Judah blinked several times, thunderstruck.

     He scratched an imaginary itch on my chin, my eyes wide open, waiting for Rob to laugh and declare it a joke. Oh, he was the meanest prankster of them all. The master. He always made Regina cry when they were kids.

     Waited.

     A long time.

     Nothing.

     "Are—are you serious?" Judah said.

     Rob sighed, nodded.

     Huge peppering drops of rain rattled against the windshield and blurred the road into grays and dimmed headlights. Furious growling thunder accompanied us on our way home.

     Judah felt alone.

     He didn't say another word until they reached home.

     Rob parked in front of a Spanish Colonial cross-shaped building originally built to be a church but discontinued in the late 1800s. Judah's adoptive father, Papadeo "Papa" Godling had bought and turned it into an appointment-only antique store, a place Judah had called home for the last thirty-three years.

     Judah grabbed his bag and walked with Rob through the hard rain for the shelter of the vestibule, a covered porch-like foyer area in front of the building.

     They were shaking some of the water off when Pogi, the Godlings' fairy housekeeper, opened the old oak doors. Pogi was a household brownie with a body of a brawny brown-skinned seven-year-old boy and wrinkly short-nose head that resembled a pug. He wore only brown leather overall with no shirt.

     Pogi came to the Godlings the day Papa found Judah left as a newborn baby at the vestibule. He did all the tasks around the house, served Papadeo, and took care of Judah without asking for anything but ice cream. They had one freezer in the kitchen full of ice cream of different flavors just for him.

     Pogi's eyes gleamed upon seeing Judah, smiled.

     "Hey, Pogi," Judah said.

     "'Sup, dude," Rob said. "You lookin' good."

     Pogi nodded politely to greet them. Unlike other brownies that didn't want to be seen and worked only at night, Pogi mingled with the Godlings and their friends at all times. He became part of the family.

     Judah opened his bag, pulled a pack of chocolate bars, and gave it to Pogi. The fairy's eyes and mouth opened wide and he clapped his hands. Chocolates were his favorite treats. He tapped Judah's hands to thank him and took his bag to take it to his room.

     The brownie never said a word. But he instinctively knew what people wanted even before they asked for it. He motioned to point them to Papadeo, who was standing in the middle of the domed church crossing, which had become the family living room.

     As a boy, Judah thought of his father as the blind version of KFC's iconic Colonel Sanders. White hair, mustache, and goatee. White suit, but without the black string tie. And he wore dark glasses and carried his white walking cane. He was cooler than the Colonel, Judah always told him.

     "Papa," Judah said.

     "Present, sir," Papa said, smiling. He was trying to be his jovial self but Judah noticed the unease in his voice.

     Judah surmised then that he called him to come home because of Regina.

     The building's cavernous limestone walls made their footsteps echo as they walked to the living room amidst over a hundred million dollars worth of antique from different parts of the world tastefully presented all over the nave.

     Pogi had already entered the south transept, which was Judah's two-story bachelor's loft. The north transept was Papadeo's self-contained three-bedroom apartment, which he shared with Pogi.

     The apse, the circular area where the altar was supposed to be located, served as the dining room and the sacristy behind the chancel with two entrances was the main kitchen.

     "Welcome home, doc," a squawky echoing voice called out from the bell tower, which functioned as Papadeo's home office.

     Judah turned and saw two leprechauns waving at him from the door of the tower, Mr. Goldweather and Mr. Windfaller, Papadeo's friends and business partners. These rich fairies always reminded Judah of cute barn owls—fair heart-shaped face, arrowhead nose, and watchful dark beady eyes. All this encircled by golden facial hair. Leprechauns were taller than the average human and wore modern business suit covered by velvet robes of old world royalty.

     Judah waved back.

     He grew up around these two kind leprechauns. He sat on their laps as a kid. They told him fairy tales. Gave him so many gifts. When he got old enough, they took him sailing and fishing. They were as close as Judah would ever come to having real uncles.

     "Be with you in a minute," Mr. Goldweather, the impossibly corpulent leprechaun, said. His eyes sad and knowing. "We got online meeting with our customer in Paris. Papa will explain everything."

     "Jude, keep your head up, boy, you hear?" Mr. Windfaller, the skinny one with rimmed glasses, said.

     They knew about Regina.

(CONTINUED)