Map: Part XVII
“I think you need to get out of this cave. It’s messing with your head,” Rosie said, holding Aaron at arm’s length with furrowed brows.
He gently put his hands on her arms, pushing them off of him and then clasping her hands. “No, listen, Rosie. The treasure’s a watch, and it takes you back in time.”
She scoffed and yanked her hands out of his. “Yeah right,” she said, and stalked forward into the dark hallway that led to the treasure.
He followed, wishing Rosie was once again holding his hand, like she had the last time he’d been down this tunnel.
She didn’t ask, but he got out his flashlight and handed it to her, which she silently accepted in the dim light from the other room.
“You knew about it,” he said to her back. “Not you, the other you from my past. You tried to warn me; I think you opened the watch in your own version of reality.”
“That doesn’t even make sense,” she called over her shoulder. Then she stopped, even though they hadn’t reached the back wall yet.
“‘One step forward, one step back’ is what the wall ahead of us says. I’ve read it before! Will that prove I’m not crazy?” Aaron said with conviction.
She didn’t say anything.
“Rosie?”
Aaron felt a twinge of fear and reached out to touch her shoulder.
She gasped and turned. Her face looked ghostly white, even in the yellow light from the flashlight in her hand. She swung the beam over Aaron, nearly blinding him.
“Did that really…?” she started, lowering the light.
Aaron narrowed his eyes at her, but also blinked continually, trying to get the spots out of his vision.
“I believe you now,” she said quietly, suddenly reaching out and clutching his arm.
Aaron thought about putting his hand on hers. Instead, he said, “In your version of time, you went in and opened the watch. Then you appeared here.”
In a strange, headache-y kind of way, this time travel thing made sense.
She let go of him, nodding, and strands of hair that had been tucked behind her ear fell loose. “It was like I saw everything in reverse, then, as soon as I wanted it to stop, it did.”
“That’s how it was for me,” he said, his mouth quirking sideways in an awed grin. “This is awesome,” he breathed.
Rosie, however, looked dumbfounded. “This is not awesome! This is the most dangerous… awful thing that exists! Do you know how much power this could give a person?”
“But to know it exists, that opens up so many possibilities… what else is out there?” Aaron pondered the existence of ghosts, magic, dragons, and other things he previously thought could never exist.
“You know you can’t keep it,” she said. “You said it before. You read the journal.”
“What journal?” Aaron asked.
Rosie nodded solemnly to herself. “You haven’t seen it yet.” She started forward. “Follow me.”
Aaron did, and he thought about how strange it was that both of them remembered doing this before, but the two versions weren’t the same. They had lived different realities.
When they reached the room with the pocket watch, Rosie went straight to it and picked it up, but was careful not to open it. To Aaron’s surprise, removing the watch prompted a secret door in the pedestal to pop open.
It turned out the pedestal was hollow, and lots of things were piled inside. Not treasure things, though. There was a glove, a pen, a shovel, and other random, everyday items.
Rosie pulled a journal out of the compartment and handed it to Aaron slowly. He detected a strange look on her face, one that he couldn’t quite place.
“You should sit,” she said. It sounded like a warning.
His eyebrows drew together, but he sunk down onto the floor next to the pedestal and leaned his back against it.
After exchanging a glance with Rosie, who sat down next to him, he opened the journal.
The first page read Fernando Buchante, and the next couple of pages were in Spanish, but afterwards there was a translation.
Aaron began to read.
Read part I: https://theprose.com/post/243841/map