Journeys in the Fairworld: The Gatekeeper.

The House of Dackery

Lindsey awoke.

She found herself lying in a sweaty tangle of a bed in a strange room, staring up at the ceiling.

She sat upright with a jerk and looked about herself.

Yes, this was definitely the room she had gone to sleep in the night before. A room in an old house somewhere in the heart of the New England, belonging to one Mr. Horatio Dackery.

Had she gone somewhere during the night? She could remember every detail perfectly. The grass, the mushrooms, and the creature sitting under said mushrooms. Had it all been a dream? Or had Elred indeed brought her back to Dackery's house, just as he had promised?

She swung her legs over the side of the bed, sending a shower of breadcrumbs onto the floor. Apparently she'd brought back a few souvenirs from her dreaming, and made a mess of Dackery's bedroom with them to boot.

A sudden thought struck her, and she glanced around the room.

There, on the nightstand, was a small gold coin. Apparently the breadcrumbs weren't the only souvenir she'd brought back from her nocturnal adventure. She picked up the coin and examined it again. There, written on one side, was the inscription Elred had spoken of. The words which were supposed to reunite her with the creature, who would then presumably whisk her off to wherever she wished.

It was merely up to her to decide where she would go.

From outside, she thought she heard a noise. A comfortable sort of clinking, accompanied by the faint odor of bacon. Her stomach grumbled greedily. She wasn't particularly hungry, but still had an appetite. Decisions could wait. She pocketed the coin and then began to pull furniture away from the door. It was time to see what the hospitable Mr. Dackery was up to.

Lindsey made her way to the sitting room. The drapes were still closed, and the lights were off. There was no sign of Dackery. Lindsey began to explore.

At the end of the hallway she came upon a stairwell leading down to the first floor. Presumably the kitchen would be down there. She descended to reach a second hallway, which she followed past a number of lonely looking rooms, a few of which appeared wholly disused, with much of the furniture draped with dusty holland covers.

The passage ended in a modestly spacious kitchen. The ceiling was rather low, and the floorboards creaked beneath her as Lindsey stepped in. On one side there was an exterior door and and a pair of tall, heavily built windows looking out into a small vegetable garden. On the other was a great stone fireplace, although the word hardly seemed sufficient to describe it, for it was as nearly wide as was the whole room and was as tall as a man. The fireplace was set so deeply into the wall that it formed almost another room unto itself, with a shallow ledge at the rear containing two or three small separate ovens set deeper yet into the stone. But it was clearly no longer used for its original purpose, for much of it was now occupied by two modern contrivances, a steel double stove and refrigerator. Though 'modern' was a relative term, for even these were old and looked to have been in their prime sometime in the early 1950s, their teal paint contrasting weirdly with the stone around them which was blackened by three centuries of soot and smoke. In another part of the room there was a free standing steel sink, bolted to the floor with the plumbing passing awkwardly into the floorboards, while all around the walls were papered with a decades old floral pattern that was still comfortable and cheerful even as it was faded, discolored and peeling in places.

And in the center of the room there was a large table, where stood Mr. Dackery in shirtsleeves, slicing some fresh bread.

Dackery looked up and gave a smile which was probably intended to be pleasant, but against his naturally brooding features it still looked more like a scowl.