There are rumors, stories that mothers tell their children before bed as they are gathered around the hearth. Legends about the cast-off place that lies beyond the low stone wall which snakes over the rolling pastures and the man who lives there. He is ancient, they say, wizened from centuries living in seclusion and learning powerful magics. Others say that he sold his soul for knowledge and riches that no mortal has any right to possess. The parents of those children were told such things when they were children, and before that there are not many who remember for certain whether the rumors have any grain of truth to them or not.

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The house is quiet and still unlike the meadow in which it sits, alive with the hush of the wind and the calls of night things. The pebbled path to the door is lit with starlight as well as the barest sliver of silvery moon. Sturdy brick walls laced with ivy house tall leaded window panes. It is not large, but neither is it a small house, and its well kept despite its apparent age. To the rear, where the garden would lie, the roof of a greenhouse can just be seen. In the daylight it must be charming, though it has entertained no visitors in a great while.

Houses like this are rare now, secluded and pastoral. So great is the confidence of the occupants that no one will disturb them that the windows have been left open to welcome the night breeze, their diaphanous curtains billowing lazily now and again. Somewhere within, a mantle clock chimes.