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Jeremy and Minerva were inseparable as children. He was the protective older brother, and she was the precocious little sister. They did everything together, had the same friends, went to the same schools. Yet they both harbored two secret fears. That they would one day grow apart. That they were holding the other back.
It was hard, then, when Jeremy joined the Peace Corps after graduation. He felt he was doing the right thing for his sister, but hated leaving her behind. Minerva felt she needed to be supportive of her brother, but felt abandoned none the less. They still talked, of course, but busy lives and the bane of time zones made it harder and harder to keep in touch. Eventually they found that their fear had come to pass: they had grown apart.
But it was for the best, right?
Jeremy sat in an uncomfortable chair at the airport gate waiting for a flight home for Christmas. He had gotten there three hours early just in case, and was finding it increasingly hard to keep himself occupied as the minutes ticked away.
He had been in the states for several months by that point, but something had held him back from seeing his sister before now. Something beyond the hours-long plane flights and promises of jet lag. Did she resent him leaving? Or worse, did she appreciate it?
For her part, Minerva hadn’t wanted to push it. He seemed content with not seeing her, and she didn’t want to confirm it.
The holidays, however, seemed inevitable.
She had been staying with their parents for a few days before Jeremy flew in. It was a red eye, but she couldn’t sleep anyway so she was up and ready.
The doorbell rang, and she ran to the door. She paused for a second. Then opened it.
And all of the worries melted away.
“I must have the wrong house,” he joked. They laughed and hugged and eventually made it inside.
“I missed you so much,” Minerva said walking in to the kitchen. He followed her in, and was caught by the smell of coffee. He poured himself a cup.
“I brought you something from far away,” he said, handing her a small wrapped box with a bow on top.
She pulled the bow off the package and tapped it on to his chest.
They felt a rush of energy that left Minerva’s fingers tingling and Jeremy’s heart pounding. He looked at her a little confused and more than a little flustered.
“You’re my present this year,” she said.
They quickly composed themselves as they heard the creak of stairs under their parents’ feet. It was like they were kids again. The high pitch of the fourth step from the bottom meant five, four, three, two—
“Hey kids,” their father said. His usual chipper self, their father’s energy in the morning was grating as children, but endearing in their young adulthood. Not seeing it every morning probably helped. Jeremy and Minerva took more after their mother who mumbled a hello and shuffled over to the coffee maker.
Jeremy hugged his father and dutifully waited until his mother had a bit of coffee before doing the same.
“When’d you get in,” his father asked.
“Just a little while ago.”
“And what’s with the bow?”
Jeremy turned red and pulled the bow off of his chest.
“Ah, nothing,” he said.
“Well, good to have you home,” his father said. His mother grunted in agreement, the caffeine slowly bringing her back to life.
The rest of the day was fairly uneventful. The family caught up with each other, they had lunch, they played a couple board games, had dinner, went to bed.
Then they felt a rush of energy that left Minerva’s fingers tingling and Jeremy’s heart pounding. There they were, standing in the kitchen, the bow on Jeremy’s chest, utterly confused.
“Whoa,” she said. “Deja vu. Didn’t we—“
“Do this yesterday, yeah.”
Creaking stairs. Fourth from the bottom. Five, four, three, two—
“Hey, kids—whoa,” their father said. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” Minerva squeaked, her voice breaking. “Sorry, nothing.”
The day was uneventful, but Jeremy and Minerva could not make sense of it. Their parents said the same things as the day before, they ate the same meals, they went to bed.
Then they felt a rush of energy that left Minerva’s fingers tingling and Jeremy’s heart pounding.
“Okay, what the hell is hap—“
A woman barged in to the room.
“My name is Helen. You’re in danger,” she said. “And I need your help.”
“What the hell is going on?” Jeremy asked.
Helen drove a little too fast, and bit her lip in thought.
“I’m assuming you’ve been getting some deja vu,” she said. Jeremy and Minerva’s furtive glance at each other told Helen all she needed to know.
“I don’t know how,” Helen explained. “But you are caught in a time loop.”
“Like Groundhog Day?” Jeremy asked.
Helen sighed. “Yes,” she said. “Like Groundhog Day.”
“What’s Groundhog Day?” Minerva asked.
“God, I feel old,” Helen muttered.
Jeremy explained. “It’s a movie where the same day happens over and over again, but why us?”
