The Caretaker - if I was going to stay, I needed to name him soon - started down the hallway, away from the front door. After a moment’s hesitation, I turned and followed him, and immediately felt a profound sense of deja vu.

The hallway was much like the foyer, made of rich, dark hardwoods, with a long wine-colored carpet running down the middle. Here and there, the walls were broken up by nooks with paintings or other pieces of classical artwork in them. The same oak leaf and ivy motif that I’d seen on the front door and in the foyer ran the length of the cornices along the ceiling.

And there were doors. Every few yards, another door. They were all basically the same, but with subtle variations that made each one identifiably different from the others. None of them seemed to have enough space between them for any kind of rooms.

After a moment, it hit me. I had dreamed this the night I met Margrave.

“Each door,” the Caretaker said, “is slightly different. Some lead to rooms, some lead to places.”

“Places?” I asked.

He nodded and glanced around, then moved to one of the doors. “Your Master Key will unlock almost every door in the House.” He gestured to the door he was now…standing?…in front of. “This one will make an excellent example.”

I took in the door which, like the others I’d seen so far, was made of a dark hardwood of some sort, with two square insets, larger on the top than the bottom. There was an old iron door handle with a thumb latch on the right side, with a keyhole to match. I dug the Master Key out of my pocket - realizing as I did so that I was starting to think of it with the same sort of emphasis that Margrave and the Caretaker both used - and looked at it for a long moment.

Then, shrugging, I put it into the lock. As it slid home, I heard the same soft clicking, ratcheting sound that I’d heard at the front door. This time, paying closer attention, I could feel something gripping the key as I turned it. The lock clicked open, and the key was released so I could slide it out.

I looked at the Caretaker curiously. “What is that? I’ve never seen a lock that actively grabbed the key before.”

He nodded. “The Master Key isn’t merely decorative. Every hole in it lines up with part of the locks used in the House. That’s part of its magic, and part of what allows it to open so many different doors.”

“So what I’m hearing…”

“Is the lock latching onto the Key to identify it,” the Caretaker finished the thought for me and nodded. “Correct.”

“Huh.” I slid the key back into my pocket. “That’s very clever, really. Maybe overly complex, but very clever.”

The Caretaker smiled widely. “I think you just described magic in general. We’ll find you a chain or something to put the Key on later. Your mother wore it like a necklace; she said it made it harder for her to misplace.”

“So, you knew her?”

“Very well, Mistress.” He sounded a little sad as he replied.

“Can you tell me about her?” I asked.

He smiled. “At great length. Your father, too. But we should really save that for once you’ve settled in a bit, and have had a chance to digest some of the weirdness you’re struggling with.”

I nodded fervently. “It’s been weird and getting weirder by the minute since I pulled up to the front gate.”

The Caretaker chuckled softly. “I believe you. For now, try the door.”

I shrugged and did. Considering the spacing of the doors on either side of it, I was half expecting a walk-in closet, or maybe a small storage space.

The door opened inward, revealing a sidewalk and a city street beyond.

I blinked.

I opened my mouth to say something, and found nothing to say. I couldn’t even frame a question properly.

A car cruised past. The driver was on the wrong side.

Beside me, the Caretaker said, “That is Seattle, Washington, in the United States. If I remember correctly, it would be about a six block walk from here to Seattle Center. I understand there’s some interesting museums and shops there.”

I opened and closed my mouth again. Then I closed the door and leaned back against it.

After a moment, I realized that the Caretaker was in front of me, peering into my eyes with obvious concern, and that I was dangerously close to hyperventilating. The world felt like it was starting to tilt a little.

“Take deep breaths, Mistress,” the Caretaker said softly, reaching towards me. His hands touched either side of my head lightly, and I felt an odd, cool, and curiously pleasant tingling sensation on my ears and cheeks. “Breathe in time with me.”

He began to count slowly, and after a moment I realized what he was doing. A number, followed by a four second pause, then another number. A breathing exercise. I forced myself to take a deep breath when he reached four, hold it for four seconds, then let it out when he reached five. A four second pause, and I took another deep breath when he counted six.

By the time he reached ten, I had my breathing under control and had stopped feeling like the world was tilting. I held up a hand and said, “I’m all right.” My voice sounded unsteady even to me.

“My apologies, Mistress,” the Caretaker said softly, completely earnest and obviously very worried. “It’s a difficult thing to grasp intellectually, but I didn’t think seeing it would shock you like that.”

I shook my head a little. “It’s okay. I’m just…it’s a lot to take in at once.”

“Perhaps we should move on to something a bit more mundane. I could show you the library, or your father’s study. I’m sure you’ll like those.”

“I…I’m not ready to see my father’s study just yet. But a library sounds good.” I gave him what I hoped was a game smile. From the sympathetic look on his face, I suspected it had come off a bit sickly and overwhelmed.

“Take a minute to catch your breath first,” he said. “Let me know when you feel ready.”

