Youssef had brought his black obsidian with him in the kitchen at breakfast. Idle—Youssef had realised that on top of being her way of life, it was also her name—was preparing a herbal brownie under the supervision of a colourful parrot perched on her shoulder.

“If you’re interested in rocks, you should go to Betsy’s. She’s got that ‘Gems & Minerals’ shop on Main street. She opened it with her hubby a few years back. Before he died.”

“Nutty Betsy, Pretty Girl likes her better,” said the parrot.

Idle looked at his backpack and his clothes.

“You seem the wandering type, lad. I was like you when I was younger, always gallivanting here, there, and everywhere with my brother. Now, I prefer wandering in my mind, if you know what I mean,” she said licking her finger full of chocolate. “Anyway, an advice. Don’t go down the mines alone. Betsy’s hubby’s still down there after one of the tunnels collapsed a few years back. She’s not been quite herself ever since.”

Main street was —well— the only street in town. They’ve been preparing for some kind of festival, putting banners on top of the shops and in between two trees near the gas station. Youssef stopped there to buy snacks that he stacked on top of the obsidian stone in his backpack. The young boy who worked there, Devan, seemed quite excited at the perspective of the Lager and Cart Race. It happened only every ten years and last time he was too young to participate.

The shop had not been difficult to find, at the other end of the street. A tiny sign covered in purple star sequins indicated “Betsy’s Gems & Minerals — We deliver worldwide”. He felt with his hand the black rock he had put in his backpack. If Idle had not mentioned the mines and the dead husband, Youssef might have reconsidered going in. But the coincidence with his dream and the game was too intriguing. He entered.

The shop was a mess. Crates full of stones, cardboard boxes and bubble wrappings. In the back, a plump woman, working on a giant starfish she held  on her lap, was humming as she listened to loud rock music. Youssef recognised a song from the Last Shadow Puppets’ second album : The Element of Surprise. Apparently, the woman hadn’t heard him enter. She wore a dress and a hat sprinkled with golden stars, and her wrists were hidden under a ton of stone bracelets. The music track changed. The woman started shaking her head following the rhythm of the tune. She was gluing small red stones, she picked in a little box, on one of the starfish arms.

“Bad Habits! Uhu. Bad Habits! Uhu.”

Youssef moved closer. His shadow covered the starfish. The woman raised her head and screamed, scattering the red stones in her workshop. The starfish fell from her lap onto the ground with a thud.

“Oh! My! Little devil. Look at what you made me do. I lost my marbles,” she said with a high pitched laugh. “Your mother never taught you? That’s bad habit to creep up on people like that. You scared the sheep out of me!”

“I’m so sorry,” said Youssef, getting on his knees to help her gather the stones.

When they were all back in their box, Youssef got back on his feet. The woman looked a him with a softened face.

“You such a cutie with your bear shirt. You make me think of my Howard. He was as tall as you are. I’m Betsy, obviously” she said with a giggle, extending her hand to him.

They shook hands, making the pearls of her bracelets clink together.

“I’m Youssef.”

Youssef didn’t need to insist too much. Betsy was a real juke box of gossips. He just had to ask one question from time to time, and she would get going again. He was starting to feel his quirk could be more than a curse after all.

“When the tunnel collapsed,” Betsy said, “I was ready to give up the stone shop. The pain was too much to bear, everything in the shop reminded me of Howard. And in a miners’ town, who would want to buy stones anyway. We’ve been in bad terms with Idle and her family for some time, but that tragic incident coincided with her brother Fred’s disappearance. They thought at first Fred had died in the mines with Howard, because they spent so much time discussing together in Room 8 at the Inn. I overheard them once, talking about something they found in the mines. But Howard never told me, he was so secretive about that. We even had a fight, you know. But Fred, the children found some message later that suggested he had just left the family. Imagine, the children! Idle was pissed with him of course. Abandoning her with that mother of theirs and that money pit of an Inn and the rest of the family. And I needed company. So we started to get together on a regular basis. She would bring her special cakes, and we would complain about our lives. At some point she got involved with that shamanic stuff she found online, and she helped me find my totem Bear. It was quite a revelation. Bear suggested I diversify and open an online shop and start making orgonites. I love those little gummy bears so much. So, I followed Bear’s advice and it has been working like a charm ever since. That’s why I trusted you straight away, lad. Not ’cause of your cute face. You got the Bear in your heart,” she said putting her finger at the center of his chest.

