Page 63 of The Healing Dragon
“Already?” Santiago asks, looking into the woods. “Shouldn’t we prepare what we plan to ask?”
“Are you scared?” Matias looks amused.
“Who? Me?” Santiago shakes his head.
“She will not hurt you. She listens to me. I often wonder if I will find her on the edges of the barrier, but she is never there.” Matias taps his chest. “It’s like I know she will only come if I ask.”
“Then ask,” I urge him and stop myself from reminding him once again that Calaca is not a girl.
Santiago is about to say something when movement from the bushes to our right alerts us. The skeletal figure draped in cream color fabric steps out of the darkness into view. No one says a word as it crosses the distance directly to Matias’s side.
Santiago moves behind me. His hands grip to my shoulders tightly. “Don't worry, Janelle, I will protect us.”
“Yeah,” I say slowly. “By using me as a shield.” I push his hands off me.
“I don’t remember you being so tall.” Matias looks up at Calaca with concerned eyes. “You can hear me when I call you in my head?”
Calaca nods its head slowly.
“Can you hear all my thoughts?” His tone is curious, not accusatory.
“I can only hear you when you call for me,” it confirms.
Matias lowers his voice. “What about the other voice?”
“You hear others?” Calaca looks around as if someone else was around it would see them. It stops when its body turns to the castle. “You hear voices inside the Black Castle?”
“Sometimes,” Matias says. “Well, one voice.”
“I don’t hear voices from here.” It points at the castle. “I’ve got to get closer to the walls to hear what they whisper.”
“No, I hear them here.” Matias gestures to his temple.
Calaca moves its skeletal hand over Matias and takes a closer look.
“I don’t hear anything inside your head but you.”
“What do you see in Matias?” I ask, prompting. “You said Matias’ magic is what you recognize as your sire, correct?”
Calaca nods. “I sense your magic, the one that created me.”
“Yeah, about that.” Matias scratches his head. “I don’t think that magic is mine. I think it’s the Red Book.”
Calaca inclines its head to one side, then another.
“Is it?” I ask.
“Books can’t talk,” Santiago says, still hiding behind me. “The Red Book is not the voice inside your head. It has to be someone or something else.”
Calaca looks between Santiago and Matias. “The magic that created me, it’s not yours but bestowed to you to keep?” Calaca asks.
Matias shrugs one shoulder. “I think so.”
“If that is the case, look inside you. The way you reached for me, reach for it and demand answers.”
The order is so simple. Matias looks at me and a flash of apprehension crosses his eyes.
“What if, by letting it talk to me, it takes over?”
