Prologue
Rhys sat across the desk from his potential employer, tapping his pointer, middle, and ring finger on the arm of the chair, pondering what the man had just told him a moment before.
"I can see that you don't believe me," Mr. Wake said. The ginger-haired lumberjack looking man sat back in his chair, his slick suit stretching across his chest, fabric pulling tight, his red beard bright against his white shirt. "Would you like me to explain more?"
"You say that your hotel is impossible," Rhys responded. "Yes, it's safe to say that I don't believe you."
"Did you ever see Fantasy Island?" Mr. Wake asked. "The TV show, not the movie. Although I suppose the movie shares the same concept, it just wasn't very good."
"A place where someone's deepest desires are made manifest," Rhys said.
"Exactly," Mr. Wake said. "It's just that our inn has a very niche specialty. And without the ironic twist at the end."
"You make families fuck each other," Rhys said.
"Not at all. The magic in our inn simply amplifies desire, we can't make anyone do anything that they don't already want to do, even if their desire is latent or subconscious."
"So your niche is members of the same family who want to fuck each other but can't because society says it's wrong," Rhys said.
Mr. Wake's hands opened, his arms bending outward as if opening a book. "It seems you understand," Wake said with a smile.
"I understand," Rhys said. "I don't believe it, but I do understand."
"Would you like to see it for yourself?"
"The incest?" Rhys asked.
"The magic," Mr. Wake said.
"I don't believe in magic," Rhys said.
Mr. Wake frowned. "I understand from your file that your upbringing was... difficult, to say the least."
"My family was lost in an inter-dimensional rift when I was two years old," Rhys said. "I was too young to remember them. I don't remember my mother's face or my sister's voice. They were sucked out of existence and out of my life. I've lived my entire life keeping my eyes and ears open for them, searching for them in television static and radio waves. I never saw or heard a single thing. I don't believe in magic."
"Because if magic were real, your family would come back to you?" Mr. Wake asked.
"Something like that," Rhys said.
Mr. Wake nodded. "The multiverse has a way of balancing out ledgers, often in ways that we don't expect or understand. If something is lost, something must be found."
Wake opened a black folder on the desk in front of him. Rhys had seen it when he'd entered the room, taking it in along with the green carpet and faded wallpaper, the bookcases which smelled of old books and aging wood, the old fashioned chandelier hanging a little too low above the solid wooden desk, everything just a little bit too lived in and disjointed, like a David Lynch set.
Turning the folder around, Wake tapped the paper on top, a contract for temporary employment of a caretaker for the inn.
"One week," Wake said. "That's all I'm asking for. You watch the inn for one week while I'm on sabbatical, and I'll show you that magic is real."
Rhys brushed a strand of black hair out of his face. His hair had been getting a little long since he'd left his last job, but he hadn't felt particularly compelled to get it cut. He hadn't felt particularly compelled to do anything for awhile now. That was part of the reason his friend had recommended him the job.
"Maybe the air on the coast will do you good," Rhys' friend had said.
Not wanting to disappoint a friend, Rhys took the trip up to the small New England town to meet with Mr. Wake. The hotel...
"The inn," Mr. Wake said.
"Excuse me?" Rhys asked.
"You keep saying hotel," Mr. Wake explained. "Inns are smaller than hotels, more intimate, more personal. This is an inn. It is not a hotel."
Neat trick, Rhys thought.
"What would I have to do?" Rhys asked.
"There will be six guests this upcoming week. A brother and sister on a road trip up the west coast will find the inn off the highway and decide to stay for the night. A mother and son will come to visit the hot springs in Arkansas. And finally a mother and a daughter will arrive seeking someone from far away. You will need to check them in, give them the key to their room, monitor the phone in your room in case they need anything, then check them out when they leave."
"Sounds simple enough. Couldn't you just pull any old person off the street to do your job?"
"I want you for a very specific reason, Rhys," Mr. Wake said. "I believe you'll do splendidly in the role."
Rhys sighed, skeptical.
"A brother and sister on a road trip up the west coast will find an inn off the highway in Maine," Rhys said. "A mother and son will come for a hot spring in Arkansas that as far as I can tell doesn't exist, and again end up in Maine. And a mother and daughter will come seeking someone from far away. Am I supposed to help them find that person?"
"Only if they ask you to."
Rhys stared.
"One week," Mr. Wake said. "What have you got to lose?"
"I just feel like I'm making a deal with a devil," Rhys said.
"Nothing so serious," Mr. Wake assured him. "I'm not asking for your soul. Just your time."
Rhys finally took a deep breath and relented. "Yeah," he said. "Luckily for you, time is one thing I have an abundance of. One week. Then I'm out."
Mr. Wake placed a pen in front of Rhys, who picked it up and signed at the bottom of the contract.
"A pleasure," Mr. Wake said. "Let me show you around."
Chapter 1: Welcome to the Incest Inn
Mark and Sarah were closer than other siblings. They always had been. When Mark went off to college, they had tried moving away from each other, establishing a distance and boundaries, but it didn't really take. Sarah ended up going to the same college, and they started hanging out in the same circles, cultivating the same groups of friends. After they both graduated, they moved in together. Their friends all joked that they were more like a married couple than siblings.
After about six months of living together, they'd settled into those roles more than their friends knew. One morning Sarah asked if she could jump in the shower with Mark as she had fallen asleep the night before and missed her shower. They both pretended they weren't leering at each other's bodies as they awkwardly shifted around the shower, each of them thinking about the other.
"What are you reading?" Sarah asked Mark that night, unbuttoning her top and letting it hang open.
"Slapstick, by Kurt Vonnegut," Mark said.
"What's it about?" Sarah asked.
"Incest," Mark said with a playful smile. "It's about a brother and sister who can't keep their hands off each other, but when they're together they make a plan to save the world from loneliness."
Sarah licked her lips.
"Hey um... would you have any interest in watching Crimson Peak with me?" she asked.
"What's it about?" Mark asked.
"Incest," Sarah responded with a smile that matched her brother's.
They cuddled up on the couch and watched the movie, and Sarah pretended not to notice the pressure of Mark's hard-on against her thigh.
"Would you be interested in watching Game of Thrones next?" Mark asked.
"I've heard good things about The Borgias," Sarah added with a nod.
