10:12
Kim clapped her hands together. “Next?”
Abe shook off the sense of wonder left in the wake of the air woman and shifted to look at the space between Gwen and Siobhan. “Knight?”
“Or,” Kim looked in the direction Abe did. “Sitting lady is one up from that but we aren’t sure what or who goes there.”
Abe looked at the cage at their feet. “We could try the cat?”
“We could try the cat. Might as well throw that spaghetti at the wall.”
“Or the cat. At the wall. Only maybe not throw.” Abe peered at the cat who was shoving its head against the walls of the cage with its mouth open on a silent cry. “That seems cruel.”
“Otherwise,” Kim looked up the wall at their left, “We’ve got the courtesan which could be the twins then the flowers we’ve discounted on this side. We could also try the cat with the courtesan?”
“We could.” Abe nodded then looked down at the cat. “Do you want to go with the naked lady, kitty?”
The cat opened its mouth on another silent cry. Maybe that was a yes? Maybe it was just ‘let me out of this cage so I can scratch you’. It was hard to tell with cats. Even ones made of paint and talent probably would take a swipe at your eyes.
Kim peered over Abe’s shoulder. “I’ll take that as a yes.”
Abe scratched their collarbone. “Okay?”
“Bring the cat, kid.”
“Not a kid,” Abe mumbled as they squatted and scooped the cage up from the floor.
“Moving forward!” The group adjusted at Kim’s call, moving forward to the next canvas.
Abe jumped over the bench in front of the canvas and pressed the cage to the canvas. They willed the ink to slide away to open a hole in the side so the cat could go into the canvas. The cat did not go into the canvas. The cat did not go flat. The cat sat there in the middle of the cage. Then it turned its head and looked at Abe. It opened its mouth on a silent cry and then licked its paw.
Willing the cage closed again Abe pulled it from the canvas and turned to the group. “I don’t think the cat goes in this one.”
“Knight!” Gwen yelled as she moved forward to block a sword strike with her plunger.
“Drive them forward!” Dempsey called.
“Uh, okay?” Gwen flashed a look back at Dempsey. “You know plunger handles aren’t really made to block sword strikes, right?”
“I can do something about that,” Ivan offered. “Not right now but I could reinforce it for you?”
“Cool, cool. Only doesn’t help much right now.”
“Kirby and I can help.”
Prairie slid in from the left and came at the shadowy Knight with her daggers. They clashed off the armor, doing absolutely no damage. The Knight turned its visored helmet to look down at Prairie’s petite height coming somewhere about rib height to them. It wasn’t possible to see their face because visor but Abe suspected there’d be a look of bemusement on the face under the armor. That look probably changed as soon as Kirby came thundering out of the dark slightly behind the Knight and to the front of the group.
Prairie dropped back a few steps so Kirby could drive their shoulder into the Knight’s side. Flexing their legs they ran forward, pushing at the Knight who gave several feet beneath the dog’s thrust. Prairie slid in front of the Knight and planted her hands, sans daggers, into the center of the Knight’s armored chest and pushed. Gwen seeing the way Kirby and Prairie were working slanted to the right side so she could get her hands on the Knight above Prairie’s lowered head and pushing hands.
“Ha!” she yelled as she dug in her feet and shoved along with Kirby and Prairie. The back of the Knight’s legs hit the corner of the bench in front of the canvas. The hit should have registered with a metallic ring of armor and wood meeting but, of course, there was absolutely no sound at all. Shocker.
The Knight’s arms reeled and they started falling to the right of the canvas. Dempsey ran over, shield out, and kept the Knight from falling. He flexed his legs and gave a heavy shove, managing to push the Knight towards the canvas a bit. Between the weight of their armor and the shoves from four sources the Knight fell backwards. As their back struck the canvas they flattened out visibly, their substance spreading out in a pool before sucking back into the shape of the Knight as it adhered to the canvas.
