Legend of the Gypsy Queen Skull: The Devil's Triangle - Book 1 by otis duane Page B

said kindly.
    Delicately picking up the rodent by its
tail, she then laid it on the ground in front of him.
    “Bon appétit,” she said to him as his eager
eyes grew wide.
    ~*~
    After lunch, the two of them went for a
stroll in the forest when they happened upon a large rock
outcropping, where she stopped and sat down.
    “So, just who exactly sent you?”
    In response, Muenster simply stared up at
the sky for some time and then back down to her.
    Moments later, a swirling gust of wind began
to blow as a storm cloud quickly rolled in overhead, darkening the
midday sky. The weather had turned bad so quickly Zelia didn’t have
time to seek shelter. Instead, all she could do was shield her eyes
from the flying dust and debris when a thunderous lightning bolt
struck a nearby tree.
    “Oh My!” she screamed out and flinched
away.
    Wiping the dirt out of her eyes, she turned
back to see Muenster sniffing a smoldering limb that had fallen out
of the tree. It was roughly five feet long and relatively straight
with a bristle of pine needles on one end. Making his way back to
its patch of needles, he began to carefully knead them with his
front paws into a sort of nest. Taking his perch on it, he meowed
and the limb slowly began to levitate.
    “Oh my,” Zelia said, perking her eyebrows
up. “That’s not something you see every day,” she said, cocking her
head to the side as the branch and black cat pulled up next to
her.
    “Mrrrow,” he meowed, inviting her onboard
for a ride.
    Like before, most people would have run for
the hills, but not Zelia. She knew whoever had sent these two must
possess incredibly powerful magic. And that thought alone, only
intrigued her more.
    “So where to?” she casually inquired,
mounting the branch.
    ~*~
    Slowly rising up through the trees, she
looked around with her mouth open wide.
    Reaching treetop level, the magical branch
suddenly took off, picking up speed as it zoomed over the forest.
The rush of wind in her face was so strong she had to squint to see
ahead.
    As the minutes passed and they flew down
into a neighboring valley, her hands began to throb from holding
onto the branch so tightly. Loosening her grip some, she relaxed
her shoulders and looked all around.
    “Amazing,” she said aloud with a smile.
“Simply amazing.”
    ~*~
    As the day wore on, the wonder never ceased,
especially when they raced over a pond, stirring up a flock of
geese. Running across the water, the large birds took flight en
masse and flew up alongside them.
    Minutes later, gliding over a steep
hillside, a shepherd minding his flock spotted them and dropped his
crook. Standing frozen with his mouth agape, Zelia could only smile
and wave back. Seeing a woman and a black cat flying on a stick
with a flock of geese in tow must have been a quite a shock to
him.
    A few more miles and one by one the geese
eventually tipped their wings to them and trailed off into another
direction.
    “See you, be safe!” the good witch
cheerfully said, waving goodbye to them.
    The limb continued their journey, flying
high over the various mountain ranges and zooming over the many
open fields. Then, without warning, it took an unexpected sharp
turn and dove down into an unforeseen gorge.
    “No, no, no!” she shrieked at the top of her
lungs.
    “Pull up! … Pull up!” she screamed,
white-knuckling the branch.
    Muenster, too, yowled out loud and dug his
claws into the limb as it spiraled down out of control, freefalling
toward a raging river at the bottom of the gorge.
    Tightly squeezing her eyes shut, Zelia
grimaced, awaiting the imminent impact. But at the very last second
the branch seemed to defy gravity and pulled up, zipping down over
the roaring rapids instead.
    So close were they to the river’s surface
that Zelia’s legs and Muenster’s tail actually dipped down into the
turbulent waters just beneath them.
    Leveling out, Zelia let out a huge sigh of
relief, but Muenster was less forgiving. Angrily clawing into