8:10
“Wow.”
Walking into the room at the center of the maze Kim got why Patti immediately exclaimed that as soon as she entered. It was a room. Not a clearing or a garden or anything else like that. The grass from the paths gave way to a sweeping black and white marble floor. The alternating tiles had to be two feet square, just mammoth in dimension, the marble crazed with gold veins. Actual gold veins, kintsugi emphasizing the cracks and splits in the stone.
The perfect square of the room mirrored the squares of the floor tiles, forming the impression of its being a tile itself. The contrast between the rough beauty of the hedge walls, rose vines weaving their surfaces, and the ordered perfection of the black and white marble tiles, gold veins weaving their surfaces a compliment to the writhing rose vines in the hedges.
Directly across from the break in the hedge they entered another cut the plane of the hedge. The walls to either side had two entry points cutting their lengths.
By some Magick stained-glass windows suspended in the planes of the hedge walls, two to either side of the entry across the stretch of tiles, two clustered between each of the side wall entries. Stepping over the threshold, Kim turned to confirm that two additional windows bracketed the point they’d entered through in symmetry with the wall opposite. The windows had similar themes – a circle, the solder around it sparkling gold, centering a field of flowers, but they differed in the central image within each circle.
The one directly to the left of the entry’s circle held a golden harp surrounded by rippling musical bars with notes drifting from their lines. The one to the right of the entry held clouds, curling breezes flowing from under them. Birds flew across the clouds, each feather picked out in exquisite detail by thin threads of gold-toned solder. Kim stepped up close enough her breath fogged the glass, marveling at the intricacy of the piece. On the right wall the two windows centered around an image of a book and a bracelet. The wall directly across from the entries’ windows had a large rose and a framed painting Kim wanted to get a closer look at, curious to see if the detail was as exacting as that of the bird’s feathers. The final two windows, on the left wall, had a hand mirror and what appeared to be a tangle of ribbons rippling around a maypole.
Centered in the center of a round wood table dead-center in the room a stained glass lamp anchored the space and commanded the eye. There was something so utterly succinct about the placement. The center of the room. The center of the table. The stained glass shade echoing the stained-glass of the windows. It was like stepping into a museum diorama, miniature rooms recreating the finest interiors of older times, with each piece picked and placed for best impact.
“Wow.” Kim breathed, echoing Patti.
The scope of the room made itself clear as Siobhan walked over to the table. What had appeared to be a table that would fit neatly against a wall in a foyer grew larger as she approached it, the dimensions of it spooling out as if some Magick made it large by their entry into the space. In fact, Kim squinted at the window she stood in front of. Yep, the window was totally larger, having stretched from something you might expect in a fancy house to something more likely to grace the walls of a cathedral. Large enough, she thought, stepping back to assess its dimensions, to step through.
Huh.
Magick.
Ben wandered across the space, stopping to stare up at the window with the rose across from the window Kim stood in front of. Patti and Prairie ventured into the room, approaching the table as Siobhan reached it. Siobhan trailed a finger along the edge of the table, following its circumference before stopping to peer closely at the lamp in the center.
“I think its missing some pieces.”
Kim turned to look. “Come again?”
“Look.” Siobhan tilted her head back and pointed at the sky. Where before the sky had been full of constellations, now it was a sheet of midnight upon which an image, or part of an image, was cast. Projected neatly on the sky, too damned neatly – Magick was definitely involved in making the boundaries of the image of a harp with ribbon winding its strings and the bracelet tangled in the ribbons length scrolled some distance across the sky clear. The image curved, following the shape of the lamp projecting it, forming a partial circle on the sky.
Normally a projection would get hazy, its margins blurring considering the distance the image, which clearly was being projected by the lamp, had to go to reach the sky. At best you’d maybe be able to make out some vague detail. Maybe. Such was not the case here. It was like panes of glass, shining and clear, floated on the sky. Much like the glass windows oddly suspended in the hedges.
Yeah. Definitely Magick. Big Magick. Really, really pretty Magick.
The ribbon weaved and dipped from a blank spot, over another two roughly rectangular-shaped blanks of different sizes, then through the harp strings, down to where the bracelet hung before looping back towards the harp where it broke on one side of a marginally oval-shaped blank spot and picked up again to culminate at yet another blank that resembled a bird in flight.
Such was the clarity of that image that the words winding along under the harp, along the ribbon, and marching across the round of the bracelet were crisp and very easy to read. Across the harp read the words ‘back to’. This continued to “my palace” across the bracelet, the two reading “back to my palace”.
