‘Murder is not fun.’
‘And neither is failure, Miss Jones. I hope you will remember that.’
Chapter 4: The Riddle
The Magician walked over to the door and picked up his bag. He crossed the threshold into the corridor and began to pull the door to.
‘It is time. I wish you good luck, Miss Jones. Let The Game begin!’ He shut the door firmly behind him, and Mac was left with the sound of a key turning in its lock which echoed around the room.
For a few minutes she was too stunned to move; her mind was completely devoid of anything. Then all at once, she was up at the table looking at the resources she had in front of her.
There was the mobile phone The Magician had spoken about. She put that straight into her pocket. Then she noticed the small hand bag she had been carrying - when was it? -whenever The Magician must have kidnapped her. It had been emptied and all the contents placed on the table, that was except for her personal mobile phone. That was missing, presumed confiscated.
She returned the brown lipstick to her bag, along with an emery board, her purse (which she checked was still full of her money and cards, not to mention a photo of her family and boyfriend Crab), a pen and notebook, as well as a few other miscellaneous items.
The one item that stood out to her was her pendulum; she took it out of its protective pouch and held it close to her. It was fashioned out of lapis-lazuli, cone-like in shape and attached to a sterling silver chain, at the end of which was a small amethyst sphere. At least I have you, she whispered to it, though at the same time she cursed herself for not packing one of her tarot decks in her bag before she left the house. It was not like her, and today, the one day that she needed them, she didn’t have them to hand. She slipped it back into its pouch and placed it in her handbag.
Next she picked up her car keys which were also lying on the table. She placed them in her other pocket but wondered whether she would actually need a car, and if she did, could she use it. She didn’t know if she was expected to leave the room, let alone drive to a different location, and car itself wasn’t actually on the table.
The only things left were an envelope that had “Miss Jones” scrawled across the front in an archaic, spidery script, and a folded up map. Mac opened the envelope and pulled out a few folded sheets of expensive notepaper. The first sheet was a letter signed by The Magician, that Mac proceeded to read:
Ma Cherie. The Game has begun, and the clock is ticking. Enclosed with this letter you will find a riddle that you must solve. If you fail in this task, someone dear to you will die, as will you. As you progress along the challenge, not only will you find clues to help you save this soul from the arms of death, you will find clues as to the identity of the one who shall perish should you not complete The Game in the allotted time. I am watching you. Good luck.
The Magician
As Mac read the words left to her by her kidnapper, tears began to form in her eyes. She willed herself not to cry for there wasn’t the time, but it was too much. Why was this happening to her? What right did this madman have to make her play such a sick game? She banged her hand on the table in front of her out of sheer frustration but it seemed to clear her head of any emotions that would cloud her judgement. She looked at the second sheet of paper, and found on it the riddle that The Magician had mentioned:
The ground is my roof now
I live in a house of wood
The Earth Spirits embrace me
I’ll soon be gone for good.
As she looked at the words written in the spidery hand, she knew at once the meaning of The Game: to find the loved one whom The Magician had buried alive somewhere. The room spun as images she did not wish to see swam before her eyes. She held on to the table for support, took a deep breath and felt herself steady.
She looked once more at the riddle, looking for the clues that The Magician had alluded to, but if they were there she could not seem them. Instead of panicking, she moved on.
I have been given the map for a reason. She picked it up and opened it out. It showed an area, ten miles square, depicting nothing more than countryside, forests and small villages. Somewhere in here is someone I love, waiting for me to come and save them.
The detail on the map wasn’t that great, but she was thankful for her pendulum. It would definitely come in useful for the task that was ahead of her. She folded the map into quarters, pressing heavily along each fold, before opening it up again and spreading it out on the table. Then she reached into her handbag and retrieved her pendulum.
The first thing she did was test her “yes” and “no” responses. She held out her left hand and asked to see the response for “yes”. When she was satisfied, she swapped hands. Suspending the pendulum over her right hand, she asked to see the response for “no”. All other movements of the pendulum did not matter; they implied that there was no definite answer to the question.
She took in a depth breath to calm herself and then held the pendulum over each quarter of the map in turn. She asked one question: is the one which I seek, the one that the riddle speaks of, hidden within this quadrant? She checked each quarter of the map, receiving one “yes” response and three “no’s” from the pendulum, which was a good clear sign.
Mac then gathered up everything that was left on the table, the map, the letter and riddle included, and stuffed them in her handbag. She had narrowed down the search area by three quarters, and hadn’t even left the room yet. Surely that had to be considered a good start?
Chapter 5: Getting Out
Mac ran over to the door, before remembering it was locked.
‘Damn!’ How I am I supposed to get out of here? She looked around the room; it was the first time she had properly studied it, but it did no good. There were no other doorways or windows.
