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happened,” Andy announced in a cheesy dramatic voice. “James Ryerson removed rabbits from hats. He went through dozens of hats and bunnies to perfect the illusion. It’s a costly affair, ladies and gentlemen, but bunnies and hats are a small price to pay for perfection.”
    He scavenged the desk drawers for interesting relics. Five of the six were empty, but the bottom one contained a pine box. Four individually wrapped cigars were inside. He smelled one, the tobacco stale. He un-wrapped it and lit it with a Bic. “James Ryerson endorses…” he checked the sticker label, “…Havana cigars. After a long day of defying illusion, a good cigar takes the edge off.”
    After two puffs, the tip’s cherry brightened and smoldered too fast, alarming him. Scared, he tossed it across the room, where it exploded with a bottle rocket’s crack !  
    “What the fuck?”
    He slammed the drawer closed and walked past the strewn remains of the cigar. The smell of gunpowder stalked him as he made his exit. “That could’ve blown my face apart. They should put a warning label on those things. Damn trick cigars.”
    Andy caught a gleam from a darkened room nearby. He crossed the threshold and brushed his hand along the wall for a switch. The light flickered on from a plastic dome heaped with dead flies. The bathroom furnishings were of fine quality. The sink was gray marble. The vanity mirror was gold-lined with four lights across the top like the kind in an actress’s dressing room. The Jacuzzi was large enough to fit four people. He couldn’t wait to bathe in bubble jets and warm water.
    He turned on the water in the Jacuzzi, and it spat out cold. “Don’t tell me Uncle Ned doesn’t have hot water. Maybe that’s why he fled the place so Goddamn fast.”
    The water was ice cold, and it wasn’t changing for the two minutes he held his hand under the spout.  
    “Abra Cadabra—hot water!”
    The pipe coughed out a thick jet of water. Schwap ! It scalded him, and he yanked back his hand in pain.  
    “Christ! What the hell was that about?”
    He hesitantly turned on the fixture again and doused his hand in cold water. He wasn’t sure why the water grew so hot without a moment’s warning.  
    Quirks of an old house , he thought. As long as the walls don’t bleed, I’m good.
    There was a knock at the door. He rushed down the staircase and caught the figure waiting at the door. It was a young woman in her late twenties. She wore tattered blue jeans and a button-up flannel shirt. Her auburn hair was styled in pig tails. Her face was soft with an honest smile. She was well-endowed too, a D-cup and change.  
    “Are you Andy Ryerson?” She offered him a wicker basket. It was heaped with blueberry muffins, a loaf of wheat bread and an apple pie wrapped in tin foil. “Ned told us about you. He said you were moving in today.”
    “He said I was moving in today,” he repeated. “How long ago did he say that?”
    “It’s been weeks he’s talked about it.” She extended her hand for him to shake, and he accepted it. “I’m Mary-Sue Jennings. I live a mile down the road. My dad owns the two-hundred acres down the way from you. We run a dairy farm. We helped Ned move a lot of his stuff out of the house. Anyway, welcome to the neighborhood. Anderson Mills is a small town.” She winked. “But we’re close-knit if you let us be.”
    He was stuck on the fact Uncle Ned told her he was moving in weeks ago. How could he be so sure he’d accept the offer? He was angry despite Mary-Sue’s cheerful green eyes and brown freckled face.  
    “Thank you for the basket, Mary-Sue. What else did my uncle tell you about me?”
    “Not much.” a man spoke from outside, studying the blackened circle in the yard. He wore faded overalls, brown leather boots and a straw hat. The skin of his face was sunburned and peeling. The rough growth of his beard lent him a hobo’s air. Pipe-cleaner strands of white hair jutted out from under the