Part Twelve

~

The next morning, the CBers searched the castle again, but to no avail. They eventually retired to the banquet hall, where they ate a subdued breakfast.

“I can’t believe we didn’t find her,” Strawberri said, glumly spreading jam on her toast.

“Did you really think we would?” Sirfire asked, followed by, “Ow!” as Evergreen smacked her on the arm. “What? I’m just saying, the murderer seems to be one step ahead of us.”

“We’ll find her, don’t worry,” Evergreen told Strawberri. “We’ll search again later.”

Strawberri nodded and took a bite of her toast, not really tasting it.

A moment later, everyone jumped as the doors to the banquet hall burst open. Goldie strode inside, brightly smiling per usual.

"Good morning, Chatterboxers!" she said. "Why the long faces?"

Agent Winter rolled her eyes. "Ready for a pep talk?" she muttered. "This is your vacation, you should be having fun!"

Looking around, Goldie said, "This is your vacation, you should be having fun!" Winter raised her eyebrows pointedly, and the other CBers sighed. They were all growing tired of the statement.

"How can we have fun when our friend is missing?" asked Dolphin irritatedly.

Goldie's cheerful expression faltered. "I know it's hard, but I'm sure Emekittycon is fine. You spent all of yesterday looking, and all morning. Take a break!" The CBers looked at one another, and at Goldie, who looked hopeful. They decided to give in and have some fun, just for a little while.

"We're sorry, Goldie," said Dusk, speaking for all of them. "We're all just stressed. What's something fun we can do?"

Goldie's face lit up again, and she clapped excitedly. "Great! Have you all been swimming yet?" They all shook their heads- now that they thought about it, the letters had said there would be swimming.

"I didn't see a swimming pool," Holly remarked, and Goldie laughed.

"There is no swimming pool, silly! There's a swimming pond, out in the woods! If you want to go get your swimsuits, I can take you!'

A little while later, the CBers, led by Goldie, trooped out of the castle in the direction of the woods. As Goldie chattered away, the CBers excitedly anticipated swimming in the pond- the day was the hottest they’d seen at the palace yet.

Alice rushed to and fro, making sure everyone was wearing sunblock. When most of them ignored her, she sighed, “It’ll be your own fault when you get burnt!” and marched back over to Dusk, who patted her shoulder sympathetically.

Goldie took them along a different path than the one they’d taken the last time they visited the woods, one that was much wider and didn’t twist or turn as much. It only took them about fifteen minutes before Goldie stopped the group, just before the trail made a sharp turn.

“Are you ready to see the pond?” she asked, and the CBers responded enthusiastically. “Are you sure you’re ready? It’s pretty awesome.” More agreement. “Are you absolutely positive?” This time, the CBers responded impatiently, and Goldie laughed. “Alright, just checking. Let’s go!” They walked around the corner, and the group stopped again, this time of their own volition. There were several gasps of awe.

The swimming pond looked like their own private oasis in the woods. The water was surprisingly clear and sparkling, and the CBers could see little fish swimming around near the bottom. On the side of the pond opposite them stood a tall, graceful willow tree, its leaves blowing out over the water in the gentle breeze.

Goldie took in their looks of wonder. “Amazing, isn’t it?”

“You can say that again!” Gracia agreed. “Race you to the water!”

The calm waters of the pond were suddenly disturbed as ten CBers, watched by an amused Palace Keeper, raced into them, splashing the surface and one another.

“This feels so good!” said Strawberri, floating on her back. “It’s so hot out to- hey!” Her sentence was interrupted by a splash as Agent Winter snuck up behind her and dunked her underwater. She surfaced, spluttering, as Winter laughed. “Win!” she exclaimed, splashing her.

Bluebell and Holly sat together in the shallows, preferring the calm waters to the chaotic splashing deeper in.

“Xena would have hated this,” Holly remarked with a sad smile. Bluebell squeezed her hand comfortingly.

Back out in the deeper water, more chaos was brewing. Sirfire eyed the willow tree critically, then turned to the other CBers.

“Ahem,” she said, and they all turned to her. “As the reigning tree-climbing champion-” Win stuck her tongue out playfully, and Sirfire grinned. “-I’d like to propose another contest! Let’s see who can do the best cannonball jumping off the willow tree!” The CBers erupted into cheers, which Sirfire took to mean they liked the idea.

The rules were decided upon by Bluebell and Holly, who, after swimming out to see what all the commotion was about, had agreed to judge the contest. Alice had wanted to judge again, but Dusk talked her into participating. Each CBer would have one try to climb up the tree and do their best cannonball into the pond. Whoever made the biggest splash would win the contest and be awarded eternal bragging rights.

