Curse Of The Blood-Red Dragon Egg

The henhouse roof still smelled like warm straw when Penny Mills slipped out with her lunch pail under one arm. Early morning light lay across the little farmyard in soft stripes, and the air was cool enough to make her cheeks feel bright. Beside the run, the grass was beaded with dew, and when Penny knelt, the damp blades tickled her knees through her skirt.

“Penny?” her mother called from the kitchen door. “Don’t wander too far today. The feed needs sorting.”

Penny swallowed a quick grin and stood up like a good girl. “I won’t,” she said, and the words came out steady, even though her boots were already taking her toward the back field.

The farm was familiar in every direction - apple trees to one side, the stream that sang over stones to the other, and the patch of wild brambles where nobody liked to go because of scratches.

After her mother went quiet again, Penny walked slower. She told herself she was only going to check the fence line near the brambles, the one that always seemed to sag after a windy day.

Her fingers brushed the wood rail, and she noticed a tiny gap where the wire had slipped away. She tugged it back into place with both hands, then leaned down to look for where the wire had slipped free.

That’s when she saw it.

At first it looked like a smooth red stone caught under a leaf, the color of raspberries and puddle mud at the same time. Penny blinked, then blinked again, because eggs didn’t grow in brambles like that.

She reached out carefully, not wanting to startle it or hurt it, she wasn’t sure why. The thing wasn’t cold. It felt warm, like it had been holding sunshine all night.

Penny’s heart gave a small hop in her chest. She set her lunch pail down on the grass and touched the egg with two fingers. It was round and soft-ball sized, a little smaller than a kitchen melon, and its surface had a gentle shine, as if it had been polished by a river.

“No,” she whispered, and the word came out like a question. “Eggs don’t-”

A breeze moved through the brambles, and the egg’s color deepened, blood-red and bright against the green leaves. Penny looked around fast, expecting someone to notice. The farmyard was far behind her, and the bramble patch hid her well. The stream’s sound filled her ears, and somewhere a bird chirped, light and ordinary.

Penny lifted the egg into her arms. It fit in the crook of her elbows the way a kitten might, surprisingly cozy. She held it against her chest and felt the faintest warmth spread into her palms.

When she stood, her skirt snagged on a thorn. Penny didn’t fight it; she worked it free with slow care, afraid of jostling the egg. The thorn left a tiny line of sting on her finger, but she didn’t mind. The egg was worth more than sting or scratch or anything she could name.

By the time she reached the shed, her hands smelled like wood dust and grass, and her breath came out in small puffs. She opened the door with her shoulder and stepped inside.

The shed was dim, smelling of hay bales and old tools. Through a crack in the boards, she could still hear her mother calling for her to help with the sorting.

Penny set the egg in a basket lined with a folded cloth. The cloth was soft and thick, and she tucked it around the egg like a blanket. Her fingers lingered on the red surface, careful as when she brushed flour off a rolling pin.

“What are you?” she asked quietly, her voice so small it barely moved the air.

The egg didn’t answer, of course. But it didn’t feel lonely either. It felt like something waiting.

Penny sat back on her heels and tried to think like herself. On the farm, everything had a place. Even the tools in the shed were always in the same order, because Penny liked things to make sense. This didn’t. An egg like that wasn’t supposed to be found in wild brambles.

Even at her young age of 7. She knew the value of what she had. Knew that her family could never afford to ever buy her a dragon's egg. At least not before she got too old. After a child gets to be about 16, the hatchlings refuse to bond with the child.

She remembered the way her mother spoke about dragon eggs - only in stories and in careful tones. Penny had heard that dragon eggs were rarely found in the wild, and it was rare to find one that wasn’t white.Most people buy dragon eggs from specialized dragon egg farms. Where breeders control who bonds with which hatchlings.

Penny had also heard her father say, once, “Not everyone can afford an egg,” and then he’d turned away to check a latch, as if the words had slipped out too easily.

Now Penny had one.

And it was red.

She looked toward the shed door. The light outside made a bright stripe on the floorboards, and the sound of the farm - chickens rustling, wind tapping leaves - kept going as if nothing had changed. Penny’s secret sat right there under the cloth, warm and steady.

When she stepped outside, she carried the empty lunch pail like she had only gone for fence checking. She helped her mother sort feed....