A House for Keeping

by Matteson Wynn

  She pinned me with a look and said, “I don’t think this is a good idea.”

  I couldn’t tell her what I knew, so I just said, “Me neither.”

  Sarah said, “Nonsense, Nor. You’re overreacting. You and Wil have just proved that this test is perfectly safe. Now Finn, if you’d take your turn?”

  I did a quick survey. Meg looked tense, while Doug looked vaguely bored. Wil was trying hard to contain his curiosity and failing. Nor’s frown had deepened.

  Lars and the Real Girl looked like dogs on point.

  And then there was Sarah. Sarah brought me up short. She looked polite, but underneath that face there was something hungry swimming, and there was no doubt in my mind that she thought I was going to make a nice snack.

  Well, hell. I couldn’t make a fuss without revealing what I’d seen, and I had a very strong feeling that I shouldn’t play that card.

  I handed Fuzzy to Nor. Remembering how he’d behaved the last time he’d seen the door open, I said, “Hold on to him tight.”

  I waited for Nor’s nod, and then I walked over and faced off with the door.

  I reached out a finger and gave the door a quick little poke, jerking my hand away as soon as I’d touched the door. Nothing happened.

  Behind me, Meg snickered.

  I ignored her. I inched toward the door until I could put my hand flat on it. I tuned out everyone else around me as best I could and concentrated on the door.

  At first, I didn’t feel anything. Then I felt a ghost of a hum, so faint I wasn’t sure if I was imagining it.

  I turned the door knob, and it turned easily. Too easily. I frowned and let go. Something wasn’t right. I was missing something.

  I bowed my head. I probably looked like I was praying because more snickering ensued.

  Under my breath, I called out to the house, barely moving my lips or making a sound as I said, “Okay house. Please help me open the door in whatever way is the right way to win this test.”

  The house didn’t make a sound, but I still felt it watching us tensely.

  Well, there was nothing for it. House help or no house help, I had to get going. I put my hand back on the knob and tried to turn it.

  This time, it was a lot harder. My hand ached as I forced the knob to turn. “C’mon,” I coaxed under my breath.

  Finally, the knob turned all the way to the left. I pulled.

  The door didn’t budge. It sat there glaring at me, refusing to move. I let go.

  Sarah broke the silence. “You get three tries…that was one.”

  I glared at her. If I’d known I only got three tries, I’d have put a lot more effort into the first one.

  I tried again. Using both hands, I turned the knob and tugged hard.

  The door let out a little “Mmph” but didn’t budge. I did, though. My sweaty hands slipped off the knob, and I stumbled back.

  Last try.

  Wiping my hands on my pants, I stepped forward again and planted my feet. I grabbed the knob with both hands and turned. Before I started pulling, I reached out to the house, focusing on that tense awareness around me, and muttered, “If you want to, if you can…help me. Please.”

  Then I pulled.

  At first, nothing happened.

  But I kept pulling.

  I felt a slight give to the door. It didn’t really move so much as shift, just a tiny, tiny bit.

  But it was enough to have me redouble my efforts and keep on pulling.

  Underneath my feet, the floor seemed to soften a bit, allowing my feet to dig in and giving me better traction as I pulled on the door.

  I leaned back all the way, using all my body weight to pull on the door.

  Under my breath, through my gritted teeth, I chanted “Open, open, open,” as I pictured the door opening.

  I felt a low vibration, barely a hum, working its way up through the floor into my feet, a gentle tingle tickling the bottom of my toes.

  I kept pulling, but concentrated on that tingle, imagined pulling on it, too. I felt the tingle move up my body, until I felt like I was passing through a cloud of feathers.

  The feeling made me a little light-headed, but it wasn’t unpleasant.

  I kept my hands on the knob and pulled harder on both the knob and the tingling feeling.

  The tingle switched to a low buzz that traveled up my feet and through me until my whole body was vibrating. Nausea swept through me. I swallowed hard and clung to the door.

  I visualized the door swinging open as I whispered, “Please, please open for me,” and threw every ounce of strength I had into pulling on the damn door knob. At the same time, I opened myself up to the buzz I was feeling.

  Suddenly, the buzz changed to a zapping feeling. There was a crackling in the air. Spots were dancing before my eyes, but I held on.

  I heard Fuzzy yowl.

  I started swaying. I thought I smelled salt air, but then there was a wet slooshy sensation in my nose, and blood began pouring from it.

  “Finn, let go!” Nor shouted.

  At least I think that’s what she said. It was hard to hear over the rushing sound in my ears.

  The door jerked open a foot.

  The world around me went black around the edges. As I fell to the floor, I heard myself say, “Is that a tree?”

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  When I woke up, I was lying on my side on a hard cot in a small, dark room. I could see a toilet and a sink gleaming a few feet away.

  My hands were zip-tied in front of me, but I didn’t care at the moment. I was too busy panting from the pain knifing through my skull. Tears leaked from my eyes. I realized I was going to throw up and made it to the small toilet next to the cot just in time.

  I spent a good while on the floor praying to the porcelain gods. When I looked down, I gagged and nearly vomited again. The chest section of my shirt was soaked in blood. Had I gotten cut? It was hard to think straight, but I forced myself to concentrate.