Patti humphed. “It’s missing pieces.”
“Yeah.” Siobhan rotated her head on her neck, making a full circle.
Prairie came up next to her and craned her neck, making a similar survey of the image projected on the sky. “I think they might match the images in the windows.”
Patti dropped her head back, surveyed the ceiling; righted her head, surveyed the windows. “Huh. You think?”
Lowering her chin, Prairie made a visual survey of the room, turning on her heel and pointing, “Well, the harp, the ribbon, and-” she turned almost completely, indicating the window beside the door, “bracelet.”
Siobhan switched her focus to the lamp in the center of the table, walking around the circumference of the piece again, this time with her gaze riveted to the lamp. “The lamp is missing pieces. We’ve got the harp, like Prairie said, the bracelet, and the ribbons, which means-” she stopped to look up and point at the blank spaces in the circular image in the sky, “the blanks could be something from the windows. Likely the central images.”
Patti pivoted to eye each window. “Maybe we have to remove the piece from the windows that corresponds to the lamp?”
“The dimensions don’t work,” Kim said, running a practiced eye over the book in the center of the window she still stood in front of. “The lamp pieces are probably a few inches across. The book here has to be-” she lifted her hands up to the window, pulling them apart then adjusting them a few times. “Eighteen to twenty-four inches.”
Ben sidled over to stand behind Kim, eyeing the distance between her hands. “That’s what she said.”
Kim cast a look back over her shoulder at Ben. “Seriously?”
Ben’s grinned real wide, dancing back when Kim threw a halfhearted elbow his way. Bringing her arm back, Kim traced the her hand where the window met the hedge. “I can’t figure out how they’re suspended. Or how they’d open. If they open.”
“Here,” Ben said, stepping up next to her to run his hand along the opposite side off the window. “Ow!” he yanked his hand back and shook it, dropping a smidge of blood on the white tile he stood on. “Thorn.”
Being more careful this time, he prodded the edge of the window with his undamaged hand. Propping his bloodied hand against the window and leaving a small smear of blood, he rose on his toes to reach as far as he could up the gentle curve of the frame, stopping some inches from where the two sides met in a peaked arch at the top.
Ben dropped back to his heels and tilted his head back, frowning at the peak of the arch. “Me neither. Never met a window I couldn’t open.’
“Magick,” Patti gave the answer which was becoming their fallback to explain any weirdness The House threw at them.”
“Magick,” Prairie and Siobhan echoed.
Ben sucked the blood off his finger then shoved his hand into his pants pocket, rocking back again to give the window a serious glower. “Yeah. Magick sucks.”
“Shhh,” Kim pressed her finger to her mouth and looked around, flitting her focus across the air.
Ben lowered his voice to a whisper. “What?”
Finger still to mouth, Kim turned and grinned. “Magick can hear you.”
Ben curled his fingers like he was choking air. Patti busted out laughing. Prairie giggled. And Siobhan just rolled her eyes and shook her head. Kindergarteners were easier.
Ben lowered his hands and paced the circumference of the room, stopping to poke his head into each break in the hedge. “I think we should figure out where these go. Map them.
Siobhan rubbed her chin with her thumb. “That’s not a bad idea. But I think we also need to focus on figuring this,” she looked up at the sky and the partial message there then back at the lap, “out.”
“It won’t take all of us to puzzle this out,” Kim said. “Maybe we split up.”
“But,” Patti said, “Split the party?”
Kim wobbled her head. “I know, but I’m kind of feeling we have a ticking clock. There’s only so long the others can keep Gryphon distracted. We need to figure this lamp thing out but we also need to track those entrances to see if any lead back. Then we need someone to get that information to the others.”
Ben scrubbed his hand over his head. “You should stay here, Kim, and keep an ear on what’s happening outside. I can do the entrances.”
“You can’t go alone.” Prairie checked her daggers in their sheaths then walked over to Ben. “I’ll go with you.”
“Okay.” Ben turned to Patti. “You?”
Patti looked at the windows, the ceiling, the lamp, then at the entrance Ben and Patti stood in front of. “I don’t know.”
“How about,” Siobhan offered, “you stay here and rest then when we have the paths mapped out you can be the one to go back to find the others?”
“Me?” Voice going up in confusion, Patti pointed at her chest.
“Someone has to. The other option is we keep Ben back and you and Prairie explore the paths.”
