Hy-Jinx is beside herself, and also beside Hood. Both are lying on the stone floor of whatever building they have just broken into, having fallen in a soggy heap from the forced window above. Hy-Jinx cannot believe that she can see again, even if she is just staring at the wooden rafters of the ceiling. She lifts her hand up above her face and turns it back and forth, slowly manipulating her fingers, marvelling at the phenomenon of sight and how everything seems to glow with a soft rosy glow, everything that is except a strange flickering which seems to be off to her side. She turns her head to stare at the swirling light show that is Hood, who, currently gasping from exertion and also staring at the ceiling, arms clutched around backpack and mask, is beginning to catch a chill, his teeth beginning to chatter as the coldness of the floor and the wetness of his clothes begin to seep into his bones.

“Careful with those teeth there Hood, don’t want you to chatter too much - you’ll use up all your conversation for the year!”

Hood turns his head slowly to Hy-Jinx, his jaw continuing to spasm, and looks at Hy-Jinx darkly and in silence. Hood will always look in silence - a strange green countenance emanating from his features.

Hy-Jinx grins back at him and bops him on the nose with a finger. “Missed you,” she says, watching the green change into purple and then gradually shift to a more rosy hue. “Woah!” says’s Hy-Jinx as she sits up, taking in her surroundings.

In the almost pitch darkness Hood raises his head and pushes himself up onto his elbows, summoning his usual orb which he floats in the air, purple light reflecting off a thousand surfaces, all about what must be some sort of storage room - windowless with the exception of the boarded one they’ve just broken through.

“I think we must be somewhere in Gorvinelle’s Glass Foundary” Hy-Jinx says, standing up and looking about, wringing out her clothes as best she can, water splatting onto the floor about her feet. “Never been here before, but heard a lot about it - looks like we’re in the storage room,” she says, staring at a stack of vertically stored glass panes in front of her, to the right of which a large set of thin wooden doors, and to the left, large open hessian sacks of what looks like ground glass. Peering into one of the glass panes, she sees another swirling light show - a reflection, she realises, of herself; a pair of rose tinted spectacles dimly glimmering back at her. Her colours seem to be more consistent and rosy than Hood’s. Oranges and yellows blossoming, she smiles at herself and waves, the colours brightening in hue and turning rosier. She turns and looks down on Hood, propped up as he is on his elbows, his backpack and Madeleine’s mask balanced on his tummy, he seems to be holding his hand in a somewhat unusual way. Looking more closely, Hy-Jinx sees the faint blurred outline of what could be a sphere, beneath which, within the outstretched hand that holds it, wormlike threads and strands of darkness seem to undulate, rising and falling beneath the skin.

“What have you got in your hand?” Hy-Jinx asks curiously.

Hood looks up at her, his eyes narrowing as he considers the question and its implication - knowing that Hy-Jinx has seen him using a light orb before. “Light” Hood rasps.

“But it’s not dark.”

Hood rasps a short laugh.

“Ah, right,” says Hy-Jinx realising at that moment that the glasses’ sight afford views of somethings but not of others. “But I didn’t actually mean that. I’d guessed you’d done something like that - I can just about make out the outline. No, I was talking about in your hand.”

Hood looks slightly surprised and looks at his hand, the distended veins still there and causing him discomfort. “Hmmm.” he hmms, in response as if it’s nothing to be concerned with, but the colours of his body seem to paint a different story.

From outside shouts and voices can be dimly heard, again from both sides of the building.

“Have they come out that side?”

“Naw it’s too narrow.”

“Wilberfore’s still stuck this side so they ain’t been back

this way either,”

“How’s he doing?”

“I think he’s passed out!”

“You’re kidding me!?”

“Nope. Anyway they’re either still there or they’ve made it somehow

into one of the buildings or onto the roof.”

“I doubt they’re on the roof. Hold on a minute.

We’ll break the back doors on this one.

Don’t do the front or there’ll be hell to pay -

Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

we’ll let you in in a minute.”

“Hold on! Amber, get some lights up at that window, will you…

D’ya see anything? Well you two, don’t just stand there go

and help her!..Well?”

“Nothing boss,

“No, nothing.”

“Amber?”

“Nothing boss.

“Well keep peering. Amber, go check the other shop.

No sign of them that we can see.”

“From what I remember there’s a storeroom

at this side in this one - I’ll break the doors.”

“Okee dokee! Let us in when you’re in.”

As this exchange is going on, Hood has slowly picked himself up and is wringing the water from his robes, puddles forming from both himself and Hy-jinx. He turns and looks carefully at the wall behind him, smiling again at his luck. The wall holding the window they’ve just dropped through looks to have been recently rendered and covered in a nice smooth plaster. Hood chuckles to himself and motions to Hy-Jinx, “Watch…learn,” he rasps almost proudly, passing her the mask to hold, as he bends over and standing his satchel upright unfastens the top and flips it open.

Hy-Jinx watches as the colours of Hood seem to swirl momentarily one way to a bright yellow then explode in vigorous motion in the other, darkening and boiling almost.

