Guardian Of The Realm: Book 9 Guardian Of The Realm

By Sandra Elsa

This is not the final book in this series. Titling it after the series. Titling it as I have seems to have caused some confusion in this respect. The title merely reflects Tess's new job.

Having barely survived an attack by a harpy assassin Tess decides to take some time off and investigate the property left to her by her previously unheard of Aunt Lila. She takes her friends and plans a weekend trip to figure out what to do with it, but once they arrive it doesn't take long to weird Gladys out. Tassels that move without a breeze. Carnivorous creatures in the kitchen. Fairies saving Spinners from certain death--of course Gladys sees a bird catch a spider. Tess discovers a canvas with a unicorn half stitched and takes it along. And if that isn't enough, how do you explain that the upstairs hallway which had four windows on the walk-around has twenty-five rooms in it, and the thirteenth doorway is blocked off with a wall of solid stone.

At Gladys's urging they leave the house and stay the night in a local motel in a town that isn't even on the map.

Johnny sticks it out like the White Knight he is and after they take Gladys and Carl home starts asking Tess questions she can't answer. Except this time she plans to go back to live there and she gives his father an ultimatum Tell him what he is or she will. He's already seen a fairy, she refuses to rewind that clock.

They move to Saralon and the adventures begin before they even take up residence culminating with a face to face with the witch who killed her parents.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sandra Elsa
• Release date: Jan 5, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301129379

Book preview

Book Nine –Guardian Of The Realm

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2012 by Sandra Elsa

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Foreword:

I have used real place names, and in several instances real facility names, i.e. restaurants, stores, etc. however I have no knowledge of these places except that they exist, so everything pertaining to them in this novel exists purely within this writer’s mind. On occasion I used menu items from an online menu, but I offer no guarantees you can go there and actually order what Tess had for lunch. In other words, this is fiction and the story, places, and characters, are also fictional, in no way created to resemble real characters or happenings.

That said, please enjoy this tale and if you like it, or hate it, please leave a review.

Important note: The title of this book is the same as the title of the series. That does not however mean it is the last in the series. There has been some confusion from those who purchased the Amazon release so I’m adding this to prevent future misunderstandings. It simply means Tess has finally taken the step up in rank to Guardian of the Realm from Guardian of the demesne. However this is the last book I had completed in rough draft format before I started publishing them. From this one on(I anticipate three more) there will be larger gaps between publishing. The tenth in the series is half written and hopefully will be released in April 2013.

Chapter 1

The knocking overhead rattled my nerves. It wouldn't have if it sounded like it was coming from the ceiling. Mice in the attic would be a comfort, even normal in a house this old.

I expected my winged pests to show up any hour, day or night at home. But home was a four-hour drive as the boyfriend cruises. They couldn’t fly that fast. How the hell did they follow me?

Johnny looked at me like I was crazy as I cocked my head to listen better. I glanced upward, but surrounded by my friends, I didn't want to stare. Bad enough they were watching me wig out over a noise they couldn't hear. I stood up straight and shook my head. Guess I'm hearing things. A shiver ran down my back and Johnny wrapped his arm around my shoulders.

It's all right, Babe. Given the setting I can't believe I'm not hearing things.

My knight in shining armor. Always ready to justify my odd behavior. Odder than usual at this particular moment in time. Nearly dying will do that to you. I closed my eyes and took a calming breath. Only a select few fairies would be anywhere near if there were harpies around.

Gladys and Carl glanced around the room. For once they seemed to accept Johnny's excuses. Dust coated everything. Cobwebs draped oil lamps. Several paintings hung ajar, as though the door we’d had difficulty forcing open had blown wide and a stiff wind had ravaged the interior of the immense room. Under the paintings you could see the wallpaper had once been a splendid gold and hunter green. Now it was dingy, mustard and near black. Apparently my long lost Aunt—or whatever relative status they wanted to claim for her—had been no interior decorator.

