Snip Snap Dragon

A family partakes in a strange ritual on the winter solstice, leading to a violent and total transformation

Mara Davis Price is writer of fiction and poetry from North Carolina. They earned their MFA in creative writing from Queens University of Charlotte in 2021 and currently work as an editor for a peer-review management and author support company. Their work has been featured in Ponder Review, Beaver Magazine, Folklore Review, Carolina Muse, Witness: Appalachia to Hatteras, and Soft Star Magazine Issues Two and Five. In their spare time, Mara enjoys rewatching Buffy the Vampire Slayer, crafting, shopping for secondhand plus size clothes, getting tattoos, and spending time with their husband, musician Christian Rettig, and their cats, Frankie and Fern.

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​​”...Why must every winter

grow colder, and more sure?”

— Jennifer Chang, “The World”

When you look at someone, you can only look into one eye at a time. That’s how Isaac first noticed the change: he could see both of his brother’s eyes completely, all at once.

The earth turned on its wide wheel and the days grew short and coarse. When it didn’t snow, the stars looked brighter against the heady dark. Everything in the winter felt sharp, as if the wind was dragging its long nails down your back, stinging your cheeks with quick, harsh smacks.

Wayne let the cold bite him. He sat downstairs in the wingback chair and didn’t bother propping his feet up on the ottoman. A single light was on — the old lamp on the table next to the chair — casting warm amber light around the living room. The hairs on his arms were standing at attention, bristling in the frigid air. He wore a thin cotton shirt.

Soft noises sounded from the kitchen: the distinctive pour of liquid into a glass, brief, perhaps two fingers of whiskey. His parents kept the good spirits in the dining room, so Wayne knew it was his mother’s cheap liquor, taken from the freezer and drunk with abandon. He knew the burn of it, and his throat itched.

Wayne was fourteen; he shouldn’t have been able to discern the smoothness of a whiskey. But he knew it all the same. Mostly he knew the complex flavors of a good brandy, as he’d had years to take apart each note. They bought the same brandy in town every December and yet it tasted different every year.

The wind whistled outside, and the house creaked on its foundation. When the wind blew, you could feel it gusting straight through the house, even with a fire burning. The heating was spotty at best, so they had to build a fire most every day. It was the boys’ job to go out and cut the wood, if they didn’t buy enough. They never bought enough.

Wayne looked down at his hands. They were splintered, chapped; he’d chopped wood earlier that day, and his gloves were threadbare now, worn down from heavy use. He didn’t have the heart to tell his mother that he needed new ones, and that his coat was getting too small, and that his boots were becoming waterlogged in the shin-high snow. He knew that the money could be put to better use, and he could bear the cold.

He always bore the cold. Even in the summer he could feel its presence, could hear the hush of a blizzard on a hot and quiet day. Wayne believed he was obligated to feel it, after everything.

Tonight they would take their turns with the brandy and breathe blue fire in the dark. And Isaac would change again.

Wayne had always been a smart boy, always astute. He first sensed the difference in his brother four years ago, when Isaac was thirteen. Sometimes his pupils got so big it was like they’d been fixed that way, even when staring into the fire. Wayne couldn’t sleep in their shared room for the sounds Isaac was always making; long, pained grunts and groans, like he was fighting something off in his dreams.

The changes started on the day of the first snow and increased from there. The chill in the air no longer wavered; it stuck. Wayne still wore his long johns underneath his clothes, but Isaac had started to refuse them. He always seemed too hot, and his skin just about burned to touch.

That was the year his parents decided to allow the boys to drink the brandy with them. They always drank it ceremoniously on the shortest day, the very longest, most interminable night: the winter solstice. Back in those days, his parents would drink often in celebration, and the ritual that year had been filled with laughter and playful ribbing when the boys couldn’t handle their liquor.

But when Isaac’s retching turned violent, bloody, Wayne somehow knew they’d reached a precipice. His transformation was fulfilling itself like a prophecy coming to pass. Wayne watched the blue flames lick at his brother’s lips, watched him swallow, watched the fire trail down his throat into his belly and burn there like a red-hot coal. And then Isaac really did transform, right before their eyes.

