The island’s paths wound back-and-forth across the hill’s face, around meticulous beds of herbs and vegetables, between swirling paths of blooming things, and through a long cave runnered with glowing ores.  He followed it with a sense of wonder.

Every single thing was edible.  Every bush, shrub, and weed was consumable, whether for nutritional or medicinal purposes.  No palace garden could match it in either beauty or efficiency, to the point where he thought it a waste for such a wonder to be buried away in such a far-flung nowhere.

Roderick followed the path on and on, up the face of the mountain, into the cave with its mysterious lights.  Once inside, it was clear the ores lit only the main path, for which he was thankful.  Several offshoots appeared along the way, but the luminaries did not lead him to either one side or the other, simply up and up, until the exit opened on the peak, right in the little valley-nest.

Out-buildings ranged all around, from proper barns to shoddy lean-tos to workshops half-buried in tools of a dozen trades.  Goats grazed lazily.  Pheasants and doves cooed and cackled in their cotes.  Rabbits hopped and chased about a net-covered pen. 

The whole place was picturesque.  Tranquil, lovely, beguiling…to the point where it sparked caution in him anyway.  This idyllic place belonged to someone who dealt in curses?

He took a step out of the cave and stopped when a growl met his ears.

A black dog emerged from the shadows of one building.  A white dog—

Roderick stared.

A white dog with wings.

He shook his head and blinked hard, but the results were the same.  A white, winged dog, and a black dog…the church grim, then?  The barkeep called this place a repurposed abbey, didn’t he.  Roderick cleared his throat.

“Par- ahem.  Pardon my intrusion.  I’m looking for the…neighborhood noxie.”

The winged dog yipped and wagged its curled, fluffy tail.  The black dog huffed and turned toward the large stone cottage.  It glanced back at him a time or two with eerie, ash-grey eyes, and whuffed grumpily when he didn’t immediately follow.  Roderick shifted Henry on his shoulders and trudged forward again.

The vale was not insubstantial.  At a guess, it stretched two, maybe three acres in diameter, and the cottage itself sat near the southernmost edge.  Even so, he arrived on the stoop in short order, and knocked on the unmarked door.

And waited.

…And waited.

The black dog barked impatiently and growled at the door with a fearsome glare.  Still, they waited.  The dog barked twice more, sharp and deep and demanding.  Roderick knocked again, more firmly.  Surely the watchdog would know if its master were away?  It was well into the afternoon, so they had to be awake. 

Thud.

It was a small, unremarkable sound, barely audible at all.  The grim snorted in satisfaction at that tiny thud, however, and offered a well-satisfied wag of his tail before he turned and left for another shadow.

Creeeeeak.  Thump.

Roderick backed away and waited.  Footsteps followed, light as raindrops.  The heavy door cracked open, and one suspicious, glass-green eye glared up at him between bangs and eye-bags—like someone who had, indeed, just been sleeping.

“Well?  What is it?”

“A- are you the…um.  The noxie?”

“Sionann of Eastlake, nocticary.  That’s me.”

“Nocti—?”

“Are you here to break a curse?” she asked.

“I- I am.  Yes.”  She heaved a deeply irritated sigh.

“Then get in here, I guess.”

The door flung open so quickly he didn’t know where to look.  Roderick’s gaze chased the edge of the moving door, got lost at the sight of an alchemist’s fortune in glass phials and bottles, was again misled by dozens upon dozens of rare, expensive books, and equally, the motley menagerie of mismatched teacups that marched along the kitchen cabinetry.

And then…then there was Sionann of Eastlake.

The Neighborhood Noxie.