Map: Part XVI
Rosie quickly pulled her hand out of his, and he instead felt her tapping on his arm. “Don’t you have that flashlight?” she asked as they edged into the darkness.
“Oh yeah,” Aaron said. His hand felt empty where hers had been. He fished in his jacket pocket, past the library book, and took out his flashlight, switching it on.
She kept a two-finger grip on the sleeve of his jacket, and they continued forward together. Unfortunately, the flashlight didn’t illuminate much; this passage was much darker and smaller than the others. As they walked, Aaron felt like the walls were closing in on them, forcing them to squeeze closer together. The hallway was getting narrower.
“Look,” whispered Rosie.
The tunnel stopped abruptly, and another inscription was on the wall directly in front of them. “One step forward, one step back. If you made it this far, you know what has to be done.”
Rosie let go of him and squeezed past him into the narrow space ahead, closer to the writing.
“Do we actually have to step forward and backwards?” Aaron asked, and tried it.
Even in the small beam of his flashlight he could see Rosie sigh and give him the ‘you’re an idiot’ glare. “It’s a metaphor. Come on.” Then, she disappeared.
Aaron shone his light where Rosie used to be, and found that, hidden in the shadows, was another doorway. He followed her through.
He opened his mouth in awe, and found that he couldn’t even form words.
They had reached it.
Rosie stood next to a light switch, which had turned on the overhead spotlight.
The warm light shone straight down and into the center of the room, illuminating an intricately carved stone pillar and the item placed on top.
Aaron switched his flashlight off and eagerly stepped forward.
A watch. A pocket watch.
That was the treasure?
“Just a watch?” Aaron questioned. He wasn’t disappointed, necessarily, just confused.
“Yeah,” Rosie said from behind him. “We just searched the rest of the room.” She, too, sounded confused. Her eyebrows were knit together, and she was looking at him funny.
“We what?” he asked, glancing at her.
“We… what happened?” Her eyes had a weird look in them.
Aaron picked up the watch. “We just walked in,” he told her distantly. He flipped the device over in his hands, scrutinizing it.
“Don’t open that!” she cried, and reached out like she was going to smack the watch out of his hands.
Too late.
Aaron had pressed the top button, popping open the timepiece with a nice little click. The clock face was pure white, no numbers, and the hands spun backwards.
All at once, Rosie retracted her hand, and the watch jumped out of Aaron’s hand, back onto its pedestal. He was pushed backwards by an unseen force, and the world around him began to whirl past. By the time his mind realized something bad was happening, everything stopped.
Aaron rocked a little on his feet.
“It’s probably just the acorn and the bird. We should switch them," Rosie spoke
calmly.
Aaron looked frantically around. They were in the room with the two doorways again. Rosie was switching the tiles on the door… which was still closed.
Then the door lit up with that purple light and Rosie was stepping back and looking at him. “Are you ok?” she asked, the pleased smile sliding off her face.
He made a couple of sounds that didn’t quite make it into words.
“Come on, no need to get cold feet now,” she said, but took his arm, concern in her eyes and in the downward turn of her mouth.
“We did this,” he told her.
Her dark eyes searched his. “We what?”
The watch. The treasure.
“I know what the treasure does,” he whispered, slumping over from the enormity of it.
“What?” Rosie was sounding more annoyed than concerned now.
“Time. I did this before. The watch takes you back in time.”
Rosie’s mouth froze in the middle of saying ‘what’ for the hundredth time. She looked at him, eyes disbelieving.
Read part I: https://theprose.com/post/243841/map