Merlin Slept Here Read online



  Merlin Slept Here

  Book 1 of the Wizards’ Inn Series

  By Rob Summers

  Copyright 2013 by Rob Summers

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Chapter 1: Becoming an Innkeeper

  Chapter 2: Basic Innkeeping

  Chapter 3: Investigating Your Inn’s History

  Chapter 4: Advanced Innkeeping

  Chapter 5: Adapting to Severe Weather

  Chapter 6: Miscounting Your Guests

  Chapter 7: Very Advanced Innkeeping

  Chapter 8: Accommodating Problem Guests

  Chapter 9: Tactful Handling of Problem Guests

  Chapter 10: Utilizing Windfall Profits

  Other Titles by Rob Summers

  About Rob Summers

  Connect with Rob Summers

  Chapter 1: Becoming an Innkeeper

  She turned them into pigs by a stroke of her wand….

  -Homer

  “I’m what you may call a travel agent, and I have selected your house as a prime possibility for one of our inns. Actually, I’m sure enough to offer you the, uh, the post of service.”

  “Now wait a minute,” Bob said to the stranger, who had just introduced himself as Mark Stringer and had taken a seat across from him in a booth in the Quali-Mart deli. “Are you wanting to buy the house or offer me a job or what? My grandfather owns the house.”

  “I offer you a position of service, I have said.” This man in his forties, with his German accent, gray suit, and white shirt, both sounded and looked a bit stiff, very stiff for rural Indiana. And why did he keep glancing at his watch? “A young man like you, and I believe you work only part time here,” he gestured dismissively at the premises of the Quali-Mart, “you need something to fill your time productively. I am offering you the distinction of becoming one of our innkeepers. This is not a paid position, but it is very rewarding in other ways, both interesting and enlightening. Also, you may receive tips and presents of an odd sort—souvenirs of far off places.”

  Bob took off his red Quali-Mart cap, ran a hand over his short, light hair, and grinned. “Mister Stringer, nobody’s going to come stay at my place, not even if they’re from this area, let alone far off places. I’m on a back road.”

  “Ja, indeed, I have just been there. But our guests do not come to you by common roads. Furthermore, it’s best that our inns be isolated. Your house is far from any neighbor’s. Yet it is spacious.”

  “I don’t know what kind of guests you’re talking about, but my house has no air conditioning, no phones in the bedrooms, and only one bathroom; and I don’t have the money to—did you say I don’t get paid anything for this?”

  “Unfortunately, no,” Stringer said with a shrug. “You see, our service’s guests tend to be poor, and even if they have a bit of money, it is seldom in your United States dollars but in various foreign currencies.”

  Bob glanced at the middle-aged woman who was working behind the deli counter. Had Wanda noticed that he was talking to this odd, older guy? Did she or anyone at the Mart know anything about him? In the little town of Mercury, in Rayburn County, strangers were always noticed and usually were asked friendly but persistent questions.

  “OK, no money. Whatever. This is just crazy enough that I want to hear more.”

  “It isn’t crazy,” Stringer insisted. “I make a serious offer. So serious that,” another glance at his watch, “I would like to settle the matter now. Perhaps we could go to your house and finish speaking there?”

  “Not till my shift’s over, and that’s about another hour after this break. Did you say you’ve been there?”

  “Ja, I was looking for you, or rather for whoever might live there. When I found no one, I walked the road till I came to your neighbors’ house, a Mr. and Mrs. Wakefield, and they informed me that you would probably be here, at your work. Mr. Wakefield was good enough to drive me here.”

  “What happened to your car?” Bob asked.

  “I have none.”

  Bob took this in. “So, uh, how did you get to my house?”

  Mr. Stringer stood up. “Let us continue our discussion when we are there. You will take me there, not so?”

  Bob laughed. “Sure, in an hour like I told you. I got to get back to work, sir.”

  After restocking lawn chairs, portable grills, bags of charcoal, and kiddy pools, Bob clocked out and headed back to the deli to see if Stringer was still there. On the way he passed the toy department, where three girl clerks were standing near a large cardboard box open at the top and crammed with hula-hoops. They were chatting with one another while one of them lazily straightened a few croquet sets. Bob had only lived in this area for two weeks and so had no more than an acquaintance with the other Quali-Mart workers and not even that with some of them. One of these girls he could not remember having seen before, but now she caught his eye. He slowed his walk and glanced her way repeatedly.

  She was standing half turned from him, a rather pretty girl, short and somewhat heavy. Shoulder-length brown hair. He heard her laughing a gurgling sort of laugh. Something about the way she stood, feet apart, hands in the pockets of her Quali-Mart apron top, gave him the suggestion that she felt secure. Not just presently secure but secure for life, secure anywhere. He had to move on or be noticed, but he kept her image in his mind. What a girl. Unexpectedly, he found himself imagining being married to her, to a gurgle-laughed, sweet natured, peaceful girl. Someone with no pretences, no complications to her. But no, she was probably taken.

  Stringer was still in the booth at the deli.

  As Bob sat down across from him, the older man spoke abruptly, almost rudely. “Will you accept the position? I must go to my next meeting.”

