The Gray House

There are plenty of legends and rumors about him. People tell tales of him in places near, far, and very, very far. The oldest of those depict him as sitting on top of a mountain with two skeins of wool, black and white. He winds up one of them and unspools the other, turning day into night and night back into day. The later tales say that he eternally spins an enormous wheel, divided into a summer half and a winter half, and the summer side of it is red while the winter side is white as snow. There are other stories. But all of them end the same way, in bestowing of gifts. Everyone who meets the old man receives a present from him, and it’s those gifts that people desire when they go out in search of him.

The lucky visitors receive gears from broken watches. The luckiest of all, an egret feather. The first gift means one thing while the second means quite another. Everyone asks for the first and no one asks for the second, because no one knows that this gift even exists. It is not mentioned in any tales or legends. The watch gear can be lost, exchanged, or given away. The feather disappears if it ever leaves the possession of its owner, so it cannot belong to anyone else.

It is not easy to get the old man to part with a watch gear, the feathers he gives out extremely rarely, and no one ever receives anything else. Almost never. There was only one time when he was asked for a dream. A very peculiar dream, one that explained how to see other people’s dreams. A small boy asked for it, and took with him a gourd stoppered with henbane. Some years later the same boy, now grown, came again with an even stranger request. The old man was intrigued. Out of the eggs he had, he chose the most beautiful, green with white speckles.

“They are very delicate,” he warned. “Be careful. Keep it warm near your heart, and when she hatches, let her out into a stream, but make sure there aren’t any predatory fish around. In forty days she will be grown.”

“What will she be in twenty days?” the boy asked.

He was an odd boy, and the old man was slightly apprehensive about the fate of the creature inside the egg, but he liked giving unusual gifts, and the boy was the only one in many, many years to want something other than what everyone always wanted. With him the old man wasn’t bored.

And boredom is the one thing that the old man hates. From time to time, tired of the monotony of the gifts he gives to others, he makes a present to himself. The simplest things, really. Nothing valuable or extraordinary, but it’s always nice to receive an unexpected, unusual present. Especially if you then forget that you received it from yourself.

SMOKER

(CONTINUED)

Humpback retold the old familiar tale of the Pied Piper. Changed some details, that’s all. I didn’t remember it all too well, but I am pretty sure it didn’t used to say there that he only led away the smallest children, three and younger. “Pure of mind and desires.” It sounded rather strange. Because it’s not clear how it would be possible to lead away kids who, for example, can’t even walk yet.

Humpback never explained that, so I imagined away, coming up with some truly amusing images. Like babies cooing and kicking their little legs, floating up from their cribs, circling around the rooms, flitting out of opened windows, and flying to the tootling piper in his red tunic.

That wasn’t even the half of it. To imagine a one-year-old that the parents wouldn’t be able to hold on to was even harder. Then I realized that in the original tale this wasn’t explained either. It just said that the Piper led away all children, period. So the littlest ones had to be included in that, too. I don’t think I’d ever thought about that before.

Lary told about an enchanted princess. Obviously meaning Needle. Red told about fugitive deaths. Likely meaning himself.

Tabaqui told about a little old man who so disliked making presents, while at the same time being somehow obligated to do exactly that, that he even faked his own death to make them leave him alone.

Owl and Corpse dovetailed their stories with Tabaqui’s, telling about their own encounters with this old man.

Vulture and Noble continued whispering to each other, and Lizard fell asleep. I thought it wouldn’t be a big deal if I tried to get some sleep as well, but it didn’t work out that way.

Because the next person to climb the stepladder was Blind, and the ringing silence that followed knocked the sleepiness right off me.

Blind remained silent too for a while. The candles went out, the lanterns didn’t give off much light, but I could see that he was barefoot, dressed in his regular clothes, and that his hand was now wrapped with a bandage instead of a towel.