author: Nicole J. LeBoeuf

Notes from the author:

In one of Terry Pratchett’s later Discworld novels, Unseen Academicals, Mr. Nutt endures humanity’s casual scorn and contempt because he’s a goblin. At least, that’s what he lets them believe. At times he even believes it too. It’s a comfortable lie, and contempt is a lot less dangerous than the fear and hate he’d face if everyone knew what he really was.

In this story, Mrs. Johnson tells everyone she’s a vampire. Whether her guests believe her or not, they all happily play along. It’s entertaining, and, more importantly, harmless. There are worse things one can be than a vampire.

But the most unusual lodgings by far on that stretch of the Griffin Coast must be the bed and breakfast known as the Water Hemlock. Not because of its inauspicious name, which, I must note, is no reflection on the fare; meals served at that table compare favorably to that of any five-star restaurant along the Coast. And no guest has ever taken the least bit ill from eating there. No, what makes the Water Hemlock so remarkable is its landlord.

The esteemed Felicity Johnson will not greet you herself at check-in, which is strictly between the hours of three and five o’clock. Instead, her day-shift assistants, Flora and Archie Beeman, will welcome you. One or the other will show you to your room, take note of your meal preferences, and apprise you as to the Water Hemlock’s peculiarities. There are two main such, which I shall outline here.

First, Mrs. Johnson keeps strictly nocturnal hours. She sleeps the days away in the windowless basement. This, she will tell you, is because she is a vampire. The merest touch of sunlight would spell her doom; thus she does not come above stairs until well after dark.

But it’s never truly dark inside the Water Hemlock, and that is the second peculiarity. Thanks to a very modern system of sensors, timers, and smart home devices, every common room and hallway is lit up from dusk to dawn. Each bedroom and bathroom too has its automated night light keeping vigil until sunrise. These are not negotiable, and, as Mr. and Mrs. Beeman will warn you, attempts to disable them will have consequences. Should such gentle illumination trouble your slumber, you will find a sleep mask in the bedside drawer, very clean and smelling of lavender.

Of course, you, dear reader, are too sophisticated to believe in vampires. You will nevertheless play along, as you would with a murder mystery dinner or any other form of immersive theater. Mrs. Johnson will be pleased for you to ask her anything you wish to know about her day-to-day routine—or night-to-night, as the case may be.

For instance, what does she do all day down in the dark? She can’t spend the whole time sleeping. “I take care of the business,” is her answer. One imagines her face lit up by a computer screen, turning slowly at the sound of mail rattling down the chute. “Online billing, town hall meetings over Zoom—this is a good century to be a daytime hermit.”

How does she get her sustenance? Having served her guests two sumptuous meals a day, does she oblige them to serve her in return? Never, she insists. That would break every rule of hospitality. “I order the odd pint of pig’s blood alongside the roasts and sausages. Oh, well, sometimes I’ll eat out,” she admits with a wink, “but my guests have nothing to fear from me—so long as the lights stay on.”

Why, then, must the lights stay on? What would happen if they went out? This is the one subject upon which Mrs. Johnson will grow cagey. “It would be very bad, dearie,” is all she’ll say. “Best not to dwell on it.”

If she is also reluctant to expound upon how she prevents power outages, one can hardly blame her. The Water Hemlock was sabotaged some twenty-five years back, and she’s not eager to see a repeat incident. “But I’ve taken care of everything since, never you fear. Everything’s up to spec and locked down tight. It won’t happen again.”

It’s a subject she refuses to be drawn further on, but the details, such as they are, are a matter of public record. You need only request the file from the Office of Sea and Shore Safety. But as their coffee is frankly terrible, I’ll save you the trip and reproduce it here.

The blackout, which happened at a quarter past three one Sunday morning in Octember, was caused by a pair of twin teenagers vacationing with their family that week in the Queen Anne Suite. As they could not be questioned afterward, we cannot know their motives. Best to assume they intended only a harmless prank.

Mr. Harry Malone, a resident of the inland town of Monsdale who came north three times a year on business, provided this eyewitness account.

“I was on my way to visit Mrs. Johnson in the kitchen. I’m a bit of a night owl myself, so I’d wind up keeping her company while she cooked. She’d have pork brisket smoking all night long, sauces simmering, that sort of thing. Anyway, I was coming down the hall to the back kitchen door just as the lights went out.

“I was next to a window, so I could see pretty well by the light of the nearest streetlamp. Still, it was a bit of a shock, especially after all of Mrs. Johnson’s warnings. I heard the front door bang open, then footsteps went pounding off in two different directions. I think one of the kids went down the basement. I know the other went into the kitchen via the dining room, because I heard the creak of the swinging door. I assumed they were looking to give Mrs. Johnson more trouble, but I didn’t know whether I should go tell them off or just call a Safety Officer. Kids these days, you know? Some of them don’t think twice about beating up an old guy like me. Some of them carry guns.

“There was a bit of shouting in the kitchen—just the kid’s voice, not Mrs. Johnson. Ha-ha, gotcha, that sort of thing. At first. Then something sounding more surprised. Got cut off by a big coughing fit and a lot of thrashing around.

“I was just figuring I should run in there to see who needed help. But that’s when I saw this black, greasy smoke come trickling out around the kitchen door. It got thick in a hurry and—you’re not going to believe me, that’s all right, I don’t believe me either. But that smoke moved like it knew where it was going. And it looked like something I really shouldn’t touch. I backed up against the window until my heels were against the wall and held my breath as long as I could.

“The coughing had stopped by then.

“The smoke wouldn’t come into that little circle of light where I was standing. It just went past me down the hall. After it was gone, I went back to my own room, lit one of the emergency candles, and called Sea and Shore Safety. I didn’t go to sleep, and I didn’t go anywhere without that candle, not until the sun came up.”

The boy that Mr. Malone heard coughing was found dead in the kitchen. Cause of death was determined to be asphyxiation proceeding from cicutoxin poisoning. It was hypothesized that the boy had burned a heap of the establishment’s namesake herb and got a fatal lungful. But no trace of the plant, burnt or not, could be found in the vicinity. Nothing else in the kitchen other than the boy’s body, not even Mrs. Johnson’s interrupted cooking, appeared to have been poisoned.

Mrs. Johnson told the Safety Officer that she couldn’t remember anything after the lights went out. “One minute I was standing at the stove stirring up a batch of hollandaise sauce, the next I was in my bed and Flora Beeman was there with a flashlight shaking me awake. And I had such a headache!” The guests were taken down to the Office of Sea and Shore Safety for questioning over a rather inferior breakfast. Their coffee, as I’ve said, is very bad. Mrs. Johnson herself was allowed to remain in her basement; her peculiarities were already well known up and down the Griffin Coast.

The other boy was never found. Sea and Shore Safety wrote him up as a presumed runaway. And the power has not been allowed to go out at the Water Hemlock from that day to this.

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