My inner Bear, of course, thought Youssef. That’s the magnet. His phone buzzed. He took it out and saw he had an alert from the game and a message from his friends.

You found the source of your quirk, the magnetic pull that attracts talkative people to you.
Now obtain the silver key in the shape of a tongue to fulfil your quest.

 

Zara : Where are you!? We’re at the bar, getting parched! They got Pale Ale!

“I have to go,” said Youssef.

“Wait,” said Betsy.

She foraged through her orgonite collection and handed Youssef one little gummy bear and an ornate metal badge.

“Bear wants me to give this to you. Howard made it. He said it was his forked tongue key.”

She looked at him, emotion in her eyes.

“I know you won’t listen if I tell you not to. So, be careful when you go into the mines.”

Despite the old man’s endless flow of words, Youssef couldn’t get him to explain what he meant about the abandoned mine and why the town’s people didn’t like people sneaking around and asking questions.

Not wanting to waste more time, Youssef walked to the brick building where the twins had disappeared. It was crammed between the telegraph station and a grocery store. The door had been walled with red bricks. They were covered in faded graffitis and layers of torn-up posters. It seemed obvious the wall had been there for quite some time already.

The old man was sticking to Youssef like glue, talking about that time when his now dead brother took in an old cat he called Phineas. Youssef tried to growl him away, but the man always came back, persistent as a cloud of mosquitoes over the promise of a blood feast.

Youssef tried not to pay attention to him. What did AL said about that quest ? Go ask questions around to town’s people about odd things happening ? Well there were plenty of those things happening. Maybe the clerk at the telegraph station would know something, especially how to get rid of that old man.

Youssef pushed the door and entered the telegraph station, leaving the old man outside. The interior was lit with a collection of old style tungsten lamps hanging in a random pattern from the ceiling. 

The clerk was busy sorting out a pile of telegrams. Clickety-clack. Clickety-clack. He lifted his head up. The noise stopped and Youssef realised the young man had mechanical hands.

“Welcome, welcome, welcome! What can I do for you today, my friend?” asked the clerk.

“I just wanted to…” started Youssef.

“Wait! Don’t tell me. I’m a bit of a psychic myself and I already know what you’re here for.”

“Really?”

The man foraged through his pile of telegram with his mechanical hands and picked one. He looked at it for a few seconds.

“My friend, you’re in luck today!” he said, looking intently at Youssef. “I just received this telegram that I think might interest you. Here, take a look!”

Youssef took the paper and started to read aloud : “Words spoken by the talkative will unlock the path. Seek those who chatter and unravel the clue. What the…?” 

“Interesting, isn’t it? That’s a real head-scratcher, if you ask me!”

The door bell rang and the old man entered, holding his sore ribs. 

“Get out, Phineas. You’re not welcome here.” said the clerk with a frown.

The old man looked at the clerk with an air of confusion before turning to Youssef. “What did he say? Who’s Phineas?” he asked.

Ignoring the question, Youssef tried to steer the conversation back to the telegram. “What does this mean?” he asked the clerk.

The clerk stroked his chin, looking thoughtful. “Hmm, well, it seems to me that you have a certain magnetism for talkative people. Perhaps that’s the key to unlocking this riddle.”

Youssef’s eyes widened in surprise. “What do you mean, magnetism?”

The old man interjected, “For sure! You’re like a magnet, my boy. I can’t seem to stop talking when I’m around you.”