“Err, what am I watching and what am I learning?” Hy-Jinx asks.

“No, no no!” Hood rasps in despair, hitting himself on the side of the head with his good hand. “Stupid…stupid…stupid!” he rasps, so angry with himself that he does not care for the pain in his throat. Hy-Jinx watches Hood’s fit of fury, watches as he lifts from his bag another strangely invisible object, again resembling something of a sphere except as he lifts it out it seems to fall into two pieces, like an apple chopped with a very jagged and twisted knife. Hood catches the piece that falls away in his other hand and then slumps to the floor staring, backwards and forwards, between both pieces, slowly shaking his head.

BANG! - it sounds like the guards are breaking down whatever doors they were threatening to break.

Hy-Jinx, walks over and places a hand on Hood’s wet shoulders. “Whatever plan it was, I’m sure it would have been marvellous,” she says comfortingly, a seemingly intuitive and clairvoyant comment, were it not for the fact that she had observed Hood’s colour palette change from what she believes was hope, to anger, to misery and what she now believes may be self loathing. Having listened to Hood’s litany of ‘stupid’s, a sudden thought crosses Hy-Jinx’s mind. She looks down at the mask that smiles back at her and lets out a gasp. Caught up as she has been in the events of the last twenty minutes or so, she suddenly realises the implication of what she is holding in her hand. “Madeleine?!” she whispers.

Hood hangs his head in defeat, letting the two broken halves of whatever he is holding roll back into his satchel.

Hy-Jinx let’s out a sob and suddenly her world turns again to darkness. Literally. Everything turns back to the blackness of her blindness, excepting a vague bluish tinge ever so slightly rippling before her, out and to her left. Hy-Jinx panics. “No, no…I can’t see! Again…I can’t see!”

BANG!

This time a comforting hand slowly grasps hers. “Shhhh.” comes a gentle but sibilant rasp. “Shhhh,” it repeats and as it does so, Hy-Jinx begins to perceive a very low level glow once more from the room about her. The glow, however, is barely visible. “Have…hope,” comes a whispered rasp.

“So she’s not…”

“Shhhh.” Hood squeezes Hy-Jinx’s hand again, gently but firmly, before letting go.

Hy-Jinx sniffs and wipes her nose and cheek with the back of her hand. “D’you know any jokes,” she says, half laughing, half crying, attempting to buoy up her spirits, and as she does, the room seems to brighten slightly. She looks again at the mask in her hand. “And you,” she says. “Doesn’t matter what happens does it? You’re always smiling.” Staring thus she peers closer at the mask, sniffing again, her face knotting in puzzlement as something catches her eye. There, within the mask, undulating, just like in Hood’s hand, are the same black threads and fibres, rippling and worming to the surface, before falling away, back inside. Over and over.

BANG! SPLINTER! CRASH!

Hy-Jinx doesn’t have time to contemplate what she is seeing, for the guards have obviously made their entrance in the room beyond, but the sudden explosion of noise seems to snap her back to her old self. “You know Hood, this is another fine mess you’ve got us into!” she says, beginning to laugh out loud as she considers the situation, and with each laugh the room seems to brighten more and more - rosiness returning.

“Me?” rasps Hood incredulously, turning a finger to point at his chest and standing to his full short height, his colours swirling helter-skelter, oscillating as if between anger and humour.

“GET THE DOORS AND LET THE OTHERS IN, I THINK THEY”RE IN THERE!”

“Yes you, for the third time! First the Boar, then the Bell Tower, and now here.”

“Mischief!” Hood rasps, shaking his first in front of him, again his emotions mixed and uncertain.

Hy-Jinx just sticks her tongue out and crosses her eyes. “Anyway, if this is it,” she turns serious for a moment. “It’s been fun, Hood…sort of.” She starts giggling again, “…and it doesn’t matter, I have made my mark,” she says. “I have given birth to a new form of musical expression…And there’s not many who can say that,” she says in mock grandiose fashion before smiling a sad bitter sweet smile and staring at her friend, before, by way of demonstration, delivering an impromptu outburst:

Jaded, cynical and definitely dour

If I’m honest I think were right next to death’s door

But with rose tinted spectacles fitting my face

I think that we might just get out of this place

Hy-Jinx suddenly stops, a strange shimmering light attracting her attention from the floor behind Hood, coming from beneath some sacks, which are pushed under a large, very old and heavily worn table.

Alerted by her sudden desistance, Hood, notices Hy-Jinx’s intense gaze directed at something behind him. He turns to stare at he-knows-not-what and follows her, as she walks cautiously forward, carefully looking at something of interest that appears to be under a table in the corner of the store room. Hood floats his light to illuminate things for himself, and helps Hy-Jinx slowly drag a couple of sacks out from beneath the table to reveal what looks like a trap door. Hood and Hy-Jinx both look at each other. Hy-Jinx raises another salute: “Aye aye Cap’in!” she grins.