Gyrus

Chapter Three: Room Seven

When Edwin suggested - or plainly stated - that my nightmares were not nightmares, I fell into a pensive state. I knew he was being ridiculous; he was trying to paint me as some sort of fortune teller, like my dreams were predictions. But it was mere coincidence, a very hyper-realistic one but a coincidence all the same. My usual feelings of paranoia had just extended to include Alyssa, someone very close to me. And though the events in the dream had ended up happening, I had been having that same dream long before I even knew who Alyssa was. Whether or not it was a premonition, the truth that remained was that Alyssa was gone and nobody knew a thing about who took her or why. The authorities were oblivious to what was really happening and kept trying to pin the story on me, so Edwin and I decided to do some digging of our own. And the only logical place to start was with Maria, Alyssa's roommate.

She was very close to Alyssa and she was the last person who'd seen her and she was the only person who could fill in the blanks we didn't know. Like where they were going and what they were going to do before the abduction happened. We'd planned to catch up with her during lunch at the cafeteria but she didn't show probably because of the stress of everything that had happened in the last week. Soon we came to realize Maria had other ideas. At ten pm, the buzzer for lights out went off and we were about to retire for the night when a jay was pushed under our mahogany door. Jays, another one of the Tower nicknames, referred to a secret written code form we used to send messages around the block. Each message is decoded individually using a code key. Everyone had to learn how to decipher the code, and some of the boarders learned to read and write in code - like Edwin. We huddled together under the moonlight from our window to avoid attracting attention while he read in a low but clear voice.

'Urgent. Meet me at my room the hour after midnight. Please come dressed.'

It was from Maria and from how scratchy her normally cursive handwriting was, she'd written this in a hurry.

"Well that's unusual." Edwin added.

I shrugged. "On the good side, we won't have to track her down anymore."

"True, but I wonder what she meant by 'come dressed'."

I burst into laughter. I hadn't really given it any thought before, but it was ridiculous that she'd specified we wear clothes. Unless somehow it had gotten out that I liked to sleep in the nude. We resolved to go for the meeting mainly for our own prerogatives: the chance to find out the truth, start up a plan for a search and, if possible, to get her to help us with it. Edwin set the table clock's alarm to a quarter to one and we tried to get some sleep. But I couldn't. I had too many thoughts hounding me and nightmares I was trying to avoid.

The alarm buzzed, startling me. I turned around and saw that Edwin was already awake, fully clothed and sitting across from me. I pulled on a pair of slacks and a tee-shirt, sandals and an overcoat. We went to our oversized wardrobe, pushed it open and pulled out the back panels to reveal a hole in the wall opening into a man-made tunnel. During the confederate war, St. Andria's tower was some kind of a last resort hiding place for the peasantry who lived in the nearby settlements. In order to get there without being seen by enemies, they created an elaborate series of tunnels and stairs within the thick walls of the tower which connected the tower rooms to each other and to strategic places in the rest of the fort. When the nuns bought the fort, they were unaware of this and as such we assumed the information was not passed on to Robert and his staff. The lore is that the first tunnels were discovered by an African boy who was formerly a slave; he'd been rescued by the nuns and in gratitude, he'd stayed with them. He was part of the bargain, to stay for a year and help Roberto out with the fort. He kept his end of the bargain and showed the first residents of the tower its secrets as a bonus.