Chapter 3 of Malgrave

The baths were like an overgrown garden, a lovely place, but now overrun with people wanting the news. Most people were busy about their jobs around the island, but many still made it to the baths to meet the guides. They knew better than to bother the new kids. Most of them had been new kids themselves. Those of them who had not been new kids were, obviously, caretaking adults. One of these was the mayor himself, who came down the steps to greet Briar and the boys. He was tall, with somewhat drooping shoulders. His cross-looking dark eyebrows hung over handsome blue eyes. Mayor Patrick Ravencroft always looked troubled, and usually was.

"Briar. Good morning."

"Morning, sir. This is Billy and Seamus, our newest additions, on tour from New York."

The mayor greeted the boys, and they greeted him back.

"Just put the stuff down here, thanks," Briar told the boys. "It's all stuff we're short on here. We can find most of what we need on the island, but others have to be brought in."

Billy hefted his sack. "This feels like toothbrushes. And something else I can't identify."

Briar gave the sack a quick feel. "Oh. Ah. Yes. Female products. Not like anyone would put those in a game, so we gotta import them."

"Mine's clothes." Seamus set his down with a sigh of relief. He still looked a little green.

Briar set down her box. "Great. We could use more clothes. Most people only have the one outfit and their jim-jams...well, it could be napkins or something boring...but at least we have what we need. And that's my job, right?"

"It's everyone's job." The mayor smiled. "Go along and show them the island, Briar. Nobody does it better than you."

"I'm the only one who ever did it, so nobody does it worse than me, but thanks." Briar faced the boys. "Come on. I'll tell you everything."

As they went up the steps, Billy asked, "I suppose this place has a story? It's obvious, isn't it? I bet this was a mystery game."

"Yeah, but they played through the game before they started sending refugees." She didn't ask about their past, or how the Catastrophe had affected them. "They sent in a few people to play the whole game. The people then wrote down the whole story and left it in the manor."

"There's a manor? Cool!" Billy seemed more enamored with Malgrave Island than did Seamus Gumshoe. "Wait, why aren't we reading it? The story?"

"Because it's easier to show you. Besides, the story is in the mayor's office, and they usually use it for official stuff. It contains the codes to unlocking the puzzles around the island. The puzzles guard important places, and they don't want just anyone getting in whenever they like. It's hardly 1984, but there are rules. Of course anyone can figure out the locks eventually, but it takes time. The point is to keep the Murder from getting what they want."

"Did you just say the Murder? I wasn't really listening." Seamus sat down on a rock. We were in the woods near the town now.

"Yeah, it's the word for a lot of crows. They're a gang of bullies. In a place like this, not enough adults to go round, lots of little kids, plenty of swag if you know where to look, they're far stronger than we'd like." I sat down on a stump.

"Would you like them to be strong at all?" Billy drawled. He didn't sit down, but kept pacing around the trees, looking at stuff.

"Whatever. Just don't get involved. If they bother you, say you're kind and polite to everyone. Gordon, their leader, wants everyone polite to him. He figures if they do that then they can't rebel against him. I try to sic the adults on 'im, but it's not easy. They're all so busy. We don't really have much police. Just a few counselors, and the big kids look out for the little ones."

"Great."

"Right. Well, pretend they don't exist and you'll be fine. The Murder aside, this isn't a bad place to live. Hard sometimes, yeah. Everyone has a job. It's how we keep the place going. We don't have much staff--the people at VRCAN mostly didn't sign up for this sort of thing, so there's not much to go round. You can cook, or repair machines, or clean stuff, or rebuild buildings, or be like me and be a collector and collect the random stuff around the island so we can use it all."

"Why does this place seem like it's been deserted?" Seamus' natural detective skills were taking over.

"All part of the story. Let me explain. Once upon a time...there was an island. This was about 1940. Not real life, by the way. This is all in the story of the game. Anyway, Winston Malgrave came there because it was a resort. Legendary curative waters, that's what the book said. The water was supposed to cure everything. Around 1970, he traced the water to its source, and he found out that it was because of a big fat pink rock underground. He called it the Malgrave Crystal. By this time the island was named after him too. I'm pretty sure he bought it."

