Jeffery E Doherty - Author / Illustrator
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Dragon Knight by Jeffery E doherty

3/29/2016

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​D’ragoon the Black had a head as big as a cow, red tinged scales and a voice that rolled like thunder. His son George had bone thin arms, stumpy wings and dreamed of being a knight.

    D’ragoon was horrified.
    “It’s just a phase,” George’s mum assured D’ragoon.
    He tried everything. Taught George how to crack open a breastplate to scoop out the delicious toasty bits inside. Showed him how lances made excellent and rather convenient skewers for making knight kebabs. Nothing seemed to work.
    He was half way through a lesson on how to chew the juicy bits of marrow from the bones…
Swish. Thwack.
    George danced around, sword-swishing with a stick. He swung and lunged, his face screwed into a determined scowl.
    “G e o r g e!”
   
​George skidded to a stop and hid the stick behind his back. He lowered his eyes and scuffed his claws through the litter of scattered boots, shredded clothes and dry broken bones. “Sorry, Dad.”

    D’ragoon held out a massive clawed hand, his eye ridges hooding dangerously over his eyes.
With a weak grin, George held out the stick. His father snatched it away and snapped it like a tooth pick.
    “May I continue?”
    George nodded sheepishly.
    As D’ragoon’s lecture rumbled on… “Just slip your tongue inside the broken end and Puff’s your uncle…”
    George’s eye saw something glint mirror bright from under a pile of rubble. He edged slowly closer, sweeping his tail across the mess to get a better look. It was a shining round shield without any soot or scorch marks. It must have belonged to the fancy knight who strutted into Dragon Gorge last week. As soon as D’ragoon stepped out of the cave, the fancy knight had dropped all his weapons and ran like a tin rabbit. His father always complains that runners taste a little tough.
    “George, are you paying attention.”
    He plonked his bottom down on top of his shiny new treasure to hide it from his father. George’s eyes goggled wide.
    “Now, that is much better.” D’ragoon smiled a marrow dripping smile and continued his lesson while George tried to ignore the pain from the unseen spike sticking out from the centre of the shield.
 
 
    The chain mail shirt only had one long rip down the middle of the back. It was perfect for George’s bony spikes to poke through. He just needed a hole on either side, large enough for his wings. George pried the links carefully apart. When he was satisfied with his work, he wriggled into the armour and scampered down to the pond and posed to see his reflection. He loved the way the sunlight splitting the clouds glinted on the cold metal rings.
    Thunder sounded in the distance.
    George was shrugging out of the chain mail shirt to take it to his secret hiding spot when a different kind of thunder shattered Dragon Gorge. D’ragoon stormed out of the cave, smoke curling from his flaring nostrils.
    “Enough is enough.” He bellowed.
    George tripped on the tangle of metal rings and landed hard. A sharp stone jabbed him right where the shield’s spike got him earlier in the day. His yelp was high and pathetic.
    “What would you grand parents think of this nonsense?” D’ragoon demanded. With one sweep of his taloned fingers, he shredded the shirt into tinkling strips. “They would be ashamed of you.” He roared his fury and a curl of flame slipped out of his fanged mouth, singing the small scales on George’s tender ears.
    George squealed in pain and ran for the woods at the far end of the gorge. His father had never hurt him before. He just wanted to find somewhere to curl up and hide.
    “Son,” D’ragoon called. “I didn’t mean to...”
    The look of fear on his son’s face horrified the huge dragon.
    Faces appeared in the mouth of the cave as a fierce wind whipped freezing rain down into the darkening gorge.
    “Where is George?” George’s mother had a long slender neck, summer green scales and a dainty face.
    Even though she was only half his size, her tone made D’ragoon cringe and look away toward the trees.
    “You, go and find your son this instant.”
    “Yes, dear,” D’ragoon said and stomped out into the growing storm.
 
    D’ragoon searched all night through the moonless gloom and squalling rain. At dawn, he gave up and slunk back toward Dragon Gorge, wracked with guilt and worry, dreading what his wife would say.
At the entrance to the gorge, only a few hundred paces from the cave mouth, he heard a rustle and quiet snort. He moved some bushes aside and saw George asleep and dry under a cosy little overhang of stone.
    “George,” he said quietly and shook his son awake.
    George cringed but when he saw the look in his father’s eyes, he scampered out and threw his arms around his dad.
    “I was so worried,” D’ragoon said. “I am sorry...” The enormous black and red dragon sneezed sending up a cloud of dirt and twigs. Two perfect smoke rings puffed out of his nose followed by half a dozen dull sparks and a fizzling sound.
 
