Page 4 of Eliza's Cursed Dragon

“Whatever you say, boss.” Jack wasn’t happy with my orders. He had told me before what great, hard workers orcs and some of the other supernatural beings were. I didn’t doubt him, but my father would rather fire me than allow them on our payroll.

“How is the orange zone progressing?” I asked to change the conversation. The orange zone was where the first inhabited houses stood.

“All good, boss. We lost power over there for an hour yesterday, but we got it back,” Jack informed me.

“Good, keep me posted.” I looked at the large map on the wall of the construction trailer that made up part of my office. “Purple is still a go?”

Purple would be filled with smaller houses for future workers who couldn’t afford the larger houses or were single. It was one of Dad’s genius ideas. He paid the workers for the hotels and park, and in return, they paid him rent or mortgage payments.

“The dirt is being moved as we speak,” Jack confirmed.

“My father wants to add another hotel as soon as the purple zone is finished. We should drive around later and see if we can find a good spot,” I filled Jack in on Father’s newest plans.

“He’s going to build an entire city, isn’t he?” Jack smirked.

“That’s the idea. He’s even talking about schools and a college,” I confided Dad’s plans for the future to him.

“Nice.” Jack’s head bobbed up and down in approval. My father’s plans meant job security for him.

Later that day Jack and I took a tour on the four-wheelers to check out prospective sites and I made notes on a map printout. The area my father chose was perfect. Large plots of undeveloped land basically begged to be filled with manmade structures. It was idyllic and peaceful when you forgot about the residents of the neighboring towns and the kind of creatures wandering the woods. But they would also be a lure for prospective buyers. A lure I didn’t quite understand, I wasn’t curious about them in the least. I had never understood the attraction to a circus or zoo either, those were sad places to me. Similarly, the animals and the inhabitants of Fable Forest and Screaming Woods were no animals, no matter what some people might believe. They would, however, bring in money to add to our family’s fortune and these projects were giving me the experience I needed to make my own life one day.

Lately, Dad had been pestering me about finding a wife. I had laughed at him. I was twenty-four and sure I had enough time to start my own family. Right now, I just wanted to concentrate on my career.

The thing about Dad though, was that when he put his mind to something, he was like a pit bull and wouldn’t let go until whatever he wanted got done. Not on this one, old man. I was prepared to put my foot down, just as I had when it came to my career choice. Which had worked out rather nicely for us.

Jack had long taken off for his home, and the sun was setting in the west when I was still cruising on the four-wheeler, not quite ready yet to call it a day. I stopped by a river, envisioning a bridge and looking for the best spot to put it, when a shadow by the trees caught my interest.

A hunched-over figure moved out of the shadows, cautiously looking around. I narrowed my eyes and slowly made out green skin and a hawkish nose on an old, wrinkled face. I stopped dead. A witch.

She must have come from Screaming Woods.

“Hey, you, this is private property,” I yelled across the river.

“What?” she lifted her head and squinted in my direction.

“This is private property. You can’t be here!” I yelled louder, driving the four-wheeler closer to the river’s edge.

The river’s flow wasn’t very strong, so it wasn’t very loud, yet the witch didn’t seem to hear me.

Suddenly, something ran out of the trees. Something small, and a black cat after it like a bat out of hell.

“Lucifer, no!” the witch yelled.

Helplessly we both watched, from opposite ends of the river, as the cat chased a squirrel straight for the edge of the water, where a bank rose. The squirrel jumped at the last second, veering left, but the cat wasn’t able to stop in time. For just a moment it hung on to a root sticking out of the bank, but the root broke loose and with a subdued splash, the cat fell into the rushing water.

“Lucifer!” the witch screamed, running down to the edge as if she wanted to throw herself in after the animal.

“Wait, no,” I called getting off the ATV and running down the bank on my end, keeping an eye on the cat as it fought against the water.

Shit, the animal wouldn’t last long even though the current wasn’t very strong. Cursing myself and thinking of all the reasons why this was a bad idea, I threw myself into the water.

It was colder than I had anticipated and momentarily stunned me. The witch ripped me out of my stupor. “Over here, over here,” she called, pointing and running as fast as she could.

Well, in for a dime, I figured, and crossed over to the other side, allowing the current to take me.

The cat had managed to hold on to a large, floating branch and meowed miserably. It only took me a few more strokes to get to it, then my hand grabbed a hold of the branch and I directed us toward the opposite shore, where the witch was surprisingly keeping pace with us.

“Hand him to me,” she yelled, staying away from the water. In the back of my mind I seemed to remember something about water and witches.

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