Dempsey dropped back, drawing his shield across his chest as he watched the Knight slide into place on the canvas. Gwen stood back and dusted her hands. And Prairie turned and patted each of Kirby’s heads, praising each of them individually.
Drawing his attention from the canvas Dempsey looked over at Abe and Dan. “That’s six?”
Dan nodded. “Six.”
“And how many more are there?”
Dan referenced his book. “Six. Bayonette rider, Duelist, and Shepherdess we can be fairly sure about. Black leather male, girl twins, and the one dog and,” he pointed his pencil at Abe, “the cat are harder.”
“Whoa!” Patti called out and blocked the reaching hands of one of the girl twins. She darted to the side to avoid the second twin coming in from the left, curled fingers going for Patti’s hair. Dan pivoted and spat out a short phrase and the same light daggers flew towards the twins. They phased right through Patti, going through her back and coming out her torso.
Expression a portrait of shock, Patti dropped her cudgel and jerked a look at Dan. Dan, pointed his pencil towards the twins, directing Patti’s attention as the daggers smacked into the twins, several going through the left of the two’s shoulders and the rest slamming through the right twin’s torso. The substance of both girls parted at the intrusion of light daggers, their forms bending in and then exploding outwards and back in a sloop of paint.
After running frantic hands over her torso Patti turned back to stare at Dan. “What the what?”
Dan just lifted his brows and made a note in his book. Patti furled her fingers in the air next to her face then stooped down to grab her cudgel from the ground with her lips in a tight purse.
“Dan?” Abe asked in a tentative tone.
“Yes?”
“Why did the daggers hit the twins but not Patti?”
“They take time to form.”
“So, uh, you timed it that way?”
Dan shrugged and looked up from his book. “Sure.”
Abe blinked a couple times then made a cringe face. “Ooookay.”
Looking back at the book, Dan added, “We don’t know where they go and the canvases near Patti are already done. It was better to disperse the twins and wait for them to reform when we are near canvases that still need figures returned to them.”
Patti whipped her head around to look at Dan. “And if you’d miscalculated? If the daggers formed before they hit me?”
“They didn’t.”
Patti gave Dan a narrow-eyed look. Abe wasn’t sure what she might have done next because the Shepherdess came in from the dark between Dan and Patti. Dan dropped back towards Patti and shoved his shoulder into the Shepherdess’ back, driving her forward along the wall in front of the hawk canvas. The Shepherdess opened her mouth on a silent cry and flailed at the air with her crook and her free hand. Then she lifted the crook over her shoulder, swinging for Dan’s head.
Pique apparently dismissed in favor of protective instinct, Patti ran in and blocked the crook with her punch shield. The Shepherdess swung her crook back for a second strike which Patti blocked again. Then the woman started actively attempting to counter Dan’s push so she ended up canting to the left and then the right. Then she brought her hoop skirt into the fray, dropping her free hand on the front of it so it belled backwards and batted Dan. He grunted and adjusted his movements to avoid the worst of the skirt hits and continued to drive the woman forward with Patti’s help from the left.
As he shoved the woman passed Abe he turned his head and looked at Abe.
“Can you grab her with your ink?”
Abe looked down at the cat cage in their right hand. “Uh.”
Stooping they placed the caged cat on the ground then rose to their feet to assess the struggling woman and Dan and Patti’s proximity. “Uh.”
They dodged back and forth then shuffled stepped sideways to keep pace with the three. Ink spooled out of their hand, thin as a whisper, keeping them connected to the cage. It slid along their right thigh and then back, the tug of it so light it barely registered. Well, no more than the movement of their ink registered when it left their body.
Okay. They’d never done this before. They curled their hand so their palm lay up. The thin thread of ink flowed between their pointer finger and thumb, leaving most of their palm free. Abe concentrated, willing a pool of ink to form next to where the thread began.
Dan and Patti continued to try to steer the resisting Shepherdess forward along the wall. Her hoop skirt hit the bench in front of the courtesan painting, sending the volume of her skirt flying towards Patti who took the full hit of it against her forward leg. It bent, furling a wave of fabric around Patti who batted it away with her shield and cursed.
