Back to the Fuchsia Page 11

  “Hey! Did you hear that? Someone’s coming.”

  “Psst! Hi, ladies! I’m here to get you out.” Brad poked his face between the iron bars just so I could give him a kiss.”

  “Kiss her later, Romeo. Get us out of here.”

  “As soon as I find the key.” Brad searched the walls, a time consuming effort in the dim candlelight.

  The door slammed again and another visitor arrived. “Well, well, fancy meeting you here, Your Highness. Come to check on your trophies?”

  “Oh no. It’s Ezzy. And look how she’s dressed, and…just look at her,” Jessica whispered.

  She didn’t need to point out Ezzy’s nearly sheer white nightgown, or the way her hair curled down over her shoulders, and especially the sultry look she gave Brad. It got worse. My mouth fell open, but I couldn’t get a word out edgewise. I was in shock. Ezzy moved in on Brad, tracing a finger down his chest.

  She tried to seduce him right on the other side of the jail cell bars. Her head turned and her eyes burned a hole right through me. “Oh, what’s wrong, witch? I told you, the California King is mine.” Then she planted a kiss on Brad’s lips.

  I was hopping mad. Literally. I don’t know why, but I hopped up and down, my fists clenched, as were my teeth. I felt some relief when Brad gripped her shoulders and pushed her away, holding her at arm’s length.

  “Stop! You don’t know yourself, Ezzy. We’re getting out of here and taking you with us.”

  Of course, something else bad had to happen. The door swung open. Duke Charles and two thugly looking henchmen marched in.

  “What’s this? You philanderer, you satyr, you whatever, you come here and seduce the only woman I love! What do you say for yourself?”

  Ezzy gave him a look of disgust. “Relax, Charles. I told you I don’t want you. This is the man I love and I intend to be his California Queen, so get used to it. Besides, I came here to seduce him.”

  Brad did indeed want her, but only to take her back to the future. “That’s right, Charles. She’s coming with me. So you can—” One of the duke’s henchman seized Ezzy and took her out of the room.

  “California King, I hereby challenge you to meet me at the jousting field in the morning. Be prepared to fight to the death!” The other henchman and Charles drew their swords. Brad reluctantly left the room.

  “I’ll get you out of here!” he shouted.

  “Well, here we are again. That must have been hard to watch. I’m sorry, Gertie.”

  “It would’ve been easier if it would have been anyone other than Ezzy. Trust me, the woman gobbles up men like I go through a package of Oreos. And she is beautiful. She really has that sexy look down pat, even when she’s forgotten who she is.”

  I sat down, put my head down, and closed my eyes. I felt dejected, lost, without an ounce of hope left.

  “Knock, knock.”

  “For the sake of Peter, Paul, and Mary, I don’t think I have a laugh in me, so you might as well spare the jokes, Jessica.”

  “Knock, knock.”

  “All right, who’s there?”

  “Katherine.”

  “Katherine, who,” I said rather unenthusiastically.

  “Katherine? Katherine’s here, Gertie!” Jessica shouted.

  When I looked up, I saw Katherine, Darcy, and of course, the flock of geese. “Thank my lucky stars! Katherine! Get us out of here!”

  “You sure make a habit of getting yourself in some tight spots.” Katherine handed me my wand.

  “Here you go, your wand and broom. Your cat found them and led me here.” Katherine’s eyes fell and her head bowed. “I’m sorry about something I did and I hope you don’t mind, but I tried your wand out. I needed to get in here somehow, and I knew I could make your wand work if I tried hard enough. I surprised myself when something like lightning shot out of the tip. Now there is a big hole in the outside wall of the keep.”

  “What are we waiting for? We better run fast before the guards find out,” Jessica urged us on.

  “Meow.” Darcy pawed at Katherine’s leg.

  “Oh, thank you, clever cat. You’ve found the key.” She made quick work of the lock and we made a joyous jailbreak. We sprinted across the moonlit field, returning to where we’d been snared earlier.

  Chapter 24

  Saving Olaf

  “I don’t have any idea how long we have until dawn,” I said.

  “I guess an hour, maybe two,” Katherine replied.

