella: HILLWATCH

We met in the car park. She was doing her best ‘lifeguard pointing at distant drowner’ pose. I ran to her in slow motion. My slo mo would make The Hoff weep. I was hoping that the shoot would’ve died, but as we wandered over to the hilltop, there it was. Knee-high. How had it grown so much? It made so queasy I stopped licking my ice cream.

“What on earth did you plant? A triffid?”

“Something like that,” she grinned. My ice cream was melting down my hand, so I had to get back to business. But that plant – I was seriously creeped out. I may not be Alan Titchmarsh, but I knew nothing grew that quickly.

So, I avoided Ella. I didn’t answer her. Not even when she messaged me the entire Baywatch theme. I flicked through my photos: us magnums poised in the magnolia tree, me the Prada Pleb, her weepy at Quantum Leap. Then I happened on the recording of her snoring. I pressed play. Snarling bellowed out. I screamed and lobbed my phone. It landed on the armchair. What was that? It sounded like jaws, like devouring, like monsters. I scrambled with the phone, shut it off. My hands were shaking. Then it pinged.

Ella: Forever and always I’m always here

The Baywatch theme was a total stalkers’ anthem.

Ella: Cos I’m always ready I won’t let you out of my sight

Ella: I’ll be ready I’ll be ready

Gordon Bennet. Ready with a meat clever? Was she going to chop me up into fertilizer for that mutant plant?

Ella: HILLWATCH

Me: Hiya, not really up to it today tbh got the trots

Surely, she wasn’t going to argue with the trots? Suddenly, there was a knock on the window behind me. I jumped up. It was her.

“You’ve got to see it. Come on.”

We could see it from the vale. It was huge. Like an evil dandelion. And it was worse close up. It twisted and towered over us with heavy flowers the size of dinnerplates. Purple flowers. And as we stood there, those monster blooms turned to seed fluff. Like giant dandelion clocks. I dug my nails into my palms. She broke the stalk of one of the flowers.

“What time is it, Jenny?” she said with way too much glee.

“I don’t know.”

“Dragontime.” And she blew on the flower so hard all its seeds flew off. She was laughing and bouncing and having a total normal one. I just wanted to go home. But she wouldn’t let me.

We watched Friends at hers. And she didn’t stop chortling, even when it wasn’t funny. There was something up with her teeth, like she had too many. There were feathers drifting past the window. I peered out.

“It’s snowing,” I gasped. And then we were running out into it and spinning round and it fell into our hands and hair. The smell. I shook. Ash all over me. I pulled handfuls out of my hair. Ella stuck out her tongue. It seemed too long. She tasted the ash.

“It’s London,” she said, closing her eyes in bliss.

I was off. I pulled my t shirt up over my mouth and nose and ran home through the falling ash. Mum was in front of the telly.

“Isn’t it terrible?” she said. On the screen, everything was ash and fire and burning. And at the bottom over and over, it read.

BBC News: London under attack. No word from PM. Fatalities estimated in the millions.

And there were things moving in the smoke. Things with tails and teeth. Then snarling. The same snarling I recorded on my phone. Then the picture went black.

Me: What did you do Ella

Ella: I just put things right

I dunked a tea towel in water and tied it round my face. I grabbed the penknife from mum’s rubbish toolbox, and I ran. So hard my legs hurt. Up the hill. My lungs were bursting. And then I was under the mutant plant. And I was hacking at the stem with the penknife. Seed fluff was in my hair, catching on my eyebrows. I hacked and hacked. A flower fell at my feet. And there in the vale was Ella. Ella running. Her legs were too long. She was coming. Coming for me. Her mouth opened and opened, and ash flooded out.

First published in Eerie River’s Elemental Cycle: Fire Anthology

Art by Arthur Rackham