  Last thing I remembered, I was trying to open the door. Oh yeah, blood had been gushing out of my nose. My vision had gone all fuzzy. I thought I might’ve also been hallucinating a bit because I could swear I’d seen a tree in the darkness on the other side of the door.

  Hallucinations and bloody noses aside, the main point was that I’d opened the door. And that meant I’d passed the test.

  Maybe that was why my hands were tied?

  I realized that there was a warm spot on my chest. It took me a minute to figure out that the charm Zo had insisted I carry felt hot. I guessed that meant it was doing its thing, and I wasn’t actually going to die, as much as I felt like it.

  When I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to hurl anymore, I stumbled to my feet and used the sink to rinse my mouth and drink some water. When I splashed water on my face, it came away clear. Someone must’ve had cleaned all the blood off my face while I was unconscious. There was no mirror to check, but I was pretty sure that even without a bloody face, I looked awful.

  Lurching over to the cot, I sat down on the edge and peered at my surroundings.

  The only light came from a night-light. The room was even smaller than I’d thought, the darkness having made the walls look farther away than they actually were. The room contained the cot, toilet, and sink, and nothing else.

  A cell. I was in a cell.

  I made my way over to the door and tried the handle. As expected, it was locked.

  “Hello?” My voice came out weak and raspy, so I cleared my throat and tried again. “Hello?”

  No answer.

  I trudged back to the cot and slumped down on it. As I started to lose consciousness again, I had a last fleeting thought.

  Nothing in the room was made of wood.

  When I woke up again, Sarah was sitting on a chair halfway between the cot and the door.

  She straightened and said, “Ah. There you are.” She turned her head toward the door and called in a louder voice, “She’s awake again. Ten minutes.”

  I wa
sn’t sure I wanted to know what was going to happen in ten minutes, but I was pretty sure I shouldn’t be lying down for it. I hoisted myself to a sitting position and shifted so I was sitting on the side of the cot, facing Sarah.

  I rested my elbows on my knees and put my head in my hands. I swallowed hard and stifled a moan.

  “How are you feeling?” Sarah asked.

  Despite my efforts to sound badass, my voice wobbled when I said, “Pretty sure I’m not gonna barf again, but I can’t make any promises.”

  Sarah leaned sideways and retrieved a tall to-go cup. She walked over, handed it to me, then resumed her seat, saying, “Drink that.”

  I peered at it. “What is it?”

  “Wil sent it.” Sarah shrugged. “I have no idea what’s in there, but he was quite insistent we give it to you when you woke up.”

  I took a tentative sip and recognized the concoction Wil had given me the last time I’d passed out. He must’ve really upped the dose of whatever was in there, or my mom’s charm was helping it work better, because just the one sip helped right away. I drank some more.

  Sarah watched me closely, saying, “You realize you scared the hell out of us.”

  “Sorry?”

  Sarah sighed and said, “What is wrong with you?”

  “You want a list? It’s kind of long.”

  “Finn, you could have killed yourself and for what? To get a shot at a job you don’t even want. Why didn’t you just stop before you went too far?” She scanned me from head to toe and shook her head. “It’s a damn miracle you’re even sitting up already. I don’t know how you’re doing as well as you are.”

  I did. I could feel the heat from my mom’s charm radiating against my skin.

  I said, “I’m not in the house anymore am I.”

  “No.”

  “Where am I?”

  “In a council facility.”

  “Why?”

  “To help you heal.”

  My headache had receded to a throb, but even though I could think more clearly, I couldn’t figure out what was happening. “Why am I tied up?”

  Sarah sighed. “It was necessary.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s for your own protection. Since you don’t have control over your magic yet, we’re trying to help. We didn’t want you sleep-casting while you were unconscious—any use of magic when you were that wiped out would have been…dire. You probably don’t know this, but it’s much harder to cast spells without the use of your hands. Plus, for added protection, the zip-tie is charmed to suppress magic. And just in case you somehow managed to overcome that, this room is sufficiently isolated to keep you from harming anyone else. If it helps, you won’t be here very long.”

  I couldn’t decide if that was supposed to sound ominous or not.

  “I passed the test, didn’t I?”

  Sarah crossed her arms. I took that as a yes.

  “I didn’t even want to take your stupid tests. You basically forced me. And now that I passed them, you’re punishing me?”

  “You’re not being punished. And as hard as this may be for you to grasp right now, I’m actually trying to help you. I didn’t want to make you take the tests any more than you wanted to take them. But like everyone else in our family, I’m bound by the rules governing the selection process. Once you showed up in time, you had to be included.”

  Sarah clasped her hands tightly. “I tried, Finn, I really tried to keep you out of it as much as possible. This whole time, I’ve been trying to protect you. We only realized someone had invited you when you RSVP’d. From that moment on, I’ve been trying to spare you from learning about any of this so you could go on with your life.”

  “Spare me how?”

  “Well, at first, by delaying you on your trip, so that the whole selection process would be over before you even got here.”

  “Delaying me?”

