"Boy!" his father yelled late one evening as he returned home. "I spoke with Peabody this afternoon. He needs a stablehand. You start at dawn tomorrow."
A memory surface for Geoff. "Peabody? The innkeeper?" he asked. "Doesn't he..." his voice trailed off, trying to remember what the rumors about Peabody were.
His father took it as nervousness. "He won't do anything to you. Just follow his instructions." It was the end of the discussion.
Geoff woke the next morning and rushed to the inn just outside the town. It was good sized, with a dozen rooms, a tavern and a stable and small farm out back. Peabody grew as much of his own food as he could. He met the innkeeper just inside, who looked up from his work with a scowl. "You're the new boy?" he asked gruffly. Geoff nodded. "Good. Work hard and keep your trap shut and you'll make good money. If you don't, I'll get my money out of you one way or the other." He jabbed a thumb in the direction of the stables. "The stalls need to be mucked out. Get started."
Geoff went outside and found a shovel and rake. He'd never done this job before, but his body had and it was pretty straighforward. There were a dozen stalls for horses, along with a few that were larger and more well apportioned. At the moment, these were empty but Geoff assumed they were for centaurs or similar large creatures who couldn't fit in the inn. There were five horses to work around, and it wasn't long before he was finished.
The innkeeper showed up with a couple of travelers. "Boy! These two are paid up and ready to depart. Give them their horses." The two men claimed their mounts and after getting them ready, took off into the morning for greater adventure than he was likely to see this year.
He was ordered to milk the cows, then slop the pigs. It was monotonous, but his body knew what to do. Two more of the horses were claimed after their owners paid for their rooms, leaving just one when the sun climbed to mid-day. Geoff was taking a lunch of hard bread and cheese when he heard an argument in the tavern. "I don't have any money!"
Peabody screamed back, "Then what did you plan to pay me with?"
"I promise I'll pay! Just let me sell some things in town and i'll be back. You can keep my horse until I return!"
The argument seemed to quiet, and then the innkeeper appeared at the door. "Boy! I need your help!" Geoff entered the tavern to find the traveler, a big burly man with a shaggy beard and worn clothes, laying on the floor. "He's too heavy for me to life on my own. Help me get him to the stables."
Geoff lifted the man by the shoulders and helped carry him out, still unsure what was happening. The innkeeper directed him into the second stall on the left where they left the man on a pile of straw. "Are we going to leave him here?"
The innkeeper looked at him like he was thick. "Leave him? Only until the process is done."
Geoff wanted to ask another question, but as he turned back he saw that the man was changing before his eyes. He was getting huge and covered in a fine coat of chestnut fur, with white fringed around his growing hooves. The man was a sleeping draft stallion in a matter of seconds!
The innkeeper was nonplussed. "When he wakes up, take him and his nag over the horse dealer in town. He's been asking for a new gelding plow horse for a while."
The horse woke hours later, confused but pliable. Geoff was sure that he remembered that he was a man, but was either too traumatized or confused to do anything about it. He did as he was told, sold the man and his horse to the dealer, and returned to the inn.
It was the start of a disturbing pattern that Geoff found himself in the heart of. Most travelers passed though unmolested and untransformed, but those that ran afoul of the innkeeper didn't leave the same. Most were turned into horses, mares and stallions, and sold immediately. Some, ones who had really pissed off the innkeeper, ended up as cows, pigs or even chickens. Whatever animal the innkeeper needed. It wasn't long before Geoff didn't eat any of the mean served at the tavern as he realized that much of it was former human. Geoff wasn't exactly sure how he did it. The victim was always knocked out in the tavern or inn, then had to be dragged into the stables. He suspected that they wre dosed with something inside.
Though it all, Geoff rolled with it. He just had to make sure that he didn't get on the innkeepers bad side before the year was out!