41 – Planning Semi-Secretly
The three friends were so happy to be together again that the minutes slipped by them, out into the fields and forests beyond. As they plodded around, picking at stones with sticks and chatting, they didn’t notice a familiar stranger spying on them through a crack in the wall.
“Guys, there’s something else that’s been bothering me.” Marion returned the ambling conversation to a more serious vein, “The looks of some of the people in that room.”
“The school leaders?”
“Yeah. I can’t put my finger on it, but it seems like someone knows what’s up.”
Savannah gave a shudder.
“The one, he was watching me like he would report what I said to someone else,” continued Marion. “That’s why I didn’t want to say everything I knew.”
Ray sprang up from his seat on a boulder, “And someone was spying on me, too, when I was in class!”
Savannah desired nothing more than to rid herself of the whole thing, “Guys, this is way over our heads. We can’t deal with people inside this school who already want to get us, and you think we can just sidestep them to go rescue Master Archidemus?”
The boys looked at each other with bruised egos.
Savannah ranted on, “Before we do anything, I’m gonna talk to some of the leaders. The one with the friendly face like you said, Marion, or maybe someone higher up. If we can’t protect ourselves within our own school, there will be nowhere safe for us or anyone else to live.”
“Okay, okay.” Marion began to see Savannah’s point. “Maybe we should get a handle on things here before we plan anything bigger. But we don’t have much time. Master Archidemus may already be dead. Remember that. You check with Friendly Face and we’ll meet back here tomorrow, same time.”
The familiar stranger snuck away.
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42 – A Misstep
The next morning between classes, Savannah searched for Friendly Face’s office. “Friendly Face, Friendly Face, where are you?”
Elders’ Hall gave Savannah the creeps. She wondered why they didn’t simply name it “The Haunted House.” Wooden panels three times her height stretched from the floor to the ceiling, where they collected cobwebs. A few of the gas lights here and there still operated…good thing, too, because sunlight struggled to get in.
As Savannah approached what she believed to be the right door, she heard yelling and something slam, then talking resumed at a more normal level. She turned the handle on the door and pushed it slightly open. Maybe it was just an argument between two teachers?
From her position at the first door, Savannah could see a second, interior door. The voices seemed to be coming from within that room. Feeling a little scared, yet wanting her plan to prevail over Marion’s, she got up her gumption and walked slowly across the room to the second door.
Just before she knocked, Savannah snuck a glance inside the room; what she saw sent goose bumps over her skin: A wiry figure in a black trench coat held the collar of Friendly Face in a tight grip. Friendly Face didn’t look so friendly at the moment, more like petrified. “What happened to Archidemus can just as easily happen to you,” he rasped.
More scared than she’d ever been before, Savannah instinctually backed away from the second door. As she did so, her heel caught the foot of a desk causing her to fall backwards! A short scream escaped her lips before she stopped it.
“What was that?! Who’s here?!”
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43 – A Curly Mop Of Blonde Hair
Savannah scrambled to her feet and tore out of the room. The corridors she arrived through seemed longer on the way out. Running. Where’s the exit? Where’s the sunlight? Running! Her mind begged for help from anyone, anywhere. That wiry, evil man must be drifting after her like a ghost, she imagined. Running. Running. Running.
Savannah nearly broke the hall’s front doors off their hinges. Her curly mop of blonde hair bobbed a few times on the staircase before she mixed in with dozens of other students on the main sidewalk. That wretched man watched her from above with dismay and then delight. Thank goodness she didn’t dare look back or he might have seen her face.
Certain that no one followed her, Savannah proceeded to her next class. At least there the people could be trusted… or could they? Savannah realized she didn’t know who she could trust anymore.
But then, she envisioned Marion and Ray’s faces and her heartbeat slowed. If she could just focus on getting to them, she would be okay.
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44 – Prints
The next day Savannah awoke to the sound of a downpour. There was little that could have made her want to get out of bed, but she was supposed to meet Marion and Ray. Would they still go on a day like this? She tried to contact them with a cardcall, but there was no reply. Those two idiots, she thought, they’re probably sitting out there in the rain, waiting, not answering any communications for fear someone will be listening. Savannah got dressed, pulled on her boots, and grabbed her umbrella.
Approaching the wall, Savannah called out, but heard nothing, save the pounding of rain pellets. Great! I came all this way for no reason.
Stepping through the hole, the first thing Savannah saw was Marion and Ray bound, gagged, and blindfolded, lying on the ground. The second thing she saw was chubby, grubby, blood-caked hands cover her mouth and face. She fought and kicked; there were a few muffled screams; she was tied up just the same. At last, the three of them were hauled off.
Footprints, and the bodyprints of the boys, collected rain into sordid puddles, puddles which would tell an appalling story to anyone who could read them. But who would chance upon that secret meeting place of three young students?
No one.
Not on a day like this.
Not with the rain.
[] [] [] []
45 – The Stowaway
The goons treated Marion, Ray, and Savannah like so much cargo, throwing them into the back of a truck. The cold, wet metal chilled them to the bone. There, the three friends’ only comfort was to feel their bodies resting against one another. They couldn’t see or speak.
