Chapter Five: Settlement

I convinced Reece that I could no longer stay at his home.  Now that his three friends were going back to their own dwelling places, it would be improper for me to live with a young bachelor. 

There was also the problem of Timber, who could not stay locked up in the bathroom forever.  

Reece seemed embarrassed when I pointed this out, and perhaps a bit disappointed that I wanted to leave, but he did agree to respect my wishes.

Reece offered a small cottage that his family owned on the outskirts of town.  Reece lamented that it was little more than a shack, but I thought it was quite comfortable.  Carrying only Daria's textbook and the clothes on my back, I settled into my new home.

Reece came by everyday shortly after sunrise and would not leave until it had long since gone down.  He would take me out to look around town, search for employment, and acquaint me with the culture of this strange new world.  There were so many strange things that made my head reel and filled me with anxiety and dread. 

I still was not overly fond of the Jalopy.

But there were also many things about this new world that I found fascinating.  Like television.  Reece finally explained to me what his professor had meant when he said I might be a television actress.  Television was like a magic box of tiny players, and I found myself mesmerized by it for hours upon end.

And indoor plumbing.  

This was a wondrous invention and I could not understand how I had ever lived without it.

I wished that searching for a trade was as simple as being able to bathe indoors.  In my own war-torn time, there was little use for currency.  Dragon Valley's economy was based entirely on the trade of tangible goods such as food and weapons, and our people were stretched so thin that they often had a trade forced upon them.  Without war, there was excess and with excess very little opportunity.  Reece tried explaining modern job searching techniques to me and there were so many rules and regulations that my head ached.  One needed a resume, and experience, and education, and references.  I had none of those.

I was growing less optimistic as the days drifted by.  It was two full weeks before I was able to fill out an application without asking Reece for help understanding it.  Daria and Nirina had helped me craft a resume, but it looked blank and unimpressive despite our best efforts, and the employers I delivered it to hardly gave it a glance.  I had been searching endlessly for what seemed eons and I had yet to land that elusive interview that Reece claimed was the next step in getting a job.

After one particularly hard day trekking around town filling out application after application, I emerged from the latest retail outlet with my head downcast.  Reece met me at the door and craned his neck to look me in the eye.

“Hey, what's the matter?” he asked.

I sighed, crossing my arms over my chest as I walked.

“I am discouraged.”  I said.  “I feel as though I am going through the same motions over and over again.  There is such drastic competition for even the most menial places of employment... and I seem so naïve in comparison to the other applicants.”  I closed my eyes and shook my head.  “What is the next commercial area we must visit?”

Reece fingered the map in his hands, then tucked it away into his pocket.

“How about we forget the map for just a little while?  Come with me.”  Reece said.

“But...”  I said, looking up at his bright eyes.  “My search...”

Reece shook his head, grasping my hand in his and leading me away from the sidewalk.

“You're not going to impress anybody with that long face.  We'll take a break.  Come on.”  he said, motioning with his head.

I followed him across the street and through a small residential neighborhood.  Finally, we came to a wide open space full of lush trees and spiraling pathways.  Couples strolled through the gardens and children played tag on the open grass.  Reece stopped in front of a strange statue of a woman in armor.

“See?”  he said, pointing up with a grin.  “Told you there was a statue of you in town square.”

I looked the woman in armor up and down with a cross frown.  The plaque at her feet read:  Sophia Carol: Heroine of Dragon Valley.  She stood proud, shoulders back and head held high.  There was a pair of golden wings sprouting from her back.

“Why does she have wings?”  I asked.

Reece laughed, shrugging his shoulders.  “You got me.  Hey, you play chess?”

I perked up.  “Yes!  I love chess!”

Reece gestured to a few outdoor chess tables.  We sat down and set up the game.  I was so grateful that even after all this time, the rules of chess had not changed.  Even more encouraging, for the first time in the months since I had been resurrected… Reece was asking me to clarify how something worked for a change.

I beat him twice.  He swore he would have me the third time.  We set the board for another game.

“Reece,” I asked, twirling a pawn in my fingers.  “Where is your family?  You said they lived here in Dragon Valley...”

Reece smirked, pushing a pawn into place.  “Only in the sense that their house is here.  They haven't been home for months.  They’re off warring with a powerful witch clan.”

