THE SECRET

The dragon’s shadow was everywhere, even though Hadrián was the only one who could sense its presence. The power of Dragal would soon become manifest, but, for those who were not aware of it, it was just another day like any other.

         All the pupils in the class were anxiously awaiting the arrival of Miss Ermidas with the marks from the maths exam. They knew, as always, she would enter the classroom two minutes after the bell rang.

         Not a second before or afterwards.

         The old teacher arrived on time, clutching her folder to her chest. She slowly draped her red cardigan over the back of her chair and, having greeted the children in the room, began to pass the exam papers around the desks.

         ‘Antón… no comment. We’ll see each other in September, and possibly next year as well.

         ‘Teresa… you could do a lot better.

         ‘Breixo… you have to use your head for something other than wearing a cap.

         ‘Antía… carry on like this. 8 out of 10.

         ‘Marta… on this occasion I was expecting a lot more than a mere pass.

         ‘Miguel… well, you scraped through, but that’s better than nothing.’

         As the teacher continued walking past the desks, getting closer and closer to the back of the classroom, Hadrián stared out of the window. The rain beat against the windowpanes, but the boy was looking further away, at the façade of the old church of St Peter’s.

         He found it where it always was, on the cornice, and smiled when old Dragal winked in a gesture of complicity.

         The other pupils, unaware of the stone dragon’s movements, remained in absolute silence, watching their tutor’s every move. Miss Ermidas was also unaware of what was happening and carried on handing out exams until she got to Hadrián’s place.

         The teacher then drew to a halt and placed the piece of paper, scribbled on both sides in the boy’s characteristically tiny handwriting, on the desk. In the upper margin, next to the pupil’s name, in red and highlighted by a large circle, appeared a ‘10’ that seemed to Hadrián as big as the world.

         ‘I still don’t know how you did it… I’m amazed,’ she said.

         The boy’s face lit up with a smile that stretched from ear to ear. A ten! Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the silhouette of Dragal moving about on the cornice. Yes, the stone dragon was capable of reading his thoughts and was already informed.

         Unable to focus his attention on the class, as soon as the bell rang, Hadrián was the first to get up from his seat, but he couldn’t leave the classroom as quickly as he would have liked. The teacher stopped him in his tracks by placing a hand on his shoulder in a gesture the boy could not avoid.

         ‘Wait… I want a word with you.’

         In seconds, the two of them were alone, face to face, teacher and student.

         Miss Ermidas gazed long and hard at the boy, who in recent weeks had shed the look of a lost child he’d had when he arrived at the school at the beginning of the year.

         ‘I wanted to congratulate you. You did a really nice piece of work this time.’

         The teacher had been worried about him all year. The only child of a family torn apart by the accident, he’d come to the school, having moved from another city after his father died. Time is the best medicine to heal the soul’s wounds, thought the teacher.

         Hadrián did not reply straight away. To Miss Ermidas it seemed he let his gaze wander out of the window of the classroom, which was open next to him, fixing it for a moment on some indeterminate point. It was just for a moment, and then his face broke into a smile that revealed the brace on his teeth.

         ‘It’s just… this time I did what you said and studied hard.’

         This wasn’t the answer the teacher wanted, but she knew she wasn’t going to get a better one. There wasn’t much else to say so, before letting him go, she gave him some brief encouragement:

         ‘Carry on like this, you’ll soon find the path you’re looking for.’

         Of course I will, thought Hadrián, but he didn’t say anything. He squeezed the hand in his trouser pocket, feeling the strength of his talisman passing through his fingers. He felt the energy in his forearm, his elbow, reaching his shoulder… He let go before it burned too much, smiled at the teacher again and started walking down the corridor, towards the exit, where Mónica was waiting.

         Hadrián couldn’t talk to Miss Ermidas about what he already knew, tell her he’d found the path that had opened up for him centuries before and it was in his hands to fulfil the prophecy. Very soon.

THE DISCOVERY

The old church of St Peter’s was a gem of the medieval Romanesque style which, instead of being the typical cruciform church, occupied a curiously uneven surface.

         Flanked by buildings that had encroached upon the surrounding area over the centuries, the temple had managed to survive wars, fires and earthquakes, political changes, urban planning and property interests that almost wiped this unusual structure from the face of the earth on more than one occasion… but never quite achieved their objective.

         A few yards away, half a century earlier, a large, three-floor house had been built as a hotel. But, after the project was cancelled, this elegant building was turned into the secondary school the town needed.

         And so the teaching centre and the church Hadrián observed every day through the window of his classroom had lived side by side for years, as neighbours, although they had their back to each other and were separated by a small, enclosed courtyard.

         To begin with, all he saw was a stone wall eroded by the passage of time, stained by lichen and moss. But then the boy wasn’t really in a fit state for anything else.

         He’d never asked to change his life. Well, he might have done once: annoyed at the strict conditions imposed at home, he might have imagined a ‘carefree existence’ without parents, homework, early starts to catch the bus at eight in the morning… but not that this would happen.

         Misfortune, as always, had arrived unannounced.

