Free Tales of the Witch by Angela Zeman

and Mr. Arsdale, who’d jointly been pressing Skip for additional deposits and signed papers, retreated in awe. ‘All accounts settled fully’…the words floated in the air like the promise of paradise. With a flourish, Skip wrote out another draft on the borrowed bank funds and handed it to Ernie’s assistant.
    “To hire new crews?” asked the assistant.
    Skip nodded gravely.
    “You got it, boss,” he said, and he marched smartly out of the mayor’s office to notify Ernie and collect more men.
    Conrad prodded his father with an elbow and Mr. Harder, Sr., cleared his throat. “Well, I hate to bother you, Mark, but you know, we haven’t closed on this property yet. Strictly speaking, the owners have every right—”
    Before he could finish speaking, Skip wrote out a check to ‘cash’, for $10,000. Word had trickled back to Skip through the sub-contractors and thus through Ernie that Mr. Harder himself was the absent unnamed owner, but Skip felt no need to mention it. He handed the check to Mr. Harder, Sr. “As an extra bonus,” Skip said, “for the property owners, for their kind cooperation. This doesn’t go into escrow, and it doesn’t apply to the purchase price. Do you think it’ll help their patience any?” Now Skip had $10,450 left of his original bankroll and owed the bank an astronomical amount of money.
    “Oh,” Mr. Harder, Sr., said. He laughed nervously, taken aback. “Well, hey…” He slid it into an inner breast pocket of his jacket. “Thank you, Mr. Daniels,” he said with dignity. He and Conrad left the office smiling. Skip shook hands with the remaining board members and left. Everybody was happy.
    Ernie returned to work the next day in a wheelchair, defying his doctor’s command to rest. Two hard driving, back breaking weeks passed, during which time the foundation was filled, the shell of the house was finished, the stucco was beginning to be applied, work on the fence circling the property (with electronic sensors in the gate and an intercom system) was completed, and the terra cotta roofing had arrived. Drywallers and decorators swarmed the interior.
    Best of all, the plumbers finished hooking up the septic system, which perked up the entire exhausted crew. Port-o-lets can become downright uncivilized when accommodating so many users.
    But when the well was dug, and a pump rigged to provide a convenient on-site source of water for the men, the water tasted so odd that the men avoided it. Several of the crew worried what Phantom would think of the taste, but Skip had no time to deal with it. He just resumed deliveries of bottled water, and moved his attention to other, more urgent, matters.
    Summer arrived and the days warmed enough to become uncomfortable for the hard working crews. One sweating plasterer was filling a thermos at the stand of icy bottled water when the skidding, gravel-flinging arrival of Skip’s truck startled him. He froze in astonishment as Skip sprinted towards him and knocked his thermos to the ground.
    “Did you drink any of that water?” Skip shouted into the plasterer’s face.
    “Uh…no,” he said. “Not yet.”
    “Who did?” Skip turned and screamed to the halted, staring work crew scattered all over the large house, “Did any of you drink this water?”
    It turned out that a few had. Skip called an ambulance, shouting instructions into his car phone. A few of the men began rubbing their bellies and grimacing. By the time the ambulance arrived, eight men were vomiting and needed no urging to go to the hospital. Skip drove the overflow from the crowded ambulance in his truck. He looked ten years older by the time they pulled up to St. Charles Hospital’s Emergency entrance.
    The waiting attendants whisked the by now seriously ailing men in to the doctors who’d been warned and were standing by. Then Skip turned around and drove back to those waiting at the building site. They wanted some answers. So did he.
    He pulled in right behind the