"Died, or bought the island?"

"The island. Malgrave built a machine that was supposed to use the crystal to make him young again. But it malfunctioned and destroyed half the manor. The explosion broke down stuff all over the island and killed his wife, Sarah. His daughter, Rebecca, ran away to her grandfather's farm."

"On the island?"

"On the island. The Malgrave Crystal turned to dust and floated everywhere. The water isn't curing any more, not unless you treat it with the dust, which we're always doing. We want lots of the water in case we ever need it. Not that there's anything dangerous here."

"Does the dust really make you younger?"

Briar remembered one accident. Jamie Culloden, a grown-up in the kitchens that she'd found kind of cute, had literally stumbled onto a collection of dust. He'd lost ten years. He was about fifteen now, but he had an adult mind, and he still did his old job. It was unfortunate, but it had scared everyone out of playing with the dust.

"Yeah."

"Wow..." Billy's brilliance was exulting in this place. "This is excellent. I was hoping they wouldn't put us in some mindless shoot-'em-up."

"Not with our pasts," Seamus put in. "Not with what we've gone through."

"We didn't even see the enemy!" Billy shouted. "The police just came and evacuated us. We haven't gone through anything."

"And that's a good thing. They're getting us out first. Like in World War Two. They packed all the kids out of London. Now it's happening again, and please don't talk about the Catastrophe, because we've got a crapload of little kids here who really don't need to remember. And neither do I." Briar stared at the trees around her, smelling the damp cool air and trying to pretend she'd been there her whole life. "Okay. Anyhow, Malgrave tried to rebuild the machine, which he called SARA--Sustaining And Rejuvenating Apparatus."

"Like his wife."

"Right. Then in comes the player, playing the game, solving the mystery, running about the island collecting the dust and sending it to Malgrave through dust-collecting stations around the island. Did you see the one in the baths? The thing by the steps that looked like a sundial with a maze on top?"

"Yeah, I wondered what that was."

"Once Malgrave had enough dust, he put it in the machine. He summoned the detective--the person playing the game--to the manor, and then trapped them in the cellar. Rebecca, the only other person on the island since her grandparents died, came and explained everything to the detective. She had them collect extra dust and put it in SARA. Malgrave was already in the machine, trying to grow young again, but the new dust made him younger than he'd planned. He became a little boy and left with Rebecca and presumably the detective."

"Well, VRCAN sends people into games to play through them and defeat all the dangers so they can put refugees in the games." Billy adjusted his glasses, seeming like a scientist explaining his newest theory. "But the people who make the games safe--they always leave to take care of other refugee worlds. So the detective can't still be here."

"Right. It's just that the story never said the detective left."

I shrugged. "Whatever. The detective left, and they started sending us in. Ever since then, it's all been repair, rebuilding, and restoration."

"Reduce, reuse, recycle." Seamus seemed to be getting over his seasickness.

"Nothing to reduce. And what's to reuse? Everything here looks old, but it's actually new. As for recycling, everything has to be used for whatever we can think of. We've got little kids bathing in big pots, food boiling in helmets..."

"Helmets?"

"Stage props from the theater, mostly. But there's no end to the things you find. That's my job, see--I go out every day with the other collectors and find things. There's usually lists from all over the island, saying what we need. Whatever we find, we give it to a courier and they take it where it goes."

I got up off the stump. "Well, that's the story. Any questions? About the island's past, I mean."

Billy shrugged. "Probably plenty, but I'll think of them later."

Seamus laughed. "He's always like that. He acts like he's a hundred and twenty."

Billy laughed. "Not quite so much."

We kept walking until we reached the town. I started pointing things out. "There's the general store where we keep food and other random supplies. There's another house for overflow."

"I keep hearing this weird sound." Seamus stopped by the store and cocked his head. "I think it's coming from the store, but I heard it in the baths too. What is it?"