“Well, I’m honestly not sure because it’s not your time loop,” Helen said. “It’s mine. You must be umbral, right? It’s the only way.”
Jeremy and Minerva looked blankly. Helen closed her gaped mouth, and took a deep breath.
“How do you not know this,” she muttered. “Okay, look, you are descended from dragons, and you have latent power from that. People call it being in the shadow of the dragon, usually just umbral for short. Your parents really never told you any of this?”
“No, this is crazy,” Jeremy said.
“Yeah, no shit,” Helen said. “There’s a dragon somewhere in this town, and he found—sorry, Francis found it and is going to take its heart. If he takes the heart… well, I don’t know what will happen, honestly, but I don’t want to find out. I took what power I had and started this loop so I could keep trying to stop him. Of course, I didn’t expect him to enter the loop too. It seems”—she nodded towards the two of them—“that if you are umbral you can enter it.”
“So, you get another chance today?” Minerva asked.
Helen squinted at her. “I lost track of how many times we’ve gone through a while ago,” she said. “Have you been keeping track?”
Jeremy and Minerva just looked at her in confusion.
“Jesus fucking christ,” Helen whispered. “How many times has it looped for you?”
“This is the third time,” Jeremy said.
Helen furrowed her brow. “Something umbral must have built up through the loops.”
You’re my present this year.
“How long have you been doing this?” Minerva asked.
Helen stared silently into the middle distance for a moment and pulled over in front of a house in an area of the suburb neither Jeremy nor Minerva recognized.
“We’re here,” Helen said, and got out. “Come on.”
Her look was hard as they strode to the front door, and she slipped out a small set of lock picks and picked the door’s lock with frightening ease.
“They’re out and don’t come home tonight,” she said, as if anticipating some of their confusion. She turned suddenly to face them.
“I lost count a while back, but this is probably somewhere between day eighty or ninety for me,” she said.
“You’ve been doing this for three months?” Minerva asked, eyes wide. Helen gave no answer and walked over to a small table in the entryway, scribbled something down on a pad of paper, and handed it over. A phone number.
“That’s my number,” Helen explained. “Memorize it. You can’t bring anything but memories with you when the reset happens. Write yours down, too, and I’ll memorize them.”
She walked towards a table with a map of the town. It was covered in pins and scribbled notes. They noticed a pin at their parents’ address before Helen slammed an open book on to the table.
“Umbral sigils.”
“Dragons had a language,” Helen said. “Emphasis on had. It was spoken, and is long since lost. What we have left is this.”
She gestured towards the pages of the book. They were filled with shapes of twisting and curling lines. Looking at them made Minerva’s head hurt. She winced, looked up, and saw Helen briefly narrow her eyes before continuing.
“As far as we can tell they had no actual written language, but this is the closest we have. They each try to capture the flow of the sounds. It’s not an alphabet. You can’t write sentences. Each sigil stands on its own. And each draws on the language’s ability to alter reality.”
She tapped one of the shapes.
“Fire.”
She then took her finger and drew the shape in the air in front of her. A line of crackling white energy traced her finger as she went. When the shape was complete it suddenly burst into flame. She dropped her hand and the shape fizzled into nothing, taking the flame with it. She was suitably pleased by the awe on their faces.
“You need to learn these as quickly as you can,” she said dropping a pile of papers on front of them.
“What about the fire one,” Jeremy asked.
“Too dangerous. I want you to be able to defend yourselves if the time comes. I won’t make a killer out of you. We won’t be at the same place every day, and I might not be there at all, but I will text you an address. You will go there. You will find these papers. You will practice.”
Jeremy and Minerva shuffled through them. Force, sleep, guard, and more. Minerva started with force. Jeremy started with sleep. She had more luck than he did.
“I need to go,” Helen said. “You can sleep here. I’ll see you in the morning.”
The two of then, exhausted from the work, said good night, and started to shuffle off towards to the rooms when suddenly—
They felt the rush, and ignored tingling fingers and racing heart. Jeremy checked his phone while Minerva scribbled a note to their parents that they had to run out for an errand. A short car ride later they were at another house in the same neighborhood as last time.
Key under mat.
As Helen said, there was a table with a map, a book, and a pile of papers. And as Helen said, she wasn’t there. So they got to work.