“Fuck!” She smacked her cudgel against the Shepherdess’ back with a venomous look. Then she looked down and sang, “Sass?”
Being quiet as it was in the space Abe clearly heard Sass sing “Momma?” Patti’s shoulders relaxed slightly but her expression remained taut as she pulled back her cudgel and popped it against the Shepherdess’ back again. “Move you!” then she slanted a look to Abe. “You got this?”
“Uh,” Abe stared down at their palm again then set their mind to compartmentalizing their thoughts, asking the ink to retain its leash and cage around the cat while directing the larger volume of it towards the Shepherdess.
“Lean back!” they called to Dan as the ink unfurled on the air, a thread thick as Abe’s wrist flying towards the Shepherdess.
Dan ducked his head and the ink flowed over his head as it wrapped around the Shepherdess’ shoulders. Abe felt its cinch in the bones of their hand and then they clenched a fist with their fingers wrapped tightly around the restraint of ink.
“Got it!” They called.
Dan shoved his head around the side of the Shepherdess, ducking the woman’s thrown elbow. “Drag her towards the canvas with the landscape with sheep past the courtesan. Patti and I will keep shoving.”
“Move forward!” Dempsey called from behind them and the circle moved with Patti and Dan while Abe dropped closer to the wall and tugged at the ink. They felt it locking around the Shepherdess’ shoulders as it helped Abe draw the woman towards the canvas Dan described.
They reached forward with their left hand, curving their fingers around the ink for traction and alleviating some of the pull on their right palm. They’d never tried to pull anything with the ink before. It was a day for new uses of their Magick. They’d boggle about it later, once this test was done and they had Grace back.
Abe walked backwards as fast as they could, almost tripping over their steps as they pulled the Shepherdess along the floor. Black. Spotlight. That was the hawk. They judged their progress in the changing of the light. Black. Spotlight. That was the Impressionist-style flowers. One more stretch of black and they were at the edge of the pool of light that should be in front of the landscape Dan referenced.
They shifted a look to the right. Yep. They’d guessed right. Landscape with grassy hills dotted with sheep in the far distance. They backpedaled back into the dark beyond the spotlight and started spooling in the ink holding the Shepherdess.
From their position in the dark they watched Dan and Patti shoving the Shepherdess toward the canvas like they were on a stage, their figures growing clearm as they stepped into the circle of light in front of the painting.
“A little to the left!” Patti called.
Dan shuffled right, shoving his shoulder into the Shepherdess’ back so the woman stumbled face first into the painting. Seeing the tether was no longer necessary, Abe scrambled to call their ink back to their hand.
From their angle along the wall Abe could see the Shepherdess’ face smack into the canvas. Then her profile flattened, merging with the canvas, and her entire figure shrunk to about an eighth her size, the miniature Shepherdess hanging suspended in front of the portrait for a mikro before it flattened out so there was a scrim of paint separated from the canvas by a bright line of light. The line of paint met the canvas’ surface, the bright light was eaten by the dark of the paint, and a subtle squelching sound accompanied the merging of the Shepherdess with her painting.
Attention on the canvas, Dan stepped back then took out his book and made a note. “Seven.”
Patti eyed Dan then looked back around the circle. “Dempsey?” she called. “Take my place?” When he hesitated she added, “Please?”
Dempsey stepped over next to Dan and Patti backed into Dempsey’s place, casting a hard look at Dan. Dempsey followed the look then made a show of staring hard over Dan’s head toward the Shepherdess’ painting. “Good work.”
Dan nodded and shifted his toothpick. Abe was close enough to see the movement and also read the regret in the gaze Dan shifted towards Patti. He looked to Abe and gave a sharp nod. Abe raised their chin in response.
It wasn’t for them to say but maybe Dan should have considered explaining the whole ‘not going to stab you’ thing before he acted earlier. Heat of the moment and all that but, yeah, that had maybe not been a nice choice.
