Escapism Part 3

Read time: 3 mins.

Jason’s eyes went back and forth between the door and the globe. A grin spread across his cheeks. “Wait, did I just open the door with the globe?”

Isabelle said “If you did Nasrin just left and closed it back on us. It shouldn’t have been that easy, though. There’s even still a book in the globe. We’re still getting clues.”

Jason closed the globe and pressed Australia again. The globe opened but the door didn’t. He tried again; nothing. He tried a third time.

“Mi Hermano, it’s not the globe.”

White, pink, and red smoke seeped into the room through the cracks between the mirror and the wall. It collected in front of the mirror and formed into Nasrin’s general shape. Eventually her physical form faded into sight. She adjusted her shirt sleeves. “Do you want me to tell you, or do you want to keep playing?”

Isabelle leaned on the globe while Jason gestured around the room. “You didn’t even look at any of the clues. You’ve been here before; you have to’ve been.”

“So you want me to tell you.”

His hand fell to his side. “Fine. How did you do it?”

“Wait,” Isabelle said. She put her fingers in her ears and started to hum. When the others both just looked at her she said, “I still wanna play after this.”

Nasrin pointed to the side of the mirror where a doorknob should have been. “The frame works like a puzzle box. The flourishes and grooves in the design are really nobs and buttons. If you move them in a certain sequence the door opens. It’s similar to something I use in my act. I knew to look for it because I found no locks or buttons anywhere else that made sense. If it hadn’t worked, I would have considered relays in one of the corner tables. As for figuring out the pattern… I might have used a little magic, but you never actually specified that as cheating. It’s the same way I do my show. Basic tricks with a touch of real magic for flair.”

Jason folded his arms and nodded. “Well, I gotta admit, you shut me up.” He nudged Isabelle. “She’s done, you can listen now.” He turned back to Nasrin. “So how much of your show is fake and how much is magic?”

Nasrin smirked. “Come tonight and figure it out for yourself. Hopefully you’ll do about as well with that as with this escape room.”

Isabelle grabbed the book out of the globe. “Speaking of, can we get back to the game now?” She flipped through the pages. “Someone help me figure out what to do with this thing.”

While Jason looked for markings on the cover, Nasrin looked for patterns in the books on the shelves, mouthing, “This is so not Monte Carlo.”