She began pacing the floor, running through her predicament aloud. ‘If I have been given things that suggest I need to be outside, then there must be a way out of here.’ She pulled on the door handle, angry that she couldn’t see an immediate answer to the problem before her and so was astonished when the door gave way and she ended up on the floor looking back up at it. The door had never been locked; it only sounded like The Magician had locked it.
‘Well, that was a surprise.’ She stood up and dusted herself down, before opening the heavy wooden door as wide as it would go. The corridor outside the room she had been held in was poorly lit, but at least it wasn’t pitch black. She took a few tentative steps out into the hallway, looking down one wall, across the floor and back up the other as she slowly moved.
The end of the corridor joined another one, just as dimly lit, creating a t-junction. Which way, left or right? Mac wondered to herself. There was nothing around her that she could see to suggest which one was the right way. She could of course, go one way and if it led to a dead end simply turn back round. The problem was there wasn’t enough time and there was the added possibility of getting lost.
She turned instead to her trusty pendulum, and went through the same motions as earlier to test its responses. When these were clarified she stepped into the new corridor and took a few paces either way, facing the new direction.
‘Is this the way that will lead me out?’ she asked. She was given one positive and one negative response, and followed the advice from the pendulum accordingly. There were no turnings off the corridor and again, when it ended, it formed another crossroads. However, when she stepped into this one, she could in fact see a short flight of stairs that appeared to be illuminated from where she was standing.
‘Daylight!’ she whispered, and moved towards it. She climbed the few steps and opened the door at the top, and this time she found herself outside, breathing in fresh air.
Mac looked around her; there was nothing here but a few trees and a dusty track that led away from the old building she had been kept in. Sitting on the track was her beloved Volkswagen Beetle. She made her way over to the c
ar, but began starting to question how easy things had been so far. She pulled the phone out of the pocket, and accessed the address book. There was only one number stored in it, under the name The Magician. She rang the number.
‘You are doing so well, Miss Jones, I must say. The others were completely fooled by my door-locking illusion.’
‘I don’t have time for a casual chit-chat. Can I drive the car or not?’
‘Yes. And Miss Jones?’
‘What?’
‘You have two and a half hours left.’ Then the phone went dead.
Mac jumped into the Beetle and pulled the map and envelope out from her bag. She gave the riddle another cursory glance, but nothing new struck her. Focusing on the map, she then began to plan her route to the correct the area, when she cursed her own stupidity. She had no idea where she was. She dumped her bag and the map on the chair next to her while she commanded herself to think, think, think. In the end she only came up with one solution. She was going to have to drive and find a signpost. At least in the UK, one thing we have a lot of is road signs.
She dug out her car key from her pocket and turned it in the ignition. Then very carefully she began to drive along the bumpy dirt track. Luckily it was not very long, perhaps half a mile or so. It brought her out on to a country lane. However, to leave the track she had to get out and open a gate.
As if it was signifying someone’s birthday, one red balloon had been tied with string to the gate post. At the end of the string was another envelope, addressed in the same spidery script to “Miss Jones”. Once the gate was open, Mac grabbed the letter and dashed back to the car to open it.
It contained another set of instructions:
At the Inn of the Black Horse
A present for you behind the bar
Give your name to the landlord
Then return to your car.
There was nothing to say where the Black Horse was so as she had determined earlier she was just going to have to drive. Even if she came across anyone, she couldn’t ask them for directions or even a location for fear that The Magician would shoot her, and also thereby condemn her unknown loved one.
Mac started up the car again, and pulled out into the lane, opting to take the right-hand turn. After a few minutes panic started to set in. He had said there were only two and a half hours left; how much time am I going to need to do this? Do I even have enough time?
Minutes passed and no sign materialised. She began to question her decision, when she came upon another junction, with signposts. Three miles to Market Higham, One mile to Higham Castle; do I take the shortest or longest? The Magician would expect me to head to Higham Castle, especially if I am in a panic about the time ticking away, it makes sense. She took the turning for Higham Market.
Chapter 6: The Inn of the Black Horse
Even though the signpost to Market Higham said three miles, it felt much longer. The winding country roads prevented Andromache from getting up any speed in the car for fear of running into the back of a tractor or some such vehicle going around one of the many blind corners.
The longer The Game went on, the more frayed her nerves became. She wondered how The Magician could always be watching her, and why he felt the need to. Was it from fear that she would cheat or was it from the sheer enjoyment of the entertainment? She was feeling self-conscious being under constant scrutiny, for she believed every word he said. The risks were too great to think otherwise.
Eventually a sign on the village limit revealed that Mac was now entering Market Higham. She slowed down to see if she could see whether the village had its own pub. Again panic rose in her stomach as the buildings started thinning and the village ended.
Cursing herself for not heading towards Higham Castle, she started to look for a place to turn, but there was nowhere that her Beetle could cope with. All she could do was carry on and follow the road that led to nowhere as the seconds and minutes slipped away from her.