"It's the dust. It makes a sound. It's louder in bigger quantities. It's all over the place. We haven't been able to collect it all yet, and who knows how much there is underground? Maybe more than Malgrave ever found. Why would it just be one big rock? Could be spread all over."

Billy stayed uncharacteristically silent, a look of awe spread like butter over his face.

They went on walking. "There's the barbershop, and there's a sort of infirmary above it, though there's not much need for it...Here's the plaza."

Billy stared up at the statue in the middle of it. "Who is this?"

Briar giggled. "Malgrave. But his head's gone missing and no one knows where it is."

Seamus pulled his fedora down over his eyes. "I'm on the case."

Briar pointed to a street on the left. "Graveyard's off that way. There's a mausoleum and the mine where Malgrave found the crystal. Nobody's allowed down there. The guards are mostly stationed there."

"You have guards?"

Briar shrugged. "Yeah, not many, though. Just enough to keep little kids from endangering themselves, not enough to keep the Murder under control. I mean the bullies. Nobody's actually been murdered. If they see something, they'll take care of it, but the miscreants are good at not being seen. Just once, I wish Gordon could get caught."

"Don't worry. He can be."

"Just once, I wish he would get caught." She pointed to the left. "Down that other street is more houses and shops and a posh hotel. The way used to be blocked, but they cleared it. It's all housing and a little storage, nothing you need to see."

Billy was running ahead. "This is the theater?"

"Yeah." Briar followed him. "See the puzzle in the door?"

"There was one on the store, too." Seamus went up to it. "These little wheels...if you spin them, there are different letters, numbers, pictures...Which are right?"

Briar reached out to fix it. "Here. It's a rebus. 2...B...the picture of an oar...then the one of a knot...2...B."

"To be or not to be!" Billy was ecstatic. "And here I thought it would be all dorms and rations and nothing amusing."

"Rations are in here." Briar opened the door and led them inside. "Tables where we all eat, morning and night. Lots of people eat lunch at work, but some don't. Couriers deliver food all over the place and get it to the ones who don't come in." She led them through the lobby and through a door at the back. "The stage is where they make any important announcements. There's a few people like to fool around with the piano, and a few more are trying to do Hamlet."

The room still had some wreckage lying around in it. There were seats and a gallery and a stage with a piano. The only surprising thing was a tree growing in the middle of the seats.

She jumped up onto the stage and sat on the piano bench. "We keep finding film reels here and there, but they're not labeled. We've got sheets to sling up for a screen, but what good is that when we can't find a projector?"

"What's backstage?" Seamus sprang up onto the stage and played a few chords on the piano.

"I am." Another boy looked out from behind the curtains. His face was unremarkable, except for a large hawk nose that rivaled Basil Rathbone's. "Can you play the piano?"

"More or less. Why?"

"There's not many who can here. Just a lot of kids who weren't with families or guardians or even governmentally provided care." The boy came out from behind the curtains. He was wearing an old-fashioned suit. "If you're here, you got lost in the confusion or you're a street rat."

"Andrew has a way of putting things bluntly." Briar folded her arms and gave him a meaningful look.

Andrew shrugged. "Sorry. I'm not being insensitive. I lost an aunt. Anyway, the really scarred refugees are sent to a hospital world, not here. Gentlemen, welcome to Malgrave Island. Billy, you have the look of a man who has seen tragedy. Would you like to play Horatio?"

"He's seven," Briar muttered.

"So? He went to school with Hamlet. Billy's a genius. He could have gone to school with a ninety-year-old." Seamus banged out "The Entertainer" on the piano.

Andrew grabbed at his ears theatrically. "Agh! The pain! The agony! I've heard that far too many times. Please, make it stop...Thank you. Billy?"

"I'll consider it."

"Shall we go on?"

Briar took the boys back into the lobby. She was about to take them back outside when Seamus asked, "What about upstairs?"

"Just a gallery. Come on." She found the doorway blocked by Gordon.