         That afternoon, when he was playing football with his friends, his mother quickly came to pick him up.

         ‘What is it, mother?’

         ‘I’ll tell you in a minute,’ she said nervously when they got in the car. The expression on her face, which seemed to change all the time, as if she were struggling to hold back her tears, suggested it wasn’t good.

         ‘We’re going to the hospital. Your father’s had an accident.’

         Hadrián, though stunned, wanted to know what had happened and didn’t stop pestering his mother with questions all the way there. A tear on her face and silence, broken only by the horns of other cars in the traffic jam, were the only answers.

         The journey to the hospital seemed to last for ages, but time appeared to stop for ever when the surgeon on the fourth floor gave them the bad news:

         ‘I’m sorry. There was nothing we could do!’

         The news of his father’s passing went straight to his heart and what came afterwards was an absurd nightmare he wanted to forget as soon as possible. Only at times, in dreams, did he see himself dressed up in that black suit he borrowed for a day, next to his mother, also in mourning, walking behind the hearse.

         Waking up was always the same, shouting and bathed in sweat, having placed the heavy wreath on the cold stone under which his father rested, in that cemetery he never went back to.

         Thus began a period of absence, an existence that for a time Hadrián compared to the wall of St Peter’s, stained by lichen and moss, slowly eroded by the passing of centuries.

         It’s not easy to change city and life, to flee towards the unknown, knowing there’s no way back. It’s never easy, but perhaps the worst time is the first. It burns the soul to cut your roots, say goodbye to friends, promising to keep in touch, but knowing this won’t be easy to do. Or you don’t want to.

         For Hadrián, to the large void left by the definitive absence of his father was added pain caused by the small losses in his own life. They hadn’t even got back from the funeral when his mother informed him they were leaving the city, abandoning the house he’d lived in all his life, to start somewhere anew.

         A journey towards the northwest, a destination almost six hundred miles away, a new school, new friends among old acquaintances…

         ‘You’ll soon see, darling, how this change does us good,’ said his mother. ‘I know it won’t be easy to begin with, but you’ll soon feel at home.’

         Hadrián had been to Galicia before, but only on a visit. This land, where his parents had been born and spent their early years, struck him as a pretty place to spend the summer holidays… but that was all.

         He’d made a group of friends with whom he went to the beach, rode a bike and (it was better for his mother not to know) once went to look for sparrow nests, hunt salamanders and smoke out of sight. But to think about moving there permanently… no way!

         When the removals van drove away, leaving all that furniture piled up in front of their country house and the boxes with his things on the floor of an empty bedroom, Hadrián thought he would die. Up until that moment, the death of his father, the funeral, the move… had struck him as a bad dream.

         Now, sitting on a cardboard box that had been sealed three times with packing tape, listening to the movements of his mother putting things away in the adjoining room, he realized it was really happening.

         ‘Come on, darling, you have to sort your things out!’

         His mother’s face appeared in the doorway. She was pretty, but the suffering of recent weeks had left their mark on her features, including large bags under her eyes. She was trying now to smile.

         ‘Come on, Hadrián, we don’t have all day!’ she said, grabbing hold of the first box and breaking the seal with a small knife.

         Clothes, books, old toys… The boy hadn’t wanted to leave anything behind and now the small treasures of his childhood piled up on the floor, waiting for a permanent place on some shelf.

         It was then, as he was putting his things inside a large, fitted oak wardrobe, that his mother gave him the amulet.

         ‘Here, Hadrián. I think your father would have wanted you to have this,’ she said, carefully placing a metal object in his hand, which she clasped with her own for a moment.

         The boy gazed in curiosity at the piece of old metal now occupying more than half the palm of his hand. It looked like an enormous old coin, but it could also have been a medallion because it had a hook for attaching a chain.

         On the face, an animal with a crocodile’s mouth agape, large, webbed feet ending in claws, a body covered in scales, a bat’s wings covered in feathers and three serpent tails, stared at him through its red-stone eye.

         Was it a dragon?

         On the reverse, what looked like the same animal, but more majestic, adopted a serene pose. In this case, the monster was lying down, tending to what appeared to be an egg, its mouth closed on its front paws. Hadrián’s attention was drawn by its eyes, which were emerald green, shining calmly in the sunlight.

         ‘What is it, mother?’ asked Hadrián, seeking an explanation for this strange present.

         The woman shrugged her shoulders.

         ‘I don’t know. I found it among your father’s things. He also liked to keep treasures from when he was a child. I suppose it must have been part of some game. But if you don’t want it…’

         The boy immediately closed his hand, bringing it to his chest.

         ‘Please, mother… of course I want it!’

         She glanced around the room, where there were dozens of tiny objects in little piles, making a mess she was already very familiar with.

         ‘Well, if I see it lying about, I’ll put it back with my things,’ she warned him.

         Little did she know how important that amulet would be in her son’s life. Hadrián himself didn’t pay it much attention for a while.

         It all happened around the sixth week of term, on the first morning of rain in that grey autumn. The fifth-form classroom Hadrián had been put into looked out on to a small, enclosed courtyard with nothing worthy of attention other than the fights between pigeons and seagulls over scraps from a rubbish container.