Youssef rolled his eyes. “So, what do I do? Just wander around town and wait for someone to start talking?”

The clerk nodded. “That could be a good start. But if you’re looking for something specific, you might want to try Betsy when you wake up. She’s got a boutique of Gems and Rocks. You seem to like them rocks,” he said pointing at the black obsidian. “Found it in a mine?”

The old man’s eyes lit up. “Ah, the old mine! I’ve been there before, you know. My brother used to work there before he died. Strange things happening there.”

Youssef’s interest was piqued. “What kind of strange things?”

The old man leaned in conspiratorially. “There’s a magnetar hidden in that mine, my boy.”

“Shut up! Phineas,” interrupted the clerk. “If you want my advice, stranger, don’t go near the old mine. ‘Curiosity killed the cat’ if you know what I mean.”

The telegraph receiver started to make clicketing sounds. The clerk read it and looked at Youssef.

“You’ve got a message man. Time to wake up.”

“Wake up?”

Youssef opened his eyes and looked at a black mass in front of his eyes. He had been sleeping with the stone just beside his head on the pillow. No wonder he had had weird dreams. He heard his phone buzz. He sat up reluctantly and looked at his phone. 8am. A notification that his game progression had been saved and several messages from Miss Tartiflate, the last one saying :

Don’t think you can dodge work. I’m still expecting the last blog post you’ve been paid to write!!!”

He groaned as reality was starting to catch up.

Two young women, identical to the purple lock of hair hiding their left eye, entered the room. They moved as one person to the table, balancing their arms and bouncing on the floor like little girls. Youssef couldn’t help a shiver as he remembered The Shining.

“We are the twins,” they said, looking at him from behind their purple lock of hair. “Don’t mind us.”

One spoke a few milliseconds after the other, giving their combined voice an otherworldly touch that wasn’t reassuring. One took the sheets of paper from under the obsidian stone and the other the notebooks. After an hesitation they left the stone on the table and went back to the door.

“Wait,” said Youssef as they were about to leave, “What was on that paper? It looked like a map.”

“We leave you the stone,” they said without looking at him. “You might need it.”

As they shut the door, Youssef jumped out of his bed and tried to catch up with them. People couldn’t just enter his room like that. But when he flung the door open, the corridor was empty. He had the impression echoes of a combined laugh remained in the air and, tired as he was, decided not to look for them. Better not break the veil between dream and reality.

Intrigued by what the girls said, he took the black stone from the table and the last snicker bar from his backpack. He noted he would have to go to the grocery store tomorrow to buy some. Once he was back on his bed, he engulfed the snack and, while chewing, turned the stone around, trying to figure out what the girls meant by “You might need it”. The stone was cold to the touch and his reflection kept changing but nothing particular happened. Disappointed, he put the stone on his pillow and resumed the game on his phone.

Youssef finds himself in a small ghost town in what looks like the middle of the Australian outback. He’s standing in the town square, surrounded by an old post office, a saloon, and a few other ramshackle buildings.

He had a hard time focusing on the game. He started to feel the fatigue from the day. He yawned and started to doze off.

Youssef is standing in the town square, surrounded by an old post office, a saloon, and a few other ramshackle buildings. Scraps of mist are floating towards him. A ghostly laugh resounds from behind. He turns swiftly only to see a flash of purple disappear in a dark alleyway. He starts to run to catch them but a man, thrown out of the saloon, stumbles in front of him and they roll together on the dust.

“It’s not that I don’t like you,” said the man, “but you’re heavy.”

Youssef rolls on the side, mumbling some excuses and looks at where the twins had disappeared but the alleyway was gone. 

“I think you broke one of my rib with your stone,” says the man, feeling his chest.

He looks as old as the town itself and quite harmless in his clothes, too big for him.

“What stone?” asks Youssef. 

The old man points at a fragment of black obsidian between them on the ground. 

“Don’t show them,” he says, “or they’ll take it from you.”

“What did you do?”