Ben frowned. “That actually makes more sense. I’m probably the fastest. Unless anyone else-” he paused to look at the others.
“No,” Patti shook her head in the negative. “That makes more sense.”
“I’ll go with the two of you,” Siobhan said, pulling the sketched map out of her bag. “I have the map.”
Kim looked at Ben. Ben looked at Kim. Kim lifted her brows. Ben did the same, adding a droll look.
“Looks like its the two of us figuring out the mystery then.”
Ben shook his head then grinned. “Super.”
Siobhan switched her attention between the two. “Don’t kill each other.”
Ben’s “Okay, Mom” blended with Kim’s “Like we would.”
They looked at each other and grinned.
“Go.” Kim thrust her chin in the direction of the break Prairie stood next to. “We’ve got this.”
Siobhan slid another look between Ben and Kim, then nodded, turned, and indicated the entry with a lift of her chin. “Let’s go.”
“Be careful!” Kim called after them.
“Die loudly!” Ben added.
“Always!” Prairie called back, her voice muffled by the hedges.
“So.” Ben sauntered over to the table, crouching to get a look under it.
“So,” Kim echoed walking over to the table and craning her neck to get a look at the lamp centered on it.
Ben rose and leaned on the table, giving it a delicate push like he was testing its resilience. “Let’s figure this out.”
So saying he turned and hopped, landing on his butt on the table, then pivoting to spin his feet up on it with his knees bent. From there he rolled to his knees and then leaned forward onto his palms with his face inches from the lamp. “This thing is bright.”
“It would have to be to project that image,” Kim said, tippimg her head back to look at the sky.
“Definitely missing pieces.” Ben shifted his weight to one arm and gently pressed a finger to the lamp.
“Anything else, Sherlock?”
“It’s not trapped.”
“Well, that’s,” Kim paused, pursed her lips, “good.”
Ben continued to look closely at the lamp shade for several mikros. “It just looks like a lamp.”
“Okay?”
Pushing up to his hands, Ben turned so he was facing the hedge wall and focused on the window with the bird. “Want to bet the piece shaped like a bird on the lamp is somewhere on that?”
Kim squinted in that direction. “Not seeing it.”
Ben shrugged. “It’s worth a look.”
“Sure.” Kim started towards the window then turned at looked at Ben who’d sat down and was now leaning back on his hands. “You going to help?”
“You’re the architect. You know windows right?”
“First, I’m not an architect. I just work for them. Two, how does knowing windows help me search? Aren’t you like a super thief or something? Isn’t that kind of your job?”
“First, I’m not a thief. I’m a business man. Second, I wouldn’t say super.”
“Well, your either a thief but not super or you aren’t a thief at all.” Kim walked over to the window, stopping with several feet separating her from it so she could crane her head back to get the full view of it top to bottom.
“Less yapping, more searching.”
Kim turned her head to give Ben the stink eye. “I almost died, you know?”
“But you didn’t. Search.”
“Such sympathy.”
“Do you need it?”
“No,” Kim grumped and set her eye to searching the details of the stained-glass pane by pane. “If you’re,” she leaned heavy on the word, “all rested I could really use a second pair of eyes.”
Ben heaved a theatrical sigh. “Fine.”
There was the sound of cloth sliding across wood then Ben’s soft footfalls on the marble floor before he was gliding up to stand beside Kim. “Sucks they don’t open.”
“If they did where would they go?” Kim swept her hand at the hedge wall. “This is a maze. I’m guessing there’s nothing but more maze behind this. Best we’d find more paths.”
“Unless we didn’t.”
Jerking her head, Kim turned to give Ben a curious look. One he met with a lift of his brows. “Because,” he made air quotes, “The House.”
Kim scrunched up her lips and her brows and turned to stare intently at the stained-glass. “Because Magick.”
She planted her hands on her hips and puffed out a breath. “There has to be something we’re missing.”
“Yeah.” Ben pointed at a pane shaped like a curl of wind near the top of the window. “How about that?”
Kim squinted. “That? That’s just-” She stopped mid-word and cocked her head. “Someone’s coming.”
Ben immediately tensed, hands going to the daggers sheathed in his jacket. “Which direction?”
Kim frowned, casting her focus towards the point Patti, Prairie, and Siobhan had exited the room, then shifting her attention over to the gap next to it.
“And I’m telling you, you made the right choice,” Patti said, stepping out of the second entry point. Looking around, noting the room, she turned back to call behind her. “We’re back in the center again.”