  Bob smiled and shook his head. “You’re an interesting guy, Mr. Stringer, but you’ll have to tell me more than you have. This could have to do with crime or anything, maybe with drugs. There are some meth labs around here that—”

  “No, you are quite mistaken! Our travelers do important work, good work for various communities. I am in a great hurry. I try to make a way for them. What do you want to know?”

  “Well, who they are.”

  “They are—they are people with unusual abilities. Most of them will dress oddly to your eyes, speak with accents. If, uh, you find them doing or bringing about odd things, then as a good innkeeper you must take no notice of it. Remember that.”

  “What kind of odd things?”

  The German’s face reddened slightly and he hesitated. “Well, for instance, making a fire float through the air or—or perhaps to make things appear and disappear.”

  Bob’s brow wrinkled. “Who are these people?”

  Stringer turned his gaze away slightly. “They have names they call themselves. Longaevi for instance, or the Chosen.” When Bob did not respond to this, he continued, slowly choosing his words. “The Chosen, ja wohl. They are those selected to exercise power over nature. Their strength, it is in such things as song, light, wisdom, healing, concealment, protection. They do untold good everywhere, but it is necessary that they have help. Perhaps you know the word Magi?”

  Bob’s face cleared and he smiled. “Wizards! You mean they’re wizards.”

  “I did not say wizards,” Stringer said sharply. “That would be a serious misconception.”

  “Yeah, well that’s what I’d call them,” Bob said triumphantly, “and I’ve read a whopping lot of fantasy novels about that stuff. You want me to keep an inn for wizards!”

  “You may call them whatever you please if you will, bitte, agree to do this.”

  Bob stood up laughing. “Mister, if you can bring real wizards to my house, then sure, I’ll
keep them overnight. Sounds like great fun. Only, let’s see you do it.”

  “You are committed then,” Stringer said. “I need merely give you a few instructions. You’ll take me back to your house?”

  “Sure, come on. My car’s parked in back.”

  From his six-foot-three height Bob looked down at Mr. Stringer and gestured toward the living room of the old farmhouse at 16024 Grantham Road, with its discolored wallpaper and shabby carpet. “Pretty run down, I know, but I haven’t had time or money to do much with it yet. I did mend the screens in the windows. Sorry about how hot it is in here, by the way. Actually, we’re lucky today because the wind’s right so you can’t smell the landfill. I like it here, even though the power goes out every time we have a storm. You know, the main part of the house dates back to the Civil War.”

  “Old as the Civil War, yes. This I know well,” Stringer said without looking around. “Old houses are good.”

  “How did you know it’s that old? Did the Wakefields tell you? Say, feel free to take your jacket off.”

  The German did not remove it. “I have just time to settle things and go. Listen carefully. You will have guests on most evenings, usually just one at a time. Seldom more than one will stay each night, understand? So they attract little or no attention. And English speaking. Both for their sake and for yours, I have taken trouble to see that they will be mostly English speaking, though many will be foreigners.” He paused. “Some will be not at all usual in appearance. Do not be troubled by odd disguises.” He looked as if he expected Bob to question this but hoped he would not. “Let us go to your front door now.”

  “OK, I’ll bite. What kind of disguises?” Bob said, following him.

  “Don’t let such things trouble you. Treat all guests with the same care and courtesy. We are expected to give good service. It is the pride of our calling.”

  “Whose calling? What’s the name of this business, anyway?”

  “It is not a business, it is a call to service. We have no name. Our organization is very old, very.” Stringer had succeeded in drawing Bob out the front door and now pointed to an unused hook above the steps to the open porch. “Listen. I instruct you. Immediately you must make a wooden sign and hang it there. It must be made from wood grown on this property, is that clear?”

  Bob was once more laughing. “I can do it. I have a chain saw. But what should the sign say?”

  “It can say anything, it makes no difference. It is the homegrown wood, not what the sign says, that lets the wise know they are in the right place.”

  The ‘wise,’ that’s like the same as ‘wizard,’ right?”

  This time Herr Stringer stamped his foot, making the old boards of the porch resound. “Enough of wizards. The guests are the Chosen, the Magi. Besides, you don’t pay attention.”

  “Sure I do. A sign made of homegrown wood. Message doesn’t matter.”

  “Very good! Do it at once when I leave. You have little time because your first guest will arrive this evening.”

  Bob just smiled and said nothing. This was fun. The man seemed to be mad, and of course, no one would come. A shame too, since Bob wanted some adventure in his life. After his father’s death, money for college had dried up, so that midway through his sophomore year he had had to give up on pursuing an Aviation major. Then later, at a time when he had not yet promised his Grandpa Dan that he would take care of this house, he had planned to enlist in the Air Force. But the promise had been made, and here he was, four miles out from Mercury, which itself was nowhere. He wanted something dangerous, something exciting in his life. Yes, too bad there was nothing remotely exciting here; but Stringer’s kookiness was at least entertaining.

  “Great, somebody comes this evening,” Bob said. “So should I feed this person?”

