“You don’t know anything yet?!” Chariot exclaimed. “Surely your grandmother, or Scarlet read the papers…You seriously heard nothing?”
“I tend to avoid Scarlet more than usual on a morning,” Max said bitterly. “She’s not a morning person. What’s happened? Who framed their son?”
Chariot stared at him for a moment, then sighed in exasperation. “Hamelin Hatter,” she said, as though it should have been obvious. “He took off last night. No one has any idea where he’s hiding, and everyone’s worried. What if the disappearances get more frequent now?”
“Hamelin?” Max said slowly. “Raven’s dad?…But…” He had seemed so nice. No. It wasn’t him. Sam had clearly found a way to continue his killing spree without getting caught. Gilda or no Gilda, he was going down that well today.
Something struck him. “Raven!” he said suddenly. “Is he here?”
Chariot shook her head. “I doubt it,” she said grimly. “Would you come to school in his situation? Maybe we should go see him?”
Max glanced towards the well, then shook his head. “Later,” he said decisively. “We’ll go see him when I’ve proven once and for all who’s behind this.”
Chariot blinked. “You’re not still on about that, are you?” she demanded impatiently. “There’s evidence! The wizards know what they’re doing!”
“Listen!” Max said impatiently. “Didn’t you just get done apologizing to me because you were wrong?”
“Well…Yes. But-“
“Isn’t it possible you’re wrong again?” Max interrupted.
Sighing, Chariot nodded reluctantly. “I guess so. But there’s never been any indication that it’s Sam…Apart from the fact that he’s a rotten guy, and someone put one of the bodies in his kitchen. A kitchen so many people had access to.”
“Did Hamelin have access to it?” Max said, with an air of finality.
Chariot’s grip on the necklace loosened, and she shook her head again. “I guess not…Probably.”
Max smiled. “Well then. Would you be interested in coming with me?”
“Coming where?”
Max gestured towards the well. “You and I can solve this thing once and for all. I was going to go alone, but that hasn’t worked out so well. Gilda kept stopping me. Where is she, anyway? I’m surprised she didn’t show up at my house this morning. It’s gotten kind of annoying, actually.” As he spoke, Chariot attempted to interrupt him.
“Max,” she said, finally loud enough to break through his rant. “Gilda isn’t here. She’s the reason Raven’s out of prison…She hasn’t been seen since yesterday afternoon.”
“But that’s…” Max started, his words faltering. He had been so arrogant to think that his friends couldn’t be taken by that monster. If anything made up his mind about going down that well, it was this. Maybe Gilda was still alive down there. Chariot, however, was harder to convince.
“Max!” she hissed as they snuck back outside after registration. Max had set off smoke bombs in the classroom, and throughout the corridors on their way out, and he and Chariot burst through the front doors of the school amid a cloud of thick, foul smelling purple and red smoke. Chariot was rubbing her eyes furiously. “Max!” she repeated, running to keep up with him as he marched purposefully towards the well. “Have you even thought this through? Why don’t you tell someone your suspicions about the well? I mean…this is exciting and all, but what can we do, really?”
“We can save Gilda, and clear Hamelin’s name. Don’t you think Raven’s been through enough without them hunting his dad down as well?”
Chariot sighed in exasperation, but didn’t argue any further. It was clear Max had already made up his mind. The well came into view a few moments later, and the two of them stopped dead in their tracks. Through a light mist rising from the frozen ground, they saw someone hovering over the well. It was Sam.
“See!” Max hissed, pulling Chariot behind one of the large headstones. They watched as Sam descended into the well and vanished. “I told you it was him, didn’t I?”
“Ok…” Chariot said slowly. “But what exactly do we do when he’s already down there?”
“We’ll just have to make sure he doesn’t catch us,” Max said, scurrying out from the hiding place and towards the well. “And if we do end up confronting him, at least there’s two of us.” Reaching the well, he glanced down into its depths, waiting as long as he dared, for the echoing footsteps of Sam to disappear. At least they knew it was safe to walk down there. Max had just got one leg over the side of the well, when another voice broke through the mist, and he groaned.
