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CHANCED ERASURES: PART SIX
Chartreuse pursed her lips. “I’m sure you’re right. Let’s, you know, head for the music room,” she decided after a moment of thought.Sam flashed her a smile in response. “All right then. Back out through the vent.”
“Of course you’d pick his side,” Sue muttered as she walked past Chartreuse. Thred simply shrugged his shoulders and thrust his hands in his pockets, apparently willing to go along with the majority.
For her part, Para wasn’t quite sure what to make of this “scavenger hunt”. The chain of room numbers that were leading them around - did they truly connect to the fact that Alice had been interrogated here in the infirmary? And to the fact that there was a guard in the hall? And if so, what would there be in the music room?
More to the point, if not, then what was the significance of these rooms to the school? That felt like a question that deserved a more immediate answer, whether it connected to their mission at this academy or not.
In particular, while the Clover Club inscription had been on the wall, the security office had used a filing cabinet, the infirmary had used a bed, and the roof apparently involved a sculpture. All items put in place after the building had been built. So, put in place by whom?
Wait, hadn’t this academy been built on a burial ground?
[caption id=“attachment_848” align=“alignright” width=“219”]
PARA
Commission by Michelle Simpson[/caption]
Para approached Chartreuse as Sam and Thred stood on the desk to access the ventilation grate once again. “In your later reading, did you learn anything else about why this school had been built on this location, of all places?” Para murmured.
Chartreuse turned. “Hmm? Oh, right, I guess we never, like, compared notes after our history browsing. There wasn’t anything in your book?”
Para felt her bunny ears twitch. “Officially something about this being the cheapest place in the growing municipality. I was hoping you had more.”
Chartreuse bobbed her head. “Yeah, well, it was cheap because they’d buried the casualties of the magic wars here, or something.”
Para’s ears twitched again, but her depression remained at a minimum. “My reading was mostly confined to local government and the like. Elaborate on these wars?”
Chartreuse glanced towards Sue, whom Para noticed by now was looking back at them. Presumably wondering if they were going to travel ahead of her, as they had last time. When they didn’t immediately approach, Sue’s eyes narrowed, but she simply turned away and boosted herself up towards the vent. Perhaps hoping that they would be left behind.
“I hyperlinked around through, like, a bunch of books,” Chartreuse admitted, as she headed towards the vent herself. “But the gist of it, and, you know, the reason they don’t like dimensional travellers here, is because a couple hundred years ago, a magic dimension came in conflict with this Earth.”
Para nibbled on her lip. “And they buried the victims of it on this spot?”
“Yeah, but eventually there was a treaty or something, and I think the bodies were, you know, dug up and returned. Still, the whole area was kind of a dead zone until a few decades ago.” Chartreuse paused before climbing on the desk, cocking her head at Para. “Why, is that important?”
Para shrugged. “I’m not sure. Something about this hunt we’re on doesn’t make sense to me. I thought maybe that was it.”
“You think this whole rooms thing is, like, a trap?”
“I don’t know,” Para admitted. “Let’s just get going.”
As Chartreuse climbed up though the opening, Para noticed a map of the school sitting in a corner of the desk. She quickly pulled it over, tracing her finger on it as she recreated their path. The clubs area was in the east wing. Security was to the south, the infirmary was to the north, the roof access was south again, and the music room… was roughly central. Nearby, as Sam had said.
Para traced her finger again. If she were to go to the west wing at the end of her movements, instead of centrally, she could create a five pointed star. Coincidentally, the west was where the gymnasium was located. Was there a connection to Sue’s rantings about their equipment?
Para pushed the map away. Perhaps she was seeing patterns where there were none. Though if she wasn’t, at least the single point of the star was up, implying good, rather than down, for evil.
Para hurried to climb through the vent and rejoin the others.
There was another security guard outside the music room.
Sam shook his head. “It was Hypno vials in the infirmary, I wonder what’s in the music room. Anyone know of a convenient vent access?”
“No. Also, this is getting too dangerous,” Sue decided. “Why don’t we come back tomorrow?”
“Because we’ve got Para’s skeleton key now,” Thred reminded them.
Para winced. “I just happen to know some of the morphing codes. Which, I admit, might not work on another day.” After all, there was a good chance the combinations would be changed again, if the insertion and subsequent deletion of her and Chartreuse to the database was remarked upon.
Sam turned to look at Chartreuse. “You have any other good ideas, or crystal balls you can use?” he asked.
Chartreuse rocked on her heels. “Maybe? A reading’ll, like, take some time though.”
“I definitely would not trust whatever she comes up with,” Sue stated.
Sam turned to Sue and frowned. “Can you stop? Chartreuse has been nothing but helpful to me all day, you know.”
“Which means it’s my turn to help now.”
The voice had been that of Sir Thred, and as Para turned to look at him, he strode around the corner of the hallway and towards the guard.
“Damn it…!” Sam gasped.
Sue reached out to grasp Sam by the shoulder, preventing him from following. “Too late. Thred’s made his choice.”
“Hi there!” Sir Thred said, his voice carrying down the hall. “Forgot my trombone. Could you open the door?”
“The school is closed,” the guard growled. “Leave, before you get yourself in a heap of trouble.”
“What are you doing here anyway?” Thred said, continuing his approach. “Are you a new teach–”
“LEAVE.”
What happened next was a brief scuffle and the sound of Thred running, followed by the sound of the guard’s footsteps as he called out in anger.
“Thred just grabbed the security guy’s hat,” Sam whistled. “He’s pulling the guy away from his post - now’s our chance. Come on!”
“This reeeeally isn’t a good–” Sue cut her voice off and simply ran after Sam, who had already taken off around the corner, Chartreuse on his heels.