“They don’t like it when you ask questions about the old mines.”

Why do I always pick the cart with the wonky wheel, Zara thought, but she wasn’t going to go back and get another one and keep Sergio and Yasmin waiting outside. She zigzagged up and down the aisles until she came to the wine.  What was it the old dear back at the Inn was saying about the alcohol laws in Alice?  Well, surely that didn’t apply to tourists.  There were two men chatting in the middle of the aisle and Zara deftly skirted around them without the unpredictable cart crashing.  While she was perusing the wines hoping to find a nice Rioja, she couldn’t help but overhear the clear ringing tones of one of the men saying “True love never dies!” and a few other things which she later forgot, which she thought was quite an odd topic for two men to be discussing in the Piggly supermarket in the outback of all places.  The man with the poetic voice went on his way, leaving the other man with the little girl in the child seat of the cart ready to move on, but Zara’s cart was straddled across the aisle so she quickly moved it out of the way and continued scanning the wine selection.  A clear sweet voice rang out behind her. “Thank you.”  She turned, and her eyes met those of the girl (afterwards Zara could have sworn the child was 10 or 11, and surely too big to be sitting in the baby seat, but yet felt sure the child had indeed been sitting in the cart).  They exchanged a deep meaningful smile of magical proportions that defied explaining in mere words.  Later when Zara told Yasmin about it, she said it was “one of those moments, you know?” and Yasmin understood what she meant.  The child seemed somehow familiar, and there was that shimmery timeless oddness to the encounter which made Zara feel a bemused lightness.

Zara was still gazing at the rows of wine bottles when Yasmin caught up with her. “What’s taking you so long, you haven’t even got anything in your cart yet!”

Snapping her attention back, Zara asked Yasmin to help her choose the wine, asking her, “Do you ever feel like you can’t tell the difference between the game and real life?  Like sometimes a scene in real life isn’t quite real?”

“I dunno about the game but real life seems strange enough. That woman outside with the BMW hire car that was in the loo before me, there was something familiar about her, something creepy.  And look what I found in the cubicle,”  Yasmin looked around quickly to make sure they were alone and pulled something out of her pocket.

“Looks like the chain broke, is it gold? Might be worth something,” Zara was missing the point.

“It’s a crucifix.”

“If it’s gold it can be melted down and made into something else,” said Zara missing the point again.

“It’s the same as the ones the nuns at the orphanage wear,” Yasmins whisper turned into a nervous snort.

“I wonder who dropped it and what they were doing here.  That tart in the BMW didn’t look like a nun to me.”  Zara almost snorted too (was it contagious?) and then wondered why tart and nun sounded vaguely familiar and why yellow cabs had popped into her mind.  “Come on, we’ve kept Sergio waiting long enough already.”

After all the deliberation over which wine to choose, they grabbed a half dozen bottles each without further ado and went to the checkout.

The road was stretching endlessly and monotonously, a straight line disappearing into a nothingness of dry landscapes that reminded Youssef of the Gobi desert where he had been driving not too long ago. At regular speed, the car barely seemed to progress.

> O Time suspend thy flight!

Eternity. Something only nature could procure him. He loved the feeling, and compared to the more usual sand of Gobi, the red sands of Australia gave him the impression he had shifted into another reality. That and the fifteen hours flight listening to Gladys made it difficult to respond to Xavier’s loquacious self and funny jokes. After some time, his friend stopped talking and tried catching some signal to play the Game, brandishing his phone in different directions as if he was hunting ghosts with a strange device.

It reminded him he had to accept his next quest in a ghost town. That’s all he remembered. He could do that at the Inn, when they could rest in their rooms.

Youssef wondered if the welcome sign at the entrance of the town had seen better days. The wood the fish was made of seemed eaten by termites, but someone had painted it with silver and blue to give it a fresher look. Youssef snorted at the shocked expression on his friend’s face.

“It looked like it died of boredom. Let’s just hope the Innside doesn’t look like a gutted fish,” Xavier said.