They practiced the sigils, ate food from a well-stocked fridge, and talked about how crazy this all was, all while masterfully dodging mentions of the increasingly powerful feelings hitting them every morning.
The sun set and they still hadn’t heard anything from Helen. The time dragged on until one of them finally yawned.
“So should we go home,” Jeremy asked.
“Do you want to explain to mom and dad where we’ve been?”
“Point taken. I guess we can stay here.”
It turned out, however, that the house was pretty small. No guest room. Only the single bedroom with a single bed.
“I can sleep on the couch,” Jeremy offered.
“Don’t be stupid. It’s a big bed.”
Minerva said it without thinking, and then it caught in her throat. Jeremy shrugged despite his unease, and she didn’t know if his apparent indifference made things better or worse.
Minerva’s eyes went wide and cheeks flushed. “I guess we should have grabbed pajamas or something.”
The previous night they had slept in separate rooms so hadn’t though more of it. A few agonizing beats of silence hung heavy in the air between them.
“Well,” he said. “It’s not like we’re really sleeping. We’ll just be back in the kitchen tomorr—“
They felt the rush, and Jeremy found himself reading a text on his phone. His mind raced in a panic.
He found you. Run.
Minerva watched, as if in slow motion, a knife pushing in to Jeremy’s chest. On reflex she grabbed it. The blade slid across her skin, taking blood with it. The moment the knife carried that blood into Jeremy the room filled with light and sound. A deep, rumbling voice shouted in thunderous tones, and the attacker slammed back into the wall next to the doorway to the upstairs.
The light faded, and Minerva felt faint. Jeremy just stared at her in shock.
“How did you do that?” he asked.
“Do what?” Minerva replied. Her voice came out hoarse.
A moan across the room snapped them to attention. Then hurried steps on the stairs, squeaking fourth from the bottom.
“What the hell was tha—“
On reflex Jeremy drew a sigil in the air, and his mother and father fell to the ground. His heart skipped a beat, but he caught his breath. I won’t make a killer out of you.
Minerva rushed over to make sure they weren’t hurt in the fall, and forgot all about their attacker until a cold hand grasped her ankle took her down to the ground. She wasn’t sure what she expected him to look like, but she was taken off guard at how normal he looked. No pale skin or sunken eyes or skeletal fingers or anything. Just brown hair, white skin, slacks, and a shirt. That is, until his eyes fluttered open to meet her gaze.
There was something awful about those eyes. The pupils were slit like a cat, but that barely fazed her after the last few days. There was something else. No one thing she could point to, exactly, but a million different tiny almost imperceptible things that made every part of her scream danger. Something slithered inside of them. They weren’t eyes. They were pretending to be.
And then suddenly they were. No slits, no sinking feeling in her stomach. So she kicked him in the face.
Jeremy began to draw a sigil in the air to put him to sleep, but with only a glance the attacker drew the perfect reverse of the symbol and Jeremy’s immediately fizzled out. He began to draw a sigil of his own, but that fizzled as well, and he suddenly stiffened as if tied up.
A panting Helen stood there looking exhausted. She quickly surveyed the room.
“Pick him up, and let’s go,” she said. “And don’t forget your shoes.”
“What are we going to do,” Minerva asked.
“Not we, you,” Helen said gesturing with one hand to the two of them. “I’ll be busy keeping him occupied. You will be waking the dragon.”
“What?”
“Well, at least I think you can. You spoke a sigil in that kitchen. I’ve only heard a sigil spoken once before.”
“Is it a good idea to even bring him with us, though,” Minerva asked. “Isn’t he trying to wake the dragon too?”
“Yes,” she said. “And I’ve managed to stop him the few times he’s tried so we kind of hit a stalemate. We ended up in a cycle of trying to outmaneuver each other to get the upper hand before getting to the dragon. So if we had left him, he just would have found us anyway.”
“This way we can control him,” Minerva said.
Helen smiled. “I finally found my upper hand.”
It was a longer drive than Jeremy and Minerva expected, and the days were short this time of year so the sun was already setting by the time Helen stopped the car. There was nothing but forest this far out of town, and they got the impression the dragon wasn’t just nestled by the roadside.
They weren’t sure how they were going to deal with him, but Helen drew a quick sigil in the air, picked him up, and slung him over her shoulder like he weighed next to nothing.
No one spoke as they walked. Helen had a somber, determined look in her eyes, and Jeremy and Minerva were too intimidated to ask what came next.