In the middle of the room, a candelabra hung from tarnished chains. Furniture, shrouded in dusty gray-white sheets, was anything but inviting. Carl and Johnny uncovered two austere chairs, dark and foreboding like the green of the wallpaper. Table legs extending beneath their cover were the same dark wood, no lathe design, square and utilitarian as though the owner of the house had no eye for beauty.

When the second chair was uncovered, the tapping and scratching startled me into a yelp. Having an audience didn’t stop me from twirling around like a fool, gaze darting into dark corners. Since the damn harpy, my confidence had slipped. Johnny's outstretched hand stopped my motion but he couldn't stop the noise. Couldn't stop me from zeroing in on it. Now that I had it pegged, I ignored it, hoping beyond hope they would go away. Even the Guardian of the Fairy Demesne deserved a day to herself now and then. And in that moment I realized I’d been lured here. I had no lost relatives. What was their point? And who was responsible for the deception?

The fairies got louder. As if they thought I just couldn't hear them. Explaining that my friends would try to have me committed if I spoke to invisible people, didn‘t phase them in the least. Telling them that if I was locked away I wouldn't be able to help them with their petty emergencies and problems hadn't stopped them at all. Actually I think that may have upset them. After all, to a fairy a hangnail is an emergency of most dire circumstance. And so I had learned to ignore them until I was alone. I just hadn't expected them here in the middle of Timbuktu, also known as Bumfukt Egypt, AKA Cedar Grove WV. At least that was the closest place with a name on the map. Hard to believe Charleston was only half an hour away.

Carl moved to the couch in the middle of the room. Pale green yarn bound by gold thread dangled beneath the white shroud. The ruckus the blasted fairies created as Carl laid his hand on the sheet brought my mind sharply into focus. The green tassel shifted...Fairies didn't usually move things while flitting about the human realm. People could see things like material moving. Why would they take such a risk? Besides it sounded like far greater numbers than the royals could account for so how were they not visible. Only King Ral’s children could camouflage themselves and I I couldn’t even find them by their auras. Where the hell were they?

The hair on the nape of my neck stood on end as I heard the soft growling underneath the tapping of the fairies. Shhh...

Carl paused and turned to look at me. Tess? He glanced at Johnny and shrugged.

Don't! The panic in my voice stopped them. The growl was loud in the silence that followed my order. My friends didn't hear the growl anymore than they heard the tapping--even without audio, the room was abandoned and creepy--but they saw the green material, twirling as though clawed at. I pointed to it and even Carl, who usually scoffed at what he referred to as my eccentricities, backed away. The shroud didn't move, only the tassels. Whatever was there, it was tied to the couch and I had no desire to investigate further. The fairies apparently didn't think I needed to be close to it and they were usually right about things like that. My mind was screaming Werecat. Who in their right mind would lock a Were so close to human populations?

The green material ceased moving as Carl backed away and my friends stood beside me across the room from it. Do me a favor. Let's don't uncover any more furniture.

For once, the skeptical glances were aimed at the quiescent couch, not me. Whatever you say, Babe. That was weird.

Beside Johnny, Carl nodded. There's no wind in here, it's closed as a tomb.

Gladys' eyes widened, her skin paled. Tomb was probably the wrong choice of words. Happy it wasn't my faux pas, I nodded toward the door of the room. If it was wind, the sheet would have moved. Shall we see what other wonders I've inherited?

Johnny led the way out the door, his arm clasping me to his side. Carl and Gladys brushed up against the doorframe as they walked through together, neither wanted to be the last out of the living room. The hallway was long and dark and my hero quickly turned on the mag-lite we'd brought to explore dark corners. There wasn't any electricity in the house and I was afraid lighting the lamps would start cobwebs burning. Then I'd be the proud owner—okay so I’d been tricked into coming here. Still it seemed they were giving me this great moldering heap, for whatever reason--of a pile of ash. Three steps down the hall, the tapping started again. This time it was accompanied by tinkling laughter. I knew that laugh. Joli was here. I took that to mean the hall was safe enough. Joli wouldn’t laugh if there was danger, no matter where she ranked on the pest-o-meter, I trusted her to have my best interests at heart.

