THE HOUSE ON SPACE-TIME LANE

Chapter Three
AND HE BUILT A CROOKED HOUSE
by Galen Hardesty

~*~

Daria counted out bills to pay for the pizza plus a decent tip, and handed them to the girl in the Dirty Pierre baseball cap. "Thanks, Tananda," she said.

"Thank you, Daria, and call again," replied the girl, as she turned and headed back to the front door.

Quinn entered the kitchen just after the pizza girl had left. "Not a bad outfit, except for the hat," she commented idly. "She should lose the green hair, though. What kind of name is Tananda, anyway?"

"Mohican," said Daria, as she opened the pizza box. She and Jane began identifying the largest pieces and formulating strategies to claim them for their own. Quinn opened the refrigerator and began searching through the vegetable crisper.

"So why are we here eating this admittedly not-bad-at-all Dirty Pierre's Sourdough Crust Carnivore Supreme instead of down at Pizza King scarfing one of their baked-on-a-big-stone-slab-and-scooped-out-with-a-big-wooden-paddle masterpieces of greases?" inquired Jane briefly.

"Privacy. Certain topics are best not discussed in a Greasy Fingers full of nit-, half-, and dimwits. That is, unless you want to start a major panic."

Jane hiked an eyebrow. "Panic, huh? Well, what say we discuss the topic first, and then start the panic later if there's nothing good on TV. But what about the VP there?" Jane cocked a thumb at Quinn, who was daintily nibbling carrot sticks and making occasional eww faces at the pizza. "When did she get her Top Secret clearance?"

Daria eyed her sibling sardonically. "She's in it up to her slender, dimpled, bouncy eyeballs. If she wants to talk, she already knows enough for an entire episode of Sick Sad World. After which, she'd win a two-decade all-expense-paid vacation to Area 51, and never be met with again." Quinn stuck out her tongue, which was lightly coated with mangled carrot bits.

"Eewww, gross!" Jane squinted in mock disgust at the offending organ, which quickly disappeared. "So what does Pinky know that's so bizarre? Did she discover a subspecies of Chupacabra that only sucks cellulite out of thighs?"

"Even better. Quinn is only the fourth earth human to travel through space and time using only a laundry room door."

"Well, that would sound pretty cool if I believed it. Where does the panic come in?"

"Remember the Daleks? Remember the hyperspace bridge they set up as part of their slave raid? What if it became generally known that there was a space-time warp like that somewhere in town, and that the first three people who went through it died horribly?"

"Hmm, yeah, that would start a panic pretty effectively. Um, is there a space-time warp in town?"

"Yep."

Jane smiled uneasily and glanced around. "And did the first three people through it die horribly?"

The smile was gone from Daria's face. "Yes. Quinn and I were the fourth and fifth. We saw it happen."

Jane's smile disappeared and her unease grew as the laundry room door caught her restless eye. "Uh, well, how about telling your old buddy Jane where it is, so I won't fall into it?"

The patented Morgendorffer evil smirk slowly bloomed on Daria's sweet face. Jane glanced at Quinn and saw that she was also wearing it. "Too late, Jane, you're already in it," quoth she. Daria nodded.

Jane's complexion lightened a shade. A fine sheen of perspiration appeared on her forehead. She could tell Daria wasn't lying. "Oh, heh-heh, well, the mystery finally solved, eh? Now we know why you're so warped." She attempted a smile.

Quinn had another two cents' worth, and she put it in. "Naah, she was thoroughly warped long before we came here. I think Daria and this house were made for each other. It was like that thing... you know, kissmat."

Daria's smirk became a shade more humorous, but she forbore to comment on Quinn's newly minted word. "That is what warped the previous occupant of my room, though." Between bites of pizza, she told Jane the story of the madwoman and her family.

Jane listened raptly to the narrative, becoming increasingly more goggle-eyed. "Wow! You went back in time and saved them after they were killed by the volcano? That's fantastic!"

"No, we went back and saved them before they were killed by the volcano. It's much easier that way. Less messy too. But that brings us to what I think is the most bizarre aspect of this whole, uhh, situation. There appears to be some high-level interaction taking place between some of the occupants of this house and the distortion. That last time it apparently did what I wanted it to do, and before that, it seemed to be communicating to me and Quinn, urging us to take action."

"And it took the woman to her husband and daughter, although it took two or three years to do it." Quinn observed.

"Hmm. How did the husband and daughter get lost in the first place, and why couldn't they come back on their own like you did?"

"Good question. No, excellent question. I don't know." Daria admitted.

"Maybe they closed the door and couldn't find it again," Quinn speculated.

"Could be," Daria agreed thoughtfully. "It could well be as simple as that."