So I rested against the door and finished catching my breath while I tried to force my brain back into gear. I had studied philosophy and history, psychology and physics. I could wrap my head around this, and I would. If I could grasp the basics of Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity, I could certainly handle doors that were…what? Wormholes? No. Folded space seemed much more likely. But science couldn’t do that.

Yet.

Magic?

Why shouldn’t I call something that science couldn’t explain yet ‘magic.’ That was Clarke’s Law, right? “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

So…magic.

I smiled. I couldn’t help it. What I was thinking was absurd, but I couldn’t deny the evidence of my own senses, and I found that the simple fact of its absurdity delighted me in a way I couldn’t remember feeling since I was a little girl. I had a huge mystery before me, and it was - in the truest sense of the term - magical.

I felt wonder.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

The Caretaker smiled hesitantly. “Feeling better?”

I nodded, feeling quite steady as I pushed myself off the door. “Definitely. It’s magic.”

His smile relaxed and became genuine. “That’s right. Someday, how it works might make more sense to you. Until then -”

“Until then,” I said, “it’s enough to know that it does work.” I shook my head. “It feels a little insane, but…”

“But it makes you feel like there’s something special waiting just around the corner?”

I nodded again. He’d put his finger on it. So to speak. "Or maybe I've gone insane."

He smiled. “Your mother used to say that magic made her feel that way. That, by its very nature, magic had a way of making it clear that our understanding of the world was imperfect, and that there were always more things to learn.”

“Science is the same way,” I pointed out, “but comprehensible through theory and mathematics. Is magic like that?”

“To some extent, yes,” the Caretaker said. He considered for a moment, then said, “To put it very simply, magic is often about bending what science thinks of as reality. Magic is still subject to the laws of physics, to some extent. You’ll find mathematical theories and formulae in magic, too. But it’s also much more than that.”

“I take it that’s what my father wanted me to learn…what you’re supposed to teach me?”

“Among other things,” the Caretaker nodded.

I had a thought about naming him, but held off for now. “All right. But maybe we should stick to the house for now. While I…acclimate, and decide if I’m going to stay.”

He nodded again. “Very wise, Mistress.”

“The library?” I asked, curious to see it now.

He smiled. “Follow me.”

As we turned at an intersection, I firmly put the exterior geometry of the house out of my mind. The interior was so much larger - and weirder - that trying to line it up with the exterior just wasn’t ever going to accomplish anything. Except maybe driving myself insane.

I briefly entertained the notion that I’d actually gone insane, possibly around the time Margrave contacted me or slightly before, then dismissed it. That train of thought really would drive me bonkers, and wasn’t in any way useful. I had to accept the evidence of my senses.

Finally, after far longer than I thought we could possibly have walked inside the house, the Caretaker stopped at a large oak door. Once again, it was decorated with the same oak and ivy motif that I’d seen all over the house since arriving. With a gesture, he indicated the door. “If you would be so kind as to do the honors, Mistress?”

“Can’t you open it?” I asked.

He smiled. “I can open any door in the house unless it has been specifically sealed for some reason.”

“Then why -?”

“It would be good,” he interrupted me, “for you to begin using the Master Key.”

“Why?”

He bowed a little. “An excellent and very important question, but a complex one. I don’t believe you have the framework to understand the answer yet.”

I considered that for a moment, then sighed. “You’re probably right. So, the Master Key will open any door in the house?”

“With a few exceptions,” the Caretaker said, “which is what most of the other keys on the keyring are for. While those rooms need not necessarily be avoided, I would advise against random exploration until you have a better grasp on things.”

“Or unless I have you along to guide me?” I asked, half-teasing. Something about his frank, kind way of handling me had put me at ease with him when I wasn’t looking.

A brief grin flashed across his face, charming and warm. “Indeed, Mistress.” He gestured to the door again. “If you please?”

Having exhausted the immediate questions within my framework of comprehension, I stepped forward and slid the Master Key into the lock. As before, I felt that strange sensation of the lock tugging on the key, giving me the impression of something weaving through the ornate structure of the thing…then the lock clicked, and I was able to turn the key and slide it free.

“We really must find you something more convenient to carry the Key on,” the Caretaker said thoughtfully as I opened the door…onto a room that, far more spectacularly than any other I’d seen so far, simply could not fit into the house as I’d seen it from the outside.

The library was huge. I guessed that it was easily forty-five meters long and just as wide, and about three stories tall. Row after row of bookcases ran the length of the room, broken up by a long row of work tables that ran from the door to the far end of the room. The walls were lined with endless shelves of books, broken up only by shaded lamps. Balconies with iron and brass railings ran around the second and third stories, and I could see elegant-looking spiral staircases rising to the balconies at each corner of the room.

My jaw came unhinged and dropped open.

“Quite impressive,” the Caretaker asked mischievously, “isn’t it?”

“My god,” I murmured. “How many books are in here?”

“More than there appear to be,” he answered unhelpfully. “The library has a vast selection of books on every imaginable topic, from fiction and literature to history and philosophy. I use mail-order services to continually add new material as it’s published. You’ll even find spellbooks up on the third floor, though we’ll get to those later, and several rows of travel guides here near the door. Your father, if memory serves, was in the process of noting in the travel guides which door led to the location the guide was about.”

