Turns out, the man with the banjo was nice.
Definitely had a few screws loose, but nice.
He didn't lead the two children through endless hallways up on the third or fourth floor. He showed them to two small rooms side by side on the second floor, immediately across from the staircase. No way to get lost, far enough away from Pacifica, but close enough not to be considered really alone. Perfect.
Gideon fingered the tab on his suitcase as Fiddleford stood aside to show him his room. It was warmly decorated with thick white curtains and textured beams sweeping high over the soft rug beneath the bed. It looked like a room just cleaned for company. Not personal, but welcoming. He listened as Fiddleford showed Pacifica her room, which he guessed looked similar to his.
"Now you lemme know if there's anything ya'll need. This house's got a nice echo so just holler and I'll hear ya." He turned and paused like he had forgotten something. "Oh, my assistant will be here in a little while to drop off supplies. He'll be in to bring you some food… Kids eat food too, right?" The older man asked more to himself than the children once Pacifica emerged back in the doorway.
Without waiting for an answer or offering any further explanations, the spectacled man smiled and closed the door behind them.
"Pretty cool, right?" Pacifica hummed after a moment of silence, sitting crisscrossed on the floor and unpacking her plethora of sweaters, stuffed animals, and snack wrappers. Her nervous demeanor from before slowly evaporated as she soaked in her new environment. "I think he's a nice old man."
"You think everyone is nice," Gideon mumbled as he tossed his suitcase onto the bed and followed her example, pulling out a couple of books and an assortment of plain summer clothes.
Pacifica blew a raspberry in his general direction while folding her sweaters painstakingly in her lap. "Yeah, most are ."
Gideon rolled his eyes to himself and started putting his clothes in the carved dresser in silence. Pacifica hummed while she set up Gideon's bed pillows to make a fort for her animals, her sweaters carefully folded before being hastily tossed into her own dresser.
About eight minutes after they finished unpacking and were starting to feel a little bored, a soft knock rapped on the door. A young man in a green plaid flannel entered with some grocery bags in hand. "Hey, you must be the new guys. Robbie here. You dudes hungry?"
Both children glanced at each other and noticed just how empty their stomachs were. Pacifica had eaten her entire candy stash within the first half hour of the bus ride, which may or may not have contributed to her sugar high on the bus. Robbie seemed to notice their expressions and chuckled, holding up boxes of frozen meals. "Hope you like hot pockets."
"You'll have to show us where the kitchen is, we weren't shown around yet." Gideon piped up, digging his fists into his pockets shyly.
Robbie squinted at the label on the back of one box and pulled a pair of glasses out of his breast pocket, looking up after a minute. "Huh? Oh, yeah sure. Follow me."
Robbie proceeded to Gandalf them down the main staircase and through a series of hallways lined with doorways. If Gideon didn't know any better he'd think they were lost in a fancy hotel.
After a moment of silent walking, Robbie cleared his throat and tried making polite conversation. "So, how do you two know my boss? He doesn't usually have visitors. Like, ever."
Pacifica beat Gideon to the answer, "he's some distant relative of my parents. I think they were closer when he was in college."
Robbie hummed as they turned a corner, motioning for them to follow. "Must've been. I mean, don't get me wrong, he's a great boss, but I can't imagine him being close with anyone." He paused and jiggled a doorknob a few times before opening it, the shiny brass of the knob, creaking as if it was one more turn away from snapping. Then he chuckled. "Fiddleford in college. That's funny."
"Really?" Pacifica frowned as she backed up quickly to keep from bumping into Robbie.
"He could run circles around any and every professor on this side of the West Coast. Probably the East Coast too. I dunno." He ripped open one of the now room-temperature boxes and tossed three hot pockets into the microwave and started cooking them. "There's only one guy I know that might've been smarter than him but he's kinda lost his acorns if ya know what I mean." Within seconds the timer chirped and they were eating steaming hot garbage in amicable silence. The cousins silently mulled over the new piece of information.
"Well, looks like you're stuck with me for the rest of the evening," Robbie said good-naturedly, tossing away everyone's wrapper into a trap door in the wall labeled incinerator. "Anything in particular you guys wanna do?"
"You know what we're allowed to do better than we do. Did Fiddleford give us any rules?"
Robbie brushed some crumbs off his shirt as he looked contemplative. "Yeah, he did actually. Well, kinda. It wasn't really a rule. He just wanted me to tell you that you can come to him if you have any problems this summer. Especially if you find anything in the forest."
"That's nice of him," Pacifica chirped, swinging her legs on the counter, then she frowned. "What do you mean find anything in the forest?"
The young man scoffed happily and ruffled her hair, and Gideon was surprised to see her face redden. "You guys will see, don't worry. C'mon, I'll drive you into town and show you around. It's still early enough."
The old rust bucket that was Robbie's car stood out like gravy on a white tablecloth in the moonlight. Definitely didn't match the owner's persona. Gideon wasn't even sure the thing would start.
The car seemed determined to prove him wrong however as it sputtered to life. Soon they were cruising down the tree-lined hill under the rising constellations, kicking up a trail of dust in their wake.