         The boy had already been caught out more than once, and punished with detention or extra homework, but he didn’t mind. He had no friends to spend his free time with, nor any wish to do something special in the afternoons, so he carried on staring out of the window for hours, and days, on end.

         That morning, because of the rain, the colours of the town had changed. The rays and dampness filling everything created strange effects of light and shade, revealing a new side to St Peter’s. The old church, which he’d barely paid attention to before, was bristling with mysterious symbols.

         From his place, Hadrián could clearly make out the beasts on the façade, a set of monsters that, thanks to the rain that seemed to emphasize the stone sculptures, appeared to have come to life, having been forgotten for such a long time.

         On the portico, the figures of some saints welcomed the faithful, sitting down, their hands open in a gesture of goodwill. And then, on the capitals, the boy could glimpse the images of various fantastic creatures he wasn’t sure how to differentiate.

         It was on that morning, when the rain revealed to him the ‘hidden face’ of St Peter’s, that the boy discovered what looked like one of the faces from his medallion sculpted in the stone. Then, as he glanced a little further on, in perfect symmetry, he discerned what could have been the other face.

         Still surprised by his discovery, he realized a monstrous, winged effigy, larger in size, was staring straight at him from the cornice. It had always been there, he’d probably seen it on the very first day, but this time boy and stone gazed at each other and then, as if such a thing were possible, the dragon winked at him.

         From that moment on, the statue positioned on the façade of St Peter’s began to inhabit his impossible dreams.

         Meanwhile, unaware of what was happening to Hadrián, the history teacher, Mr Alberte, was informing the rest of the class about the ‘guardians’ of the ancient temple.

         ‘Gargoyles are decorative elements the builders of the Middle Ages placed at the end of drainpipes on the roofs of churches and cathedrals. But, in such buildings, it’s also normal to find other monsters and fantastical beings added to the façade once the building work has been finished. That’s the case with chimeras, whose purpose is to protect the temple and intimidate sinners.’

         The teacher was an expert at keeping the children’s attention.

         ‘A dragon can take the form of a terrifying serpent that defends treasures. This is why our ancestors used it as a military badge, putting it on their shields and the prows of their ships. A dragon, don’t forget, routs enemies and represents power. If you take a look at the church next door, apart from the two pigeons now strutting about the eaves, you might come across the odd sleeping dragon,’ he informed the pupils, who were hanging on his every word.

         The whole class stood up, trying to glimpse the hidden dragon on the façade of St Peter’s. Hadrián, who from his desk had already discovered at least seven images adopting different postures, also went over to the window, but remained quiet.

         The teacher then pointed towards the old temple and asked a question:

         ‘What’s a dragon doing above the entrance to St Peter’s? Is there anybody who knows and can enlighten us?’

         A growing hum spread around the classroom as everybody came up with their own theories. Hadrián wasn’t the first to talk, he wasn’t even aware he’d done so, but his voice was the only one that made itself heard:

         ‘It’s watching. Waiting for its moment to come.’

         This was followed by a long silence.

THE SIGNS

That same afternoon, Hadrián devoted himself in body and soul to tidying up his room. His mother was very surprised because he never usually paid her much attention when she was the one who asked him to keep his room a little bit ordered and clean.

         It seemed incredible that, in just a few weeks, everything could be so messy, but, once he’d started his search, the boy realized he had a pressing need to deal with the question of hygiene. His T-shirts were scattered here and there, smelly ones mixed up with others that were clean and folded, waiting to be put away. There were also two mud stains on the carpet and an odd sock that had wandered into the wastepaper basket, with the subsequent risk of ending up in the wheelie bin at any moment.

         The boy’s attention today, however, was not centred on helping his mother with the household tasks, he’d do that some other time.

         ‘Where the blazes did I put that medallion of my father’s?’ he kept asking himself, trying to remember.

         When his mother had given it to him, Hadrián had promised to look after it, but now… he couldn’t remember where he’d put it.

         At the bottom of a drawer? No, perhaps not. On the shelf where he kept his books? Obviously not. He’d almost lost all hope when, rummaging around, he finally found it among a group of objects piled up on his desk.

         He took it in his hand, felt the surfaces and looked at the two faces. The coin was heavy, much more than he remembered, he’d never seen anything like it. It seemed to be made out of old metal. Its colour was like that on the bottom of the pots used by the woman who sold octopus. It wasn’t rusty, but parts of the material seemed to have been eroded by the passage of time.

         In order to scrutinize the engravings more carefully, he held it under the fluorescent lamp on his desk and examined the details.

         Yes, these images looked a lot like the stone dragons sculpted on two of the capitals on the porch of St Peter’s.

         The boy gazed at one of the medallion’s faces, where the dragon was protecting what looked like an egg. He passed his forefinger over the scales that covered a large part of its body and stroked the feathered wings. The green stone had been strategically placed where the eye was meant to be and, in the light of the lamp, gave the impression it was part of a living creature.

         The caress filled him with a strange sensation.