They eventually came to a short set of stairs in the middle of the forest that seemed to lead to nothing.
“Climb up, and step forward,” Helen said. She climbed the stairs and confidently stepped out into nothing. Except she disappeared entirely. They stared at each other, shrugged, and followed.
There it was. The dragon.
It was surprisingly small given the grandeur with which Helen spoke of it; maybe about as tall as Minerva was, and twice as long if it was stretched. It looked like what you would expect out of a tale of swords and sorcery, but seemingly made of stone.
They didn’t have much of a chance to take it in before a hissing noise drew their attention. Francis had just finished drawing a tiny sigil with a single wiggling finger. Tiny, but enough.
The room went totally dark and erupted into a shrieking wind that tore the group apart from each other. When light returned Helen lay stunned against the wall next to the entryway, apparently blown backward; a smiling Francis stood in front of the sleeping dragon; and Jeremy and Minerva lay groaning on either side of it. Francis laughed.
“I think I finally win this time.”
“No,” came Helen’s croaking voice as she clutched her chest. “Please, Francis, don’t. She’s not coming back.”
“We’ll see about that.”
He put his hand on the dragon, and tensed in sudden pain. The dragon’s scales began to turn a dark green, but the his breathing quickened, color drained from his face, and his eyes… his eyes turned again to that terrible slither. Before he could steady his breath, however, he winced and looked towards Minerva. She stared at him, one eye closed as blood dripped down from her brow, and one hand just barely touching the tip of the dragon’s tail turning the scales a bright blue.
He snarled and drew a sigil in the air that hissed into steam, to water, to ice, and to shards shooting out to her. Before they could reach her they simply disappeared, and Jeremy cried out in pain. The guard sigil burned away in front of Jeremy, and he lay on the ground with three large shards of ice sticking out of his chest.
“Hm,” Francis said. “Clever redirection, but you weren’t fast enough, it seems.”
Minerva couldn’t see him over the dragon, but could hear the sickening gurgle of blood. She tried to yell to him, but her voice came out raspy and quiet. As she struggled to keep a hold on the dragon’s tail she let a tingle enter her fingertips.
You’re my present this year.
That rush of energy burst through her, and she heard Jeremy gasp in a breath. The ice melted away from his chest and the wounds were closed.
“Minnie!” Jeremy yelled as he got to his feet and jumped over the dragon.
“No,” Francis cried, raising his hands to draw a shape in the air. Jeremy tumbled over awkwardly, but landed close enough to Minerva to put his hand on hers. Before Francis could finish his sigil the entire dragon’s scales burst into a brilliant, shining blue. The force of it blew him back.
Jeremy and Minerva looked at each other. They could feel themselves meld into the dragon, and their voices whispered as one.
“I love you.”
Air filled lungs, aching bones and muscles stretched, wings parted, head lifted, eyes opened, and voice cracked like thunder. Francis screamed in pain, a black haze came off of him like steam, and his eyes burned away in white heat. He fell to his knees, and then to the ground, motionless.
When Jeremy and Minerva came to they were lying on the ground next to each other. The dragon was sleeping once again, their wounds were healed, and someone was crying softly nearby.
They pulled themselves upright. Helen sat on the ground, cradling Francis in her arms.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I tried so many times, but I couldn’t make it work. I couldn’t save you. I’m sorry.”
“Helen?” Jeremy asked.
Her crying stopped.
“Thank you,” she said, and paused. “He’s my brother. I couldn’t stop him.”
“Is he dead?” Jeremy asked.
“No,” she answered. “But I don’t know if he will ever be the same.”
“I’m sorry,” Minerva said.
“No, this is what needed to happen. I tried so many times, but I couldn’t do it myself. Come on, let’s get you two home.”
They went out the way they came in, Francis slumped over Helen’s shoulder and everything. They got in the car, and made the drive home. It was dead of night by the time they got there. Their parents were still asleep on the floor in the kitchen. Helen very graciously cleared out their memories of what happened that morning and helped get them back upstairs to bed.
“You can come back, you know,” Minerva said. Helen looked confused.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, you still have our phone numbers, and there’s no reason for us to never see each other again.”
“Yeah,” Jeremy agreed. “Come over for coffee some time.”
Helen paused for a moment.
“Okay,” she said. “I would like that.”