Merlin Slept Here

Chapter 2: Basic Innkeeping

  But in the Siege Perilous there shall no man sit therein but one, and if there be any so hardy to do it he shall be destroyed, and he that shall sit there shall have no fellow.

  -Sir Thomas Malory

  Julie Beckerhof took her break at the Quali-Mart deli as usual, and after purchasing a drink, hot dog, and fries from Wanda at the counter, started to sit down alone. But the new guy Bob invited her to sit down at a table with him and little Logan Alberti. Julie was a social creature and would have joined them even if Bob had not been tall, blond, and good looking. Logan, on the other hand, was a pale, earring-wearing Goth boy, who wore black clothing when not at work and probably did drugs. He always smoked cigarettes out back during his breaks, so she wondered why he was in here making friends with Bob. She guessed that it was due to loneliness.

  Perhaps Bob too was lonely, since he was new to the area. He had a tall paper cup in front of him and was spooning out its frozen contents. To make conversation, she asked him what it was.

  “Frozen baby brains,” he deadpanned.

  She smiled. “Ooh! Great. How do they taste?”

  “Not too bad, but you’ve got to be careful not to eat too fast or it gives you a headache.”

  She laughed gurglingly. “I’ll be careful about that.”

  He asked her about herself and she explained that she was one of a family of eight, had lived in Mercury all her life, was trying to raise money to return to college, and was getting nowhere due to some recent car repairs.

  Bob nodded understandingly and explained that he too was sitting out a few semesters. Logan put in that he had left Indiana University on academic dismissal and did not expect to go back. Julie looked at his dark, dull eyes and tattoo of a skull on the side of his neck, no less, and did not wonder that he had flunked out. Or was it really a dismissal for behavior rather than academics? The boy was rumored to be stealing from the Mart. Everyone knew that he was the despair of his policeman father.

  Presently she asked Bob about his family, and he said that until recently he had lived with his mother and grandfather but that he had now become the lone occupant of his grandfather’s old house out on Grantham Road. Logan asked him how he occupied his time there.

  “Well, I’m just fixing the place up for Grandpa. It’s been neglected.” He glanced at Julie as if unsure whether to continue. “And I’m experimenting with a sort of bed-and-breakfast. I talked Mr. Turner into giving me just day shifts, so I can do this in the evenings.”

  “I love bed-and-breakfasts!” she said. “They’re such fun. In fact I used to work at one here in town until it closed. A beautiful place, all Victorian with antique furniture and dishes, but they couldn’t get enough business. How is yours doing?”

  “Well, you see, it’s not really a bed-and-breakfast exactly. It’s a little different.”

  Julie easily guessed that his project, lost out on Grantham Road, would lure few guests if any, so she kindly changed the subject slightly. “What do you serve for breakfast?” she asked.

  At the same moment Logan asked what sort of guests he had, but Bob chose to answer Julie. “Just eggs, bacon, and toast. Actually, that’s a problem because I can’t cook well enough to do even that to suit them.”

  “I used to cook breakfasts at the Lampton Street B&B,” she said. “I could teach you how or even help out.”

  He responded appreciatively, their eyes met, and she experienced one of those goofy moments when two people are enjoying each other so much that it’s embarrassing. They were grinning at each other and nodding like they were Chinese. Loads of attraction here. This guy really liked her.

  “Well, if you have guests tonight,” she said, “or next time you do, give me a call, and I’ll come around early in the morning and cook up a breakfast they’ll love.”

  “Even if it’s only one guest?” he asked.

  “Sure!”

  They both were a little startled to find that Logan was still with them when he said, “Maybe I could help too.”

  “Yeah, maybe,” Bob said charitably, “but you’d have to get up way early. What would you fix, Julie? Should I buy some stuff?”

  Keeping in mind that Bob was a part-timer trying to survive on his own, Julie told him not to buy anything. She told herself that she would buy pancake mix and whatever else was needed at her own expense. Of course, the real hitch was that it might be a long time before he had a guest. No matter. In that case she would ask to come over and clean the place.

  Her common sense told her that, before spending time alone with Bob, she needed to find out more about him. But that, she told herself, was just what she would be doing. She would go clean his old house and learn about him. She laughed aloud at her rationalization just as he was saying something not remotely funny. This confused him, but in response he just laughed too. Yes, they were getting goofy. She was glad that only Logan was witnessing this.

  “So tell me how to find this place,” she said.

  The previous evening had gone by without a guest, and Bob was glad of it for he had had much that he wanted to think over without interruption. In no way did he want to stop running the inn, for it was easily the most exciting thing he had ever done. Yet he wished that he understood more clearly what was going on. Where were these Magi coming from and going to? How did they get to be Magi? Was Stringer one of them, a Mage, or not? And why had they enlisted a non-Chosen person like himself to run their inn? Shouldn’t they at least have evaluated his character first? Why take a risk with him?

  More than these things he wondered about the faux Merlin, whom he had privately dubbed Spangles because of the gaudy silvery designs on his robe. The man seemed to have been unsure of the location of the inn, for he had asked if this was really it. Bob briefly congratulated himself that his crude sign, fallen in the night, had not been there as a guide to the man, for he might still be unsure of the inn’s location. In that case, he hoped the old phony had not been searching further down the road, possibly bothering old Mr. and Mrs. Wakefield. But then he remembered that Spangles had heard the Legion’s song in the stick, which was spooky enough to be a dead giveaway.

  What had Spangles come here to do, he asked himself, other than to break an honest innkeeper’s skull? How had he known that there was an inn to look for? When Bob added to these considerations his disturbing loss of the stick and his, in a good way, even more disturbing new friendship with Julie—well, it was all very welcome during an otherwise dull summer, and entirely baffling.

  On this evening following his conversation at the Quali-Mart with Julie and Logan, and after he had re-hung the sign on two heavy hooks, dusk brought another, and genuine, wizard to Bob’s door. He admitted a small, bearded man of middle age, dressed in a flat, round cap and short jacket, both predominately red. He wore heavy, gemmed rings, spoke with a strong accent, and altogether was so exotic that Bob was immediately delighted with Mr. Omlish. Furthermore, he did not remain in his room during the evening. He came down to the living room, signed the guest book, and settling himself in a chair, looked around with a bright eye.