Sirfire, as the reigning champion, went first, scurrying up the tree and launching herself down into the pond, wrapping her arms around her tucked legs. The splash was impressive, and Holly and Bluebell clapped appreciatively.

Most of the other cannonballs were fairly good- Winter’s had a big splash, and so did Evergreen. Alice got halfway up the willow tree and changed her mind, so she went over to sit by the judges. Dolphin made it up the tree, but sneezed just as she jumped off, so there wasn’t much of a splash.

The largest splash was, somewhat surprisingly, from Strawberri’s cannonball, which soaked even the judges sitting over in the shallows. It was a unanimous agreement to award her the win and eternal bragging rights, which she accepted graciously. Once the contest was officially over, the CBers broke off into smaller groups, swimming and playing and just having fun.

Back at the Golden Palace, however, things were decidedly less cheerful. Down in the dungeons, Em sat in exhausted defeat, still tied and gagged. Just as the murderer had said, she’d just about given up all hope that the other CBers would find her. Earlier that morning, she had heard voices echoing above her, and had tried to call out through the gag, but whoever it was hadn’t heard her and left soon after.

The murderer had visited her that morning, bringing food and water, but that had been several hours before, and Em was hungry, tired, and bored. Since her eyes had adjusted to the gloom, she’d taken to counting the stones in the walls when she wasn’t trying to sleep.

She was almost ready to give up, just sit and wait and ask the murderer to get it over with, but a tiny part of her had faith in the CBers, had faith that maybe, just maybe, they wouldn’t stop looking. She hoped that tiny part of her was right.

A little later, the CBers made their way back through the woods to the palace. None of them had thought to bring towels, so they were all soaking wet, but the afternoon sun beat down through the trees, beginning to dry them off. As they walked through a particularly sunny patch, Dolphin spread her arms out to soak up the rays.

“That’s nice,” she sighed. “The weather is be- beau- achoo!” She sneezed, stopping in her tracks.

“Are you alright?” Ever asked, and Dolphin nodded, sniffing.

“Yeah, I’m fine, thanks.”

In no time, the CBers and Goldie were back at the palace, slightly tired and relatively dry. Goldie maintained her energetic demeanor as they stood outside the banquet hall.

“Wasn’t that fun?” she asked, and everyone chorused agreement, smiling.

“We should do stuff like that more often,” Dusk remarked, and Goldie nodded, grinning.

