After staring blankly into the refrigerator for most of a minute, I managed to kick my brain back into gear. With a little sigh, I firmly decided - once again - not to let this throw me. I was seeing at least three absurdities, not counting food that appeared on request, but the tea smelled heavenly and my stomach gave a little rumble.

Figuring that my stomach was, at least in this instance, smarter than I was, I took the tray out of the refrigerator, carried it over to the table by the fireplace, and heard the fridge door click shut behind me. I set the tray down on the table and unloaded it before sitting down.

Sparkle practically pounced on the cookie - regardless of its heat - as soon as I set its plate down. The cookie was almost as large as she was herself, but she tucked it away completely before I finished sitting down. She didn’t leave so much as a crumb…I know this for a fact because she scooped up the last few bits and popped them in her mouth before sprawling on the plate, looking replete and happy.

I followed her example, though with more decorum, voluntarily taking my brain off-line for a few minutes and steadily working my way through the provided breakfast. Ken let me eat in silence until I was down to peeling the orange, when he finally asked, “So, what would you like to start with this morning?”

I popped a piece of the orange into my mouth and chewed - it was as sweet and juicy as it had looked - to give myself a moment to consider. “I think we need to discuss what you did with my mind last night.”

Ken tipped his head. “Which part? Viewing your memory, or starting to teach you about Evocation?”

“Strangely enough, the ‘viewing my memory’ part neither bothers nor particularly concerns me,” I said thoughtfully. “That’s just a sort of telepathy.”

“In a manner of speaking,” Ken agreed.

“But teaching me something while I was asleep,” I said, “is the stuff of urban legend. All those stories about people who went to sleep wearing headphones and listening to a recording of themselves repeating the same information over and over again to memorize something…it’s been pretty conclusively debunked, at least for most people.” I separated another wedge of orange with my thumbnail and popped it in my mouth.

Ken smiled. “What we did was not quite that. Instead, we engaged your subconscious mind while your conscious mind was asleep. Ordinarily, your subconscious mind would enter a dream state -”

“REM sleep,” I interjected.

Ken nodded. “Indeed. At which time it would, under most ordinary circumstances, dispense with some of the stresses of the day through dreams. Instead, we turned your REM sleep cycles to a more productive end.”

“Shouldn’t that have disrupted my sleep, or kept it from being truly restful?” I asked.

Ken smiled again. “Magic.”

“Ah.”

“Tell me,” Ken said, “what McCoy’s First Law of Elementary Magic is.”

“Conservation of energy and mass,” I said without hesitation, then quoted, “‘Nothing is ever truly created or destroyed, only changed from one state of being to another. Energy can become mass and mass can become energy, but either must come from somewhere.’”

Ken beamed. “Precisely so. How about the Transfer of Energy Paradox?”

“‘Every action has an equal, opposite, and - usually in hindsight - obvious reaction. For example, use fire magic to turn large areas of water into ice by redirecting the heat from the water.’” I blinked.

Ken nodded. “What’s the best way to defend against a force spell?”

“Deflection,” I said quickly. “Blocking it outright requires an equal amount of energy, while deflecting it off at an angle requires significantly less, often half as much or less.” I stared at him. “That,” I said, “is just a little creepy.”

He waved it off. “Tell me you wouldn’t have taken advantage of that at university if you’d been able to.”

“Are you joking?” I asked, smiling a little. “In a heartbeat. I could’ve finished my degree in half the time. That doesn’t make it any less creepy.”

“You’ll adjust,” he said with certainty. “It may take time, and there may be setbacks, but I’m confident you’ll adjust.”

“Thanks, I think.” I stared at the rest of the orange, then quickly broke it up into its wedges and offered one to Sparkle. She gobbled it down in a heartbeat, showing the same gusto with which she’d demolished the cookie.

Ken nodded a little. “That doesn’t answer my question, though. Where do you want to start this morning?”

