Delighted male laughter floated down from somewhere above me. It seemed to come from somewhere in the vicinity of the chandelier.

I backed up against the door and squinted up, trying to see who was up there.

Nobody.

“Welcome to Wonderland, Alice!” The voice that drifted down from above was a warm, happy baritone, without even a trace of mockery in it. The speaker had a faintly Scottish accent that made me think of a young Sean Connery.

“Who’s there?” I called up, reaching for the doorknob with my right hand. “Are you the caretaker?”

“I am!” the voice replied with good cheer, and something made the crystals of the chandelier chime together softly and shed a fine sprinkling of dust. “And you are Caitlyn. I recognize you from your father’s pictures.” His voice lowered and sadness crept into it. “You also look a great deal like your mother did at your age.” The voice brightened into good cheer again. “I am so very glad you’re here at last! Welcome home, Mistress!”

“Thank you? Please, call me Caley.” I stepped away from the door cautiously, peering up with growing curiosity. “Um…where are you? And do you have a name?”

“To answer the second question first,” he said, “I do not. At least, not at the moment. I expect you’ll give me one before long, as your mother did.”

I wasn’t sure which felt stranger, that this person had known my mother, or that he didn’t seem to have a name.

“To answer your first question…” He hesitated. “Well…do you believe in ghosts?”

I blinked. “Pardon?”

“Ghosts,” he said. “Spirits of the deceased. Shades, spooks, specters…” He paused for a moment, then added dryly. “Though personally, I rather dislike the last two. Negative connotations, you know.”

“Uh…” Ghosts. I’d never really thought about it before, so I gave his question a moment of serious consideration, then looked back up at the chandelier, for lack of anywhere else to direct my attention. “I’m not sure, really. I suppose I have no reason not to believe in them.” I pursed my lips, then shrugged a little. “May I reserve my answer until I have some evidence one way or the other?”

He laughed. “You’re open-minded. That’s good! And yes, you may. Allow me to present you with empirical evidence.”

Up in the chandelier, almost right where I was looking, something moved. At first, I only had an impression of movement, like watching something out of the corner of my eyes…shifting something, causing the crystals to sway and chime against one another. Then a person started to take form, descending towards me as he faded in. From the neck down, he remained transparent and indistinct, a shadowy outline of a body that was barely there. From the neck up…

His head was translucent, but sufficiently well defined for me to be able to make out some details. He had dark hair, maybe black or very dark brown, that was cropped close to his head and brushed back. An amused smile graced thin lips, the strange shadows accenting sharp cheekbones and an angular, hawk-like nose. His eyes were solid, without pupil or iris, and glowing a gentle blue-white color.

He came to a halt just in front of the round table, a few inches taller than me but a bit less than six feet, I guessed. He swept into a deep bow, then smiled at me and tipped his head to one side. “Well?”

Even without pupils or irises, I somehow got the impression that his eyes were sparkling with amusement.

I took several steps forward, leaning first to one side, then the other. I could, in fact, see through him. His body, from the neck down, remained mostly transparent and without much definition. On impulse, I stepped right up to him and stuck my hand into the space where his chest would be. It passed into the shadowy form, tingling slightly, but not unpleasantly. After a moment, I pulled my hand back, stared at it for a moment, then looked up at him.

He didn't seem particularly bothered by my intrusion into his personal space. Rather, he appeared to be quite amused by it.

“Okay,” I said slowly, taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly. I was struggling to keep myself from freaking out…there was, after all, nothing here worth panicking about. Yet. He seemed friendly enough, and my father’s letter had said I could trust the caretaker. “Under the circumstances, I suppose I believe in ghosts.”

He beamed at me. “Rather convincing, aren’t I?”

“What…” I tried to frame my question and discovered that I didn’t have any vocabulary for it. So I came as close as I could. “What are you made of, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“Mainly static electricity and ectoplasm,” he said, sounding thoughtful. “Mind you, that’s a gross oversimplification, but even I don’t understand the really technical details.”

“Ah. Ectoplasm?” I asked faintly.

He smiled gently. “We’ll get to that. For now, how may I serve you?”

“Pardon?” Oh hell, I was starting to repeat myself. That usually meant I was approaching overload. I took a deep breath and let it out.

His gentle smile didn’t waver. “My lady, I am at your service. I am the Caretaker of the House, manager of the grounds, manservant to the Guardian, and - especially for you, thanks to your father’s efforts - tour guide, tutor, and protector, within certain limitations.”

“The guardian?” I asked. It had sounded like a title.

“That would be you, Mistress. The Guardian of the House. I am here to, among other things, help with your responsibilities in those matters.” As with the way Margrave had spoken, I could actually hear him capitalizing the words. Obviously, it was indeed a title.

I nodded sagely, as if any of this was making sense to me. “And why does the house need a guardian?”

“We’ll get to that too,” he said gently. “Why don’t we start with something a bit simpler.”

I stared at him. I couldn’t help it…he was fascinating, and I was starting to feel a bit dizzy. “All right…let’s start with tour guide, then. Show me the house.”

