April

Issue 31

*Author's note: There is no truth to the rumor that this story was based upon a partial manuscript found in an antique Victorian trunk bearing the initials "R.K.," which was auctioned off at Sotheby's in 1950.  CTT

         Now, my little acorns, come and sit under the Mother Tree while I tell you a story. You must be still and not all fidgety-widgety, for there are Important Things in this story to which you should pay attention. Very well then.

         The Dragon Keepers lived in the Dark Green. That is what they called it in their natural language. Whenever they wanted to go somewhere cool, dark, safe, where the riverbank waited with its mushy mud, where good things to eat grew ripe, where trees and creeper-vines grew so thick that they could hide all day if they wanted to and never be seen, they said, “I am going to the Dark Green.” And all the other Dragon Keepers knew what they meant.

         Their tribe had been known as the Dragon Keepers since before any of them could remember, and even before THEN. So it may surprise and puzzle you to learn that they did not really keep dragons at all. They did not keep them the way you keep a cricket in a cage or a goat in pen, oh no! Come close, little acorns, and I will tell you: They kept the dragons the way you keep a Secret, so that only Certain People know about it. And the Dragon Keepers were those Certain People.