I thought about it again as I munched on another piece of orange, and decided that pursing the odd method of learning wouldn’t accomplish anything. As he said, I would adjust. Or, more likely, I’d eventually figure out how it was being accomplished and that would set my mind at ease. He might not even know…from what he’d said previously, whatever my father had done to ‘prepare’ Ken to be my guide had left some holes in his memory.

I supposed that even a ghost’s mind had a finite amount of space in it. Or possibly - perhaps more likely - my father had some secrets he wanted kept until I was ready to deal with them.

That was a chilling thought. But it made up my mind.

“I think,” I said, “that I’d like to see my father’s study this morning.”

“Are you sure you’re ready for that?” Ken asked.

I offered Sparkle another piece of orange, which she devoured as if she was starving, and popped a piece in my mouth. It gave me a moment to consider his question.

“No,” I admitted after I swallowed, “but I feel as though it needs to be done. There’s likely to be all manner of things there that I need to know, and I’m going to want a place where I can do my own work as I study. There’s probably no better place for it.”

Ken nodded a little. “Both are undoubtedly true, Mistress.”

“Then I need to set aside my discomfort and just do it,” I said firmly. “I’ve never been one to shirk duties or unpleasant tasks. Tear the plaster off, that’s me.”

Ken smiled gently. “This will hardly be unpleasant, Mistress. Definitely sad, possibly unsettling, but certainly not unpleasant. It is, after all, an opportunity to get to know your father.”

I offered Sparkle the last piece of orange. She made it vanish as quickly and effortlessly as the rest, and I made another mental note try to learn something about her biology. I had no idea where she was putting it all. She’d eaten at least twice her own body weight and showed no sign of it at all.

“You’ve spoken a lot about my mother so far, but very little about my father,” I said.

Ken sighed softly. “I was closer to your mother, in her role as Guardian and mine as Caretaker. Your father was a very private man, especially after Mistress Chessie’s death. You’re likely to learn more about him from his study than from any other room in the house, and possibly more than I can actually tell you.”

“Then that’s where we’ll go this morning,” I said with a nod.

I gathered the now-empty dishes back onto the tray and rose, carried it over to the sink, and was about to start washing it all when Ken quietly said, “Just leave it there, Mistress. It will be taken care of.”

I looked at him questioningly and was about to ask, when something in his expression warned me not to. So I held my tongue for now. Anyway, if I started questioning every incomprehensible thing that I saw in the House, I’d never get anything done. Understanding of such (apparently) mundane oddities would no doubt come in the fullness of time. Surely, I would eventually build the proper intellectual framework into which to place most - if not all - of the magical things I’d seen so far.

Or I’d go stark, raving mad. Either way.

So I followed him out of the kitchen and into a hallway. This time, I discovered I hadn’t even really been expecting to exit back into the foyer. Perhaps I was already starting to adjust.

Ken oriented himself and headed off down the hall with me on his heels and Sparkle flitting along beside me. After a moment, I realized that I could sense - distantly - why he was going that way. “Ken, I feel almost like I know which way to go this time…”

Ken beamed over his shoulder. “That’s excellent, Mistress! It means you’re starting to open yourself up to the House a bit more. Eventually, the rapport between you and it will be so strong that you won’t even need to think about it, you’ll just know where you need to go.”

Sparkle alighted on my shoulder and took a light hold on my ear to steady herself. “Mistress Chessie always found it a bit disconcerting,” she said. “I never understood why.”

“She felt shackled to the House,” Ken said. “Don’t misunderstand, she loved the House deeply, but I think the responsibility scared her. It was your father,” he added, falling back to walk beside me, “who grounded her and helped her accept it.”

“Yeah!” Sparkle agreed, as if just remembering it herself. “Once she married Master James, she stopped feeling weird about the House and got comfortable with it.”

Ken smiled at her, looking a bit amused. “Indeed.”

“What about my mother’s parents?” I asked suddenly. “My grandparents.”

Ken’s smile faded. “They died when she was only fourteen. The House basically closed up around her; she barely even went outside from then until just after her eighteenth birthday. Sparkle and I were her only regular company.”