         He turned the medallion over until the other side was completely illuminated and felt a shock he didn’t like at all. There was the dragon, opening an enormous mouth full of pointed teeth in a threatening gesture. The front paws ended in a strange mixture between an eagle’s talons and a frog’s legs, while the back paws looked like those of a lion.

         Over time, the scales covering a large part of the reptile’s body had acquired a green hue on the red metal, as had the kind of beard that occupied the lower part of its face. Seen like this, with its wings wide open, it looked as if it were ready to pounce and, with the red eye gleaming on its face, the dragon’s three tails changed position, forming a double triangle.

         Hadrián stood still.

         Had the dragon’s tails really moved?

         Impossible. This was an old metal medallion and images on metal medallions don’t move on their own, do they?

         But the fact was the dragon’s three tails now formed a sign that reminded Hadrián of the belfry of St Peter’s.

         None of this made any sense, but he’d have to find some meaning if he didn’t want to start thinking he’d gone a little crazy.

         This is how he spent the night, turning the matter over in his mind, but in all that time Hadrián couldn’t find a logical explanation for what had happened. He was absolutely sure the medallion had undergone a kind of transformation, the appearance of one of its faces had changed, but he couldn’t work out the mechanism that had made such a change possible.

         He stroked it on both sides, threw it on the floor, heated it with a lighter, scrubbed it with soap in the bathroom… but no, there was no way. It may have been a bit cleaner, but that was all.

         Sleep didn’t put an end to this state of uncertainty and he spent quite a long time trying to remember what the medallion had looked like when his mother gave it to him. Yes, it was basically the same, but then he realized the dragon had three tails because each of them was pointing in a different direction. Yikes, this was scary!

         At one point, playing with the metal, he spun it on its side, as his father used to do with two-euro coins.

         ‘Heads, it’s yours. Tails, you have no choice but to make do and help me clean the garage,’ he used to say. It was always tails… as it was now.

         Hadrián felt fear bubbling away in his stomach. There was the dragon, with its jaws agape in a threatening gesture and its three tails separate, but all pointing in the same direction… towards the door?

         He didn’t dare take the coin this time. In silence, he slowly left the room and went downstairs to the living room.

         On a shelf, he remembered having seen the old copy of the Bible his grandmother, Xulia, used to take to church on Sundays.

         Dedicated by the bishop and blessed by the Pope, she used to claim.

         He didn’t know whether this blessed Bible would help, but he had no information concerning other cures that could be used in cases of finding a metal dragon in a living state, so he took the book and went back to his room, taking care not to trip on the stairs.

         Hadrián hadn’t attended any kind of church service for quite some time and wasn’t sure whether a Catholic prayer poorly learned prior to taking First Communion would serve as an antidote to whatever was lurking inside that medallion lying on the desk in his bedroom.

         Even so, as soon as he crossed the threshold and caught sight of the gleaming dragon, he placed the book open at a chapter of the Gospels on top of the coin, turned out the light and went to bed.

         ‘You really are an idiot. The dragon’s asking you to go out the door, and what do you do? You start wandering about the landing. In the dark!’

         The boy was thinking aloud, a little frightened by what had just happened. The image of the medallion’s mutation kept turning over in his mind and did so until the first rays of morning restored the tranquillity he’d lost during the night.

         During that time of wakefulness, he recalled a strange story his father had told him six or seven years earlier, one St John’s Eve, next to the fire.

         Hadrián could picture his father’s face as he told him the story, hugging him on his lap so he wouldn’t be afraid.

         ‘On magical mornings like this, when I was still a child, the story was told in the village that, more than a thousand years ago, very near here, there lived a terrible monster that, as so often happened with dragons down the centuries, devoted itself to killing cattle and stealing children. It had the shape of a gigantic reptile, with a body like that of a large snake. It also had four feet with terrifying claws and two enormous wings for flying.’

         Hadrián could imagine that fearful creature that had the ability to spew flames out of its mouth. His father’s dragon was also endowed with the power to read people’s thoughts.

         ‘At that time, there were two opposed groups in the town. Some prayed to heaven for help and thought about the best way of killing a creature they considered a monster and so ridding themselves of that curse.’

         ‘And the others?’

         ‘The others had come together in secret in order to protect the dragon and keep its magic alive. They created an order of knights that…’

         But his father never finished the tale he began next to the fire. His mother, he remembered it well, had told his father off for sharing this frightening story and sent the child to bed just as the story was getting interesting.

         Hadrián had turned the matter over in his mind a couple of times before falling asleep and forgetting.

         Now, after what had happened with the medallion lying on his desk, the boy recalled that story in which dragons, under their scaly coats, harboured magical powers that went beyond his imagination.

         He couldn’t get to sleep that night and, even though he was dead tired, when morning broke, he didn’t need his mother to knock twice at the door of his room. It was half past seven and he had to get up to catch the bus to school.

ALLIES IN THE SHADOWS

From the first day, Hadrián had felt uncomfortable in that school, which had nothing in common with the modern city college where he’d studied since nursery and left his lifelong friends. What he did find, because they’re everywhere, was the typical ‘Mafioso’ who devoted his existence to making life hell for others.

