Chapter 28
Ben
Darkness engulfed Ben as he, Melody, Penny, and Angela stood in their escape room with blindfolds over their eyes. Ambiguous music, hinting at something mysterious, played in the background.
He heard some static reminiscent of the start of school announcements before a voice he didn’t recognize started to speak.
“You’re in the library when the ground shudders and the lights flicker.
You black out for a moment and wake up to find that nothing is quite as it seems.” Cue the dramatic music. “You may now remove your blindfolds.”
Ben was the first to remove his blindfold. Not wanting to miss a perfect opportunity, he slid a hand down to Melody’s waist and placed a quick kiss on her dewy, petal-soft lips. He kept his eyes trained on Penny and Angela to make sure they didn’t catch him in the act.
Melody inhaled sharply. Her hands dropped in surprise, so he raised his own to help her undo the knot securing her blindfold.
“Sorry,” he whispered as he slid off her blindfold, “I couldn’t resist.”
Only the barest trace of a blush colored her cheekbones. “I’m glad you didn’t,” she confessed.
That was a good thing, since he wasn’t actually sorry.
“Guys! Get a move on,” their escape room aficionado commanded once she removed her blindfold and witnessed them lolling around. “Don’t make me solve all of these clues by myself.”
He and Melody shared a smile before moving off to explore opposite ends of the room, the better not to distract each other. Penny huffed before moving to an unclaimed corner. Angela was already exploring the room in search of clues, not needing her daughter to tell her off, too.
The room was the size of a large bedroom.
Bookshelves dominated the space, but there was also a blackboard, desks with drawers, a couch, and a couple of paintings on the walls.
Perhaps most interestingly, there was a door that was equipped with a digital padlock.
It seemed part of their escape lay in finding clues that would enable them to determine the number sequence necessary to unlock the door.
Just in case, Ben tried the handle. As predicted, it was locked.
He turned around to find Penny arching a single brow at him. “Did you really think that would be unlocked?”
“Just checking,” Ben replied with a winning smile before moving toward the desks.
After checking the desk drawers and finding them empty, he went to a wall of books so tall it required a ladder to reach them all. Thankfully, one had been provided.
Thinking to do a thorough, systematic assessment of the bookshelf, he gripped the sides of the ladder to roll it all the way to the left when Penny stopped him.
“Wait!” she cried. “Don’t you remember what I told you? Don’t overcomplicate things. If there’s a clue to be found by climbing the ladder, odds are the ladder has already been placed in the right spot to lead you to the desired clue.”
Since he would far rather lose by following Penny’s advice than win by gainsaying her, he left the ladder where it was and climbed up the rungs.
He scanned the books, looking for anything unusual.
Finally, one book caught his eye: The Adventures of Tim Sawyer.
That was wrong. The real book was The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.
“I think I found something,” Ben called to the group as he plucked the book from the shelf and proceeded to climb down the ladder. Penny raced over.
He turned the book to face her. “The Adventures of Tim Sawyer,” he read before handing her the book.
“Good find,” Penny praised. She took the book in hand and riffled through the pages. Something on the back cover seemed to catch her eye. “A puzzle piece!” she cried. He heard the sound of Velcro as she ripped it off.
The group assembled and looked at the clue over her shoulder. It had two words on it. “‘At which,’” Penny read aloud.
He could practically see her brain working. “It’s not enough,” she lamented. “We need more clues.”
They retreated to their corners to search for more oddities. Ben got back up on the ladder and scoured the books, but he didn’t see anything else out of the ordinary.
“I found another one!” Melody cheered after some length of time. She held up a chalk brush for everyone to see. Another puzzle piece had been wedged between the folds.
“Me, too!” Angela announced with excitement. She waved a children’s book above her head. “Himpty Dimpty, my foot. As if any parent wouldn’t know it should be Humpty Dumpty.”
“Fantastic!” Penny enthused with a competitive spirit Ben could see being a great asset on the ice.
Penny collected the new puzzle pieces from Melody and her mom before moving to a desk where they could be laid out flat. Like the first piece, words were inscribed on each. When Penny fit the puzzle pieces together, they were able to piece the words together into a sentence.
“‘The temperature at which books burn,’” Melody read.
“Okay,” Ben mused. “Let’s think about this. Water boils at 100 degrees Celsius, 212 degrees Fahrenheit. The melting point of gold is around 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit, so a little over 1,000 Celsius.”
“I guess it pays to be an architect, huh?” Melody remarked.
The question brought a smile to Ben’s lips. “It definitely taught me some useful things.” Not that he was sure any of it would help him in this situation.
“You’re overthinking. You must be,” Penny observed. “Escape rooms are hard, but they’re designed to be solvable for everyone, not just people with particular schooling. What are we missing?”
“Okay. Let’s think,” Melody mused “We’re in a library. In the event of a fire, of course we’d be the most interested in the temperature at which books burn. Is there any chance you remember the temperature at which paper burns?”
Ben racked his brain, but if he’d ever known, the information was presently eluding him.
“Wasn’t there a book about this?” Penny’s mom contributed after a few moments of thoughtful silence. “Fahrenheit-something-or-other?”
“That’s it!” Ben said, racing back up the ladder. He scanned the shelf until he found what he was looking for. He used his forefinger to pull out the slim volume. “Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury.”
“Penny,” Ben directed, “Try keying four-five-one into the padlock.”
Penny didn’t waste any time rushing over to the locked door. “Four. Five. One.” She spoke deliberately as she keyed in one number at a time.
For a second, nothing happened. Then, when he thought they would have to go back to the drawing board, they heard the dramatic click of a door unlocking.
“Woohoo!” Penny cried. “We did it!”
“We did.” Melody laughed, accepting Penny’s enthusiastic hug.
“Would you like to do the honors?” Ben asked Penny, gesturing to the now-unlocked door.
“I would, I would,” she enthused, acting far more her age than the little adult she’d seemed thus far. Penny wasted no time pulling open the door.
“Congratulations!” a lady wearing an Escapism staff shirt praised from the other side of the door. “You’re our new high score! You broke out in thirty-seven minutes, beating the previous high score of thirty-nine minutes.”
“Triumph!” Penny cheered, pumping a little fist into the air. “We did it!”
“It looks like you’re a good team player after all,” Melody praised, giving the girl a gentle squeeze before letting her go.
Penny scrunched up her nose, causing her glasses to slide down a bit. “I have no problem with teamwork provided people cede to my judgment.”
Ben couldn’t hold back his bark of laughter. “Maybe you’re just a natural-born leader.”
“Sure. We’ll go with that,” Angela answered, heavy irony lacing her tone.
“See, Mom, I’m not inflexible. I’m a born leader.” The mischievous smile playing at the corners of Penny’s lips suggested she was going to use this argument to her tactical advantage in the future.
Melody’s warm laugh filled the air. “Oh man. We’ve created a monster.”
Ben’s breath caught as he took in the guileless beauty of Melody’s smile.
As the warm lighting cast over her features, bringing out the natural glow in her still sun-kissed skin and the subtle hint of espresso highlights in her thick, lustrous hair, the only monster he was worried about was the one that was threatening to explode out of his chest if Melody didn’t stop becoming more irresistible to him by the day.