Escape From Ponsonby Hall – The School of Magical Engineering-Chapter 17
Scram, it’s the cops! Fiction. 2100 word, 11-minute read.
Welcome back to The School of Magical Engineering, my latest serialized novel on Substack. Via a portal experiment gone wrong, professor Paulus Pennythwaite has accidentally sucked a Texan named Bubba into his realm. The gang is on the run.
The entire, unfolding School of Magical Engineering saga can be found here: https://raytabler.substack.com/s/school-magical-engineering.
The previous chapter, Involuntarily Manifested, is here: https://raytabler.substack.com/p/involuntarily-manifested-the-school
Next up will be chapter 18, Puzzle Pieces
Escape From Ponsonby Hall – The School of Magical Engineering-Chapter 17
By Ray Tabler.
“We have to get out of here.” Paulus said.
“Sorry about forgetting to shut the door.” Gilbert smacked his forehead.
The mysterious, locked door would have to wait.
Paulus was moving. “No time for sorry now.” He turned to Vayla. “Is there another exit?”
“This way.” She scurried back towards the potions puddle.
“Gilbert,” Paulus pointed. “Go collect Bubba.”
“Right boss.”
Paulus followed Vayla, skirting around the edge of the glowing green pool of expired potions occupying the middle of the cellar floor.
“Hey, what’s up now?” The center ghost in the pool asked as Vayla and Paulus hurried past. “Going so soon? Ya just got here.”
“We’re not exactly supposed to be down here.” Vayla shrugged.
“Oh!” Center glanced at the muffled sounds of approaching authority. He spun about, pinwheeling droplets of loose potion mix. “Scram you guys. It’s the cops!”
The other ghosts, and the spirit immediately disappeared into the shallow potions puddle, evidently not anxious to make the acquaintance of any flavor of law enforcement. Center waved an amorphous arm at Vayla before submerging himself.
“Nice meeting ya, babe. Se ya around.”
Despite the situation, Paulus paused. “He called you babe. What’s that all about?’
Vayla giggled, enjoying the taste of Paulus’s jealousy, just a tiny bit. “Oh, it’s nothing.”
“It’s something. Ghosts don’t go around calling just anybody babe.”
“What do you know about how ghosts behave?”
“Uh, well I don’t. but I don’t like other men calling you babe. Or anything like that.”
Vayla smiled, and patted Paulus’s cheek. “I know. Thank you for that.”
Paulus was confused, but Gilbert brought Bubba along, which diverted further contemplation of the complexities of his relationship with Vayla.
“What’s happnin’?” Bubba asked. Sweat sheened his brow, and he looked pale even in the greenish half-light.
“The watchman found our entry point and is approaching the way we came. We have to find another exit.” Paulus summarized.
“Good.” Bubba’s mood seemed to brighten. “I shore was hopin’ not to go back through that corn-sorned tunnel again.”
Vayla rolled her eyes. “You boys act like you never snuck into anywhere before. Follow me.”
She headed for a low, stone archway in one corner. The lighting was even dimmer through the archway, but a flight of ancient, slate steps led upward. Vayla dashed up the stairs, her companions on her tail.
“Thank the Lord!” Bubba whispered. “We’s headed back up again.”
The steps climbed past several landings, with dust-caked wooden doors leading off at right angles to the run of the stairway. The condition of the stonework improved as they climbed, looking less ancient and in better repair.
After they scrambled past the second closed door on a landing, Paulus had to ask. “Where do these doors lead? Maybe there’s a way out.”
“Forget it.” Vayla hissed. “That’s the way they’ll expect us to head.”
“Where are we going instead?” Paulus panted, struggling to keep his footing in the gloom of the stairwell.
“The roof.” Vayla rounded a final turning, and pushed a door open.
Night air and starlight slapped Paulus in the face. Vayla trotted along, not pausing to see if her companions were keeping up. The roof of Ponsonby Hall was an eclectic blend of flat spaces and steeply inclined planes, sheathed in a chaotic collection of slate shingles and copper cladding. Like most campus buildings, Ponsonby had led an eventful life, serving as lecture hall, administrative center, even dormitory over the years. All that since the shadowy time when it was rumored to house the original robber baron’s keep. Renovations, remodels, and hasty additions all jostled together in an architectural chopped salad, nowhere more apparent than upon the roof of the structure.