“Oh, we will,” she said. “In fact, I have something else planned for today!” They all cheered. “Go get yourselves showered and changed- the fun’s not over yet!”

~~~~

Sorry this is so late! I've had a busy couple of days, and I haven't really had a moment to sit down and write. Thanks for your patience, I hope you enjoy it!

I am loving this! Keep going, it's brilliant! :D

Part Thirteen

~

The CBers were buzzing with excitement as they showered and changed into dry clothes, wondering what else Goldie had planned. Well, most of them were- Dolphin had progressed from the occasional sneeze to having coughing fits every few minutes. She sniffed miserably as everyone else chatted about the day’s fun.

“Dolphin, how do you feel?” Bluebell asked as they got ready to leave the Amethyst Room.

Dolphin shook her head. “Lousy,” she said. “I think I’m going to stay here and take a nap.”

“Are you sure?” Bluebell said, looking worried. “Someone can walk you down to the infirmary.”

“Nah, it’s just a cold. You guys go.”

The CBers left Dolphin and made their way back downstairs, where Goldie was waiting, seated on the bottom of the spiral staircase. She jumped up when she saw the CBers.

“There you are!” she said, then did a quick head count. “Are we missing someone?” The CBers from the Tanzanite Room looked worried, but Gracia quickly spoke up.

“Dolphin stayed behind, she isn’t feeling well.”

Goldie nodded, looking relieved. “Oh, good. Well, if you’ll all follow me this way!” She led them into the banquet hall, then kept going, taking them into the kitchen at the back.

“What are we doing in here?” Sirfire asked.

Goldie beamed. “Drum roll please,” she said, and the CBers complied. “We’re baking cookies!”

The CBers cheered. They were all hungry from their morning of swimming, and cookies sounded amazing.

Goldie began directing them to get out all the ingredients, piling them on the marble counter.

“Do you have a recipe?” Winter asked, looking at their assembled ingredients.

Goldie nodded. “Of course! It’s… in my head, but it’s there!”

Win shrugged. “Alright. What do we do first?”

Goldie set Win, Gracia, and Holly to measuring and mixing the dry ingredients in a large bowl. On the other side of the counter, Strawberri, Sirfire, and Dusk measured and mixed the wet ingredients. Alice, Ever, and Bluebell would be in charge of mixing them together and adding chocolate chips, then all the CBers would roll balls of cookie dough to put on the pans.

The dry ingredient group carefully measured out the sugar, brown sugar, and baking soda according to Goldie’s measurements, but when it came time to measure out the flour, Holly dropped the measuring cup, sending a cloud of flour directly up into Winter’s face. Win coughed, flapping her hands in an attempt to clear the flour.

Holly winced. “Sorry, Win!”

Gracia snorted with laughter. “You… you look… so ridiculous!”

Win glared at her. “I do not!” However she did, in fact, look ridiculous. The flour had covered her face, turning it a powdery white. Holly held up the reflective metal bowl for her to see, and Win couldn’t contain her own smile.

“Okay, okay,” she admitted. “I do look ridiculous.”

The CBers in the wet ingredient group weren’t doing much better. Goldie had told them to melt the butter, so Sirfire had found a saucepan and set to melting the butter on the stove. Once it was in the pan and melting, she turned to help Strawberri clean up a dropped egg and promptly forgot about the butter. She only remembered when Dusk asked if anything was burning. She hurried back over to the stove and found that the melted butter in the pan was indeed burning.

She pulled it off the heat as quickly as she could and scraped the ruined butter into the trash. “Uh, Dusk, do you want to melt the butter?” she asked sheepishly.

Alice, Ever, and Bluebell were watching all of this with amusement. Once the two measuring groups had finished their tasks without further disaster, the two bowls were given to the three CBers. Alice poured the wet ingredients into the dry, then passed the large bowl to Ever, who vigorously mixed the two together with a wooden spoon. As she did so, Bluebell dumped in the chocolate chips, popping a few into her mouth.

Soon, the cookie dough was done, and Goldie gave it her seal of approval. While the CBers had been making the dough, Goldie had set up the cookie sheets with parchment paper, ready for the balls of dough. The cookie sheets were quickly filled and placed in the oven to bake.

“That was fun!” Goldie exclaimed after setting the oven’s timer. “So in about… twelve minutes, we’ll have some fresh cookies to enjoy.”

“Maybe we should eat lunch first,” Alice suggested timidly.

“Good idea,” Holly agreed. “Could we go out to the gardens to pick vegetables?”

Goldie thought that sounded like a fantastic idea, so she and the CBers headed outside to the vegetable gardens. She supplied them all with wicker baskets and set them loose to pick whatever they wanted.

Several minutes later, the CBers returned with full baskets. Goldie surveyed their harvest and grinned. “Excellent! Those look good, I’ll see if the cooks can do something with them for dinner.”

They returned to the kitchen just as the timer went off, and they all hurried over to the oven. Goldie pulled the cookie sheets out, and they all admired their handiwork. The cookies looked delicious.

“Can we eat them?” Ever asked eagerly.

“Let’s give them a minute to cool,” said Gracia with a smile.

Once the minutes was up, each CBer took a warm cookie and bit into it.

“These are amazing,” said Dusk.

“You know what would go really well with them?” said Strawberri, looking excited. “Ice cream!”

“An amazing idea!” Goldie shouted. “I have some in the freezer!” She hurried across the kitchen to the large freezer for the ice cream.

The CBers helped themselves to more cookies, but almost dropped them when they heard Goldie’s bloodcurdling scream.

Winter was the first one over to the freezer, and she gasped, her eyes widening in horror. “Wha- what- oh no…”

There in the freezer lay Dolphin’s lifeless body, a kitchen knife protruding from her chest.

~~~

Just letting you guys know, I might be a little late on the next part, but I'll try my best to get it up on time. Enjoy!

Ohhhhhhh, I love COOKIES!!!! Just reading part twelve, I was all like, "OHHHH, MAN, I COULD GO FOR A COOKIE NOW!!!!!!!!! WHY DON'T WE HAVE ANY HOME MADE CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES IN MY HOUSE RIGHT NOW?!?!?!?!"

This is AMAZING!!!  I love the writing and how the story's playing out!  I can't wait for the next part!

Part Fourteen

~

There was panic in the kitchen as the rest of the CBers realized what was in the freezer. There was terrified shouting, and Hollyshock started to cry. Goldie stood to one side, her face pale.

