The Watchtower

         I looked down at the aboretum. It wasn't every house that had trees growing inside it. I couldn't see the whole room from here. There was just a small window looking into it here. It seemed ironic that a room panelled all in hardwood would look out onto a room full of trees. The house was amazing, but I always wondered if it was worth the price.

         Just as I considered this, I heard the bell ring, like the sound of a wailing woman heard from miles away. The sound of a bell tolling in the house would surprise any guests, since the house didn't have any bell tower.

         I knew what it was, though. I ran across the third floor to the door to the tower. At the top of the stone staircase was a single room, always kept empty. Here, I stood in the center of the room, in a circle carved in the floor, and I looked up. The roof became a swirling cloud of silver mist. Then the symbols appeared. I knew the pentacle. They always started with the pentacle. I dreaded the day they started with something else, I'd have no idea what to do then. There had to be at least a hundred of them, and I had no idea what most of them meant. I recognized a few, but not enough to make sense of the warning. I'd have to find out what the rest meant to figure out the message, and that meant a visit to Monty. I knew I'd better not put it off. If the warning was this long, then it was something important and dangerous. That was the price of owning the house. Whoever lived here would be the only one to receive the warnings. And if you got the warning, you had to act on them, or something terrible might happen.

         Lucky for me, Monty didn't live very far away. Maybe a five minute walk from the house was his domain. Montgomery J. Montague's Museum of the Strange and Unexplained. Strange place for it. This town wasn't exactly a tourist draw. In fact the only other attraction was the house. Of course, Monty wasn't just out there to trap the tourists. Well, that wasn't the only thing anyway. Some might say he had the sight. He didn't let on about that to the tourists, though. Only to those who were also in the know. Like me, for the last few years anyway.

         His place wasn't really the most impressive looking construction. It looked like it was a conglomeration of five or six of those portable trailers they used to send out to schools that had too many kids. Even though the musuem had lots of entries, I went around to the front. No point annoying my only reliable source of informatoion.

         The 'foyer' of the museum had a couple of posters Monty made up. It also had a few items of lesser interest. A skull with three eye sockets, a two headed cow model, and, of course, a desk where Monty sat. He looked like a stage magician, tall, thin, black opera coat, complete with tails. Even a top hat an monacle. Before he even looked up at me he had already started his speech. "Welcome to Montgomery J. Montague's museum of the...oh, it's you."

[And that is where I woke up.]