An old lady showed them their rooms. She didn’t seem the talkative type, which made Youssef love her immediately with her sharp tongue and red cardigan. He rather admired her braided silver hair as it reminded him of his mother who would let him brush her hair when they lived in Norway. It was in another reality. He smiled. She saw him looking at her and her eyes narrowed like a pair of arrowslits. She seemed ready to fire. Instead she kept on ranting about an idle person not doing her only job properly. They each went to their rooms, Xavier took number 7 and Youssef picked number 5, his lucky number.

He was glad to be able to enjoy his own room after the trip of the last few weeks. It had been for work, so it was different. But usually he liked travelling the world on his own and meet people on his way and learn from their stories. Traveling with people always meant some compromise that would always frustrate him because he wanted to go faster, or explore more tricky paths.

The room was nicely decorated, and the scent of fresh paint made it clear it was recent. A strange black stone, which Youssef recognized as a black obsidian, has been put on a pile of paper full of doodles, beside two notebooks and pencils. The notebooks’ pages were blank, he thought of giving them to Xavier. He took the stone. It was cold to the touch and his reflection on the surface looked back at him, all wavy. The doodles on the paper looked like a map and hard to read annotations. One stood out, though which looked like a wifi password. That made him think of the Game. He entered it on his phone and that was it. Maybe it was time to go back in. But he wanted to take a shower first.

He put his backpack and his bag on the bed and unpacked it. Amongst a pile of dirty clothes, he managed to find a t-shirt that didn’t smell too bad and a pair of shorts. He would have to use the laundry service of the hotel.

He had missed hot showers. Once refreshed, he moved his bags on the floor and jumped on his bed and launched the Game.

Youssef finds himself in a small ghost town in what looks like the middle of the Australian outback. The town was once thriving but now only a few stragglers remain, living in old, decrepit buildings. He’s standing in the town square, surrounded by an old post office, a saloon, and a few other ramshackle buildings.

A message appeared on the screen.

Quest: Your task is to find the source of the magnetic pull that attracts talkative people to you. You must find the reason behind it and break the spell, so you can continue your journey in peace.

Youssef started to move his avatar towards the saloon when someone knocked on the door.

Aunt Idle:

Bert came barging in my room, and I’d only just sat down, telling me the guest still hadn’t phoned to be picked up from the trail.  Bert, I said, she’ll be fine. She probably phoned a taxi and went to Alice for dinner or to meet her friends, she’s fine.  But he kept going on about what if she wandered off the trail, and I said, Bert, if she wandered off the trail that doesn’t mean she’s in trouble, does it? Anyway, I said, the parrot said not to worry. Parrot? he said and his face was a picture. Parrot? The flaming parrot said not to worry?  Not like old Bert to be as rude as he was then, I don’t know what had got into him.

He stomped off muttering and I caught a few words like sandwich short of a picnic, but I’m used to that now, they’re all rude about me.  Well Bert not so much, which is why it took me by surprise, and the twins are alright. Mater though, don’t even get me started, nor Finly. Prune’s up to something, I don’t know what, and so is Devan. I can’t put my finger on it.  And something’s rattled Berts cage.

She’s nice, the new guest, a bit younger than me but struth! looks about 20 years younger. Living out here hasn’t done me any favours.

Youssef gave his passport and ticket to the woman at gate 11. He was followed closely by Kyle and other members of the team. The flight attendant looked at him and gave him his passport and ticket back without scanning them with her machine.

“I’m sorry, you’re at the wrong gate. Your flight is at gate 8,” she said.

“But I’m going to Boston. My ticket says gate 11.”

Youssef showed his ticket to the hostess, and she pointed the destination and the gate to him. She was right.

“Your ticket is for flight AL357 to Sydney. It’s currently boarding at gate 8. Next person please.”

Kyle patted him on the shoulder.

“You should have double checked your ticket, he said.”