  “No, he will arrive too late for that, they all will, but you must feed him in the morning. It’s one of the rules.”

  “Oh, there are rules?”

  “Yes, here.” From a jacket pocket Stringer removed a stiff card of about five by seven inches and extended it to him.

  In typed letters it read:

  The Seven Rules of Sound Innkeeping

  1. Only a true guest may stay overnight.

  (Exceptions are the innkeeper’s family and other innkeepers.)

  2. No true guest must ever be turned away—not if the inn is burning.

  3. Never charge a guest.

  4. No one must ever sleep on the floor.

  5. No guest leaves the inn hungry.

  6. Never close the inn.

  7. All guests must leave the inn alive.

  Stringer waited until Bob had giggled his way through the list. “Keep that,” he told him sullenly. “As for matters not covered by the rules, just use common sense.”

  Bob looked up from the card. “How am I supposed to know who’s a wizard—I mean, a true guest? Will they wear pointed hats and carry wands?”

  “Please, don’t pain me. That’s all nonsense you learned from comic books. As I’ve said, their appearance may be unusual, even strikingly unusual, but an innkeeper in this service will be able to recognize his true guests. Now, I want to loan you something which will so enable you.” The German reached inside his suit jacket and extracted a stick ten or twelve inches long, about an inch thick, and slightly forked at the end. “I picked this up in my travels,” he said. “Something from far away. You will press it to your ear, please.”

  Bob laid the card on the arm of a wicker chair and took the stick, which was as plain as if Stringer had just picked it up from the ground. Perhaps he had, Bob thought, in the nearby woods. Afraid of being made to look a fool, he did not put it to his ear.

  “What’s this, a wand?”

  “No, it’s not a wand.” Stringer said. “Put aside such thoughts.”

  Bob grinned and tapped it against his own forehead. “Poof, I’m a chipmunk. OK, it’s not a wand. So what am I gonna hear?”

  Stringer met his gaze with an expression that Bob could not read, but it was certainly not stiff, nor purposeful. For a moment he seemed softened. “It’s something I hesitate even to loan. I have kept it by me for years. Go ahead.”

  Holding it like a telephone, Bob slowly lifted the stick till it touched his ear. In a moment his world changed irrecoverably. He stood still, staring at Stringer but hardly seeing him. After a minute or two, he lowered the stick. He was breathing a little hard.

  “What is that?” he asked, as if the question was torn from him.

  “I want you to understand that the stick itself is nothing; it is only a stick. But, you see, I once traveled to near the farthest edge of time, to very near the end of time. I hope you understand. In that hour the great Golden Legion is singing and their singing enters into everything, every stick and stone. If I had been able to stay somewhat longer, it would have entered into me. This stick, which I picked up there, is soaked with their song, and what you hear is merely its echo, as it were. You will note the odd result that, though you can hear nothing when the stick is an inch from your ear, let it touch you and the song is heard very loudly.”

  “Yeah, real loud, but—it didn’t sound like a song to me,” Bob said. “More like a….” He paused puzzled.

  “Yes, it is indescribable,” Stringer supplied. “The closest I can come to it is audible victory. The dying gasp of the world will give way to them, to the Legion and to the inrushing wave of light. Ach, if I had only stayed there a short time longer. But this I took away with me. I have often listened to it when I am depressed and discouraged. For you, the practical point is that anyone who has listened to this can’t ever be mistaken about who a true guest is. You will know an imposter.”

  “Even if they’re—I think you said disguised?”

  “Yes, even if the guest comes to you in the form of an animal or perhaps an object.”

  “An object!”


  “I can’t explain everything. Just accept. Having listened to the stick, you are safe from confusion.”

  “You mean just by listening once?”

  Stringer nodded.

  “Well, I’ve done that. Here, it means so much to you.”

  Bob tried to hand it back but the older man would not take it.

  “Nein, it is yours to keep for now.”

  “But why?”

  “Oh, because—well, you are being paid nothing. I think you deserve something, and this is what I have. I know I am giving you little notice and asking much. You will take it as a kindness to my conscience.”

  Bob let this stand, for Stringer seemed to link this loan with his own dignity.

  The German now led him into the yard and around the house to the entrance of a path that cut through an overgrown fencerow on the west side of the property. What had been the fence was here reduced to just a few strands of barbwire on the ground. He stood at this opening and clapped Bob on the shoulder.

  “Always in a hurry, aren’t I? I’m on my way to start another inn, but I intend to come back to inspect in a few weeks. You be a good innkeeper. You’ll like it.”

  Bob was still in amazement about the stick, which he held in his hand. He was mentally groping toward the conclusion that, if the stick were real, then the other things he had been told might be too. But that could not be.

  “Any question before I go?” Stringer asked.

  “Well, if I’m an innkeeper now…”

  “Yes, what?”

  “Shouldn’t you give me something like a certificate or a membership card or something?”

  “No, if you’re willing to do it, you make your own validity. In a sense you declare yourself an innkeeper, not me. Remember that you are the newest representative of an ancient and honorable service. Accept no other guests but Magi.” Stringer tapped his forehead. “Ach! I forgot. Have you found the registry book in the house?”

