It first appeared on a damp Tuesday morning, hanging slightly crooked beside the doorway leading into the snug.

The sign itself was unremarkable enough. It was a small wooden plaque, painted in cream lettering upon a dark blue background. What drew attention to it was not its craftsmanship, which was mediocre, nor its position, which was inconvenient, but the wording:

Ts & Cs Apply

Philomena Bucket stood beneath it holding a tray of cups and frowned.

“What,” she asked carefully, “does that mean?”

The Tomte, who was on a ladder adjusting something that had not previously required adjustment, glanced down.

“It means exactly what it says,” he replied.

“That would be more helpful if I knew what it said.”

The Tomte sighed.

“Teas and Seas Apply.”

Philomena waited.

“To what?” she asked eventually.

The Tomte considered this.

“To circumstances,” he said, which settled the matter as far as he was concerned.

Unfortunately, it settled nothing at all for anyone else.

By midday, the regulars of The Squid and Teapot had begun offering interpretations.

“It’s clearly maritime,” declared Seth Washwell, who considered himself an authority on almost everything connected to the sea, regardless of evidence. “Warnings of that nature were commonplace in fishing communities.”

“What nature?” asked Philomena.

“The contractual sort.”

Philomena decided not to pursue the point.

Reggie Upton removed the sign from the wall, examined it thoroughly, then rehung it with military care.

“Code,” he announced.

“Code for what?” asked Philomena.

“That, m’dear,” said Reggie, “is something we have yet to discover.”

The ghost of Father Stamage, faintly luminous in the doorway of the snug, regarded the sign with theological suspicion.

“Abbreviations,” he said darkly, “have been the ruin of many perfectly sound doctrines.”

Meanwhile, the chair in the corner remained occupied.

Not visibly, of course, but occupied nonetheless.

The cushion upon it retained a slight but unmistakable indentation. The tankard sitting on the small table beside it, though empty each night, was repeatedly found in the morning to contain a finger’s depth of dark liquid smelling faintly of saltwater and cloves.

No one drank it. Not even Reggie, who usually had no such reservations.

“What concerns me,” he remarked one evening, “is the possibility that the sign constitutes some form of agreement.”

“And who might that be with?” asked Philomena.

At this, there came the faintest creak from the corner chair.

As sounds go, it was neither loud nor dramatic, but decidedly attentive, and enough to cause Drury to raise his head.

The Tomte frowned toward the snug.

“It isn’t that hard to understand,” he muttered.

“Then perhaps you might explain it properly,” said Philomena.

“Isn’t it obvious?” snapped the Tomte. “The teas apply to the room. The seas apply to the island.”

“That explains absolutely nothing,” said Philomena.

Late that evening, after the last customers had departed and the wind had begun its usual mournful conversations with the windows, Philomena entered the snug to collect the empty cups.

She stopped mid-stride.

Beneath the original sign, hanging neatly levelled as though someone had taken considerable care with its placement, was a second plaque.

The paint upon it still looked wet.

It read: Conditions Accepted

Philomena stared at it for several seconds, then, very calmly, placed the tray down upon a nearby table.

“No,” she said firmly into the room, “this is precisely the sort of thing I was hoping to avoid.”

From the corner chair came the faintest suggestion of movement. It was not, she decided, at all threatening. If anything, it seemed mildly disappointed.

Behind her, the Tomte appeared in the doorway carrying a hammer.

He looked at the second sign, and then at Philomena.

“I did not put that there,” he said at once.

Philomena nodded slowly.

“No,” she said. “I believe you.”

Reggie Upton, who had followed cautiously behind, put on his spectacles and peered toward the chair.

“Well,” he said after a moment, “if one does enter into an agreement with an invisible presence occupying a chair in the snug, one can hardly complain about the wording afterward.”

Drury gave a low, uneasy rattle.

No one spoke for a while.

The fire settled softly in the grate, and rain tapped against the windows.

Philomena felt a faint shiver run down her back, sensing that someone – or something – unseen was waiting patiently for whatever might happen next.

“Here on Hopeless,” she reflected, “Ts & Cs could just as easily mean Tragedy and Comedy.”