I love the creek, too, said Assa. But that doesn’t mean I can be a fish. Can you be a fish?
Of course not, said her mother, but you’re different, aren’t you? You’ve had all these adventures. You’ve been transformed.
Assa kicked at the water. She listened to dragons screeching far off in the distance, like they were trying to seep into her brain, change her thinking.
Hoyal did it all, she said. She made us change. The dragons were—something else. They aren’t real.
Oh ho, said her father. Now we’re getting somewhere. If they aren’t real, what are they?
They’re something else, said Assa, trying to be dragons. I think. Assa’s mind reached for some meaning, as though she could find it in the water. Flashes of silver flitted by her.
Up the creek, far off in the distance, she saw dragons co
