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“I’ll make it up to you. I promise.” I hung up before he could respond. If he said anything remotely suggestive, I wasn’t sure I could resist kayaking straight to the Devil’s Playground.
I put away the phone and reversed course to return to the spot where I’d started. I stuck to the shallows, which made it easy to paddle upstream. Still thinking about Kane, I felt a thump as my paddle made contact with a hard object. I assumed it was a rock until it spoke.
“Ouch. You should apologize, at the very least.”
I jerked to the side and nearly capsized in the process. A large frog-like creature the size of a pit bull stared at me with round, angry eyes as he rubbed his injured head with a webbed hand.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t see you there.”
“No kidding. I’ve seen more focus from a dance fly during a mating swarm.”
“That’s very specific.”
“You don’t seem too freaked out by a giant talking frog.”
“Because you’re not a frog. You’re a vodyanoy.” A Slavic water spirit.
His round eyes seemed to grow another size. “A lady who knows her stuff. Mad respect. The name’s Goran.”
“You’re a long way from home, Goran.”
“This is Wild Acres. We’re all a long way from home. It’s the supernatural version of Florida. Nobody’s originally from here.”
“I thought Florida was heaven’s waiting room.”
He snorted. “Heck no, that’s Phoenix.”
“What brings you to Wild Acres?”
“I like to travel, see the world. It’s easy when nobody notices you.”
“I noticed you.”
“Only after you whacked me upside the head.” He rubbed the injured spot again for good measure. “Would you believe I was once a handsome prince? I pissed off the wrong giver and she turned me into this monstrosity.”
“The wrong giver?”
His bulbous eye fixed on me. “You’re supposed to object and tell me I’m not a monstrosity but whatever. The givers of life, fate, and destiny. I upset Sudenitsy, the giver of fate.”
A memory crystallized. Sudenitsy was one of the Slavic Fates. Similar to the Moirai but different pantheon. Rozhanitsy was the giver of life and Narechnitsy was the giver of destiny.
“What did you do to her?”
“I picked a rose from their garden. She acted like I murdered one of her children. You should’ve heard the language coming from a so-called lady.” He gave a disapproving shake of his head. “Next thing I knew, I looked like a frog straight out of a Studio Ghibli movie.”
“I’m sorry that happened to you.”
His tongue lashed out to grab a fly. “It’s okay. I was a self-righteous prick who deserved what he got.” He paused. “And to be perfectly frank, I wasn’t even that handsome. It was my title that made me seem more appealing.”
“I’m sure you were a catch.”
“Thank you. I appreciate your support. I’ve been in Wild Acres for a few years now. I mainly keep to the creeks and rivers. The lake’s a no-go zone.”
“Bone Lake?”
“That’s the one.”
“It’s safe now, if you’re interested.”
