Fabulous Monsters

“If you believe in me, I’ll believe in you.”

“Where’s the unicorn?”  A talking lion did not surprise Janet here in  Midsummer Wood. But she wanted to see the unicorn.

“Who needs him?  I’m the lion of summer.  This is my place.”

“You’re not so beautiful.”  Janet could not remember much about the unicorn Alice had met through the Looking Glass but in her mind it was an elegant, shining creature.  The lion was dusty and gross, with a rank smell.

“But more use.  I can show you the mad heart of the wood.”

“I’d rather find it for myself,” Janet said.

“You need a guide.  I can see your dreams, you know, all pale and silly.”

“I don’t believe that,” Janet said.  “I don’t believe in you.”

The lion lunged forward, his mane erect,  jaws open to bite.  But before he reached Janet, he was gone, blinked into nothing, not even his smell left behind.  Janet walked on into the wood.
At a turn in the path, a dragon lay asleep, as long as a fallen pine tree, as thick as an oak.  His scales were golden and his claws serrated.

“No!” Janet halted.

“Yes.”  The dragon opened one eye.  “If you believe in me, I’ll believe in you.”

“Dare I?”  The sweat dried on Janet’s face with the heat from the dragon’s breath.  “What happens if I do?”

“Can you play chess?”

“I know the moves.”

“If you beat me in a game, I’ll sing you a song of stolen gold.”

Janet clasped her hands behind her back, to hide the gold bangle on her wrist.  “What if I lose the game?”

The dragon yawned.  “I might eat you.  I haven’t tasted human flesh for seven hundred years.  But if you sing me a song I don’t know, maybe I’ll let you run away unroasted.”

“I’m not brave enough to risk that,” Janet said.  “I’m not brave enough to believe in you.”

The dragon reared up in a blaze of fire.  His roar deafened Janet’s ears, before he disappeared, heat and noise folded into nothing.  She walked on, the soles of her shoes singed from the ashes of dead leaves where he had been.

The wood became dark and cold as winter.  Janet heard cries from creatures she could not see but nobody else came near her.  “The lion might have kept me warm, at least,” she said aloud.

“Too late.” A small cat sat on a tree root.  “You’ll have to make do with me.”

“Will you talk to me?’

“When I choose.  If you humour me and love me better than I love you.”

“Aren’t you going to ask me to believe in you?”

“No need.”  The cat leapt onto Janet’s shoulder.  “Humans know cats can talk, even when they don’t admit it.”