25
10. 7. 22, Sunday, 16:13
Perhaps this situation could be described as the Phobia Club ‘sailing close to the wind’ when they agreed to sit on the Fendi sofa in front of Gwenda Shaw, but that phrase is used when describing doing something dangerous.
The Phobia Club, however, had no idea whether Gwenda Shaw was friend or foe - so far she had given them clues and opportunities that they had needed, but was it with more malicious intent than it seemed? Was consenting to enter Gwenda Shaw’s office, an act that would cause every reader in the world to scream ‘DON’T DO IT!’, or an act that would have everyone whispering ‘yes, yes, YES’?
The wind in this situation could be described as very lush and comfortable, though - expensively exquisite exotic furniture all art deco-themed, hardwood floors and gentle yellow light provided by an assortment of floor lamps and wall sconces. It wasn’t as serious as Damon’s office though - the shelves were full of bestseller novels and some fan letters, movie premier posters and priceless paintings adorning the walls, along with several vinyl records.
“Why are we here?” Denver demanded, but if one were sailing close to the wind you couldn’t just ask the wind ‘why?’, because it isn’t going to give you an answer.
Gwenda raised a perfectly plucked eyebrow at him. “How was the visit to Dr. Hemlock’s?”
She blinked for an unusually long time.
“He was bald,” Julian said baldly. “Like, bald enough for us to see light on his head.”
“Yes, I’ve noticed. Why don’t you tell me, Mr. Finley?”
“He said we were just going through a growth spurt and that you just overreacted,” Leo said, wondering if he should bring up the file.
Lana saved him the trouble.
“I have a question, Ms. Shaw,” She said, taking the bull by its horns. “We found out you didn’t actually get the story from Ben Dover.”
“Yeah - it turned out you actually went to him and asked if we’ve been in the kitchen, and THEN only got the story from him,” Emma said, mirroring Gwenda’s raised eyebrow. “How’d you find out?”
“The walls have ears and the windows eyes, Ms. Vincent,” was the dry reply and the weird blink again. “I would’ve thought you seven had figured it out by now.”
Freddie frowned suddenly. “I know that phrase…it’s from a movie…wasn’t it? A mafia boss or something said that when they were watching a kidnapping victim, if I can remember that scene.”
Again with the blink. “Yes, Ms. Thompson. From the movie ‘Blackbirds Rising’, in fact. The poster is there if you would like to see it.”
Everyone’s eyes were drawn to the poster tacked up above a chest of drawers. It showed a grey stone wall with blood splatters and a symbol in silver spray paint depicting a crudely drawn bird with its wings outstretched above it. In dripping letters announced the title ‘BLACKBIRDS RISING’ and the slogan ‘All Who Come To Naza Leave Dead’. Underneath like any other movie poster proclaimed the actors starring in it:
LIZZIE REID
NATALIE WILSON
GWENDA SHAW
“Yes, I acted in the movie years ago - it’s the one that made me famous, so you can see why I kept the poster,” Gwenda said, waving her hand airily and once more shutting her eyes for more time than necessary.
“You starred as one of the main characters, right?” Adonis asked.
“Lavinia Tempest, one of the heads of the Blackbird Gang and criminal mastermind,” Freddie said in an awed voice. “One of my all-time favourite movies.”
“Perhaps you could get your friends to watch it too,” Gwenda said, though she sounded a little too persuasive. “Did you know that the headquarters were actually based off Ashwood Mansion?”
“Really?! I need to see this whole Mansion now now now let’s go guys-”
“In fact (purely coincidental, interestingly), there used to be a statue of a crow, raven and a magpie in this office last year, but since it was taking up space I had it moved to the Ornithophobia Room.”
Denver coughed smugly.
“So going back to the subject,” Lana began. “How did you-”
“Would you seven like a drink?” Gwenda said pleasantly, walking over to the mini-fridge in the corner and opening it. Lana opened her mouth again.
Then she saw it.
A tiny shake of Gwenda’s head: not now, she was saying silently.
“Luckily I have seven bottles of soda in here,” Gwenda went on meaningfully, but now it seemed more like she was talking to herself - yet the seven knew she was talking to them as she was maintaining eye contact.
Was she giving them some secret message?
Did she want them to pull off some soda heist?
“This office used to be Jon Ashwood’s, you know,” Gwenda remarked, handing them bottles of Coke. “But when I moved in I had them install some more modern appliances. Take this fireplace for instance - completely ancient, almost as old as the Greeks and I don’t even use it. Only during the snowflake season. It’s next to useless, so I’m thinking of having a radiator installed and this taken AWAY.”
