Page 81 of In the Pursuit of Haven
White granite bulwarks surrounded us on all sides, resembling a seawall. Cemented into the rock were extraordinary glowing lanterns and ironwork art that gave the whole area a steampunk feel. Instrument panels from boats of every era, corroded saws and masonry-like tools were welded to the iron-lattice gate, and farther down on a jagged wooden fence made up of planks that should’ve once belonged to a pirate ship was every type of door knocker imaginable.
Were we supposed to find a Shepherd’s Relic in this clever mishmash of knickknacks?
I didn’t know where to look. Jessie’s fingers brushed over the cylinder. “Anything else in there?”
I inspected the instrument, turning through all the symbols until it stopped at the triangle. “It only told us how to get here.”
“You mind if I take a look?” Jessie held out his hand, and thinking he wouldn’t have any more luck with it, I handed it over. He grasped both sides like it was a Chinese finger trap, and tugged it outward. A spring from inside the cylinder made a sound before the metal slid back to reveal one last symbol. A hollowed-out rectangle.
“Let’s look for that,” he said.
Not wanting the family inside the house to think that we were thieves coming for their junk, I tried to dim the flashlight with my hand while we scanned over the iron lawn ornaments. We crept first past elaborate old farm equipment transformed into steampunk vehicles and ghoulish skeletons that had been redesigned into monsters.
So far, we weren’t having any luck. My back tingled with alarm at getting caught the longer we stayed outside this place.
I almost tripped over an ancient sewing machine on my way over to the door knockers. Jessie’s arms found my waist again.
“What are you do—?”
Jessie cut off my question when he saved me from splattering against the sharp edge of its spindle and swept me up and over the fence, depositing me on the other side of it.
“Look on that side of the wall,” he whispered.
Jessie was getting his workout tonight, not that I was complaining. I’d rather be on the other side of this property if someone came outside and spied us “admiring” their scrap yard.
I ran my light along the tiny American flags and the instrument panels on the iron railing and noticed something odd. “They’re all on seven,” I told Jessie.
He barely reacted, leaning down to inspect an iron figure melded into a bicycle to the side of us. Walking down the length of the fence, I checked out the rest of the numbers on the navigational instruments and clocks. Just like the ones before, they were all set to seven.
“I wonder if seven is a clue,” I asked, “or just someone’s favorite number?” I reached a stone pillar. That’s when I noticed the hollowed-out rectangle etched into the side of a granite wall.
“Jessie,” I hissed.
Immediately, he sprang away from a figurine and ran up to me on the other side of the wall as I inspected the items wedged into a large hollowed-out crack. There was a Polaroid camera, perfume, and an empty whiskey bottle. The glass was melded into the wall like a window, and inside of the bottle was a piece of parchment dated 1628
The same date on Zak’s antique bottle.
“This is it!” I pointed.
Jessie wrapped himself around the pillar and tried to pry out the bottle, but the glass was cemented in. “Wait, don’t, don’t,” I said. Not everything had to be muscled out around here; besides the damage to private property, I suspected there was something else to this.
Leaning down, I was vindicated when I saw the clear bottle acted like a peephole through the granite. On the opposite side directly across from me was a sundial wedged into the adjacent wall.
“This sundial has something to do with it,” I said.
Jessie approached it. The brass on this antique sundial had long since turned green.
And still, what were the odds that these particular clues would’ve been here since the late 1600s? Not good, which only supported my theory that these Shepherds had passed on their treasures to future generations.
Something had been engraved on the top of the sundial. I couldn’t make it out from where I stood. “There’s something written there,” I whispered.
“Yeah.” Jessie studied it. “I think it’s Latin.”
I jumped up in excitement. “Read it to me.”
“Really?” To his credit, he tried his best: “Pastor… is relic… quay?”
“Pastoris Reliquiae?” I asked.