Wayne’s mother was still drinking in the kitchen by the time his father came home. That’s something she did often now, drinking. Only when she drank these days, she did it grimly, and it was clear she was not celebrating anything.

His father stomped the snow off his boots on the front porch before entering the house. His broad cheeks were made ruddier by the cold, and he shook snowflakes from his long, black hair. He nodded at his youngest son, then made his way into the kitchen.

There was no conversation between his parents, and from his vantage point in the wingback chair, Wayne could not see into the kitchen. He imagined them revolving around each other like distant planets, careful not to touch and crash. He heard another glug of whiskey being poured, and did not know whether it was for his father or his mother, until he heard the same sound repeated, into a different glass.

The solstice had come again. The change would happen again. They all knew it and so their mouths were all set in thin, hard lines. Wayne thought of going into the kitchen for his own drink but remained rooted in his chair, the goosebumps still stiff on his arms.

Isaac had still not come in. But the sun would set shortly; he’d come along soon.

Wayne had always dreaded the time of year when the days began to shorten. He liked to be outside until late; he liked to play with his brother in the dead leaves, gathering them up into piles to plunge within. He liked summer. He liked when the snow finally melted in the late spring, when the robins returned and the birdsong resumed and he couldn’t remember when it had ever stopped.

Now the summer never seemed long enough. Now, the daylight whittled away at a tortuously slow pace as they crept closer to the start of winter. Gone were the endless summers of his youth, when the days seemed to stretch on forever, and night felt blessedly brief. Now the winter would assert its dominance again.

He knew, logically, that the days would only get longer after today. But that, too, was an achingly slow process, and winter nights in the grasslands were oppressively long.

The only thing he liked about the winter was the sky. The sunsets were often magnificent, bathing the world in soft pink and golden tones, punctuated by pale banks of snow. And at night the moon seemed to burn, and each star announced itself with its own smoldering. He could pick out constellations and bring them to the attention of his brother. Together they’d seen a thousand shooting stars dart across that sky.

Now Wayne did not bother to get up and see the sunset. He knew it was beautiful by the way the light drifted across the floorboards. But he did not want to see.

Isaac came inside, at last. His cheeks were redder than their father’s and his hair was much more black. He didn’t take off his bulky coat. Instead, he spotted Wayne in the wingback chair and gestured to him.

“Come outside,” he said.

Wayne, in his confusion, stood and dressed methodically in his winter clothes. Thin boots, worn gloves, too-small coat that left his wrists exposed. He pulled on a woolen hat his mother had made; it didn’t cover his ears.

Together they walked out into the waning light. Everything was blue; even the snow that blanketed most of the front yard had taken on the color. No crickets sang and no bird chirped, the silence of inside the house mirroring the rest of the world.

Isaac led Wayne down the stairs and walked him into the yard before planting them both there, where the flowerbeds used to be. He wrapped his arm around his brother and tilted his head up to the sky.

Wayne did not want to see the sky. He didn’t want to see what he once loved, spread out before him. The stars undoubtedly still glittered. But he didn’t want to know.

“You used to ask me what it felt like,” Isaac said, his voice clear as a dinner bell. “And I always said I couldn’t tell you. But you’re grown enough now, I think. Wayne, it feels like terror, and agony, and freedom, all at once.”

Wayne swallowed. His body felt stiff beneath his brother’s arm. Isaac still had a few good inches on him and it felt like he was leaning his weight upon him. But Wayne knew that he could bear it.

They stood out there for a long expanse of time. The world grew dark around them. Wayne kept his eyes fixed on the mailbox in the distance, its little red flag gone rusty from years of wear.

Eventually, the door behind them opened and someone came thunking down the stairs. Their father passed them, not bothering to stop.

“Get in the truck,” he said. His voice was hoarse, as if unused to making itself known.

Wayne and Isaac knew what to do. They pulled themselves up into the bed of the truck, huddling close for warmth. An old, tattered blanket was bunched up into one corner, and they pulled it over their legs. Isaac slung his arms over Wayne’s shoulders again, and lifted his chin once more to the heavens.

