“You should’ve seen her face after class, Beccs,” Lynn said, taking another sandwich from the table. “She was mad, really mad. I thinks she’s planning your murder any day now.”
“Serves her right,” Jayden said lazily.
The Middle Common Room in the South Tower was packed with people, drinking and laughing, talking and kissing. News of the rapier duel with Vanessa had spread like wildfire throughout the castle. I couldn’t remember being this happy in a long time, surrounded by people I liked and respected and who in turn liked me.
Lynn was sitting next to Jayden. Jayden looked rather pleased with himself, sporting a smile stretching from ear to ear.
“Hey, Beccs,” a voice came from my left.
I turned my head. It was Steve.
“Hey, Steve,” I said, “come and join us.”
“Thanks for rescuing me from that witch,” he said, sitting down on the comfortable sofa.
“Any time,” I said.
“What witch?” Jayden asked.
“I think they mean Dr. Criswell,” Lynn said.
“Oh, I’ve heard of her… Damn, no drinks left. Who’s turn is it to go downstairs?” he said.
“I’ll go,” Lynn said, adding: “With Beccs.”
I looked rather bewildered, but noticing Lynn’s pressing yet telling stare, I agreed.
“Yeah, ok,” I said, taking the key to the wine cellar from the table. One of the guys had stolen it to from the janitor, or so they told us at least.
“Wait, you’d better take some matches, too,” Jayden said. “For light.”
“Thanks,” I said, pocketing the matches.
On the stairs, when we were safely out of earshot, I turned to Lynn.
“What’s the matter, Lynn?”
“What do you think of Jayden, Beccs?”
“An upstanding young man, ready for dinner parties at your parents’ place anytime.”
“No, I mean seriously, Beccs.”
“Well. He’s cute, sporty type. What’s wrong with him?”
“I – we just don’t seem to have that much in common. He hates reading. All he ever talks about is getting into the Task Force.”
We had reached the end of the stairs and found ourselves in a circular corridor, with doors leading off it all-around. Most of them seemed to be for storage of one kind or another. Finally, we found the door that read “Wine Cellar”.
Fumbling for the key in my pocket, I took them out and placed them in the lock.
The wine cellar was much larger than I had expected, though quite dark as the only source of light was a single torch burning in the corridor behind us. I lit one of the matches Jayden had given me. It wasn’t really a cellar, as there were several very narrow windows at the back, but the night was so dark it didn’t matter. From what I could make out, the room not only had a lot of wine but was also stacked with all sorts of foods and other drinks.
“This place gives me the creeps,” Lynn said.
I didn’t like to admit it, but the place gave me the creeps, too.
“Come on,” I said, pretending to be unperturbed. “Let’s grab the wine and get back upstairs. Damn, I dropped the match.”
Suddenly, there was a sound like breaking glass.
“Did you hear that?” I whispered, stopping in my tracks.
“Maybe somebody’s here?” Lynn said.
The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end.
“It came from the direction over there,” she said. “Beccs, wait, what are you doing?”
I lit another match and walked over to where the sound had come from. Lynn, more out of terror than out of adventure, followed close behind me.
“There’s another door over here!” I said.
I tried to it, but it was locked. Squinting hard at the faded letters imprinted on the door, I held the match higher to read the dusty description, but the light was too dark and the letters too faded to read anything.
“Oh, look,” Lynn said in a relieved voice. “It’s just a broken bottle of wine. It must have fallen from the rack.”
She was right. Lighting another match, I side-stepped the puddle and looked at the wines. I was no expert, but the collection certainly looked impressive, with old vintages from all over the world. We passed along them in awe.
“It’s too dark, I can’t read any of the labels properly,” Lynn said, squinting at one of the wines.
She leant over to me to get some light.
“Careful, Lynn,” I said.
But too late, Lynn, had stepped right into the puddle.
“Yuck,” she said, moving back. “My trainers are all sticky.”
I lowered the flame to see. From close up, I could see Lynn’s shoe pattern imprinted in the dark red liquid on the floor. Then, with a rush of fear, I saw that there was another print, of a much larger foot, right next to it. I gripped her by the arm.
“There’s somebody else here,” I whispered.
“What,” Lynn said, panicking fast. “What do you mean?”
“Look,” I said, pointing at the other print.
Lynn’s face went white.
“We’ve got to get out of here, I –”
We froze. There was another sound, a very faint tinkling. It was coming from the other room.
“There’s something behind that door,” I said.
“Beccs, let’s get out of here. I’m scared.”
But before we could so much as move, the door suddenly burst open, and a figure of a large man appeared in the doorway. Lynn gave a bloodcurdling cry as he rushed at us with such force that we were both knocked off of our feet, hurling us back into the rack of wines. Amidst the shower of glass and liquid, the figure jumped to the door, slamming it violently behind him.
“What on earth was that?” Lynn said.
“No idea,” I said, gingerly massaging my head, which was bleeding slightly. “I was distracted by bottles pounding my skull.”
“Very funny, Beccs.”
We heard voices outside.
“Who’s that?” Lynn asked, her panic returning.
This time, however, it was unfounded. It turned out to be some late-comers, two second years, who had been on their way upstairs to the party and had overheard the commotion. Unluckily for us, they hadn’t seen who it was either.
“Woah, what happened, did you fall into the wine rack?”
“No, we didn’t, we were pushed,” I said with some irritation. Our would-be rescuers were a little too amused at the scene for my liking.
I got up painfully. My head was still buzzing as I helped Lynn get back on her feet. The room looked like a total mess. There was wine and glass everywhere, as the entire rack had collapsed on us.
The door to the adjacent room stood wide open now. Holding my still buzzing head in one hand and a match in my other, I huddled over. What had he been after in there?
“What is the meaning of this?”
The sound of Mrs. Prill’s voice, shrill but not quite authoritative, was unmistakable. We were in deep trouble now.
I pulled out the key. If they found out we had it, there’d be even more to pay for. Looking around, I quickly stuffed it into a large wooden box on the nearest shelf.
I slipped back into the wine room as smoothly as I could. A bad-tempered Mrs. Prill had arrived in a nightgown and was in the process of berating Lynn.
“But it wasn’t us!” she said.
“Us?” Mrs. Prill said, glancing around. Her eyes focussed on me in her usual hawkish manner. “Miss Flynn, what on earth have you been up to in here?”
There was no use denying it. At least, not the whole thing.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Prill. We were having a party upstairs and…”
“…and you thought you’d help yourself to Castle property, did you?”
“I mean…”
“And then you decided to vandalise the entire room!” she said, almost in a fit now.
“We were attacked! You didn’t think we did that, do you?” I said, now also angry.
“Of course I do. I will write my report first thing in the morning. Student vandalism is punished very severely at this institution, I can assure you, Miss Flynn.”
“But Beccs is right, we were attacked. A man…” Lynn said.
This just seemed to irritate her further.
“Please, Miss Adams, I do not want to listen to your rehearsed stories. You’ve been caught stealing from the wine cellar, and you will have to bear the consequences.”
“He was in there,” I said, pointing to the room in which the attacker had hidden.
But she wouldn’t hear any more protestations.
“Enough. You will return to your bedrooms immediately. Your punishments will be announced at breakfast.”
“Announced?!” I said.
“Goodnight, Miss Flynn.”
There was nothing else we could do. Miserably, Lynn and I traipsed out into the corridor and back to our dorm.