Oh, well, maybe they could help smooth that over after. They really hated when their friends were angry at each other. After though. They still had – they counted in their head quick – ten paintings left in the gallery.
“Seven,” Abe repeated Dan’s earlier count then stepped back into the circle to retrieve the cat’s cage. Holding it up by the loop in the top they looked across the circle to the right wall. “And ten canvases we’ve still not interacted with. We should move back to the Knight painting if we want to keep the order of eliminating paintings before moving forward. There’s only one painting left on this wall before we hit the far wall and I think there are four left on the right.”
“I think that’s right,” Siobhan called. “We should adjust across the space so we’re closer to that wall.”
“Moving!” Patti called, stepping farther into the center of the room. Siobhan and Gwen stepped up to keep the line and the rest of the circle adjusted to follow.
“I’m looking at a painting of a woman sitting in a windowseat.” Gwen said. “Any thoughts on it?”
Abe hefted the cat’s cage. “We could try the cat?”
“Or,” Kim added, “could be the twins? Or the guy in black.”
“Well,” Dempsey said, “We don’t have the guy and we do have the cat. Try it?”
“Okay.” Abe looked to Dan at their left and Kim at their right then dropped back to cross the circle with the cat’s cage held like a lantern at the end of their arm and up at shoulder height. Gwen looked back over her shoulder at Abe’s approach and stepped to the left to let Abe through the line.
A quick motion to the left drew both Abe and Gwen’s gaze to the dark leather clad man as he darted from the black beyond the circle of light in front of the target painting. Abe spared a short mikro to the thought that it seemed really fortuitous that the man who they’d just mentioned decided to attack at that moment. Real fortuitous. But then there wasn’t time to reflect more on the awful convenience of the attack as Gwen flung up her plunger to block the man’s hit. A crack came from the wood of the handle.
Gwen squealed and dropped back a step as the plunger handle cracked. The end with the head snapped off and the head hit the floor. Gwen was left staring wide-eyed at the splintered stick in her hand.
Before the man could strike again, this time with a better chance of actually hitting Gwen, Prairie ran over and jabbed the man first with her left dagger then with her right. He pivoted and lunged for her, but he underestimated her smaller height and his sword strike whiffed over her head.
“Prairie back!” Ivan yelled as he charged forward. Prairie shuffled out of his way and his shoulder hit the dark clad man’s chest with enough force to drive the man back several steps.
Prairie came in from the left and poked the attacker in the side with her dagger, causing him to move to avoid the stab which shifted his trajectory towards the canvas. Seeing him moving that way Prairie stashed her daggers and shoved her hands into the man’s ribs from the left, pushing him closer to the canvas.
The man’s shoulder hit the canvas and he teetered. To compensate the man turned and his back smacked into the canvas. For a mikro he went flat and then he popped back to three dimensions and brandished his sword at Ivan who blocked it with his unfurled shield. The man’s gaze darted between Prairie, Ivan, Gwen, and then looked back to stare at Abe for a mikro. Shaking himself he darted to the left of the canvas and ran off into the dark.
“Guess that wasn’t his painting,” Siobhan said from Gwen’s right.
“Guess not,” Gwen said. She held her broken plunger up and stared at it with a slight pout which was really obvious in the circle of the spotlight in front of the painting.
Ivan turned to Gwen and held out a hand. “I can fix that.”
Gwen eyed the shattered wood then looked at Ivan. “You can?”
Ivan gave her a steady look and kept his hand out. “Kinda my thing, remember.”
Gwen handed him the broken stick then stooped down to retrieve the other half with the rubber cup and handed him that too. She heaved a sigh. “Guess I’m gonna just look pretty for the rest of the fight.”
“Here.” Dempsey strode over with a bokken. “Can you use this?”
Gwen eyed him. “Where’d you get this?”
“Bag.” Dempsey thrust it at her again. “Do you want it?”