He beamed. “That would take a lifetime, and some. I’ll cover the basics, though.” He turned and gestured for me to follow him. “This way, Mistress.” He headed towards the door at the base of the stairs to the left. “The house’s decor is largely Victorian, and though extensively wired for electricity much of it remains lit by candles and lamps. Some rooms, however, have been thoroughly renovated, such as the kitchen…”

He made a gesture with his right hand, and the door opened, shedding a fine shower of dust as it did. As he passed through the doorway, the lights in the room beyond came on, so I followed him.

The kitchen was, by a very wide margin, the largest example of its kind I had ever seen. It looked big enough to cook for a restaurant.

Directly across from us was a refrigerator with a gleaming black door and looked almost large enough to be a walk-in cooler. A counter top ran around two walls of the room, from the refrigerator around to our left, made of some sort of black marble shot through with eye-catching streaks of dark green and blue. It was broken up by an industrial-looking stove, and an oven that looked big enough to cook three or four large turkeys at the same time.

There was a free-standing island in the center of the room, its surface made of the same marble as the counter. It had four tall, comfortable-looking swivel chairs along the near side of it, and a rack of glasses - of various shapes, sizes, and colors - hanging over it.

As I turned to the right, I was astonished to see the modern kitchen fade smoothly into an older style. The smooth plaster of the wall became piled stone, the floor transitioning from tile to flagstone. The far wall of the room contained a humongous fireplace, big enough to roast a whole pig in, and equipped with a variety of iron hangars that were presumably for cooking. It was currently swept clean, and looked - as everything else did - as if it hadn’t been used in some time. To its right sat a small rectangular table, just big enough to seat two people on each side…close enough to the fireplace to be warmed by it, but not so close as to be uncomfortable.

“The House transitioned half of the room back in the 1950’s,” the Caretaker said, “and has kept it up to date since then. I think it wants to hang onto that fireplace, though.”

“I can’t blame it!” I said, ignoring - for the moment - the fact that he was talking about the house as if it was alive, and turned to look at the door. I frowned a little, poked my head back through into the foyer, then looked at the wall beside the door. I touched it.

“Problem?” the Caretaker asked, sounding amused.

“Yes,” I said, looking at him. “This wall is straight. Flat.”

“Yes,” he nodded, his lips curving into a smile.

I pointed to the door. “The foyer is round.”

“Slightly oval, actually,” he nodded, “but yes, that is correct.”

I stared at him for a long moment, noticing for the first time that I could just make out a faint sprinkling of freckles crossing his nose. It was like he was gaining definition as we spoke. He raised his eyebrows expectantly.

“The rooms,” I said slowly, “don’t fit together perfectly.”

“Indeed not,” he agreed.

“And the foyer was much larger than I was expecting. Too large to fit inside the house. And it didn’t line up with the front of the house, which had windows, but the foyer doesn’t.

“Quite,” the Caretaker agreed again.

Obviously, he wasn’t going to help me deal with this.

I pursed my lips and frowned a little.

“The house,” I said finally, “is like the TARDIS.”

The Caretaker laughed, obviously delighted, and clapped his hands together in approval. Insubstantial as they were, they produced only the faintest of clapping sounds, as if they were very far away. “Insightful and intuitive, Mistress, if not precisely accurate. Though the principles involved are very similar.” He smiled. “And I must say, I’m relieved to hear that you’re a Science Fiction fan. It will make some of this quite a bit easier.”

I rubbed my right ear. “So…how big is the house, exactly? Larger than it looked on the outside, I take it.”

“The interior of the house,” he said, “is not an exact thing. You are correct, though.”

“And the rooms move around, do they?” I don’t know where that thought came from, but it felt right, somehow.

The Caretaker looked surprised, but nodded. “They do, though not very much. Most rooms tend to stay within a few doors of their usual location, and rarely go more than a floor up or down. As the Guardian, you’ll find that once you’ve visited a room, you’ll always be able to find it again, no matter where it is in the house.”

“How does that work?”

He winked. “Magic.”

I sighed. “There’s no such thing.”

He smiled gently. “Come now…you’ve accepted my existence, and a house that’s bigger on the inside than the outside. Are you going to balk at magic?”

“Yes!” I said firmly, then closed the kitchen door and rapped my knuckles on it. “This house might defy my ability to explain it, but I can touch it. It’s real. I may not understand what I’ve seen so far, but everything can be explained by science given enough time and study. Magic is just a slipshod catchphrase for something science hasn’t explained yet, or for wishful thinking and things that don’t really exist.”

The Caretaker considered that seriously for a minute, then nodded. “That’s fair. What if I told you that the magic I’m referring to has its own rules, consistent behaviors, and expected results…but that they don’t always line up well with modern science and often seem to bend or break the laws of physics?”

I tipped my head a little and thought about that. “I…don’t know. What do you mean?”

“Manipulation of matter and energy through means and methods only dimly understood. Is it so hard to accept that there’s more to the universe than Humanity has discovered and classified so far?”

I made a thoughtful sound. “I suppose not. But…I don’t understand what you mean when you say ‘magic,’ then. It’s a word that covers an awful lot of fictional territory.”