A tiny chime on the left side of the hall caught my attention. I continued ahead without looking, but was relieved when Gladys asked, Didn't you hear that? Not fairies then.

Turning back to the precise spot I'd heard the chimes, we investigated the wall. An alcove briefly widened the hallway but the walls were unadorned. Nothing obvious to create the sound. The noise came again and Johnny turned the mag upward. With relief we noted a small set of pipes strung up in the right angle created by ceiling and wall. Relief was short lived when I realized there was still no breeze.

Carl, the practical one, walked back to the door and passed the spot where we stood. The chimes rattled together. He backed a step and we all heard the creak of the boards under his feet.

Johnny put his hand on the wall. Do it again.

Carl retraced his steps.

Johnny nodded as the board creaked and the chimes jingled. There's vibration all the way up.

An alarm then. Gladys' voice carried a note of relief.

Ever the one to throw a damper on the party, I had to say, But what was she expecting? With all the modern alarms why not just wire the house.

Because there isn't any electricity, or phone, or anything to power a modern alarm system. Of course Johnny had the answers.

But who would even hear that? I barely did and we walked straight past it.

Carl reached up and thumped the wall. He walked down the hall and said, Hit it again, John.

Johnny did, but Carl didn't look pleased with the result of his experiment. We met him at the end of the hallway, ready to let the matter drop as one of those items needing more explanation but not worth tarrying over. You never know, Carl said, that sound may be as loud as a trumpet in one of these rooms. These old houses carry sound strangely sometimes. He was grasping, but I wisely didn't say so.

Joli giggled and I grimaced. The door at the end of the hallway opened out onto a sunny room with an old woodstove in the corner and a huge plain table. Rough wooden chairs stood at either end and wooden benches ran down both sides. Unlike the salon, no shrouds covered this furniture. I poked into cabinets and closets. Most of the food was in cans. What wasn‘t, needed throwing out in the worst sort of way. Dried plants protruded from a slatted wooden box. Potato leaves in the bottom half and onion stalks from the top. I didn't even want to get close to that. I'd successfully played find-the-stench with rotten potatoes in my own kitchen. I wasn't eager to relive that. Johnny bravely grasped a corner and dragged it to the door that opened into a mini courtyard.

The china was exquisite. Everything else had been plain, plain and more plain so it was a surprise to brush the dust away and find a pattern of raised gold floral designs on shimmering white porcelain. The next shelf up held a set of fine crystal water glasses with a frosted floral pattern and a tiny golden unicorn in the center of each rose. The silver was utilitarian like the furniture.

Johnny was still outside gagging over the box of dried-out, rotted potatoes and onions. He had foolishly removed the lid. We went outside and I wrapped an arm around his waist and moved him further from the box.

He coughed a couple more times and gave me a weak smile. Thanks, that nearly knocked me out. Bent over to see if the box was salvageable and nearly lost my lunch. Something in there isn't now, nor ever was, vegetation, and it was eating something that wasn’t a potato or an onion.

Carl voiced my thought, You’ve been hanging around Tess too long. Of course our reasons for the thought were vastly different. He just thought I was a nut job, and apparently contagious. I wondered if Johnny had been around me long enough he was becoming sensitive to Others.

I swear it… Johnny defended himself then gave it up. I knew that surrender well. Sorry, just my imagination, fueled by the thing under the couch. Probably just a rat.

From a distance I looked into the box. Whatever he had seen was long gone, Its meal, on the other hand, used to be a rat. A shiver of disgust ran through my body. I guess rats shouldn't be a surprise, but yuck...Discovering what sort of carnivore was roaming the kitchen would have to go high on the priority list.

Gladys walked wide around the box. Quite the charming little house you have here, Tess. I have matches and lighter fluid in the car.