  Bob looked at him confusedly. “What?”

  “It will have been hidden by a spell. They all were in those days. But I’ve been in such a hurry, I neglected to tell you that your house was one of our inns long ago in the 1860’s. You will probably find a few oddities about the place, but not much will remain after so many years. The spells tend to wear out. As for the registry book, don’t weary yourself looking for it. Just ask your first guest to find it for you. The guests have no trouble locating such things. Then, though it isn’t one of the rules, it’s good to have your guests always sign the book. Very good, I’m on my way now. Auf Wiedersehen.”

  Bob pointed through the gap in the row. “Do you realize you’re going into a soybean field?”

  Stringer did not answer this but shook hands with him and walked into the field.

  “Thanks for loaning me the wand!” Bob called after him.

  “It is not a wand!” came the irritated answer, and he kept going.

  Bob watched him slog along over the rough ground, with occasional stumbles. It was June and full daylight at a little past seven, and the German was still not very far away—perhaps fifty yards—when he disappeared.

  Bob cried out and ran after him. Had he fallen down a hole? Collapsed? But when he reached the place where he estimated Herr Stringer had been, he could not find him. Neither was there any hole to fall into—not that it had looked like a fall. It had looked like a magical disappearance.

  Bob walked slowly back to the house and put the stick on the mantel above the old brick fireplace and in front of the large, discolored wall mirror. He did not want to listen to it again so soon. It was wonderful but too disturbing, too awesome. Instead he thought matters over. Either he was losing his mind, he decided, or he had landed in some serious adventure. Maybe he would have some excitement in his life after all.

  He went to the shed and got the chainsaw. After taking a moment to add a little oil and adjust the chain, he walked away from the house eastward down a path that seemed gashed rather than cleared through an area of tall bushes and spindly trees. This way, which he had privately named the Ghastly Path, took him to the site of what had once been an orchard. Now overgrown and laced throughout with bittersweet vines, it was a wood. In his two weeks on Grantham Road he had not yet invented a name for this place, though it was a memorable spot, so hummocked and enclosed by growth that one might get lost in it.

  Here was a fallen sassafras tree. He chose a place along the trunk where it was about a foot thick and sawed through cleanly and straightly. Then, slowly and carefully, he sawed through again as close to the edge as he dared without too much danger of breaking off pieces of the signboard he was creating. In the end he did lose some bits of it but was able to carry back a thick slice to his porch. He fetched a black marker and lettered ‘Wizards’ Inn’ on the flatter side of the wood. Had not Stringer said he could have any message he wanted? Beneath he drew a cartoon of a wizard’s face, a bearded old fellow with a huge nose and the required pointy hat. He screwed an eyehook into the sign’s upper edge, and hung it above the porch steps, suspended from the hook Stringer had pointed out.

  Bob admired the sign’s rough, odd look for a while, then turned to look at the road. Sometimes it seemed a whole day would go by with no one passing here except Lloyd the mailman. But Stringer had said someone would come this evening, and Bob was beginning to believe it. He went in and attached the Innkeeper’s List to his refrigerator door with magnets, got himself a snack, and returned to the porch to sit in a wicker chair, munch, and watch the road. Come on, guest! Welcome to Wizards’ Inn.

  At dusk someone approached, but not from the road. A stoop-shouldered man carrying a suitcase and a heavy winter coat came walking out of the Ghastly Path and across the yard. He paused when he came to the porch steps, and he and Bob looked at each other. The man was thin and middle-aged, with graying hair, glasses, and a mustache. Like Stringer he wore a suit, but his was of a very different cut, with very wide lapels and looking as if it were made of wool. Torn bits of white fabric protruded from the jacket pocket, looking like the remains of a shredded handkerchief.

  “I say, will you take my luggage?” he asked.

  “Yes, sir,” Bob said, noting the man’s British accent as he jumped up, “Welcome to the inn.”

  “Yes, thank you. The name’s Peterbridge,” he said, following Bob inside. “I had another bag but had to leave it behind. Quite a nuisance.”

  “I’m Bob. Sorry about the place, but I just started innkeeping today. You can choose one of the bedrooms upstairs, and then I’ll move in a fan for you.”

  “Yes, and I’ll take this beastly suit off. Is it always this hot here?”

  “Always in the summer.”

  “And where are we exactly?”

  “Just outside of Mercury.”

  “In one of the American states?”

  “Uh, yeah, Indiana.”

  “Very good. But it is hot! And too cold where I just came from. Well, at least it’s been a relief these last few nights to dispense with blackout curtains.”

  They turned a corner half way up the stairs and arrived at the top in a little hallway where they stood facing the only bathroom. They were surrounded by four bedrooms, their door frames all set at angles in the hallway’s corners.

  “Yes, any of these rooms will do,” said Peterbridge. “Here, I’ll take this one. I’m rather tired so I’ll soon go to bed. It won’t be noisy here, I suppose? No sirens or airplanes? But of course not. I’ve left that behind, but I’ve still not been sleeping well on the road. Just wake me at eight, won’t you? I don’t suppose you have eggs, I mean real eggs?”

