Fantom Chapter 1, part 3.

  Ruth puzzled over the clues when she got home.  They seemed to be cryptic instructions to how to find a place- or perhaps several places.  

‘Bridges three shall mark the spot
Bridge of books, bridge that was,
And bridge that to discovery leads.

‘From one to where we often sat,
And where our shows at first began.

‘From two to place where much is kept,
Things here may look like what they’re not.

‘Three’s partner place is many things,
And nothing well. Yet, it can serve.

‘One and two, learn what to do,
Two and three, you’ll find the key,
Three and one, this game is done.’

  “I don’t think much of their poetry,” Ruth thought, as she fell asleep.
  The next day they gathered on campus in the summer evening.  “Where do we start?” Adam asked.  
  “Three bridges,” Ruth said.  “But there’s loads of bridges- there must be seven or eight.  How do we know which three it means?”  
  “From the other clues?” Tom suggested.  “Maybe it’s the bridges nearest those things?”  
  “Let’s try working out what they are then,” Ruth replied.  “Maybe it’ll help.”
  “‘Where we often sat,’” Patrick read.  “Somewhere with chairs.  That narrows it down!”  
  “One of the benches near the lake?” Tom suggested.
  “Where our shows began sounds like somewhere we have rehearsals,” Adam said.  
  “But that could be lots of rooms,” Ruth replied.  “We’ve rehearsed in most of the rooms in Langwith at some point, and several in Derwent and Vanbrugh.”
  “And Goodrick,” Patrick added.  
  “Maybe the practice rooms then?” Adam said. “We often use them for the auditions.  You could say that’s where things begin.”
  “Maybe,” Tom said.  “That doesn’t help with the bridges, though, there’s none really near there.”
  “Two’s got to be a store room,” Patrick said.  “Either the cupboard where the scores are kept, or the container where the set’s stored.”
  “I’d guess the container,” Ruth said.  “‘Things may look like what they’re not-’ that sounds like what a set does to me.”
  “The music practice rooms, and the container,” Tom said.  “Neither are really near any bridges, and they’re at opposite sides of campus.”
  “Any ideas about the third one?” Ruth said.  “It doesn’t make any sense to me.”  The others shook their heads.
  “Shall we go to those places and see if there’s any clues there?” Patrick suggested.  They wandered off, chatting.  The music practice rooms were closest, but there didn’t seem to be anything unusual there.  “It’s kind of hard to look for something when you don’t know what you’re looking for,” Adam said.  Next they visited the storage container where they kept all their set and props and costumes.  But they seemed to be none the wiser.
  “Has anyone got a map of campus?” Ruth asked.  “Maybe that would help, if we could see if there’s any sort of pattern?”
  “There’ll be one in the library,” Tom said.  They set off back towards the centre of campus.  The library was perched on top of a cutting above the road that divided the campus, and was reached by going up a square spiral slope.  It was normally one of the busiest places on campus, but at this time of day there were few other people around.  
  As they reached the top of the spiral Ruth suddenly stopped.  “Three bridges,” she said.  “I think I’ve got it.  It’s not the bridges over the lake, it’s the bridges over the road!  ‘Bridge of books’- bridge to the library. ”
  “But there aren’t three,” Adam said.  “There’s only two, this one and the one by chemistry.”
  “That would work for ‘bridge to discovery,’ or whatever the third one was,” Patrick said.
  “There used to be a third,” Ruth said.  “Maybe it was before your time, but there was a bridge from Langwith to Alcuin.  
  “‘Bridge that was,’” Tom said.  “That makes sense.  Let’s find a map, maybe we can make sense of the other clues now.”

The story continues...