  “Sit down, innkeeper,” he said, “and tell me where come from the furniture here. Where come from this?” He pointed to a wide-bottomed wooden chair, darkened with age, its topmost horizontal back piece, above the vertical slats, carved with a simple design.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Bob said. “Some of the furniture here goes back for generations.”

  Mr. Omlish was out of his chair and crouching near the relic. He turned it so the light would show him its carvings. He caressed the wood grain of the back.

  “Something maybe I do with this,” he said. “I improve chair, no?”

  Bob agreed without knowing what he was talking about.

  “Later,” Omlish said, reluctantly leaving it and sitting down again. “I make it beautiful and useful. But this house is a little old, no? Many
doings here long ago. She’s been an inn before.”

  “That’s what I’ve been told, but it hasn’t been one for more than a hundred and forty years.”

  “But always she is an inn while the gem is here.”

  Bob asked him what he meant.

  “The gem. You don’t know? Did not Stringer tell you? All inns for the Chosen have gem in them, usually in basement. Gem must touch brick or stone that touch earth. You go in basement and find loose stone in wall, there is your gem. Only do not touch! You touch a gem, well, maybe you be healthy, maybe not. I know a man who touch one and shrivel up.”

  “Whoa!”

  “Or maybe not. I don’t see it with my own eyes, but others tell me.”

  “Is this a big gem?” Bob asked with excitement.

  “Yes, big.” Omlish indicated with spread forefinger and thumb something about three inches wide. “You maybe look at it and then cover up and leave alone.” He leaned toward Bob and fixed him with his gaze. “You learn wisdom from Omlish. We say in my country, ‘Fools admire butter and eat sunrise.’ You understand?”

  Bob laughed. “I don’t think so. What country are you from, Mr. Omlish?”

  “Um, very far away.”

  “And from another time too?”

  “Hard question. Who knows? Is not place you can get to without portals, so it make no difference. You know seven continents? This is other one.”

  “On another planet?” Bob asked eagerly.

  “No, not on other planet. Hard to explain.”

  Bob decided to ask something easier and more practical. “Do you know why someone would come here pretending to be a wizard and then attack me? I had to fight him and run him off.”

  The little man’s sharp face looked grave. “That not good. Could be Rebel.”

  “Rebel? I had another guest who talked about rebels trying to catch him, but that was in 1940’s London where he lived. What’s the story on this?”

  Omlish’s shoulders sank and he looked about to cry. “They like scare away or kill Magi. Scare us out of our homes. That’s why I come to your pleasant inn.”

  Bob took this in slowly, then rose and belatedly closed the curtains, covering the blank, darkened windows. He sat down again and looked at the troubled little man.

  “They must be something to take on Magi. But that guy I ran off was no great shakes.”

  “That’s right,” Omlish said, nodding emphatically, “they no great shakes. Some were Magi but not no more. Their leader, Nineveh, he was Mage. Most of them never were. He just hire criminals and teach them use portals. No magic but that. They use portals, and if they catch Mage, they kill with blade or maybe gun.”

  “Why? Why kill good Magi?”

  Omlish shrugged. “Not always kill. They capture portals, so then we don’t travel anymore. Then maybe they leave most of us alone. But if we try get away, try go where they no control portals, then they kill us.”

  “But don’t they want you to go? Why do they try to kill you if you’re about to leave anyway?”

  At first Mr. Omlish seemed to have no answer for this, not even a shrug. Finally, he said, “You cannot talk with such people and find out what they think. Even if they talk, it all lies and tricks. So when Stringer say go, I leave home and friends.”

  A sudden thought struck Bob. “Are all my guests running from Rebels?” he asked with wide eyes.

  Omlish simply nodded.

  “But why didn’t Stringer tell me all this? He didn’t say anything about Rebels with guns.”

  “No? But maybe he think there is peace for now. Many powers in world, and not so many Rebels, so they like talk peace sometimes. There is peace talks not long ago, and Rebels they afraid to lose their portals, so they agree let Omlish, other Magi, go. But not out their portals, no! They say we can go some other way because they think is no other way. Think Omlish is trapped. But Stringer and others outsmart them. They know about old Magi roads, old inns, old portals not used for long time. Stringer he make miracles almost, because he go to old inns and get new innkeepers, make way out for trapped Magi. You understand?”

  Bob sat with his mouth open. He had been taking part in an evacuation of refugees during a lull in a sort of war, and he had not known it.

  “I still think Stringer might have told me,” he said at last.

  “No. Stringer, he try make miracle way out for trapped Magi. If he tell you, you not open inn.” He cocked his head at Bob questioningly. Then his dark eyes narrowed and he smiled. “You, Bob, brave fellow. You open inn even if he tell you all!” He leaned forward and grasped Bob’s hand. “I like you, but you won’t live long.”

  Not long after, when his guest had gone to bed, Bob walked around the house in the quiet yards, admiring by turns the fireflies and the stars. If Stringer, he reflected, was saving threatened wizards during a time of truce with the Rebels, then what he, Bob, was doing was all the more exciting and good. But Omlish had indicated that the truce was fragile. Spangles plainly was not honoring it! On the other hand, Omlish was not completely sure that Spangles had been a Rebel. It all seemed so ungraspable, so unreal. Julie, on the other hand, was real, very real.

  He went back inside, spent a long time fumbling with the rotary dial, and called her. In a few minutes of happy and mutual gushing they agreed that Julie would come the next morning and make Mr. Omlish his breakfast.

  After he replaced the receiver, he thought about the gem that Omlish had described to him. With the excitement of a treasure hunter he fetched a flashlight from the kitchen and descended to the basement. There he turned on the overhead light, a bare bulb, and examined the walls and floor, using the flashlight as needed. He pushed at the concrete blocks of the wall, hoping to discover a loose one, but no luck. These clean, even blocks were plainly far newer than the house, had not been here in Civil War days.

  The only thing even mildly interesting was something he had noticed before. Opposite from the stair were the apparent remains of an even older house’s basement wall in the form of a low, wide row of large stones that rose less than two feet from the floor. Some of the present wall had been built just beside this old one, leaving the older stones obtruding into the room like a step, about a foot and a half wide and perhaps eight feet long.