         In this case, the Mafioso’s name was Brais and he led a group of ruffians who, with more brawn than brains, had taken control of the less frequented local areas. It didn’t take them long, when Hadrián came to town, to form a united front and plague his existence, using anything he said or did to make fun of him.

         Every day, to avoid having problems, Hadrián would head towards the classroom as soon as he got off the bus, passing straight by the groups of children sitting on the school steps, lying on the grass in the schoolyard or leaning against the walls. He felt more secure there, at the desk he’d been assigned on his first day, and only the insistence of a teacher who made him work as part of a team would encourage him to enter into contact with the other pupils. Until the bell rang.

         On this occasion, as always on sunny days, the shadow of the old church belfry fell on the schoolyard, crossing it from side to side during the morning until alighting on itself at midday.

         He’d never realized, but as it moved there came a point where it converged with the shadow of the winged dragon on the cornice. Craning his neck, he glimpsed a drawing on the ground, the exact form of which he was unable to make out from the window.

         The boy related what he’d seen to the events of the previous night. If the two capitals on the columns that flanked the porch of the church had the same relief that was on his medallion, and if the shadow of the church belfry and the dragon on the cornice formed the same design as the bas-relief… then this could be a clue!

         Hadrián decided to visit St Peter’s after class, hoping to observe all these images up close and see if there were any other dragons inside the church.

         He was still planning what he would do at break when, two steps away from his desk, he came up against Miss Ermidas’ inquisitorial gaze. The teacher had approached without the boy realizing and he had no choice but to return to reality.

         ‘I imagine, Hadrián, you wouldn’t mind going up to the blackboard and explaining the solution to the problem,’ she said, brusquely handing him a piece of chalk.

         The boy, whose mind had gone blank and who was at a loss for an answer, stammered out what was meant to be an excuse. He couldn’t string two words together before he was interrupted by the guffaws of all the pupils sitting at the back of the class.

         When he saw the formulas written on the large, dark slab that covered most of the far wall, he realized the rest of the group had been working on the solution to an equation he didn’t have a clue about. He’d been caught with his pants down!

         Overcome by a sense of shame, he waited for the laughter to die down. He took a deep breath, grabbed the chalk the teacher offered him and stood up in a gesture of bravery he hadn’t been expecting himself.

         Deep down, mixed with the beating of his own heart, he could hear the voice of his conscience rebuking him for such a suicidal act. One step, two steps, three steps… he approached the blackboard and with his right hand slowly started writing numbers and formulas that were unfamiliar to him, but came without his asking, one after the other.

         To begin with, there was laughter and he could hear muttering and sarcastic comments behind him: ‘They don’t teach you maths in the sticks’, ‘You can’t always get away with the excuse of being an outsider’, ‘The world is full of visionaries who spend the day with their head in the clouds’…

         Hadrián kept looking forwards, at the blackboard, breathing slowly in an attempt to control his anger. Meanwhile, the chalk swept over the blackboard, leaving a trail of white on the blackness.

         When he’d finished writing, in absolute silence by now, the boy returned to his seat, expecting to be the victim of widespread mockery. But this didn’t happen. On the blackboard, in his characteristically tiny handwriting, Hadrián had got the solution right to the intricate problem Miss Ermidas had spent two hours explaining that morning, while the boy had been absorbed in following the progress of the dragon’s shadow.

         Visibly surprised by the incident, the teacher stared at him, as if trying to read his thoughts. The shrill sound of the bell put an end to that awkward silence.

         ‘Hadrián, wait!’ she cried.

         But the boy’s footsteps were already resounding in the corridor, in the direction of the stairs. After what had happened in the last few hours and minutes, he needed air and in the classroom he felt unable to breathe.

NEW DISCOVERIES

The vicar of St Peter’s was a short, stout old man who always walked with the help of a stick. Father Xurxo was permanently surrounded by children, especially after his catechism classes, which were attended by dozens of candidates preparing for First Communion.

         The priest had a leisurely way of talking and a soft, pleasant voice, a little affected perhaps by the pastoral work he’d been doing all his life. The image of the priest was always preceded by the fragrance of country apples, of which he always had a supply in his jacket pocket – ‘to keep hunger at bay,’ as he used to say.

         The fruit of his long experience, Father Xurxo also had a kind of ‘sixth sense’ with children, which enabled him to quickly guess when something wasn’t right.

         This is why, when he glimpsed the presence of that swarthy lad looking tall and dishevelled, staring in bewilderment at the façade of his church, he deduced there was something strange going on.

         The boy, whom he couldn’t identify with any of the local families, walked around the building a couple of times, paying particular attention to the various decorative elements on the frontispiece. The parish priest was not surprised to see him jotting things down and making drawings in a little notebook he kept in his back trouser pocket, since lots of students came to St Peter’s to acquaint themselves with the various architectural styles present in this ancient building. What he did find strange, however, was that the boy, believing himself to be alone, should start talking to the dragon presiding over the main entrance, falling silent from time to time, as if he expected – or even got – an answer.

