14
12. 6. 22, Saturday, 15:25
There was an escape, and there was the sign.
And because of those there was a fight.
A fight that lasted days, in fact. A fight about what they should do. A fight that split the club into two, boys versus girls. Adonis, Julian, Denver and Leo all insisted that the Trail continued out of the Mansion and into the wood, whereas Lana, Emma and Freddie stood firm on their belief that they should follow whatever the sign meant. What a little thing the sign was, just a scratched ‘X’ and a couple of wavy lines underneath, to cause such a big conundrum.
“Clearly, the knife opened up the compass to give us a way to the wood.”
“Yeah, but there’s a reason the ‘X’ is there!”
“Duh, the ‘X’ is in somewhere in the wood. ‘X’ marks the spot, remember?”
“You’re all idiots. What about the lines below it then, hmm?”
So it went for at least three days before it came to a very violent conclusion.
No, dear reader, ‘violent’ here does not mean what you think it means.
That is to say, on a bright Friday morning at their breakfast deluxe, the Phobia Club not quite but did start a very subtle, passive-aggressive food fight where they would attempt to ‘poison’ the opponents with hated snacks or really throw sprays of crumbs at each other, only to stop short when Denver announced how they should settle this once and for all.
“You know what, I’m tired of getting jam on my elbow. Let’s just see what Yvonne thinks.”
You cannot possibly imagine how foolish all seven felt to realize they could simply have consulted Yvonne’s diary to see if she had any instructions to give after discovering the secret exit out of the house. What they found inside was just as obscure and cryptic as before, but still very much helpful:
Us contestants are allowed to use the pool on weekends, but the majority of us must agree to it. We convinced the rest of the contestants – there goes my pocket money for this week – to get Damon to let us use the facility. It was definitely important, as Sazana said, since everyone was absolutely sure the lines under the ‘X’ behind the compass had something to do with the pool.
I’m not quite sure about that myself – it came with an exit, after all. Maybe we are supposed to find a lake in the wood. Hard to tell.
Then again this resulted in a fight, both sides having a fact from the above extract to back them up. Only after several shouting matches did they flip to the next page.
There really is something in the pool. Sazana was right. Chris says that I’m not entirely wrong either though. What is in the wood?
Which was why, with some bribery and lots of convincing, the entire cast of Room of Fear were fishes in a mosaic-decorated ocean the next day.
***
Dessert had always been a wonderful thing at Ashwood Mansion. It came with every meal, and while it varied on the time of the day rest assured it would always be utterly delicious: puddings, sponge, fruit and cheese cake, chocolate ganache, tarts, cold fruits, waffles, ice cream, milkshakes, pastries, meringue, cupcakes, muffins, assorted sweets, fudge, brownies, pies, pavlovas, mousse…the list went on forever.
And the same could be said for the desserts served for a day at the pool.
“Dang, pina colada,” Freddie whistled tunelessly, grabbing a cup from the tray on the table, with the sign labelling it as ‘Non-Alcoholic’. There, Emma, Lana, Jordan and Queenie were also selecting the coloured and flavoured icy smoothies.
“Pee in the what now?” Julian said, pausing just before he dove in.
“Pina colada, you idiot. A drink.”
“Well, technically p…”
Several chairs away from them, Leo and Glen were wasting their time on futile attempts to get Denver to jump into the pool – at this point even a toe-dip would’ve been acceptable.
“C’mon, it’ll be fun…”
“SHUT UP I’M NOT GOING ANYWHERE NEAR THERE.”
“Bro, just jump in.”
“WOODS, I WILL INTRODUCE YOU TO MY PET CAT IF YOU DON’T STOP.”
In the pool, which had the most people, Adonis was involved in a very wild chase with Ricky and Alex. Great waves of unwanted chlorinated water sprayed everywhere and on whoever was not in yet; Sherry squeaked and squealed at them that a few drops had landed in her cup, disgustingly. Anne-Marie and Tanya yelled at them to stop being so immature; the help shook their heads at the state of today’s youth, but secretly had a tiny smile on their faces.
“Ah, back in my day, Jem, kids would be concerned at the amount of water wasted now.”
“Don’t be silly, Carrie. When we were their age we wasted didn’t have any to waste.”
Everything was all fun and games, even when Adonis and Julian dragged Denver into the pool.
Until someone made the mistake of touching Freddie’s things.
