During the night, as Teina and Jimox slept in their favorite chamber in Fairy Castle, ships quietly trickled in from all over Nebador. The station hosts were kept busy assigning landing circles, and each ship was sternly reminded that the original hosts didn’t want a fuss of any kind for their sake.
After the two elderly monkey mammals shared a quiet breakfast that was more medicine than food, they eventually wandered out to the Goblin Fountain to see if anyone wanted to hear stories.
The crew of the Manessa Kwi, three young students from the Education Service, and a few others awaited them, sitting on the ground in the shade of a large tree.
Teina smiled. “I’m glad we decided not to tell anyone else.”
Neither she nor Jimox saw the little video camera that allowed hundreds of other Nebador citizens around the planet station to watch and listen.
The pair got comfortable on a bench near the fountain.
“We told them about Gibson’s Bay, right?” Teina asked with a frown, struggling to remember.
Many of the listeners nodded.
“I guess we should skip forward a little,” Jimox suggested. “All the coastal towns were about the same after that, until . . .”
They looked at each other.
“The lodge that ate monkey mammals!” Teina suddenly remembered with
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wide eyes.
“Weee!” Teina called as they coasted down the long stretch of road, steep enough to keep them going, not so steep as to need brakes.
Jimox stood up tall on his pedals. “No trees or branches on the road anywhere in sight!”
Teina glanced at him, and noticed how handsome he was with the wind in his fur.
A few minutes later, the road finally flattened out, forcing them to pedal again.
“That made the uphill-side worth it!” she declared.
“Yeah, not like those down-hills that are covered with junk and we almost need a shovel . . .”
“Or so steep we have to ride the brakes constantly . . .”
“Or full of pot holes . . .”
“Or with a pack of dogs halfway down we have to battle!”
They coasted to a stop at a road junction, still laughing, and looked at the sign beside the smaller road that went inland.
“Paradise Lodge,” Jimox read.
“Almost a hundred years old,” Teina added.
“Ocean
view.”
“Dining
room.”
“Forest
trails.”
“Wildlife
viewing.”
“Only ten minutes from here!”
Teina scowled. “That was by car, silly!”
He grinned. “I know. Shall we check it out?”
She returned his grin.
Two hours later, after walking their bicycles up the steepest road they had ever seen, the pair came to the weedy parking lot, completely empty of cars.
“Good sign,” Jimox said, catching his breath. “Maybe no one was here to light fires.”
It had not been raining, but all around them trees dripped from the fog
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off the ocean. A rushing stream could be heard but not yet seen. The paved path promised to take visitors to Paradise Lodge, its heavy timber structure and mossy roof just visible through the trees.
Someone had been home, and had started a fire, but luckily in a separate cabin farther down the path. The car beside it had also burned and was now just a rusting scrap heap. Several trees had been scorched, but not killed.
Jimox and Teina turned and looked at the grand old wooden lodge beside the path, its heavy double-doors awaiting their pull.
“Red flag,” Jimox whispered.
Teina quickly scanned in all directions. “What?”
“Nothing, just that our heads are in the clouds.”
Teina nodded and pulled out her gun. “Head back on shoulders.
Perimeter check.”
Jimox nodded and readied his pistol.
Walking all the way around the lodge, they found no signs that animals had found a way in, so they returned to the entrance and carefully pulled on the heavy wooden doors.
The lobby’s large windows faced the ocean, giving plenty of light, and the fog appeared to be clearing. Finding no animal signs or smells, they brought in the bicycles, but searched the entire lodge, on all four levels, to be sure nothing lurked within.
The recreation room on the lowest level, and the dining room above the lobby, also had large windows toward the ocean. The Royal Suite and the
NEBADOR Book Eight: Witness 68
Bridal Suite on the top floor shared the western side of the building. All other guest rooms looked east into the misty forest.
They chose the Royal Suite.
The kitchen was well-stocked with canned and packaged foods, and only one low shelf had been violated by rodents. The refrigerators and freezers, luckily, hadn’t leaked their putrid contents. Teina found a roll of tape and strapped them tightly, just to be sure.
The resident ghosts quickly came out, all seven of them, most from the early days of the lodge almost a century before. Four or five had voices Jimox and Teina could hear, and none of them were angry or frustrated. One moved on after sharing his story with the pair of monkey mammals, and another after they listened to her story three times, relayed through another ghost.
The only angry ghost was in the burned cabin. He had been the caretaker, and had ordered the lodge closed and the staff dismissed as soon as the plague began. He had hoped he’d be safe there, miles from the nearest other person.
Jimox revealed that they were the only two people alive, and Teina assured him that he was without blame or guilt. He rose into the sky humming a little tune, and was never again seen or heard in the little burned cabin.
Jimox and Teina could never remember being so happy. They walked in the woods, dipped water out of the crystal-clear stream, and cooked their meals from a propane tank so big it would supply all their needs for years, maybe decades. No dogs roamed the woods, the wild creatures were rarely seen and had no taste for monkey mammals with guns, and all the remaining ghosts were there by choice.
The pair completely forgot about their journey to the big city in the south.
“That was the lodge that ate monkey mammals,” Teina declared.
Everyone
laughed.
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“Sounds like a serious trap,” Kibi said, grinning. “How did you get away?”
“The place had cast a spell on us!” Jimox continued after grinning back at Kibi but not yet answering her question. “Time seemed to have stopped. The weather was always about the same — a little warm rain, some fog, beautiful afternoons and evenings looking out over the ocean. Suddenly, three months after we arrived, we looked around the kitchen and realized we had only enough food for about two more days!”
Kolarrr’ka stretched his wings. “Reality came knocking.”
“We were in shock,” Teina admitted. “We had never made a mistake like that before.”
“We hadn’t even checked before then,” Jimox continued, “but the nearest grocery store was almost thirty kilometers away!”
Several listeners moaned.
“For about a minute,” Jimox went on, “we considered hunting for our food. Then we remembered how few animals roamed the area, and how little we knew about hunting.”
Teina smiled. “Yeah, just about nothing. The ghosts wondered why we were in such a hurry, but we had to pack and say good-bye before we starved to death!”
T’sss’lisss’ eyes sparkled from Sata’s shoulder, and her tail, coiled in Boro’s lap, quivered with humor.
“One ghost decided to come with us, lived here for a long time, then moved on,” Jimox shared. “We’ll never forget Giona. We think she had something to do with the spell we were under, as she turned out to be much smarter and more powerful than all the other ghosts.”
Teina took a slow breath, then added, “Paradise Lodge is now one of the planet station’s retreats.”
“The Nebador Preservation Specialists sprayed some clear stuff on the roof and walls that makes things last almost forever.”
“We call them The Roofers,” Teina explained with a grin. “They have their
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own ship, and just hover while they spray.”
“All the other retreats have had The Roofers come, and everything in Similand too, or it wouldn’t have lasted. But back to our story.”
The audience got comfortable again.
“Reality forced us back onto the road,” Jimox admitted. “We were sad for a couple of days, but got over it.”
“It was good for us!” Teina added. “We vowed to never make that mistake again, and started discussing what conditions and supplies a place would have to have to be our new home, and keep us from . . . you know . . . heading back north the following year.”
Jimox nodded. “So when we finally, about a month later, glimpsed the tall buildings of downtown Westron for the first time, we were ready to ask questions . . .”