She was blinking even more slowly now, but the Phobia Club just stared at her in bewilderment.
If she was talking in code, thought the muddled seven, it’s very confusing.
“Well, I won’t waste more of your time,” Gwenda said, placidly returning to her desk. “Seeing as Dr. Hemlock has found nothing wrong with you seven. If he gave you any medical reports you should read them carefully and let me know if you find anything off. I’ve also noticed that you seven have been staying in the Mansion a lot lately, never going out. Today’s quite sunny outside, why don’t you head out, explore the gardens, take a swim, perhaps check out the maze?”
They didn’t get a chance to say more as Gwenda herded them out the door at once. Besides, they were too stunned to do anything else anyway.
“Oh, and don’t forget to remove the bottles’ labels before recycling,” Gwenda called out before shutting the door.
“I hope you guys understood what she was talking about,” Julian said to the others. “Because my tiny brain couldn’t.”
“Finally, some self-realization,” Freddie said.
***
It is very dangerous to have a bunch of teens sit on the fountain’s bowl if you don’t have a change of clothes, for they will constantly attempt to push each other in or soak everyone else’s pants/skirt.
The Phobia Club were probably going to get a berating from the housekeeper Ms. Cody once they trooped back into the Mansion later.
They were out in the gardens, as per Gwenda’s suggestion, listening to the hissy-splashy of the gushing water and inhaling Emma’s smelly bug repellent, all the while arguing about what to do now.
“We should try and dissect every word Gwenda said,” Adonis said firmly. “I’m pretty sure it’s all codes.”
“But why? Why all the codes? She could just like, I don’t know, pass us a paper?” Denver pointed out.
“Like she said, ‘the walls have ears and the windows eyes’,” Freddie said. “Blowdart Man is probably watching our every move.”
“So this is why we shouldn’t have come out,” Emma argued. “In the room we can at least see if anyone’s spying - here in the garden, they’re like a bazillion hiding places!”
“You just don’t like it here because of the bugs,” Julian said contemptuously.
“And you don’t like the maze either,” Emma shot back.
“Enough, both of you,” Lana ordered. “We need to figure out what the heck Gwenda’s message was.”
“Okay, the quote was probably a warning not to talk to her because someone was watching or whatever,” Denver said.
“A CCTV,” Leo agreed.
“True, next,” Lana said. “She told us to watch the movie. Should we?”
“If there’s no shooting or murder I don’t want to,” Julian declared.
“There’s plenty of killing, don’t’ worry,” Adonis snorted. “Literally all the characters are murderers.”
“It’s kind of a coincidence, isn’t it, Sazana telling us to look for birds, Gwenda Shaw acting in a movie with assassins going under bird code names,” Freddie said dreamily. “But every cop show will tell you there are no coincidences in a mystery, so I suppose we have four options as to what the Birds are now.”
“Why must our life get harder?” Emma moaned.
“No, still three,” Lana corrected. “Gwenda said the statue got moved to teh Ornithophobia Room, so we don’t have to look for it now.”
Freddie suddenly sat up. “She also said that her office used to be Jon Ashwood’s.”
A pause.
Then a loud clap from Lana. “We found out how to get to the secret one then!”
“Now the fireplace,” Adonis said. “Why would she bring that up unless it has something to do with stuff?”
“Maybe we need to burn the Mansion down,” Julian volunteered, then got dunked into the fountain for his terrible humour.
“We’ll figure it out,” Leo said confidently.
“You know, I can’t stop thinking about how Gwenda called winter ‘snowflake season’,” Denver sniggered. “Who even says that?”
“Gwenda Shaw,” Emma said sarcastically.
“‘Snowflake’ must be a clue, then,” Lana surmised. “Did you guys also notice how loudly she said ‘away’?”
“Taking a guess here, but she’s probably just telling us to get out of here while we can like everyone else,” Adonis grumbled.
Emma finished her bottle of coke, absently scratching at the label. “So now, how are we going to get into the Ornithophobia Room?”
“Why not talk about the maze?” Denver asked.
“Because we’re already nearby, stupid.”
“We can ask Heather to guide us,” Julian said hopefully. “So we don’t get lost in a wide open space and never find our way out ever again and die of starvation and no one will ever find out bodies because it’s a wide open space-”
“She’s right there,” Leo interrupted.
“Let’s not attract Flowers’s attention, please and thank you,” Freddie said, sticking her feet into the fountain.
“We’re going into the maze now, so we might as well call her,” Lana decided.
“It’s not like she can hear us from here,” Emma said, rolling her eyes. “Ouch!”