My emotions chose that moment to gang up on me and override my brain, which was grinding its gears trying to process the library. So, instead of one of the thousand questions I already had about the library’s contents, my mouth asked, “How did he die?”

The Caretaker shook his head, regret etched into his features. “I’m afraid I don’t know the specifics, Mistress. I wasn’t there when it happened, and nobody has been here to tell me. All I know is that he was expecting it.”

I nodded a little. Somehow, his answer didn’t surprise me. “You’re bound to the house…which means you can’t leave it?”

He looked surprised for a moment, then nodded. “That’s correct, Mistress. A very good deduction. The House marks the boundaries of my world.” Nothing in his voice or expression suggested any kind of resentment…he seemed totally content and at ease with his effective imprisonment. Maybe the house was just that amazing.

I reached out and steadied myself against the door frame, feeling a bit light-headed again. I was definitely approaching some kind of weirdness saturation point. How much more of this could I just accept?

“Perhaps you’d like to see your bedroom, Mistress,” the Caretaker said after several minutes of silence had passed.

I took a deep breath and nodded. “That sounds like a good idea. At the very least, I’ll have to stay for a few days to…to…” I shook my head. I had no idea what I was going to do. “Um…there’s already a room chosen for me?”

The Caretaker was watching me closely, and I thought he looked a little bit concerned. “Your father was quite specific about which room was to be yours. I have prepared it for you.”

“Then lead the way.”

He did, back out into the hall. Down a side corridor and up a flight of stairs. Down another long hallway…and I began to get the strangest feeling. A faint sensation of knowing where I was going…or, perhaps, of being led to a destination, as if the house itself was guiding me.

“Caretaker?”

He turned as he moved, the result being that he was now walking…gliding?…backwards. “Yes, Mistress?”

“I feel…it’s very strange,” I said slowly. “I feel as though I know where I’m going, or maybe like I’m being led, but not really. It’s very vague.”

He looked pleased. “That’s a good sign, Mistress. It means that the House has already begun to accept you.”

“Accept me?”

“As its new Guardian,” he said. “Your connection to it will strengthen as time passes, until you can find your way anywhere in the house effortlessly.”

My skin crawled just a bit…but at the same time, there was something comforting in the idea. “That’s a little creepy,” was all I could think of to say.

He smiled. “Your mother found it rather unsettling at first as well. You’ll get used to it…after a while, you won’t even notice it anymore.”

Assuming I stayed that long. Something in my stomach twisted at the thought of leaving this magnificently weird place before I’d really plumbed the depths of its mysteries. It already had its hooks in me. But at the same time… “So, my mother was unsettled by all this at first too?”

“Oh yes,” the Caretaker said. “And she grew up here, so she was already familiar with it all.”

“That’s…strangely reassuring,” I said.

He smiled. “You are very much your mother’s daughter. And your father’s. I can see his analytical mind in you.” He stopped in front of a door and gestured. “Here we are.”

It was, by far, the most normal-looking door I’d seen in the house so far. A simple wooden door, painted white, with a single large oak leaf carved into it just above head height. A perfectly mundane nail was driven into the base of the leaf’s short stem, from which hung an exquisitely detailed blown-glass fairy, tinted dark purple. It appeared to be in the process of taking off, one knee lifted, feet pointed downwards, dragonfly-like wings extended back on the cusp of a down-stroke.

“Your father,” the Caretaker said, “was quite specific that he meant for you to have this room. He felt sure you’d enjoy it.”

I nodded and stared at the door, feeling a strange sense of finality. If I opened this door, accepted it as my room in this strange house, there was no going back. This wouldn’t just be a place I was visiting to take stock of. It would be…mine.

At the same time, something about this door gave me a warm, safe feeling. You belong here, the door seemed to say. Come in, be at ease. You can hide from the world here.

I shivered a little and briefly considered bolting for the front door, wondering if the house would even let me find it. I glanced down the hallway…and was shocked to see the front door sitting there just a few yards away, abruptly ending the hallway right where the Caretaker and I had been walking a minute before.

The Caretaker followed my glance, then looked back at me, just a hint of concern and uncertainty on his face. But he said nothing. This was, obviously, my choice to make. Stay, or leave.

If I left, what then? If I stayed, what then? Could I go back to my totally mundane life at Cambridge? Finish my Masters in British History, start teaching…

Somehow, I didn’t think so. Margrave’s concern and insistence than I come here as quickly as possible, the nebulous warnings in my father’s letter, the Caretaker’s almost jubilant relief to see me…

My old, normal life was, I felt with bone-deep certainty, over. But that wasn’t really a bad thing. What I’d seen of this house, and however it functioned, was simply incredible. The merest hints of the things I could learn here were tantalizing.

I glanced down the hallway again…the front door was gone, the hallway had returned.

I unlocked and opened the door to my bedroom.