“Okay!” Siobhan’s voice, calling back, was slightly muffled by the hedges.
Prairie and Siobhan exited the break together, Prairie speaking quietly to Siobhan. “Patti is right. No one’s hands were forced.”
Kim’s gaze went from Point A where Patti, Prairie, and Siobhan had entered the maze then to Point B where they emerged. “It’s a circle?”
Siobhan looked up from making a note on her map. “It’s a circle.” She wet her lips and asked, “Do you think I made the right call in who is searching and who is distracting?”
“What?” Ben cocked his head, expression confused.
Siobhan shook her head. “Nothing.”
Prairie smiled all soft and sweet. “Siobhan is worried she sent the wrong people out or kept the wrong people back. We’ve told her there was no bad choice.”
“Or, you know,” Patti added, “she made the right ones because your go-to,” she looked at Kim, “is to set stuff on fire.”
Kim’s shrug acknowledged the sense in this. “It is. Which wan’t going to work on team distraction.” She turned to frown at Siobhan. “Were you really questioning if you made the right choice?”
Siobhan’s response was hesitant. “Maybe?”
Kim snorted. “You made the right choice. Now, back to more important stuff – that’s a circle?”
“Well, the path we took is, but there were others.”
Ben looked pointedly at the break in the hedge. “Then you should check it out.”
Siobhan jerked a thumb at the break. “Do you want to go? Switch out with someone?”
“No.” Ben shook his head, shoved his hands into his pockets, and turned back to the window. “You made the right choice the first time. Kim and I have this.”
There was a moment of silence while Siobhan eyed Ben’s back with a perturbed look, then she turned to Patti and Prairie. “Let’s check out that other path.”
“Lead the way,” Patti said with a sweep of her hand in the direction of the hedge.
“That was cool of you,” Kim said, wandering back to stand next to Ben. “I know you probably wanted to check the maze out.”
Ben shrugged. “She wasn’t wrong. I’m better for running back to get the others. Let them have fun exploring. Now what were you saying about that piece? It really looks like there’s something cut out of it and put back in, like a jigsaw puzzle.”
Kim tipped her head back and squinted where he pointed. “I can see a very fine joint there. It’s easier to make a large section like that in pieces and join them as seamlessly as possible rather than use a big piece of glass that might test the joint. Next window?”
Ben lifted his shoulders and dropped them on an expressive shrug. “I guess.”
They moved over to stare at the window centered by an exquisitely designed golden bracelet hanging from the bottom of a chandelier, complete with a delicate chain looping between the clasps where it would open to go over a hand. Kim shifted her attention from the window to the bracelet on the ceiling, depicted hanging from a loop in the ribbon. “Maybe if we figure out the difference between this window and the one with the birds it would help?”
“Can’t hurt.”
They both stared intently at the window, examining each detail of it with microscopic focus. Then Kim wandered back to the window with the missing bird shape and peered at it as intently. Then shuffled back to look at the bracelet window. She was about to shuffle back to the window with the missing image again when she paused and cocked her head.
Ben stiffened next to her. “Someone coming?”
Kim nodded and pivoted to stare at the original entry they’d come through.
“Shit,” Ben muttered under his breath and pulled his daggers out before taking up a defensive stance several feet back from the break in the hedge. “Who is it?”
“Can’t tell,” Kim muttered, then snapped her wrist and called up a fireball before taking up a position next to Ben.
“You good?” he murmured from the side of his mouth.
“I’m good.”
“Don’t kill anyone,” he quipped, shooting her a grin to which she lifted her brows.
“I make no promises.”
They both tensed, dropping back into tighter stances just as Patti came through the break in the hedge. Patti threw up her hand and fell back, bumping into Siobhan.
“Whoa! A little warning.”
Kim rolled her eyes and doused the fireball with a twist of her wrist. “Sorry. Maybe you all should announce its you before you enter.”
“We would if we were sure we were entering. This place has more turns than Risk.”
“More turns than…” Kim rolled that one around in her head.
“Because it takes a really long time to finish?” Patti prompted.
“Sure.” Kim stepped back to let Patti, Prairie, and Siobhan reenter the room. “Geek.”
“Pot,” Patti replied, “Kettle.”
Prairie giggled. Kim snorted. Patti tipped an imaginary hat.
Ben eyed the entrance. “That circles aroumd too?”