    D’ragoon lay curled miserably in the back of the cave, his face held over a column of sulphurous steam wafting from a crack in the stone. His head pounded like someone was using it for a kettle drum and between sneezing and coughing, his nose dripped like a leaky tap.
    When he thought life could not get any worse, the clop of steel shod hooves and clank of metal armour sounded from out in the gorge. Of all the days for a knight to come challenging, this was the worst.
    “Come out ye ugly brute,” the knight shouted.
The echoing voice made D’ragoon’s head ache even more. He pushed himself up off the floor and shambled toward the cave mouth.
    “You can’t go out in that state,” his wife said.
    “It’s my job,” D’ragoon replied. He took a deep breath and blasted out a stream of... sickly grey smoke. D’ragoon coughed and wheezed but continued to walk toward the waiting knight.
    “Dad?” George said.
    D’ragoon patted his son on the back. “I’ll be fine.”
    George ran off down one of the smaller tunnels in the cave.
 
    The knight sat tall on his glossy black stallion, his armour enamelled in red. “You’ve come out at last, you great puffed up lizard.”
    D’ragoon’s angry roar came out as a toady croak.
    The knight charged. The stallion’s hooves steady on the rough ground. His sword swung in a glittering arc, right towards D’ragoon’s neck.
    The dragon ducked but the tip of the sword struck a spark off one of the scales on his head. A thin trickle of blood spilled over his eye ridge and stung his eye.
    The knight whirled his horse about for a second charge.
    D’ragoon tried to send a blast of fire toward his enemy but only managed to sneeze a glob of sticky goo instead. It splattered harmlessly on the knight’s shield.
    The sword whistled down again and it was only tripping over his unsteady feet that saved D’ragoon.
    “So much for the stories of the mighty D’ragoon, scourge of the kingdom.” The red knight laughed. “My old Nana could best you with her laundry paddle.” He touched his spurs to his stallion’s flanks and moved in at a slow and menacing pace.
    D’ragoon flared his wings a backed clumsily away, trying to blink the blinding blood from his eye.
    “You leave my Dad alone!” George stepped out from behind a boulder, right beside the horse. He held a heavy spiked club in one claw, and the fancy knight’s shiny shield in the other. Part of a dented breastplate covered his chest and a horned helmet covered his head. 
    The red knight barked out an amused laugh at the sight of the small armoured dragon.
    George jabbed the spiked shield right into the horse’s rump because he knew from experience how much that hurt.
    The horse reared up and the red knight crashed down onto the ground with a loud clatter.
    As he tried to stand up George swung the spiked club. It rang on the knight’s helmet like a cathedral bell. The knight staggered, creaked a little, and then toppled face first onto the ground.
     The horse got away but the dragons feasted on red knight fritters for supper and D’ragoon never tried to stop George from wanting to be a knight again.
​

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Under The Owl Tree  by Jeffery E Doherty

3/20/2016

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This Ghost Story was first published in the Charms Anthology (2013) Edited by Sally Odgers.
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The day Ruby Tuesday sees the glint of silver in the hollow of the Owl Tree her life changes forever.

The bench by the pond gives Ruby the shivers.
       The pond in the middle of The Manor’s tangled grounds is her secret garden. It’s just like in the book except there’s no crippled boy hiding in an upstairs room for her to play with. There is the ghost, but no one believes her, of course.
       “Ruby Glencross!” Granddad bellows.
       Sometimes escaping Thatcher Manor’s creaky floorboards, her granddad’s temper and the other faded tenants is worth the creeping chill up the back of her neck. She races out through the kitchen door almost bowling Old Freddie over.
       “Woah there, Ruby Tuesday.” Old Freddie adjusts his sunglasses and brushes down the sleeves of the faded leather jacket he wears. “What’s got the grumpy old sod so worked up today?”
       “Sorry,” Ruby calls back over her shoulder as she runs into the grounds, ignoring Freddie’s question.
       Safe in her garden sanctuary, Ruby trails her fingers over the rose carved into the dark weathered wood of the bench. This is the only place she knows she is sure to feel the ghost.
       “I wish you could talk to me,” she says, looking around the clearing.
       The ghost doesn’t answer.
       A glint of light, up in the dark hollow of the Owl Tree, catches Ruby’s eye. She squirrels up through the branches.
       “Don’t look down,” Ruby whispers to herself as she reaches into the dark hole. Her fingers close around the small metal object and the back of her hand brushes against something soft.
       Screech...
       Ruby snatches her hand back. Her foot slips and rough bark bites into her shin. She lands with a heavy thud. Her eyes blur with tears but she still has the prize clutched in her hand.
       A thin trail of blood trickles down into her white sock as she limps back to the bench. Hairs tickle-up on her arms and neck as she plonks down on the seat. A cold so deep it sucks the air from her lungs makes Ruby’s eyes widen in panic. A white shape slides past as the tarnished silver owl charm slips from limp fingers. Darkness folds around her.
 