         Seated at the desk in the vestry, Father Xurxo couldn’t make out what the boy was whispering to the effigy carved in stone. But he could observe his reactions, the way his face changed, his gleaming eyes and nervous smile.

         ‘Blasted drugs! The children taking that rubbish get younger every day!’

         Father Xurxo began to shift in his chair until, feeling annoyed, he could stand it no longer. The priest rose up to his full height, grabbed hold of his stick and emerged from his hiding place in the direction of the street.

         ‘Hadrián, watch out!’

         The dragon’s warning arrived at exactly the moment the slight fragrance of a ripe pippin aroused the boy’s pituitary gland. He heard a few nervous footsteps approaching on the gravel, turned around and met the figure of the parish priest, which was small and imposing at the same time. He smiled.

         Hadrián’s gleaming brace and clean look completely disarmed the priest, who had already prepared an instructive discourse concerning the dangers confronted by teenagers. The vicar came to an abrupt halt, letting go of his stick, which bounced along the ground and landed at the boy’s feet. In a flash, the boy bent down, quickly picked up the stick and handed it back to the priest.

         ‘Ah, thank you, my boy!’

         Father Xurxo was almost speechless, taken aback by the attitude of this boy who, viewed from up close, had a certain familiar air.

         ‘Well, well… I have the impression I haven’t seen you around here, though there’s something familiar about you. What family do you belong to… and what are you doing in the street during class?’

         The boy had been expecting these questions without the dragon’s magical intervention. Curiosity glinted in the bottom of the vicar’s eyes, which went from being green to grey.

         ‘You must be Father Xurxo. I’m Hadrián, the late Miss Xulia’s grandson.’

         There was no need for any further introduction. Hadrián’s grandmother had been one of his most assiduous parishioners and had left a large donation in her will for the saying of Masses. Hadrián and his parents had never attended services, but family was family, especially in this corner of the country.

         ‘My, haven’t you grown!’ exclaimed the priest, looking slightly surprised.

         Father Xurxo could recall a tubby boy whose knees had always been covered in scrapes and bruises. Once he’d even used Mercurochrome to heal an ugly wound the boy had received after falling off the wall of the rectory.

         ‘It really stung! There was a little stone that got stuck under my skin and you wanted to remove it, but I kept running away, so you wouldn’t touch the wound.’

         Hadrián rolled up his trouser leg to reveal the scar shaped like a ‘7’ that remained on his knee. He stroked the mark, which after such a long time was still a little whiter than the rest of his skin. Beneath the seam could be glimpsed a little object that moved a few millimetres when you pressed it. Evident proof, if any were needed, that the boy had got his own way.

         Having finished with the introductions and remembered old times, the priest insisted on the second of his questions, which the boy still hadn’t answered. He wanted to know what Hadrián was doing next to the church at that hour, when the rest of his companions were still in class.

         The boy’s dark eyes met the old priest’s gaze for a moment. He wasn’t sure whether he could trust him, but he felt very alone with his secret.

         ‘I was counting the dragons on the church. I’d never noticed them before. The truth is they’re amazing!’

         Ah, the dragons!

         Father Xurxo’s smile spread from ear to ear. What was there to tell him about dragons if his name meant George in Galician – a saint who was a specialist in the subject! Now these mythological beings had come back into fashion, the children who came to catechism were amazed by the story of this soldier who rescued a princess, which he told them from time to time to liven up his classes.

         ‘If you’re interested in dragons, then you can’t stay at the door. St Peter’s is a very unusual church and, as is the case with people, the best part is not on the outside. If I were you, I’d spend a couple of minutes looking around the inside of the building. You might find the odd thing that interests you!’ remarked the priest.

         The boy didn’t hesitate for more than a moment, just enough to sense the reticent attitude of Dragal, who in this way would not be able to listen in on their conversation. A quick look at the chimera was enough to glimpse what he interpreted as a sign of unease… if dragons sculpted in stone are capable of feeling unease, but that’s another question!

         When they entered the temple, Hadrián was surprised by the lack of light and the silence he found inside, conducive to meditation. The church had a side door and pews arranged in various rows, facing the altar, but in an unusual way.

         Father Xurxo placed his hand in the stoup and, having crossed himself, entered the nave, followed by the boy. In no time at all, they covered the distance that separated them from the apse, walking on an enormous mosaic with geometrical designs.

         The boy, who by now was used to the flickering light of the candles, gazed at the ornamental motifs that were part of the altarpiece of stone and mural paintings, searching for more images of dragons that might be contained in the church’s interior. If there were at least seven different figures outside, it was possible the builders had devoted considerable space to them inside.

         But the capitals, corbels and metopes had been filled with instructive scenes from the Bible, vegetal patterns and other geometrical figures that had nothing to do with the object of his search.

         The altar had the appearance of a stone table supported by four small columns that were covered in beautiful historiated mouldings and had been raised two feet above the level of the rest of the church. Behind it, various images of saints occupied recesses in the large altarpiece that stretched the length of the wall and was adorned with golden vegetal motifs.