The tapping surged into a mutinous roar at the very suggestion. Still overhead with nothing but clear sky above. More to calm down my attendants than an earnest response to Gladys' joke, I said, I don't think we need anything that drastic, just yet.

Reckon it was a rat under the couch? Carl sounded like he wanted somebody to support the possibility. We could all see the upholstery plain as day, there hadn't been any visible furry bodies attached to it. Nobody answered him.

The roar subsided at my reassurance that the house wasn't about to go up in flames and we continued our tour. Across the courtyard from the kitchen stood three closed doors. We opened the left-hand door and entered a small room with a twin bed and a chest of drawers. The drawers stood open. Clothing lay within, neatly folded and dust free as though the owner had only just left and would be returning to tidy up later. We turned and walked back into the courtyard to the accompaniment of chimes. Taking my cue from my friends we stopped and searched for the source again but failed to find anything. The tapping of the fairies rose in volume as the sound rang out a second time. I followed the tapping and noted a hole in the wall. If this led back to the chimes in the hallway it was a roundabout route for sound to travel...If this led back to the chimes in the hallway what was making them sound off now? No rat was heavy enough to vibrate the floorboards.

The chimes we saw weren't necessarily the only ones in the house. A broken window on the upper floor may allow enough wind to vibrate such small pipes.

The door to the right, opened onto a room nearly identical to the one we just left. Instead of a bed and a chest of drawers, this one contained a chair, couch and a small table. Needlepoint lay on the table. A half-finished unicorn stared at us. A fairy, in what I knew to be true to life detail, flittered above the golden spiral horn picked out in neat little stitches. The colors were vibrant. No thread from the human realm was responsible for the life-like twinkle in the unicorn’s blue eye. My friends stared in awe. I gazed at the evidence that dear Aunt Lila--whom I had never met or even heard of before she left me this house--had been connected to the Other realm. Trees were sketched in behind the unicorn and in the distance, rocky outcroppings jutted above white cap waves. The unicorn struggled to pull his lower half free from a prison of canvas. I gently stroked the white coat and a warm pulse tingled my fingertips. Under my hand the horn twitched, the eyes pled for their release. I picked up the canvas to prevent my friends from seeing the minor changes and tucked it under one arm. This room too was free of dust.

The middle door opened on a staircase. Dust thrived on the lamps and spider webs lined the joints of wall and ceiling. Opening the door dislodged a fat black denizen who had likely felt herself safe from intruders. Gladys screamed and scrambled back, brown hair flying. Carl jumped to her defense, ready to squish it with his bare hands when a small form flitted in, snatched up the monster, and darted away, too fast to be seen clearly. That was a hungry bird. Gladys glanced around the small courtyard. No feathered creatures were in sight. He has my thanks. Wherever he got to.

I had seen the phenomenon time and again but it still struck me as odd, how the human mind sees what it expects to. Fairies possess little magic when they venture into our world. They don't expend it cloaking themselves in illusion. The icy fingers that had massaged my back since arriving at this isolated heap, stroked either side of my spine again. Was the fairy saving the spider or us? Had it been a spider or a spinner?

Johnny stared after the fairy several moments then glanced at me and pushed the door wider and started upstairs. Crisis averted?

Gladys’ eyes darted about, looking for more spiders, before she stepped through the doorway. For now, I guess. But if we're not going to light it on fire these cobwebs will have to go.

Carl rested a hand on her hip and followed her up the narrow staircase.

I followed after and thirteen steps later arrived at the second floor. If anything, the cobwebs were thicker up here. Dust lay on everything. With some consternation, Johnny pointed out a recent trail of child-sized footprints; only one set that started at the sixth window, crossed the hallway, and ended at a painting. Close examination failed to reveal a skillful feat of backtracking so I returned to stare at the picture.