The truck shouted to a start. They sped off through the rough-hewn road in the grasses, a path they’d taken a few times before. They were heading west, chasing the dying light.

The cold whipped at the boys’ cheeks and swept their hair from their faces. Wayne’s lips grew dry and he didn’t bother wetting them with his tongue. His eyes were watering, and he feared that water would crystallize into ice.

“You should really look,” Isaac said, keeping his eyes fixed on the sky. “It’s like I can see them all.”

Wayne lifted his chin then, his gaze hesitantly rising to the stars. Sure enough, they were out in full force, sparkling away in their resolute places like he’d always known them to do. A tear slipped down his cheek and he didn’t swipe it away with his gloved fingers.

The truck roared through the prairie. The light was still so far off in the distance and Wayne knew they’d never reach it. It was another of their inane rituals, to follow the light until it disappeared. As if they could keep the change at bay by pretending it would never get dark.

But it did get dark, and soon none of the light remained. From here they could not see their house, not even its glowing windows. Their father turned the truck in one continuous motion and they started barreling back.

The drive home felt much more foreboding, as if Wayne had given up all hope. As if he’d had any to begin with. Maybe that was the problem, hope. Hope for things to change even though they never would. It could drive a man insane.

But he was not a man. Isaac was much closer to becoming one than he, when he was still like this, when he was human. Did he hope? Could Wayne detect some hope in the abyssal blackness of his brother’s eyes? He still looked towards the stars, Wayne supposed. He’d said it felt like agony, but like freedom all the same.

The room stank of alcohol. The bowl had been set out, the raisins and almonds scattered across its surface. His mother poured the brandy, and Wayne wondered how she could see in this weighty darkness. He operated by smell and sound, by the way his hairs still stood on end.

The brandy glugged. The match was lit. And the bowl filled with bright blue flames.

“Here he comes with flaming bowl,” Isaac whispered beside him. Their mother practically hissed at him to stop.

Wayne wanted to be drunk, wanted to tip the brandy back into his own mouth, but he was still stone-cold sober. The brandy would be drunk afterwards, once the transformation had taken place and Isaac had left them again.

His father went first, dipping his hand into the flames and snatching up an almond. He popped it into his mouth and crunched dismally.

His mother went next, choosing a raisin instead and tossing it, still on fire, into her own mouth.

Here is where the rule had been changed. Wayne now went first, before his older brother, purely for the ritual of it. So he could still partake, still feel like he stood some ground in this family. As fragmented as they all were, as silent and as bitter, he still wanted to be a part of this. He stuck his hand into the fire.

It hardly burned. He bore it well. He took an almond and crushed it between his teeth.

They all turned their gazes to Isaac, who stared into the fire with his eerie black eyes. His skin had turned blue in the only source of light. The change was already beginning.

He placed his hand in the fire and held it there for too long a moment, as if it didn’t smart at all. He took an almond. He brought it to his lips.

He chewed and swallowed, and the flame carried all the way down into his stomach. His skin, as if transparent, glowed with its strange blue light.

Wayne watched as the change took over. Isaac pushed his chair back from the table and stood, staggering back. He bent over and vomited, straight into the pail his mother had set out. But it wasn’t vomit coming out of his mouth. He retched blue-tipped white flame, his voice going raw around its edges as if his vocal cords were burning.

After a moment of the violent sound, Isaac straightened and stumbled towards the front door. The family all stood and followed him, watching as his feet began to drag underneath him, hardly able to bear his weight. He was coughing and crying out in an incomprehensible language, something that sounded old and sharp against Wayne’s ears.

The door opened and Isaac burst through it, straight out into the night. A shriek sounded and then all was quiet, all was still until Wayne reached the doorway and stepped onto the porch. Against the blue-black sky he could see his brother’s body soaring upwards. He could almost hear, if he focused hard enough, the flapping of his wings against the incessant wind.

And when he lost sight of his brother, when his vision filled with only stars and moon and darkness, he swore he could see all of it at once.

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