Episode 27: Locker Bays and Logical Guesses
- Crystal Crawford
- Apr 2
- 5 min read
Updated: Apr 3
A little while later, Lockley, Collin, and I were all standing in a dimly lit locker alcove with just enough room for a four-by-four section of lockers, staring up at the wall that used to host the graffitied eyes. It now had a somewhat-fresh coat of greyish paint on it, but I could still see the eyes in my mind.
“You’re sure this is the place?” Collin asked in a whisper.
“Yes,” Lockley and I both whispered back.
There was no one else around, but the eerie quiet of the abandoned school had us all on edge.
Well, that plus being so close to what might be our first real break in finding Emery.
We all set our backpacks on the floor.
“Go ahead, Aubs,” Lockley said softly, nodding to the first row of lockers. “It said ‘first left, under eyes’... that’s probably the top left one, but if not, we’ll try all the left ones. It’s gotta be one in this section.”
I stepped toward the lockers, then froze. “They all have locks.” I looked back at the others. “How do we know the combination?”
Lockley’s eyes locked on mine. “Oh. Um… well, combination locks only have so many options, right? I know the code she used to use on her locker. Try that first, and then maybe birthdates or something? If we have to, we’ll just go through the combinations in order.”
I stared at her. “Lock, that will take forever. We don’t even know for sure that the top-left one is the one. If we try every combination—”
“We have to try, right?” Lockley said, looking a little panicked. “There are only sixteen lockers in this section—four rows of four. If you and I both start on the left, and go through the same combinations together, maybe we can get through enough to find one that works before people start showing up. If not, we’ll come back after school. We’re not giving up.”
I drew a deep breath, then nodded. “Let’s do it.”
Lockley took position at the top of the first column, and I started at the bottom.
“First, her old locker code,” Lockley said. “Two-five-eight-seven.”
I dialed it in.
Nothing happened.
My heart sank, but I looked up at Lockley—and found a disappointed look on her face, too.
“Let’s try the whole section,” Lockley said. “Just in case.”
I fought back an inner groan, but I nodded. There was no point in doing this halfway, not when we were so close to finding something.
“Let me help,” Collin said, moving to the other side of the section. “I’ll do the whole right column, then move in. We’ll cover them faster that way.”
It only took us a couple minutes to try all sixteen lockers… to no avail.
“Okay, it’s gotta be a different code,” Lockley said. “Back to the start of the rows. We’ll try again.”
I nodded. “Birthday?”
“Hers or yours?” Lockley asked.
“Hers first. Try month, day, two-digit year.”
We each dialed the numbers into the locks, moving methodically down the rows until we’d done them all.
Nothing.
“Now mine?” I asked.
Lockley called out my birthdate numbers to Collin, and we all tried.
Nothing.
Frustration simmered in my chest. “It’s got to be something meaningful. She wouldn’t just do a random code.”
“Maybe just her birth year?” Lockley suggested.
We both put in the four digits… all the way down the section.
Nothing.
Lockley sighed. “Now your birth year?”
We tried… again, nothing.
The doors at the end of the hallway opened and closed, and we heard footsteps and voices. We weren’t alone anymore—we were running out of time.
“Okay,” Lockley said. “Let’s just start at the beginning. One-one-one-one. We’ll work our way through as many combinations as we have time for, until someone either shows up in this alcove and yells at us for messing with their locker, or the bell rings and we have to go to class.”
“Do we have to go to class?” I couldn’t imagine walking away from this with nothing after all the work we’d put in, then having to sit in class all day waiting for the chance to come back.
“Yes,” Lockley said, raising an eyebrow at me. “That was the plan, remember?”
I fought back a groan. “We’ve already wasted too much time.” My frustration was turning to a despairing panic.
The commotion of typical hall traffic was growing louder and closer by the moment, a swelling clamor of conversations and footsteps and slamming lockers in the distance as more and more students filed into the school. Someone had to have a locker in this wing—they all had locks on them. It was only a matter of time before someone wandered into this locker bay, even with how isolated it was.
“We have to act normal, Aubs,” Lock said in a chiding whisper.
“Nothing about this is normal,” I hissed back. “I can’t waste a whole day sitting in classes, not now!”
“Wait, wait, wait,” Collin said calmly. “You may not have to. Try one, one, eight, nine.”
Lockley and I both stared at him.
“What?” I asked. “Why?”
He moved closer to Lockley and me, keeping his voice low. “You told me not to let go of my hunch, and I didn’t. Emery intentionally linked the two Jane Eyre quotes in her sketches. She even drew arrows to connect them. Whatever their message is, it probably goes together, especially since they’re both from one book. But for some reason, the Shakespeare quotes were written separately and not identified as a match. And they’re from two different plays. Maybe that’s because they’re supposed to be deciphered differently, even though they go together thematically. You said she would’ve chosen the quotes for the words, but it just hit me… unlike page numbers in books, plays have numbers that are standard across the published versions. She would’ve known you could look them up. Act numbers. Scene numbers.” His eyes met mine. “Line numbers. Maybe if the first Shakespeare quote was about the letters, the other one is about the numbers.”
My eyes widened. “Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 1, lines 8-9.” 1189.
Collin smiled. “It’s worth a try, right?” He pointed to the top-left locker. “I’d say start with that one, since her message said first left.”
“Collin, you’re a genius!” Lockley whispered back, beaming. “I have a good feeling about this.”
So did I. Somehow, the moment he’d said it, it just felt right.
A student walked past the locker bay and we all froze in our conspiratorial huddle and looked up at him… but he just glanced at us, shook his head, and kept walking.
We all breathed a sigh of relief.
Lockley looked at me. “You do this one, Aubrey. If it works, it should be you.”
I drew a breath, then turned back to the locker.
As soon as I reached for the lock, a sudden terror swept over me. I dropped my hand. “What if it doesn’t work?”
“Then we try until something does,” Lockley said from behind me. “We’re not giving up, not now.”
We’re not giving up.
Then I might as well try.
I grabbed the lock. “Hamlet. Act I. Scene 1. Lines 8 and…9,” I whispered, carefully twisting the dial to the correct numbers.
The lock popped open.
Collin’s whispered, celebratory “Yes!” hit my ears as I stared at the open lock for a moment, in shock that it had actually worked.
Then I yanked the lock off and opened the locker door.
***
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