Unicorns, fairies, elves, pixies, and brownies frolicked in an open field. A mushroom ring sprouted in the center and more fairies rose from within. On the right side of the painting the trees faded into three mountain peaks. The artist had darkened the colors, lending an ominous air to that sector. The ice fingers dug deeper and I looked away quickly, afraid of what I might see blundering out of the canvas. Judging by my friends expressions they shared my sentiments.

We turned away from the painting and began opening doors down a long hallway. All the rooms were bedrooms as though my mysterious, not-really-an-aunt, had once hosted immense numbers of people or...whatever. Had she held balls? The house didn't look big enough from the outside to include a ballroom. Of course we’d walked around it on the outside; it didn't look like there should be a hall with this many doors anywhere. We opened the thirteenth door and found a rock wall.

Guess your aunt was superstitious, Carl volunteered.

You think? Johnny's sarcasm was lost on Carl. But look at this stonework. You can't even see marks where they chiseled the stones to make them fit.

I almost said something along the lines of magic doesn't leave traces unless the practitioner wants it to. But that would be asking for a white jacket with extra-long sleeves. There wasn't any mortar visible between the close fitting stones, but I suspected it would take more than the four of us to bull our way through. I guess she had good reason to close this up. Let's keep looking.

My friends stared down the hall in disbelief as we moved on to door fourteen. Even if the rooms had been tiny, thirteen would have been too many. Doors fourteen through nineteen were much like one through twelve. Ornate beds both large and small, wearing multiple layers of dust. Heavy burgundy drapes hung over the windows. Old tapestries cluttered the walls. The images changed as we moved down the hallway. Beginning with medieval style hunt depictions of kings and nobles riding to the hounds, and ending with the lithe bodies and wicked expressions of the fae led by the Erl King riding under the full moon. Chairs and night tables finished off the simple furnishings.

Room twenty had a broken window. I walked in to survey the damage and turned around before my friends came close enough to look outside. The meadow held a meandering stream, backed by a picturesque forest of hardwoods. A few tall pines rose in clusters to the rear of the forest. Beautiful, charming, quaint, scenic...any other number of words you could pull out of the thesaurus described the view perfectly. The problem was, we'd walked all around the house when we arrived and that scenery was not in the human realm. I clasped Johnny's hand as I passed and dragged him back to the doorway. Gladys and Carl followed.

With everybody back in the hallway I closed the door to twenty and looked down the hall. We were nearing the end but there were five more doors. My friends waited for me to make the next move. I turned to twenty-one and opened it. Might as well get this done. If there were anymore surprises I wanted to know about them. This was just a recon mission.

Door twenty-five was different. A brass knob with intricate patterns of twisting vines gleamed as though used regularly. The dust in front of the room was free of footprints. I pushed Johnny aside as he reached for the knob, then cracked the door open, glancing inside. If it was anything too bizarre, my friends could think me as strange as it pleased them to. Their opinion of my sanity was a small price to pay to preserve theirs.

Light shone through a small slit in the heavy drapes. Oak poles, carved to look very much like live trees, supported a gossamer silver canopy. At least I hoped that's what my friends would believe. The occasional leaf at the top told me these were real trees. The head board was also alive. Vines twined in and out of small branches forming a pattern of swans on water. Flowers covered the nightstands, they looked fresh. Brilliant living hues filled boxes on the windowsill. They were vibrant and well-tended. The lamps were brass and glinted in the afternoon sun. No tarnish here. Three damask upholstered chairs were placed beside the bed. I had the tingling sensation that they had just been vacated.

A flash in the corner of the room spoke of a disappearing tenant but when I turned my head he...maybe she or even it, was gone. Looking back from my examination of the corner of the room, the flowers were wilted by the bed. The ones in the boxes, dried stems. The lamps tarnished and the chairs’ upholstery worn and world weary. I could feel the magic in use but I wondered if this was the illusion or the earlier scene. I opened the door a bit wider to allow my friends to see

We closed the room up and retraced our steps. Gladys checked for spiders before reentering the staircase. It struck me as odd that the only way to the second floor was from within the small enclosed courtyard. The chimes rang out as we stepped out of the stairwell and we all turned to the small room with the bed. Whoever was keeping it dust free had not returned. Or if they had, they were doing a good job of staying out of sight. For all I knew it could be the person from the brass room. But it didn't make sense to me. If the occupant was of the Other realm, why stay in the small room? And where were the footprints trailing to and fro?"