I wondered about the way he used the word regular, and at the tone of his voice, which suggested that he was reluctant to talk about my grandparents for some reason. I felt the urge for a lighter subject as well, so instead of pursuing that line of thought I asked, “So how did she meet my father?”

Ken’s smile returned. “Oh, he came calling a few weeks after her eighteenth birthday. He was doing magical research as a member of the International Consortium of Organized Arcana, and had been tasked with looking into the status of the House. In fact, someone from there will probably visit once they realize the house is inhabited again. Master James asked your mother out on a date the very same day he first visited…he got her out into the world again.”

“The…International Consortium of Organized Arcana?” I asked. Yet another puzzle piece with odd edges.

Ken made a weird, almost dismissive sound. “The ICOA is sort of the governmental body for the magical community around the world. They decide what is and isn’t okay to do with magic, police practitioners of the Art, and generally act rather holier-than-thou.”

“They’re a bunch of overbearing, stuffy, bearded gits!” Sparkle added with certainty from beside my right ear, as if repeating something she’d heard many times.

Ken laughed. “Mistress Chessie used to say that all the time. They can be a bit…reserved, to put it mildly. Your mother didn’t approve, and always wanted to learn new ways of doing things regardless of their opinion on the subject. Most of the time they didn’t care, but once in a while she’d tread on someone’s toes by finding an easier or more efficient way of casting a spell or enchanting an object. Your father found it highly amusing.”

“For such flexible beings,” Sparkle said, “mortals are notoriously resistant to change.”

I laughed. “I won’t argue that point, Sparkle. I agree with you!”

Ken smiled. “I do too. And here we are.”

It took me a moment to realize that I’d actually stopped walking a moment before he announced our arrival. That was definitely going to take some getting used to.

The door in question was plain oak in a fairly standard design. The frame was undecorated, and the knob was plain brass with a keyhole. And yet, somehow it loomed over me, feeling unbearably large and heavy-looking.

My palms suddenly felt clammy, and I realized that I was trembling just a little. On my shoulder, Sparkle suddenly leaned against the side of my face, a surprisingly warm and comforting weight.

But I couldn’t bring myself to reach for the Master Key to unlock the door, or for the knob to even try it. I couldn’t shake the impression that this room held secrets that I didn’t want to know. That I might, even, be safer and better off not knowing.

But ignorance has never saved anyone from harm that would’ve come eventually anyway. Quite the opposite.

“Mistress,” Ken asked softly, “are you sure you’re ready for this?”

I took a deep breath and let it out, trying to steady myself. “No. But the longer I put this off, the harder it will become.”

With that, I reached for the door knob, pulling the Master Key out on its chain. I unlocked the door, turned the knob, and opened it.

Before I even finished opening the door, let alone could step into the room, a painting on the far wall grabbed my attention and shocked me into immobility.

It was a portrait, life-size and almost photo-realistic in its exquisite detail. The young woman standing in it couldn’t have been older than her early to mid-twenties, and had a sheet of purest white hair flowing down her back. She was wearing a forest-green sun dress that left her arms bare and fell almost to her knees, and was standing barefoot in a grassy clearing that looked exactly like the one outside my bedroom window, smiling warmly at whomever had painted the portrait.

“That’s me!” I blurted out without thinking about it.

Ken laughed and Sparkle giggled. “Now you understand,” Ken said, “why we’re certain you are your mother’s daughter.”

His words broke my shock and made me look at the painting more closely. While the resemblance was absolutely shocking - at a glance, it looked like my mother and I could have passed for twins - I quickly saw that she would have been a bit taller than me, and not quite as slender. Her hair wasn’t quite as long as I wore mine and, most tellingly, both of her eyes were the same color, brilliant green, unlike my complete heterochromia.

“Who…” My voice cracked on the word, and my eyes were more than a little bit watery. I cleared my throat and tried again. “Who painted it?”