The situation seemed hopeless. Yet sometimes fate sows the seeds of hope in unlikely places, beyond our comprehension.
Pulling away from the Academy wall, the truck picked up another passenger quite unbeknownst to the drivers. The stowaway leapt from the wall to the top of the vehicle. He slid –just a little- because everything was wet, but he didn’t make a sound.
He had to hold on for quite a while, too, in the rain, as the truck took a long and disorientating path back to where it came from, but he did it. Apparently, he had set his mind to accomplish something, and not a thing in the world could stand in his way.
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46 – Captives
The truck entered a nondescript warehouse, one of dozens in the city. The goons transferred their captives to a bare room, locked the door, and left. Marion and the others started focusing on how to untie themselves in the darkness of the hold.
Eventually they succeeded, but then there was apparently no way to get out. They tried telecarding, but it didn’t work no matter how hard they tried. Ultimately, the attempts destroyed some of their cards and they had no idea why.
The floor was seemingly made of a single piece of metal; the door, sealed like a safe. On Ray’s shoulders, Marion found that he couldn’t reach the ceiling or even see it. Savannah tried to cardcast flame to no avail.
Demoralized and tired, they sat side by side. What would they do when the goons came back? Or somebody even worse?
[] [] [] []
47 – A Rescue?
It was hard to judge, but what seemed like a few hours later, a grating sound of metal came from the ceiling of the cell and a rope tumbled down into the group. “Who’s that?!” Savannah whispered with urgency.
“It wouldn’t be one of those goons?” Ray answered with a question. Even so, the three tensed for another battle.
The familiar stranger spiraled down the rope smoothly like a ninja, dropping into a crouch.
“Who are you?” Marion demanded, trying to inspire confidence in his friends.
No answer was forthcoming.
They heard a card snap out of a deck and a flash of light filled the room before condensing into a steadily glowing fireball. “Flamecast!” Savannah noted gleefully.
Now, they could see a mask and actively searching eyes, which told of escape.
“You must be a cardlanger of some sort, if you can do that.” (Marion could at least try to inspire confidence in himself.)
“You’re the guy I saw outside my classroom!” Ray realized. The three traded glances as if to say, “Is this good or bad?”
Still holding the light, the familiar stranger motioned for the three to climb the rope. What choice did they have? One after the other, they disappeared into the ceiling followed by their rescuer, who extinguished the flame, climbed the rope, pulled it up, and replaced the tile.
[] [] [] []
48 – The Escape
The familiar stranger reignited a smaller, flickering spark. Squeezing through the infrastructure of the ceiling and roof, he led the others. His silence convinced them it was necessary to keep theirs.
Claustrophobia set in. As the group proceeded, the ductwork gradually narrowed. At one point, they needed to ascend by keeping their backs on one wall, their feet on the opposing wall, and pushing. Savannah didn’t think she could make it and yelped as she slipped, for which the others shushed her. Luckily, she regained her composure and held her position.
Reaching the top, the familiar stranger attached the rope again and dropped it, to the relief of the younger three. Having the rope aided them in the final stages of their climb.
Exiting the duct onto the roof, a most unwelcomed sound met the groups’ ears: an alarm; it pierced the silence and made their hair stand on end. Their escape from the room was discovered!
[] [] [] []
49 – Telecarding Well
For the first time, the familiar stranger spoke, “You know how to telecard, don’t you?”
Everybody nodded. “Yeah.”
“Then, go back to the Academy.”
“You’re not coming with us?”
“To telecard well, you’ll need to focus. I’ll distract the goons and meet you back at the Academy another day.”
Again, the three friends tried to communicate with sideways glances. Since they didn’t know if they could fully trust this guy anyway, they decided separating was fine with them. “But our Academy cards are damaged!” they remembered.
“I thought that might happen. I brought more. Here. Now, get going!”
Goons flooded out of a rooftop door and that’s when the familiar stranger took off, letting the goons see him quite easily. Several of those foolish monsters chased after him immediately. Marion, Ray, and Savannah ran around the corner of a large shed and chucked their cards under their feet. Some of the goons noticed this, however, and went around both sides of the shed to encircle them.
And when the goons came around the shed, they stood face to face – with other goons.
[] [] [] []
50 – Another Day With Tony Goodwin
Marion, Ray, and Savannah soaked up a few days of downtime. Things had been too crazy lately. They seriously needed to reflect on what they were doing. If they hadn’t been rescued so quickly by the familiar stranger, they might have been killed. Who knew where they would’ve ended up!
As it was, they thankfully were still alive and no one had noticed their disappearance. What if the teachers or some of the school leaders –who they did not trust at this point- found out? The three friends mulled over these things on a bench by an old willow tree, when the familiar stranger reentered their lives.
“You got away from them!” Marion greeted the young man ecstatically. He loved seeing someone dare to outsmart the goons in a street chase like he did.
“I always get away from them.” bragged the familiar stranger.
“What’s your name?” asked Ray. “It’s not right that the narrator keeps calling you the familiar stranger at this point.”
“I’m Tony Goodwin.”
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