“Max! What are you doing?!”
Why was Scarlet always there? Sighing, Max looked back at his sister. She looked extremely harassed, and behind her, he could see the colourful smoke pouring from the door and windows of the school, mingling with the mist and making it impossible to see whether anyone else was outside or not. “Nothing that concerns you,” he said rudely.
“Oh, really?” Scarlet said, looking from Max and Chariot’s guilty expressions, to the way Max was perched on the edge of the well, and then back to the school. “The second I stepped out into that corridor, I knew you were behind it,” she said fiercely. “Just what are you planning now?”
“Oh Scarlet, ‘Meddler’ should be your middle name,” Chariot said sarcastically, joining Max on the wall of the well. “He said this doesn’t concern you.” Although Max could still see in Chariot’s eye that she didn’t think this was a good idea, she remained in solidarity with him.
Scarlet narrowed her eyes in stubborn fury, and Max groaned internally. He was going to be stopped again. Nothing could stop Scarlet once she was on her high horse. He considered just jumping down into the well. But, before Scarlet could say anything, or Max could take action to avoid her, all three were alerted to a sound below them. A quiet scratching, followed by a meow echoed up from the depths of the well, and Max looked down to see Raven’s cat standing on her hind legs, her front paws pressed against the wall of the well, her yellow eyes staring right at him. Why was she down there?
“Is that…?” Scarlet asked in bewilderment, looking past Max at the cat.
“If you must know, she’s stuck down there,” Max invented quickly. “We were going to rescue her.”
“And the smoke?” Scarlet said, raising her eyebrows in disbelief.
“What smoke?” Chariot retorted, lowering herself into the well. Max followed, his expression filled with the same mock puzzlement.
Irritated, and still wanting answers, Scarlet hung over the edge of the well, her arms outstretched. “Pass her up to me,” she called down to them, her voice echoing throughout the surprisingly shallow chamber.
A mixture of thick mud and leaves coated the floor of the well, which was frozen solid and crunched slightly under Max and Chariot’s feet. There didn’t appear to be any exit other than the way they had come. Odd…They had definitely seen Sam disappear down here, and the cat had been nowhere to be seen only moments ago. This was a problem, Max thought as he reached down to grab the cat. Once Scarlet had taken her, she wouldn’t give them time to investigate the inside of an empty well.
“Ow!” Max gasped, recoiling in pain and clutching his hand. “She scratched me!”
Scarlet rolled her eyes. “Oh honestly. Can’t you do anything?” She looked at Chariot expectantly, but Chariot was busy moving her hand across the bricks of the well. Letting out a small noise of frustration, she hoisted her body up onto the wall of the well and, holding onto her dress to prevent it being torn, she jumped down into the small space. “You idiots, seriously,” she grumbled, bending down to pick up the cat. But she too, recoiled as the cat’s claws sprang towards her, missing by millimetres. “Stupid cat.”
“Max. Over here,” Chariot whispered, ignoring Scarlet. “There’s a small hole, look.”
Max almost missed
the hole at first, it was so small. It certainly wasn’t big enough to climb through. “What about it?” he asked, aware that Scarlet was becoming impatient again. The more she tried to pick up the cat, the more the cat hissed, growled and clawed at her. She obviously did not want to be removed from the well.
“Look!” Chariot repeated urgently, pulling Max to stand in front of the hole, and gesturing for him to look through. He squinted through the small gap. A cool breeze hit his face as he peered into what seemed to be a dark tunnel, almost completely pitch black, apart from the occasional speck of red light. He couldn’t see an end, only that it appeared to slope downwards. “That must be the way,” Chariot said, a spark of excitement entering her voice now, despite her reluctance to come down here.
Max stepped back, nodding, and focused every spell he could think of on the wall. Nothing happened.
“Are you two going to help me with this beast or not?!” Scarlet demanded, brushing her hair out of her face with the back of her hand in frustration. “I think I’ll just leave her here. Stubborn thi-“
The cat suddenly sprang past her, towards the hole in the wall, and disappeared through it.
