“Of course I moved the chairs in the snug,” said the Tomte, impatiently. “It’s the sort of thing you have to do in the springtime.”

“Is it really springtime?” asked Philomena, glancing nervously at the rain lashing the windows of The Squid and Teapot. “It’s a hard job to tell one season from another, here on Hopeless.”

“You should go to Boden, in Northern Sweden,” said the Tomte. “The local folks call it The Place Where The Sun Never Smiles.”

“Well,” replied Philomena, “it’s not exactly chuckling for joy around here most of the time.”

“That’s as maybe,” growled the Tomte. “But as long as I’m here to keep the inn looking tidy, you can’t pick and choose what I’m supposed to do.”

“But what’s the business with the haunted chair? Was that really necessary?”

“Haunted chair…?” The little man looked confused.

“The one in the corner that no one wants to sit in,” said Philomena, then she paused, a worried look passing over her face. 

“That’s not down to you, is it?”

The Tomte shook his head. 

“No. You can’t blame me for that, whatever it is,” he said, and stomped off to the cellar.

The mysterious Something in the snuggery was not, strictly speaking, visible. Nor was it invisible in any reassuring sense. It had instead adopted the uncomfortable middle ground of being present, particularly in the corner chair. It was the one nearest the hearth, which had always been considered the best seat in the room, and which now possessed the air of being occupied by someone who had arrived early and had no intention of leaving.

Philomena had noticed it first, which was to say that she had noticed the absence of absence.

Drury had noticed it second, which was to say that he had stood in front of the chair and had decided, much to everyone’s amazement, not to sit down.

Strangely, the Tomte had not noticed it at all.

Reggie Upton had been observing the corner chair for some time. He had the narrowed gaze of a man who had once suspected an entire regiment of being in entirely the wrong place. He smoothed his moustache and cleared his throat.

“Something is definitely sitting there,” he said to Father Stamage, the ghostly Jesuit, hovering in the doorway. Reggie guessed that a theological point of view was somehow imminent. 

“I can assure you that whatever this thing is, it is not a ghost,” Stamage said, with some authority. “However, there are presences which take advantage of order. That Tomte fellow invites them in, whether he intends to or no.”

Philomena, who had by now developed a preference for evidence over philosophy, reached behind the bar and produced a small, nondescript looking tile.

“I found this,” she said.

Reggie glanced at it, nodded once, and dismissed it entirely.

“A tile,” he said. “That might come in handy one day.”

“It moves,” said Philomena.

At once, as if mildly put out at being discussed rather than consulted, the tile shifted upon the bar, and letters began, with mild determination, to appear upon its surface.

SATOR
AREPO
TENET
OPERA
ROTAS

“Ah ” said Reggie, seeing an opportunity to impress. “It says: The Sower Arepo Holds The Wheels With Care. The sentence is meaningless, of course, but this is a magic square, a quite famous talisman that reads the same in all directions. It is something that my dear friend, Annie Besant, would have described as being highly significant.”

“Theosophist nonsense!” exclaimed Father Stamage. “It is the Pater Noster, A devotional arrangement. An honest, Christian protection.”

“How do you work that out?” asked Philomena. “That Sator stuff has nothing to do with religion.”

“I’m afraid he’s right,” said Reggie, in grudging tones. “Look… “

To no one’s surprise, and with the faint suggestion that he had been waiting for this moment, the old soldier produced a fountain pen and notebook from his jacket pocket and drew a crucifix made of words.                              

“It uses exactly the same letters,” he explained.

“But you’ve got too many As and Os,” pointed out Philomena.

Before Reggie could answer, Father Stamage shouted out triumphantly,

“Alpha and Omega – the beginning and the end!”

“And a lamentable mixture of Latin and Greek,” muttered Reggie.

 “It was used secretly by the early Christians  during periods of persecution,” Father Stamage went on, ignoring Reggie. “It would have been handy for anyone looking to avoid awkward conversations with Roman officials.” 

“Well, whatever the reason, it is – as I originally  said – a talisman.” said Reggie.

“Against what?” said Philomena.

As if in answer, the chair creaked.

Not loudly. Not theatrically. Just enough to suggest that whatever occupied it had shifted its weight, perhaps to listen more closely.

Drury gave a low, uncertain rattle.

Philomena set the tile down on the small table beside the chair.

“I guess,” she said, “that whatever is occupying the chair brought the talisman in with it.”

“So, happily, it means us no harm,” said Father Stamage, who gradually started to fade away. 

No one spoke until  the priest had finally disappeared.

“I don’t buy into all that Pater Noster malarky,” said Philomena. “Whatever is going on here feels a lot less respectable than that.”

Reggie nodded, and leaned forward.

“In India,” he said, “I met a fellow – one of those fakir chaps – who could draw pictures in the air, just by waving his fingers about.”

Philomena frowned, then smiled as she could see what Reggie was getting at.

“Is it all an illusion?” she ventured.

“To some extent,” said Reggie. “You only see that which you are meant to. The difficulty is knowing who is doing the meaning.”

They sat in silence for a while, waiting for the chair to creak again. It didn’t.

Drury, after a long and careful consideration, sat down, not in the corner chair but near it.

“Whatever this is,” said Philomena, “I think Father Stamage was right. It must have been let in by the Tomte, but not deliberately, I’m sure.”

“But everything he touches is steeped in Old Norse, not Latin,” said Reggie.

He pursed his lips thoughtfully, then smiled.

“But of course, if any of this had been in Old Norse none of us would have understood a word of it. Because it was in Latin, however, Stamage and I recognised the talisman straightaway. What it means, though, is beyond me.”

“Do you think it will go now?” asked Philomena.

They  considered the chair, and the small, stubborn sense of occupation that had now become part of the snug’s arrangement.

“No,” she said, answering her own question. “I think it’s here to stay a while.”

“Then I suggest that the snug be rendered out of bounds to all except residents of the inn,” said Reggie. “We need to find out what, or who, exactly, we are dealing with.”

Philomena nodded, then picked up the tile, now perfectly blank.

From the corner, there came no movement at all, which, in Hopeless, is not necessarily a comfort.