Welcome to the Peeg House.
Leo should have run. Every nerve in his body was screaming it. But he was tired. So tired. And the smell of woodsmoke and pears was strangely gentle.
Behind him, the door to the street clicked shut and locked itself. The grandfather clock with no hands began to chime—thirteen times.
No one looked up when Leo entered.
Then he walked inside.
Leo took a breath.
The third was just a suit of armor. Empty. But it was rocking gently in a chair by the fireplace, and every few seconds a muffled snore came from inside the helmet. Welcome to the Peeg House-
The second was a woman—or had been, once. Her skin was the gray-green of a thundercloud, and her hair moved in slow, separate strands, like seaweed in a lazy current. She was knitting what looked like a scarf made of fog.
And in the middle of that room, sitting on a sagging velvet settee, were three of the strangest creatures Leo had ever seen.
And somewhere above, in Room 7, a single lamp flickered on, casting a warm golden square onto the rain-slicked pavement below. Welcome to the Peeg House
“The tall man?” Leo managed.
The pig turned a page. “Welcome to the Peeg House,” it said, without looking. “Rules are simple. Don’t open the basement door after midnight. Don’t feed the mirror in the upstairs bathroom. And whatever you do, don’t say ‘thank you’ to the tall man in the gray coat if he offers you anything.”