  Remains of a house even older than the Civil War era could be, it was true, somewhat interesting, but hardly to someone looking for a huge gem. He grabbed a screwdriver from a nearby bench and, laying the flashlight on a shelf attached to the wall above (for there was light enough here from the bulb), tried prying between these old stones. No, nothing was loose. After peering between and behind them, he gave up and went upstairs.

  Feeling unhappy with Mr. Omlish, he sat down in the living room. Before long his eye was drawn to the old chair that the wizard had so fancied. He sat and looked at it in the light of a table lamp. Was it ever different! That chair had really come alive. He got up and, pulling it nearer the light, examined it more closely. No change really. It was the same old chair. But wow! The grain of the wood seemed magnificent, royal, almost dazzling. Why was he reminded of a full-arched rainbow? The slight curves of the legs were like poetry, the very legs of some stately beast, and the carved design in the back was more interesting and beautiful than hieroglyphics. What a throne! Of course, he meant a chair, just a chair.

  Suddenly he straightened himself with a snort of happy realization. Plainly, Omlish had enchanted the chair. How else could it be so fascinating? But knowing it was enchanted did not make it any less fascinating, rather more so. He wondered what would happen if he were to sit in it? Omlish was friendly and surely would have warned him if there were any danger. Why not?

  He sat down. Hmm, nothing to it. Perhaps only the chair’s appearance had been affected. It was a disappointment really. He had wanted a thrill, maybe even a scare. He pondered sadly that this was just one instance of his tendency to exp
ect more from life, more personally for himself, than was just. He always wanted a reward of some sort, preferably a big one. With unusual clarity he saw that he was being like that about innkeeping, wanting more out of it for himself than was reasonable. The financial side was the real problem. He had been fighting an inner battle to try to justify the time and effort he was giving to the inn while losing money on it by feeding the wizards breakfast.

  The intensity of these reflections was unusual for him. He was surprised to acknowledge that he was a little bitter about this enterprise. What he really wanted, he thought miserably, was to get from one of these wizards some goose that would lay golden eggs, some fat payoff that would put him through college. Maybe that gem in the basement. What kind of wretch was he, anyway, to desire such things when his poor guests were fleeing for their lives?

  To his surprise he began to cry tears of contrition. Then, to make matters worse, he thought about his grandfather and his mother and how he had not yet told them about the innkeeping. No matter how much he liked and enjoyed his wizard guests, it gave him no right to regularly accept them into Grandpa Dan’s house and not tell him. And oh my, how could he have been thinking of that gem as if it were his own when, of course, it belonged to Grandpa like everything else in this house? What an ingrate, or even a thief!

  He sobbed some more and got up to get a tissue. But he was not half way to his bedroom before he noticed that the burden was lifted, his tears were drying up. He could not forget what he had felt, but the pain and the immediacy were gone. After washing his face at the kitchen sink, he went back and took another and very suspicious look at the chair. So! An enchantment did lie upon it, one neither frightening nor to be taken lightly. This chair had shown him himself in the glaring light of truth, and he did not like it.

  Omlish had said that with this change the chair could now be useful. Not to Bob. It had become like the Siege Perilous of Arthurian romance, a chair that no one could safely sit in but the pure, someone as pure as Sir Galahad. But maybe some of the wizards who would be visiting were pure enough, or at least humble enough, to sit in it. At any rate it was pleasant to look at. He would call it the Siege Perilous, and he would avoid it.

  The following morning was a merry time as he, Omlish, and Julie enjoyed each other’s company. His new partner in innkeeping cooked a delicious and plentiful breakfast, of which he and she took their share. The sun shone, it was cooler weather than usual, and the trees outside rolled in a fresh wind. Before long, at his guest’s request Bob brought down Omlish’s heavy cloak and his one little bag, and the three walked out toward the portal.

  Before this walk Julie had been satisfied to learn that Omlish was a foreigner with a hearty appreciation for her cooking. But now, as they approached the path through the hedgerow, she began to ask questions. Where was Mr. Omlish’s car? Where was he going from here? Bob had already decided that, if she was going to help with the inn, she would have to know its secret, so he asked Omlish if he and Julie might accompany him closer to the portal. The little man readily agreed.

  “I don’t want you to be afraid,” Bob said to Julie as the three crossed the soybean field, “but Mr. Omlish and my other guests are wizard types who go here and there through magic portals. Actually, I don’t know where this one leads to.”

  “Africa,” Omlish supplied cheerfully. They had arrived at the right spot, and he gave them a short bow and took his bag and cloak from Bob. “A thousand blessings on you. Omlish must go now. I hope I return someday.”

  Julie was confusedly trying to hold on to a smile. “Goodby, Mr. Omlish. It’s been a pleasure. I do hope you will come back, but…” She could not finish. What was there to say? He could not possibly be going anywhere. They were standing in the middle of a soybean field.

  Omlish turned and spoke out loud, “Ilbalu razabantub.” At once a tall shimmering arch appeared in front of him, touching the ground and ten feet across. Bob could see through to the sky and soybean plants beyond, but these were slightly distorted. The difference in appearance where the portal was and was not was so slight that he could understand why he had not observed it, viewed from a distance, when Springer and Peterbridge had exited through it. “Saranu razabantub,” Omlish said. No further change could be seen, but the little man stepped serenely forward and walked into the portal. Suddenly he was gone.

  Bob looked to Julie, whose facial muscles were making unusual adjustments. “Oh,” she said. “So it’s true. Wow.”

  Even Bob was surprised when the sorcerer’s voice came to them again, as from a distance, saying, “Ebsaranu lum mijen del ebilbalu,” and immediately the arch disappeared.

  “Sweet!” Bob said in a low voice. “Omlish ordered it to disappear, and we could hear him through the portal.”

  “Yes,” Julie agreed weakly. “That’s what I thought.”

  He led her back to the house and encouraged her to sit down (but not in the Siege Perilous). Then he sat beside her and spent a long time explaining as much as he knew. He told her the whole story. When he had gotten far enough with it, and she had not yet run to her car, he got up and showed her how the registry book could be drawn out of the solid wood and then hidden again. He invited her to try it, not knowing whether Peterbridge’s spell would work for her. But the brave girl tried it, and it did work.

