Martin J. Prescott was a Reporter. He always thought of the word as if it was capitalized. For Martin, being a Reporter was more than a job. It was his identity. He wasn't just another face reading from a teleprompter or another name next to a dateline. He was what the producers in the age of the twenty-fourhour news cycle called 'a personality'. He accented the news. He framed it. He colored it. Not in any negative way, or so he firmly believed. He simply added that subtle dash of flair that made news into News, in other words, something people might want to watch or read. For one thing, Martin J. Prescott had the look. He wore white button-down shirts with jeans, and he usually had his shirt sleeves rolled up a bit. If he wore a tie, it was invariably of an impeccable style, but loosened just a tad: enough to say yes, I've been wor
But the last thing that made Martin J. Prescott a Reporter was that he loved the story. Where the other high- paid and high-profile news faces had long since assembled a team of lackeys to tramp far and wide, collecting footage and filming interviews while they themselves huddled in their dressing rooms reading about their ratings, Martin prided himself in doing all his own travel and research. The truth of it was that Martin enjoyed the reporting, but what he absolutely loved was the chase. Being a member of the press was like being a hunter, except that the former aimed with a camera rather than a gun. Martin liked to stalk his prey himself. He delighted in the pursuit, in the blurry jostle of handheld camera footage, the shouted, perfectlytimed question, the long stakeout of a courtroom back door or a suspicious hotel room. Martin did it all himself, often alone, often filming himself in the act, providing his viewers breathless moments of high tension and confrontation. No one else did it like him, and this had made him famous.
Martin had, as they say of the very best Reporters, a nose for news. His nose told him that the story he was chasing right now, if it panned out, if he could simply provide the real, unadulterated footage, was quite possibly the story of a lifetime. Even now, crouched among the brush and weeds, dirty and salty with two days' worth of sweat, his fabulous hair matted and soiled with twigs and leaves, even after all the setbacks and failures, he still felt this was the story that would cement his career. In fact, the harder he'd had to work for it, the more doggedly he'd pursued it. Even after the ghost. Even after being kicked out of a third story window by a homicidal kid. Even after his harrowing brush with the gigantic spider. Martin viewed setbacks as proof of value. The harder it was, the more it was worth pursuing. He took a grim satisfaction in knowing that, had he merely hired a team of investigators to check this out, they'd have turned back months ago, when they'd first met the strange, magical resistance of the place, without a solitary blip of a story. This was the kind of story that could only be told by him. This, he told himself with satisfaction, was anchorman material. No more field reports. No more special interest segments. If this panned out, Martin J. Prescott would be able to pave his own way in any major newsroom in the country. But why stop there? With this under his belt, he could anchor anywhere in the world, couldn't he?
But no, he told himself. One mustn't think of such things now. He had a job to do. A difficult and outrageously demanding job, but Martin took pleasure in the sense that the hardest part was behind him. After months of plotting and arranging, planning and observing, the time had finally come for the big payoff, for all the bets to be called in. Granted, if this last phase of the hunt didn't work out exactly as planned, he'd walk away with nothing. He'd been unable to get any usable, convincing footage on his own, except for the handheld camera video of that incredible flying contest a few months back. That might have been enough, but even that had been lost, sacrificed--reluctantly!--to the gigantic spider during his escape through the woods. It didn't do to dwell on failures, though. No, this would work. It would go exactly as planned. It had to. He was Martin J. Prescott.
Still crouched at the perimeter of the forest, Martin checked the connections of his cell phone. Most of his field gear had gone completely buggy ever since he made it through the forest. His Palmtop barely worked at all, and when it did, it exhibited some very strange behavior. The night before last, he'd been trying to use it to access his office computer when the screen suddenly went entirely pink and began to display the lyrics to a rather rude song about hedgehogs. Fortunately, his camera and cell phone had worked relatively well until the incident with the spider. His phone was nearly all he had left now, and despite the fact that the display screen showed a strange mixture of numbers, exclamation marks and hieroglyphics, it did seem to be maintaining a connection. Satisfied, Martin spoke.
'I'm huddled outside the castle at this moment, hidden in the arms of the forest that has been my occasional home during these last grueling months. Up until now, I have simply watched, careful not to disturb what might only be a simple country school or a boarding facility, despite the reports of my sources. Still, I am confident that the time has finally come for me to approach. If my sources are wrong, I will merely be met with puzzlement and that rare brand of careful good humor that is the purview of the Scottish countryside. If, however, my sources prove correct, as I suspect, based on my inexplicable experiences so far, then I may well be walking into the clutches of my own doom. I am now standing. It is midmorning, about nine o'clock, but I see no sign of anyone. I am leaving the safety of my hiding place. I am entering the grounds.'
Martin crept carefully around the edge of the ramshackle cabin near the forest. The enormous, shaggy man he'd often spied in and around the cabin was not anywhere in sight. Martin straightened, determining to be bold about his initial approach. He began to cross the neatly cropped field between the cabin and the castle. In truth, he did not believe he was in grave peril. He had an innate sense that the greatest dangers were behind him, in that creepy and mysterious forest. He had indeed camped on the fringes of that forest, far on the side opposite the castle, where the trees seemed rather more normal and there were fewer unsettling noises in the night. Still, his travels back and forth through the densest parts of that forest had been strange, to say the least. Apart from the spider, which he had only escaped by sheer good luck, he hadn't actually seen anything. In a sense, he thought it might have been better if he had. A known monstrosity, like the spider, is far easier to deal with than the unknown phantoms conjured by Martin's imagination in response to the strange noises he'd heard on those long woodland walks. He'd been shadowed, he knew. Large things, heavy things, had followed him, always off to the left or right, hidden just behind the density of the trees. He knew they were watching him, and he also sensed that, unlike the spider, they were intelligent. They might have been hostile, but they were certainly curious. Martin had almost dared to call out to them, to demand they reveal themselves. Finally, remembering the spider, he'd decided that, after all, maybe an unseen monster that is merely curious is better than a seen monster that feels provoked.
'The castle, as I have mentioned, is positively huge,' Martin said into the small microphone clipped to his lapel. The microphone was connected to the phone on his belt. 'I've travelled much of this continent and seen quite a variety of castles, but I've never seen anything so simultaneously ancient and yet immaculately maintained. The windows, apart from the one I was forced through those months ago, are beautifully sturdy and colorful. The stonework here doesn't show so much as a crack…' This wasn't entirely true, but it was true enough. 'It is a beautiful spring day, fortunately. Clear and relatively warm. I am not hiding myself at all as I cross to the enormous gates, which are open. There… there seems to be a gathering over to my right, on a sort of field. I… I can't quite tell, but it looks as if they are playing football. I can't say that I expected that. They don't seem to be paying me any attention. I am continuing to the gates.'
As Martin entered the gates, he finally began to be noticed. He slowed, still maintaining a steady course onward. His goal was simply to get as far into the castle as possible. He had purposely left his still camera behind.