“What’s wrong? asked Miss Tartiflate. Why are you going to Australia?”

“I’m not.”

“Well, it says you are,” she said pointing at the ticket. He didn’t understand the dark intensity of her gaze and her clenched fist, until he remembered that Botty Banworth lived there.

“I’m not… I mean…”

“You better not. If I hear you were in with that…”

The words got lost as they broadcasted a call for flight AL357 to Sydney at Gate 8.

“You’d better get that f…ing BLOG running during your little vacation or you can stay there and forget about your job,” she said before bumping into the border of the gate.

Youssef moved on the side and looked at his ticket to Sydney, puzzled. When he passed security his ticket was to Boston. He recalled a message from Zara saying she would meet them in Australia soon. But how could she have managed to change his ticket without his knowing.

Sure there was that moment when he had left his passport with his ticket on the table at the Starmoose when going back to the counter pick his second slice of cinnamon apple tart. But he was looking away only for a few seconds.

“This is the last call for flight AL357 to Sydney. Youssef Ali is requested at Gate 8 before we close the gate.”

“Let’s just hope whomever made the change thought about transferring my luggage to the right plane,” he said as he started walking to Gate 8 with his bag.

It was a pleasant 25 degrees as Zara stepped off the plane. The flat red land stretched as far as the eye could see, and although she prefered a more undulating terrain there was something awe inspiring about this vast landscape. It was quite a contrast from the past few hours spent inside mine tunnels.

Bert, a weatherbeaten man of indeterminate advanced age, was there to meet her as arranged and led her to the car, a battered old four wheel drive.  Although clearly getting on in years, he was tall and spry and dressed in practical working clothes.

“Welcome to Alice,” he said, taking her bag and putting in on the back seat.  “I expect you’ll be wanting to know a bit about the place.”

“How long have you lived here?” Zara asked, as Bert settled into the creaky drivers seat and started the car.

Bert gave her a funny look and replied “Longer than a ducks ass.”  Zara had never heard that expression before; she assumed it meant a long time but didn’t like to pursue the question.

“All this land belongs to the Arrernte,” he said, pronouncing it Arrunda.  “The local aboriginals.  1862 when we got here. Well,” Bert turned to give Zara a lopsided smile, “Not me personally, I aint quite that old.”

Zara chuckled politely as Bert continued, “It got kinda busy around these parts round 1887 with the gold.”

“Oh, are there mines near here?”  Zara asked with some excitement.

Bert gave her a sharp look. “Oh there’s mines alright. Abandoned now though, and dangerous. Dangerous places, old mines.  You’ll be more interested in the hiking trails than those old mines, some real nice hiking and rock gorges, and it’s a nice temperature this time of year.”

Bert lapsed into silence for a few minutes, frowning.

“If you’da been arriving back then, you’da been on a camel train, that’s how they did it back then. Camel trains.   They do camel tours for tourists nowadays.”

“Do you get many tourists?”

“Too dang many tourists if you ask me, Alice is full of them, and Ayers Rock’s crawling with ’em these days. We don’t get many out our way though.” Bert snorted, reminding Zara of Yasmin. “Our visitors like an off the beaten track kind of holiday, know what I mean?” Bert gave Zara another sideways lopsided smile.  “I reckon you’ll like it at The Flying Fish Inn.  Down to earth, know what I mean? Down to earth and off the wall.”  He laughed heartily at that and Zara wasn’t quite sure what to say, so she laughed too.

“Sounds great.”

“Family run, see, makes a difference.  No fancy airs and graces, no traffic ~ well, not much of anything really, just beautiful scenery and peace and quiet.  Aunt Idle thinks she’s in charge but me and old Mater do most of it, well Finly does most of it to be honest, and you dropped lucky coming now, the twins have just decorated the bedrooms. Real nice they look now, they fancied doing some dreamtime murials on the walls.  The twins are Idle’s neices, Clove and Corrie, turned out nice girls, despite everything.”

