6 MMV: Puzzle Land & Parisian Planning
"Here's a toast to being alive/I won't be your sad story girl…/No glory being the good girl now/I make mistakes so I can learn…/Don't worry mama I'll always do right" –Gin Wigmore, Hangover Halo
7 am, Week 3, Stuart Landsborough's Puzzling World, 188 Wanaka Luggate Hwy 84, Wanaka 9382, New Zealand
Matilda realized that she was lucky to be alive and (more or less) free, in the beautiful country of New Zealand, rather than rotting away in a damp prison cell. Truth be told, if she'd gone to said prison, woe betide the guards, who probably would have been conflagrated within an inch of their lives the moment they told her to remove all metal jewelry for the standard-level metal detector.
As it were, she found herself in a six-foot-high faux wood outdoor labyrinth, much like the corn mazes she'd heard about online whenever Halloween rolled around. She had never experienced said corn mazes in person, because her parents were smart enough to realize that a small child with uncontrolled fire power around dried, flammable crops was an undeniable death wish. To her parents' credit though, they didn't take Henry or Maya to the corn mazes; if one couldn't go, neither could the rest of them, fair and square.
Fair and square, indeed, she thought to herself, her stomach grumbling as she hadn't had enough time to eat breakfast before arriving, stashing a trail mix packet in her knapsack as she ran out her cottage door to meet Wyatt at the lakefront gazebo.
"You're late," she recalled him saying.
"Only by a minute—" she had protested, but he ignored her as he unwrapped a pamphlet map of their next destination to show her, then stowed it away in his own knapsack before he clasped her arm and they orbed out to their next adventure.
7:20 am, Stuart Landsborough's Puzzling World, 188 Wanaka Luggate Hwy 84, Wanaka 9382, New Zealand
It was eerily quiet as Matilda rounded each corner with bated breath, hoping Wyatt knew what he was doing. For the sake of time, they agreed to split up and take different paths once they orbed into the center of the maze directly.
"What do you know about this location?" Matilda remembered asking him just after they orbed out.
"Oh, it's a mystery funhouse that began as a single-story wooden maze in 1973," he had replied, peering this way and that; they were surrounded by high brown fences, completely obscuring the next lanes over, save for six inches of space between the fence and the crumbled grey gravel on the floor below.
"Sounds kid-friendly enough," she responded hesitantly. "Is there anything weird about the place?"
Wyatt laughed aloud. "Val, in the work we do, is there anything that isn't?"
"Ok, point taken—" she began.
"Like I've reminded you before, you have all the tools. And if there's anything odd, you'll know it when you see it," and off he went, leaving her standing in his wake.
"Uh…thanks?" she said uncertainly.
7:30 am, Stuart Landsborough's Puzzling World, 188 Wanaka Luggate Hwy 84, Wanaka 9382, New Zealand
They had agreed to meet at the top of one of the maze's bridges once they completed inspection of their various areas. Matilda had kept to her area of the labyrinthine path, scouring for remnants of magic or illegal portals or traces of illicit magical substances, but had no idea what she was after.
She couldn't believe she was thinking this, but she almost preferred getting her hair chomped on by the Taniwha. At least then she knew what she was in for. But here, the hushed stillness was thoroughly unnerving—there were no chirping birds to be heard, as the somewhat urban locale was completely devoid of trees.
Matilda tabulated the number of gated turns she had made. Twelve and counting. She peered under one of the fence posts and realized she was mere feet away from the aforementioned maze bridge—all she had to do was go straight for another eight fence lengths, make a sharp right, then a sharp left. Matilda picked up her pace, crossing the eight lengths, making a sharp right as she planned for, but just as she was to make a turn that would lead her straight to the bridge, she felt a sudden—THWACK—a pebble perhaps, or nuts—against the back of her head, and whirled around, massaging her scalp, as she heard a pair of boy's voices giggling behind one of the fence posts. Damn kids.
She raced to where she heard the childish chatter, but no one was there. Feeling rather unsettled, she retraced her steps and somehow found her footing onto the rungs of the upwards-leaning staircase. Climbing the steps, she found this led to the 3-D bridge that acted an elevated platform, offering a bird's-eye view of the maze below, and which path continued above and past the labyrinth to the rest of the park.
