Secret Places and Hidden Things

Chapter Twelve

Jack and Daerk were sitting in the circular room off the entrance hall. It was late in the morning, and the windows were open to a riot of birdsong. The scent of flowers was drifting in on a gentle breeze. The world outside the helm was effulgent with a million roses tangling wildly into the air over the stone walls of the courtyard. Wynne was out there, watering a rhododendron, but Jack wasn't sure if she could see them. He had tried waving to her, but she seemed very far away.

"Would you like to play a game, Jack?" Michael had appear soundlessly behind them.

"Sure, what game?"

"Oh, it's very special. Elliot made it for me last time he was here."

"Ah," Daerk said, stirring from reverie. "I do rather like that game."

Michael set a large wooden box on the table between them and went to pull up a chair. The box was made of some kind of crimson wood, and it had a pale inlay of curving geometry around the edges. In the middle was a painting but it didn't seem to be of anything specific. It wasn't abstract, but Jack couldn't focus on it solidly. Each time he thought he knew what it was, it would change form.

Michael pulled up a chair, and Daerk looked at it critically for a moment. "Where did you find that?" he asked.

"It was a long ways off, but I brought it in for you."

"Ah, you are kind."

"Would you like to sit here?" Michael asked.

"No, no, that would be wrong. Jack, you sit there. I'll take your chair and Michael can have this couch."

Jack got up and sat in the chair. It was the same chair he'd been sitting in when he arrived at the helm. It did feel a long way off, but that was appropriate, somehow. Michael arranged himself on the couch.

Suddenly, Wynne was at the window. "Where did you all come from? I thought I was alone today."

"Michael brought us in," Daerk said.

"We need another player," Michael said. "It's Elliot's game."

"Oh, lovely! Just a moment." Wynne reached up and pulled the latch on the screen and the whole window fell inward with a crash. After stepping through, she heaved it back into place with a snap, then pulled off her shoes and gloves and tossed them back where she came. For a moment, Jack had the impression of being in two places at once, and he could see Wynne's balcony through the window. The gloves landed neatly on a stool and brushed themselves off before catching the shoes and placing them delicately on the floor. Things smudged back into place and the balcony was nowhere to be seen.

As Jack watched this, Wynne chose an enormous pillow to sit on.

"So, the game play is simple," Michael said. He didn't elaborate as he opened the board. A complete landscape with miniature trees and blowing grass folded out onto the table, which suddenly felt much bigger than it had been. One side of the board turned into a low mountain range. Jack watched as a tiny bird, probably a hawk, took off from a towering pine and circled upward on a thermal. A ray of light from the window was coming in at the perfect angle to throw everything into dramatic relief.

"Who goes first?" Jack asked.

"There is no first," Daerk responded.

"What character do you want, Jack?" Michael held up a handful of odd looking trinkets. Wynne took a piece resembling an old biplane and Daerk took one that looked like a brass maple tree.

"Do they have any meaning behind them?" Jack asked.

"Of course! Everything has meaning," Wynne said.

Jack examined the remaining pieces carefully and took an abstract looking sculpture with a golden bell on top of it.