Chapter Three: Questionnaires

By the time Rowena had delivered him to her superior, Theo’s neck was sore from constantly turning his head to catch a glimpse of further curiosities. From his guide’s somewhat cursory description, the MyHunt HQ under Paddington Station was a sizeable complex, incorporating several blocks of accommodation, places to eat, a surfeit of museums and even a riding school. His increasingly urgent requests to know how all this was possibly humanly possible were answered with polite smiles, and the most verbal answer was a brief statement along the lines of ‘You’re not allowed to know that yet’.
Eventually he gave up asking.
Rowena’s superior was comfortably ensconced in a sizeable suite of offices within the main building, an elegant construction that departed from the Greek theme to embrace some other ancient culture that Theo, whose historical education thus far had been regrettably lacking in architecture, failed to recognise.
He was placed in a waiting room that would have served for a small palace’s throne room, and then Rowena left, treating him to a goodbye wave as she hurried out. He stared at her departing back like a man watching his last hope of survival flip him the bird.
Luckily for his nerves, it wasn’t long before a voice he recognised from the telephone boomed out of the adjoining room requesting his immediate presence. He suspected it was the drill-sergeant quality in the demand that got him on his feet and through the door so fast; that and the fact that he was so wound up it made Big Ben look like a clockwork soldier.
The voice that had spoken to him over the telephone turned out to belong to a large man with a bristling moustache who heavily resembled an annoyed walrus, complete with the tusks.
“Theodore Hunt?” he barked; Theo gave hasty agreement. The man still managed to give him a look that suggested he was lower than scum, and Theo couldn’t help wondering what would have happened had he said ‘no’.
“You’re expected. Please go through immediately. Mr Adfair is expecting you.”
“Um…thank you.”
Slightly startled and rather relieved that Mr. Loud Voice wasn’t actually the leader of the organisation, Theo hurried across to the door on the opposite wall, nearly tripping up on a corner of the obviously expensive Persian rug on the floor. Mr Loud Voice gave him a disapproving look that managed to make its presence felt without being seen, and Theo made a conscious effort to straighten himself up and open the door like a civilised human being.
But he thought he had felt, just before he had stumbled, the carpet move beneath him, out of his way.
The room beyond the door was, if possible, even more opulent than the previous two, and larger, and although it was lavishly decorated with glass cases containing all manner of interesting things there was one item that took pride of place and immediately drew the eye. It was a magnificent white stallion, stuffed and mounted on a plinth, standing in a ‘noble war horse’ sort of way with its proud neck arched.
And someone had mounted a pair of huge white wings on its back, so it looked like they were sprouting from the animal’s shoulders.
Immediately curious and seeing no-one around, Theo ventured closer to take a better look. He’d never really met a horse before, but this one was enough to give anyone a positive view of the creatures. And whoever had done the wings had done them amazingly well; they almost looked genuine, despite being too big and the wrong shape to have come off any bird Theo had ever heard of.
Pity it was spoiled by the eyes. They stared fixedly to the front, glassy and dead, and they seemed…sad.
“Beautiful, isn’t he?” said a voice behind Theodore’s shoulder. It nearly gave him a heart attack before the owner of the voice walked round to stand beside him, gazing up at the horse before them. It was a man of middling height and build, with nondescript brown hair and the sort of face that you remembered for a couple of days before promptly forgetting. He darted Theo an amused sidelong glance, and held out a hand.
“Cairbre Adfair,” he introduced himself, his name by far the most unusual thing about him. Theo shook, just a little nervously.
“Theodore Hunt…”
“So you’re our new hopeful, are you? Nice to see the old bloodlines returning!”
“…Old bloodlines?” Theo said blankly. Mr Adfair darted him a speculating look, then smiled.
“Nothing too exciting. I think one of your ancestors was a member a few years ago, that’s all.”
“Oh,” was Theo’s slightly disappointed answer. “Uhm…Could you tell me what this Society is all about, at all? No-one else will give me a straight answer…”
“For good reason, Mr Hunt,” Mr Adfair said mock-severely, putting up a finger. “This is a secret society, after all. We have to ensure that people are serious about joining before we tell them anything. And that goes for you too I’m afraid.”
For some reason, this struck Theo as mildly disturbing. He looked up at the stuffed horse again, and then at the benignly smiling Mr Cairbre Adfair.
“…Okay. What do I have to do?”
He wasn’t sure what he was expecting exactly-probably some sort of mysterious initiation rite-but what he wasn’t expecting was for Mr Adfair to produce a sheet of paper from his jacket pocket and pass it across, along with a rather posh ballpoint pen.
“Just fill in this questionnaire. Take your time, think about the answers. There’s a table over in that corner.”
Obediently bearing the sheet of paper and the pen, Theodore crossed to the table and sat down, running his fingers across the design laid in the table’s dark mahogany. A panoply of mythical creatures ran and danced and scampered across its surface; well-known ones like centaurs and unicorns pursued by lesser-known figures and some that Theo couldn’t recognise at all. It was a fascinating collection, and he had quite an effort pulling his eyes back to his questionnaire.
“Okay now, lessee…name. Theodore Hunt. Age. Nineteen. Gender. Male. Can you use a gun? …No.”
The questions got odder from there. Dutifully he answered queries about his skill with swords (nil), his experience with bows and arrows (he’d learned a bit on an adventure holiday, and actually been quite good), his financial status (precarious), his level of physical fitness…by the end, he was quite certain that this Society would want nothing to do with him whatsoever.
Mr Adfair, however, looked quite pleased after reading it through.
“Well Mr Hunt, you’re evidently a complete novice, but you have potential. It’s good to see that you have some enthusiasm for sports, that’ll serve you well. Yes…yes. I think we can let you in.”
Leaving Theo rather startled, he crossed to the door, put his head round it and held an inaudible conversation with Mr Loud Voice in the next room. Mr Loud Voice sounded almost annoyed, but apparently all went well because Mr Adfair was smiling when he returned to his newest member.
“All sorted. Your details will be entered on our member’s database and then you’ll be all set.”
“Um…okay…good. Thanks,” Theo replied, rather confused. This all seemed very fast and easy, nothing like as difficult as he thought it’d be to get into this obviously very rich and rather elitist looking secret society. But no…he’d been let in as easily as if he’d been making an appointment with the dentist.
Mr Adfair patted him companionably on the shoulder.
“Welcome to the MyHunt Society, Mr Hunt. Do you want to find out what it’s all about?”