Within a few moments it was all Paulus could manage to keep sight of Vayla’s retreating back. She darted this way and that among the broken roofscape of cupolas, gables vaults, ridges, air shafts, and turrets littering the pigeon-infested crown of Ponsonby Hall. Littering that litter was a scree of broken glass from skylights, windows, and transoms which had, until recently, let sunlight in and kept weather out.
Paulus felt pangs of guilt as he crunched through the broken glass which his aetheric shockwave had shattered. Hastily-cut boards had been wedged into previously glazed openings all about. And canvas sheets stretched over gaps too broad for the boards on hand. So distracted by the temporary repairs was Paulus that he almost barged right into Vayla’s back.
“Ah!” Vayla cried out, clutching at Paulus. “You almost knocked right off the edge!”
“The edge of what?”
“The edge of the roof.” She wept an arm at the void before them.
“Oh my! We must be five stories up.” Paulus felt a bit of vertigo, peering at the starlit scene of tranquil grass lawns and walkways below.
“It’s gone!” Vayla whispered, frustrated.
“What’s gone?” Gilbert asked, belatedly arriving with Bubba in tow.
“The tree.” Vayla snapped.
“I don’t see any tree.” Paulus looked again. “There is a big stump down there, right up next to the wall of the building. Must be six or seven feet across.”
Vayla looked like she wanted to smack him. “There used to be a really big oak tree right here. It was perfect for climbing down from the roof.”
“Oh.” Paulus felt foolish. “How long ago was that?”
Vayla sighed. “Ten years, maybe.”
“I guess they cut it down.” Paulus speculated.
“You think?” Vayla knew it wouldn’t do any good, but really was tempted to smack Paulus. “How are we going to get off the roof now?”
“Can we double back, and slip onto a lower floor?’ Gilbert suggested.
“We’d run right into them.” Vayla countered.
Paulus knelt and tried to examine the outer wall in the dim light. “There aren’t a lot of hand holds I can see.”
“That shore is a long way down, Pedro.” Bubba commented, eyeing the drop.
“Didn’t you think to check on the tree beforehand?” Paulus scratched his head.
“Well, excuse me for expecting some tree which has stood for hundreds of years to last another ten without being chopped up for kindling.” Vayla hissed.
“I didn’t mean it like that.” Paulus backpedaled.
Vayla shook her finger. “Now you see here, Paulus Pennythwaite…”
The barely audible scrape of a door opening echoed across the rooftop.
Vayla, Paulus, and Gilbert spun in the direction of the sound of pursuit, eyes round, hearts pounding. Only the intervening clutter of turrets and cupolas separated them from discovery.
“They’re on the roof!” Paulus squeaked.
“What’ll we do?” Gilbert whispered.
“Hey y’all.” Bubba muttered just loud enough for them to hear. “Shinny down this here rope. Looks like it don’t reach all the way down. Maybe a ten-foot drop at the end. But that’s better than fifty. I done looped it round this little feller.”
Paulus blinked at the Texan, then his handiwork. Bubba had quickly uncoiled the rope liberated from holding up warning signs, and looped it around a convenient gargoyle carved on the stone parapet of Ponsonby Hall. The small sculpture seemed as surprised at its new employment as Paulus was.
“Don’t lollygag, now.” Bubba chided. “You go first, Vayla.”
After another moment’s hesitation, Vayla eased over the parapet, and went down the rope as if she did this type of thing every day. Bubba kept tension on the line until she dropped lightly to the ground. He turned to Paulus and nodded.
Paulus gulped his fear back down and clambered over the edge. He descended more clumsily than Vayla, stopping briefly once when he almost lost his grip and plummeted. Soon enough, he dangled at the end of the rope, feet kicking free of the ground. With teeth gritted, he let go and dropped a little way.
The impact knocked the wind out of him for a minute. Paulus lay there wheezing and trying to tell if he broke anything. His rear end hurt, but that seemed to be the extent of any damage.
Vayla’s concerned face appeared, blocking Paulus’s view of the stars. “Are you alright?’
“Ooh. I don’t think I’m cut out for this type of thing.”