Gwen eyed the bokken. Eyed Dempsey. Eyed the bag at his hip. Then shrugged and took the bokken. “Thanks.”
“Welcome.” Dempsey shrugged then went back to holding the line next to Dan with his back to the group and his attention focused on further attacks from the dark.
“Does it do Magick stuff?”
Dempsey gave Gwen a long look. “Yes.”
“Can I do Magick stuff with it?”
No hesitation this time. “No.”
“Because you don’t want to tell me how?”
“Yes.”
“Sad. So sad. Is it because you don’t trust me?”
“With unknown Magick?”
“Sure. Go with that.”
“No.” Dempsey shifted the topic back to neutral ground. “It’s reinforced. It shouldn’t break.”
Gwen looked like she was considering testing that theory. On Dempsey.
“Uh,” Abe lofted the cat’s cage between Gwen and Dempsey. “We should try the cat in this painting.”
Dempsey’s attention switched to the cat. He peered at the silently meowing feline then turned to the canvas of the woman. “Good idea.”
Abe kinda read that any idea that turned their focus back to the test was a good idea to Dempsey.
“Excuse me.” Abe turned and watched Gwen work the bokken for several mikros then tapped her on the shoulder, indicating they needed to get passed her.
Gwen let the tip of the bokken dip to the floor and stepped to the left to give Abe access to the bench in front of the canvas. Abe gathered the hem of their cassock and stepped over the bench, being careful to not jostle the cat unnecessarily. Sure the cat had attacked them but Abe didn’t think it was entirely the animal’s choice to do so. Besides it never hurt to be nice, even to someone who might want to claw you. Because sometimes being nice stayed their hand. Probably not a cat, mind you. They seemed to claw even those they liked. It was a cat thing.
Abe walked up to the canvas with the cage held out. They gently pressed it to the canvas and asked the ink of it to part to release the cat. They felt the front of the cage draw back like a curtain. When the cat didn’t immediately exit the bottom of the cage buckled, bumping the cat. It turned at looked at Abe, mouth open on a silent meow. Abe lifted their chin, indicating the cat should go into the canvas. The cat turned and gave the painting a look then looked back at Abe.
“Go on, kitty. It will be fine.”
The cat gave Abe a narrow-eyed look and backed up against the back of the cage. The cage shivered then bumped the cat from behind. Silent hiss lifting its lips the cat stepped carefully towards the canvas. As its paw passed the barrier of the cage it flattened out. The rest of the cat did the same as it stepped from the cage. For a moment the flat cat hovered over the canvas then there was a slorp and the paint of it adhered to the painting.
Once it hit the surface the cat shrunk down by about a third. The paint of it traveled over the canvas, gravitating to the figure of the woman in the windowseat. It shrank a tiny bit more then settled under the slightly raised hand of the woman. Until it did that Abe hadn’t noticed that the hand was raised.
Hmm, was that what they were looking for? The hint of where the figures should be? If so, they wondered what hint would tell them where the twins and the leather clad man fit.
The woman in the paintings head turned very slightly and she slanted a look at Abe. The corner of her lip turned up and a glint crept into her eye.
Abe stepped back, eyes wide as a sense of wrongness or maybe rightness cascaded from the top of their head to the tips of their toes. They raised the hand with the cage, prepared to toss it at the woman if she leapt out of the painting. But the cat settled under the woman’s hand and went still and the woman turned back to staring out the window and then the painting was just a painting.
Abe turned to look at Dempsey. “That worked.”
Dempsey didn’t make any comment to the hesitance in Abe’s tone. Instead he nodded. “It did.”
“Why?” Gwen moved over to stare at the canvas with her nose an inch from its surface.
Abe frowned and shifted to give Gwen more access to the canvas. “Why did it work?”
“Yeah. That.”
“I guess you want more than ‘it was the right one’?”
“Yeah.”
“See how the lady’s hand is raised to pet the cat?”
“Yes.”
“It was raised before the cat got there. I didn’t notice until the cat was heading that way across the canvas.”
