Magical Midlife Invasion (Leveling Up 3)

Maybe he was just overtired. That car ride had been long, made longer by Martha getting them lost. She did not understand these new high-tech phones with the built-in navigation. Either she’d pick the wrong address in an entirely different city, or she’d forget to tell him when to turn (she hated using the voice option but constantly missed the cues).

Another glance reassured him the prairie scene was still there, so that was a good sign. He couldn’t afford to crack up. He was nearly positive Martha would check him into a home if he lost his faculties.

Think of the devil…

She walked into the room, wringing her hands with an anxious look on her face.

“He just will not let me help.” She huffed and sat down in the chair next to his, separated by a small end table, and looked absently at the TV. “He made us lunch, he got us drinks, he cleaned up—he is really going out of his way for us. The least I can do is clean up the kitchen for him. But no, he hustled me right out. It is bad enough he fought me to pay for the groceries. It really is too much. Entirely too much.”

“He’s the butler. That’s what he does.”

Martha clucked her tongue. “Butler.” She shook her head. “Who do we know that has a butler?”

“Jessie, apparently. He’s as old as the hills. He’ll probably drop dead before we leave the place.”

“Oh, Pete, that’s terrible.” She would’ve swatted him if she’d been closer.

He slid a glance at the carving, careful not to be noticed. Still a prairie. He issued a soft sigh.

“How can she afford a butler?” Martha said, straightening the already straightened coasters.

“I’ll bet he works for cheap. He’s probably worried that if he retires now he’ll die—”

“Pete, would you stop?”

“She didn’t want to kill him off by putting him out of a job.”

“I swear, you’re terrible. He’s not that much older than us. The gardener is…somewhat…up in his years, though.”

“He is much older than us, and that gardener looks like a walking corpse. They were probably a two-for-one deal. It’s a real motley crew Jessie has hanging around this place.”

“Yes, but how can she afford them and this big old house?”

“Cheap area—cheaper than we’re used to, at any rate—and you said it yourself: it’s old. She probably got it for a steal. That Peggy woman probably gave it away. It’s going to need all sorts of repairs.”

“She does have those nice gentleman for roommates at the moment. That’s something. She certainly has the space for them. Though what is this house’s love of capes, I’ll never know.” She clucked her tongue again. “A butler. No, that’s just absurd. Our Jessie isn’t the type to have a butler. Can you imagine?” She sucked in a breath. “Oh, Pete, what if they are dating? What if—”

“He’d die if anything got physical. I don’t think you need to worry about that.”

A pop caught his attention on the opposite side of the wooden mantelpiece, which, mercifully, still showed the carving of the prairie. He glanced over, finding a new crack running up from the ground to about door height, where it zipped to the side in another straight line. If he hadn’t been in full possession of his mental faculties, he would have said it looked an awful lot like a door. A secret door, into some sort of bluish glowing area inside the wall.

“Do you see? The house is old. It’s falling apart.” He pulled his gaze away lest it open a little more. A crack he could handle. A door opening by itself he could not.

A pitter-patter thumped across the ceiling, like a toddler running on the floor above.

He and Martha both looked up.

“I sure hope that’s not a rat,” Martha said.

“That would be an awfully big rat.”

“Remember that movie with those large rats? This house might have something like that, only those rats existed in swamps.”

Sometimes he had no idea what his wife was talking about, but he’d learned early on in their marriage that it was best just to agree.

“Uh-huh,” he said, directing his gaze back to the TV.

She stood as the thumping sounded a second time, the pitter-patter moving back the other way.

“I hope she’s not hiding a child somewhere in this house,” Martha said, walking to the newly formed crack in the wall and shoving at it. It clicked shut, like a door latching.

There shouldn’t be a door in the wall that randomly opened by itself. Especially not one that glowed an eerie blue. There had to be another explanation.

He snuck a glance at the fireplace. Prairie. Clearly he’d imagined the different scene or noticed it elsewhere in the house—that was the only explanation.

“If this place is falling apart, it’ll be expensive to fix.” Martha looked up and down the wall. The crack was completely gone, the wall flush. If Martha hadn’t seen it as well, he would’ve thought he was seeing things. She couldn’t put him in a home if she was seeing the same things. Still, he’d best ignore it, just in case.