  She sat down again and stared for a time at the hearthstone.

  “My Uncle Phil,” she said at last, “is a Pentecostal preacher, and if you wanted him to, I think he would do an exorcism for the house. He’s done them before.”

  “But Julie, this doesn’t call for that at all. My guests aren’t devilish. You saw that Mr. Omlish is a very nice guy.”

  She nodded slowly. “I just thought I’d offer.”

  Another silence until they heard Lloyd the mailman going by on the road. He did not stop, so there was no mail today as usual. Bob forced on himself an encouraging smile. “But isn’t it exciting, Julie? Here’s a chance to experience some heavily adventurous stuff, things people only dream about. It’s also doing something good for the poor wizards. Just think how grateful Omlish was for your pancakes.”

  “Yeah, he sure was.” She brightened a bit, remembering. “He took a second stack.”

  “Well, I want you to come back whenever you want, I mean when I have guests, and cook them breakfast again.”

  To his surprise she was nodding slightly and, deep in her pretty throat, gurgling. “I think I could learn to like it,” she said.

  By the time she left for her work shift, which began at ten, she was sharing plans with him of what flowers she intended to bring into the inn and put in vases, and of menus for future breakfasts.

  The last thing she said was, “Bob, I had a great time this morning.”

  As she drove out in her old Geo, he decided that she must be every bit as secure in life as he had guessed. What a girl.

  In an upstairs bedroom at Wizards’ Inn, Sophia divested herself of her heavy, hooded cloak and thick winter shoes and from her luggage brought out a lightweight garment, sweeping to the floor, a belt with bronze clasp, and sandals. After a few moments she stood before a wall mirror, adjusting her skirt, pinning a jeweled clasp into the cloth by her bare left shoulder, and rearranging her piled, elaborately plaited dark hair. She took a deep satisfying breath. This was living again, to be in such a warm climate after the cold of the last two inns.

  Descending the stair, she passed through the entry hall into the living room. The tall, young innkeeper Bob, who was in a chair reading something, looked up at her with appreciation enough to make her believe she still had some beauty at the age of thirty-five.

  “Is there anything I can do for you?” he asked, rising.

  She glided nearer the mantel. “Your mirrors in this house, Bob, are exceptionally large and, other than this one, very clear.” She indicated the wide, antique mirror above the mantel, which the years
had discolored and darkened so badly that it was of little use. Her dark complexioned face was merely a hazy outline in it. “It struck me as soon as I saw it.”

  “I’m sorry, Sophia,” Bob said. “I should get it replaced or just get rid of it without replacing it.”

  “A replacement would be expensive, would it not? Please, for my sake, keep it. Before I go tomorrow I will perhaps leave something of myself in it. I am a mirror Mage, you see.”

  Plainly the boy did not see, but he was too shy and polite to ask questions.

  “Won’t you sit down?” he asked.

  She did so, avoiding what she plainly saw was a very conjured chair, the work perhaps of Master Omlish.

  “Let me explain,” she said, while arranging the folds of her skirt. “I am drawn to mirrors and I work with them and in them. That is, I work with those that are properly dark, such as this one and the polished bronze ones of my native Athens. I inhabit them. For those Chosen with the knack, it is a simple thing really. I explain this because I find that I wish to enter your mirror. It really is very fine for my purposes. I’ll be able to do good work from it.”

  The boy was grinning and interested. “You mean go into it, like Alice?”

  “Not exactly. Do I have your permission?”

  “Sure. Can I watch?”

  “I’m sorry, but this I do alone. However…” She liked this boy for his enthusiasm and suddenly decided to do something to please him. “…if you wish, I will send my reflection to you. When my work is in progress, my reflection is able to wander on this side. I will, however, be mute. Please observe carefully that my clasp is on my left shoulder.”

  “Uh, yeah.”

  He did not understand, but she did not like to do much explaining. Let events explain themselves.

  “What else are you interested in besides mirrors?” he asked.

  “Truths are my interest. I wonder, do you like, or even love, truths?” She added to help him, “I mean such as the truth of a mirror?”

  He exhaled a small laugh. “Guess it depends on what I see in it. Sometimes when I haven’t shaved, you know, I look like—”

  “But please, I am serious,” she said. “I myself love truths, and even truisms. For example, tiny children need to be warned not to put their hands into fire. But even as an adult, I like to contemplate how true that is, how eternally and unarguably true. So I delight in the saying, ‘If your game is to see how close you can get to the fire without being burned, then it can end only one way.’ I have collected such proverbs, common and uncommon, from all over the world. ‘What goes around, comes around. Honesty is the best policy. A stitch in time saves nine.’ For me, they don’t wear out. I collect them and put them into my mirrors. Some people find the result tedious and others find it frightening and enraging, but I think you will at least be able to tolerate it.”

  Sophia could see that she was only tantalizing and confusing him, being as he was a youth with little experience of the Chosen, so she excused herself to go up to her room. “After I have rested,” she told him from the doorway, “I will come down and work with your mirror. Would you be so kind as to leave this room to me then?”

  As soon as she had gone up to her room, Bob hurriedly called Julie and told her about his guest for the evening.

  “She’s from Greece,” he said, “and I’m not sure but I think from ancient Greece. You should see the get-up she’s wearing! But her English is real good. Just a slight accent. And Julie, she’s going to do something impressive tonight. She said so. Could you come over? You wouldn’t want to miss this. I think that it’s going to get seriously weird.”

  “Oh, and people disappearing into portals and books popping out of the wall aren’t?” Julie asked, laughing. “And what about that eye-grabbing chair you warned me not to sit on?”

  “This could be seriously weirder than those things. Are you coming? Just for an hour or two?

  “Should I bring a fire extinguisher?”

  “No, I don’t think she’s planning any flames. Still, it couldn’t hurt. I don’t have one.”

  “OK, I’m on my way.”

  By the time Julie arrived, Sophia had already shut herself in the living room. Julie had brought snack chips, so she and Bob sat at the kitchen table, munching. The evening had advanced enough that Bob got up to turn on the florescent light over the sink. Whispering and joking, they waited for the lady to finish whatever she was doing with the mirror two rooms away. Bob was just beginning to think the evening would be a disappointment for Julie, when Sophia came in to them from the entry hall. He had not heard the door beyond open, but here she was, looking fully the fine lady.