Siobhan waved her map. “There are some dead-ends, they each have a yellow rose. Same for the other path. I’m calling the one we entered first E and the one we just went in F. With this initial one being A and going around the room clockwise. The path leading to A also goes straight I’m thinking it might run into one of those.” She waved the paper at doors, by her indication of clockwise orientation, B, C, and D. I’m starting to think that there’s only one path that leads through the entire maze to this room and all the other exits to here loop around and come back. We still need to map them to be sure.” She turned to Kim. “What’s going on outside?”
“They’ve entered and run through the area we initially mapped a few times. We should hurry because its feeling like they are getting tired but Gryphon is not.” Kim stopped. Frowned. Rolled her eyes up and her face took on a look of contemplation. “They’ve subdued him several times and he keeps breaking out. Which will be exhausting their Magick because this place doesn’t let us tap the pools.”
Everyone in the room stopped completely dead and turned to stare at Kim. No twitching No shifting. Not even an indication of breathing. Then Siobhan took a tentative breath and frowned. “What did you say?”
Kim brought her gaze back on plumb and focused on Siobhan. “What did I say?”
“You said something about being unable to tap pools of Magick.”
“I did?”
“You did.” Frustration leaked into Siobhan’s tone, making it rise slightly.
“Huh.” Kim poked her tongue in her cheek, rolled her eyes up and to the left. “I did.” Then she turned and looked at Siobhan. “Is that a thing?”
Siobhan looked at her, bug-eyed, then Prairie stepped in. “I think it is. And I think that maybe you know it is because of something you possibly heard when you were taken.”
Kim’s eyes went wide and her color stark. She blinked rapidly and then took a sharp, audible breath through her nostrils. And then another, quicker this time. And another. Quicker. Until she threatened hyperventilation. Then she took a hard breath in and held it. The others watched, hanging on her next action, until she released the breath really slowly through pursed lips. Her shoulders visibly relaxed and her ribs softened. She cast her eyes on the ground for a mikro then raised them to look at Siobhan intently.
“Magick doesn’t flow in here like it does for us outside of The House. What we come in here with is all we have. When we exhaust that we will go into a state of consumption. We need to ration our Magick.”
“The fuck?” burst out of Ben. He turned, stomped two steps, then turned back to stare at Kim. “That would have been good information to have.”
“I just remembered it,” she said on little more than a whisper. Her shoulders curled forward more and she blinked her eyes rapidly. “Sorry.”
Siobhan shoved her hand into her hair, dislodging her flower wreath. “Fuck.”
Everyone turned to stare as the unexpected expletive emitted from Siobhan. The only thing weirder might have been Prairie going into a full on rage. If they were ever in that situation? Well, Kim knew her ass would be under a table with her arms over her head. As it was she just kind of guppy-stared at Siobhan, mouth moving a few times before she found her center and closed it on a snap.
“Okay.” Siobhan righted her flower crown and then nodded, her expression smoothing. “Okay. That’s something we know now. We suspected, but now we know. That’s good.”
“I think that was their plan,” Kim said, real slow, feeling out the words as they flowed from her subconscious. “To drain me.”
“Why?” Patti asked on a burst.
“I don’t know. But I definitely feel like-” Kim shook her head, “I mean, I remember hearing them say it, maybe? Something like that. But,” she closed her eyes and searched her mind, hitting a wall of static and darkness, “not why. It doesn’t make sense.” She reached up to scratch at her neck, her short nails going deep enough to draw blood. Prairie stepped up to her and very gently pulled her hand away from her skin. Kim grimaced her thanks then shoved her hands into the pockets of her pants. “Draining me would only make my Magick seek out another source and, until you came along, they were the only ones. Why would they do that?”
“I don’t know,” Siobhan said. “It’s something to think about.”
“Absolutely,” Prairie said quietly. “It’s another piece of the puzzle we didn’t have before. It’s good you remembered.”
Turning to scythe her gaze over each of them, Kim gave a tentative smile that was more a wince. “We should conserve our Magick.”
There was no hesitance in Siobhan’s response. “Absolutely.”
Prairie nodded. “We can do that. And Ben,” she turned to look at him, “Once we’ve finished mapping the paths and you go back to them, tell the others that.”
“Yeah.” Patti nodded. Leaning out of its house on Patti’s belt, Sass made a ‘squeak!” like they were throwing their vote in for that too. Patti smiled down at the mouse. When she looked up her expression was ordered, like she hadn’t a care in the world. “How ’bout we go through door B?”
