He led them further into the larger part of Witchaven. The main street was a dusty road with ruts from wagons. There was not a car in sight, nor any sort of street lighting or obvious power lines. Troughs lay at the base of most of the buildings, set up to collect the rain from off the rooves, suggesting that there wasn’t much in the way of plumbing. The houses themselves were predominately timber made with wooden shingle rooves. There was a mix of one and two-storey houses.

  As they walked past several shops, Indi peered in the windows, trying to see what sort of things were sold in Witchaven. She’d bought some things back in Nowhere, including a new extremely overpriced satellite phone. Arianna had generously loaned her some money, which Indi had promised to pay back as soon as there was reception. So far she hadn’t had much luck with that. There were only three satellites in the entire planetary orbit so the chance of being in range of one wasn’t always that great. The shop keep in Nowhere had said that if she climbed one of the peaks she’d probably be able to get a signal. The situation seemed much the same in Witchaven

  She’d hoped that Witchaven would have a wider selection of clothing but so far it didn’t look promising. While Nowhere had been mostly lycra, and other sports clothes, Witchaven looked almost the opposite with long ankle length skirts and baggy long-sleeved shirts. Their guide was wearing jeans and a t-shirt though, even if it wasn’t the latest fashion, it was at least a little more modern. They must have a store that sold some.

  Then she saw something even better. She stopped dead in the road and stared.

  “Indi?” Falco asked once he’d noticed that she’d stopped. He followed her eye line. “Oh.”

  Indi grinned as the others all looked back to see what it was she’d found. There were a few snorts of laughter.

  “We can go shopping once we’re settled,” Amanda told her with a smile.

  Indi gave the candy store one last longing look and then she followed along with the rest of the group.

  “Here it is,” Olly gestured at a two-story building. A dangling sign above the door simply said, ‘Moonhouse.’ However, written in white and yellow paint on the door, were the words, ‘The Lantern and The Lark,’ and underneath in smaller strokes, ‘Jones Residence.’

  They pushed their way inside to a small room lit by oil lamps and containing a desk. A bell chimed above the door.

  A moment later a youngish but grey-haired thin man popped down from some stairs to the right. “Welcome to The Lantern and The Lark!”

  “Welcome to The Moonhouse!” interrupted a rounded woman who popped out of a door to their left.

  “Err, is that one inn?” Amanda asked.

  “It is, it is,” said the woman as she joined the man behind the desk. It quickly became clear from the way they were looking at one another that they were husband and wife.

  “We couldn’t agree on a name,” explained the man, “so we decided to just go with both.” He surveyed the group and his eyes went wide. “By golly! There sure are a lot of you. How many exactly?”

  They hadn’t all been able to fit in the reception so some of the group hung about outside the door.

  “Ten,” Amanda replied.

  “Ten!” the man exclaimed.

  “Well,” said the woman, “we couldn’t fit you even if we had a spare room.”

  “You’re full up?” Amanda asked.

  “All four rooms are taken, yes. It’s the busy season,” the woman replied looking worried.

  The man’s expression turned serious and he whispered something to his wife. She whispered something back.

  “Is there another inn we could stay at?” Amanda asked.

  “Oh no.” The woman shook her head. “We’re the only inn in town.” They whispered back and forth some more and then the woman faced them with a smile. “I might have an idea for what we might do though. “The old meeting house is next door and they’ve just moved into the new one so it’s all empty. They sometimes have sleepovers in there, mostly for school events and religious ceremonies so there are plenty of mattresses. It’s even got a small kitchen and a bathroom, just the one, but we’ve only got the one in this house anyway. There is a second toilet you could come up and use if one of you is taking a shower though.”

  “You mean there’s hot water?” Indi asked, poking her head in the door.

  “Of course, we aren’t heathens. Cleanliness helps one maintain a pure soul.”

  Indi glanced at the lamps on the wall. “But no electricity?”

  The man muttered something under his breath.

  The woman smiled and explained, “We have a large wetback. We keep it running pretty much all day. The one behind the meeting house won’t be heated yet, but give us a few hours and we’ll have it up and running. You’ll have to share the same room though, not much choice there. Um... if you’d rather the men had their own room...” she held one finger to her lips in thought.

  Stolen story; please report.

  “One room is fine,” Amanda told her pleasantly.

  “Oh, good.” The woman smiled. “I’ll give you a tour shortly and show you where everything is. We also do a cooked breakfast in the morning for an extra five copper per person if that’s some you’re interested in? It’s in our dining room which is a bit small for so many but we can overflow into the living room. It’ll be no trouble.”

  “That sounds great,” Amanda replied.

  “Excellent, just the one night then?”

  “Let’s make it two.”

  “Very good. Let’s call that 82 silver and 6 copper.”

  Amanda pulled a card out of her wallet.

  “Oh err, cash only,” said the woman.

  “Oh, right, no electricity.” Amanda turned to the others for help. “Anyone carrying cash?”

  “I have 54 coppers,” replied Sirius as he dug through half a dozen pockets. “Oh, wait, make that 72.” He pulled out a small velvet bag and thin leather wallet, then he fished about some more. The wallet was infused with a space folding charm as most modern wallets were. The velvet bag was not, and it jangled with the sound of coins.

  “I’ve got about 200,” Cat said.

  “I have 6 coppers,” Indi piped in, counting out 6 copper coloured coins minted with a five-pointed star.