“Your father,” Ken said. “He was an extremely talented painter, though he mostly did landscapes. You’ll find several of his paintings scattered around the house, especially in the library and some of the common rooms.” He gestured to the portrait. “He painted that just before they were married.”

“I’ve never seen her before,” I said softly, taking a couple of steps into the room, unable to tear my eyes from the portrait of my mother.

Ken made a soft sound of understanding, then said, “The resemblance is quite remarkable, isn’t it?”

“I had no idea,” I said. “I guess that’s why you knew who I was the instant I walked through the door, and why Sparkle mistook me for her.”

Sparkle landed on my shoulder and hugged my earlobe.

“Indeed,” Ken said quietly. “You are unquestionably Mistress Franchesca’s daughter.”

I nodded. “Obviously.” I reached up and lightly touched the cool surface of my mother’s choker where it rode around my neck. I’d already gotten so used to the way it felt that I’d actually forgotten to take it off when I went to bed the night before, or when I’d bathed that morning.

It was a long couple of minutes before finally managed to pull my eyes away from the portrait to take in the rest of the room.

It was…cozy, for lack of a better term. The walls, floor and ceiling were made of darkly stained oak. Oriental area rugs covered parts of the floor. Directly across from the door - facing it - was a huge, solid, old-fashioned desk that I tentatively identified as being made of teak, with an equally large leather office chair behind it. The surface of the desk was covered with many of the expected office implements, as old-fashioned as the desk itself: a blotter, two pen sets in holders, a couple of paper trays, an old-fashioned desk lamp and an honest-to-goodness rotary-style telephone.

And a big, open, leather-bound journal, which sat squarely in center of the blotter.

The walls were lined with bookcases, covering almost every available inch of wall space and packed to bursting with books. And that was pretty much it…the portrait of my mother was really the only truly decorative object in the room, aside from a simple brass six-bulb chandelier that hung from the ceiling in the center of the room, providing light.

But I loved it, immediately and powerfully. This was a room meant for work and study, and it called out to me to use it for its intended purpose.

My attention drifted back to the journal. “Ken, is that…” I trailed off into silence.

Ken understood anyway, and nodded. “Yes, Mistress. You’ll find the drawers on the right side of the desk locked…they hold the rest of your father’s journals and much of his research. The Master Key will unlock them.”

“Oh,” was all I could think of to say. I just couldn’t take my eyes off the journal, nor my mind off the answers it might stand ready to provide. Answers I wasn’t sure I really wanted, or was ready to deal with. Did I know what I was getting into? For all I knew, reading that journal might set me on a path that would get me killed as surely as my parents had been.

Assuming, of course, that they actually had been, and that Ken wasn’t misinterpreting events.

But then, Margrave had been insistent that I come here and take possession of the house as quickly as possible, and he’d worked hard - I assumed anyway - to facilitate my speedy arrival. He must have had some reason for doing so. Not to mention the letter from my father that had been included in the bundle of paperwork Margrave had given me.

I walked around the desk and sat down in the chair. It was huge, at least for someone my size…easily big enough for me to curl up and take a nap in. But it was comfortable, and its scent was a strangely comforting combination of old leather and sandalwood. With a little effort, I pulled it right up to the desk and drew the journal towards me. It was already open to a page about two-thirds of the way through, and I immediately recognized the handwriting within, from the letter and the back of the picture that Margrave had delivered.

My father’s handwriting.

For a moment, I couldn’t concentrate well enough to actually read what he’d written. All I could see was his handwriting. Tangible evidence of the existence of a man I’d never known.

Then I felt Ken’s ephemeral touch on my left shoulder, and Sparkle’s curiously reassuring weight settling on my right as she sat down there. I smiled up at Ken, and gave Sparkle’s legs an affectionate little pat where they lay on my shoulder. “Thank you.”

Neither replied. Neither needed too. They were there for me, and that was enough. The simple fact of their presence gave me the strength I needed to clear my head and focus on what was written in the journal.

The last entry was dated eight months earlier, on the 17th of February. I began to read.