         The first level was occupied, on the right and left, by a statue of Christ and an image of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, and presided over by a carving of St Peter.

         To the right of the altar – or the left, depending on how you looked at it – was a large stone receptacle adorned with braids and held up by a fluted column. The font was covered in wooden boards that had been intricately carved and looked very old.

         At the back of the church, Hadrián glimpsed what appeared to be a large, wooden wardrobe with barred windows that were draped with curtains. He guessed this was the confessional.

         Father Xurxo watched the scene with amusement, observing how the boy closely examined the constructive elements and decoration of the church. Hadrián’s face was a picture of dismay.

         The vicar waited a while and, when he thought the boy was on the verge of abandoning his search, gave him a wink and placed a hand on his shoulders in a gesture of complicity.

         ‘If you want to enter the fantastical world of dragons, you also have to have a little faith. It might not be such a bad idea to pray to him upstairs.’

         Hadrián looked at Father Xurxo, trying to hide his disappointment.

         So now it seems the solution resides in praying, let’s see if with a prayer or two… he thought and, working on an excuse that would enable him to leave the church as soon as possible, he gazed up at the ceiling.

         He was stunned by what he saw. Right above his head, lurking in the shadows and emerging from the stone everywhere, was the most impressive dragon he could have imagined.

         Terrifying, truly horrifying, each of the ribs of the double vault of St Peter’s ended in a dragon’s head, all of which were a bright red and yellow colour, with gaping jaws and sinuous tongues.

         One, two, three, four… the boy counted as many as ten dragon heads above him. As he followed them, he was able to see that they belonged to two monsters. The first arose from a beautiful image of the Mother and Child, whereas the four ribs of the adjoining vault, which were also decorated with dragon heads, originated from a stone, polychrome shield that was a clear allusion to the name of the church, with St Peter’s two keys crossing over each other.

         ‘There are the dragons you were looking for!’ said Father Xurxo, proud of the treasure hidden inside the old temple.

         ‘I can’t believe it!’ Stunned, still gazing at the ceiling, the boy sat down on a wooden pew. Even though the colours had been subdued by the passage of time, the vision was impressive.

         The female figure, dressed in a white tunic and blue mantle that was red on the inside, had been shown standing on a half moon. Wearing a golden crown, she carried a child in her arms, who in turn held an open book in his hands.

         This familiar image, found numerous times in Catholic iconography, was in sharp contrast to the hellish allegories that surrounded it. The six dragon heads rising like serpents at the feet of the Virgin’s image were extraordinary.

         ‘Surprising, right? You don’t get many artistic scenes like this one. All it needs is a good clean!’ admitted the priest.

         Hadrián was expecting something else, an explanation of these images that surpassed any sculptures he’d ever seen. Reading his thoughts, the vicar came out with a word followed by two numbers and a prediction:

         ‘Revelation 12:1. After that, you won’t stop asking questions.’

         Hadrián already had lots of questions, but not the opportunity to ask them. The echo of some hesitant footsteps broke the spell.

         ‘Good morning, Father Xurxo and company. Carme, Cosme’s widow, brought this present and I’m going to use it to make a bouquet for Our Lady.’

         A woman came closer, carrying a beautiful bunch of flowers that filled the church with their fragrance. It was Inocencia, the verger’s wife, walking slowly towards them, dragging her feet on the ground and a heap of years on her back.

         Hadrián used this interruption to take his leave:

         ‘Well, Father Xurxo, we’ll continue our conversation another time. I think I should be getting back to school. Thanks for everything!’

         And, without drawing out the formalities any longer, he left the priest surrounded by carnations and roses.

         Out in the street, still stunned by what he’d seen inside the temple, he tried to fill his lungs with the air that had been lacking inside the church.

         ‘St Peter’s is full of secrets and you have the key to find the answers,’ said that voice again, inside his head.

         ‘Secrets… what secrets?’ asked the boy, scanning the porch of the ancient building.

         A different voice, female this time, brought him back to reality:

         ‘Hadrián, where have you been? You didn’t come to the language class!’

         One of his classmates, Mónica, came over, holding different-coloured folders and carrying a heavy rucksack on her back.

         Oh, dear! The boy remembered they’d arranged to present a project together on a work of literature, but he’d forgotten and left her in the lurch. There was no excuse for it… or was there?

NECESSARY ACCOMPLICES

Mónica listened to Hadrián’s story from beginning to end, without interruptions. The boy had started by apologizing and admitting he hadn’t done the project for their language class or even remembered it. Then he started talking about dragons.

         The girl had never heard anything like it, but the excuse was a very elaborate one. Unless, of course, her classmate had gone a bit screwy, but she was prepared to give him time and await the turn of events.

         Days before, when they’d been paired together to do their language assignment, neither of them had been particularly enthusiastic. Hadrián ‘the new boy’ and Mónica ‘the swot’ were two solitary species who didn’t enjoy popular support or the necessary success to be a triumph among their classmates. Or even to survive.

