“I got tired of my teacher tossing me into them, so I learned to use them for something else.”

“Shall we make our way to the gates?” Cates stretched his arms above his head, looking somewhat lopsided.

“As long as we can take the road back down,” Garvin replied, following behind Cates and Jacob with Sydney right behind him.

“If all looks clear, I believe we may, Garvin… I believe we may,” Jacob laughed, checking to make sure that all of his weapons were still in place.

The wall around the castle was breathtakingly large, in height as well as in length. It seemed that more time passed getting around two sides of the massive enclosure then it did climbing the face of the mountain. But they were now looking down the front of the castle wall for the first time. The front stood out in an archway giving several feet of wall to hide beside, which is exactly what they did. All four ran swiftly to the ‘L’ shaped bend. Jacob got down on his stomach and peered around from the bottom of the gate looking up, while the others stayed as close to the wall as they could. Jacob stood joining them, shaking his head, then began making his way around the edge. The castle was protected by a wooden gate that filled the archway from top to bottom, with beams as thick as tree trunks. Two oil burning lights, hanging from the entrance post lit up the front of the gate in a dim light, and each post had a black wrought iron bench that circled it.

“Where do we look for the note?” Garvin whispered, barely loud enough to be heard.

“Spread out, but stay low and in the shadows,” Jacob replied with the same type of tone.

The gate made a creaking sound and all four dove out of sight; two went back to the side of the wall, and the other two slid down in the shrubbery on the other side, teetering on the edge of the mountain. The only two that could see who was coming out of the gate's entrance were Cates and Sydney from their place among the shrubs. It was a slender young man with long dark hair, looking around as if he was frightened. He stepped out, slowly, closed the smaller door on the enormous gate just enough to not be noticed, then dashed out and slid something under the bench by the left light post, and made his way back in much faster than he came out.

“Must be close to midnight,” Cates whispered, getting to his knees and looking back behind them. “Two more big steps...” Then he just shook his head.

Cates waited until he saw Jacob look around the corner before he ran back to where he and Garvin were; a few seconds later Sydney joined them with the silk wrapped contents in his hands. “We saw the boy put it under the bench,” he said softly, handing it to Jacob. They decided it would be best to make their way back down the rocky outcrop by the road that led back down before opening the note and taking the chance of getting caught. ***

The painting was of a man, sitting in a high-back chair with his legs crossed, wearing clothes like the photos that I had seen in the history books with Napoleon Bonaparte in them. The red jacket went up to the bottom of his ears with white ruffles that spilled over. Brass buttons adorned both sides of the jacket, and the tops of the shoulders were covered in golden emblems of some kind. His hair was short and slicked forward, with small curls about his forehead; his eyes looked out to the side, staring straight at us.

“Wonder how old he was?” I said, as if any of us would know.

“No one signed it,” Tammy said, examining the painting closer. “Nothing, not even a scribble.”

“I can’t say the desk is empty, but it’s not papers in here,” Derek said, looking down into the drawer that he had just pulled open.

Because he never gave us any more information, Tammy and I turned around to see as Tanda leaned over the front of the desk, and stepped back just as fast. Bones filled the drawer, almost to the top. And not just any bones. Small, tiny bones that Tammy said looked like finger bones of small individuals, or worse, children. Once Derek heard the word children he closed the drawer, and opened the one to the right of him, and found the same thing. “Whoever that is in the painting, was one sick son-of-a-bitch if this was his desk.” Derek slammed the second drawer shut.

“Here, a fake wall,” Fala called out from the far left side of the room.

“What do you mean fake, Fala?” I asked, watching Derek go to him, while the the rest of us stood back.

“It is not solid stone, like the others. It is only painted to look as if it is.”

“It’s wood,” Derek looked back amazed after tapping it. “Wonder what’s behind it?”

“You really think we should go further, instead of trying to get that real wall to come back down so we can get out?” I inquired, walking over, running my hand over the wooden wall that truly looked just like the stone.

“We came down here to explore this place, so let’s explore.” Derek put his back to the wall and pushed, to no avail.

“Why go through the trouble to make it look like the other walls to have it just push open?” Fala asked, looking strangely at Derek.

“So, you think there’s some kind of switch?”

“I do. If my strength did not move the wall…” Fala paused, glancing over at me, then back at Tammy and Tanda. “Then there is no way that you will move it…no offence.”

“You’ve been hearing that ‘no offence’ term too much,” Derek smiled, dusting off his backside. “And you’re right. So why ya just standing there big boy? Look for a switch.”

Fala stood a foot taller as a smile of pride gleamed in his eyes. To be told he was learning from the others was one thing, but to be told he was right and treated as an equal was bringing back the proud Indian that his birth had meant him to be. Fala’s tribe had been contained to the forest by the coast, and his home had all but been taken over by the crazed mind of his Chief’s wildest family member. The very one that placed the others at constant arm’s length into harm’s way, had driven the heart and soul from his people. Until we showed up and became entangled, getting him and his fellow men as a gift, of sorts, from the Chief, and eldest, of his werewolf clan. Had it not been a show of disrespect to turn down his offer, I would have refused and missed out on gaining a dear friend…not to mention, when the time came he was a huge part of letting a handful of hungry foxes loose in a chicken coop. And we were the foxes.

I was snapped out of my thoughts when the wood began to snap and crackle and the worst thing of all could have happened. Spiders took off in every direction. Tanda had inadvertently found the mechanism to open the door when she slid her hand over the top of the desk while looking under it. She jammed her fingers into a small bronze statue of a boy holding a dog, that at first glance, one would think it was attached to the feather quill pen and ink holder right beside of it. I jumped back three times as the spiders found other places to hide. There had to be hundreds of the foul things, all bouncing as they ran, stopping when they touched one another then darting off again.

“There just tiny, little spiders,” Derek pretended not to laugh.

“They scare me too,” Tammy said, holding the shoulders of Tanda, who was also watching the wall.

“We had plenty. Even some that would crawl around in my room, but not this many,” Tanda said, wrapping her arms around herself. “I don’t like them either, Derek.”

“I think all girls are scared of spiders and snakes, don’t you, Fala?”

Fala was looking at the wall with his brows pulled together, holding his reply as he reached up to the ceiling and brought down something black. At first I thought he had already lost his mind and grabbed a spider, then I saw him spread his fingers apart. “It’s black,” his tone was so low that we all stepped closer. “The web they make is black,” he said louder, as he spun around. Derek stood in place, but the three of us jumped simultaneously. I think I grabbed Tanda’s hand, because Tammy was still locked on her shoulders, making me wonder who was more afraid of the eight legged beast. We watched Derek take part of the dark web into his fingers, as the confusion spread across his face.