Robbie glanced up in the rear-view mirror and saw Gideon's forehead leaning against the window as he watched the moon blink at him through the trees. He smiled and rolled the window down, startling the boy with the sudden gust of fresh air.
"There's not a whole lot to see in town," Robbie explained, keeping one hand on the bottom of the steering wheel. "It's the stuff in the forest that's interesting. Never seen anything myself but I did have bug bites that spelled out "Beware" once, which was pretty cool."
"Huh?" Pacifica suddenly refocused her attention from where she was watching two ants crawl across the dashboard. "What are you talking about? I saw everything passing on the bus. It looked so nice."
"The forest is usually more active at night. We'll be fine as long as we're back at the manner before it gets too late. Boss won't be happy if he finds you two squished or shrunk or something."
Pacifica picked the lint on her sweater. "Oh." She wasn't quite sure how to take that. She turned around in her seat and shared a funny look with Gideon.
Lights lining a branching off road up ahead stole her attention, a glowing sign reading "Mystery Tent." Blinked on and off. "Hey, what's that?"
Robbie brightened when he noticed it too. His voice sounded artificially casual. "Just some cheap tourist trap someone came up with. They set it up a couple weeks ago and it's been pretty popular. My friends'll probably be there now. Wanna check it out?"
Gideon could see Pacifica's face scrunching up in hesitation. "Shouldn't we be going home soon like you said?"
"Nah we got another hour or two, and that would be if we were all alone in the middle of nowhere. We're going to a densely populated area." He gave her a sidelong look and a lopsided grin. "Don't worry, dudes. I'll keep the monsters away."
Ok, Gideon could definitely see Paz's face turn pink at that.
The truck lurched as the road shifted from concrete to dirt when Robbie took a hard right. The dingy headlights lit up the neat rows of cars lining one side of the road as a blue and white tent appeared in a grassy clearing. Festival lights blinked on and off in a perimeter in the trees.
Once the three parked and hopped out of the truck, they trotted to the entrance where clusters of people were milling about, chatting while eating food. Robbie craned his neck until he spotted a small group of teenagers off to the side and shot his hand up in a wave. "Hey guys! How's it hanging?"
When the teens glanced their way they all gave Robbie a high five and slap on the black as he laughed and bumped them. One girl in a black hoodie with a broken heart design on the chest just gave a two-fingered salute, her thick red hair fluffing up in the humidity. Now it was Robbie's turn to turn red as he shoved his hands in his pockets. He then seemed to remember the two kids behind them and made an opening in the circle for them to join. "Guys, I want you to meet Pacifica and Gideon. They're staying with my boss for the summer and really like hot pockets. Pacifica, Gideon, these are my friends. Wendy-" he pointed to the redhead, who nodded in their direction, "- that's Lee, Nate, Tambry, and Thompson." Each gave a little nod or wave when Robbie pointed at them.
Introductions bounced into broken conversations punctuated by Pit Cola drinks being passed around. At first the two children listened politely, but soon Pacifica began bouncing up and down restlessly. Her attention was drawn away from the teens and towards the people trickling into the blue and white tent. She tugged on Gideon's sleeve and gestured toward the entrance. "C'mon, let's look around," she whispered.
Gideon frowned and shrugged her off, "Just stay with the group, these guys seem cool."
"Please, Giddy?" She gave him a desperate look and Gideon sighed, realizing that Paz needed to move.
"You owe me," Gideon smirked as he took her hand and started to run off. He looked back at Robbie who raised his eyebrow but called after them, "Don't go too far, dudes, I'll catch up in a sec!"
The two strategically avoided the ticket stand and opted to circle the tent looking for another entrance. They spotted some kids squeezing beneath the fabric flaps. Just to be safe they looped all the way to nearly the opposite end, an area with hardly any people.
Once their eyes adjusted to the light however Gideon realized they must have snuck into an isolated part of the tent, blocked off from the main part with the crowd. He could hear people shuffling around on the other side of the curtain, but it was quiet on this side. Crates and stage props cluttered the small space, making him almost stumble and earning a stubbed toe.
"Ow- son of a -" He cut himself off with a disapproving look from Pacifica. "There's nothing here. Let's circle back and meet with the rest of the group."
"Fiiiine," Pacifica sighed dejectedly, taking one last look around the darkened tent. She was just about to turn around when she spotted a faint blue glow in the corner, as if someone had left a night light on. "What's that?"
She climbed over the fire hazards until she found a pathway that led right to the back. Gideon groaned and followed, making sure she didn't trip and fall on her face. When she reached the other end of the tent she stopped dead in her tracks, mainly because she wasn't quite sure what she was looking at.
A floating blue… triangle with a big doleful eye in the center blinking fearfully back up at her hovered in the center of a black cage, a blue chain wrapped around his tiny black wrists.
"Please don't hurt me," It whimpered, backing against the metal bars. "Just leave me alone."
"Oh sweety," Pacifica eyes were huge, "What's your name?"
Gideon swore he heard the triangle sniff, he bent down to peer through the bars.
"Will." The triangle blinked back at him. "My name's Will."