“OY, THIEF, GET YOUR HANDS OFF MY BOOK,” Freddie yelled, snatching back her beloved, worn copy of – oh wait, no, it was the diary. That doubled Freddie’s fury and she stuffed it back into her bag so hard the zip nearly tore.
The girl with thick golden corkscrew curls and the grey pinafore who had performed the crime met her judge’s angry, unblinking gaze with a cool stare. “Well, I’m sorry, but how was I to know it was your book?”
“IT’S RIGHT NEXT TO MY BAG, WHICH CLEARLY HAS MY NAME ON IT, OR ARE YOU BLIND, YOU ABSOLUTE IMBECILE?”
“Why, was that a diary?” The girl blinked her bright turquoise eyes. “And aren’t you tired of not blinking?”
“I don’t blink,” Freddie snarled at a lower decibel, seeing everyone turn their heads to watch the fight. “And yes, that was a diary, a word here which means something you shouldn’t be reading!”
Lana darted over from the refreshments table, Emma climbing out of the pool. While they did reprimand their over reactive friend for being way to loud as they grabbed her shoulders and the bag, it was clear the girl had no supporters, judging by the judgmental looks they were giving her.
“Hi, I’m sorry about my friend here,” Lana said politely. “She tends to overreact, but really you shouldn’t touch what isn’t yours.”
“Imagine if she read it,” Emma muttered.
“I already said I’m sorry,” was the reply that martyr-sounding voice gave.
“Sorry my foot,” Freddie snipped, albeit a bit calmer than before. Or that was what it looked like anyway.
“I’ll be sure not to touch any of your stuff from now on,” she promised sincerely, pleadingly looking at Emma and Lana, who both softened under her apologetic tone.
Unlike their friend who stormed away in a huff to find some honey-flavoured dessert.
“What’s your name?”
“Heather. Heather Ashwood.”
“Cool, you’re related to Damon Ashwood?”
“Oh yes, I’m his niece,” she said proudly. “My parents are away in Spain on honeymoon so I came here. It’s so exciting for the contestants of the show to meet me! I bet it’s really fun and amazing – I would join but my parents said I should let others take the spotlight for once, so I put aside my dreams to do that.”
“I mean, you have to have a phobia to join…”
“I do, of course!” Heather leaned in close to the two of them. “I’m actually very, very afraid of planes. Of course, that’s because one of my aunts died in one.”
“Wait, you can die in planes?!” Lana screamed. “OH NO MY BROTHER AARON IS ON A PLANE RIGHT NOW TO SHANGHAI I GOTTA CALL HIM BEFORE SOMETHING HAPPENS! I KNEW I SHOULD HAVE TOLD HIM-”
“No, no,” Heather hastily explained before Lana could fall into the pool in panic. “She died in a plane crash.”
“EXACTLY WHAT IF HIS PLANE CRASHES!”
“She died because the pilot had a heart attack?”
“Yeah, Lana, there’s really low statistics that Aaron’s pilot would have a heart condition-”
“THAT’S WHAT EVERYONE SAYS, EMMA BARBARA VINCENT, EVERYONE WHO GOES ON A PLANE AND LOOK WHAT HAPPENED THEN!!!”
“Is she always like this?” Heather asked, barely moving her mouth.
“Yeah,” Emma whispered back.
“THERE’S NO INTERNET ON THE PLANE EITHER! I CAN’T TEXT HIM! IF HE DIES, THE LAST THING I TOLD HIM FIVE MINUTES AGO WAS ‘BUY ME COOKIES WHEN I WIN THE SHOW’ BUT HOW CAN HE BUY ME IF HE’S DEAD I DIDN’T EVEN SAY GOODBYE! IF HE DOES DIE I’M NEVER GOING TO FORGIVE MYSELF, I WILL THROW MYSELF INTO THIS POOL TO DROWN – Emma, why do the tiles look familiar?”
Heather and Emma paused in the middle of leaning away from the hysterical girl and looked down. From their high ground from the pool, they could clearly see all the tiles that stretched from either end of the pool.
Although, they found out, the tiles weren’t exactly your typical pool tiles. They weren’t blue, for one. In fact they were all shades of green and brown, reminding Lana and Emma of a picture they had seen at an art gallery with Freddie. Emma mused, “Looks like that map mosaic, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah, that one by Anne Jacks or whatever her name was,” Lana said. “Fred! Get your butt over her for a second!”
“What are you guys talking about?” Heather said curiously.
