The Silver Dragon Chronicles Chapter 1

My life was normal enough until I was fourteen. I went to school, fought with my brother, and did my homework like every other eighth grader. But then…

Well, you’ll see.

My name is Lily Spencer and I live in downtown Chicago, Illinois. No beating around the bush, I have a weird family. My dad is some kind of scientific genius, the part-insane kind. My mom just goes along with it, and my seventeen-year-old brother Garrett is just as into technology as Dad. I grew up surrounded by cutting- edge tech stuff. Looking back, it’s kind of ironic, when I think about what’s happened. Let’s just say that everything is not what it seems in the Windy City.

It started one Tuesday in March, a day like any other. I ran the four blocks from Carlson Middle School to Hollis’s Oddity Shop. The owner, Mr. Hollis, had given me an informal after-school job there. Nothing much, just sweeping floors and setting up some displays and he’d pay me a few bucks every week.

There were two glaringly strange details about the Shop. The first was the store itself. The Oddity Shop was a hole-in-the-wall room easily missed by most passersby, the entrance a grubby wooden door that seemed prepared to fall off its hinges any day. And the inside was… well, an oddity.

Mr. Hollis’s shop was tiny and jam-packed with dusty bookshelves, the kind that seem to grow cobwebs. The shelves were, in turn, full to bursting with six-inch-thick leather-bound tomes that probably hadn’t been opened in at least two centuries. The only exceptions to the ancient library feel were two faded burgundy armchairs squeezed behind the bookcases and a giant glass display case lined up against one wall that was haphazardly filled with detailed silver figurines of dragons, each ranging from two to eight inches long and all impeccably detailed. Every one of the models was unique. Some looked like the dragons out of the Grimm fairy tales, while others appeared as the beasts of Asian lore, more serpentine than the traditional European style. More than anything, I loved that display. Mr. Hollis never let anyone besides his own self lay a finger on that case, but I sometimes spent a full hour or more just observing the small statues, imagining life stories for each great dragon, picturing them on the scene of a medieval battlefield, incinerating evil black-armored knights with massive fireballs that burst forth from their throats. Hey, a girl can dream.

The other weird thing was that, in the two years since the store opened, I never once saw a person set foot in that shop besides Mr. Hollis and myself. Yes, the Oddity Shop was a bit hard to find. But it was located right on a busy Chicago street, where you’d expect a store to be. I could never figure out how the shoppers’ eyes could just skim right over the entrance. It just didn’t make sense.

The bell attached to the door jangled as I stumbled inside, relishing the sudden change from gale-force winds to central heating. Mr. Hollis was sitting at the checkout counter, scribbling something on a piece of yellowed paper. He glanced up and saw me shrugging off my fleece jacket.

“Lily, nice to see you!” the shopkeeper said in his standard jovial manner. “Would you mind helping me with deciding what should go in the window display?” The Oddity Shop did have a one-foot-square display case that was visible from the outside, however small it was. Usually it contained a couple of the typical grime-covered books that resided in the store.

“I was thinking of throwing in a couple of dragon statues this time,” Mr. Hollis continued.

I gaped at him. Not only did he never let anyone touch the figures except for him, he would under no circumstances whatsoever let them out of the case.

“I’ve got some paperwork to do, though. Why don’t you get a few figurines out of the case, and decide what to do with the display?”

I was on the verge of asking him if he was okay. By the looks of it, green pigs would be flying through Los Angeles on snowboards any minute now.

“Here’s the key.” Mr. Hollis flicked an old-fashioned silver key across the counter. I weighed the cool metal uncertainly in my hands. Something was definitely going on. I realized that the middle-aged man was eyeing me carefully. Best to go along with it, I decided. “Okay, if you say so.” I walked slowly over to the dragon case, turning the matter over in my mind. My hands had switched onto autopilot, unlocking the case almost mechanically. I barely noticed that the shelves were more crowded than usual. There must’ve been a new shipment.

I selected one large, burly model, a wingless European dragon that was portrayed to be wearing a suit of armor. Next I found two of the smallest figurines, more Asian-looking and with tiny wings. As I gently bore them out of the case, a glint of light caught my eye.

The light came from the eyes of one ordinary-looking dragon, the kind of dragon that first comes to mind when you think of one- a Grimm brothers dragon that possessed huge, batlike wings and a lengthy tail with small spines running down it. Its body looked lithe and strong. However, the characteristic that made this figure extraordinary was its eyes. Most dragon models were all silver, with no other color. This simple figurine had glowing emerald-colored eyes. The creature’s eyes didn’t look like they were made of any kind of mineral, although they probably were made out of emerald. The dragon’s eyes looked real. Not only that, but its gaze paralyzed my mind and trapped almost all sentient thought, basically forcing me to rely on instinct. I reached out slowly to the green-eyed dragon.

I brushed the dragon’s muzzle with one finger, and a feeling like an electric shock coursed through my veins, up my index finger and arm, branching out and touching my heart and mind at the same time, bringing an excruciating pain with it. Starlight danced in front of my eyes as I was pushed back, crashing into the nearest bookshelf and then curling up on the floor. It was a strange feeling, like I was only half conscious, and at the same time my consciousness was attached to some other living being.

Something both warm and cold nuzzled my hand. “Wha-“ I saw the thing that was doing it and rubbed at my eyes. Nope. Still there.

The emerald-eyed dragon looked up at me intelligently and said, "Hi. Who’re you?"