“When did you find out?” she asked slowly.
“The night on Interstate 40.” It sounded like a title of a bad love song.
My last conversation with Dad suddenly jumped into my head.
“Where am I?” I asked.
“You're inside Paegeia. It's a world─”
“I know about Paegeia,” I said, not knowing what to make of it.
“He told you about our world?” she exclaimed, stunned.
I nodded as deeply as my bruised neck would allow.
“Then I'm sure that you know that no human can leave after going past the wall.”
I sighed. The stories were foggy. The Bermuda Triangle was the only word that occupied my mind. I struggled to remember more details. Tears welled up in my eyes again. I succumbed, buried my face in my palms, and sobbed again.
She hugged me tightly against her chest and murmured words of comfort into my hair. When the bawling reduced to dry heaves yet again, Constance spoke cautiously. “I'm sorry to ask you this, Elena, but did your father ever mention the mark of the Dragonians?”
My head snapped up, and I stared at Constance with huge eyes. “The what?”
“Your mark is of true significance on this side,” she continued. “One as dark as yours, well, let's just say that dragon children don't bear something that special.”
A freak you mean. I shook my head.
Everything twirled inside my mind, making me dizzy. Touching my cheeks, and sliding my hands to the back of my neck, I leaned against the pillow. I stared at the ceiling with a fan spinning really fast until it blurred out, into nothing. Dad's gone. I’ll never see him again. “I shouldn't have left him that night.” I spoke to the ceiling until I broke down again. I didn’t even say goodbye.
“Don't blame yourself, Elena.” Constance said, offering me only comfort; no words could erase the pain and guilt.
She caressed my arm and waited patiently for me to finish processing.
“Wait, if Dad was a dragon, am I—” I said in a panic, attempting to push myself back up to a sitting position.
“No.” She giggled, and helped me back down onto the bed. Sorry, Constance mouthed and took a deep breath. “You should've known by now if you were a dragon. I think that’s enough for one night, don't you?”
I glanced at the clock on the wall. The arms showed three o'clock and by the silence of everything, I guessed it was a.m.
I nodded slowly, positioning my head back onto the soft pillow. Our conversation had ended.
Chapter Three
I pressed the green button near my head, and warm soft pink water came splashing from the metal nozzle. It smelled like roses, and a sense of calm washed over me.
I had never been in a shower quite like this one, until a couple of days ago. Grecian marble seats lined the walls with mosaic tiles placed in delicate and intricate patterns on the floor. The water cleared and rinsed my body mentally and physically. A more potent aroma of roses and water, softer than before, caressed my skin, creating small waves across my still-bruised flesh. My skin had begun to flush in the heat making my now greenish, yellow bruises darker and more pronounced.
The tension in my muscles and the pounding inside my head started to evaporate as the heat and smells enveloped me. At the moment these showers were the highlight of every day.
I got lost in the string of thoughts, swirling inside my head like an unrelenting vortex.
I’d always wondered about Dad’s stories and if Peageia was really located inside the Bermuda Triangle. A part of me always felt that Dad’s stories could be real. I just never imagined it was this real. One of the things I do remember that Paegeia was a realm hidden from the human world behind an enchanted wall; a realm where Dragons and magic existed.
Constance explained that they’d had to conjure the wall to protect magic from people; dark, selfish people who wanted to harness and abuse the magic for themselves. It was only after the wall was erected that they realized just the dragons could cross it. Once a human entered Paegeia, they could never leave. I looked at it like buying a one-way ticket to Neverland. The only thing that worried me was that Dad must have told me about this, but why I couldn't remember it raised more questions.
As the water continued to rush over me, I struggled to accept Dad's death. A small part of me still felt responsible for it. His death, and the reality that dragons were real, was the reason I had spent nearly five days sequestered inside this infirmary.
I hated hospitals, more than I hated moving, but Constance was really kind. She and Julia, her assistant, had been my only company ever since I arrived here. Master Longwei, the headmaster of Dragonia, which this infirmary was located, also popped in from time to time to check on my recovery.