Spirits and Spells (3 page)

The five players all began talking at the same time. Finally Jenny stood to make herself heard above the chaos. “You have got to be kidding, Travis! I am not going to go wandering around this place looking for some piece of junk.”

“Wait a minute. Wait a minute!” yelled Travis. “Jenny, I put you and Derek together when I set this up, because I knew you'd be nervous.”

“I think it's a fantastic idea,” said Denise as Jenny sat down again. “Come on, you guys. Where's your sense of adventure? That's what gaming is all about. This is just one step closer to making it real. Travis went to a lot of trouble. Let's give it a try.”

“I'm willing,” said Derek.

“Sounds good to me,” said Matt.

“Tansy?” Travis looked at her anxiously. Tansy knew that if she took Jenny's side, it would probably end things. She bit her lip. She didn't really want to go wandering around this old place any more than Jenny did. But if she refused, it would hurt Travis's feelings. In fact, they would probably have a colossal fight if she let him down now.

“I'm in,” she said, trying to mask her reluctance with a lightness of voice.

Travis smiled at her, and she was suddenly glad she had gone along with the idea.

“Okay, here's how it works. I'll give you guys clues, and you have to figure out where the objects of power are hidden. It's just like playing on paper, except that you actually go look. If you have questions, you'll have to come back here to ask me. But I tried to leave some extra clues around to help you out.”

“Oh, and one more thing.” Travis gave them a sly grin. “The treasures are guarded.”

“What's
that
supposed to mean?” asked Matt.

“It's just like any game,” said Travis casually. “Treasures are always protected by something or other.”

“Travis, what are you up to?” demanded Derek.

“Trying to set up some fun!” said Travis. His voice sounded hurt. “Do you want to play or not?”

The players eyed him suspiciously. A sense of uneasiness seemed to fill the room. Jenny reached out to touch Derek's shoulder.

But no one got up to leave.

“All right, here are your assignments,” said Travis. “First Theoni. Theoni? Hey, Theoni—are you there?”

With a start, Tansy remembered that Theoni was her name for the evening.

“You will be seeking the ring,” said Travis. “Here is your clue:

“
Closest to heaven, farthest from help
,

The wizard's ring lies hidden.

You'll need its power to escape
,

So to find it now you're bidden

Face what life has left behind;

Fear not what seems forbidden
.”

Tansy copied the clue carefully into her notepad.

“Denise, you'll be looking for the rod,” continued Travis.

“Call me Niana. And what do you mean by a rod?”

“It's kind of like a magic wand, only bigger,” said Travis.

He gave the others their assignments, all of which were in rhyme. A moment of silence followed as the players concentrated on working out the meaning of their clues.

Tansy read her clue over several times. The first line had struck her when Travis was reading it aloud. “Closest to heaven” could mean the ring was somehow near goodness. Perhaps it was hidden in a family Bible. But then why would it be “farthest from help?” That didn't make any sense.

“Closest to heaven” could also mean “high in the sky.” Well, in the Gulbrandsen place, the spot closest to heaven was the attic.

Of course! That would take her farthest from help, and it fit perfectly with the line about “Face what life has left behind.” The attic would undoubtedly be filled with the leavings of a lifetime, all the things the Gulbrandsens had collected but never used.

It would probably be very spooky, too.

Tansy frowned. She heard a chair scrape and saw Derek and Jenny get up and head into the hallway. Together. She felt a slight pang. She wished she didn't have to do this on her own.

She glanced at Denise. The dark-haired girl was examining the paper where she had written her own clue. Her brow was wrinkled in concentration, but she didn't show the slightest sign of fear.

Tansy set her jaw. If Denise could do it, so could she. But that dippy Derek had better not try anything funny. She was feeling skittish enough as it was.

Picking up her flashlight, she said, “Well, I'll see you in a little while, Travis. I hope.”

“Call me Karno,” said Travis. Then he smiled and added, “Good luck, Theoni. Holler if you need me.”

