Inside Evil

Chapter 14 - Part II

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Sam sat with his mouth agape as Roberta relayed her trip though the mirror. Heeding Mrs Peacock's words to unveil the evenings events to her friend, Roberta had told Sam everything that had happened. Sam was wide eyed as she revealed how she had fallen out of her own body and gone through to a back room with Mrs Peacock. How she'd walked straight through a mirror into a seemingly different world and then how she'd be given a riddle, had her hand drenched in scalding liquid, met Vanessa Lingly and a number of other frightening figures, all of whom she'd had to kick, spit and fight to get away from and only got back to the mirror within inches of losing her life. Sam sat quietly, occasionally audibly gasping, as Roberta explained the story. Even as Roberta spoke, she realised that any normal person would have her committed immediately, she was clearly delusional, but the truth was that she wasn't insane and she had fallen into some strange world of peril.

Roberta finished telling the tale and sat back quietly in the chair, awaiting whatever crazed response she was about to get. Sam in turn also sat quietly, processing and organising the events that he'd just been told. On his lap sat a purring ginger tom, and Sam pushed his glasses up his nose and stroked the happily growling kitten whilst he was deep in thought.

"Well, you better show me this riddle then."

"You believe me?" Roberta asked in astonishment.

"After the things that I've seen and heard in the past few weeks Roberta, I'll just about believe anything right now," Sam replied. "It's just about the craziest thing I've ever heard, but I'm learning that Ridgewood is a whole bag of crazy. You do realise what it means though?"

"I can't die in eight days Sam," Roberta said forcefully, "I'm not about to just sit back and let this Ammokra kill me like it has done all those people in the past."

"You're not going to die," Sam replied, "I won't let it happen."

"Mrs Peacock said that the riddle was everything, that I should study the riddle and remember what happened on the path through the mirror. There must be some clues there."

"That's where we start then."

Roberta dug in her pocket, wincing slightly as her bandaged hand caught on her jeans. She passed the burnt piece of parchment across to Sam, causing the previously happy cat to arch its back and spit at her before it leapt from Sam's lap and disappeared through the cat flap into the night.

"I need to get him done," Roberta said, realising that the tom cat was getting more aggressive with age.

Sam feigned horror, "Noooo, poor Toby. Leave his balls alone!"

Roberta laughed, "You men and your balls."

Sam stuck is bottom lip out, "We like our balls thanks very much!"

Taking the note from Roberta, Sam unfolded the piece of parchment carefully before reading through the riddle.

"This is all of it?" Sam asked incredulously, "It's not much to go on."

"I know! That's all I was given, is there nothing?"

"Well it doesn't exactly say much, really just that you have to enter Gathin to save yourself, that you don't need a key or password and that you just have to follow the path your set."

"But that's the whole point, I haven't been set a path?"

"There's got to be something in here," Sam continued, studying the page carefully. "From eight days hence the moon is brightest. Well, the moon's brightest at full moon, did you notice it?"