The Dragon You Know by Joynell Schultz

Author:Joynell Schultz [Schultz, Joynell]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Wet Dog Press
Published: 2020-07-19T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 12

Ruby, Izzy, Luna, and I stood outside Lost in the Pages Bookstore with the Kingdom of Onieth’s familiar blue and yellow flag flying over its door. Izzy had recognized the name of the bookstore on a sticker on the back of the book Frederick was reading along with the memory of the flag over the front entrance of the building. She said it was a place her aunt used to take her as a child before she got sick. A place to go to escape her parents for a bit. Or, at least a place to go to get out of the house when her parents had a new drug to experiment with.

“Where’s your aunt, now?” I asked.

“Dead.” Was all she offered, and I didn’t pry. Her life was filled with so much sadness, there was no reason to force her to relive any of it.

“Why does it have the Kingdom of Onieth’s flag?” Ruby asked.

I took a deep breath, not liking, but still certain of the answer. “Because this bookstore is somehow connected to my mother.”

“Your mother?” Ruby exclaimed in a loud whisper. “I thought you didn’t know who your mother was.”

I rubbed my fingers against my temple. “I don’t. But this is where she is.” My stomach swirled and my palms sweated, but I didn’t want to explain all this to Ruby at the moment. I climbed up the three, worn concrete steps that led into the little bookstore.

When the little bell chimed above the entrance, the woman behind the counter looked up over her glasses. I tried to see some sign of familiarity beyond her brown eyes, but saw none. I reminded myself that this was the woman who left me with my father. Who abandoned me—if that woman behind the counter was even my mother?

She was short and round, very unlike me, and the amount of makeup on her face wasn’t a luxury I had ever predicted my mother to take. In fact, that’s one of the many reasons why I had a feeling deep in my bones that the evil queen wasn’t my mother with her manicured nails and red, herb-dyed hair.

I tilted my chin and squinted my eyes. Could I see any resemblance to me? To her sister Luciana?

The evil queen was my mother’s twin, and these two looked nothing alike.

Was I so excited to meet my mom that I was willing to accept anyone into that role? I returned to my witch’s roots. Grabbing the magic in the air, sacrificing a few pieces of wood from my woodpile, I waved my hand in a small revealing spell. A witch would give off a slight shimmer.

Which this woman didn’t.

She was as mortal as anyone else.

“Can I help you find something?” she asked.

Izzy held up the book she had borrowed from Frederick. “This book,” Izzy said. “Do you have more like this?”

Ignoring the uneasy sensation I got from Luna being stuck outside because of the narrow entrance door, I helped Izzy walk up to the counter to show the worn binding to the woman.

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