“Sounds good.” Prairie started walking that way then stopped to look back at Patti and Siobhan. “Are you coming?”
“Yes, sure.” Patti propped her shield up against the hedge wall near the original entry point, then eyed the hedge, like she was remembering the way it ate Ivan’s firefly, then picked up the shield and moved it back about five feet from the wall and laid it on the floor before dropping her cudgel on top of it. “Won’t be needing those for exploring.”
With that she walked over to Prairie, passed her, and stepped into the hedge break Siobhan had named B. Siobhan looked at Kim, raised a finger, let it hang on the air a mikro, then lowered it and turned to head after Patti and Prairie. Reaching the break in the hedge she turned back. “If you remember anything else…?”
“You’ll be the first to know.” Kim twitched her lips and rolled her eyes. “Probably before I do.”
Kim looked over to Ben after Siobhan disappeared into the maze. “Next window or back to the bracelet?”
“I didn’t notice a major difference between the bird and bracelet windows. Did you?”
Kim switched her gaze from one to the other. “No.”
“Maybe if we look at another one that has a piece on the lamp?”
“Sure. I guess. Harp?”
“Sure.”
Kim jumped several inches up and back as a head poked out of the break in the hedge, A by Siobhan’s reckoning, a flame jumping to her hand without conscious effort.
Siobhan frowned at the flame. “Save that.”
Flexing her fingers Kim called the flame back. “Don’t randomly poke your head out of hedges and maybe I will.”
“Oops?” Siobhan turned and called back into the maze, “Definitely doubles back.” She made a note on her paper then stepped back into the maze.
Kim shook out her hands then gestured at the Harp window beside the break in the hedge. “Shall we?”
“Yeah. Sure.”
Ben carefully ran his hand along the edge of the window, careful to keep his fingers on the sash and free of the rose vines twining the hedge. “Windows open.”
“Unless they don’t.”
Kim and Ben continued to scrutinize the window; Ben testing the edges and then running his fingers over the panes, testing their fit to the solder joints, Kim leaning in to stare intently at the surface from various subtle angles. Ben was pressing on the sash along the left side when Patti came popping out of hedge break C, causing Kim to start and smack her shoulder into the right side sash.
Ben looked up, his expression that of a deer in a hunter’s sights. “Did you feel that?”
“Uh.” Kim went stock still and her eyes searched the glass. “Maybe?”
“What?”
Kim jumped as Patti walked up from her blind side. Her arm bumped the sash again. Ben drew in a sharp breath, then rested his palm on the sash on his side. “Push your side of the window.”
Kim did just that, meeting Ben’s eyes across the width of the window. “On two?”
“Two.” So saying Ben pushed. Kim did too. And the sash beneath Kim’s hands gave, receding into the hedge maybe an inch.
Ben, eyes wide, slid his fingers under the corresponding crack that formed between his side of the window and the hedge.
“Son of a-!” Patti exclaimed. “Squeeeeeak!” went Sass.
Ben pulled the window. It didn’t come any further. A look of concentration on his face, Ben reversed his hand so it was palm out then slowly slid his hand up the length of the sash.
“Found it.” His expression went blank as he angled his arm slightly so his fingers went up behind the frame. There was a subtle click and then the window swung out on a pivot to Kim’s side.
Revealed beyond it was no hedge or maze path but rather a room. A large room, stretching probably half the length of a ballroom or conference room. With white walls and pale hardwood floors. Ranged around the back part of the room, covering more than half the length of the side walls and the entirety of the back one, were instruments. In the corner where the left wall met the back stood a grand piano, its brown wood matching that of the harp set to its left and slightly away from the wall away from several gold accented chairs with moss green cushions. Similar chairs stood behind a set of drums that appeared to be made of maple. Ranging between the piano and this drum set were a series of stands holding brass and woodwind instruments. Several more stands stood out from the right wall, stringed instruments cradled within or hung upon their curves.
“Damn.” Patti’s comment pretty much spoke for all of them. She strode over to the break in the hedge she’d exited from and called in, “Found something!”
Siobhan and Prairie popped out of the entrance several mikros later.
“What?” Prairie asked before her head had even cleared the hedge.
“You have to see it,” was Patti’s reply.
“Okay,” Siobhan said, stepping out of the hedge and turning to where Kim, Ben, and Patti were displaying varying degrees of surprise. As soon as she saw the room exposed in the hedge, she did a double take. “Whoa.”
