Page 106 of In the Pursuit of Haven
He took the hint. “I remember the first time I saw you, Roxy.” His voice soothed over me, and I ducked my head, and breathing heavily, writhed forward like a snake.
Was this what that lady meant about a viper hole?
“I think I was ten,” Jessie continued, “and your aunt Haven was trying her hardest to get you away from us when she spotted my old man at the wharf.”
I concentrated on his voice, pushing forward. I stiffened when his words grew more muffled. “Louder,” I shouted back at him.
He obeyed, hollering: “Even after you disappeared into Bette Ann’s candy shop, I couldn’t stop thinking about your dark hair and your-your big hazel eyes—they’re almost green, you know. My favorite color. I started collecting dimes and quarters from under the seats on the boat, so I could have a reason to go into her store, and when I finally got enough coins together to make a dollar, I ran inside and guess what? The worst thing happened. You were gone. Abby was too young to tease me, but my cousins sure did when I came out without even a sugar stick. Ha! And they never let off. You became a family legend on our long days out on the ocean.”
I smiled wistfully. A second later my flashlight ran into a rock wall. Moving around the bulbous head of the compact light, I saw that the crawlspace had opened up into an area that was spacious… well,farmore spacious than the gopher hole I’d just used to get in. On the floor were tools that Divine and Abby must’ve left behind—hand shovels, tiny scalpels, razor blades. They’d even abandoned notepads where they’d scrawled their notes next to discarded pens.
I recognized Abby’s messy handwriting on the yellow legal pad: “Get me out of here!”
So this cavern didn’t just givemethe jitters. I sat up, feeling my claustrophobia ease somewhat. “I’m at the end!” I shouted back to Jessie.
His story about how Abby found out about his crush on me came to abrupt end. “Okay, stand up,” he instructed. “The puzzle’s on the ceiling.”
Wary of butting my head against the hard granite again, I carefully stretched to my feet. To my relief, there was enough room to stand. Above me was a circle framing a series of carvings set deeply into the ceiling, though I couldn’t make them out to mean anything. “Read Elizabeth’s inscription in that book,” I hollered.
He went silent in his search for it. I should’ve brought it with me, but I’d been too freaked out. “To my brother—ride hard,” Jessie shouted. He’d found the page. “On my children’s island ye wilt discover a cave of vipers, skulls, and boars. Root ye out the tree marked with our family’s emblem. Buried deep where flame cannot go, ye shall feel the Relic’s sweet ointment that will bring ye cure.”
If the flame could not go here, then whoever came down here would have to rely entirely on touch.
Of course!Ye shall feel the Relic’s sweet ointment…
I set the flashlight down on the stone floor next to my feet and ran my fingertips over the carving, detecting the strange bumps and indentations that I hadn’t been able to see with my eyes. I could feel the shapes like braille.
This was a snake! I traced the outline of its twisted body.
A cave of vipers, skulls, and boars!
Past that, I touched what could only be the skull—the kind we’d found on Puritans’ gravestones; the boar? Well, the snout gave it away; though there were more shapes that I couldn’t recognize without being told what they might be.
No, no, wait, this symbol was a twig… maybe. And the next was a heart with a line extending from it.Ew!That was a ventricle still attached to it.
Creepy. It was like I’d found myself in a haunted house and the ingredients in Zerub’s book of healing had come to life.
I choked on the realization:Ye shall feel the Relic’s sweet ointment that will bring ye cure.
“Jessie!” I shouted. “The book! These shapes are ingredients used to make an ointment… the full instructions on how to solve this puzzle are going to be in Zerub’s book.”
He probably didn’t know what I was talking about. To his credit, he tried to clarify: “What’s the name of the ointment I’m looking for?”
“I don’t know. What was Crabb’s illness?”
“A toothache!” He shouted it the same time I remembered. Letting him search for the remedy in Zerub’s medical journal in peace, I ran my fingers over the last two shapes. Seven in all. This one was… another boar? It was smoother than the first. And the last symbol? I had no idea.
What did these shapes all mean, anyway? I tried to shake them, push them, move them. Without more instructions, there was nothing more I could do.
“I found it!” Jessie’s voice echoed through the shaft. “The cure for the toothache is on the last page next to the inscription.”
That made sense! Elizabeth wasn’t about to make the Relic impossible for her brother to find—I hoped. “Read it!”
“It’s called, ‘Green ointment that M. Field did vie…vie?” Jessie was having difficulty reading the archaic spelling that I’d noticed earlier, “Vie to make…”
“Yes, that’s it,” I said, “that ‘M. Fieldusedto make.’ Keep going.”
“This is like a different language,” he complained. He was doing the book work while I was the one off adventuring. We’d switched places. “Sympathetic ointment. Boar’s grief,” he sounded out slowly.
