Page 107 of In the Pursuit of Haven
“Grease,” I said. “The ‘F’ makes an ‘S’ sound.”
“Boar’s Grease,” he corrected himself. “Brains of a boar.”Therewere my two boars. The greased boar must be the smoother one I’d found near the end of the shapes. “Powder of waffed… sorry,” Jessie tried again, “washedearthworms.” My nose wrinkled. Okay, that was what I’d mistaken for the snake, wasn’t it? “Red sanders,” he read.
“What’s that?” I asked tensely.
“It’s a tree.” That explained the twig shape. “Mummy,” he read on.
“Stop.” I traced the shape that I hadn’t been able to identify yet. Yes, yes, it was a stick figure of a person. That was my mummy. My stomach flipped, and not just because of how disgusting Zerub’s remedy for toothaches was. The thrill of conquering this challenge electrified me. “Go on!”
“Blood ‘f’ tone—sorry, I have no idea what that is.”
“Bloodstone,” I called back. Even if that was officially a crystal the pilgrims had misguidedly ground up for healing purposes back in the day, the heart I’d discovered symbolized the bloodstone—it had to be.
“And moss of a dead man’s skull, not buried.” Jessie stopped talking for a moment. I wasn’t sure if that was because he was gagging. “Make an ointment,” he finished.
So the skull was the final ingredient! But now what? There weren’t any measurements or anything? “Are there directions after that?” I asked.
“Yes, it’s… just a second; it’s saying… here it is—‘the toothache is cured by pricking the gums and anointing the instrument…’ I’m guessing that means you slather the ointment onto something you can stab into the gums.”
Now I was the one gagging.Concentrate!
“Pricking,” I whispered. I needed to prick something, but with what instrument and where? My flashlight resting on the floor lit up the cast-off tools. Leaning down carefully, I scooped up a scalpel and tried to find something to stab with it.
I touched the carved frame encircling the symbols, feeling for any holes. Nothing. I went back to the boar, earthworm, heart shapes, and found the holes were inside each one.
The scalpel wasn’t going to do it. The blade was far too big… so what else could fit into these tiny holes?
Glancing back down at the leftover tools, my attention caught on the pen discarded next to Abby’s notebook. That might be small enough. Leaning down, I ripped open the top of the pen and pulled out the ink shaft in the middle of it.
Hoping I wasn’t wrong, I jabbed the ink cartridge into the first hole. Something moved behind the rock. I felt it shift. I speared the piece of the pen into the next hole and the next, not moving on until I heard each shape click in response.
When I was done, I dropped the ink chamber back to the dusty stones. My hand landed on the twig stone carving first. I slid it up and down and side to side. All of the shapes moved freely like that—the earthworm, the pig, the mummy!
“Jessie!” My giddiness pushed my voice up a pitch.
“What?” He sounded worried. “Are you okay? Get out of there!”
“No!” He didn’t understand. “They move! They slide. It’s like… like the tiles on those number games.”
“What?” He definitely didn’t understand.
“You know those puzzle games where you move the tiles around to be in a certain order?” I moved the smoothest boar’s head to the side and then up to the top, shifting the other symbols to rest beneath it. That was the “Boar Grease”—the first ingredient to cure the toothache.
The “Boar Brains” went next, and I found the carving and slid it under the “Boar Grease.” I shouted up to Jessie, “What’s after boar brains?”
He quickly complied and read the ingredients again. Following the instructions, I put them all in order, ending with the skull. As soon as it was all in place, the block of stone encircled by the frame made a loud grating screech before it dropped right over my head.
I screamed, throwing my hands above me and scrambling out of the way just as the whole section crashed into the ground. My flashlight exploded with a crack, smothering the cave in eerie darkness.
“Roxy!” Jessie shouted down.
“It’s okay.” At least, I meant to say that, but my voice trembled so much it all came out garbled. I felt around the broken pieces of stone around my feet. The Relic must’ve fallen down with everything else.
I had to find it.
Miraculously, my hands scraped over something small and smooth. A ring! Running my fingers over the polished surface, I felt the writing etched into the metal. This had to be it—I prayed it was, and not something Divine or Abby left behind, as I next tried to feel around for the opening to get out of here.
“Jessie!” I called out.
