The Gray House

“Well, there was one about having the building repaired at least every three years. And also cripples having a priority in admission; that started with him. They didn’t admit anyone who was unfit mentally, because he designed the program of studies himself, and it was very hard, you had to be smart to follow it. He even ran into some opposition there, they accused him of throwing such a lot of money at one crumbling orphanage, when he could have used it to build twenty more like it, and then barring the entrance to it for those who were the most disadvantaged.”

“Tabaqui!” Lizard says hotly. “How could you know stuff like that, and in such detail? You invented all this, admit it!”

“I admit. I was sitting here and inventing. Because I had nothing better to do than exercise my imagination.”

Lizard grabs my cup and unceremoniously takes a big swig.

“It’s too romantic,” he grumbles. “It never happens like this in real life. Even if there was something, you still wrapped all kinds of fluff around it.”

“But at least I’ve managed to touch you. See, you’re even gulping other people’s coffee, you’re so touched.”

Lizard returns the cup, looking at me accusingly.

“So it was all bullshit?”

He’s got incredibly bushy eyebrows, his forehead is hidden behind thick growth, and even his ears sport big tufts of coarse hair. He resembles a minor folkloric demon. You can almost spot the little horns. Angel, ever the effete pervert, keeps rolling his eyes behind Lizard’s back at his every word. Another chair has been occupied by Guppy, he of the interminably leaky nose and big ears, the biggest in the whole House, after mine, of course. I think it would have done old man Tarantula good to see all of us here.

“It must be the truth,” Mermaid says earnestly. “When Tabaqui’s making up something he always defends it to the last. He’d never confess that he’s invented something.”

Lizard turns his shaggy head this way and that.

“So what am I supposed to think now? He says he’s made it all up, you say he hasn’t.”

“Archives are for reading, children,” I say. “And history is for knowing, to the extent possible.”

Lizard frowns and falls silent. As do the rest of them. Pensive Mermaid drips question marks, they slide off one after the other and dissolve in the floorboards. My cup is empty, so I surreptitiously pull Mermaid’s closer, even though she never adds enough sugar.

Angel repositions the eyes that he kept rolled all the way up.

“I propose we install a totem pole at the Crossroads in honor of our patron saint,” he intones in his crystal-clear little voice. “Shame on us that the memory of the person to whom we owe so much is languishing forgotten.”

“You’d be honoring everyone all day and all night if you get the chance,” Lizard snarls, still looking suspiciously in my direction. “No archives could possibly have told him all the crap he just fed us.”

“But it did happen!” Angel exclaims. “And you have to agree, the cult of the spider is well established in the House since times immemorial. Take, for example, these widely known lines . . .”

Lizard’s irate howls drown out the widely known lines. Mermaid sticks fingers in her ears, and Guppy closes his eyes for some reason. I guess because two fingers are nowhere near enough to plug his ears. I follow his example and close mine too. When I open them again I’m looking at Horse.

He seems to be saying something, but I can’t hear a single word until Lizard stops howling and drives away from our table.

“. . . and he was kind to birds and beasts!” Angel finishes lovingly.

“. . . he said you were into useless trash.” Horse places a string of something indeterminate on the table before me. “You think you might need this?”

I snatch it, and there it is, the miracle. Rat skulls attached to a thin, bridle-like strap. I sweep off the shades to better see the long-awaited prize.

“Horse. Whose is it?”

“Heck if I know,” he says. “I found it in the shoe locker. I went there for the shoe polish, and it was right there, so I thought, what’s that crap?”

My hands are shaking as I untangle the strap. The skulls are seven, and only one of them has a fang broken, otherwise they’re in mint condition. The strap is decorated with dull copper studs and spikes, it’s rather beautiful even by itself. If this is not a magical object, I don’t know what is.

“What a monstrosity!” Angel exclaims. “What poor creatures had to suffer for this?”

“They’re rat skulls,” I grumble. “What were you doing in biology class, that’s what I’d like to know?”

Horse beams.

“So, if you need this, it’s yours. I’ve got no use for it.”

“Disgusting,” Angel whines. “So many rats dead, and for what? Ooh, could it be someone casting a hex on the Second?”

“Hey!” Horse crosses his fingers and looks around suspiciously. “Angel, you’d better, you know, watch it. I found this in our box, you know. So you mean it was us casting the hex, that what you saying?”

I bang my hand on the table, slightly splashing Mermaid’s coffee.