“Oh, there’s jobs to do, if you’re good with your hands. And if you ain’t ashamed of women’s work, my wife could use a help or two. We’ll see what happens.” At that, Miller left the room and closed the door behind him.

The noise of the house was only partly dampened by the closed door, but it was a music that Taleswapper didn’t mind hearing. It was only afternoon, but he couldn’t help himself. He swung off his pack and pried off his boots and eased himself down on the mattress. It rustled like a straw tick, but there was a feather mattress on top of that, so it was deep and soft. And the straw was fresh, and dried herbs hung by the hearthstones to give it the smell of thyme and rosemary. Did I ever lie upon so soft a bed in Philadelphia? Or before that, in England? Not since I left my mother’s womb, he thought.

There was nothing shy about the use of powers in this house; the hex was right in the open, painted above the door. But he recognized the pattern. It wasn’t a peacemaker, designed to quell any violence in the soul that slept here. It wasn’t a warning, and it wasn’t a fending. Not a bit of it was designed to protect the house from the guest, or the guest from the house. It was for comfort, pure and simple. And it was perfectly, exquisitely drawn, exactly the right proportions. An exact hex wasn’t easy to draw, being made of threes. Taleswapper couldn’t remember seeing a more perfect one.

So it didn’t surprise him, as he lay on the bed, to feel the muscles of his body unknotting, as if this bed and this room were undoing the weariness of twenty-five years of wandering. It occurred to him that when he died, he hoped the grave was as comfortable as this bed.

When Alvin Junior rocked him awake, the whole house smelled of sage and pepper and simmered beef. “You’ve just got time to use the privy, wash up, and come eat,” said the boy.

“I must have fallen asleep,” said Taleswapper.

“That’s what I made that hex to do,” said the boy. “Works good, don’t it?” Then he charged out of the room.

Almost immediately Taleswapper heard one of the girls yelling the most alarming series of threats at the boy. The quarrel continued at top volume as Taleswapper went out to the privy, and when he came back inside, the yelling was still going on—though Taleswapper thought perhaps now it was a different sister yelling.

“I swear tonight in your sleep Al Junior I’ll sew a skunk to the soles of your feet!” Al’s answer was muffled by distance, but it caused another bout of screaming. Taleswapper had heard yelling before. Sometimes it was love and sometimes it was hate. When it was hate, he got out as quickly as he could. In this house, he could stay.