After a minute of mass chaos, Sirfire climbed up onto the kitchen counter and yelled at the top of her lungs. “Everybody, quiet!” Everyone stopped talking and turned to face her. Sirfire cleared her throat. “Thank you. This isn’t going to help anything. We all need to calm down. Take deep breaths.”

Strawberri timidly raised her hand. “What… what do we do now?” she asked with a sniff.

Sirfire sighed. “Now,” she said, looking towards the freezer, “we bury another friend.”

Indeed, that was what they did. By that point, none of them wanted to see that oak tree ever again, but it seemed that this wouldn’t be the last funeral. Dolphin was buried between Vixen and Rigel, and many tears were shed.

After the funeral, Agent Winter instructed the CBers to meet in the Tanzanite Room in five minutes. Desperate for something to distract them from their grief, they all quickly made their way back to the palace and upstairs, leaving a slightly puzzled Goldie in the entryway.

Once they were all seated and comfortable in Tanzanite, Winter stood before them, back in the leader role once more. “Thank you all for coming, especially on such short notice,” she began. “As you know, our dear friend Dolphin has just left us. I know we’re all grieving, but I say that something has to be done about this. Are we just going to let the murderer pick us off one by one?” The CBers chorused their answers. “That’s right we’re not!” said Winter. “Now, let’s think, really think about this. We’ll start at the beginning, think of clues, patterns, anything. I’d like to invite our Clue Master up here to lead the analysis.”

Gracia stood and walked to the front of the room, nodding to Winter with mock formality. “Thank you, Lead Detective. Now, does anyone have a piece of paper or something to write on? I think we should start by making a list of all the clues we have so far.” Sirfire tore a page out of her sketch pad and handed it over along with a pen. “Thanks,” said Gracia. “Now, let’s start at the beginning. Call out anything you saw or remember that could be useful.” The CBers began calling things out, and Gracia wrote them down in a list. Eventually, they compiled all the clues they could think of. The list read

-poison bottle with Evergreen’s fingerprints

-hanging from the Amethyst Room

-explosion in the Sapphire Room

-Em disappearing after the movie

-Dolphin getting sick

Once Gracia read the list aloud, Winter raked her hands through her hair. “That’s not a lot to go on,” she said.

“The clues aside, what about patterns?” suggested Bluebell. “Is there any connection between the victims?”

Alice perked up. “Yes, patterns! I use patterns in my research. What do they have in common?”

“Well, Pancake and Alexandria were the first victims,” Dusk said. “They were both AEs.”

“Then Vixen, Rigel, and Xena, the CAPTCHAs,” Ever added.

“Which means Dolphin is our first dead CBer,” Bluebell realized.

“Second,” Winter corrected.

Strawberri shook her head. “No, first. Em is just missing.”

“I’m sorry, Berri,” Win said with a sigh, “but at this point we have to assume that Em is dead. It’s been two days, and we’ve looked everywhere. We have to focus on catching the murderer now.” Strawberri looked upset, but nodded.

“So why would the murderer kill AEs and CAPTCHAs first?” Sirfire asked. The CBers all looked suddenly crestfallen. They’d made a discovery, but still none of them knew what it meant.

“We don’t know right now, but we are going to find out,” said Gracia determinedly. As she opened her mouth to add to her inspirational speech, the door to the room opened. All eyes turned to Goldie, who stood in the doorway.

“Hey, everyone!” she said, a smile pasted on her face. “I was thinking, to lift your spirits, why don’t we play another-”

“No more games, Goldie,” Winter interrupted her. “At least not today.”

Goldie’s face fell for a moment, then she rearranged her features. “Of course, I understand. Is there anything you’d like to do?”

“Maybe we could go for a walk?” Bluebell suggested, and the other CBers nodded in agreement. “Relax, blow off some steam.”

“Good idea!” said Goldie. “I know a really nice trail I could show you!”

“Not with you,” Gracia snapped.

Dusk put a calming hand on Gracia’s shoulder, then addressed Goldie. “What we mean, Goldie, is that we’d like some time alone if you don’t mind.”

Looking a little hurt, Goldie nodded. “Oh. Okay, I understand. You all take as much time as you need. I’ll leave you be now.” Goldie backed out of the room. 

Hollyshock looked at Gracia. “She was just trying to help,” she said softly.

“I know, I know,” responded Gracia, looking slightly guilty. “I’ll apologize later. For now, let’s go on that walk."

~~~

I'm so sorry this is so late, I've been having writers block on this part for some reason. I will post the next part on Friday, so you get kind of a two-in-a-row deal!