  “In any case, this is our last chance to find Olaf. Old Tossinoff said they had Olaf trapped not too far from here.”

  “What about Brad?” Jessica asked.

  “Brad will be fine for now, we just have to meet him at the jousting match in the morning. As sickening as this may sound, Brad must win that match in order to claim Ezzy as his prize. When we are all together again, I’ll use my broom to take us back to Cosmos.”

  “Meow, meow.”

  “No, Darcy. We have to take Katherine and her geese back to the gamekeeper’s hut.”

  “Just take me to the cave with you. After all, that’s where I started following you from.”

  “Meeooow,” Darcy interrupted.

  “Darcy says she knows the way to Olaf,” I said, and suggested Darcy lead the way. We took the main path through the forest, using my wand’s magical torch feature.

  Branches and twigs snapped somewhere in the dark forest, unnerving to say the least. I wasn’t alone. Jessica, Katherine, and the geese huddled next to me.

  We walked for at least a mile, none of us said a word. I prefer to keep my fears to myself because whenever I confess them, someone else will suggest something even more frightening.

  “Shh. Stop,” Jessica whispered. “Did you smell that? I just caught a musky smell. Like something passed close by. It happened earlier, twice. But I didn’t want to say anything until I was sure. It reminds me of a case I heard at last year’s Cryptozoologist’s convention. The senior research team leader, Harry Glanz, reported that he went really deep into the bush up near Moose Knuckle, Minnesota. Something followed beside him, but he couldn’t get a look at it. Although a few times it came close enough that he could smell its musky odor.”

  “That does sound similar. I didn’t smell anything, but then again, my nose is so used to all the creatures on the plantation, I wouldn’t even notice it. What was following him? Did he ever find out?”

  Jessica wasn’t listening. She pawed through her backpack until she found a tiny flashlight. “Ha! I did have it with me. Stay right here.” She walked a few yards off the path, talking to herself as she looked for signs. “Ahh. Uh huh. Yep. I’ll be famous by next year’s convention.” After a few minutes, only the bobbing little light remained. She’d ventured beyond the edge of my wand’s glow.

  “Hey, Gertie! I think I found tracks! And…What the—”

  Her half-finished sentence floated through the silent woods. Jessica screamed at the top of her lungs. She even took in a breath to scream some more. Her flashlight dropped to the ground and she ran back to us, leaping over fallen trees like a deer. Her screams had transformed into incoherent grunts. This was a woman completely out of her wits.

  A strange sound filled the air. It was the unmistakable twang of a banjo. And whoever played it provided a perfectly timed bluegrass accompaniment to Jessica’s athletic hurdle hopping feat.

  The white dot was right behind her. Jessica collapsed at my feet, her arms around my legs. Katherine and her geese hid behind me.

  Then it was the mysterious and smelly beast’s turn to make an appearance. “Shooby doo-wop, shooby doo-wop.”

  “Kate? Kate?” I was flabbergasted. It was none other than the plantation’s resident female Sasquatch.

  “What in the world are you doing here? How did you get here?” I also asked her in sign language—something we’d been working on for months.

  Signing in reply, she told me that Wills found some costumes in the trash can. They put them on to the best of their abilities. Whe
n Olaf walked through the yard, they were afraid of getting in trouble, so they hid in the kitchen. As I expected, she confessed to spilling the magical paint. Olaf stuck his head in the door to see what was going on, and somehow, the three of them ended up dropping through the time warp.

  I held my glowing wand and got a good look at Kate’s costume—the studded leather straps and other parts of Ezzy’s kinky gift to me. I’d forgotten that Brad had tossed it all in the trash.

  Wills strolled up, wearing pieces of the leather garb and wielding his banjo. For some strange reason, only known to him, he had strapped the artificial pecker harness around his head. The big rubbery dong proudly stood erect atop of his furry noggin, like a giant ape-a-corn straight out of a bad dream.

  “Judas Priest! Wills! Come here.” I pulled his head down by the harness strap that ran under his chin. He resisted my efforts to remove it, making it perfectly clear that he liked the purple pecker where it was. My next move turned out to be a bit more effective. I yanked on the offensive member until it came loose with a pop and I chucked it into the woods.