Vayla giggled. “Oh, you’re doing fine.”
“I don’t share your enthuse— Look out!”
Paulus had just enough time to shove Vayla out of the way. But not enough leverage to roll aside himself. Gilbert lost his grip and dropped directly onto his boss from the end of the rope.
Vayla scrambled over on hands and knees. “Are you hurt?”
“I’m fine.” Gilbert replied.
“That’s because I broke your fall.” Paulus rasped, feeling every single piece of gravel embedded into his backside.
“Oh. Sorry boss.”
From his vantage point flat on his back Paulus observed Bubba sliding down the rope straight at him. This would normally concern Paulus, but the hard fall, followed by Gilbert landing on him, filled the professor with a certain inexplicably casual attitude with regards to further injury. Unexpectedly, Bubba caught hold of a protruding window sill one story up, and clung there precariously.
The Texan proceeded to flip the rope with his free hand, sending standing waves traveling back up the line. After half a dozen quick twists of the rope, the secured loop must’ve worked loose from the gargoyle at the roof’s edge. The freed rope fell upon Paulus, adding insult to the injury of his clumsy landing and Gilbert’s accidental impact. In truth, Paulus almost welcome the sinuous caress as the rope danced onto him. Strange that. He wouldn’t have expected so quick an appreciation of the finer points of items falling upon him.
The rope dislodged, Bubba swung himself a few times from the window sill, before dropping lightly to the grass at one side of the gravel path. The Texan landed in a tumbling crouch. He rolled up right onto hands and knees, spurs jingling softly and hat still on his head.
Bubba spun about, looking down at Paulus. “Land sakes, Pedro!” He admonished in a whisper. “What you doin’ jest laying there?”
“Oh, just taking a little nap.” Paulus groaned.
“Ain’t no time to be snoozin’, Pedro. Them fellers are still after us.”
Sure enough, the sounds of pursuit floated down from the roof top. Fortunately for the four trespassers, there was a lot of intricate rooftop on Ponsonby Hall to search. Still, they’d get around to looking over the edge before long.
“How did you jump down like that?” Paulus asked, curious in spite of the circumstances.
“That?” Bubba shrugged. “Shoot! It’s jest like bein’ throwed by a buckin’ bronco. Ya learn how to take a fall after a time or two. Besides, I’m feelin’ lots better now I’m back on the right side of the prairie.” Automatically Bubba began coiling the rope around his forearm. “Glad I grabbed this rope. We’d a been in a heap of trouble without it.”
“Right about that.” Paulus groaned as Vayla and Gilbert levered and dragged him back to his feet. Embedded gravel sleeted down from his backside with a muted patter.
“Can you move?” Vayla slapped more gravel and grit from Paulus’s rear end.
Paulus suppressed a yelp at the pain, more reluctant to acknowledge the indignity than from fear the sound would draw attention of those searching for them on the roof. “I don’t think I have a choice. We have to get out of here.”
“Which way?” Bubba asked, peering around the starlit quad.
“Head for that clump of trees.” Vayla instructed. “There’s a gully we can climb down into and be out of sight. Unless they filled it in since last I had to run away from here.”
“Oh joy, more climbing.” Paulus wheezed.
Gilbert and Bubba each shouldered Paulus under one arm, and half dragged him across the deserted midnight quad. Paulus groaned at every step. “It’s been a long day.”
“Hush up, you big baby.” Vayla hissed over her shoulder. “You’ll make them look this way.”
“Are you still angry about the tree not being there?” Paulus asked, unwisely. “And that babe thing?”
“What makes you think I’m angry?”
As they slipped into the trees, it occurred to Paulus that Vayla hadn’t actually answered his question. Bubba briefly considered explaining to his friend that arguing with a woman was rarely, if ever, a productive course of action. But, upon reflection, the Texan decided that was a lesson a man had to learn all on his own.
END.
Don’t worry. Paulus will be alright. Physically, anyway.
The entire, unfolding School of Magical Engineering saga can be found here: https://raytabler.substack.com/s/school-magical-engineering.
The previous chapter, Involuntarily Manifested, is here: https://raytabler.substack.com/p/involuntarily-manifested-the-school
Next up will be chapter 18, Puzzle Pieces
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