4:2 – Act One
“So, how are you at puzzles?”
Ben threw a die at Kim as Patti gave her a confused look at the theoretically out-of-left-field question. Kim caught it in the air, smiled, and tossed it back.
“Sorry,” she said to Patti. “Inside joke.”
“We need Patti,” Siobhan said, pulling up a chair next to hers and indicating Patti sit.
“Do we?”
Siobhan cocked a brow at Ben’s facetious question. “We do.”
“I started making the connections as she was singing,” she expanded. “Several of us, without I suspect understanding why, have keyed into the fact that there’s been music winding through this entire thing. Not one of us is a bard so I doubt we’re getting the full thrust of it, but it seems like it’s a key.” At Patti’s brow raise, Siobhan smiled. “Yes, I get the music reference. Didn’t mean to make it. Going to own it.”
“We’ve only been on two missions that had songs in them.” Ivan leaned back in his chair and laced his hands behind his head. “Why think its significant?”
“We have a whole lot of heigh-hoing in anything else we’ve done?”
Ivan chewed this over. “No. Still not sure it’s a relevant insight. As Kim says ‘Causation doesn’t equal Correlation’.” Kim tipped a finger in his direction. He nodded and continued. “Are you grasping at straws because we don’t have much else?”
“Why not grasp at straws?” This from Kim. “I mean, its not really grasping at straws so much as throwing spaghetti against the wall to see what sticks. We do that alllll the time.”
“She has you there.” Ben shrugged. Ivan glowered and shook his head, mouthing “Jackass”.
“So, what got me here was Siobhan’s excellent pitch about no pay and potential death.” Patti paused to slant a glance at Siobhan. “I’m not wrong about the potential death?”
Siobhan pursed her lips and shook her head ‘no’.
“All right. So,” Patti counted off on her fingers. “No pay. Potential death. Challenges! Adventure! It’s enough to get me to the table, but it doesn’t tell me why I should stay.”
Siobhan explained as succinctly as she could. Mystery House. Missing Children. A story that was imbued, somehow, with Magick. Jack/Mal. A magic axe with no magic. She ticked off the points on her fingers. An abandoned house. Another story. Magick bears, although she admitted those might be an unnecessary detail. A basement full of death. Prairie seeing things. Dan seeing things. Another story. A missing woman who ended up leading to the recovery of a group of others missing and abused women. Gwen seeing things.
“Was the axe the only magic item?” Patti probed.
“That we know. We have theories.” Dan braced his arm on the table and leaned in. “Nieve’s story referred to a comb that reading between the lines seemed to be doing something to keep her in a state of suspended animation. In the older versions of Snow White, not the one that Disney popularized with the poison apple, there were poisoned stays and a poisoned comb as well as the apple.”
At Ben’s ‘wha…?” look Dan said, “What? Bibliomancer.” He pointed a finger back at himself. “No one thought to ask if maybe I’d been going over the details from the factory too?”
Ben pursed his lips and looked to the side. To which Dan gave a “yeah” nod and continued. “It is very possible that the comb was a magic item. What it was being used for, I can’t say for sure.” He spread the hand not braced on the table in emphasis. “How its being used? I also can’t say.”
“What can you say?” Patti’s tone was dry.
“We have a mystery and very few clues. I’d go so far as to say no clues.”
“I’m intrigued.”
“Are you?” Gwen screwed up her face. “Are you really?”
“Not… No. But I could be.”
“I’m glad.” Prairie gave Patti that smile that made people want to offer her a fist full of flowers, their stems crushed by an anxious hand.
Prairie’s mouth was parted on something else when a man in a smart suit came striding up to them. Ben, priding himself on knowing this kind of thing, would say the suit was bespoke and likely cost the guy at least a g. Add in the shoes, Ben lifted his brows as his slanted glance caught the soft sheen of hand-sewn loafers, and you were talking about two-fifty.
Yeah, this guy didn’t come from money. He was money. And he showed every mark of it in the confident way he demanded their attention as he strode up to the table with his hand out to Ivan.
“Selectman. Jake Rosenthal. Your office told me I’d find you here.”
Ivan rose and accepted the hand. “Mr. Rosenthal. Your reputation proceeds you. Did my assistant tell you I don’t take meetings after six? I’m sure I could arrange a time to meet tomorrow.”
The man, Jake, slashed his hand down in a hard gesture. “This can’t wait. My wife is missing and I found this story in her room. I was told you could do something about it?”
“Does the timing always work like this?” Patti asked quietly to Siobhan.
“Surprisingly often,” Siobhan said in an equally low tone, then pitched her voice higher as she stood with her hand out. “Mr. Rosenthal, if you would give me this story we’ll examine it.”
Despite the confident air he projected like a birthright Siobhan could sense his uncertainty in the tight grip he kept on the papers he pulled from his breast pocket and held out to her. When she grabbed them and tried to take them from him he didn’t release the grip. Siobhan tugged again. “I will need these.”
Jake, Mr. Rosenthal, lifted his chin and looked imperiously down his nose at her. If she didn’t work with five year olds day in and out, who breathed demand like it was air because what a five-year old wanted they WANTED, she might have been intimidated. As it was she just gave him a patient look and tapped her foot. Look, the movement said, I have all day.
Finally, Jake let loose his death grip on the papers. “I’ll need them back.”
“Of course.” Siobhan sat down as Ivan got up and grabbed a chair for Jake. Jake gave it a dubious look before settling into the chair with the air of a man who was used to the finest in life but could slum for the moment.
“All right,” Siobhan said as Ivan settled back into his seat. “Let’s see what we’ve got here.”
Enter The Woods 