  Bob promised him eggs.

  “Splendid! I haven’t had an egg in ages.”

  Bob felt the man wanted to be left alone, so having fetched him the fan and made sure that he wanted nothing more, he went downstairs. He went back out on the porch, looked at the darkening sky, and ask
ed himself, for a moment, if this could be some mistake. This man talked and looked as if he had stepped out of World War II England, but he neither looked nor acted like a wizard. Maybe he was just a wandering lunatic? But he had plainly come expecting an inn, so Stringer must have sent him. Stringer had said he would know his true guests, or had he said no more than that he would know his untrue ones? This man seemed right. All right, then he was right, but what about adventure? What about floating fire and things disappearing and reappearing? He could hardly call Mr. Peterbridge downstairs and ask him to do magic tricks, so reluctantly he decided to go to bed himself.

  When he went up to the bathroom to prepare for bed, he found that Peterbridge had left his sturdy shoes in the hall outside his door. He pondered this odd happening for a minute before it occurred to him that he might be expected to clean them, even polish them. Maybe he had read of that somewhere or had seen it in a movie? He had no shoe polish, but taking them downstairs, he brushed them and applied a rag. Then he replaced them in front of the Englishman’s door.

  The next morning Peterbridge was up before his stated hour, and before Bob. While preparing breakfast, Bob saw him walking around outside, wearing lightweight clothing: cream-colored slacks, a long sleeved white shirt, and a jaunty cap. He was smoking a pipe, something Bob had almost never seen.

  Before long he came in, and Bob invited him to sit at the kitchen table.

  “Just make those eggs over easy, won’t you?” his guest said. “By the way, I was wondering during my walk what year it is here?”

  Bob laughed and told him both the year and the date.

  “Twenty-first century, then? It’s so hard to tell in these old houses without a lot of technological things in them. I might almost have thought this was my own era.” Before Bob could respond to this, his guest turned the subject again. “Hope you don’t mind but, since I was up early, I took some time with that door of yours and also with the little wood just to the east that I passed through coming here last night. I’ve set them to rights. That may help you feel more secure.”

  This only confused Bob further. “What door?” he asked.

  “The one into the room around the corner where the hearth is.”

  “I thought that door was OK. What was wrong with it?”

  “Oh, it wasn’t working at all. It would have opened for a dragon following on your heels. I’ve fixed it now so it will work again for you and for any of us Chosen. Of course, I left the wall alone where someone, the same Mage I think, once tried to create an opening. An odd story behind that, no doubt? Then, while I was taking my walk, I fixed the wood. It was completely useless.”

  “I got the wood for the sign from there,” Bob said, for he could make nothing of all this and could think of nothing else to say.

  “Yes, that’s all right to get a sign up so quickly when you’ve only just opened the place. But a bit cheeky, isn’t it, advertising it like that? Wizards’ Inn? Or are you trying to throw them off, because they would never suspect it’s true if you say so? But that reminds me, I forgot to give you these last night.” He took from his trouser pocket the white linen shreds that Bob had noticed the night before when they had been hanging from the Englishman’s jacket pocket. “I removed these as I was following them, coming through that little wood. I suppose Herr Stringer tied them there to show me the way. Like Hansel and Gretel’s crumbs, you know. And a good thing, too, because that undergrowth is thick as a jungle. I left Mage blazes along the path in their place, signs only we can see and that will last for years.”

  He received a plate of eggs and bacon from Bob and began eating without waiting till Bob’s plate was ready. Bob supposed this was normal for guest and host.

  “That warmed up area in the southeast bedroom was quite all right. I don’t do that sort of work anyway.”

  Bob’s eyebrows raised. “You mean that place where you get all sweaty if you stand in it? I couldn’t figure that out, thought it was some weird kind of draft.”

  “No, it’s conjured from a long time ago. A very creditable job, too. It’ll do you worlds of good in the winter. Just center the bed in it and someone can sleep in comfort on the coldest night.”

  “Oh, yeah, that’s a good idea.”

  “The eggs are all right,” Peterbridge soon commented, “but the bacon’s overdone.” This was true, Bob reflected sadly. He was no cook. “Still, one can hardly complain. All in all, I’m doing very well for a man driven out of his home just a few days ago. Stringer has things worked out. I just miss my other bag because it had my books.”

  Bob asked if the missing bag might somehow be sent after him.

  “No, it’s gone. I had to dash out of my house, just in time, and they got everything I left behind.”

  Bob asked him if the ‘they’ who had gotten his things were Nazis.

  “Heavens, no! Nazis in London? I think not; and with Churchill at the helm, they never will be. No, I had a spot of trouble with the Rebels, the same as so many of us have. I hated to leave my old place, but there was no choice this time, or so Stringer said.” Peterbridge’s face lit up. “And good show, him coming to me at home with that German accent of his! He was taking the chance of being detained by the authorities and questioned. He actually made an attempt at an English accent, but I’m afraid the effect was only comical. My neighbors will be wondering about him for months.”

