Morv awoke, eyes wide open. “There’s someone watching us,” they said.
“Huh? Other than your dragon parents or whatever?”
“Yes.” They leaned forward, staring through the windshield intently. “A human. I think.” They pointed, but all I saw was highway. “On the right-hand side of the road. They’re going like this.” Morv held up one hand, thumb out.
“A human can’t see two miles away,” I said. “They’re either not staring at us or they’re not human.”
Morv paused. “You’re right. They are looking in our direction, but their eyes are not trained on us. Their eyes are moving. They’re looking at every car coming down the road, without turning their head.” Morv paused, and then said, “Definitely human. Pregnant.”
“What?”
“Yes, a pregnant human.”
“She’s thumbing a ride, Morv. We have to pick her up.”
“What?”
“Yeah, that’s the hand gesture for thumbing a ride. I’m not driving past a pregnant lady who needs a ride without stopping at least to talk.”
“Aeon, this is serious! You can’t trust anyone! We have a mission!”
“Wouldn’t it disguise our dragon scent if we had a human in the car?”
“In the car? I thought you said you just wanted to talk!”
“Well, she’s thumbing a ride.” Now I thought I could kind of see her—a small woman, just over the highway barrier. Wearing a red parka and a pink backpack.
“You can’t trust humans. They turn us in.”
“Turn us in? To who?”
“Towhom,” Morv corrected. “And the ‘whom’ is the government. Or the Dragonhood. It doesn’t even matter.”
“You think humans know what the Dragonhood is?Idon’t even know what the Dragonhood is! And why do we have to tell her we’re dragons? You think a human knows what a dragon looks like? They don’t even think we exist. We’ll be fine. Mom and I have never had a problem.” I paused. “Withhumans.”
“Aeon—” Morv began, their voice suddenly low like they were about to launch into a tirade, but then they stopped. I had already slowed the car and begun unrolling their window.
“Where’re you going?” I called to the woman.
She looked apologetic. “My mother lives in South Carolina. Would you be able to take me partway?”
“South Carolina’s on our way. We’ll take you all the way,” I said. I unlocked the door. “Scooch to the middle,” I said to Morv.
The woman opened the door, and for a moment, I thought Morv wasn’t going to move. But then the woman looked up at them, smiling patiently, apparently with full confidence that they would move. So they did. They took off their seatbelt, shifted into the middle seat and pulled on the middle seat’s belt.
“Thank you, sir—ma'am—” she looked confused; both of us could pass for either. “Thank you.”
“Of course,” I said, luxuriating in Morv’s thinly veiled anger. “You’ll just need to give us directions once we’re over the state line.”
“Oh, yes,” she said. “I’m—I’m so grateful.” She closed the door and out of the corner of my eye I saw Morv wince.
She put on her seatbelt as I pulled back onto the highway. Once we’d re-merged with the traffic, I said, “What’s your name?”
“Cindy.”
“I’m Alex,” I told her. Best to stick with my driver’s license.
“Nice to meet you, Alex,” she said. “And you?” she turned to Morv, who looked like they had never wanted to be smaller, shrinking between us like wilted spinach in a saucepan.
“This is Morgan,” I said.
Morv looked disconcerted by their new name, and I was also, I had to admit, slightly disconcerted—I’d expected them to shape-shift like they had that first night, into someone who looked a bit more human, a bit more man or woman. But they were too caught off-guard. It was okay; a Morgan could be anyone.
“Nice to meet you, Morgan,” Cindy said. “Are you two from around here?”
Morv coughed without opening their mouth. “No.”
“Me neither,” I said. “But I’m going home.”
“Oh, where’s home for you?”
“Orlando.”
“Oh, I see. Are you both from Florida?”
Morv glared at me in the rearview mirror. “No. I’m from the moon.”
“Oh. I see.” Cindy leaned away from Morv as politely as she could. “So—how do you two know each other?”
I was feeling bold. I said to Morv, “Do you want to tell her?” I wanted to see what they would say or do. Finally, I had a little power over them. I had no choice but to push their buttons a little.
“Work,” Morv said, and then leaned back, closing their eyes as though they were going to sleep.
I smiled and kept driving.
And of course, it wasn’t just for Lola that I was driving to Orlando—though I could’ve picked somewhere closer, if it wasn’t for her. It was for Mom and Morv’s promised information. And whatever secrets they were concealing inside of the blue-black robe which they had pulled up over their eyes, pretending—or possibly being—asleep.
I remembered when Mom taught me how to drive. It was after she gave me the license—that was her style. I didn’t have a choice in the matter, I just had to do as I was told, and it was already too late to back out of it. She hadn’t told any stories, given any prologue or rationale, she’d just said—maybe a week after my birthday, after I had just barely gotten used to the idea of owning a fake ID.
“Get in the driver’s seat. Left is the brake, right is the gas. Pull out slowly.”
Sure, we were in an empty parking lot, but I was still quaking. Even though I was used to this by now. When I was a little kid, before I’d started growing my talons, she’d thrown me fully clothed into someone’s backyard pool in Gnadenhutten, Ohio.
It was November and the pool was cold as the scales on the top of Mom’s back—the only place she had them. I had touched them just once.
I floundered to the surface and threw up in the grass.
“Now you can swim,” she’d said.
So driving should’ve been a piece of cake, but somehow it felt worse than cold mucky chlorine digging throat-deep. The parking space lines taunted me, shifting side-to-side. “Come on,” Mom said. “Driving’s easy. Anyone can get a license these days.”
She didn’t note that, apparently, I already had one.
“Don’t slam the brakes like that.”
“This is an easy car, there’s no need to change gears.”
“Are you looking at the speedometer? You’re going four miles per hour. I need 12 from you.”
“You need to press harder than that if you—” HONK.
“Tail lights, on. No, that’s the headlights. Windshield wiper, on. Tail lights, off. AC, on.”
“Now drive us to the gas station. Come on, you don’t remember the way?”
By the end of the week, I could actually drive. We left Paoli, Pennsylvania and she had me drive partway to Orlando. That’s why I remembered the route. That was the first sign Orlando would become special to me.
While I drove, she told me a story—it was hard to listen while driving, but I knew now that what Morv had said had been true. Because I remembered all of it. Every word like they were written on my skin.