With a shrug, I led the way back out of the house, carefully skirting the couch. Once safely outside without a fairy tapping or giggling overhead, I asked, So what's everybody think?

Gladys, Carl, and my white knight exchanged doubtful glances.

The place is more than a little odd, Babe. Johnny, the diplomat.

Carl's glance strayed toward the upper floor. I counted four windows. No possible way to have twenty-five rooms opening off a single hallway and they all knew it. They just couldn't explain it and wouldn't believe me if I tried.

Gladys wrapped an arm around my shoulders and said, I still have that lighter fluid in the glove box. Old as that thing is, it'd go up long before the fire department could get here.

I shook my head and laughed. Do we want to drive home or find a motel to stay at and drive back tomorrow? I'm going to have to speak to a real estate agent and maybe an auctioneer, get rid of the old furniture.

The thought of sleeping in the house I owned wasn't appealing and none of my friends seemed to find it odd I didn't throw that out as an option.

We might as well stay in town. Johnny opened the car door without a backward glance. We were driving toward Cedar Grove when we noted a small sign informing us that the Hurlin Motel was only two miles south of Lila's house. Hurlin wasn't even a dot on the map but it was closer than Cedar Grove.

Truth was, I needed time to think. No way could I sell the house. Gladys' idea had merit. I wasn't sure what burning the thing down would do to the other side though. Would it leave a great gaping hole between worlds? Would the gate shut down before the fire reached the building on that side? Why couldn't it be a discreet little shimmering curtain in the forest, like my portal at home? I guess if they can make portals, they can close them. Burning it might be the best bet, even if Gladys thought she was joking.

The Other Realm presence in the house was thick. With a little forewarning they should be able to close the thing. Joli was up there. I just needed to get a little alone time with her royal highness. She wasn't likely to be helpful, but better her than one of the unknowns from the residence. I think fairies preferred to watch me struggle so they could laugh when I messed up the task of the day. They usually came through when it counted and I suppose if I told her I was going to burn the dusty heap, I might get some straight answers to some of my questions. The building seemed important to them. I wondered if the portal was connected to the fairy demesne. I couldn’t see Ral giving permission for them to come very far away from home. But I didn’t know of a second portal and Trey would have told me.

The streets of Hurlin were desolate. Lights shone in only about one in four houses, of which there were maybe twenty-five, hardly big enough to merit a motel, but there it was. Curtains drew back in some of the dark windows as we passed by. Faces slid into darkness as I searched for occupants.

The motel was less than welcoming. The parking lot lights were out, but the office was illuminated, as was the sign that declared there were vacancies. The surly man behind the desk left something to be desired in the feel-good category. We rented one room. None of us wanted to be alone.

I turned back to look at the clerk reclining in his chair, pretending we no longer existed. His shadow was moving, lashing angrily as though unwillingly bound to the slothful creature tending the reception desk. Some things were better left alone. Like the couch kitty.

With the presence of the unknown shadow creature, the dark parking lot took on a more sinister appearance than just a poorly kept business. Johnny parked in the spot immediately in front of our room and as my friends gathered their few belongings, I surreptitiously stood guard, examining shadows for signs of motion.

I hurried in behind Gladys and closed the door, grateful for the glare of the unshielded sixty watt bulbs burning brightly in what passed as lamps. The room was dirty. The beds made me cringe. Not much sleeping going on here tonight. Fully clothed I chose the bed nearest the door and lay down on top of the dingy red spread. Johnny shrugged and joined me.

