Chapter One

The first time it happened, Carol was nine.

She was snuggled up in her bed, the quilt her grandmother made for her pulled over her head and a flashlight in her hands as she struggled to get to the end of the Anne McCaffrey book from last Saturday's trip to the library. She kept getting distracted from the adventures of Lessa and F'Lar by the thought of what color dragon might choose her and by the heavy pull of sleep.

She closed her eyes and tried to picture herself soaring through the skies of Pern astride the most magnificent creature she could conjure when a voice that wasn't hers said, I'm sorry.

"What do you have to be sorry for?", Carol whispered into the dark of her room.

For the longest time, no one answered. Then, a hesitant voice said, Bein' me, I s'pose.

Now, Carol was nine years old, and thought herself a bit old for an imaginary friend. But an imaginary Dragon might be a bit of fun, and no one had to know, as long as they only used the mind-speak.

A little thrill curled through her, and she giggled at the silliness of herself. Sure. She was Chosen, then, wasn't she? And this was her Dragon. Of course he was imaginary, but that didn't really matter. She could have a secret imaginary friend if she wanted to. "What's your name?"

Dare, the voice said. Carol thought it was rather a fitting name, and that the two of them would dare great things together, Dragon and Rider. What's yours?

"I'm Carol. I'm going to take care of you while you grow, and then we'll fly off together and have great adventures!"

The voice didn't answer for a long time, but when it did it sounded kind of frightened. Never had a friend before. I don't know how.

That's okay, Carol said. I'll show you.

A hundred miles away, hiding underneath a stack of old clothes in the far corner of his big brother's closet, five-year-old Daryl Dixon shut out the sounds of his father hurting his brother, and talked to his new friend until the house grew quiet and the sun came up.

Carol didn't have friends, not really. Her mom worried about it more than Carol did, though, because as long as she had books and Dare, it didn't bother her very often that the other kids looked at her funny. She had a reputation for talking to herself, and for always having her nose in a book, and for being just generally weird.

She didn't tell anyone about Dare.

Every now and then, she thought that Dare might be real, and that scared her a little. He was separate and distinct from her in a way that was hard to put into words about a dragon that lived inside her imagination. His thoughts felt like they came from outside, and some of the things that happened to him were awful. If Dare wasn't real, then Carol was making it all up.

Carol didn't think she would make up a story that hurt Dare as much as it hurt when the fire killed his Mama. Carol didn't want anything bad to happen to Dare ever, and that was more than bad. Dare seldom talked about things that happened to him when they weren't talking to each other, but that day, Carol had been playing in her back yard when she heard Dare scream so loud that she covered her ears and fell off the swing. Dare screamed for a long time before there were any words, and it took even longer for Carol to catch her breath enough to try to talk to him.

When the world righted itself, her dad was checking her everywhere and asking her where she was hurt. Dad had looked out the window, had seen her curled up on the ground with her hands over her ears crying, and he'd come running. When she told Dare that, later, he apologized for getting her in trouble.

I'm sorry. Shouldn't'a done that.

I wasn't in trouble, and you don't have anything to be sorry about, Dare. I promise.

You get a whoopin'?

No. I just told him I fell off the swing.

Dare said, Oh. Okay then.

That time, he was mostly gone for weeks and weeks, it seemed like. Carol would have worried if he didn't respond to the occasional brushes of her mind with something that felt very much like the inside of Carol's chest when she was crying and didn't want her mama to pat on her. Dare just wanted to be alone to cry.

And sometimes he talked about things that Carol didn't know anything about. Or maybe that she didn't know that she didn't know anything about. Because if he was imaginary, surely it all to be in her brain somewhere.

So it wasn't just that a feelin' that Dare might be sort of real. There was evidence. Still, the idea of Dare not being imaginary was one that Carol pretended she didn't have. Because then maybe she would be crazy. You couldn't talk to other people inside of your own mind. If people could do that, well, the whole world would be a lot different. She was probably just a little bit crazy right now. If she believed that he was really, absolutely, real then she was either a freak of nature or she was a lot more than a little bit crazy.

Carol decided not to try to figure anything out. Because if she thought too much about it? Well, she maybe should tell her parents about him. And then they might give her crazy pills that made him go away, and he was the best friend Carol had ever had.

The problem with Dare, was, sometimes it didn't matter what Carol decided, he just went ahead and did what he was going to do, anyway. One day when she was twelve, Carol was studying and bored and out of nowhere, it seemed, Dare said, Dragons aren't real.

"What are you, then?" Carol was alone in her room, her history book pen on her bed, and spoke aloud as if Dare was right beside her. He was a little argumentative for someone who was imaginary.

I'm a boy. And you're imaginary. I'm real.

He'd said similar things before. Carol didn't like it. She'd declared the topic taboo. Then she tried to explain what the word taboo meant, only Dare had already known what the word meant, and by the time they made up he seemed to have forgotten all about the whole thing. But apparently not, because he brought it up again. Carol detested that he wouldn't cooperate and just let it be. It made her feel like a freak, and every time she thought about the whole real/not real thing she felt like she was going to throw up. Dare had been kind of fixated on it for several days, now, though. And he was grumpy. He was probably hungry. Dare was always hungry. Carol shrugged. "If I'm imaginary, why do I have to do history homework?"

I'm either being a baby or I'm crazy. Ain't neither one of those okay.

"Really? You're only nine. I'm thirteen. If one of us is being a baby, it's me. And if one of us is imaginary, it's the dragon," Carol said in her sweetest voice. "I suppose you can be an imaginary boy, if you really want. But then how will we fly when we have our adventures?"

Those are stories you tell. No, that I make up. I make up stories, and they have a girl in them. Ain't got time for no more of that baby shit. And four? Where'd you get that?

"Because I heard you the first time four years ago! Remember, I we were reading –"

I was hiding like a coward while my old man whaled on my brother, and I made you up so I could pretend I didn't hear it and shouldn't go out and help him. Don't pretty that up. You don't get to do that.

The corner of her head where Dare lived went silent. She gave him the mental equivalent of a nudge. Then a shove. Then he seemed to disappear altogether, and he'd never done that before.

Dare was a dragon, she insisted. He was not real. But he had been quiet for a very long time, and it felt like he might be really gone.

That was new. It made her feel sick to her stomach and a little panicky. Carol closed her eyes and focused all of her attention on the space that Dare usually filled with his presence. I'm sorry I called you imaginary, Dare. And if you say you are nine and a boy and not a dragon, then you are nine and a boy and not a dragon.

She felt the faintest brush of his presence, then something like a sigh. Dare said, I can be a Dragon for ya, I guess. Just don't go tellin' nobody.

I would never! Carol answered. And it was true. Carol suspected that if she thought about Dare too much she would be afraid of him. Not him, him. But afraid because he was there at all. She shoved that thought right out of her head. No more of that.

Ain't neither of us crazy, and we both real, Dare insisted. Then, sounding less certain, okay?

"Okay," Carol said aloud. "If we're both real," she stopped, unsure of just how she should say what she was going to say next, "maybe I could help you?"

Don't need help. Just a friend.

But – nevermind. She would try to get him to tell her more later. She didn't want him going quiet again. You sound like something's wrong.

Just got a stupid itch. Ain't nothin'.

That was the last time either of them let themselves think about how strange it was that they talked to each other. Neither did they ever imagine meeting in the flesh, though, because in the deepest most secret parts of themselves each of them knew the other was out in the world somewhere, other parts were terrified that they were wrong.