“Hmm,” Siobhan walked up on Abe’s other side to peer at the canvas. It was more than large enough to accommodate Gwen, Abe, and Siobhan shoulder to shoulder with a bit extra room. “I didn’t notice that either.”
“None of us did,” Gwen added. She stepped back from the canvas so she was nudging up against the bench and planted her bokken free hand on her hip. “We should keep moving? Now that we know what to look for when trying to match the mystery figures it might be a bit easier?”
Abe shrugged. “It was a pretty subtle difference.”
“Are you suggesting we can’t do subtle differences?”
Abe let their shrug speak for itself. Gwen grinned and poked Abe with the bokken. “I can do subtle.”
“You are,” Dempsey said in a droll tone, “as subtle as a brick to the head.”
Gwen turned and glared in Dempsey’s direction, but Abe could read there was no actual malice in it. Maybe the way the corner of Gwen’s lip twitched was the hint. The subtle hint. Ha!
“And we’re moving,” Dempsey called from his place near the back of the group. Everyone shifted in a forward direction and Abe hurried back to their spot on the other side of the circle. They stopped roughly in front of the next painting on the right wall. Abe turned to look at the scene within it.
An artist sat with an easel before them in the left foreground. The object of the painting on their canvas sat towards the far right background, a woman in a towering powdered wig with a ship buried in the front of it. Around her clustered several gentlemen in knee-britches. One held a fan towards the woman, another held a spaniel that gazed up at their face adoringly.
Behind the woman other fancy looking people, male and female, in ornate garments from a by-gone era stood in clusters. Several spoke to each other, leaning close in an intimate way. Another, a woman, stared to their right with their gaze subtly sliding over the artist at the easel. There were other fancy dressed people and several more dogs peppering the scene.
Abe turned to Dan. “Do you think the fourth dog might go in there?”
Dan checked out the painting. “Possible.”
He made a note in his book then shifted his attention back to the painting. “Maybe the twins?”
Abe peered at the canvas. “Maybe? I’m not sure if their outfits are the same. No wigs.”
“True.” Dan made another note in his book. “If we catch the dog we should try it there.”
“But not the twins.”
Dan lifted his shoulders in a subtle shrug. “Doesn’t hurt.”
“Unless they smack us.”
“That.” Dan pointed his pencil at Abe.
“Or pull our hair.”
Dan brushed his hand over his close-cropped hair and gave Abe a wink. Then he looked across to Dempsey. “We can move up one more. Then we should try to catch an attacker. Preferably the dog or the twins. The next one is the seascape we think nothing came out of.”
“So stop there?” Ivan asked.
“Sure.”
“Okay.” Ivan walked forward, setting an easy pace the others matched. He stopped as he drew even to the seascape painting on the right and the canvas they’d pushed the Shepherdess into on the left. A rapier shot out of the dark, heading for Ivan’s shoulder and he blocked it with his shield. He shot a look over his shoulder at Abe and Dan.
“Not this guy?”
“No,” Abe answered.
“Okay.” Ivan looked to his left at Kim. “Want to blow this guy back?”
“Sure.” Kim waved her hand towards Ivan and the rapier withdrew from Ivan’s block, retreating into the dark like it was reeled back on a line.
“Kirby?” Prairie called and then the sound of her dog’s claws sounded on the wooden floor. They galloped up to her side and nudged her with their left head. She patted the head then looked deep into the eyes of the center head. A smile curved her lips as Kirby backed away and charged into the dark in front of the group. She turned and said, “Kirby will try to find the dog.”
“Cool.”
“Oof,” Patti cried out, drawing Abe’s attention as she repelled the stab of a bayonette. Once the weapon retreated into the dark again Patti turned. “Anyone notice they aren’t hurting us. Scaring us, sure. But hurting us?”
“Huh,” Ivan turned to look at Patti over his shoulder. “Good point.”
