The ceramic gnome had come with the house. Practically all the houses in Fairwick had one of the twee figurines in their front gardens. I’d thought about removing the little apple-cheeked man in blue pants, green suspenders and red cap, but each time I had he’d seem to glare at me and I’d thought better of it. I had moved my key a few months ago, though, because it seemed like too obvious a hiding place.

“It’s here,” I said, nudging a flowerpot full of geraniums with my toe.

Liz and Diana exchanged a puzzled look. “Why would you put it there? It belongs with your gnome,” Diana said as if it were the most obvious fact in the world. “Everyone hides their key under their gnome.”

“Doesn’t that defeat the purpose of hiding the key if everyone knows where it is?” I asked, feeling as if I were trapped in an Alice in Wonderland tea party.

“On the contrary,” Liz replied. “These gnomes are threshold guardians. Your gnome protects your key from those wishing you harm, but lets in friends who wish you well. We wanted to make sure that you were all right after what happened at the circle. A power surge like the one you experienced can have unexpected repercussions. Did you sleep all right?”

“I’m fine,” I said, blushing as I remembered the erotic dream I’d had last night. That’s all it was, though, a dream. “I’m just a little groggy.”

“That’s to be expected,” Diana said briskly as she came up onto the porch, extracted my spare key from beneath the flower pot and handed it to Liz to put under the gnome. I thought I detected a faint glow emanating from the ceramic figure when she righted him over the key.

“There,” Liz said. “You ought to name him, though, to seal the threshold spell.”

“I’d feel …” like an idiot, I almost said, but looking into Diana’s wide doe-like eyes I emended it to “unsure of what sort of name to give him.”

“Oh, any old name is fine. Does he remind you of anyone?”

I looked down at the little, bearded, red-capped man. “Well, he does look a little like my high school orchestra leader, Mr. Rukowski.” As I said the name, the glow around the gnome grew.

“He likes it. Mr. Rukowski it is. May we go inside, Mr. Rukowski?”

For a moment I worried that the ceramic figure might talk – in which case I would have to get rid of him. Ancient threshold guardian or not, a talking ceramic garden gnome was just plain creepy. But no speech issued forth from Mr. Rukowski’s mouth, only a warm glow that spread up the porch steps and into my front door, like a Welcome mat that had been spread out for my guests.

“Come on in,” I said. “Apparently you’re welcome.”