“The hole is too small for a cat to get through,” Chariot commented, her brow furrowed. Slowly, she pushed her hand through the hole, which should have been just a little too small. But it fit, and so did her arm, then her shoulder. Within moments, Chariot’s entire body had vanished through.
“What is going on?” Scarlet demanded as Max began to follow.
“Just go back up,” Max said impatiently, before vanishing.
Scarlet took one, longing look at the surface, before deciding to chase after them. “I’m not just going to leave you idiots down here,” she said angrily. “Grandma is going to kill you, you know. Come on. You have to come back now-” But she was cut off again, when she turned to realize the wall of the well was gone. The tunnel extended in both directions. “Oh no,” she muttered, hitching her dress up slightly. The ground was wet and slippery.
“We told you to go back,” Max said, indifferent to her distress. “Which way do we go?”
Chariot tried to squint in both directions, but they looked exactly the same. A meow ahead of them caught her attention. “I think the cat wants us to follow her,” she said, slight uncertainty in her voice.
“Let’s go,” Max said, hurrying after the cat, his splashing footsteps echoing throughout the tunnel.
The scent of decay filled the air as they walked. The only sound was the splashing of their footsteps, growing into the sloshing of shoes and clothes dredging through ankle deep water, as the tunnel sloped downwards, and the water level rose. It was freezing, and the occasional breeze whistling through the tunnel only made it colder. As they went, unwelcome thoughts invaded Max’s mind. Suppose Sam was waiting for them at the end of the tunnel? Or, suppose the water became so deep they had to swim, or hold their breath? He could hold his breath for twenty seconds at most. He found himself practicing, just in case, and almost didn’t notice the red lights – or eyes – go out all at once. By now, Scarlet was having to carry the cat, who seemed much more co-operative now she was trying to avoid getting wet. But even her bright yellow eyes, and the small pinpricks that were Chariot’s fireflies were no substitute, and the three teenagers found themselves wandering blindly into the walls as the ever descending tunnel curved this way and that. Just when the water reached their waists, and Scarlet was about to demand they go back, the path ahead began to light up slightly, and a hole, this time definitely large enough to climb through, became visible at the end of the tunnel. Climbing up, out of the water and through the hole, their hearts sank. The chamber ahead of them opened up onto three more tunnels, each going in different directions.
“Any idea where to go next?” Max asked the cat, as she leapt from Scarlet’s arms and stared down each tunnel in turn. She just turned back to him and gave a disgruntled meow. The sound echoed down each of the three tunnels, chilling the air as it rang through it. “Shh!” Max hissed, nervously squinting down the tunnel straight ahead. “Sam’s down here, you know. He might hear you!”
“Sam?” Scarlet repeated, her tone now furious. “Is that what this is about? We’re stuck down here because of your stupid delusions? My dress is soaked, Max! And-…Oh, it’s torn too. There isn’t a fixing spell that can make it look normal again!”
Ignoring his sister, Max turned to Chariot. “Maybe we should try the one straight ahead. It can’t hurt, can it?”
Chariot was about to reluctantly agree, when the sound of footsteps approached them from the tunnel on the left. The three stood frozen in place, but the cat watched in anticipation as the footsteps grew louder. A moment later, someone staggered out of the tunnel, draped in torn, damp robes and a familiar hat.
“I thought you’d abandoned me,” he murmured to the cat, before noticing the others. “Max? What are you doing here?”
“Raven?” Max said in bewilderment. “But why-…”
Raven pointed a lazy hand in the direction of the cat. “I asked her where my dad went and she brought me here. I’ve been wandering for a few hours now. I was beginning to think she just brought me here to get rid of me. Don’t tell me she brought you, too.”
“Kind of,” Max said, still confused, but happy to see his best friend, nevertheless. He wanted to apologize for not visiting him the entire time he was in prison. He wanted to explain that it wasn’t by choice, but something in Raven’s eyes told him he understood.