  Before long he had finished breakfast and had packed to leave, still wearing his warm weather attire. Bob carried his bag and coat down for him and put them in the entrance hall while the Englishman lingered in the living room, looking around as if afraid of leaving something behind.

  “Ah, there it is!” he said at last.

  He stepped near a bookcase that was built into the wall and without hesitation pushed his hand through the back of the case and pulled out a large book, not from within the case, but seemingly from behind it. The case was nearly empty, so he rested the book on a middle shelf and took a pen from his shirt pocket. Bob drew near and saw this was the missing guest registry. His guest was writing ‘Mr. Alan Peterbridge of London’ under the other entries and adding the date.

  In the meantime Bob was at his side examining, and tapping, and rapping the back of the case at the spot from which the registry had been extracted.

  “Oh, you needn’t do that. You can’t reach in there unless you’re putting the book back or pulling it out.”

  “Will I be able to?” Bob asked.

  Peterbridge squinted behind his glasses as if in concentration. “Now you can. But if you haven’t seen the book yet, perhaps you’d like to leave it out and look it over? I’ll be on my way now. I found the other portal on my walk this morning. No strips of handkerchief necessary to lead me along.”

  “Actually, I think those were torn from Herr Stringer’s shirt,” Bob said, remembering the German’s reluctance to remove his suit jacket.

  ”Were they! Well, that’s cracking. No one like Stringer for giving his all for us Chosen. Even the shirt off his back, eh?”

  Bob had no thought of being tipped, but Peterbridge took the brief silence that followed as some sort of hint and began rummaging through his pockets. “Of course, I know you don’t charge,” he muttered, “but I always like to leave something. Oh, no, these pounds won’t do. But wait a minute.”

  He put away the pound notes and held out in front of him a creased yellow bill that from the symbols on it looked to Bob as if it had come from the Far East. He shook it and it changed into a much larger blue bill. He sighed. “Sometimes you have to try these things a dozen times before they work.” Another shake and he held, and dropped, a stone with a hole through the middle. He picked it up and tried again. A coin with some Caesar’s profile on it. After several more shakes and accompanying transformations, he managed to produce a recognizable American bill and handed it to Bob. It was a somewhat odd looking dollar, dated 1935. />
  “That’s for your trouble,” he said. “Do try to improve this place.”

  Peterbridge took up his things, and Bob followed him out, said goodby, and watched him, as expected, walk the path through the fencerow and on toward what he had called a portal. He gazed after him until—no surprise this time—the Englishman disappeared.

  Back in the house, Bob went straight to the registry book. Stringer had said that this house had been a wizards’ inn at the time of the Civil War and…yes, here was page after page of names and dates in faded ink, beginning in 1861 and continuing through April 14, 1865, when a Colonel Arthur Beverington had signed as the last guest of his era. He wondered who the innkeeper had been in those days.

  He wanted to push the book back into where it had been hidden, but was a little afraid to try. It was nearly time to leave for a Quali-Mart shift, so he left it where it was and went upstairs to shower.

  Bob’s second guest was a cat—possibly. It arrived that evening, scratching thrice at the front door. Remembering what Stringer had said to him about the possibility of Magi in disguise, Bob let it in and invited it to take a room upstairs. The sleek gray beast trotted past him and up the stairway.

  And that was that. Bob looked in on it twice during the evening and found it sleeping on one of the beds. By the time he went to his own bedroom on the ground floor, he had come to believe that he was being taken in by an ordinary cat. However, in the middle of the night he heard sounds. Getting up he went into the main part of the house, under the second story. It sounded as if someone human was crossing and re-crossing the floor in the room above him, the northwest room that the cat had chosen. Back and forth.

  This set him two midnight problems. First, was this a burglar with an odd back-and-forth method of searching a room, or was it a shape-changing insomniac wizard? Since Bob was poor and owned little of value, he decided to take the risk of burglary. He felt even surer that he should not investigate when it occurred to him that his guest, if a shape-changer, had no clothing, and what if it was a woman? He made a mental note to provide a robe in any beast-inhabited room, in case this should happen again. Second, he asked himself what sort of breakfast he ought to prepare for whoever was up there, human food or pet food? Sleepily, he went back to bed, having decided that, though a human will not eat cat food, a cat would be all too eager to eat human food, so there was no real difficulty.

  He was up the next morning, having had no more interruption to his sleep than hearing the toilet flush once. He prepared the same bacon, egg, and toast breakfast that he had made for Peterbridge, waited a bit (anxious about keeping the meal warm), and then took it up on a tray. He knocked gently, was greeted by a meow, and went in to find the cat lying on the bed and looking daggers at him, as if to say he was late.

  “Sorry,” he said. “I wasn’t sure if you would come down or not. Enjoy your breakfast.”

  Noting that the bed did not appear to have been slept in, that is, not by a human, he went out. He left the door a little ajar so that his guest would not be challenged by the knob. Perhaps a half-hour later, as he was beginning to think of collecting the tray, he heard the cat thumping down the stairs. He was not feeling very kindly toward that cat, so he waited a moment, finishing what he was reading in his bedroom before going to the front door. There the cat sat, turned from him to face the door.