“What? Are you okay? Did you cut yourself? We need to put disinfectant on it before you get bacteria,” Lana immediately flurried.
“No, my nail just hit something hard,” Emma groaned, removing the scratched label from the Coke bottle. Something fell off it and onto the ground. Adonis bent to pick it up but frowned.
“Hit jackpot?” Adonis said, holding it up.
A card.
Specifically, a card that could get them into the Rooms.
***
“You must know everything about this maze,” Lana complimented, walking ahead with Emma to chat with their guide, the ever amiable Heather. Adonis and Julian trailed behind, followed by a sulking Denver, Leo and Freddie.
“Yeah, Ashwood Mansion is kind of my second home,” Heather said brightly. “There isn’t anything I don’t know about the Mansion.”
The three at the back very much doubted she knew where the serum was.
“How old is this maze?” Adonis asked as they took a right.
“Well, I’ll say it was built a couple years after the Mansion,” Heather said, considering. “Quite old, except the part up north and east are new.”
“Oh, really?” Emma said, surprised. “They all look the same, to be honest.”
“Yeah, when Uncle Damon inherited it he expanded the maze,” Heather explained. “The centre used to be the courtyard near the ending.”
“Cool,” Julian said.
“There used to be a bunch of theme-things,” Heather said vaguely, passing by a dead end.
“Tim-things?” Denver repeated.
“Like, the maze had a bunch of decorations according to some theme,” Heather tried to explain. “Now, was it left or right again?”
She chose the right and continued talking. “I remember now. It was supposed to be like the Labyrinth from the Perseus story, so there was a statue of the Minotaur and a bunch of fake traps and everything. Great-Uncle Jon was a big fan of Greek mythology.”
“It was from the Theseus story,” Freddie said, lagging behind. Under her breath she added ‘history idiot’.
“Oh, right, sorry. Great-Uncle Marcus (that’s Uncle Damon’s dad) took them down because it kind of made the maze hard to get out of. But one of the signs are still here somewhere.”
“What do you mean?” Adonis questioned. “What sign?”
“I mean, I don’t think it was in the actual myth, but back then from what I heard Great-Uncle Jon had put up these huge signs randomly all over the maze with stuff in Ancient Greek. Things like ‘all who enter die’ or something, probably.”
“That’s wrong, since at least fourteen people exited the Labyrinth,” Freddie said again. “Theseus and all the other tributes he was with got up with the help of -”
“Fred,” Emma sighed. “No one gives a damn.”
“Oh, it’s fine. I could take you to the sign if you like,” Heather offered, twisting a dainty curl with a slender index finger.
“Yes please,” Lana said cheerfully.
Heather’s mouth twitched. “Just go down that path over there. Come back here if you don’t want to get lost.”
The sign gleamed a golden shine, like the plaques they had found scattered througouty the Trail. Hammered into the metal surface were the lettering:
Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἐποίησεν ὁ θεὸς τὸν οὐρανὸν καὶ τὴν γῆν.
Μάλα ἀνδρεῖος εἶ.
Gwenda’s voice echoed in seven subconciousnesses.
‘-almost as old as the Greeks and I don’t even use it.’
Julian raised his phone to snap a photo of it. Uploading it onto Google Lens, the rest crowded around him as Julian had the words translated with bated breath.
“It’s a quote,” Freddie said delightedly.
“It’s not a Greek one,” Denver huffed.
“Oh, who cares? Someone read it out, I can’t see!” Emma yelled.
“Shorty,” Julian hummed. Emma smacked him.
“’In the end, we’ll all become stories’,” Lana recited. “Quoted from Margaret Atwood.”
“’The end’,” Leo repeated thoughtfully.
***
“Now,” Lana commanded and simultaneously all six of them dropped to their knees – Emma could only keep Heather distracted and away from the maze’s centre for so long.
Six pairs of hands scuttled and skittered under the hedges, touching the grass and turning over every stone. Six pairs of eyes searched for something, anything that could be part of the Trail. A mark, a drawing, a plaque – anything.
Adonis found it first.
Everyone watched. He lifted up the enormous stone and flung it over his shoulder. Denver, Lana, Leo and Freddie’s fingers tore away the moss and plants around it. Soil and leaves went flying, and not just into the air…
Revealing a wooden trap door with a cold, rusted ring attached.
Julian and Adonis grasped their hands on it, rough surface rubbing painfully onto their skin, and yanked up.
Dust and earth billowed around in a sandstorm. Some coughed, some sneezed, but they all peered down into the gloom.
A set of stone stairs trailed down, down, down…