“Despite ….?”

“What? Oh, living in the outback. Youngsters usually leave and head for the cities.  Prune’s the youngest gal, she’s a real imp, that one, a real character.  And Devan calls by regular to see Mater, he works at the gas station.”

“Are they all Idle’s neices and nephews? Where are their parents?”  Perhaps she shouldn’t have asked, Zara thought when she saw Bert’s face.

“Long gone, mate, long since gone from round here.  We’ve taken good care of ’em.”  Bert turned off the road onto a dirt road.  “Only another five minutes now.  We’re outside the town a bit, but there aint much in town anyway. Population 79, our town. About right for a decent sized town if you ask me.”

Bert rounded a bend in a eucalyptus grove and announced, “Here we are, then, the Flying Fish Inn.”  He parked the car and retrieved Zara’s bag from the back seat.  “Take a seat on the verandah and I’ll find Idle to show you to your room and get you a drink.  Oh, and don’t be put off by Idle’s appearance, she’s a sweetheart really.”

Aunt Idle was nowhere to be found though, having decided to go for a walk on impulse, quite forgetting the arrival of the first guest.    She saw Bert’s car approaching the hotel from her vantage point on a low hill, which reminded her she should be getting back.  It was a lovely evening and she didn’t rush.

Bert found Mater in the dining room gazing out of the window.  “Where the bloody hell is Idle? The guest’s outside on the verandah.”

“She’s taken herself off for a walk, can you believe it?” sighed Mater.

“Yep” Bert replied, “I can.  Which room’s she in? Can you show her to her room?”

“Yes of course, Bert. Perhaps you’d see to getting a drink for her.”

Zara took dozens of screenshots of the many etchings and drawings, as her game character paused to do the same.  She had lost sight of the two figures up ahead, and remembered she probably should have been following them.

The tunnel came to a four way junction. There were drawings on the walls and floors of all of them, and a dim light coming from a distance in each. One was more brightly lit than the others, and Zara chose to explore that one first.  Presently a side room appeared, with green tiles on the floor similar to the one at the mine entrance. Daylight shone though a small window, and a diagram was drawn onto the wall.

Zara toyed with the idea of simply climbing out through the window while there was still a chance to get out of the mine.  She knew she was lost and would not be able to find her way out the way she came. It was tempting, but she just took a screenshot.  Maybe when she looked at them later she’d be able to work out how to retrace her steps.

After recording the image of the room of tiles, Zara continued along the tunnel. The light shining from the little window in the tile room faded as she progressed, and she found herself once again in near darkness.  She came to a fork.  Both ways were equally gloomy, but a faint blue light enticed her to take the right hand tunnel.

So many forks and side tunnels, I am surely completely lost now! And not one of these supposed maps is helping, I can’t decipher any of them. Another etching on the wall caught her eye, and Zara forgot about being lost.

Zara stopped to look at what appeared to be a map on the tunnel wall, but it was unfathomable at this stage. She recorded it for future reference, and then looked around, unsure whether to continue on this path or retrace her stops back to the four way junction.  And then she saw him in an alcove.

Osnas! This time Zara did say it out loud, and just as the frog faced stewardess was passing with her cart piled with used cups and cans and empty packets.  I swear she just winked at me!  Zara did a double take, but the cart and the woman had passed, collecting more rubbish.

With a little smile, Zara noticed that the mask Osnas was wearing was one of those paper pandemic masks.  She had expected something a bit more Venice carnival when the prompt mentioned that he always wore a mask, not one of those.  She hoped the clue in this case wasn’t the mask, as she had avoided the plague successfully so far and didn’t want to be late to that particular party,  but the square green thing on his cart resembled the tile at the mine entrance.  What do I do now though? I still don’t know what any of these things mean.  Approach him and see if he speaks I suppose.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we are now approaching Alice Springs, please fasten your seatbelts and switch off all your devices ready for landing.  We hope you have enjoyed your flight.”