Kim rubbed the side of her neck. “Yeah. That’s pretty much what we have.”
“So,” Patti asked. “Do we go into it?”
Siobhan walked over, stopping close enough to the window she could look inside but not venturing any further. “Maybe.”
“Maybe we throw something in and see what happens before we do that?”
Everyone turned to look at Ben. “What? I can be cautious.”
“Reaaaallly?” Kim drew out the word, earning a narrow-eyed glare from Ben.
“I can.”
Siobhan cast a look back at the gap in the hedge then turned to look into the room again. “I think we need to find out where all the paths from these entrances lead, then we can consider what we need to do with the windows. That means,” she directed a look specifically at Ben, “holding off exploring the rooms.”
Ben heaved a sigh and lifted his brows. “Why look at me?”
Siobhan didn’t even deign to answer that, just gave Ben a look which quailed many a tired and whiny kindergartener.
“Fine.” Ben dug his hands into his pockets and rocked back on his heels. “But I’m going to see if the other windows open.”
“That makes sense. Just don’t go into any of them. Or throw things in. Not until we have everyone with us. And if there’s anything that attacks close the window immediately.”
“Well, sure.” Ben’s expression also said ‘duh’. Kim snorted. When Ben gave her a look, she turned her attention back to the window, grabbed the sash and swung the window closed.
Siobhan wafted her map. “B eventually leads to C. There’s another path leading further out and to the left. We’re going to take that and see if it leads to D or if there’s an offshoot from D to E. We shouldn’t be long.”
“We’ll be here,” Ben said. “Checking out windows.”
“Okay.” Siobhan turned to look at Patti and Prairie. “You ready?”
“I think I’ll stay here,” Prairie said. “Just in case anything comes out of a window its probably better there are three people to handle it. You and Patti should keep mapping.”
Siobhan nodded her ascent then looked to Patti. “Good?”
“Yep.”
After Patti and Siobhan disappeared back into break C, Prairie turned to Kim and Ben. “So which one is next?”
“I’m thinking maybe nothing happened when we opened this window because the harp piece is already in the lamp,” Kim posited. “With that logic if we open the bracelet or the ribbon windows we shouldn’t expect anything to happen. It will let us check to see if the mechanism works the same on each window without having to worry something will come out at us.”
Ben turned and strode over to the ribbon window situated catty-corner to the harp one, next to the B entrance. “Lend me a hand.”
“Sure.” Kim walked over and took up position to the right of the window while Ben took the left side. Turning to Prairie, she explained. “We found the last one by both of us pushing on-”
“Bumping into,” Ben added helpfully, causing Kim to roll her eyes before amending, “or bumping into the two sides of the window the same side.”
She pressed her hand to the sash on the right then nodded to Ben. As they both pressed, she added for Prairie. “The right side pushed in and the left side popped out. Like-” the frame shifted under her hand, “that.”
Once Ben released the clasp on his side, Prairie stepped back so he could swing the door out to reveal a large room that most closely resembled the design studio space of a fashion designer. Long tables, placed on high on sturdy legs so someone using them wouldn’t have to bend to work on their surface, stretched the length of the room, set in two neat rows. Sewing machines sat in slightly recessed areas on the tables and there were several high stools pulled up under each table. Along the walls behind the two rows of tables cabinets stretched nearly to the ceiling. Some had square drawers, while several others had wardrobe doors centering them.
“Well,” Prairie said quietly, “the ribbons make some sense. There definitely seems to be a theme to each room that matches the window.”
“So.” Kim looked around the room, her gaze going to each of the other windows. “Probably the others match their windows too. This doesn’t seem that bad.”
“You just cursed us,” Ben quipped. His pirate grin softened the rebuke, suggesting he’d likely welcome something besides musical instruments and sewing rooms if they were revealed behind the other windows. “So, we could open all the other windows. Or we could just open the one for the bracelet to confirm the doors all work the same.”
“Do we really need to?”
“What if the only doors that open are the ones that the pieces are already in the lamp for?”
“Huh.” Kim’s shoulders fell. “That could be true. So,” she looked at the other windows again, “if you were going to be, on a scale of dangerous to less dangerous, would you be a rose, a painting, a book, a bird, or a mirror?”
Ben curled his lip. “None of those seem bad.”
“Yeah and doesn’t that seem bad?”
“Or,” Prairie suggested, “maybe they are just rooms and there won’t be any danger?”
Both Ben and Kim snorted. Prairie, meeting their eyes, broke out in a giggle.