  She smiled and nodded a greeting to Julie while Bob introduced them.

  “Wow, I love your dress,” Julie said. “Oh, and your hair too.”

  Looking to Bob, Sophia brushed her lips with her fingertips.

  “Oh, right,” he said to Julie. “I forgot she said she would be mute while she’s, uh, doing stuff with the mirror.”

  Sophia pointed to her right shoulder. Bob was a little longer responding to this.

  “Oh, of course, your clasp was on your left shoulder, and you’ve moved it.”

  She shook her head.

  “It wasn’t on the left?”

  She made a motion as if writing, and so Bob fetched her a pen and a pad of paper. After guiding them to sit on each side of her at the table, she wrote with her left hand, from right to left, and in a beautiful script.

  Bob and Julie both exclaimed at once, “It’s backwards!” Then with an effort they read the message, “You are seeing my reflection,” and for a moment neither had anything more to say. Bob’s breath rate increased and he felt hotter than even an Indiana summer could justify. What was he next to?

  On the other side of this whatever-it-was, Julie stood up and backed away. “Uh, yeah, but she’s sitting in a chair and holding a pen,” she said tightly, speaking as if it could not hear.

  “Maybe she just changed her clothes around and is playing a trick on us,” Bob said without conviction.

  Sophia shook her head.

  “Well, if you’re a reflection, then where is Sophia?’

  She wrote backwards, “In the mirror, as I told you.”

  Julie sat down on the opposite side of the table. “You know, now that I look at her,” she said to Bob in a whisper, “she doesn’t look totally real, like a real person.”

  Bob had to agree. The colors of Sophia’s hair, face, and dress were perhaps a bit off, and the shadows of her form not quite satisfactorily where they should be in relation to the light coming from over the sink.

  “I beg your pardon,” he said to it. “We just want to check on you. Would it be all right for Julie to hold your hand?”

  Julie exhaled sharply. “Oh, that’s right, volunteer me! You do it.”

  In answer, the lady laid a hand on the back of Bob’s. He fought not to flinch away.

  “Does it feel real?” Julie asked, again as if it could not hear.

  “Yeah, it feels real, but…”

  “But what?”

  “No warmth.”

  “Don’t say that!” Julie got up and retreated to the doorway.

  The lady slowly stood, backed to a corner of the room furthest from Julie, and left-handedly waving an elegant goodby to them, vanished.

  “OK, that’s enough for me,” Julie said. “I’m out of here.”

  “No wait,” he said, going to her. “Wait till she comes back out of the mirror. I think you’ll like her, the real her. She’s really cool.”

  “Keep the chips. Sorry, but I’m out of here.”

  They were startled by the sound of the phone ringing in the dark house, coming from behind the closed door of the living room.

  Julie looked up at him wide eyed. “Are you going to answer that?”

  “Well, no, I’m not. She asked to be
left alone. I didn’t think about the phone being in there. Nobody ever calls me anyway.”

  It rang again.

  “If she answers it, I don’t know why but I’m going to faint,” Julie announced.

  The phone did not ring a third time. They moved to the open kitchen doorway, and a few moments passed while they breathed through their mouths and stared toward the closed living room door. It opened, and the lady appeared, approaching them through the darkened entrance hall. Holding on to each other, they retreated against the sink counter.

  “There is someone on the telephone for you,” Sophia said to Bob as she entered the kitchen.

  Bob noted the clasp on her left shoulder and her real-world colors. “Right, OK.”

  He hurried in and picked up the old-fashioned receiver.

  “Yeah?”

  “Bob, it’s Logan. I just wanted to know how you’re doing. That crazy bed-and-breakfast of yours, it must be keeping you busy, huh? How’s it going?”

  “Fine.” Bob did not like Logan, had left Julie with the somewhat frightening Greek lady, and wanted this over with as soon as possible. “Actually, I’m in the middle of something.”

  “Hey, I understand, man. Guests, business. Say, I wonder if I could come over and see the place on Thursday evening? Maybe I could even help out like we said.”

  “We’ll see. I gotta go now.”

  “All right, man. See you then.”

  “I’ll call you first, all right?” Bob said with an edge.

  “Right, no problem. I won’t come unless I hear from you.”

  Bob returned to the kitchen charily, hoping to find that Julie had neither run from the house nor passed out on the tile floor.

  The two women were standing several feet apart and Sophia was talking.

  “No, I wasn’t in any danger. I was in the mirror and very happy there. But I can’t concentrate with a telephone ringing, so I came out to answer it. I’ll go back in shortly and finish my work, and believe me, I won’t send my reflection to you anymore. And please be assured I won’t be in the mirror after this, not as I was tonight. I’ll go away tomorrow, the same as your other guests. However, I will still be in contact with you through the mirror. If you hear my voice, don’t be alarmed. I’ll just be telling you truths.”

  Julie looked a little glassy-eyed and was perhaps hearing none of this. She approached the lady and took her by the hand. “Warm,” she reported to Bob. “Oh, Lady Sophia, don’t do things like that.”

  “I won’t again, Julie. But do listen. If enemies come here and try to reach me through the mirror, don’t fear for me. I won’t be in there. Though my voice can reach them, they can’t reach me.”

  Bob did not like this talk of enemies in the inn. “But nobody comes here but guests,” he said. “Well, there was one phony guy but I ran him off.”

  Sophia looked at him with serious eyes. “The truce with our enemies is holding, which is more than I expected. Several of us have gotten safely away from our homes. I have seen, also, that all the children were safely evacuated by another route, all but one babe in arms. I pray that everything will continue to go well.”

  Bob had not thought of wizards as having children, but supposed there was no reason why not.

  Julie touched the lady’s thick hair. “I’m sure glad you’re real.”

  “As am I. You will return and cook breakfast for me, won’t you?”

  “Sure I will,” Julie said. “What do you want me to fix?”

