As she looked at the house in front of her, Margie began to wish she had accepted Lisa's offer to pick her up at the airport, rather than taking the bus on her own. This appeared to be the address Morgaine had given her, but Morgaine had described it as "a comfy cottage," and this place looked much too big.

She thought about the bridge she'd just crossed to get up to the house. She'd had the sense she was crossing a drawbridge over a moat. Somehow, that didn't seem very comfy. In fact, it was downright disquieting.

Still, there was something about the house that was reminiscent of those pictures of cottages in kid's books, although Margie couldn't put her finger on exactly what it was. Was that a straw-thatched roof? Couldn't be. Surely that would be against the building codes. She looked at it again, and realized it wasn't really straw, although someone had done a good job of making it seem almost like it.

Looking at the house again, she caught sight of the sign above the front door. "The Comfy Cottage", it read.

"Ahh! This must be the place," Margie said, relieved, and went in.

Not finding anyone downstairs, Margie decided to go upstairs and look for the room Morgaine had said would be hers. Pushing the door open she saw a lovely room.

"Oh, this is really pretty," she said, as she looked at the bed with the rose-colored quilt on it. The quilt had a pattern of, well, roses. The colors were muted, and it looked soft. She looked around happily at the rustic-looking table and dresser and the comfortable chairs. Putting her baggage down, she went over to the window and pulled aside the lace curtains. Outside, she saw red and white striped roses, little white flowers that she thought might be edelwiess, black currant bushes, and ... a chicken coop?

Would they really have time to tend chickens during a war, she wondered. Oh, well, maybe it had been left by the previous owners. She hadn't actually seen any chickens in it.

Margie decided not to worry about it, and instead went over to the mirror above the dresser. She took our her comb and brush to try to fix her hair a bit after all the travel. At forty-eight, her hair was dark brown with natural highlights in it. Granted, they were gray and white highlights, but at least they were natural! And Hubby was sweet enough to agree that they were highlights.

She felt bad about leaving Hubby for two weeks. She knew if he went somewhere for that long, she would just hate it. But it was the first war the Cousins of the Knight was participating in, and she felt she had to be there. She knew she'd miss Hubby badly, though.

After cleaning up, Margie went downstairs again. Still seeing no one, she decided to go outside and investigate that chicken coop.

She jumped over a little creek in the backyard that ran to a small pond, and walked over to the small, fenced-in yard that surrounded the chicken coop. She still didn't see any chickens. Oh, there! She suddenly saw one. A chicken with a party hat, perched to the side on its head, was running around in the yard.

"How adorable," she said. As Margie was considering trying to pet the chicken, it suddenly disappeared.

"How odd," she thought. "Oh, wait a minute, there it is!"

The chicken came running around the side of the coop. But no, it couldn't be the same one. This one had flowers on its head instead of a party hat. Then it, too, disappeared.

"My, chickens come and go so quickly around here," said Margie.

Realizing that she wasn't going to solve the mystery of the chickens right now, she decided to go back inside and find the other Cousins of the Knight. Surely, someone had to be somewhere.

She went back into the living room and looked around. She saw the Cousins of the Knight banner above the fireplace and the inviting looking chairs and sofas grouped around.

"This really is nice," she said. I think I'm going to enjoy spending the next two weeks in a cottage like th..."

Suddenly, loud sirens began to blare and bright lights shone from all directions. Margie screamed and clapped her hands over her ears.

"Oops, sorry Margie," she heard a voice say from somewhere, as the noise and the lights stopped. "We were just testing the security system."

Margie sat down, very carefully, in one of the chairs. She looked around the living room again and wondered, somewhat nervously, what the next two weeks would bring. Obviously, there was more to the Comfy Cottage than met the eye.