“True enough,” he agreed. “But I’m here to help you understand it all. It will be my pleasure to guide, teach, and enlighten as needed, while you settle in and take up your new duties.”

I was starting to feel a bit exasperated. “Slow down a minute there. I’m barely managing to accept the nature of the house, I haven’t said anything about settling in! I have classes to attend and teach, a degree to finish…” I trailed off, then sat down in one of the tall chairs at the counter. “Three days ago, I figured my parents gave me up at birth for some reason, or had been dead since I was born. Now I’m talking to a ghost, while sitting in a house that’s physically impossible, being told that ‘magic’ is real.” I rested my elbows on the counter and put my head in my hands. “I'm getting a headache.”

“Unsurprising,” the Caretaker said, his voice very gentle. “It’s an awful lot to take in, and you were ill prepared for it.”

“I wasn’t prepared for it at all!” I rubbed my face…and realized that my brain was already at work trying to sort out some of the mysteries at hand. I’d always loved problem solving and puzzles, and had a natural talent for taking in and making use of large volumes of information. I have a photographic memory, to boot…not quite what’s meant by the term ‘eidetic,’ but I can effortlessly retain information and recall it with ease.

Now, my mind was grinding through the physics classes I’d taken during my undergraduate days. I hadn’t needed them for my history major, but it was something that interested me, and rounded out my education. Was it so hard to accept that there were things science didn’t know yet? Ways of, as the Caretaker had said, manipulating energy and matter that we didn’t understand clearly? It had been thousands of years before Humanity had started to understand fire, but that didn’t stop us from making and using it.

“I know you weren’t,” the Caretaker said quietly. “Your father hoped to have you here before now, to be able to ease you into this life and teach you himself. But you feel it, don’t you? You belong here.”

I grimaced a little and nodded. I’d felt it the instant I’d gotten out of my car at the front door, though I hadn’t been aware of it. I didn’t even have the words to explain to myself what I was feeling. It was kind of like becoming aware of gravity. You feel it all your life, but can’t explain what it feels like, because it’s not a conscious sensation. It’s just there.

The house was the center of gravity to me now. I could escape it, just like astronauts do when going into space…but never completely. Gravity is always there, affecting you. Even if I left…

“You said,” I began slowly, “that I have responsibilities here?”

“Yes, Mistress.”

“I’ve read stories like this before,” I said wryly. “If I walk away, those responsibilities are going to hound me.”

He hesitated, then admitted, “That is quite likely, yes. It would be most unfortunate if you did that.”

“For whom?”

Another moment of hesitation, then the Caretaker quietly said, “Everyone, Mistress. Eventually. In a more immediate sense, for you and anyone around you.”

I lifted my head and looked at him. “You realize how melodramatic and insane this sounds, right?”

He nodded, no smile on his face now. “I am aware, Mistress.”

I rubbed my face, then ran my fingers over my hair. My fingers, looking for something to do, checked on my braid, which was still intact.

The worst part was, there was a piece of me that was shouting at me to accept it and dive in. There was something here I could sink my teeth into and really use my mind to understand. It scared me a bit, and excited me a lot. But I’m a cautious person. Usually. I firmly squashed the part that wanted to dive in and reminded myself to go slowly.

“All right,” I said. “For now, let’s say I accept what you’re saying at face value. I’m supposed to tour the property at the very least, so…let’s continue the tour.”

The Caretaker looked a bit uneasy, but nodded. “As you wish, Mistress. Before we move on from the kitchen, have you had lunch yet?”

“I stopped about an hour before I arrived here,” I said, rising. “I’m all right for now.”

“Very good,” he said, moving past me and opening the door. I followed him through…

Into a long hallway.

“Now wait just one bloody second here!” I blurted out, my sensibilities and equilibrium disoriented. This in spite of having just guessed - or intuited, as the Caretaker had said - that the interior of the house shifted around. In my defense, I was already way outside what I had previously considered ‘normal,’ and it sounded like I was about to do a high dive into the deep end. “We came from the foyer!”

The Caretaker nodded. “And now it’s the hallway directly off the foyer.” He pointed over my shoulder, and when I turned I saw what appeared to be the same double doors I’d observed in the foyer. Just…from the other side. “I suspect the House is just trying to hammer the point home.”

I leaned one hand against the wall and tried to get words out. What I got was a weird gargling noise. Everything was starting to feel a bit swimmy, and my hands were tingling.

“Try not to over-think it,” the Caretaker advised. “You’ll get used to it. Are you all right?”

“I’m a little light-headed,” I said, then took a deep breath and forced myself to calm down. I was not insane. To the best of my knowledge I had not been drugged…I wasn’t even sure when there would’ve been a chance for someone to do so, or why they would’ve. I was talking to a ghost. I was in a house that was bigger on the inside, and could move its rooms around. If I let myself freak out at every oddity I was shown, I’d go mad.

I took another deep breath and let it out slowly. The light-headed feeling and tingles went away after a third deep breath, and I pushed off the wall. I concentrated on the idea that here was a new and mysterious puzzle…and something deep down inside me - perhaps the little girl I'd once been, who believed whole-heartedly in every fairy tale and fantasy story - cheered me on.

“Okay,” I said. “Show me more.”