The Novelle Diaries & The Wampus Cub

Chapter 18: A Letter Arrives

'Hogsmeade.' Wren shook her head as yet more questions poured into her mind. 'Hickleson's is a company that works all over the British isle. I read that it has its main base in the Cotswolds and yet everything leads back to here. Something is going on and my gut tells me that it is far from good but something just isn't clicking.' Wren ran her hand through her hair in frustration.

'Hay, we have a lot of information, we will figure out the rest.' Erris reassured her. 'We know the who and the where, and i'm going to say that we are pretty sure that we know the What. exhotic animals. Now our task is to figure out why and maybe when.' The boy laid everything out in perspective for her and it made her realise how much she had already discovered.

'When?' Wren questioned with a curious tilt of her head.

'I may be entirely wrong but I think the big 11 is our answer to that.' Erris pointed to the numbers at the bottom of the circle. 'I think it's a date.'

'But it doesn't have any days or months, it's just one number,' Wren pointed out doubtfully.

'I know, that's why it's a big guess but if it was a recurring date like the eleventh of every month then it would make sense. What if new shipments came in on that day or people gathered together then.' As Erris spoke his tone became less certain of what he was saying.

'No, no. I think you're onto something. The Hogad and Chirrup appeared about a month apart. I can't quite remember the dates exactly but it felt like it was around that date. However Chirrup appeared on Halloween which doesn't fit the pattern.' Wren weighed up the information they had.

Erris nodded for a long time, silently mulling everything over before asking, 'even if i am right, what do we do with this information?'

His words made Wren's heart sink as she realised that even with all the information in the world about what was going on, they couldn't prove anything, even to themselves whilst within school grounds and to her knowledge there was no way of getting out.

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The next day Wren and Erris decided to walk down to the school gates to wait for their friends to arrive. Although it had been nice to have the castle to themselves they had missed their friends dearly and couldn't wait to see them again. The walk down the uneven, rocky and snow covered track took about thirty minutes and by the time they arrived at the gates topped with winged boars, they were rather glad that they would be taking a carriage back up the hill.

Not long after they arrived, students began to pour through the gates from the train platform and push and shove their way to the awaiting carriages. Wren and Erris began to peer over the crowd to try and get a glimpse of their friends but in hindsight they only needed to use their ears as they heard the distinctive Scottish tones of Rory sounding from within the crowd.

'Ay, watch ya' hands! Pushin shovin like we're runnin from a troll!' Rory protested as he navigated his way through the unruly crowd.

Wren began to wave her arms so that he would notice them standing on the side lines and within moments he had spotted them and dragged a rather red faced and angry looking Rosewaine out of the crowd behind him. She was evidently just as infuriated by the crowds as Rory.

The girls embraced each other enthusiastically as they began to talk at ninety miles per hour trying to catch each other up on the past two weeks in under a minute whilst the boys clapped each other on the back then turned their attention to finding a carriage.

They had to wait a few minutes for the madness to subside but soon enough they were trundling back up the snowy track with a carriage to themselves.

'It's good to be back,' Rosewaine smiled through her eyes, holding a little sadness as she looked out the window at the snow covered castle.