Jane scratched her head, leaving a pale thread of mozzarella amongst her ebon tresses. "So do you think that... whatever this is was trying to return the first two to where they belonged, and tried using the madwoman to help, but she messed up somehow, and then tried you? And if so, now that they're back, will that end the strange goings-on?"

"That's an interesting way to look at it. Most of that could be more-or-less true, but the strangeness hasn't stopped. The house is still here."

Jane looked puzzled. "Huh? What's the house got to do with the space-time warp, other than proximity? It's just a house, isn't it?"

Daria and Quinn exchanged smirks. Daria walked over to the dining room door. "Where does this door go, Jane?" she asked.

Jane gave Daria a peculiar look. "To the garage, last time I looked."

Daria opened it and beckoned. "Look again."

Jane gave Daria a very peculiar look, but came over and looked. "A dining room! When did you put this in?"

"It was here when we bought the place." Daria closed the door.

Jane looked at her accusingly. "Last time I opened that door it went directly to the garage!"

"You mean, like this?" Daria opened the door again. Jane glanced at it, and then did a double take, followed by a gape. There was the garage, too full of boxes, unused sporting goods, and assorted stuff to park so much as a Yugo in.

Jane ungaped as Daria eased the door closed again. "Uh, yeah, just like that," she said weakly "How did you make it look like there was a dining room there?

"Mirrors, maybe?" Smiling her Mona Lisa smile, Daria opened the door again. Jane looked through into the dining room. "Check it out. See if you can find the trick."

Slowly, hesitantly, Jane entered the dining room. Hands groping ahead of her as if she didn't trust her eyes, she felt a chair back, then rapped on the tabletop. Then she pulled the chair out, lifted it off the floor, and set it back in its place. She stepped to the window and looked out, then tried to see how far the outside wall went in either direction, which she could not do. She looked carefully around the room, her gaze stopping more than once on Daria, who was lounging in the doorway to the kitchen and smiling a smile with smirky undertones.

Jane glared at Daria, then turned to a china cabinet. Removing a couple of cut-glass tumblers, she tapped on the mirror behind them. She spent some time looking between that mirror and the mirror behind the bar against the opposite wall. Aside from setting up an 'infinite set of rooms' illusion seriously weakened by the contents of the china cabinet, they did not appear to be doing anything pseudo-magical.

"All right, to my limited sensory apparatus, this appears to be an actual dining room. It's a great trick. How are you doing it?"

"I don't know. It's a fabulous trick, and you can't imagine how much I wish I knew how it works. I just seem to be able to work it."

Jane stared at Daria for a minute, a puzzled expression on her face. "Well, where does this room go when you need to get into the garage? Or is this the real room, and the garage a fake?"

"They're both real rooms, and they don't go anywhere. It's just that if I want to go into the dining room, I open the door and go into the dining room. If I want to go to the garage, I open the door and go into the garage." Daria shrugged.

"That's insane. So you're telling me that if I wanted to go into, say, the music room, I could just open this door and step into the music room?" Jane gestured at a door on the other side of the dining room from the kitchen door, a door that Daria knew would lead to the garage now.

"That would be neat," said Daria, amused at the conceit of a music room in the Morgendorffer home. "Be my guest."

Jane's look said she suspected that Daria was playing another trick on her, but her curiosity was overpowering her better judgment. She turned the handle, opened it, and gasped.

Daria hurried around the dining room table and through the door after Jane, who was standing dumbstruck two steps in. A gleaming black Steinway Concert Grand Piano dominated the room, its top reflecting the crystal chandelier above it. A chandelier which, Daria noted, hung from a ceiling high enough to make Quinn's bedroom, which was supposedly right above it, uninhabitable. A beautiful Persian carpet nearly covered the hardwood floor. A large bay window looked out onto the driveway. Between two planters holding broad-leafed tropical plants stood a cello on a stand. Shelves on the wall held violin, clarinet, and bassoon cases. Black laquered chairs with oriental embroidered seat cushions and music stands stood around.

Jane picked up the cello and began examining it, occasionally plucking a string. Daria opened the clarinet case, and was surprised at the soft glow of silver and ebony instead of the shiny chrome and plastic she'd expected. Closing it, she opened the violin case, which was obviously old, but very well cared for. The violin inside was extraordinarily beautiful, with a patina of much use and loving care. It seemed to beg to be picked up. Hesitantly, Daria did so. Quinn came in unnoticed and was drawn to the piano.

"Look inside it, Daria. See if there's a label," Jane suggested, as she carefully set the cello back in its stand.

Daria did so, and saw that a small piece of paper had been glued to the inside back of the violin. She turned it back and forth to read the printing on it, and the date, which looked like it had been filled in with a quill pen, then started in surprise and very gently returned the violin to its case. She turned to Jane. "It says… 'Antonius Stradivarius Cremonensis faciebat Anno 1687," she said, a note of wonder in her voice.