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How to Safely Store Your Dragons

by Marisca Pichette

Never on the mantelpiece. Their love of fire will soon create a blaze not even your magic can subdue, climbing the ceiling in search of a chimney, chewing insulation and nibbling the rafters to nothing. By the time you return from the store, arms laden with spell candles and kale, of your cottage only smoke will remain. So please—never store your dragons on the mantlepiece.

Likewise the kitchen. Sure, they look cute in the linen drawer, and they will love you for gifting them such a warm, well-stocked place. But soon enough, you’ll find yourself extracting wriggling green bodies from decimated cereal boxes, masticated potato sacks, hollow squash skins, and soggy cartons devoid of even a half cup of orange juice. You will learn the hard way how hungry dragons can be.

Knowing this, the back garden may seem a prudent choice, but remember your veggie patch? Think of your poor kitchen, and keep the dragons inside.

We understand this is your first foray into dragon-keeping. Perhaps you inherited your dragons, or perhaps you found them on the side of the road, a rat king of squirming, keening coils. It is just as well you asked our advice. We’ve been keeping dragons for longer than history records.

Their benefits are obvious: luck, prosperity, security. Dragons have impeccable senses of smell, and can easily distinguish their keeper’s voice from that of a stranger. In order to realize their greatest potential, however, it’s imperative you offer them the best home possible. A dragon, once stored, will grow. And once grown, it becomes so much more than a simple talisman.

When they’re young, the bathroom isn’t a bad option. They love water and catch all the pesky moths that try to eat your towels. But beware—when they grow older, their play becomes more than a nuisance, and no one enjoys calling a plumber for assistance. Some things not even magic can fix.

The attic will do for half the year. It’s spacious, filled to the brim with tasty spiders and nutritious mice. Stack clementine crates and line them with unwashed wool (dragons love lanolin, sure to keep their scales shiny). Supplement their natural diet with henbane and chamomile tea sweetened with honey. If you’re worried about fire, a cast iron pan is indispensable. Take all your spent candle nubs and drop them inside. When your dragons feel the urge, they will confine their pyrotechnics to the pan, and you’ll find the attic pleasantly scented on summer nights.

But in the autumn, an exodus is necessary. Dragons are, after all, cold-blooded creatures, and they hate hibernating almost as much as they love snoozing in your box of junk jewelry, leaving tiny teeth marks on the edges of your pewter pendants.

In October, bring them downstairs. Get them comfortable in the cat tree (the cats never use it, you know, more intrigued by bottle caps and the box it came in). Give them toys and water dishes and shredded newspaper bedding. Make sure they can see the television; they love period dramas and will binge Planet Earth every two and a half weeks. Remember to keep their food bowls topped up with mincemeat, so they don’t go looking for extra (more destructive) snacks. Some enjoy a hamster wheel (never a ball), others a scratching post (lucky the cat tree’s fully equipped).

When they’re settled, make sure to smudge the space and switch on the entertainment before returning to the kitchen to clean up the mess they made this morning.

Wipe the counters, sweep the floor with your favorite broom. As snow begins to fall outside the window, put your tools away. Change from your luscious black gown to the faded plaid robe you’ve repaired more often than the plumbing. It’s winter, after all—time to snuggle up in blankets your grandmother quilted in the ‘50s, and remember.

You may be the only witch in the house, but you’re not alone. Chittering from the corner lets you know: you’ve done well. In caring for others, you’ve gained so much more than luck.

On the couch, put your feet up, cocoa cradled in your calloused hands. Let the murmuring television lull you.

Don’t worry, your dragons will sigh little fires to keep your toes warm.

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Felix, Master of the Night, Saves the World Again

by Jeff Stehman

The new place smells so old. What was that creaking? Ooh, look at all those boxes in the living room! So many things could be hiding among them. Best. Night. Ever. Felix spends the night exploring while Mom sleeps restlessly, settling down beside her a few hours before dawn. In the morning, Felix rolls over, half-aware of Mom stirring. Fingertips find his tummy and scritch him awake.

“Good morning, sweetie. You were kind of loud last night, weren’t you?”

That makes no sense. Felix is a master of the night, soundless and unseen. There had been an incident with a shoebox, but that was self-defense.

Mom stops too soon. “Bad dreams or no, a lot to do today. Let’s get you fed.”

Felix is already out the door and headed for the kitchen.

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Mom spends the day unpacking. Felix spends the day preemptively defending her from crumpled papers that are about to attack. Except when napping. Security work is exhausting.

Felix does become alert when Mom carries blankets to the hall closet. He sees fear in her back as she pauses. She jerks the door open, but the closet is empty. She sets the blankets on a shelf and closes the door before Felix can investigate the new space, leaving him to sniff at the gap under the door.

“It was just a dream, sweetie.”

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Mom is sleeping fitfully. Felix is among the boxes, stalking monsters. They are fierce but in hiding, no match for a true predator.

At the sound of claws on wood–he knows it well–the monsters are forgotten. He creeps into the hall, tracking the sound. It’s coming from the closet door. The scratching is Mom-height. Felix hunkers down, sniffing at the gap under the door. It smells older and mustier than it had before. Oh, yes! Something is definitely in there. He wiggles up the tension in his hindquarters, staring at the gap.

Movement. Felix lunges. His claws find something hard, but it’s jerked away. He stuffs both forelegs under the door as far as he can and paws frantically, trying to find prey. He pauses. Something taps his leg—quick, and is gone. He paws frantically again, then rolls onto his side, reaching as high as he can with one paw on the other side of the door. More scratching. Oh, just out of reach! He strains, pawing higher–

Felix leaps back as finger bones poke under the door. They clatter back and forth before disappearing. Again, they clatter back and forth and disappear. He lunges, both forelegs all the way under again.

As if from far away, he hears someone giggle.

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“Last night was even worse,” Mom groans.

Mom isn’t making sense. Best. Night. Ever. He might even sleep in before breakfast. Just a little.

He catnaps here and there until evening. Mom unpacks some more boxes.

“Felix, I’m sleeping with the door closed tonight. Are you coming in?”

Is she kidding?

“Whatever. Have a good night.”

He hunkers down to watch the closet door.

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It’s the boxes. They distract him with their non-movement. Then a particularly treacherous one traps him inside, so if there’s scratching in the closet, he doesn’t hear it.

But he does hear the closet door open.

Felix goes still. Something shuffle-scrapes along the floor in the hall.

He erupts from the box and runs for the hall, coming to a stop in the doorway.

It’s a woman. She takes a lurching step toward Mom’s closed door. Her hair is wild, her arms and legs skeletal. Her dress has more holes than Felix’s best blanket. She raises a hand, and the finger bones grow very, very long.

Oh! Oh! Felix leaps out and bounds between the woman and the bedroom door. Back arched, he rubs against her leg and purrs. Backscratchers!

The woman gazes down at him, a pale green light shining in her eye sockets. With a bony foot, she scoots him to the side, but Felix is having none of it. Right back at her shins, he turns up the charm, mixing trills into his purr.

After entirely too long, the woman reaches down and scratches his back. Oh, yes! Oh, yes-yes-yes! The woman drops to the floor in a rattle of bones, sitting cross-legged. Felix climbs into her lap, purring and uselessly kneading the bones under her dress. She continues to scratch him, her fingers normal length again but hitting all the right spots.

As if from far away, he hears cooing.

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“Good morning, sweetie. Were you standing guard all night? Thanks for that. I had one bad dream, but otherwise it was a good night.”

A good night? Best. Night. Ever.

“Let’s get you fed,” says Day Mom.

Felix is already out the door and headed for the kitchen.