However, fortune must have been smiling on Mac, for soon she spotted a sign swinging from a standalone post at the roads edge indicating that here was The Black Horse Inn. If she had turned around when she had intended to, she would never have reached it.
Mac parked the car in the empty car park. She only now realised she had no idea what time of day it was, and she prayed that the pub was open. She exited the car and headed over to the main entrance. She pushed on one side of the swinging double doors, and it allowed her through. She sighed in relief.
She now found herself in the bar of an old coaching inn, characterised by the dim lighting and the open fire place surrounded by copper kettles of various sizes and old horse brasses. Much to her concern, the bar was empty.
‘Hello?’ she called out. It made her feel embarrassed as she didn’t like being loud, but what else could she do? ‘Hello?’ she tried again, but no one responded to her. It reminded her of a Walter De La Mare poem, The Listeners. The lines “tell them I came and no one answered, that I kept my word, he said,” seemed awfully fitting.
Mac approached the door that had “private” written across it in large letters etched on a brass plate. She pushed it open; there was a tiny corridor that led to another door around the corner.
‘Hello?’ she called again, just as a man of about sixty walked through the other door.
‘It does say private on the door, doesn’t it?’ His manner was sharper than she expected.
‘Oh, sorry about that. I called out a few times but no one responded. I don’t want to come across as impatient but I’m in a bit of hurry,’ she replied lightly, hoping to appear friendly, but deep down she knew this was wasting time.
‘Are you here to collect a package someone left for you behind the bar?’
‘Andromache Jones, that’s me.’
‘Come back through to the bar and I will get it for you.’
They took the few steps back into the bar, where he retrieved The Magician’s package. ‘Here you go. Can I get you anything to drink?’
‘Sorry, I am just passing through. I only have time to stop and pick this up.’ Mac thanked the landlord and swiftly departed The Black Horse Inn.
When she was back in the safety of the car she tore open the package. In it was an old-looking key wrapped in another letter.
Do not lose this key I give you
For there is only one
Now start again for which you seek
Lest out of time you run
Although The Magician had cautioned Mac not to lose the key, there was nothing in the letter that would help her on to the next stage of her journey. She picked up the phone.
‘How long do I have left?’
‘Hello, Miss Jones. Perhaps we could employ the use of our manners while we chat? I don’t know what your mother or even what your grandmother would say if they knew how you were speaking to me.’
‘You don’t know my family.’
‘Miss Jones, I know a lot more about you and your family than you give me credit for. Crabtree Simpson’s career is doing well thanks to his gifted girlfriend. Oh that’s you, isn’t it? You would be surprised - or perhaps you wouldn’t? - to learn what his colleagues think of him and the way he uses you to climb the career ladder. Do you ever wonder if you were to lose these precious gifts you possess, would he still be with you? Or are you convinced that what you have is love?’
Tears started to form in Mac’s eyes; she swallowed hard. There was nothing she wanted more in the world at that moment than to fall into Crab’s arms and forget this ordeal. ‘You have made your point.’
‘Please don’t think that I want to upset you or distract you, Miss Jones. I have the utmost respect for you and you deserve more than a leech for a boyfriend. Now shall we change the subject?’
‘Please do.’
‘How are you finding my little game? Challenging?’
‘I suppose so.’
‘You suppose?’
‘You expe
ct me to drive around the countryside in the hope that I am just going to stumble across your clues.’
‘You put that pendulum to good use back at the lair.’
‘I don’t have time to ask the pendulum to help me with every decision I need to make. It takes too much out of me and you didn’t exactly provide me with enough time to recover.’
‘Noted, but as I explained earlier, I don’t understand all the processes involved. It was not intentional. I will remember that for next time?’
‘Next time?’
‘A little joke, Miss Jones, a little joke. Now you had a question for me?’
‘How long do I have left?’
‘Two hours and counting.’
Chapter 7: Tick-Tock
Mac pulled out of The Black Horse Inn’s car park and continued on the road heading away from Market Higham. She was at a loss as to what she was supposed to be looking for. The panic she had felt earlier quickly changed to numbness. She was beginning to think that it was The Magician’s plan all along to see her fail.
Then she thought she saw something strange in a field to side of the road. When she found a place to pull over, she got out and ran back to the field, covering a distance of about a quarter of mile. She walked over to the gate and peered in. Half way up, in the middle of the farmer’s crop, appeared to be a red balloon.
Her intuition hitherto had been spot on. She had been guided to take the right roads and turnings, and led to the balloons that she could so easily have missed. She sent up a silent prayer thanking the Lady and hoping that neither she, nor her intuition, would desert her just yet.
Mac climbed up and over the fence, careful not to do herself an injury, and then broke out into a run between the rows of plants. She pulled up sharp, breathing hard when she reached the balloon, which was tethered to the spot by a heavy stone. Mac picked up the rock and found hiding beneath it another envelope, which she quickly opened.
Sacrificed was she to the Huntress