         So, when the teacher suggested creating groups for the purpose of this exercise, he discovered that nobody had chosen either of these pupils. Seeing this, the man decided the lesser of two evils would be to make them work together.

         With laboured sentences, Hadrián set out the pieces of his own particular puzzle until the girl was able to get a picture of the situation.

         As they walked alongside each other in the direction of the bus stop, Mónica considered the possibilities of a fantastical creature like a dragon being able to communicate with a human being in order to pass on some kind of message. What Hadrián had said was totally crazy, but at least it was more interesting than seeking information about Romantic poets.

         Hoping to find out more about this curious incident, the girl accepted the boy’s invitation to do their missing assignment in his house. Perhaps that same afternoon she could see this strange medallion that supposedly had the ability to transform itself!

         Mónica caught the bus after lunch and, having travelled for three miles on public transport, found herself sitting surrounded by the warmth of an iron stove. Hadrián’s mother had had to go back to work in town and, having put on her make-up, had left the two children covering the kitchen table with their folders and textbooks, felt tips and blank sheets, on which they immediately started writing.

         With the help of various volumes they’d borrowed from the school library, their work gradually began to take shape. The two teenagers finished their project by mid-afternoon, having shared a surprising atmosphere of conviviality.

         ‘Well, that’s it then! Three weeks turning the matter over in our heads and we’ve finished it in a couple of hours!’ said the girl when they’d completed the exercise.

         ‘There’s nothing like working as part of a team… and the truth is I’d missed it,’ admitted Hadrián.

         This was the opportunity Mónica had been waiting for.

         ‘Yes, secrets are best shared as part of a team. Like that medallion of yours. If you like, before I go home, we could have a look at it.’

         The boy was taken by surprise. What’s more, while working on their project, he’d managed to put the theme of dragons out of his mind. Her proposal knocked him for six.

         ‘Um, well… I don’t know… I hadn’t really thought…’

         His garbled answer changed the expression on the girl’s face. She put her rucksack on her back and headed for the exit.

         ‘No, wait, don’t go!’ shouted Hadrián, grabbing her by the arm.

         She stopped and stared into the bottom of his eyes, speaking slowly:

         ‘Listen… this morning you told me a sci-fi story to explain your absence from a class in which we were supposed to present a project we hadn’t even done yet. It sounded like a cock-and-bull story, but I wanted to believe you. This afternoon, we worked together in your house and everything was fantastic, but now I’ve dared to mention the medallion from your story… we’re not friends any more, nor is there any trust between us. Well, it was a pleasure doing homework with you! Just don’t call me when you’re in trouble again!’

         Mónica’s look brooked no argument. Either Hadrián had to show her his treasure or… that was the end of their relationship.

         The sentence he’d just come out with – ‘There’s nothing like working as part of a team’ – echoed now inside his head. The girl’s help could be of use to him on that journey without return he seemed about to undertake.

         ‘OK then, come and see my room,’ he agreed. The room was not exactly in a fit state to receive visitors, but that didn’t matter right now.

         Hadrián took Mónica by the hand and, imagining the look his mother would have given him had she caught him in this adventure, he led her to the first floor of the house, climbing the eighteen steps that separated the two floors.

         The boy’s room was the first door on the right. Inside the lair were personal objects of every kind. Having rummaged through the various possessions lying on top of his desk, the boy grabbed hold of a metal disk.

         Mónica took it in her hands with an almost reverential gesture, feeling the contact with the disk in every pore of her skin. The medallion was cold, very cold, but she gradually felt a heat that almost burned her hand. Strange, very strange.

         The girl rubbed the medallion on her jeans a couple of times, as if wanting to polish the metal surface of undefined colours that kept emitting unusual rays. She then held the edge of the coin between her thumb and middle finger and twisted it around so she could see the images reproduced on its front and reverse.

         At first sight, it was a peculiar object. The obverse of the medallion, which was a crimson hue, showed the effigy of a dragon. Its stance was aggressive, its jaws agape as if it was ready to attack with an imminent blast of flames and a gleaming red look. The texture of the surface was as unusual as its colour, a mutant garnet that reproduced the effect of a covering of scales.

         Meanwhile, on the reverse, a green dragon was dozing, protecting between its legs an egg that also seemed to change appearance. Perhaps it was the light or her imagination, but at one point Mónica caught sight of a movement.

         ‘Did you see that?’ she asked Hadrián. ‘I could swear it moved!’

         The boy laughed.

         ‘It looks as if you’ve been affected by that story I told you! What moved during the night was the dragon’s tails, forming those triangles it now has,’ he corrected her.

         The girl handed back the object and, after studying the face, spoke very seriously:

         ‘I can’t see any triangles… The tails are intertwined.’

         Hadrián’s face changed colour. He was sure now the coin had the ability to alter its appearance, although he still needed the key that would enable him to decipher the message hidden in that piece of metal.

         He had been given the leading role in a game whose rules were unfamiliar to him, but which he had to carry on playing.

Text © Elena Gallego Abad

Translation © Jonathan Dunne

This and later instalments in the saga are available to read in English – see the page “YA Novels”.