Map: Part XIV
Unfortunately, a quick scan of the tiles revealed that most of the drawings on the map were not on tiles. The only ones that were the same were the three special symbols, which Aaron took and fit in the door where they seemed to go according to the map.
To his delight, the door glowed a light shade of purple, making him think that they must be on the right track.
Then, both of them sat on the floor and looked back and forth at the map then the tiles, trying to find other matches.
“I guess the pictures will be related, but not the same?” Aaron conjectured.
“Yeah,” Rosie said, sounding distracted. She began to move tiles around into new piles.
Aaron studied the map while she did… whatever she was doing.
There weren’t pictures covering the entire map, rather, if the map was split into sixteen squares, only eleven of them would have images on them. The first row contained the symbol that had been on the bench sandwiched by two tree images. In the second row, two images of stones preceded one image of grass. The third had a Greek column, the circle with an X symbol, and a castle image. And the fourth had the crescent symbol and a tower.
The number of images minus the three symbols they already had in the door meant there were eight tiles they needed.
“Ok,” Rosie said, sitting back and looking at Aaron. He looked over the map at her and she gestured to the new piles she had organized the tiles into. “I think you’re right; for every picture on the map there’s a similar tile. Like… the trees are probably these,” she said, picking up three tiles.
A bird, a leaf, an acorn.
“Maybe I was right before too!” Aaron began, hastily rearranging tiles.
Rosie protested, “Hey, I just organized those!” but Aaron ignored her, throwing tiles across the floor, away from them. They were left with nine tiles. One more than they needed.
He set the map on the floor in front of them so they could look at it, and pointed to the tree images. “These are the bird and the acorn because they were symbols we’ve seen before.”
“Ah,” Rosie responded. He had tossed all the tiles with images of things they hadn’t seen, like the leaf. “What’s this?” she asked, picking up a tile.
“The coat of arms, remember? It was in the room with all the statues. In fact, they’re all here,” Aaron explained, then grabbed four more tiles. The coat of arms, horse, sword, crown, and knight. If his memory was correct, those were the five sculptures in the first room.
Rosie jumped up, grabbing tiles, and took them excitedly to the door. “Bring the map!” she said with a backwards glance. Her eyes shimmered in the dim light.
Aaron came quickly to her side. She had already inserted the bird and the acorn next to the first symbol in the top row. “Does that seem like the right order?” she asked.
Aaron shrugged. “Sure, let’s try it.” He hoped there wasn’t a punishment for getting this wrong.
Her skeptical glance mirrored his thought, but she left them as they were.
“So, what comes next?” she asked.
“The pedestal,” he began, “that could be any of the things from this last room: diamond, telescope… well, not bird or acorn.”
“I have a diamond and a telescope,” she replied, eyebrows drawing together.
“Did anything else…” Aaron thought for a second. “Crown!” He took the tile from her and put it in the door. “In the statue room, the pedestal had a crown on it.”
“And,” Rosie said, juggling the tiles in her arms until she found the right ones, “I bet the stones above the pedestal are the statues next to the crown.” She nodded at the map. “There’s a ring of five pictures around the second symbol, which represent the five statues.”
“Yes!” Aaron almost jumped up and down in excitement, but restrained himself.
“I don’t remember what was next to the crown,” muttered Aaron, tracing the curve of the five images on the map. “But the last one was the coat of arms, where the castle picture is… And next to that was that horse? Yeah, where the grass picture is.”
Rosie put the two tiles in the door as he spoke. “I think the knight was next to the crown,” she said, ordering the tiles according to her recollection.
Aaron nodded. “I think you’re right.”
“Last one,” Rosie said, her mouth slanting as she turned back to him. It was the face she made when she was suppressing her excitement. He recognized it from when they were kids.
She was holding the telescope and diamond tiles.
“It’s a tower,” Aaron told her, then folded up the map.
She nodded and, with another glance at him, put the last tile in. The telescope slid into place.
And nothing happened.
Read part I: https://theprose.com/post/243841/map