Gladys shrieked from the bathroom door and I imagined another spider attack. She came out backwards, towel swinging from her left hand, top clutched in her right. There was something in the tub!

Carl wrapped his arms around her and calmly said, Describe-- something.

It was long and skinny and it slid over the side of the tub and looked at me, then slithered down the drain.

A snake?

Gladys gave him an annoyed look. She owned two corn snakes so it was sort of stupid for Carl to insinuate that A: she wouldn't recognize a snake and B: She'd run screaming from it. "It looked at me."

The emphasis on looked told me what bothered her. Color?

Green. Dark green.

Smooth skin like a snake or warty like a toad?

It was not a snake or a toad! The hysteria in her voice stopped me. I needed more information to figure out if I'd met one of Gladys' bath companions before, but it wasn't worth driving her over the slippery edge of sanity. Gladys was one of my closest friends but I didn't think she could handle the Other Realm. Not everything over there was fairies and flowers. Even the unicorn on the canvas in the car could be good or bad. Had Aunt Lila been pulling stitches to free him--or her; the defining part of the image wasn't there-- or condemning him to live in canvas. Unicorns took a lot of killing but they could be imprisoned with relative ease if one had the necessary equipment, which usually included a virgin. I would have to discover his story and complete Lila's work, one way or the other. Even if he was evil, leaving him trapped half in and half out of the canvas was punishment beyond measure.

Eventually we drifted off, to sleep fitfully through a too long night.

Morning was overcast. A fitting end to this journey. By noon it would most likely be pouring. If I was lucky, maybe lightning would strike the house and the decision would be out of my hands.

We left the key on the nightstand and slammed the door behind us. Nobody wanted to face the desk clerk to turn it in. Not even if there was somebody else working this morning.

Chapter 2

Daylight didn't turn Hurlin into a vacation paradise but it was far better than in the dark. None of the shadows moved by themselves and the smell of bacon wafted from the tiny restaurant across the street. My stomach rumbled to the accompaniment of Gladys's on my left and Johnny's on my right. None of us had eaten since lunch the day before. Carl led the way across the street.

The restaurant was the brightest spot we'd seen in town, a stark contrast to the dinginess of the motel. The waitress wore a spotless white uniform, gleaming blonde hair neatly coifed into a bun, the only oddity, her slipperlike, slightly upturned shoes. I was rather certain that wouldn't pass a health department inspection but I was so delighted at the change of atmosphere and the pleasant scent of baked goods and cinnamon underlying the stronger odors of cooked breakfast meats, I wasn‘t going to worry about a little thing like a code violation. The cook's hair was smoothed under his cap, no grease stained the white apron, he was unnaturally clean but this kind of unnatural I appreciated. I knew the cap covering the dark locks would conceal pointed ears, and the blonde hair of the waitress, likewise. I could feel their magic hum through the little restaurant; they’d been here long enough to make it their own.

Green eyes smiled at me as the waitress asked, What can I get you?

We placed our orders and then headed toward the bathroom to wash off yesterday's dust.

The mirror greeted me with smudges on my upturned nose and round cheekbones. My naturally unruly auburn curls, even more out of control than normal, framed my face and trailed down my back. Beside me, Gladys ran a hand through her smooth dark brown hair and wiped at her face with paper towels. Her blue eye shadow was smudged and she cleaned it off then dug through her purse to find her travel supplies. She smeared enough soap on her hands to clean a classroom full of snotty nosed children and scrubbed as though she would take the skin off, then reapplied her makeup. She pinned her hair up and shook her head. I don't want to go back up there....It's just...It's...I want to go home.

I was glad to hear her say it. I'd been wondering how to separate my friends from the world they'd stepped in yesterday without making it appear I wished them gone. Gladys had just given me the opening. I understand. We'll leave as soon as we eat.

But what about the house?

There've got to be some real-estate agents in the phone book. I'll deal with it long-distance.

A smile flickered briefly over Gladys's face. "Reach out and touch someone, huh? Better