A Shade of Dragon Read Free Page A

thought calcification of the pineal gland was a normal part of puberty,” I offered, though I couldn’t say why I’d ever enter into a debate with Zada, except that maybe I had a bit of a tic about irrational beliefs. “After all, the intense hormonal secretion is no longer really necessary.”
    “That’s what they want us to think,” Zada cried. Meanwhile, Dad uncorked a bottle of red wine and filled her glass to a generous depth. “But the truth is that the pineal gland, which secretes DMT, the spirit molecule, crystallizes only because we drink fluoridated water.”
    I nodded blithely and took a bite of the tabouli salad. I had to admit, I could see how it might be good in a parallel universe in which Zada had not prepared the dish herself. As it was, however, she’d gone overboard on the garlic, and I couldn’t help but cringe as I swallowed.
    “Garlic is great for decalcification,” Zada went on pointedly.
    “It sure is, pookie,” Dad placated his fiancée. “Nell? Sage? Does anyone want something to drink? Juice, or water?”
    “I’ll have water, unless you have hot tea, unsweetened,” I said.
    “Oh, I love hot tea!” Zada cheered. I ignored this, and Dad placed a water at the side of my plate. He delivered Sage some cranberry juice, at Zada’s command, and then poured himself an equally generous portion of red wine.
    “So,” I asked innocently, “is wine also great for decalcification?”
    Zada, who had been drinking deeply, pulled the glass away from her mouth and glowered. She might have been a bit zealous, but her sensitivity gave her a keen ear for insults. “It can help you handle stress.” Zada cleared her throat and took another drink.
    “Isn’t it true that even NASA recently confessed to capturing some anomalies on their satellites?” Dad asked before taking two rapid sips from his wine glass. I had to wonder if he was a little nervous after all. Dad? Nervous? The more I considered it, the more preposterous it seemed. My father didn’t care about anything except women, a good time, and money. And he only barely cared about those things. “Maybe Sagey here did see an alien.” Dad winked at Zada.
    I cleared my throat and tried to refocus. Dinner conversation. Not disgusting Dad flirting. “Well, an ‘anomaly’ is a very vague term. It could easily be a natural phenomenon. Are we seriously thinking that Sage actually had an encounter of some sort?”
    “Because of the UFO I saw. It was right outside, up in the sky. Saw it go across the moon, couldn’t have mistaken it, not like that.” Sage had the same zealous, defensive manner of speaking as his mother. It was amusing that some Buddhist masseuse would be so much more high-strung than a powerful CEO like my father, who constantly acted as if he’d only freshly napped.
    “Well, lots of people think they’ve seen a UFO at one point or another.” I choked down another bite of the garlic-heavy tabouli. “All it means was that there was something in the sky, and it wasn’t necessarily a plane.”
    “Um, hello, does anyone listen to me when I talk?” Sage shrilled. “Because I already said , A, it was oblong in structure. B, it had extensions on either side. C, it had an irregular flight pattern. And, uh, D, if I was to use the moon for scale, the thing was huge, yet maneuverable! Not a plane. Not a balloon. Not swamp gas!”
    Zada drank. Neither she nor Dad seemed to be willing to touch this one, so I fielded it.
    “Well, Sage,” I said, “it’s very difficult to gauge size by using the moon, itself a distant object with a scale we find cumbersome to comprehend. I mean, what you’re talking about is something that astronomers do, carefully and with intense calculation. Not something they blurt out from a windowsill, no offense. Considering the other attributes you described, I’d consider it most likely to have been a bird, particularly an eagle. They’re very big, and they live in Maine—”
    “It was not a