It is late afternoon when Ruby wakes stiff and tangled on the cold ground. She groans at the chill clinging to her and the thought of the trouble she’ll get from Granddad. Her worries vanish when she sees the owl charm on the ground.
       Under the dirt, the bird’s chest is shaped like a tiny rose. The charm is the most beautiful thing Ruby has ever seen.
       She slips it into her pocket and limps back toward the house.
       “Look at the state of you,” Granddad says. “You’ve torn your blouse and you’re dirty as an urchin.”
       Ruby looks down at her feet. “Sorry Granddad.”
       “Do you think I have the money to keep buying you new clothes?”
       Hot tears well up in her eyes.
       “Don’t you go starting that,” Granddad warns. “Run a bath and clean yourself up.”
       The hot water stings Ruby’s scraped shin as she dabs the dirt away. When she is clean and the bathwater cloudy, she fishes the owl charm from the pocket of her crumpled clothes. She starts cleaning away the crusty old mud and dry waterweed. It truly is beautiful.
       The broken link still dangles from one end of the silver chain. Ruby threads the ends together and squeezes the link back into shape with her teeth. She loops the necklace over her head. The charm rests cool on her skin.
       Anxious to see how it looks, Ruby scrubs the steamy mirror with a towel. The face looking over her shoulder is pale as glass. Ruby’s heart skips as she spins about.
       No one is in the room.
       She hurries into her pyjamas without looking back into the mirror.
       Safe in her room, Ruby fingers the charm and feels her racing heart start to slow. She closes her eyes and the image of the face in the mirror clears in her mind.
       It was a girl with glistening black hair and large pleading eyes.
       A deep sadness fills Ruby. “Was she the ghost?”
       Yes, a hollow voice replies.
       Ruby leaps back, nearly tumbling over the bed.
       There is no one there.
       “I’m going mad.” Ruby’s breath starts to quicken.
       You’re not, the voice reassures. You did wish I could talk to you.
       Ruby edges back on the bed until her back touches the wall. Her gaze darts to every corner of the room.
       You can only see me in the mirror, the voice says. I’m not strong enough to appear.
       Ruby takes timid steps to the dressing table and peeks at the mirror. She doesn’t panic this time when she sees the sad girl standing at her shoulder. She is older than Ruby, maybe thirteen, and her eyes are large and blue as forget-me-nots.
       “How?”
       It’s the charm.
       Ruby looks at the owl charm again, the rose inside the breast of an owl.
       It is part of us both. The girls head tilts quizzically to the side. I don’t know if it would work for anyone else. Not even for Spencer, your granddad.
       “Granddad?”
       He made it for me with his own hands. Her voice turns wistful. We were going to run away together. It was hard working at the manor. The Thatchers were... The girl shivers, her voice fading away.
       “What is your name?” Ruby asks.
       Look at the charm and guess. The ghost girl’s eyes brighten and her lips quirk up. The hint of a smile lights her face with beauty.
       Ruby is at a loss. “Hoot,” she guesses.
       No. The ghost’s laugh is like tiny bells. Your grandfather was the hoot. He has the keenest sense of humour.
       Ruby can’t believe that. “I’ve never even seen him laugh.”
       I’m Rose, the girl says. Rosie Wise.
        At least now, the charm made sense to her, a rose at the heart of the wise owl.
       He hasn’t laughed since I... went away. Rose says, lowering her ghostly eyes. He thinks I ran off without him but I didn’t.
       Ruby wants to turn and hug the girl but you can’t hug a ghost. “Oh, Rose,” is all she can say.
       We were supposed to meet by the pond but Gordon Thatcher found me waiting there. Rose’s face twists in revulsion as she said the name. He knew and wasn’t going to let me leave.
       Ruby’s hand goes to her mouth in horror. “No!”
       He hit me and I fell into the water, Rose adds. I’m buried under the Owl Tree.

                                                                            ***
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Ruby shuffles into Granddad’s room holding the charm out so he can see it. “She didn’t run away without you.”
       Tears spill down Granddad’s cheeks as he hugs Ruby tightly to his chest. 


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