She stopped. Narrowing her eyes, she asked, “Are you
expecting
me to holler?”

Travis looked so genuinely innocent she was almost sorry to have been so suspicious.

“No! I was just trying to be nice. See what it gets me?”

“I'm sorry, Travis.
Karno!
I guess I'm kind of nervous.”

“Well, that's part of the fun.”

“Yeah,” said Tansy. “Fun.”

She walked out of the library.

The hall was long and dark. She shone the light first to her left, then to her right, where she spotted a stairway. She started toward it.

Another crack of thunder made her jump, and for a moment she considered turning back.

“Come on, Theoni—get a grip,” she whispered to herself. She grimaced. If she didn't watch it, she'd end up standing here all night, arguing with herself.

She headed up the stairs.

The third floor of the Gulbrandsen house was quiet and still. The hall was uncarpeted, and dust lay thick over everything. She wondered how to get to the attic. Shining her flashlight down the hall, she caught her breath. Footprints! Then she realized they had to be Travis's, and relaxed.

Well, this would make things easy. All she had to do was follow them. She wondered if he had been careless enough to leave tracks all the way to the ring. Maybe he had swept up after himself farther along to obliterate them. Or maybe not. Tidiness had never been his specialty.

Feeling smug, Tansy followed the footprints along the hall. Aha! Here was the stairway to the attic.

She sighed. The footprints stopped. The steps had been swept clean. She was going to have to work a little harder than she had thought.

She played her flashlight beam up the stairs. At the top was a door, held shut with an old-fashioned latch.

Tansy took a deep breath and started up the stairs.

4

THE DEPTHS

Derek and Jenny stood at the top of the main stairway, the curving one they had first climbed from the foyer. They watched as Tansy moved to the other end of the hall and disappeared up the next flight of stairs.

Jenny shivered. “I don't know how she can do it.”

“Do what?”

“Go looking for that ring on her own. I'd be petrified.”

“That's why you're with me,” said Derek with a smirk.

“And I'm still petrified.” She aimed her flashlight down the stairs and shuddered.

“Come on, Jen—I'll be right beside you all the time.”

“Why do you think I'm so scared!”

Derek scowled. “Thanks a lot!”

“Oh, Derek—you know I'm kidding. But I still don't like it here.”

“Look, Travis assigned us together to keep you from getting into a panic. What more do you want?”

“To go home.”

“Forget it. We're playing out the game.”

She sighed. “All right, O fearless one—what do we do next?”

“Did you write down the clue?”

Jenny flipped her golden hair over her shoulder. “Of course!”

She took out her pad and read:

“
Mighty powers has the sword

That once was stolen from dragon's hoard;

Stolen once, now lost again
,

Hidden from the eyes of men
,

It's guarded by the earth—and more.

Seek it now to earn your score
.”

She frowned. “What's all that supposed to mean?”

“Well, it's pretty clear we have to find a sword—a magical sword, which makes sense, considering the game. It was held by a dragon for a long time, then someone stole it from the dragon. Now it's been hidden again, ‘deep from the eyes of men.'” Derek smiled. “Heck, this is almost too easy. It has to be in the cellar.”

“In the
cellar
? Oh, Derek, I don't think I want to go into the cellar of this place. Besides, what does that line about ‘guarded by the earth—and more' mean?”

“That just reinforces that the sword is hidden in the cellar. Cellar—guarded by the earth. Get it?”

Jenny frowned. “I'm not stupid, Derek. I got the part about the earth. It's the ‘and more' that has me worried.”

Derek paused. “Hmmmm. That's a good point. Travis may have a little surprise planned for us. I wonder if he's planted some friends down there to try to give us a scare.”

Jenny stopped in her tracks. “God, I hope not.”

“Oh, I do,” said Derek eagerly. “Two can play at that game, you know.” He grabbed Jenny's hand and pulled her after him. “Come on. We've got to find the cellar door.”