7:39 am, Stuart Landsborough's Puzzling World, 188 Wanaka Luggate Hwy 84, Wanaka 9382, New Zealand
No sooner did Matilda's foot step onto the park's path did she gasp aloud. Wyatt. Covered in green goo. "Wyatt—what happened?" she ran forward, but stopped once she was half a foot away, not wanting to be sodden in the unknown, potentially hazardous substance.
"Run-of-the-mill slime," he responded, as he surveyed Matilda's pristine form. "Though I see they went easy on you—they generally do with girls—"
"If being pelted with rocks is your idea of going easy on a girl—" Matilda raised an eyebrow. "Do you need…" she paused, unsure of what she had in her own knapsack that could be of any use to him. "A tissue?"
Wyatt laughed and dropped his own equally slime-covered knapsack to the grass, opening it to reveal wet wipes, a full roll of paper towels, and a change of clothes. He made quick work cleaning his knapsack; after three wet wipes, it looked almost as good as new. His clothes on the other hand…Matilda's eyes darted this way and that, wondering if there was a bathroom he could change in. Almost as if reading her thoughts, Wyatt said, "no bathroom, Val—I'm gonna have to change clothes here—unless that's a problem?" Matilda dumbly nodded—and quickly switched to shaking her head—"yeah—I mean—no—that's ok—um—" she could feel her cheeks reddening to match her now somewhat tangled hair, as he removed his shirt, uncovering a rather sturdy six-pack and well-toned pectoral muscles. How had she not noticed those before? Matilda thought to herself, then mentally scolded herself. Earth to Matilda! He's your coworker! Keep this PG! She tried to will herself to turn around—to shield her eyes from the vision of her half-naked division counselor, but all she could do in that moment was simply gape.
She pinched herself in case she was dreaming. Ouch. Nope, definitely real, she surmised, rubbing the curved moon indentation fast growing pink along her cream-colored skin. Her dreams had grown rather strange these past weeks—darkness, due to utter exhaustion—which transformed into a tucked-away spare bedroom she recognized from Vera Manor, with a long oval antique mirror.
Her black sweater donned over her silken nightgown, she stared at her reflection in the mirror, angling her head this way and that, suddenly spotting Wyatt behind her, leaning against the doorframe. She whirled around as he ambled forward, not in his usual jovial manner, but with a certain barely-perceptible…what was it? Sensuality? Seductiveness? "W-Wyatt—" Matilda stammered, avoiding his gaze, as he stood near her, barely inches away. "Y-you seem…" she paused, "different."
Wyatt lifted her chin upward with his hand so that her eyes met his. "I am different," he murmured into her ear, as she gasped at the sensations she experienced within, as a direct result of his touch. "Do you like it?"
"Val—y'ok? Earth to Val?"
"W-what?" Matilda snapped back to reality. "O-oh, yeah. Sorry, what?" her eyes had momentarily glazed over, recalling the rather seductive dream she had had last night, the same dream that had begun to plague her for the past week, unrelentingly so, involving a certain division counselor that happened to be standing directly in front of her, at that particular moment.
"We're going to Wanaka Lakefront next," he said, now fully dressed in his fresh pair of khaki shorts and vintage t-shirt, which stretched over the indentations of his muscles just so, and had placed his soiled ensemble in a plastic bag for laundering back at camp.
Ohhh boy, Matilda thought to herself. Between the dreams plaguing her every night and the shirtless display she had just witnessed, she knew she was in for a long day.
8:10 am, Wanaka Lakefront, Ardmore Street, Wanaka 9305, New Zealand
Matilda recognized the Wanaka tree from earlier. "Isn't this a repeat?" she turned to ask Wyatt. He shook his head.
"I've been tasked with event planning for week 5. We've got an obscene amount of tealights or string lights or whatever leftover from last year, plus multi-level boats and a large screen projector."
"Ooooh," Matilda exclaimed, ignoring all pretense. "A movie night?"
"I guess…" Wyatt trailed off, "though it's not really my thing."
"Really?" Matilda was incredulous. "Popcorn, movie, s'mores roasting—what's not to love?"
