Music: Majestic Nature by Craig Stuart Garfinkle
Artwork by Steve English
The script:
Episode 15 - Winefry & Scragg – The tunnel
‘I can’t see a thing!’ Winefry exclaimed as the cave wall finally closed, leaving them to only wonder at the fate of the screaming girl, the lady of light and the border terriers. Before adding in a panic, ‘Scragg? Scragg? Are you there?’
‘Yes, I’m here. Stop worrying. I’m trying to work out the best way to go,’ Scragg replied.
‘Work out what? I can’t see a thing. It’s pitch-black!’
'Well, it's not pitch-black for me. Maybe it's my cat's eyes or …, or maybe it's the lady of light and what she said about seeing the light? Whatever it is, I can see enough to tell that we have options.’
‘Options? What do you mean options?’ Winefry was obviously rather flustered.
Scragg gave a little sigh before explaining, ‘We can go one of seven ways as far as I can tell. Now be quiet a moment, I’m trying to make out the signs above the passageways.’
Being silent in the darkness proved not to be one of Winefry’s skills as he started to ply Scragg with questions about what the signs looked like.
The seven passageways had seven different signs, which they eventually realised related to an image of a special key drawn on the wall that had closed up behind them. Scragg might never have seen the image if she hadn't become so exasperated with Winefry’s constant questioning that she’d turned around to scream into her paws. When she did see it, she screamed anyway but more to wind Winefry up than anything.
Eventually, she started to explain the image to Winefry. ‘It looks like a key of some sort, but instead of just one locky thing coming off the main shaft, it seems to have six.’
Winefry was intrigued, even though he was most definitely not in his element when sitting in total darkness. Maybe it was the decades of being left in the eaves of the Manor that had done it, but darkness was something Winefry did not like!
‘Is there anything else about the key that looks unusual?’ he asked Scragg.
‘You mean apart from that fact that it has six locky things?’ Scragg responded a little rudely.
Winefry ignored this and asked another question. ‘Well, if it has six lock-opening parts, it might be quite difficult to put into the keyhole and turn in the lock. Is there anything else you notice about it?’
This was rather a good question, and Scragg felt a little ashamed of her previous outburst. So, rather sheepishly (although Winefry wouldn't know because of the apparent total darkness he was in), Scragg walked over to the image of the key and took a closer look.
‘Well, the shafty part is quite fat and has what look like 6 flat sides to it – what’s that a polygon or something?’
‘That would be a hexagon,’ Winefry answered without any emotion. ‘Anything else?’ he added.
‘A hexagon. Right,’ Scragg repeated. ‘So, this hexagon shaft seems to have little grooves around the locky parts – on each of the sides I can see. So, if I had to guess, it looks like the six locky or unlocky parts – what are they called by the way?’
Again, without much emotion and without thinking about how he knew it, Winefry answered, 'It's called a 'bit,' and obviously this key has six bits that fit into the six grooves in the hexagonal shank. Is that what you were going to say?'
Scragg nodded but then realised Winefry couldn’t see her and gave a rather huffish ‘Yes,’ before asking, ‘How do you know so much about keys anyway?’
Winefry ignored her and instead asked, ‘The bow, what’s that like?’
Silence. It seemed Scragg was getting a little frustrated with this new ‘game’ and didn’t want to play any more!
So, with a small sigh, Winefry explained. ‘It’s usually a ring part at the other end of the shank or shaft that you hold the key by and it helps you to turn the key in the lock. I assume it’s got quite a big bow?’ At that, Winefry paused, not expecting and not getting any answer from the petulant cat. Then a moment later, Winefry added,
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