“Your dad’s down here?” Chariot asked, clumsily masked concern in her voice.
“Great,” Scarlet said sarcastically. “And we’re stuck down here with him.”
“It sounds like you two think he’s guilty,” Raven said, a slightly bitter note in his otherwise casual voice. “Then again, Scarlet did always strike me as the type to believe whatever she was told.” Scarlet glared at him, but he didn’t seem to care. “I think he’s definitely here somewhere. And all I know is, he did nothing wrong. So if you could keep your judgements to yourselves, that would be just great.”
Chapter ten
Raven led the way back down the tunnel from which he had come, explaining that the middle one led to a dead end, and he hadn’t checked the one on the right yet. Max, relieved to see his friend was ok, was content to follow. Even Scarlet didn’t put up that much of a fight. Although, she did complain every time her dress snagged on a cobweb, or the squelching mud below their feet dirtied her shoes. There was no water in the tunnel, making it much easier to manoeuvre than the previous one, but the amount of mud and debris underfoot suggested it hadn’t been long since it had been drained.
This tunnel was pitch black, and Chariot’s fireflies didn’t do much to aid their vision. But Scarlet was able to cast a dim orange light to guide them. In the light they saw that the walls were crumbling and damp, and carvings had been made in them long ago, too eroded to make any sort of sense. Max thought he might have seen the word ‘prison’. Although, it might have been ‘poison’, or ‘pulsion’.
After a journey that seemed to take hours, during which Max slipped twice, and Scarlet’s dress became ruined beyond repair, Raven stopped. “Ah…” he said quietly, his tone uncharacteristically grave. “See. This is what I was talking about.” The tunnel came to an abrupt halt. Only the smallest hole, just big enough for the cat to clamber through, lay ahead. The cat gave a soft meow, but Raven shook his head. “There’s no spell here. It’s just an ordinary drain.”
Sighing as one, the group turned back and made the tedious trip back to the chamber. The tunnel on the right was much more challenging, and obviously the right way to go. It was clear someone didn’t want people snooping around in there. Within minutes, they met more forks in the road, and found themselves back tracking as each seemed to lead to more dead ends. Any charm they tried to place at the openings of tunnels to make sure they didn’t go down the same one twice faded
away within seconds. They found themselves going in circles, twice returning back to the chamber without any knowledge of how they got there. Eventually, they seemed to choose the correct path. It led them on for hours, with Scarlet’s light, and Chariot’s fireflies the only things puncturing the pressing darkness. They rounded a corner, and stopped dead.
“Another dead end?” Scarlet cried out in exasperation. But Raven shook his head.
“It’s a door,” he said quietly, pushing against it. Max half expected the door to be locked, but it creaked open, revealing a staircase descending further into darkness. The small group hesitated only for a moment before beginning the descent. It wasn’t too long before the staircase opened up onto a balcony, looking down into a deep, pitch black void. Shining her light over it, Scarlet could see more balconies below, before they were consumed by darkness.
“I wonder how far down it goes,” she commented, as Max made his way to another set of stairs, leading down to the next balcony.
“Maybe we’re inside the island,” he said thoughtfully. “But, what is this place?”
Chariot looked at Raven, who was kneeling beside his cat to comfort her. “You seem to know your way around here,” she said, a hint of suspicion in her voice.
“Not really,” Raven said, straightening up, his cat in his arms. “I just want to find my dad.”
“The number one suspect right now,” Scarlet interjected, her eyes narrowed. “And why wouldn’t you let us check out the middle tunnel? You said it leads to a dead end, but this place doesn’t seem much less of a dead end, either. Are you sure it didn’t lead to the exit?”
Raven smiled a sarcastic, crooked smile. “Would you care to elaborate on what you’re implying?” he said calmly. “By all means, go back and check out the middle tunnel if you want. I was just sparing you the wasted time.”
“There’s cells down there,” Max interrupted the bickering from half way down the stairs. “I can’t really make them out…But there’s definitely bars.”
On the Other Side Page 7