  “Thank you for coming,” he said, almost laughing. “I hope you enjoyed your stay.”

  The moment he had opened the door a few inches, the cat was gone, dashing around the corner of the house and headed westward toward, he supposed, the portal.

  Then he saw that a combination of a windy night and the sheer weight of the clumsily cut inn sign had been too much for the hook from which it had been hung. The sign was down on the stairs to the porch. He picked it up and went back in, intending to try a stouter hook, or better yet two.

  Upstairs, he found the breakfast only half eaten, with signs that the utensils had been used. Bringing the tray down, and passing the door to the living room, he glanced in and noticed that the registry book was still where he had left it yesterday, lying open on a shelf of the bookcase. So when he had put the tray down in the kitchen, he returned to close the book and to see if he could put it away in its magical hiding place.

  But what was this? Someone new had signed after Peterbridge. The undated entry was sloppy enough that he could not make out the name, something Eastern European ending in ‘ski.’ But a more legible comment was in the margin: “Get a cook!” He grimaced, closed the book, and lifted it toward what appeared to be the solid wood of the back of the case, just where Peterbridge had pulled it out. It passed through as if the wood were mere air, his hand following it. With a gasp he released the book and, hastily withdrawing his hand, examined his fingers for harm. No, they were fine. Nevertheless, he decided not to try immediately to pull the registry out again.

  An hour later, as he was checking on the room that had been used, he found reason to think that his guest had not been wholly displeased. On a deal table by the bed was the present of a dead mouse.

  Bob had a telephone. This had been one of several excruciating financial decisions, as he had come to this house intending to live on a Quali-Mart clerk’s wages, which is very little, and then had discovered that he would have to make it on a part-time Quali-Mart clerk’s wages, which is darn near impossible. He had transferred from the Quali-Mart in Viola and had simply assumed that the Mart in Mercury would somehow find another full-time position for him. In actuality he had been lucky to get part-time.

  But he had phone service, by golly, at least that. Though he sometimes rode his bicycle the four miles to work in order to save enough gas to run the lawn mower; and though he used his two electric fans as little as possible and was actually glad when the summer storms knocked the power out, because that saved too; yet he would not go without a phone, and he had one, sort of. Nothing like his cell phone that he had given up, of course. This was an old landline monstrosity that he had found on the premises, with a rotary dial and no answering machine. Heavy as lead. It would have been embarrassing if anyone besides wizards and cats could be expected to drop by and see it.

  He had twice used it to call his mother, and had received one call from her and one from his manager at the Quali-Mart, and that was all. Maybe his friends still attending college were calling when he was out, or maybe not. Either way, his twenty-five dollar a month phone bill seemed wasted. And receiving a letter from his Grandpa Dan, as he did that morning, seemed the last straw. Grandpa could have called but firmly believed that letters are a far superior form of communication, serving as they did as a permanent record of whatever wisdom or facts he wanted to impart. Bob glared briefly and accusingly at the extravagant phone as he sat down to read.

  Sure enough, just the usual. Grandpa Dan was becoming ever more alarmed about a possible plot of his daughter Marci and son-in-law Dave (Bob’s aunt and uncle, the Bernards). With their teenage daughter Deirdre, they lived in a fine house which they had built on some property formerly owned by Grandpa, and in recent years they had begun operating an orchard there. If not for the trees between, Bob might have seen the Bernards’ orchard from his south-side windows, for it adjoined this Grantham Road property. Grandpa Dan had generously given Marci and Dave their land in exchange for their promise to pay the property taxes on and generally keep up this property, which Bob was to inherit.

  Impoverished and in failing health, Dan Himmel had felt that this deal within the family was the best way to hold on to Bob’s inheritance without worrying about it. With that seemingly settled, Bob’s mother Ella had quit her job in order to take care of Dan in his small but pleasant house (which she would inherit) in Viola, the nearest city of any size. Together they could just get by.

  However, Dan had lately been informed by a distant relative that his dear daughter Marci (how sharper than a serpent’s tooth!) might b
e conniving to get the Grantham Road property for herself. Dave and Marci, so rumor said, wanted to expand their orchard. Some circumstances did point to treachery. When Grandpa had still been unsuspicious, Dave and Marci had easily persuaded him to direct the government authorities to send any mail relating to the Grantham Road property to their address, as if to him, and had said they would take care of everything. So Grandpa was presently in the dark about what was happening regarding the property taxes. In addition, in the fall Uncle Dave had stopped keeping up the Grantham Road place, Grandpa had been told. Since then, Grandpa had been in touch, by letter of course, with Dave and Marci; but they had broken several promises to mow and fix up, so Dan had sent Bob to occupy the house and to report back to him.

  This letter to Bob reflected Grandpa’s latest fears. He questioned whether Marci had really paid the property taxes. What if the property was about to be lost to the government for delinquency? Might that be the reason for Marci and Dave’s failure to maintain the place, that is, in order to drive the value down in anticipation of a delinquent tax sale? Then they could simply buy the property with a low bid, for Grandpa had no ready money with which to bid against them. Grandpa had written a letter to someone in the county government and was worriedly awaiting a written reply.

