Free Cold Hard Magic by Rhys Astason Page B

soft puff of air before slowly heading towards him.
     
    As the doe came closer, Rob slowly lifted his hand out to her. This was the closest he'd ever been to a deer before. Unless, one counted the reindeer at the mall during Christmas, which he didn't. His held his hand steady and waited. She blinked at him once before lowering her head and butting her nose against his hand, completely unafraid.
     
    “You are not going to live long with that fearless attitude around this part of the country,” he said. His hand caressed the soft fur of her head.
     
    The doe looked up, her warm dark eyes brimming with an unexpected intelligence that surprised him.
     
    “Fearless or not," he continued, "you should be more wary of people. Just about everyone in this area owns a gun, ya know?" He petted her head gently. "Just the same, you should give us all some distance.”
     
    She didn't respond, not that he really expected her to. She turned toward a grove of nearby trees, listening intently to a sound Rob could not hear, but he tried anyway.
     
    "Something spook you?" he asked. The doe turned back to him. "I don't blame you. It does get spooky this time of year, especially with what happened at the Rumhilde's."
     
    The doe dipped her head, bumping his hand and gave it a quick, reassuing lick before starting to wander off.
     
    Rob watched her go. A smile touched his lips when she stopped between two trees and turned back to look at him. She dipped her head, so he felt obliged to wave, even in the darkness.
     
    He kept watching her until her glow disappeared into the darkness of the woods.
     
    “Well," he stuck his hands in his pockets and shook his head, "a glow in the dark deer. That's something different. I wonder if that's a new species.” Rob shrugged and headed back to the truck.
     

Chapter 2
     
     
    Rob entered the Early Morning Diner , the next morning .
     
    “Hey, everybody,” he said as the bell on the door jingled behind him.
     
    The single local patron snorted from behind his paper and paid more attention to his coffee than Rob.
     
    Rob sat down on the worn leather stool and waited at the slightly sticky counter until the bottle-blonde waitress sauntered to him. He smiled. She scowled.
     
    In fact, Rob didn't remember the last time Peggy had actually smiled, now that he thought about it.
     
    “Coffee, eggs and hash browns?” she asked in an annoyed tone that she patented after years of working in the town's diner.
     
    Rob really couldn't figure out why Peggy Landon was perpetually unhappy. She had a steady job, working at the diner since just before graduating high school. She'd been a cheerleader then, well, a reserve cheerleader, but that still got her into all of the local games at half-price and that was an absolute deal. And she'd be downright pretty if she eased up on the cakey makeup and the platinum blonde hair dye.
     
    “Actually, could I get pancakes today?” Rob asked.
     
    Peggy pursed her lips and huffed. “I already wrote that order down and I don’t want to erase it”.
     
    Rob sighed as Peggy turned her back to him and passed the ticket to the cook.
     
    “Do you want to catch a movie this weekend?” he asked.
     
    “I don’t know if there is anything showing, maybe," she said with a careless shrug and dumped cutlery in front of him. "I’ll let you know.”
     
    Rob nodded. “Say, did you catch my show last night?”
     
    “Nah, I was washing my hair.”
     
    Rob looked at Peggy’s disheveled pony tail and couldn’t help but wonder if she actually had washed her hair. He shrugged off the mystery that was anything to do with females.
     
    "You missed a great show," he said. "Big Jimmy was amazing. His pyramid story was a real showstopper."
     
    "Uh-huh," Peggy mumbled as she kept doing whatever it was she did most of the time without actually accomplishing anything.
     
    “I saw the darndest thing on my way home after the show," he continued. "A doe came right up to me and