  After I heard it smack against a tree, I imagined what would happen if one of the local peasantry found it. Needless to say, there’d be endless speculation concerning the big purple penis.

  “I guess I’m not ready to be a professional cryptozoologist yet. I completely lost my shit when I saw your furry friend.”

  “Don’t say that, Jessica. Anyone would be shocked! Just look at the way these two dressed themselves up.” I clucked my tongue and gave the creatures a disapproving shake of my head. “People must be wondering what kind of plantation I’m running, for Pete’s sake.”

  “Rah-rarrr. Rarar shooby dooby wop,” Wills said.

  “Already has a reputation for that sort of thing? Don’t be silly,” I signed back.

  After I introduced everyone, I explained our plan to rescue Olaf and Brad, kidnap Ezzy, and meet up with Cosmos and Randy, to Wills and Kate.

  We only traveled a few minutes when we reached our goal. Just as Tossinoff said, we came across a group of soldiers who were camped for the night. To our relief, we could make out the outline of a dragon-sized cage on the overhanging cliff on the other side. “We need a plan. Any ideas?” I asked. “I have my wand, but I don’t know how many guards there are, and I’ve never tried freezing a large group.”

  “Maybe one at a time?” Jessica suggested. “Just sneak up on them, then BLAM! Hit them with some freezy magic.”

  “Too risky,” Katherine said. “If even one of the guards sees what you’ve done, the whole plan falls apart and we’re likely to be captured. Another way to do this would be to create a distraction. While the guards’ attention is taken away from the cage, you can use your magic to release Olaf. As soon as he’s free, we make a run for it. You and Olaf can take out the guards from behind.”

  Jessica and I looked at each other and agreed. “What do you have in mind for a distraction?”

  “The music Wills plays. I know they’ve never heard anything like it, and it would be so unnatural to hear someone playing music, they would have to investigate.”

  “Good idea. You got that, Wills?” I asked, and he shook his banjo. He understood.

  I quietly snuck around the perimeter of the camp and waited. As soon as I heard the banjo, I watched the guards. They were alarmed and obviously agitated by the sound. It reminded me of a time I tried to carefully relocate an anthill out of my flower bed. Like the ants, the soldiers rushed together and went on the offense.

  While they searched for the source of the music, I made my move. After sprinting to the cage, I grabbed the bars and stuck my head in. Poor Olaf was curled up in a ball—well, as much as a big overfed dragon could be. It truly was a heart-wrenching sight.

  “Olaf! I’ve come to take you home.” It was an instant transformation. Olaf went from a sad and forlorn creature to a dragon who acted like a pup greeting his owner.

  I scratched the puffy folds under his chin, his big tail sweeping from side to side. Suddenly, I was awash in dragon drool, his giant tongue slobbered every part of me but my feet.

  Looking over the iron contraption, I realized I had no idea how to unlock the cage. Apparently, a blacksmith had secured the door with heavy iron bands. Blasting it with my wand was risky, but I had no choice.

  “Okay, Olaf, I need you to get to the far end. As far as you can possibly squeeze yourself.” He obeyed and scooted over. I chose to fire from an angle and nicked the corner of the cage on my first attempt. The end of the cage dropped open and Olaf lumbered out. Of course he had to shower me with gratitude and more dragon spit.

  “Let’s make a run for it, boy!” I shouted, running back to find our friends.

  I guess I don’t know what I expected to see, but it certainly wasn’t the donnybrook unfolding in the open pasture.

  The soldiers’ swords and spears were scattered about and it was an all-out brawl. Wills and Kate aren’t at all like the docile Olaf. They loved a good tussle, and there’s no beating a pair of pissed off Sasquatches.

  Their aggressive behavior is all Randy’s fault, really. He let them watch television one time and it happened to be one of those wrestling matches with the bigmouthed men and their ridiculously flamboyant wrestling outfits.

  After that, Kate and Wills could be found in the barn on a daily basis, acting out their newfound wrestling moves.

  Now, here they were, with a chance to put all that violence to good use and they certainly weren’t going to pass it up. With twenty guards against two beasts, the doomed boys must have counted on having the advantage of numbers. What they didn’t count on was super strong Sasquatches taking them down with an expertly delivered Cactus Elbow, or a Texas Cloverleaf.

