Map: Part XIII
Aaron began to pull tiles out of the drawer and handed some to Rosie. He shuffled through the four he had kept, looking at the images on them. A sword, a bird, an hourglass, a shield.
“There are so many,” commented Rosie, digging through the drawer.
She was right. There were definitely more tiles than the sixteen slots, and he had no idea what kind of pattern they were supposed to make with them.
“Well, I guess we should just... start putting things in?” Aaron suggested, fitting the sword tile into a random square on the door. It fit snugly but did nothing.
He had really hoped for some feedback.
“Maybe we make a picture, like a mural. A lot of these are items we’ve seen; maybe it depicts our journey,” he started, waving a hand and nearly dropping his tiles.
Rosie ducked a little to avoid getting hit by his gesticulating hand. “I think that’s a little…abstract,” she said with a frown.
“Well, what about alphabetical order?” Aaron suggested while Rosie shook her head. He continued, “No, that doesn’t make sense because there’s too many tiles. Maybe we have to filter out which ones we use based on the items? Like sixteen of them are related and the others aren’t. Or—”
Rosie’s free hand shot out and put a finger on his lips. “Shh! Just be quiet for a second so I can think?”
He pouted for a second, but she didn’t notice. She was looking back down at the tiles he had given her. She bit at her lip, thinking.
Then, she set them down on the ground.
“What are you doing?”
“Shh,” was her only response. He stood and watched as she took tiles from the drawer and set them out on the ground in rows. He begun to understand, and brought her the sword tile he had put in the door.
When she was done, they both stood and stared down at twenty-five tiles, organized into three groups: animals, items, and symbols.
Aaron was itching to say something again, and blurted out, “What if we try—”
“The map!” Rosie exclaimed, whipping her head around to look at him and also hitting herself in the face with some of her hair.
She was finally as excited about the map as he was, which prompted Aaron to stop talking and stare at her. “What about it?”
She swiped the hair off her face and stepped up to the door. She formed right angles with her forefingers and thumbs to frame the checker board squares with her hands. “It’s about the same size. I think we need the map to solve this.”
Aaron grinned at her while fishing in his pocket. “Genius! Of course; it’s not a map to the treasure, it’s a map for the treasure!” He pulled out the aged paper and unfolded it. “I’m glad I brought you,” he said.
Rosie just rolled her eyes and took the map from him.
Just as she suspected, it fit perfectly into the grid, and all the symbols drawn on it were sized perfectly to the tile size.
“We just need to match the drawings!” Aaron said, already on the ground and sorting through the tiles. He felt his heart beating quick again; he loved how alive he felt when he had a puzzle to solve.
And he really was glad Rosie was here.
She knelt next to him, and he saw her smile out of the corner of his eye.
Read part I: https://theprose.com/post/243841/map