AS STRANGE AS THE NAME OF THE INN, WAS THE HOST. Strange, but certainly resourceful.
One.
Two.
Three.
The host, an old lady, looked fixedly at my appearance for three whole seconds until she was finally satisfied that she had never seen me before.
'Welcome to Inn-Possible, young lady.' She said before turning her head towards each of my other companions, including Ruby, staring at them for three seconds and repeating the same. I resisted the urge to scan her body for nuts and bolts, any sign indicating she was terrene and not a puppet. Old age problems, I contemplated, hoping the idea would calm me.
The old lady said her name was Mira. She led us toward a four-seater table.
'Shall I bring any drinks?', Mira asked, now seemingly more living than dead.
'That won't be necessary', Autumn said. 'We're underage.'
'A beautiful well-mannered lady such as you would grow to be a fine woman.' Mira said kindly.
Winter burst into giggles and Summer tried hard not to laugh. I just shook in my chair, my small laughs emanating as vibrations.
'I am...', Autumn said blushing deeply, 'Well, I am very grateful for your kind words.'
'Very well then, I shall bring you all my inn's delicacy, blueberry pies!' Mira said before disappearing into the kitchen.
'Shut up you three!' Autumn said with the color still in his cheeks. 'You too Ruby!'
'Rruuuuuff.' Ruby said in ruby-tongue which probably meant, I did nothing.
'You should consider trimming your hair short, Autumn. Those long dark hair of yours hideaway your chiseled jaws.' I said.
'And try to bask in sun more often, that would highlight your high cheekbones.' Winter said.
'And bring out the violet in your eyes.' Summer added.
'Thank you so much for your beauty advice, ladies.' Autumn said sarcastically while dismissing our earnest feedbacks with a wave of his hand.
'Rrruff!' Ruby said again.
Alarm.
Square Three.
Ten A.M.
'Does anybody know what time it is now?' I asked while looking around the inn to find a clock. I found old mugs, silver plates, liquor bottles, kettles, oil lamps, earthen pots, and bronze bowls, all lined up against a big cupboard. The wall was made of bricks of red stone. There were no windows and no clocks whatsoever.
'What do you need the time for?', Summer asked. 'This place is wonderful to stay.'
Maybe Summer got bumped in her brain and not her back as the prime reason for our visit to town had escaped her mind.
'We are to report to Chief, remember?' I said.
Winter was toying with a bronze frog at a side table.
'Report to Chief?' Winter asked quizzically. 'Why would we want to do that?'
'I received no message, Spring. So we won't report to Chief today.' Autumn repeated his words from before. But I knew he was doubting himself as he spoke each word.
If this was some made up joke to lift our spirits, it didn't help. Work is work and Chief was specific about the timings. As Captain, I couldn't get our squad to be late on my first..
'The blueberry pies are here!', Mira sang happily as she entered our cubicle, unintentionally breaking me from my thoughts about leadership.
'Ma'am, would you tell me where the clock is?' I asked.
'But we have no clocks.'
'We need to know the time, we're in a hurry.'
'No you're not.' Mira said while placing the pies on the table. I felt the sudden feeling of not opening the veil that covered the pies. 'You have all the time in the world.'
'But-'
'No Spring, calm down.' Autumn said while holding my wrist.
'No Autumn, you snap out of it!' I shouted. Everybody stopped dead. Winter and Summer blinked twice.
'Do not raise your voice, girl, improve your argument.' Mira said. 'I assure you that when you leave, you will feel like not a second passed outside the inn. Time is as if frozen inside the place.'
As if.
Mira kept her old, baggy eyes calm but I felt she wanted to ask something. There was something that bothered her.
Probably that I wasn't entranced like the others. That I didn't play along with their idea of a joke. But the inn did feel creepy. Starting from its location to its host, its ambiance, and even the pies - who covers pies with white cloth? This place was foreign to me but Autumn, Winter, and Summer seemed to adapt perfectly fine.
'I hope you enjoy the food.' Old Mira said before she left our cubicle.
It was when I saw Summer removing her white cloth covering the pie, that I decided the inn was definitely under some magical juju.
Summer sat right next to me so I could see her pie quite well. There were alphabets written with cream on the pie. It was a word. ALIYA. A name.
I opened mine and to my greatest surprise saw my name atop the pie. SOHA.
Soon afterward Autumn and Winter removed theirs too.
'The old lady is so cool!' Winter exclaimed as she lifted the pie. 'Anyone who spells my name right is super cool.'
I slightly rose from my chair to check her name. It was INO⅄. On inverting, YONI. Autumn sat on my left and I could read his name too, AHAAN.
The bubble of ten months of using given names and unaware of others' real names were burst in ten seconds, all thanks to some pies. I almost wished I was also stupidly spellbound like the three of my comrades and was not breaking my head wondering how on Earth Mira knew our names.
Probably because time was magically frozen here, Mira was thousands of years old and she knew everything happening on the land? Perhaps Mira was... a witch?
Rubbish. Witches didn't exist. I needed to get a grip on myself, as I might be the only one to save us all.
For that, I needed to play along with the situation.
And, I needed a plan. A smart one.