  Sarah brushed at her skirt. “I sent you directions that, had you followed them, would have mired you in travel woes and kept you from arriving on time. But you didn’t follow them. So, I was forced to improvise to place some other…obstacles…in your way.”

  “Obstacles?” My mind raced. I’d thought my journey to the house had seemed like an adventure because I’d never taken a road trip before. But, on reflection, that really was a lot of weird to encounter in one trek. My mind seized on the first wacky thing that had happened. “The sinkhole?”

  Sarah nodded, then sighed. “That was a little overzealous in my opinion.”

  “Overzealous? I could have died.”

  Sarah waved a hand in a “what can you do” gesture. “This is what happens when one is forced to outsource.”

  I said slowly, “The tornado—all the crazy weather. That moose. That was all you?”

  “It’s a mark of how much I wanted to protect you that I even used freelancers from other families. All so you wouldn’t have to deal with any of this.”

  “Wow.” Her idea of protecting me was to put life-threatening obstacles in my way to slow me down? I couldn’t begin to find the words to respond.

  She must’ve misinterpreted my “wow” and thought I was impressed with her, because she looked pleased. She continued, “Once it was clear you’d be here on time, I instructed Meg to limit what she told you, so we could still shield you, and you’d go on your way unaffected. But you kept questioning things.”

  She was right about that. I’d pushed for more information.

  She continued, “And when it came time to test you, even then I did what I could to make sure that you could still go off to school.” Sarah huffed, frustration written all over her face. “I threw tests at you that even a top-level magic user would have trouble passing, but you blew through them all. And there’s no way you should have been able to open that door on your own.”

  She eyed me. “How’d you do it? How’d you cheat? Some kind of amplification spell painted somewhere on your body?”

  “Is that how Meg did it?” I asked. Sarah looked down, refusing to meet my eyes. “Or did you just say she did, and she didn’t actually open the door at all.” I knew I was right when she flinched.

  Slowly, it dawned on me. “That’s why I’m not in the house. I beat Meg.” I swallowed. “Oh no. I’m the top candidate for housekeeper now, aren’t I?”

  Sarah shook her head and sighed again. “Finn, you may have passed the tests, but that doesn’t mean you are in any way suited to be the housekeeper.”

  She stood up and began stalking around the room. The cell was so small that she couldn’t go very far, and she wound up pacing back and forth like a caged animal. “I honestly don’t know how to make you understand things in the time we’ve got.”

  She stopped behind the chair, gripping the back with both hands. “I’ve spent my life dedicated to the protection and well-being of our family. Literally, my entire life. I was raised with a singular focus on leading the Foster clan.”

  “Bully for you,” I said.

  She ignored me. “And I can tell you that it is honestly not in anyone’s best interests—yours or our family’s—for you to be housekeeper. Since it’s my job to make sure we all thrive—including you, Finn—I’d like to work something out that would be for the good of everyone.”

  “Okay…”

  “You don’t really want to be stuck in that house for the rest of your life, do you? You’ve already spent so much time trapped in that diner in the middle of nowhere—do you really want to spend your entire life confined like that?”

  She nodded when I flinched.

  Sitting down again, she said, “And being housekeeper is far more confining than being a waitress in that diner. You’ll be isolated. No people coming and going all day. Just you and the house, most days.”

  “At least I’ll have cable,” I said. But it sounded flat, even to my ears.

  Sarah said, “You’ll have cable and much more at that school you’re planning on attending. I had my people check it out. It’s really a top-notch in
stitution.”

  “Try not to sound so surprised.”

  She smiled, “You’re reading me wrong. Not surprised, delighted. Genuinely glad that you have a real shot at making something special out of your life. As I said, Finn, I like it when my people succeed. If you’re doing well, then I’m doing well.”

  I’d have crossed my arms but my hands were tied. “Do you have a point?”

  “My point,” she said, leaning forward, “is that I’m not your enemy. In fact, I’m your best ally. I’m the person who can make good things happen for you. Particularly now that you’ve been brought fully into the family fold. I can think of a number of magical opportunities that would really benefit from the type of education you’re about to get.”

  Carrot. She was offering me a carrot. A vague carrot, but I was betting I could ask for just about anything, and I’d get it. But carrots weren’t free. “What do you want in return?” I asked.

  “Nothing. You don’t have to do anything. Just stay here and rest. Think about what you want to do next and how I might aid in your future endeavors.”

  “So stay here while you make Meg the housekeeper, is what you’re saying.” Like I had a choice. I rubbed at my head with my hands. “Tell me this, why do you want Meg to be housekeeper so bad?”

  Sarah looked like she was debating with herself. Then she smoothed her hair as she said, “Meg and I share a similar vision for the future of this family, and with her in charge of the house, I can make some much needed changes. I’m sure you’ll be relieved to hear that I’m going to see what I can do about changing the rules governing the selection process. I need to be more…forward-thinking, more proactive in shaping how this family moves through the 21st century.”

  “Like forming an alliance with another family?”

  Sarah looked startled. “How did you…?” She grimaced. “I told Gram the hailstorm was a mistake. If you can figure out he’s been traipsing around the property, then it’s possible others will make the connection.”

  A little click went off in my brain. “He’s Not-Doug.”