  Much later, when Julie had gone home and the lady had finished with the mirror and gone to bed, Bob turned on the overhead light in the living room and approached the fireplace. He stepped near and lifted aside from in front of the mirror one of Julie’s touches to the house, a glass vase full of zinnias. He reached out as if to touch the surface of the mirror, thought better of it, and withdrew his hand. In the murky depths of its ruined, spotted reflection, he could see himself as he had before, as a dim and unrecognizable figure. That was all right. But something wasn’t quite right, nevertheless. Was he imagining it, or was there someone else reflected there, someone standing behind him? He whirled around but found the room empty.

  He turned to the mirror again and looked into it while standing more to the side. Yes, there stood a woman, judging by her hair. A moment later he was not so sure. No, it was just a trick of his eyes caused by the patterns of discoloration on the glass’s surface.

  “It’s nothing,” he said out loud.

  Sophia’s voice came to him out of the mirror, clearly, though as if from a considerable distance. “When judging, distrust your desires.”

  Bob’s heartbeat, which was already accelerated, now raced. “Right,” he answered the image shrilly. “You have a good evening. Bye.”

  He hurried out, turning off the light on his way, and went to bed.

  The shade under the maples was welcome on such a hot June late morning. It was Wednesday, and Bob was seated on a fallen log by a wizard, a Native American man. Frank the Indian was short and round and about forty, with a jet black ponytail. He wore blue jeans, a western shirt, and plain black leather shoes with brown shoelaces. Frank had invited Bob to accompany him on a ramble which, at least for now, had ended here, out of sight of the inn but just a short walk away. Julie had cooked breakfast and was gone for the day. Chances were, they would see no one else. Bob, feeling sleepy, watched a swarm of little insects hover in a tiny cloud in the sunlight just beyond the tree limbs.

  Frank sighed. “It’s good here,” he said. “A good place to rest.”

  Bob just nodded.

  “Did you know,” the man said, “my people used to live here? I mean here on this spot?”

  Bob thought about it lazily. “I guess a few people have told me that Indians were supposedly on this land around here in prehistoric times. I’ve looked for arrowheads a few times, but I never found anything.”

  Frank picked up a stick and prodded the earth near his feet. “You don’t know where to look. Hmm. That was a real good breakfast.”

  “Sure was.”

  “Real good. Good company too, that Julie. You gonna marry that girl?”

  “Maybe. We’re kind of new to each other.”

  Frank nodded affably and dug deeper with the stick.

  “You think I should?” Bob asked presently.

  “Yeah.”

  The Indian reached into the hole he had made and pulled out something with dirt clinging to it. He rubbed it with his fingers for a moment and handed it to Bob. “There. Now you’ve got one.”

  Bob looked at the arrowhead, white and rough. “Wait a minute! How’d you do that? How did you know where to dig? Is it some Indian lore, or Mage’s insight, or what?”

  Frank slowly shook his head. “Not that big a deal. I knew where it was because I put it there.”

  “But how could you have? Did you bury it before you came to the inn yesterday evening?”

  “No.” Frank patted the earth back down where he had dug. “I put it there a long time ago.”

  “Oh!” Bob realized that his guest might mean ages ago. It could be that he was a wizard from ancient North America who had picked up English during his travels by portal.

  “You want me to keep this?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Thanks.”

  He was about to ask another question when he saw dimly through the trees that Lloyd’s mail truck was slowing down on the road. It must be one of those rare days when he got something, maybe even something not addressed to Occupant. But he stayed with Frank for the time being, not feeling inquisitive, just enjoying the older man’s almost conversation-less company. It was a day off from Quali-Mart, and he would pretend it was not just precious but endless.

  Eventually they wandered back to the house, and Bob carried in the mail, just one piece. Some legal fol-de-rol from the county Treasurer’s Office. He could hear Frank going slo
wly upstairs. He sat down in the living room and opened the envelope.

  Uh-oh. The words ‘NOTICE OF RIGHT OF REDEMPTION FROM TAX SALE’ leaped out at him. A handwritten note was attached, which read, “Bob Himmel, could you make sure Dan has got this? This notice was sent out six months ago to the address he gave us right near you, where the Bernards live, and the redemption period is almost over. I heard you were living there where Dan used to, and so I thought I’d send you an extra copy. Dan is going to come in and take care of this, isn’t he? He’ll remember me, Al Lieber, who used to deliver his paper. I work for the county now. Say hello to him for me.”

  With a sinking heart, Bob tried to read the notice. With all its references to percents and penalties, he could not even tell how much was owed, but it appeared to be thousands. It referred to the Grantham property as having been already sold by the Rayburn County Treasurer for delinquent taxes, but said it could be redeemed before the period of redemption would expire on July 5th. Today was June 27th.

  He hurriedly called the number of his Aunt Marci and Uncle Dave and, when Uncle Dave answered, asked him what it meant.

  “Now don’t get excited,” Dave said. “Everything will work out OK.”

  “But isn’t the property in danger?” Bob asked. “Did you pay the taxes?”

  “Relax, everything’s fine. Look, Marci and I have been meaning to visit you since you came back anyway, so why don’t we come over—Deirdre too—and we’ll sit down and talk about it?”

  “You mean come over right now?”

  “Sure.”

  He thought about the wizard upstairs but, under the circumstances deciding to risk any possible questions, told Uncle Dave to come and got off the phone. When the Bernards arrived, he would keep them downstairs. Come to think of it, it would be best to keep them out of the living room too. He had as yet heard no more of Sophia’s proverbial advice, issuing from the conjured mirror, and guessed it might only happen at night, but why take chances?

  So when the Bernards came to the door, he somehow guided them into the kitchen and seated them around the table. Uncle Dave and Aunt Marci were all smiles. Deirdre, a sixteen-year-old spoiled brat too aware of her own prettiness, looked elaborately bored. She adjusted the volume on her iPod, as her over made-up eyes (raccoon eyes, as Bob thought of them) strayed around the upper corners of the room. She was here, he knew, only because Uncle Dave had grounded her after some outrageous escapade and was allowing her out of the house only when accompanied by himself or her mother. She had apparently felt that even a visit with her cousin was better than another summer day at home with just her parents.

  “So what’s the sign about?” Uncle Dave asked Bob. “You running some kind of hotel here?”

  Bob had forgotten about the Wizards’ Inn sign. He shrugged. “Sort of a bed-and-breakfast.”

  “You got a license to do that?”

  Before Bob could answer, Aunt Marci asked if he was making money.