“Nothing,” they said in unison. Definitely the pool’s tile’s mosaic pattern had nothing to do with the fact the Trail led them here.
“What is it?” Freddie grumbled, popping her head out from the pool.
“Don’t you think the pool’s tiles look like that art we saw at the gallery?”
“Woman, there were hundreds of arts at the gallery. Be specific.”
“The one by Anne Jacks?”
“The one at the annex?” Freddie shook her head, trying to get the water out of her ears.
Emma’s foot, previously dipped in the pool, now came flying out and poked Freddie. “The one by Anne Jacks! The mosaic thing.”
“Anouska Jacques the French artist – give her some respect. Yeah, I remember that.”
“Don’t you think,” Lana slid into the pool and bobbed next to Freddie so the very confused Heather wouldn’t hear her. “That the tiles look like the wood, the way Anouska’s looked like a forest’s clearing?” She looked at her meaningfully.
“Maybe. One way to find out.”
***
The Phobia club, with the newly informed club, pored over the Polaroid photo after dinner in the very lavish library of Ashwood Mansion in the hopes of getting something interesting out of it.
They, however, had been unable to get rid of Heather, who was lingering around in the library, humming to herself while sorting the shelves with one of the butlers. If it just had been the butler they wouldn’t have cared – the help rarely paid attention to you unless you require their service – but now that Heather was here, it made them doubly suspicious, therefore they covered up any suspicious activity under the pretence of reading several thick and boring encyclopaedias, albeit upside down ones.
Not that they had anything against Heather, most of them anyway. Her charming and bubbly personality made it impossible to not like her, and her looks did add a certain appeal of friendliness. But everyone had faults, and hers…was being a tad too nosy.
Which was why no one wanted her to see the incriminating photo: a shot of the pool from above. A pool…that under closer scrutiny, turned out to have a hidden map…
“Ugh, the sun’s too bright,” Adonis said grumpily. “I can’t see a damned thing properly in the photo.”
“Use the magnifying glass then,” Denver retorted.
“I’m using it,” Emma said peevishly.
“There’s two – where’s the other one?”
“It broke on the way here.”
“Stupid idiot.”
“Okay so,” Lana said. “Assume the green parts are the wood that doesn’t have any paths. Wow, whoever designed this is really good, I can even see the tree’s shadows.”
“Then the brown snaky things are paths,” Julian said.
“Damon didn’t mention anything about the wood, did he?” Leo asked.
“No, but the head butler said we’re prohibited from going there unless accompanied by an authorised someone,” Freddie replied.
“Which is why we have the secret exit,” Lana said. “This white corner here, I think that’s’ the house.”
“There’s a path if we cut through the trees a bit,” Adonis suggested.
“But who knows what forsaken bugs are there?” Emma said sharply. “Wait, I meant animals. Yeah, bears and who knows what else.”
“We’ll figure it out,” Freddie said dismissively. “Besides, if there were bears here, don’t you think we would’ve heard about them?”
Leo put his finger on the path that Adonis has mentioned, moving it upwards on the tiny photo. “We’ll have to cut through several patches of wood that no one went through.”
“Not no one,” Denver corrected. “The mapmaker.”
“Remember the signs behind the compass?” Lana said. “The waves were supposed to mean the pool, so we could find this map, I’m sure of it. The ‘X’…”
“Marks the spot,” Freddie finished. “Yeah, I think whatever we’re looking for in the wood will be marked with that on the map. Too bad Yvonne’s diary isn’t any help – I read it, but it looks like someone tore out those pages.”
“What?”
“You can’t be serious.”
“I am, even more serious than the star. I think someone else knows about the diary – ahem, Flowers over there – but there’s always the chance Yvonne ripped them out herself.”
“I have an idea,” Denver suddenly said.
“What?” Lana asked.
“It’s going to take a long time, but we can find Yvonne’s email or phone number if we hunt hard enough on the Internet – I’d never thought paparazzi would be useful before. We could ask her about it.”
“If she hasn’t disappeared like some of them,” Julian said darkly.
“It’s worth a shot,” Lana said optimistically. “We could try contacting others too!”
“We’ll think more about that later,” Adonis said. “We have to find that ‘X’.”
Emma held the magnifying glass as close as she could to the photograph. “There’s no ‘X’, but…the path ends here.”
“There has to be an ‘X’!”
“See for yourself.”
“If there’s no ‘X’,” Adonis said firmly. “We’ll just have to go into the wood and find it ourselves.”