To The Peeg House-: Welcome

And somewhere above, in Room 7, a single lamp flickered on, casting a warm golden square onto the rain-slicked pavement below.

Behind him, the door to the street clicked shut and locked itself. The grandfather clock with no hands began to chime—thirteen times.

Welcome to the Peeg House.

“For you? The first month’s free. New peegs always get a trial.” Welcome to the Peeg House-

Leo took a breath.

Leo stared at it, then down at the flyer crumpled in his fist.

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. And somewhere above, in Room 7, a single

That’s what the faded, hand-painted sign said, nailed crookedly above a narrow door wedged between a pawnshop and a laundromat. The letters were cheerful—curly serifs, a little sunburst dotting the ‘i’—but the effect was anything but. The wood was rain-streaked. The brass handle was tarnished the color of a bad memory.

And in the middle of that room, sitting on a sagging velvet settee, were three of the strangest creatures Leo had ever seen.

“How much for the first month?” he heard himself ask. Welcome to the Peeg House

The first was a pig. But not like any pig on a farm. This one was the size of a bulldog, with bristly ginger hair and spectacles perched on its snout. It held a tiny cup of tea in its trotters and was reading a newspaper upside down.

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.