"I dunno," he replied. "Planning stuff can be a real drag sometimes. Unlike vanquishings, they get old after awhile. But if you've got any ideas, I'm all ears—" he answered, fully expecting her to appear deflated, but much to her surprise, she beamed.
Matilda dug out her phone and showed him a picture of exactly what she had in mind. Boats, check. Tealights, check. Movie night, check. "So, awhile ago, Paris put up the first-ever Cinéma sur l'Eau on the Canal de l'Ourcq, with thirty-eight electric boats for up to 150 people to sit in—" she began.
"Wait, Paris as in—Paris, France?" Wyatt asked incredulously, and she nodded. "Wow. How'd that idea start?"
"I dunno the specifics, but it was the year I was born—my mom said there was a pandemic—some didn't have symptoms, but others got it real bad and even died. It was awful. There was this thing called "social distancing," where people stayed six feet apart wearing masks, to avoid the disease's spread—I mean, there wasn't a vaccine yet—so the city got the idea of hosting a social-distance-friendly movie night—"
"Yeah, makes sense so far—" Wyatt thought aloud. "Basically, you're saying we should have our own movie on the lake? With tealights and popcorn?"
"Well, in Paris, they served ice cream, had a lottery system to determine who went on the boats, went the whole nine yards, published it in papers, but I mean, I don't know the camp's budget—"
"Popcorn would probably make sense," mused Wyatt. "That way, we wouldn't attract ants—no sugar left over and all that."
"True," agreed Matilda, flipping through the rolodex of photos she had saved of the documented event. "See? Literally all you'd need to do is pitch the projector on one end of the sandy shore, anchor it, then put string lights all around—near the screen, or even on the boats themselves—and put three or four kids to a boat, with one or two counselors in charge—or however the ratio works these days. We could play "Grand Budapest Hotel" or "Clue" or whatever cool movie is age-appropriate, but keeps the ambiance, European chic and whatever. It would be awesome," she breathed.
Wyatt stepped back and surveyed Matilda, his eyes twinkling.
"What?" asked Matilda, annoyed. "Didn't you hear anything I just said?"
"It's just," Wyatt shook his head. "I've never heard you talk so much in your life…about something you're passionate about, I mean," he clarified. "It's—nice."
Matilda giggled rather uncharacteristically, her sweet-smelling curls in a frizzy halo about her head. "I just have a thing for Paris. A love affair, really. For tea lights, for beautiful ideas and creative things…" she stated matter-of-factly, as she removed her ponytail tie from her head, her crimson curls cascading about her shoulders as she undid her knapsack to reach for her comb, and it was now Wyatt's turn to gape at the flowy-haired goddess before him. He would give anything to breathe in a whiff of those locks…as he willed his lower half, in his khaki shorts, to behave.
They sat on the sandy shore, overlooking the endless body of water rippling with its invisible tide, surrounded by the majestic Southern Alps. "Want some?" Matilda had since retied her hair (darn, Wyatt thought wistfully), offering him a handful of trail mix, which he gratefully accepted.
"Y'know, Val," he remarked after chewing, attempting to sound casual, "if I didn't know any better, I would've thought you just planned your ideal date night."
"What if I did?" Matilda answered, despite her shyness when it came to anything remotely romantic, offering him more of the raisin, peanut, and chocolate mix she knew he liked. "Would you…" she hesitated, "…be ok with that?"
Wyatt paused, surprised at Matilda's candor, his eyes softening as he reached over to stroke one of her stray flaming-red curls. "Yeah…yeah I would."
Camp Wanaka
Rate your experience (on a scale of 0-10, 10 being best) pilot-testing locations and rationale for your decision:
Stuart Landsborough's Puzzling World, 188 Wanaka Luggate Hwy 84, Wanaka 9382, New Zealand
Rating: 8
Rationale: Camper-friendly activities coupled with misbehaving child ghosts (throwing pebbles at junior female counselor, chucking slime at male division counselor)
Wanaka Lakefront, Ardmore Street, Wanaka 9305, New Zealand
Rating: 10
Rationale: Beautiful picturesque lakeside landscape ideal for movie night with tea lights, popcorn, and floating boats (heavily supervised, of course), and hugging. Appropriate, consensual camp-appropriate hugging.