“Watch out!” Patti pointed at something in front of Ivan only to draw her arm back. “Uh, never mind. I thought I saw something coming at you.”
“I got it.” Ben’s voice came from the dark in front of Ivan and to the left.
“Got what?” Ivan called back.
“Guy with rapier. You know where he goes?”
Dan looked at his notebook quickly. “Far wall. Painting of a duelist.”
“Got it.” There was a relative dirth of sound as Ben made very little noise when moving and the painted duelist would, of course, make none. Abe strained to see in the dark to follow Ben’s movements but it was just impossible. It was too dark.
“Done!” Ben called back in the dark.
Dan nodded and made a note in his book.
“What are we down to?” Kim called over to Dan.
“For paintings we have the portrait scene,” he pointed his pencil towards the canvas to the groups right, then the empty bedroom. That’s next to the seascape on the far right.” Dan shifted his pencil to point in that direction. “On the left we’ve got the battle scene with the dead. And then the far wall has a picnic, then next to the duel is a painting of a body with a pool of blood, the battle scene with riders we assume the bayonette soldier goes into, then there a landscape without any figures in it.”
“The pool of blood might have a void in it.” Ben offered from the dark.
“A void?” Gwen called back.
“Yes.”
Siobhan turned to Gwen. “You have a thought?”
“I have many thoughts.” Gwen shifted her attention to Siobhan. “In this case I’m wondering if you noticed that dark leather guy’s left leg looked wet.”
“You noticed a wet leg?”
“Well, he did kick me as he ran passed and I think,” Gwen wiped her hand down her leg, “Yep,” she showed her right palm to Siobhan. “Left some paint behind.”
Siobhan leaned in to look at Gwen’s hand. “Red.”
“Red. Like blood?”
Siobhan and Gwen turned to look over their shoulders at the rest of the group. Gwen said, “Black leather guy might go in the painting with the body.”
Dan made a note in his book, then closed it over his thumb. “We know the bayonette soldier and if the shady guy goes in the body painting, which makes sense, then we only have to place the twins. And the dog.”
“I’ll get the sneaky guy,” Ben offered from his place in the dark.
“And Kirby will get the dog,” Prairie added.
“Which leaves the bayonette guy and the twins.” Ivan said. He rolled his shoulders back and stared into the dark. “Almost done.”
Abe looked to Kim and then Dan. “The twins.”
“Go either in the bedroom picture, the seascape, the portrait painting and those are all on the right wall.” Kim said. “It doesn’t make sense for them to fit into the battle scene.”
“Unless they are death goddesses?” Abe ventured.
“Wouldn’t there be three? Don’t they usually come in three?”
“Usually. That’s a stretch so let’s say not the death battle scene. But, maybe the picnic? Or the landscape on the far right of the back wall?”
Kim made a face. “So many.”
“Maybe we can split out and each take one of the questionable canvases and try to find someplace in the painting where something might be missing.”
Kim wrinkled her nose and Abe hurried to add. “Splitting the party bad, I know. But there’s less attackers and if we break into three teams with one of us in each I think we can handle any attacks.”
Ivan spoke up. “I’ll go with Kim.”
“Me too,” added Prairie.
“Okay. That’s one group.” Abe cast their gaze back over the group.
“I’ll go with you.” Patti backstepped until they were close to Abe.
“I’ve got Dan,” Dempsey said from Dan’s left.
Gwen turned and eyed the groups then walked over to join Dan and Dempsey. Siobhan shrugged and joined Abe and Patti. Abe looked at Patti then at Siobhan then pointed towards the far right where the right wall met the far one. “The largest cluster is that way.”
“You first,” Siobhan said. “We’ll follow.”
“That,” Patti nodded.
“Ben?” Siobhan lifted her voice to carry.
“Yes?” came from somewhere vaguely front and left.
“Join a group if you want.”
There was no response but maybe Ben had nodded or something. Abe wasn’t real worried. Ben was capable of handling himself. He’d managed to handle the duelist solo. He was good.
Enter The Woods 