  Things got really ugly when Kate gave two men the Harlem Hangover. In keeping with the theatrical spectacles he’d seen on television, Wills took down the captain of the guards with a Five-Star Frog Splash. He stood over him, roaring like King Kong and triumphantly waving the long rubber faux tallywhacker I’d thrown away earlier. Leave it to Wills to go back for it.

  The sight of a giant ape-man apparently tearing ye ole beaver beater from their captain sent them into a panic. With their hands in their codpieces, they scattered.

  The melee was over.

  I’d like to add that although it seems I am quite familiar with the wrestling moves Will and Kate executed, it is simply because I overheard Randy mention them. I would never watch two muscular, sweaty men show off their huge bulging biceps and alpha male characteristics in such a violent display.

  Chapter 25

  Joust a Minute

  Our goal of rescuing Olaf had been achieved. Next on the list was to get Brad and Ezzy away from the jealous duke. I have to admit, I was sad seeing him suffer with such unrequited love for Ezzy. If he only knew the real Ezzy, he would’ve had an entirely different opinion.

  Fortunately, the vast property offered plenty of hiding places. We moved closer to the castle and found a few vacant horse stables. I could barely sleep, so I chose to keep watch, with Olaf as company. He needed plenty of love after his harrowing experience.

  Unlike the adventure-loving Sasquatches, Olaf was a gentle homebody. It must have been terrible to be persecuted by those people and not have any idea why. Perhaps he thought he was being punished for some unknown transgression, and that made it even sadder.

  I leaned against him, petting his smooth scales. His purrs were reassuring. Dragons only purr when they are truly happy. Most people never get the pleasure of meeting a dragon, and of the few people that do, it’s unlikely they’d meet one as peaceful as Olaf. It was precisely for rare and misunderstood creatures like Olaf that I ran the Paranormal Plantation.

  My eyelids drooped and my head bobbed like it was attached to my body by a worn out spring. Olaf’s purrs had become rhythmic snoring. If it wasn’t for Katherine’s geese pecking at me, we would’ve slept through the jousting tournament.

  “Wake up!” I yelled, pushing agai
nst Olaf. “Everyone! I think the jousting thing is about to start!” I pointed to a crowd gathering in one of the fields. Several bleacher seats had been set up for the audience. A large flag bedecked the stage that had been prepared for the king and his closest friends.

  I don’t know why I hadn’t thought about Brad’s lack of equestrian expertise, but thankfully, Jessica had.

  “How in the world is Brad going to win a jousting tournament when he doesn’t even know which end of the horse faces forward? Seriously, Gertie, it’s not going to work.”

  I pictured Brad clad in knight’s armor, hanging onto his steed’s tail as it dragged him through the hedgerows. “This will require magical intervention, that’s for sure.”

  Our first order of business was concealing Olaf, Wills, Kate, and the geese. A bridge, fifty yards behind the jousting field, made an excellent hiding place for them. I felt comfortable that Olaf would stay hidden unless I called for him, or someone chased him out of his hiding spot. It was anyone’s guess what the Sasquatches would do.

  Jessica, Katherine, and I literally crawled like cats hunting a sparrow until we quietly slipped under King Henry’s observation platform. We had a good view of the entire field, despite having to peek between wood slats.

  The crowd cheered when a rider in black armor trotted in front of the stage. As soon as he lifted his visor, we saw that it was Charles. The tip of his lance slowly dipped until he leveled it directly in front of a woman seated above us.

  “That must be Ezzy. He’s asking for her favor if he wins,” Jessica pointed out. “It looks like she just gave him the cold shoulder.”

  The crowd let out a collective gasp.

  “Favor?” I was puzzled. I’d never thought to learn anything about jousting etiquette.

  “Yeah. Usually a knight picks a beautiful woman, one who is already married to someone of a higher status. She gives him a scarf or something to wear during the tournament. If he wins, he gets to have her for a few hours, or a night, as a reward. If she refuses to grant him the favor, it’s a serious breach of etiquette. It’s just a medieval form of wife-swapping among the nobility. If the woman isn’t married, he gets to claim her as his mistress.”