“Warring?” I lifted my head in surprise.  “Your family is at war?”

“Well, it’s more of a cold war actually.”  Reece said, his brows narrowing as he lifted his knight.

“Cold… war?” I asked.

Reece dropped his hand back to his side with a sigh and I knew I'd missed some modern-day reference of some kind.

“Let me start at the beginning...” he explained.   

“There are several major witch covens across the world."

"Most witches can trace their lineage back to one of these families..."

"One of the major clans goes by the surname of Lucian."

Reece's eyes brightened as he looked up from the chess board.  “Hey, you might know the patriarch of the Lucians.  Constantine Lucian?  He’s taken so much youth elixir I swear he’s a bazillion years old.”

I shook my head.  The name was unfamiliar to me.  “The only witch I knew was Kitsune.”

Reece blinked.

“Kit who now?” he asked.

“Kitsune.  The prophetess of the valley.” I said, lifting my head.

Reece's eyes seemed to cross over each other.  “Reaper and Watcher, that lady had a name?”

A smile cracked on the corners of my lips.  “Yes, Reece.  She had a name.”

Reece shook his head and continued.  “Uhh… well… anyway… for the last, I don’t know, decade or so, there’s been some... uh... tension between the Lucians and the rest of the clans.”

“Tension?”

“The Lucians think they’re the greatest minds on Earth and they would like to cleanse the world so that they can better lead the population into a glorious new era.  In other words, they’re reaping crazy and want to kill a billion people so that they can better control whoever is left.”

My mouth twisted into a frown.  “They sound… most unpleasant.”

“I think it’s the youth elixir.”  Reece said, his voice dropping lower.  He stared off into space.  “The rest of the clans have all abandoned it.  It may keep you young, it may be the key to eternal life on earth or whatever, but drinking it… does something to you.  It destroys empathy, it eats the conscious.” 

He blinked, turning back to the chess board.  “So, a decade ago they wrote the nuclear bomb of all curses.”

“Nuclear bomb?”  I asked.

Reece dropped his forehead against his fist.  Shaking his head, he moved a knight.  “Okay, just… the biggest, nastiest, most destructive curse that could possibly be imagined.  Drought, famine, disease... it would turn the world into a wasteland where only the Lucians had control of any natural resources.  They call it the Order Enchantment.  We call it the Apocalypse Curse.  Source of tension.”

           

“And your family is at war with them to keep them from casting this curse?”  I asked, nudging a bishop into position.

“Sort of.  You see, the thing is, they can’t cast the curse.” Reece said, making his next move.  “There isn’t a witch alive with enough raw magic power to cast it.  So they’ve been sneaking around trying to figure out how to get enough magic to cast it.   Stealing ancient tomes, brewing illegal elixirs… killing unicorns.”  Reece snorted.  “That’s an offense that should send you straight to the Abyss.”

I bit my lip.  “It does not sound like much of a war.”

“That’s why I called it a cold war.”  Reece said, starring off into space again as he nudged a piece.  “No major confrontations.  No open battles.  Just… skirmishes.  Whispers.  Rumors.  Finger-pointing.  All the while waiting for someone to drop the real bomb.”

“Checkmate.”  I declared, sitting up straighter.

“What?”  Reece said, looking down at the chess board.  “Ah, blast.”

I giggled, clapping my hands together.  Reece flicked his king over and looked up at me with his turquoise eyes pleading.

“Best four out of seven?”  he asked.

“If you desire to lose again at least that many times, then yes!”  I said.

Reece smiled.  He reached for the pieces, but his phone rang before he touched them.  I jumped.  I was still getting used to the idea of cellular phones, those mystical mobile communication devices.  Reece glanced down at the screen.

“It's Daria.”  he said, putting the phone to his ear.  “Hey.”  he said, nodding his head.  “Yeah, she's here.     No, we're in town square, why?  Where are you?  Well... okay.”

He hung up the phone.  “She's coming here.”

“Oh?”  I asked.

About a half hour later, Daria came skipping into the square with a wide smile on her face.  The trail of flowers that followed her seemed to bloom with extra vibrancy.

“Sophia!” she called.  

Reece and I stood to our feet.

“I’ve been asking around…”  she started, grinning.  “And I know an employer at a bookstore who’s willing to give you an interview.”