  All this was almost too much for Bob to comprehend. The only thing he felt sure of was that it was very unlikely Grandpa would get an answer by U.S. mail from anyone these days, and yet he knew that the old man never provided his phone number in a letter and, of course, had no e-mail. Bob thought that perhaps he himself should call someone and ask about the property taxes but was not sure who; and at any rate, if they were unpaid, the damage was done. He did not like his Aunt and Uncle, but perhaps it was best to trust that they were honest and to pay no attention to the slanderous accusations of a distant relative.

  As he was putting the letter aside, someone knocked sharply at the front door. He hopped up, ready for anyone. During his time in this remote house, no one had ever knocked, unless you counted the cat. It was too early for a wizard to come, but he was lonely enough to welcome even religious cult representatives.

  He opened the door to someone who was clearly, absolutely a wizard. Clearly. The man was wearing the very type of pointed hat that Stringer had poo-pooed. His beard, a mixture of black and gray, was not as long as one might have hoped, but it lay against a robe of midnight blue decorated with astrological symbols in sparkling silver. From under the hem of this garment, his soft green shoes stuck out in points. Several large and impressive amulets hung glittering around his neck, and he even carried a rough staff worthy of Gandalf.

  “Do you have a room?” he asked in a deep and impressive voice.

  Bob did not answer because his head was too crowded with impressions. The main thing, the only thing that mattered, was that he was suddenly sure that the man was not a true guest. Absolutely sure. Dead sure. Just as Stringer had said, he just knew. And following after that assurance, came several practical observations which by themselves should have been enough to make him deeply suspicious. Why did the man ask if he had a room when, as Stringer had told him, wizards only arrived at the rate of one per night and wizards’ inns accepted no other guests? Furthermore, he now felt that the man did not even look like a wizard, not a real one. On second glance his outfit looked rather theatrical, like something that could have been rented from a costume shop in Viola. The stitching down his sleeve looked like the work of a modern sewing machine. And why was he here at the wrong time of day?

  “Come, my good innkeeper,” the man said. “My name is Aurelius Merlinus and I am here to take a room for the night. Tell me, is this the inn?”

  “You get the hell out of here,” Bob said roughly.

  He was about to add something even more rude when the man’s staff came up and swung toward him. He darted away and found himself being chased through the house! Fortunately, the door to the living room stood open, and he plunged through. Knowing that there were no other exits from this room, he looked desperately for something to fight back with. There was only the stick Stringer had given him, now resting on the mantel. As he turned aside for it, his pursuer’s speed and momentum carried him almost past him. The older man managed to stop and, sensing that Bob might go for the open door behind them, moved to cut him off. That was all Bob needed. With the hastily snatched stick in his hand he leaped at him, almost knocking him down, and they struggled standing upright, both shouting and swearing. Bob was twenty years old and big and strong. It did not take him long to twist the staff out of the man’s grip and send it flying against a baseboard. Then they went down together, knocking a chair over backward. When they were on the carpet, Bob’s right hand, still holding the stick, was by the man’s head, against his ear. The old fraud’s eyes widened, and he gasped out something in a foreign language. He started screaming and, wrestling with new strength and desperation, managed to squirm out from under Bob and scamper out the door.

  The chase was reversed! Bob raced after him out of the house, still threatening him with the stick-wand and yelling like a madman. The old fellow showed remarkable speed across the yard and down the Ghastly Path. Bob still should have been able to catch him but, unsure of what to do with him when he did, lagged a bit. At last, letting the man escape, he gave one more tremendous shout and, for good measure, threw the stick at him. He missed wildly and Aurelius Merlinus kept on running till he was out of sight.

  Bob stood still panting, and in a moment sheer disbelief overtook him. This was easily the most violent situation he had ever encountered. He felt sure that the man had meant to dash his brains out. It had been weird. It had been fun. But what did it mean? Stringer had told him that he would be able to spot fraudulent guests but had never suggested that a fraud might offer violence or even that there could be a reason to offer it.

  Bewildered, he began to look for the stick and immediately grew concerned. It happened that there were hundreds of sticks on the ground in this area, and to further complicate matters, he couldn’t swear that the stick had reached the ground. It might have lodged anywhere in the thick growth by the path. Besides, he had been so excited that, although he could estimate how far he had thrown, he had no real notion of where he had been standing when he threw. Under these circumstances, he might be days finding it, or maybe he never would. What would Herr Stringer say if he had to tell him that he had lost his magnificent stick, given only on loan?

  His search was long and fruitless. When he finally gave up and walked back toward the inn, he found that Aurelius Merlinus had done Cinderella one better by leaving behind both slippers. He had literally run out of his pointed shoes, leaving them on the lawn. The staff and hat he found still on the floor of the living room, both abandoned in the struggle. He found no tag or identification on any of these items but thought that they looked modern made. Taking them to his bedroom, he hung the floppy shoes from a nail in the plaster as a sort of trophy.