The Dragon Who Melted the Spring Snow

High up in the mountains, where the clouds sometimes get caught between the peaks, there lies a valley called Stillvale. It is not big. There are seven houses with turf roofs, a bridge of grey stone, and a brook that winds like a silver thread through the meadows. Every winter Stillvale grows very quiet. The snow settles like a thick down quilt over everything, and the brook disappears beneath the ice. And high up on the mountain, above the tree line, someone sleeps. Something the villagers know about but rarely speak of out loud. An old, old dragon.

In one of the seven houses there lived a girl named Liv. She was eight years old and had bangs that always sat crooked. She knew a great deal about the mountains. She knew which way the wind usually came from. She knew where the fox had its den under a large stone. And she knew, because her grandmother had told her, that at the end of every winter the dragon woke up. He woke only once a year. He woke when it was time for spring to begin. 'Listen carefully,' her grandmother always said. 'When you hear the water, then he is awake.'

That year spring came late. February became March, and March became April, but the snow just lay there, hard and blue in the evenings. The brook was still silent beneath the ice. Grandmother listened at the window every morning and gave her head a small shake. 'He is late this year, the dragon,' she said. 'Perhaps he is just tired.' Liv sat on her window seat and looked up toward the peak. Highest up there, where the snow was thickest, she could see a long ridge. It looked like the back of something big sleeping on its side, covered with a white quilt. That was the dragon, she knew it.

On the eve of Easter Saturday, Liv made up her mind. She put on her thick knitted sweater, her felted slippers over her wool socks, her red cap and her small backpack. In the backpack she packed a thermos of warm honey-milk, a slice of cheese bread, and a candle in a glass jar. She wrote a note for grandmother: 'I will be back before the moon stands over the chimney. Liv.' Then she crept out into the cold, clear evening. The stars were already lit. The snow creaked under her boots, crunch-crunch-crunch, like fresh biscuits.