They all seemed to have forgotten that Para was the one with the morphing key; she hurried to catch up. It wasn’t until they were all actually in the music room that she was able to remark, “That guard is probably going to be all over us as soon as we try to leave, yes?”
“One problem at a time,” Sam said. “Come on, let’s look around for the next clue and room location.”
“Why are, you know, the lights already on in here?” Chartreuse remarked. Para didn’t have an answer for that, and neither Sam nor Sue even acknowledged the question.
Sam was the one who located the strange symbol and the letter “S”, carved into the bottom of the main podium, but there was no room number this time.
“I guess this is the end?” Sam mused, as he stood back up. “But what does the word RECTS signify? Rectangles?”
“Maybe the next room number is, you know, somewhere else in here,” Chartreuse suggested. “Along with a symbol.” She peered under the high hat for the drum kit.
“Unless the Clover Club wasn’t the first room?” Para murmured, tracing her star pattern in the air again. Maybe the gym hadn’t been their next stop - maybe it should have been their first. She looked over towards Sue, who seemed to be chewing on her lower lip in thought.
“Huh. So we’re trapped in the music room without knowing our next destination,” Sam realized. “That kind of sucks.”
That’s when there was a sound of wind chimes, and Para saw Sue’s eyes go wide.
“We have to hide, now,” the dark haired girl said, her gaze flitting around the room.
Rather than question the statement, Para quickly moved to the side, ducking down behind the upright piano. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Chartreuse diving for the instrument storage room, one of four rooms that seemed to be self contained inside the music area. The other three looked like soundproof practice rooms.
Then there was the fifth room. The mystery room, the secret room, the one that hadn’t displayed a doorway until right at that very second. It was located just past the other four, in the corner. When it opened, Usa Staling, the academy head of security, strode out.
Para could only just hear Usa grumbling about a ‘stupid old wizard’ in the time it took Alice’s interrogator to march straight across the room and out the main door.
When Para looked back at the mystery doorway, it had disappeared again. Even so, she only stood up when she saw that Chartreuse, Sam and Sue had come out into the main area once again.
“How did Usa not see us?” Sam muttered. “Were we standing so still that we looked like music stands??”
“No,” Chartreuse said. “Somehow you two, you know, conveniently disappeared from sight in the time it took me to blink.” The mystic then looked pointedly at Sue.
Sue let out a breath through clenched teeth. “Fine. You want to hear this?” Her body went transparent, then she disappeared altogether, before slowly reappearing. “I’m a high level giftie.” She raised her finger to point at Chartreuse. “Which is how I know YOU are NOT one, hmmm?”
Chartreuse winced, as Sam took a couple steps backwards, ending up closer to Para. “This… this is impossible. Sue, you… you’re in classes with me.”
Sue lowered her arm, chewing her lower lip again as she looked at Sam. “Yeah. I’m kinda so gifted that even my peers aren’t sure about me, hence why I’m enrolled… undercover, if you will? Thing is, Sam, I see such potential in you. And there are people as high up as me who DON’T have extra abilities, aside from their intelligence. You could be one of them. I’m sure of it.”
“Then this WAS all a test,” Para concluded. “Starting at the gym and culminating at that mystery door here. A test for Sam.”
“I didn’t design it,” Sue was quick to point out. “I didn’t even know all the specifics, like where the clues were. But yes. Our group simply seems to have chosen the worst possible day to try this out, when SPIES and TRAITORS were in our midst.” She didn’t look directly at Chartreuse, but then, she didn’t have to.
Chartreuse shook her head. “Sue, please, I’m not… not those. Though I did, like, have my own reasons to be exploring the school, I guess.”
Sam held his head. “Okay, never thought I’d actually say this, but I can’t deal with this just now. Maybe I should go and give myself up to that security guy like Thred, figure it out tomorrow.”
Sue took a step closer to him. “You can’t. It’s too late for that now, it’d probably jeopardize any chance you’d have of getting in with the elites. Sam, you need to finish the puzzle tonight. Preferably before Usa comes back from… whatever SHE’S off doing.”
Sue advanced again, and Sam took another step away, almost bumping into Para.
“Can you tell him the missing pieces from the gym, Sue?” Para asked softly, bringing Sam up short.
Sue’s hands clenched into fists, and she slowly shook her head. “No. I’ve said too much already. Besides, you’ve already seen what you need to do here. So do your best, based on what you’ve got.” She peered back at Chartreuse. “And you? You can’t watch him. Even you,” she added, looking back at Para, “I’m a bit nervous about.”
“We can’t, what, watch him solve a puzzle?” Chartreuse asked, bemused.
“No, because solving the puzzle is what opens the door,” Para reasoned. “The mystery door we saw. That has to be it, as those symbols we saw from the other rooms, a lot of them are engraved on the wall, along with the more traditional musical notations as camouflage.”
“Definitely nervous about you now,” Sue decided.
Sam sighed. “So, what, I have to tap the wall over there in the order of the symbols we saw? When I don’t even know the first ones to use?”
Sue clenched her jaw, and said nothing more.
“Fun. Hey, anyone want to toss out words that end in -rects? Directs? Resurrects? Erects?”
Para reached out to touch him gently on the shoulder; he flinched very minimally. “Remember, Sam. Many of the rooms with clues are totally off limits to students,” she reminded. “Maybe this is something you CAN work out without having every piece.”
Sam frowned. “It WOULD be difficult to get every piece in order, the way we did,” he agreed. “And even then, it’d be more of a physical thing than a mental challenge.” He walked over to look more closely at the wall. “So perhaps it’s more about the locations within this scrambled jumble of symbols?”
Sue looked hopeful at that. Para still had her doubts.
WHAT’S NEXT? (Do you know what Sam needs to do?)
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VOTING CLOSES 7am EDT MONDAY SEP 24th
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