After two hours Carine finally said she had it figured out. “There is just one problem,” she said. “And that would be?” I asked. “It still does not make sense,” she replied, “it is just a bunch of random words that cannot be put together in any sensible way to form a sentence.” She handed it to me. Sigh, she was right, just words that made no sense at all. I copied them down, then Sky and I went for a walk outside. I needed some fresh air to think better.

Meanwhile… “That must be his wife,” said Matt, “it is that gal that answered the door, the one with the huge brother.” He let Mack look through the telescope. “Yeah, that is her alright,” said Mack. “Unless he goes around huggin and kissin all those gals,” said Matt. “Would your wife let you do that?” asked Mack. “Are you kiddin?” he said, “she would kill me!” “Exactly,” said Mack, “so she is the one we want.”

“But how do we get her?” asked Matt. “Well, she goes to help the old lady move to her flat in the village,” said Mack, “so that is when you grab her, and just her. I do not care about anyone else. But make sure you do not kill anyone else either. I want a hostage to make this guy see reason.” “Okay Mack,” said Matt, “we will get her for you.”

Now, back to us… “The only thing that makes sense in these words is ‘Sky’,” I said chuckling. “Very funny,” said Sky, “but maybe these words do make sense after all. Just not as a sentence, perhaps each word is basically a sentence by itself.” “Hmm, then we just have to figure out what each sentence means,” I said. “And, since this man Ben liked puzzles,” added Sky, “all of the words may not be part of the answer, that way it makes it harder to figure out.”

“Thanks Sky,” I said, “just when I thought it might be easier now, you go and throw that in there.” She giggled. We went back inside and informed the others of this new idea Sky had for the puzzle. Carine liked that idea and started right away to work on some possibilities for the words, and which words might not be needed. “That would be just like Ben to do that,” said Denise shaking her head. “What is this?” asked Sephira as she lifted an odd metal box off the fireplace mantel.

“Oh, that is my dear husband,” said Denise. Poor Sephira, she turned white and nearly dropped that box. Certain things like that really affect poor Sephira. She would prefer to put a person’s ashes in the ground, not on the mantel. To her it is like having a body sitting up there. It was hard for the rest of the girls not to laugh. We all have our problems.

“Where are those lovely cats?” asked Denise. “I really do not know,” I said, “but I will go and try to find them.” Carine looked at me, rather puzzled, when I said that. However, she did not say anything. Sky and Crystal went up to our bedroom and said they would check up there for the cats. I went to the second floor to look around. I found them in the last bedroom down the hall. “Okay you two,” I asked, “what are you up to?” Meow,meow.=We think secret door in closet room.

Meow.=Yep, it true, we can tell. I opened the closet, it was empty. The cats zipped inside and began to sniff around. Meow,meow!=Here door! I tried to push on it but nothing happened. There was a metal hook on the back wall of the closet, so I turned it and sure enough, a door slid open. “Hold it, you two,” I said, “we need to get our gear before exploring in there.” I decide to close the door again while we went to get our backpacks and tell everyone where we were going.

First we went upstairs to tell Sky and Crystal, but what a shock! Crystal lay on the floor, she was out cold. I pressed the emergency button on the collar of MC. “Problem upstairs!” yelled Angel, and all the girls but two came up right away. Carine and Angel stayed downstairs to protect Denise. Benson was outside loading boxes into the van.

When the girls arrived I had Crystal sitting in a chair, she had quite a bump on her head. I looked up, “Mack has Sky.” I handed a note to Galyna which read, “Meet me in the village square, 30 minutes, alone.” I called Rock. “I hate to disrupt your vacation plans Rock,” I said, “but I need your help. Mack kidnapped Sky.” Rock told Annelie, apologizing for the delay in their vacation. “Stop talking and get over there!” she exclaimed.

To Be Continued.

©2022 Steve McLeod.