Young Writers Society

A/N: Hi everyone, I realise the chapter is slightly on the long side this time. There wasn't a convenient location to cut the two halves this time. The next one will be much shorter to make up for it!

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MacAlpine was off on another of his tangents, which Josie wasn’t exactly complaining about. He really had lived a life – from his time in the Great War, to the period in between when he hung out in the drag halls in Berlin, to his escape back to Scotland as Germany started to become less favourable towards said drag halls. She couldn’t imagine this broad shouldered body and leathery tanned face with feather boas wrapped around them, but luckily he had pictures. He’d been too old to fight in the recent war, so he’d come back to university, completed his doctorate, and begun to teach.

This one was going a little long though. Josie fidgeted in her flat wooden chair, bumping her legs on the attached desk. She was sat at the back of the steep rows of chairs and the clatter turned all four other students’ heads, plus MacAlpine’s, towards her.

“Sorry,” she said, “Just fidgeting.”

“My apologies,” MacAlpine said. He placed a hand on his chest and mimed a slight bow. “I’ll get back on track. There are some people who believe that the stealth of dragons in the Great War was partially due to their ability to turn invisible. This is commonly believed to be an ability activated by a dragon’s keeper through the telepathic connection.”

Now this had Josie’s attention. If she could turn Dragon invisible then he could sneak out the shed whenever he liked.

“Only half an hour of invisibility is ever reported to have been achieved at once,” MacAlpine continued.

Ah, Josie thought. Well, at least he would get time to stretch his legs.

MacAlpine glanced at his wrist watch, which presumably showed him he was ten minutes over time. “Oh, sorry for keeping you all. We’ll pick this up… next… we can figure it out. Now, remember, if anyone asks, what was this supplementary class about?”

“Moulds and fungus,” the five students intoned, “Nobody asks questions about moulds and fungus.”

“That’s right!” MacAlpine raised a triumphant index finger in the air and started to file his notes back in his satchel. “Alright, next time.”

The students waved goodbye to him then started to pack away their own things.

“I can’t believe there’s so much to know about dragons,” said Rosie, a young girl with curly hair and freckles. She couldn’t have been more than eighteen. Josie, at twenty-four, was admittedly on the old side for a student, but her time in the munitions factory during the war had set her back a bit.

“I know,” said Robert, a slightly older student with short blond hair and glasses. “It’s been months and he’s not repeated material yet. Well, except for that anecdote about the bat in the fireplace.”

They continued to chat as they prepared to leave the room, but cut it out as soon as they left. The doors opened immediately onto the narrow spiral stairwell. The steps were steep, and they had to concentrate, but they’d have been silent regardless. Silent students was probably just as suspect, but there was actually rarely anyone up this way anyway.

Except for Callum MacKenzie.

He pushed the door of the second floor open onto the landing just as Josie, at the back of the line of MacAlpine’s students, happened to be reaching it. He had grown out of his pudge, but gained some acne, which hadn’t abandoned him yet even in his mid-twenties. His university career had also been disturbed by the war; in fact it had turned out he and Eric had encountered each other in France at one point. He figured this made them family friends, apparently. She wondered how long he had been there.

“Hi, Josie,” he said, immediately moving to her side as they descended the stairs. “How was MacAlpine’s class?”

Josie sighed. She had actually been intrigued to reconnect with a school friend after all this time – the war had sort of spread them all around – but as soon as he’d started bugging her about this, and hadn’t stopped, her enthusiasm had begun to fizzle. Callum MacKenzie was the only student on the entire campus who asked questions about moulds and fungus.

“Fine,” Josie said, “But you know how it is. MacAlpine has weird rules. Not allowed to talk about it.”

“Right, right,” Callum said. Josie thought for a moment that maybe he would stop talking, but he soon continued, “So, I was wondering what you’re doing later, if you’re allowed to talk about it?”

“Nothing much…” Josie said.

“I was wondering if you’d like to go get a drink or something,” he said.

Josie very nearly stumbled down the last few stairs to the ground floor landing but she managed to get her brain in check just in time.

“Are you asking me out?”

“Yes,” he said.

One word. That was the shortest sentence she had ever heard from him. Maybe his weird insistence about MacAlpine’s class was his way of showing interest in her life? That didn’t mean she appreciated the nagging anymore but… maybe this annoyance wasn’t on purpose. Maybe she could alert him to the fact. If nothing else, it would be nice to have something to do tonight.

She also remembered that Eric’s theory when she’d told him about Callum’s pestering was that he fancied her. She hated it when Eric was right.

“Well, I’m going to go see my brother tonight, but are you free on Saturday?” she asked.

Callum’s grin split his face, split one of his acne spots in fact. “Absolutely.”

***

“Eric!”