Ben popped his finger at Prairie. “That’s a good one, Prair.”
Prairie’s nod was full of sage understanding. “Because The House.”
“Because The House,” Kim echoed while Ben said, “Because Magick.”
“So,” Kim picked up the thread, “What do you think? Rose? Mirror? Book? Bird? Painting?”
Ben made a production of turning to look at each window, folding his arm across his middle so he could cradle his other elbow in order to be able to give his chin a real rubbing. “Eye gouging for the rose or the birds.”
“Blinding or maybe a mirror monster for the mirror?” Prairie suggested. “Maybe even mirror images of ourselves trying to kill us, using our abilities against us.”
“Oooh,” Kim breathed her enthusiasm for that. “Good one. I mean, awful, but good. So, that leaves book and painting. Those two have so many options for mayhem. Honestly, any window we open is bound to offer us adventures!” She faked a bright smile. “It’s like an amusement park. Just for us!”
“Or maybe it will just be a nice library or art gallery,” Prairie suggested. When both Kim and Ben turned to give her a look, she shrugged, “What? It could happen.”
“So, we testing this?” Ben asked.
Kim gave the room another considered look, glossing over each window. “I’m okay with waiting.”
“Never thought I’d be saying it, but me too.” Ben turned to look at Prairie. “Prair?”
“I’m good.” Prairie walked over to the table and leaned against its edge, pressing her hands to the surface and sighing. “How are the others?” she asked, looking to Kim.
Kim lifted a finger. “Give me a mikro.” So saying she visibly relaxed, her features going slack and her eyes soft. She cocked her head, tipped it towards the sky, then shifted to look from left to right, her lower lip pouting in concentration. Breathing a ‘hmmm’, she tilted her head back towards the right. When she took a deep breath both Ben and Prairie stiffened.
“Okay.” Kim shook her head and refocused her eyes. “We really need to speed this up.”
She strode to the hedge, juking between the C and D entrances. Before she could decide which to holler down Patti emerged from the entrance then turned to determine which break in the hedge it was.
She cupped her hands and projected back into the maze. “D.”
“Okay.” Siobhan emerged from the maze, making a notation on her map. “That one seems to be a circle C to D only.” Noticing Kim standing close with her hands in fists at her side, she lifted her chin. “Hey.”
Kim loosened her fists and shook out her hands. “Hey. Are you almost done? The others aren’t doing well.”
Nodding her understanding, Siobhan consulted her map. “We could go back down E to see where the other path goes but I think we can assume if you run the paths and don’t turn down one with a yellow rose you’ll come out in another entrance. D’s path doesn’t go to E so probably E’s only pours into F. We can call it, I think.”
Pulling another page of the story out of her bag she strode over to the table. She flipped the page over to its blank side and placed it on the table, then laid the hand-drawn map next to it. Ben wandered over, hands in pockets, and peered over her shoulders, his gaze flicking over the paths in her map.
“Give me a few to copy this then, Ben,” Siobhan looked up at him, “you need to get it to the others. And tell them about the yellow roses. And about conserving their Magick.”
Ben nodded and looked at Kim. “I need to know where they are right now.”
Kim held up a finger then focused on the sky for several mikros. “The rose garden.”
“Okay.” Ben laid his finger over the hedge break Siobhan marked A then traced his finger back along the winding path they’d taken to get to the center. “There’s only one path that leads direct, so that’s something.”
Siobhan looked up from the paper and laid her pen down. “Done. Here.” She picked up the copy and shoved it at Ben. “Go.”
Ben’s nod was sharp, his gaze intent as he shoved the map into his jacket and took off at a dead run for the exit.
Siobhan followed his progress with her eyes before turning to the others, drawing a deep breath. “All we can do is wait.”
Patti grabbed her shield and cudgel from the ground then walked over to prop up beside Prairie against the table. “And worry.”
“That’s a given,” Prairie whispered, her gaze locked on the entrance like she could will it to disgorge her friends.
Kim continued to look at the sky, her unfocused eyes shifting back and forth rapidly, like someone in REM sleep.
“Kim!”
At Siobhan’s snap Kim slowly blinked and squinted at her friend. Once she had Kim’s attention, Siobhan said, “Save your Magick. We may need it.”
Kim wandered over to trace a finger over the bird window, which just happened to be located next to the entrance. “I’m going to worry until they get here.”
Siobhan nodded. “We all are.”
Enter The Woods 