They continued down the stairs together, their flashlights cutting a path through the gloom. When they reached the bottom, Jenny swung her beam around the spacious foyer. “Which way now?” she whispered.

“Let's try over there,” said Derek, pointing to their left. “Looks like a pretty big room.”

As they passed through the door, Jenny again played her light around the room.

Derek let out a low whistle. “Did I say big? This place is like a cavern!”

At the far end of the room loomed a huge fireplace. Its chimney, made of gray stone, took up half the wall. The wall to their right, the front wall of the house, had a row of windows masked by dark floor-to-ceiling draperies, thick and heavy. Ghostly, misshapen forms were scattered across the room—the furniture, covered by protective sheets.

“No cellar door here,” said Derek after Jenny had played her beam across all four walls. “Just that arch in the back wall.”

Moving slowly, they threaded their way among the shrouded pieces of furniture. The arch led into a dining room. A long table stretched before them. Several large paintings hung on the walls.

To the left was another door.

It led to a vast, gloomy kitchen.

“I'll bet the cellar door is in here somewhere,” said Jenny, getting caught up in the search in spite of herself. “It would make sense, in a fancy place like this. After all, they wouldn't have it leading out of the living room.”

Derek spotted a windowless door against the left wall. Taking Jenny by the hand, he crossed the room and opened it.

“This is it, all right.”

Jenny shuddered. The spiderwebs arching over the steps were so thick and numerous they made the passage look more like a tunnel than a stairway. Derek shone his flashlight down it, but they couldn't see the cellar floor.

“There's a broomstick back there,” he said. “Grab it for me, will you?”

Jenny moved away from him reluctantly. She found the broomstick lying on a counter beneath a shuttered window and took it to Derek.

“I'll clear a path for us,” he said. Moving slowly, he extended the broomstick before him and swung it in wide circles, catching the cobwebs and winding them around the wood like cotton candy around a paper cone.

“No footprints on the steps,” he noted “Of course, there could be another entrance. Or Travis could have been sneaky enough to sprinkle some dust and dirt across the steps behind him.”

Jenny reached out and put a hand on Derek's shoulder. A step creaked beneath his sneakers, and she tightened her grip. Derek laughed.

The stairway was longer than she would have expected, and the air grew cooler as they continued down.

“We're almost there,” he said. “I can see bottom.”

The cellar itself was almost as heavily cobwebbed as the stairway had been. They stood at the base of the stairs and panned their flashlights over dirt floors, thick wooden beams, and millions of clinging webs. The dank air smelled of mold and decay.

“Derek …”

“It's all right, Jen. Let's see. Usually at this point in a game we would ask some questions of the leader. He'd probably tell us we should beware of some supernatural menace. But I'm not about to go all the way up to the library just to ask Travis a question. Be careful, though. Like I said, he may have planted something.”

“Like what?”

“I don't know. I can't imagine him getting anyone to wait down here to scare us. The place is just too gross. Maybe he set up some water balloons. If we break one and come back all wet, he can say that we stumbled into a trap so we're dead, or under a spell, or something like that.”

“That's pretty clever,” said Jenny. “But I don't like it.”

“Then be careful. Now, shall we split up, or stick together?”

“You have to ask?”

“Not really. Stay with me—and keep your eyes open.”

Derek moved forward, still using the broomstick to clear the way ahead of him. He walked slowly, training the beam of his flashlight from side to side, looking for any sign of where Travis might have hidden the sword.

“Derek.”

“What?”

“I hear something.”

“Jenny, don't get—”

“Just listen, will you?”

Derek heaved an exaggerated sigh. But he stopped to listen.

After a moment his eyes widened. “You're right!” he whispered.

Jenny couldn't tell if it was fear or excitement that made his voice husky.

“It's someone breathing,” he went on.

“It's awfully loud breathing,” she whispered back.

“Then it's meant to scare us. Brace yourself. He may have someone down here wearing a mask or something. Try not to scream too loud.”