The two figures disappeared from view and Zara continued towards the light. An alcove to her right revealed a grotesque frog like creature with a pile of bones and gruesome looking objects. Zara hurried past.

Bugger, I bet that was Osnas, Zara realized. But she wasn’t going to go back now.  It seemed there was only one way to go, towards the light.   Although in real life she was sitting on a brightly lit aeroplane with the stewards bustling about with the drinks and snacks cart, she could feel the chill of the tunnels and the uneasy thrill of secrets and danger.

“Tea? Coffee? Soft drink?” smiled the hostess with the blue uniform, leaning over her cart towards Zara.

“Coffee please,” she replied, glancing up with a smile, and then her smile froze as she noticed the frog like features of the woman.  “And a packet of secret tiles please,” she added with a giggle.

“Sorry, did you say nuts?”

“Yeah, nuts.  Thank you, peanuts will be fine, cheers.”

Sipping coffee in between handfulls of peanuts, Zara returned to the game.

As Zara continued along the tunnels following the light, she noticed the drawings on the floor. She stopped to take a photo, as the two figures continued ahead of her.

I don’t know how I’m supposed to work out what any of this means, though. Just keep going I guess. Zara wished that Pretty Girl was with her. This was the first time she’d played without her.

The walls and floors had many drawings, symbols and diagrams, and Zara stopped to take photos of all of them as she slowly made her way along the tunnel.  

Zara meanwhile make screenshots of them all as well.   The frisson of fear had given way to curiosity, now that the tunnel was more brightly lit, and there were intriguing things to notice.  She was no closer to working out what they meant, but she was enjoying it now and happy to just explore.

But who had etched all these pictures into the rock? You’d expect to see cave paintings in a cave, but in an old mine?  How old was the mine? she wondered. The game had been scanty with any kind of factual information about the mine, and it could have been a bronze age mine, a Roman mine, or just a gold rush mine from not so very long ago.  She assumed it wasn’t a coal mine, which she deduced from the absence of any coal, and mentally heard her friend Yasmin snort with laughter at her train of thought.  She reminded herself that it was just a game and not an archaeology dig, after all, and to just keep exploring.  And that Yasmin wasn’t reading her mind and snorting at her thoughts.

Put your thoughts to sleep. Do not let them cast a shadow over the moon of your heart. Let go of thinking.
~ Rumi

Tired from not having any sleep, Zara had found the suburb of Camden unattractive and boring, and her cousin Bertie, although cheerful and kind and eager to show her around, had become increasingly irritating to her.  She found herself wishing he’d shut up and take her back to the house so she could play the game again.  And then felt even more cranky at how uncomfortable she felt about being so ungrateful.  She wondered if she was going to get addicted and spent the rest of her life with her head bent over a gadget and never look up at the real word again, like boring people moaned about on social media.

Maybe she should leave tomorrow, even if it meant arriving first at the Flying Fish Inn.  But what about the ghost of Isaac in the church, would she regret later not following that up.  On the other hand, if she went straight to the Inn and had a few days on her own, she could spend as long as she wanted in the game with nobody pestering her.   Zara squirmed mentally when she realized she was translating Berties best efforts at hospitality as pestering.

Bertie stopped the car at a traffic light and was chatting to the passenger in the next car through his open window.  Zara picked her phone up and checked her daily Call The Whale app for some inspiration.

Let go of thinking.

A ragged sigh escaped Zara’s lips, causing Bertie to glance over. She adjusted her facial expression quickly and rustled up a cheery smile and Bertie continued his conversation with the occupants of the other car until the lights changed.

“I thought you’d like to meet the folks down at the library, they know all the history of Camden,” Bertie said, but Zara interrupted him.

“Oh Bertie, how kind of you!  But I’ve just had a message and I have to leave tomorrow morning for the rendezvous with my friends. There’s been a change of plans.”  Zara astonished herself that she blurted that out without thinking it through first.   But there. It was said. It was decided.