When Women Were Dragons

Alex starts to menstruate toward the end of sixth grade and details both the event and the camaraderie that surrounds her and the girls in her grade while this “metamorphosis” occurs. Alex’s friend helps her in the bathroom and mentions that she should talk to an older woman in her life—but Alex doesn’t have anyone to whom she can turn. Alex doesn’t tell her mother about her menstruation and privately compares her own “transformation” to her Aunt Marla’s dragoning. Despite this lack of overt communication, Bertha leaves feminine hygiene products on Alex’s bed with instructions on how to use them—but she never speaks directly to her daughter about the broader sexual issues that come with Alex’s physical changes. In an effort to forge some kind of connection with her aunt, Alex revisits the packet of letters and images that Marla gave her before leaving. She reads a letter that Marla’s partner Edith wrote to Marla (while intentionally avoiding the letter that Marla left for Alex).

Edith’s letter talks about her own aunt, who experienced abuse at the hands of her husband. To make her own money, Edith’s aunt raises and sells finches. Because this is considered “inappropriate” and “unladylike,” her husband breaks the necks of the finches to destroy his wife’s business. In her rage at this cruel injustice, Edith’s aunt transforms, breaks her husband’s neck in the same way he killed the finches, and flies away. In the letter to Marla, Edith compares her aunt’s story with her own desire to change, saying that it doesn’t come from rage but desire. She states that she feels compelled to stay only out of her love for Marla, then asks Marla to change with her before ending the letter. In Alex’s remembrances, the young Alex puts Edith’s letter away, knowing that it is more than she can comprehend at this time, and goes to take a bath that her mother has drawn for her.

Alex’s mother begins gardening furtively, still maintaining a clean home for her husband, who is less and less present in the household. Alex observes that her father only shows affection for his family when others are watching; the rest of the time, he shows anger whenever his wife or children do not behave in the way they should. As time passes, however, Bertha isn’t as concerned about maintaining a clean home and physical appearance and becomes more concerned with her gardening.

Meanwhile, Alex makes a friend named Sonja Blomgren, a girl who lives with her grandparents a few houses down from the first place Alex saw a dragon. While Bertha and Alex work together in the garden, Alex obsesses over the idea of spending time with Sonja; she can think of nothing else. She must wait, unfortunately, until she finishes her chores. While Beatrice is at play, she suddenly shouts to Alex that she will change into a dragon, yelling her announcement loudly across the neighborhood as she flaps her arms like wings. Bertha quietly and fiercely grabs Beatrice and carries her inside. Seeing this, Alex feels fear and confusion and is unsure of what to make of the incident. Bertha punishes Alex for Beatrice’s outburst, telling her it was inappropriate and unacceptable for her to incite such a response from Beatrice, even though the girl has no idea what she’s done wrong. Alex is angry, confused, and filled with an even deeper desire to see Sonja Blomgren, but because of the behavior that Beatrice displayed, Alex is forbidden from seeing her friend.

Another excerpt from “A Brief History of Dragons,” Dr. Gantz transcribes a historical account of a priest named Aengus, who travels to Kilpatrick, a fishing village on the island of Rathlin protected by knots and, according to legend, water dragons—young women who made the choice to transform indefinitely to protect the island from outsiders. Aengus finds a way to prevent women from transforming using a special kind of knot. He does this at the behest of lonely men, many of whom soon travel to the village from across the island seeking knots to bind women and force their submission. The special knots bend women and water dragons to the men’s will. Eventually, there are no more dragons in the water to protect Rathlin, and the island falls to Vikings. Aengus’s last journal entry reads, “It was hubris, of course it was hubris, to think that I could have the power to bind that which must not be bound, alter what should not be altered, and change the hearts of those who wish not to be changed” (94). The priest begs the forgiveness of the women whose lives and freedom he bound with knots to tie them to men and keep them from realizing their true nature.

Bertha and her husband fight more regularly, and Bertha spends many nights sleeping in the same room with Alex and Beatrice. At the same time, she seems to be shrinking. Before they sleep each night, Alex’s mother ties bracelets with complex knots. With each knot she ties, she hopes that it will remain, but none of the knots last through the night. Though Alex protests, her mother demands that she wear the knots, so she obliges.

Meanwhile, Beatrice starts school, and when she first meets her new teacher, Beatrice and her whole family must attend. Alex wishes she didn’t have to go, for she would much prefer to go to the library instead, but her father is away on a business trip. Alex must attend the meeting and witness a tense exchange between her mother and Mr. Alphonse, the school principal, who would have much preferred to talk with Mr. Green. On the way home, Alex begs her mother to stop at the library, but for reasons she doesn’t explain, Bertha refuses. Mrs. Gyzinska, the librarian (who turns out to be the same Helen Gyzinska who worked with Dr. Henry Gantz), nods at Bertha—and Bertha doesn’t respond.

Chapter 15 recounts more incidents of dragoning that become public knowledge despite mass attempts to censor and hide the phenomenon. Alex details accounts of an entire Girl Scout troop “vanishing,” though she discovers later in life that journals and diaries at the site contain numerous drawings of dragons doing both mundane and extraordinary things. In another account, a group of Black women form a Union to protest unfair, racist labor conditions in Alabama and, despite months of protesting, come no closer to a resolution. A group of men is hired to execute the organizers, but the raid ends in a huge explosion and all the men go missing. In 1959, a drag show becomes a scene of transformation as three performers spontaneously dragon on stage. On New Year’s Eve in 1959, hundreds of parties bear witness to similar transformations: dragons taking flight. Still, despite these incidents, there is no news coverage or public acknowledgment of dragoning as inaccurate reports continue to be perpetuated.