  “Not really,” he answered.

  “Sit down while we talk to your cousin,” Aunt Marci said abruptly to Deirdre, who had gotten up and was looking at the Innkeeper’s Rules on the refrigerator door. Deirdre ignored her.

  “You’re just getting by then?” Uncle Dave asked Bob. “I think you’re a part timer at the Quali-Mart.”

  Bob confirmed this and then gestured to the legal notice lying open on the table.

  “That scared me when I read it. You guys were going to keep the property taxes covered for Grandpa, right?”

  Still looking at the Rules, Deirdre guffawed behind Bob. “Like anybody’s going to leave dead? What a farce.”

  Bob registered that she was reacting to rule number seven.

  “There was some talk about us paying the taxes,” Uncle Dave said.

  “Some talk! Grandpa said it was a deal.”

  “Well, that was a misunderstanding then,” said Aunt Marci. “There was no deal.”

  “Then you haven’t paid the property taxes?” Bob was shocked. “I think it says we’ve only got eight days to redeem it. We’ve got to move fast. I better call Grandpa.”

  “There’s no need to do that,” Uncle Dave said. “No, Bob, hang on. Talk to us first.”

  But Bob was mumblingly excusing himself and brushing past Deirdre. He loped into the living room to use the phone. After considering for a moment what he had to tell Grandpa Dan, he turned back and for privacy began to shut the door between the entrance hall and the living room. As he did so he could see, through the kitchen doorway at the side of the entrance hall, all three Bernards looking at him.

  “I’ll be just a minute!” he yelled through the last crack as he shut the door.

  While the rotary dial was endlessly creaking around, Uncle Dave rattled the knob from outside and then knocked firmly. Bob ignored him, and in a few seconds, he was talking to Grandpa, telling him the story of the morning. Presently, the knocking became more insistent.

  “Unlock it, Bob!” Uncle Dave yelled in a voice straining for friendliness. “I’ve got to talk to you before you talk to your grandpa.”

  Bob turned from the phone. “It is unlocked! I didn’t lock it. Will you give me just a minute?”

  In the meantime Grandpa sounded almost in tears. “Ask them how they could do that. I gave them their land. We had a deal. Bob, I’ve got it all on paper—his letters, copies of my letters. But there’s eight days left, you said? Then Marci’s got to come through before next Thursday. Look, put Marci on the phone with me.”

  Uncle Dave was twisting and rattling the knob again with great force. Bob put down the receiver without hanging up and, going to the door, opened it easily. His uncle stood there breathing hard and with a red face.

  “How dare you lock me out like that!”

  “I told you it wasn’t locked,” Bob said. “I don’t even have a key for it.”

  “It most certainly was locked!”

  The Bernards trooped into the living room and took seats, Dave and Marci in easy chairs, Deirdre in a rocking chair, and by luck or fate, no one in the Siege Perilous.

  Bob sat down on the couch by the phone, looked to his Aunt, and offered her the receiver. “It’s Grandpa. He wants to talk to you.”

  She blushed, and in that blush Bob suddenly read something of the truth, and he wanted to cry. Putting the receiver to his ear, he told Grandpa that he would have to get back to him later. The old man sadly agreed and they hung up.

  Bob turned back to the Bernards. “Why, Aunt Marci? You two aren’t hard up for money. Why did you let the taxes go like that? Do you have something against Grandpa?”

  “Nothing at all,” Aunt Marci said. “If you had only just let us talk with you first, we could have gotten this all straightened out without troubling Daddy.”

  “He says he’s got letters from you two that say you promised to pay the taxes.”

  “Daddy and his letters!” She said this with a smile, but she was plainly angry and trying to cover it. “Bobby, our generation is different from Daddy’s. We don’t get sentimental about land, but instead we use it for the common good. Like our orchard, for example. This land shouldn’t sit here unused as a drain on anyone’s resources who tries to pay the taxes. Who knows how long Dave and I would have been paying out if we’d done that? And you, when you would have inherited it, how could you have kept up with the taxes? It’s got to be used by people who know how to use it.”

  “The county’s going to get it now,” Bob said.

  “The county will have already auctioned it to the highest bidder,” Uncle Dave said. “Just six acres of weeds and bad timber: but somebody will have picked it up—or will have in a few days when the redemption period is over.”

  “Why don’t you take away any furniture you want?” Aunt Marci prompted. “That chair over there looks promising.”

  “Any I want!” Bob said, rising angrily. “Like you can offer it?
It’s my furniture, mine to inherit anyway. Why are you talking to me like that, like you’re being generous to offer me what’s mine?”

  Footsteps were heard on the stairway, and they all turned their eyes toward the entrance hall. Frank the Indian walked in and stood among them. Bob fumbled through introductions.

  “Relatives, hmm. Glad to meet you. Nice car, Mr. Bernard. I saw it from upstairs. Get good mileage? No? Well, nice car.”

  The Indian looked around the room and then wandered back out.

  “Is he a paying guest?” Uncle Dave asked Bob suspiciously.

  “Look, Uncle Dave, this is just wrong. You’re breaking your word.”

  “You watch what you’re saying, Bob.”

  “Well, you are. You and Aunt Marci are going to break Grandpa’s heart.”

  Deirdre snorted. “Oh, now let’s get melodramatic.”

  “Son, the house is going to be lost,” Uncle Dave said. “It’s a done deal. You can have the furniture, whatever you can haul off.”

  “My furniture!”

  Dave’s voice hardened. “I’m giving you the furniture. Now shut up before I change my mind.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  During this exchange, Aunt Marci had gotten up to examine the Siege Perilous. She was leaning over it, plainly very interested.

  “I mean that…never mind what I mean. The point is, I could use more help with the orchard. If you can settle down and stop being so hotheaded, you might just get that fulltime job you’ve been wanting, and at better wages too.”

  “You can’t buy me, Uncle Dave.”

  “Buy you! Why, you little prig.”

  Aunt Marci sat in the Siege.

  “If there’s any way to pay those taxes, I’ll do it.”

  Dave laughed. “I know you’re broke.”

  Suddenly Bob felt empty. Uncle Dave was right. It was hopeless.

  “I hope you can live with yourself,” was his weak, almost whispered rejoinder.

