ON A VILLAGE HILLSIDE

June and Ember finally went for a long trek around the village countryside, a whole day devoted to exploring further around the village’s surroundings than Ember had thus far. June had been advertising the beauty that surrounded the farms and promising to show Ember her favorite places.

Ember at last felt she’d learned enough about the village itself to devote time to a wider exploration and gave in to June’s temptations. That was, at least, her justification for the foray, but in truth, she also wanted to spend some undistracted time together with her young friend. June had taught Ember much about the village and surroundings, now Ember wanted to learn more about June.

Now, on a late autumn afternoon, they sat side-by-side on the grass, at the edge of a stand of trees, on a hillside that afforded them a view of their village in the distance.

“June, with so much like what I’ve seen today for you to see and enjoy, why do you still spend all of your time following me around? Don’t you have things you’d rather be doing? Friends you’d rather be with?”

June looked at Ember. Her face, which had been smiling was suddenly filled with dismay. “You don’t want me to….?”

“Oh, no! It’s not that. I like having your help but I know my way around much better now. I thought there might be something you’d sometimes prefer to be doing.”

“Like?”

“Oh, being with friends. Visiting your favorite places. Anything that makes you happy.”

June looked back out over the landscape, the way people often won’t look directly at someone when revealing something personal. She replied quietly, “Being your helper is the happiest I think I’ve ever been. And… I don’t have any real friends, except for Grumpy.”

“You’ve been my friend since the day we met.”

June looked back to Ember, as if seeking confirmation in her face. “Really?”

Of course, Ember was looking directly at June, because dragons don’t have that quirk of looking away shyly when important words are said. Dragons look directly at you.

“Really. Not because of things you do for me, though you’ve been wonderfully helpful. Do you know you’re only the second human I’ve spent time with, or trusted to be my guide in the human world? Without you, my knight wouldn’t be seeking more villages where my kind might be welcome and be safe. He wouldn’t have been able to go unless both he and I could trust you. Being anywhere feels better when you’re nearby.”

“That’s how I feel, too. Being with you makes everything seem nicer. And that’s why I don’t want to be doing something besides following you around.”

“You’re always welcome by my side. But…”

Ember studied June’s face; trying to understand the emotion she thought she’d heard in June’s revelation. “How does someone like you have but one real friend? It seems to me there’s more to June than I thought I knew. Where does that sadness come from? If a friend is allowed to ask…”

“It’s sort of a long story.”

“I have time.”

June turned again to look out over the countryside. Ember began to realize this was not unique to her knight or a random thing, but an important natural human habit in conversations. “I’ll have to go back a bit. You don’t know all this... My father’s parents died when I was still almost a baby, so, I never knew them. My mom’s mother, my grandmother, died when mom was born. And her father… my grandfather… disappeared. No one knows what happened. But how could they not know anything? Did he die? Did he run away when my grandmother died?”

“Surely someone knows something?”

“No one will talk about it. They only say ‘no one knows.’ So… I don’t have any grandparents. Every one else my age does.” June paused and Ember observed from her side-view that June’s expression changed, became more thoughtful. “People get… I don’t know… I think anxious is the right word… whenever I bring it up.”

“People avoid the subject?”

“Feels that way. And they avoid me. But there’s more… My parents don’t like me being friends with Grumpy. They don’t say it, but I can tell. I understand they might not trust him all the way. Everyone thinks he’s strange, after all. But they don’t even like it if I only talk about him. They’ll change the subject. Sometimes I wonder if he did something bad once and they hope it will go away if they don’t mention it. But, I like him. I don’t understand it… and sometimes I’m afraid.”

“Afraid of what?”

June turned to stare back into Ember’s eyes. Her voice came out barely more than a whisper, “What if Grumpy had something to do with my grandfather being gone?”