  Amanda gritted her teeth. She had some cash on her, but not as much as Sirius and nowhere near the several hundred more coppers that they needed.

  Indi turned to Arianna but Arianna was shaking her head. “I hardly ever carry cash.”

  It wasn’t looking good.

  But then Kass piped in. “I’ve got 600.”

  Between the rest of them they managed to scramble together enough for the accommodation.

  The woman took their money and gave it to her husband to count. “If you want to get any cash exchanged, we can do that for you as well.”

  “Exchanged?” Amanda asked.

  “You don’t use the same currency as we do, do you?” Kass guessed.

  The woman shook her head.

  Amanda glanced at the others. Indi was looking concerned. No one else looked like they had any immediate opinion one way or the other. She wasn’t worried about buying dinner. She was sure if worst came to worst they could barter something. Bullets were always worth money in the country.

  “I think we’ll have a look around first,” Amanda told the women. It would be good to know how much things cost first. The accommodation seemed pretty standardly priced for what it was.

  The woman nodded and then turned to her husband. “Hank, do you want to get the wetback behind the old meeting house going while I give a tour?”

  “Rightio!” He gave a nod and then headed off to do just that.

  The old meeting house wasn’t quite exactly next door to the inn. There was a tavern first and then the old meeting house was on the other side.

  The woman, who had introduced herself as Jill, pointed it out as they passed by. “They’re open from 5 pm until 10 pm every night except Sunday.”

  “10 pm? That’s early,” Amanda remarked.

  “Many people like to rise with the crows here, and get their work done before the sun gets too hot. A lot of them sleep in the afternoons so mind you don’t make too much noise.”

  “How come you guys all have troughs for rainwater collection?” Indi asked, taking care to not let her teeth show, “if you have indoor plumbing.”

  Jill smiled. She was surprisingly patient with all their questions, which had been surprisingly few. Amanda was sue that Indi would have asked more if she hadn’t been so conscious of keeping her teeth hidden.

  “We don’t like to waste what the Lord gave us and water is a precious resource.”

  They soon found that, while the fields had been full of men, the streets were filled with women, many of whom appeared to be shopping. They were all dressed conservatively in long skirts and long-sleeved blouses and most of them carried a bag of some kind, either made with flax or linen. A few of the younger girls wore jeans but neither the men nor the women wore anything that did not cover the knees, and every single one of them was eyeing the newcomers with looks of suspicion.

  Two young girls, likely young teenagers, came skipping merrily along the road, laughing and giggling, until they saw the strangers. Then their faces fell and their skipping turned to walking. They too, stared like all the others, not a single smile among them.

  The meeting house was a single story building with a covered front porch and glass windows around three sides of the building. It was large enough for an event of about 100 people, assuming most of them stayed standing. Given how many people they’d already passed in the street and in the fields, Amanda suspected there were far more than 100 people in this town.

  “I’ve got more cash if we need,” Kass remarked once Jill had left them to their own devices.

  “Why do you carry so much on you?” Cat asked incredulously.

  “Asks the woman who ‘doesn’t trust banks,’” Kass replied with an amused smile, quoting something that Cat had once said.

  “Cat has heaps of money saved in the bank though,” Indi volunteered.

  “Just because I don’t trust banks doesn’t mean I don’t use them. It just means I always keep some cash out of the bank,” Cat told Kass. Then she registered what Indi had said and turned on Indi with a confused expression. “How do you know how much I have in the bank?”

  “Well, their security is shit,” Indi replied without realising quite what she was saying.

  She looked around in response to the stunned silence that fallen over the group. “What?” she asked at the looks they were all giving her.

  Cat gestured at Indi and replied to Kass, “Case in point.”

  “I don’t know if you should be hacking the bank, Indi,” Amanda told her. “Or looking in everyone’s accounts.” She was under no illusion that that wasn’t exactly what Indi had done.

  “Would you prefer if someone else did it?” Indi asked with wide eyes. “Plus, I fixed some of their vulnerabilities so now only I can get in.”

  “I’m not sure that makes me feel any better,” Amanda replied.

  “This why I don’t use banks,” said Wolf.

  “You too?” Amanda gave him an incredulous look.

  “Bury it do you?” asked Cat. Then she turned to Indi. “Don’t they have technopaths?”

  Wolf gave Cat a sour look.

  Indi’s eyes lit up at the question and she rambled on excitedly. “For the bigger city banks yes, but not for the ones in places like Little Rock. Also, a lot of them only sync up to each other once every so often. There was a teleporter a few years back who took advantage of this and he stole thousands of gold. That was back when some of them would only sync up like once a week, not long after cards were first introduced. And even a lot of the city banks don’t have technopaths watching 24/7.”

  “Okay, so what now?” Falco interrupted, before Indi could ramble on for too long.

  “Shopping!” declared Indi with a large grin.

  “Teeth, Indi,” Amanda reminded her.

  “Oh, right.” Indi closed her mouth

  “I was thinking of taking a walk around,” Amanda suggested. “Maybe get to know the place, see who we can find.”

  “That boy said the man liked to hang at the bar at 5pm,” Falco reminded them. “Chances are, in a place like this, you’ll find most people there. All we have to do is wait.”

  “Shopping!” Indi declared again with a little less volume and teeth.

  “What about transcribing the lost spell book?” Wolf reminded her

  “We can do that while shopping,” Ind told him.

  “Alright,” Amanda agreed. “Meet back at the bar around five then.”