  Everyone was still and silent for a moment.

  “Oh, God, I can’t!” Aunt Marci broke forth, her face suddenly awash with tears. “Oh, Bobby, I’m so sorry. I feel horrible, just sick with the guilt of it. To swindle Daddy, and after he loved me and cared for me all the time I was growing up. After he paid for my hair stylist school!” She covered her face with her hands and sobbed.

  “Marci, what’s gotten into you?” Dave barked.

  Bob found a smile. “It’s all right, Uncle Dave, she’ll get over it when you stand up and leave.”

  “That’s just what we’re going to do. And no job for you, either.” He drew Marci out of the chair and she clung to him. “Come on Deirdre.” He turned at the door and, over the sound of Marci’s crying, said, “Listen to this, Mr. Know-it-all. As soon as they held the auction for this land, Marci and I bid five thousand dollars. Nobody else even came near that, not for neglected property like this and out here so far from town. In eight days it’s in the bag, it’s ours. Then we can expand our orchard and be damned to you!”

  The Bernards walked out.

  A few hours later, and after a long phone call with his grandpa, a longer call with Julie, and a short one with the County Treasurer’s Office, Bob was sitting on the front porch trying not to think. Frank came out and sat down beside him. As the morning had turned to afternoon, the Mage had seemed in no hurry to leave and had welcomed Bob’s offer of lunchmeat sandwiches at noon. Now he settled himself to examine the narrow boards of the porch ceiling while for a long time neither one said anything.

  “Ruined your day, did they?” the Mage offered at last.

  Bob sniffled. “Yeah. They let the property taxes lapse. That closes me down. No more inn.”

  “Aw, they’re not as smart as they think.”

  Bob nodded numbly.

  “You know,” Frank added. “That Deirdre…”

  “What about her?”

  “Make a good Mage. I can tell.”

  This was so unexpected and bizarre that even in his misery Bob laughed. “Her? Come on, I’ve known her since she was born, and she’s selfish and rotten. Always getting into trouble. When she was only fourteen she stole Uncle Dave’s BMW and drove it to Indianapolis to go to a drinking party. Then she brought it back and ditched it near the house to make it look like a joy rider had taken it. She even left fake evidence in the car like empty beer cans and cigarette butts.”

  “Shows imagination. She’s pretty smart.”

  “They caught her though. Her friends blabbed.”

  “Hmm.”

  “Her favorite dodge has been to sneak out at night and blame it on sleep walking.”

  “She’s a sleep walker?”

  “Yeah, actually she is, but she was using that excuse to go partying. Claimed she was a sleep driver. She lies constantly. Some of our other cousins call her—not to her face, of course—Deirdre the Damned.”

  Frank laughed gently. “Yeah, she’s got problems. Still…”

  After another long silence, Bob said, “You know that door to the living room? I think another guest did something to it so it won’t always open.”

  “Yeah, it’s conjured,” Frank agreed. “I looked at that door and I said to myself, now that’s a Magi security door. Real old, but it’s working OK.”

  “Uh-huh. That explains it then. So what should I do about the taxes?”

  “I dunno. I don’t have any money. But don’t worry. This will be an inn as long as it’s supposed to be. Maybe it’s supposed to close for a while, but I don’t think so.”

  Before long, Frank hoisted his one old suitcase, declining Bob’s offer to carry it, said goodby, and started across the field to the portal. Bob had been thinking about the inn’s gem again, so he went down to the basement to try another search. Surely, he thought, the present circumstances called for finding and selling it. Maybe it would bring a small fortune, an amount large enough to pay the delinquent taxes, remodel the inn, and make it possible—at some point, anyway—for him to ask Julie to marry him.

  The trouble was that, as he stood in the nearly empty basement room, he saw only the same block walls as before and the same intact floor, neither offering the hope of a hiding place. It was no use investigating the wood above him, for Omlish had said the gem had to be in contact with stone or brick or something like that, which in turn had to be in contact with the ground.

  The old, low wall of stones from a long-destroyed building again seemed the only prospect, since it at least had spaces between the stones. He had already checked those spaces, but he would try again, this time even more carefully. The overhead light was not strong enough to suit him, so he pulled open little, tattered curtains that covered a basement window high in the wall, in the process knocking down dust and dead insects from the sill. And here, where he had thoughtlessly left it on the wall shelf, was the flashlight he had used before. He knelt and turned it on the stones.

  As he again searched the cracks between them, and considered getting some tool to try to pry them apart from each other, he was distracted by little flying insects ascending into his face. Others were crawling on the stones. He looked at them. More than a dozen were moving about where he had spilled dust and insect carcasses from the sill above. He paused. Where were the dead insects? He stupidly looked for them.

  He stood up. The basement suddenly seemed entrappingly small, and he was a little dizzy. From the sill he picked up another dead insect between thumb and forefinger and looked it over. Something of the winged and iridescent green variety, it was fragile and dry. He knelt down, directed the light toward a part of the stone ledge that was clear of the living insects and carefully dropped the dead bug there. Immediately it moved. In a moment more it was crawling away.

  Now he hurriedly scraped several more dead insects, the last of them, from the sill onto his palm. Again he knelt and dropped them onto another part of the ston
e ledge. Some flying, some crawling, they all came to life. One little winged thing landed on his sweating chin and he flicked it away.

  Shakily he ascended the stairs and sat down in the kitchen. He turned on the box fan and, taking a box of crackers off the top of the refrigerator, sat and absently ate. This, he told himself, was the weirdest thing he had seen yet, and even beyond weird. If it was a result of wizardry, then it seemed some arch-wizardry that was more than he would have thought his guests could accomplish. It seemed deeper than the Chosen ones, something maybe that they could build upon but could not themselves build. It was perfectly scary. It was wonderful beyond anything he had ever imagined. He wanted to ask everyone what it meant and at the same time wanted to say nothing about it to anyone.

  In the end he decided on the latter course. He said nothing of it even to Julie. Neither did he return to the basement. As for the gem, wherever it was, it seemed less important. He would try not to fret himself about it. If the inn—and he winced to think of it—would be torn down by Uncle Dave, and the basement filled in, then this row of amazing old stones would still be there, undamaged and unchanged. On and on. Wow.