Eric jumped out of his skin at the shout. Why did Josie always insist on giving him a fright? He turned around but didn’t see her. He was standing simultaneously in the centre of a town and in the middle of a field. It was mostly field, as the prefabricated town – well, estate – hadn’t been built yet. That was his job, survey anything and everything that might be relevant to the execution of the government’s housebuilding plans. He looked around at the stacks of bricks and beginnings of wooden frames, so tall, so sturdy, so tangible. He loved that he knew exactly what his effort was going towards.

Josie was away off in the field, and he only spotted her as she started to jog towards him. She darted between the patches of mud that marked where foundations would be dug, waving to him.

“Come on!” she exclaimed, and he realised that her wave was actually a gesture for him to hurry up and follow her. He glanced around at the construction workers in their dusty overalls, who shook their heads and went back to their work. Most of them had been set to tasks that morning, so in truth Eric wasn’t really needed other than to offer advice and keep morale up.

He fastened the buttons of his navy blazer and followed her out of the as yet very flat little housing complex. She led him through some low, bright green grass, over a dyke and into a hillier field behind the one they were working in, where the grass got higher and yellower. They climbed for a bit, higher than Eric had realised before he turned around and saw the miniature workers scuttling around like ants on their rafters.

When they reached the top of the rise, Josie continued down the other side for a moment, then stopped. Eric couldn’t see back to where they had come, but before him stretched hill after hill of varying green, brown and yellow hues. Some had little patches of trees in them, and fairly far away – though not so far away that a road couldn’t be built from the new town – the cars on the motorway rumbled past.

“Here he is,” Josie said, gesturing to the thin air in front of them.

“Huh?” Eric asked. The wind blew into his eyes and made them water a bit. It was whipping Josie’s hair around her face too, and she kept having to hook it out of her mouth.

“Reach out your hand,” she said. She did so, and pulled up the sleeve of her cardigan so that he could see her bare arm. The muscles tensed as she pressed against… nothing.

“Okay…” Eric frowned and reached out his hand. He gasped as his fingertips hit into something, like the moment of tiny panic when you realise a flight stairs ends one step before you thought they did.

Josie took her hand off whatever was in the air and briefly touched the back of his neck. He felt his sides quiver, his vision tint orange. He wasn’t exactly used to this, but he was less terrified than last time. Josie had done this a few months ago, when he’d first come home from the war, and moments later his entire outlook on the world had changed. The way he thought and communicated, everything about the inside of his brain had shifted a few cells around in a circle, recalibrated. From then on, he and Dragon had been able to understand every single word the other side.

This time he blinked, and when the orange tint faded from his vision he was met with the clear cut, muscular, dark green form of Dragon.

“Oh, hi,” he said, out loud. Wait, oops. Hi, Dragon. Well, this is an interesting new development.

Hi hi hi! Dragon cried, stamping his feet. I love the grass! The grass is soft!

Eric grinned and glanced at Josie. “I take it nobody but us can see him?”

“Aye,” Josie said, “You’re good.”

Eric raised an eyebrow. “Aye?”

Josie blushed and started to shimmy her way up Dragon’s sides and onto his back. “Aye. I mean yes, aye. I may have been one of the only people in history to go to Glasgow University and get less posh.”

“Awright then,” Eric said, looking up at her, “Just dinnae let Maw hear ye talk that way. Also, what in the world are you doing?”

Josie gestured for him to follow, as she had done to get him to come out into the field. Eric glanced behind him, forgetting that his vision of the construction site was blocked. He remembered his realisation that everyone was set on their tasks, that they didn’t actually need him.

“Maybe for half an hour or so…” he said, approaching Dragon’s side. “Though I’ve no idea how I’m going to get up here.”

Dragon, said Josie’s voice, do you think you could give Eric a hand up.

Sure thing! Dragon said, extending one of his legs out straight so that it made a little gangway for Eric to walk up.

“I see you two have been at the choreographing already,” Eric said, starting to carefully walk up Dragon’s leg.

“We figured you wouldn’t want to wrinkle your blazer,” Josie explained, “Although are you aware there’s mud on your shoes?”

“Yes. I am. Do shut up, Josie,” Eric said, plopping down behind her. “Wait, are you not strapped on by anything? Is this safe?”

“What do you think is going to be my answer to that?” Josie asked, twisting around to look at him.

Eric raised an eyebrow. “You got all the way here like this?”

“Yeah, we’re invisible now that we’re touching Dragon, so we can just fly and fly over everyone’s heads without anyone noticing.” Josie smiled, staring up at the sky.

“I meant and you didn’t fall off,” Eric said.

“Clearly,” Josie said.

“Fair.” Eric looked down at his legs, straddling Dragon’s sides with his feet hooked in behind the wings. The boy did have spines all the way along his spine. Perfect handles. Besides, there was no way Josie was letting him down now. He sighed. “Fiiiine.”