Ben and the Dragon (upcoming book excerpt)

This is from a book I wrote for my youngest son, Benjamin, for Christmas last year.  Since then, I've been polishing it and getting it into printable form--between house renovating and the myriad of surprises that life brings daily, weekly, etc.  

Andrée, my artist wife, is working on the illustrations.  Hopefully, this book will be a solid reality within the next month. -DW

Uh oh…

Ben slowly turned back to the water. The shadow was closer now. He looked at the cloudless sky. The boy was standing where the grass came up to the water. There were no overhanging trees here; only a “No Swimming” sign stood nearby. The strange shadow drifted closer. His hoped-for guess dissolved; it couldn’t be the sign’s shadow.

The sun sparkled from a multitude of places within the darkness. On the surface of the water, and without substance, it didn’t look like oil or anything floating but just seemed to extend a little into the water, like a… well, like a shadow.

Ben looked for the minnows. They were gone.

“I don’t need a container anymore,” Ben whispered.

“I regret that I frightened them away.” The shadow voice vibrated the air like a far-away fog horn.

The boy swallowed. “What are you? Are you real?”

“Our worlds are close at this time of light and night.”

“It’s not night,” Ben said.

“On my world, it is always ‘night’,” the shadow voice replied.

Ben felt another spike of fear in his belly. Yet, he was curious. He couldn’t believe that he was talking to a shadow.

“What are you?” he asked again.

“Your kind would call me drag-oon.”

“Drag-oon?”

“Your species considers mine a myth from your past.”

Something clicked in Ben’s mind. Maybe… “You mean you breathe fire, and fly, and eat people and steal treasure? You’re a water dragon!”

The rumbling voice chuckled. Two faceted crystalline eyes appeared in the upper portion of the shadowed area. After this intonation of humor, the orbs sparkled a friendly green color, and gradually shifted to turquoise.

“What you call ‘steal’ is against our nature… and I don’t ‘eat’ people—although certain elements in your world are reportedly fabulous.”

Ben couldn’t believe he was talking to a dragon.

“How do you breathe fire under water, then?”

“I’m not in the ‘water’ you see; my image exists on the still reflection. Our two worlds exist, temporarily, in the Temps- rapproche, a ‘close-time.’  I see your image in my l’eau pool the same as you perceive me in yours.

“But you’re in the water,” the eight-year-old insisted.

“Are you?” the dragon rumbled.

“No.” Ben wanted to ask his second question—or his second group of questions. “How do you fly? What do you look like? Can you really see me in your world?”

The shadow, previously a vague dark shape, grew distinct. Ben watched large wings unfold and spread wide. Four limbs separated from a central mass, and a long serpentine neck led to a teeth-studded jaw on a large, regal head. This looked exactly like a dragon, Ben thought. But it seemed to be made of rock candy—all sharp edges and shifting colors.