The Servants of Twilight

Charlie retrieved a spare key from a cleverly hidden recess in one of the porch posts. Ice cracked away from the door as he pulled it open, and the frozen hinges squealed briefly.

They went inside, and Christine was surprised by how lovely the cabin was. The downstairs consisted of one enormous room, with a kitchen occupying the far end, a long pine dining table just this side of the kitchen, and then a living area with a polished oak floor, braided rag rugs, comfortable dark green sofas and armchairs, brass lamps, paneled walls, draperies in a Scottish-plaid pattern that was dominated by greens to complement the sofas and chairs, and a massive rock fireplace almost as big as a walk-in closet. Half the downstairs was open all the way to the second-floor ceiling, and was overlooked by a gallery.

Up there, three closed doors led to three other rooms: "Two bedrooms and a bath," Charlie said. The effect was rustic yet quite civilized.

A tiled area separated the front door from the oak floor of the living room, and that was where they removed their snow-crusted boots. Then they took an inspection tour of the cabin. There was some dust on the furniture, and the air smelled musty. There was no electricity because the breakers were all thrown in the fuse box, which was out in the battery room below the windmill, but Charlie said he would go out there and remedy the situation in a few minutes. Beside each of the three fireplaces-the big one in the living room and a smaller one in each of the bedrooms-were stacks of split logs and kindling, which Charlie used to start three fires. All the fireplaces were equipped with Heatolators, so the cabin would be reasonably warm even in the bitter heart of winter.

"At least no one's broken in and wrecked things," he said.

"Is that a problem?" Christine asked.

"Not really. During the warmer months, when the road's open all the way, there's nearly always somebody staying here. When the road is snowed shut and there's no one here to look after the place, most would-be looters wouldn't even know there was a cabin this far into the woods. And the ones who do know.

well. they probably figure the trek isn't worth what little they'd find to carry away. Still, first time you arrive each spring, you wonder if you're going to discover the place has been wrecked."

The fires were building nicely, and the vents of the Heatolator in the downstairs mantel were spewing welcome droughts of warm air into the big main room. Chewbacca had already settled down on the hearth there, head on his paws.

"Now what?" Christine asked.

Opening one of the backpacks and removing a flashlight from it, Charlie said, "Now you and Joey take everything out of these bags while I go out and see about getting us some electricity."

She and Joey carried the backpacks into the kitchen while Charlie pulled his boots on again. By the time he had gone out to the windmill, they were stashing canned goods in the cabinets, and it almost seemed as if they were an ordinary family on an ordinary skiing holiday, getting settled in for a week of fun. Almost. She tried to instill a holiday mood in Joey by whistling happy songs and making little jokes and pretending that she was actually going to enjoy this adventure, but either the boy saw through her charade or he wasn't even paying attention to her, for he seldom responded and never smiled.

With the monotonous humming-churning of the windmill's propellers above him, Charlie used a shovel to clear the snow from the wooden doors that protected the steps that led down to the room under the windmill. He descended two flights of steps that went rather deeply into the ground; the battery room was below the frost line. When he reached the bottom, he was in a hazyblue darkness that robbed the whiteness from the snowflakes sifting down around him, so they looked as if they were bits of gray ash. He took the flashlight from his coat pocket and snapped it on. A heavy metal door stood in front of him. The cabin key worked this lock, too, and in a moment he was in the battery room, where everything appeared to be in order: cables; twenty heavy-duty, ten-year storage batteries lined up side by side on two sturdy benches; a concrete pallet holding all the machinery; a rack of tools.

A foul odor assaulted him, and he immediately knew the cause of it, knew he would have to deal with it, but first he went to the fuse box and pushed all the breakers from OFF to ON. That done, the wall switch by the door brought light to the two long fluorescent bulbs in the ceiling.

The light revealed three dead,

decaying mice, one in the middle of the room, the other two in the corner by the first battery bench.

It was necessary to leave tins of poisoned bait here, especially during the winter when mice were most likely to come seeking shelter, for if the rodents were left to their own devices they would eat the insulation from all the cables and wires, leaving a ruined electrical system by the time spring arrived.