WE DESCEND THE STAIRS FOR TWO MORE DAYS. OUR PACE HAS SLOWED, and though Ethan is still muttering numbers under his breath like he’s keeping track, my mind is too numb to even think about it. I have no clue how deep in the earth we are, but it’s way more than the Eiffel Tower or the Empire State Building.
“You know what just occurred to me?” Ethan says.
“What?” I ask.
“When we’re done, once we find the Code of Enoch, we have to climb back up these.”
I stop walking and fix him with my look of death. “Never mention that again. Because if you do, I will kill you right here.”
“Whoa, anger issues,” Ethan says.
“My legs hurt too bad to be angry,” I say.
“Just don’t trip me, okay?”
I try to come up with a witty response, but my mind has entered a dull place where I can’t think of anything except the next step in front of me—which means that when I go to take that next step and my foot doesn’t descend at all, I fall over and land on my side.
“Hannah, are you okay?” Ethan says.
“I think I found the bottom,” I say. “Be careful. The last step is a doozy.”
It’s such a stupid thing to say, but I can’t stop myself as giddy laughter takes over. Ethan falls to the ground beside me, and we lie there laughing until tears stream down our faces. I shine the light around just to be sure, and I can’t believe it. There are no more stairs.
All the exhaustion I had from coming down the staircase vanishes. Around me is a chamber unlike any I have ever seen. The area we’re in is vast and cavernous, with stalactites and stalagmites that rival those I’ve seen in both Carlsbad Caverns and Mammoth Caves. My light shines out, falling upon seven arches carved into the walls, each with what looks like a tunnel extending beyond it. It’s like a Choose Your Own Adventure, where whichever path we pick will determine our fate. Possible gold and riches in the form of the Code of Enoch lie through one of those arches, and grisly death lies beyond the others.
“Let’s see what the map says,” I say, digging it out. With the steps, we haven’t needed it. There was only one way to go. But now there are seven.
“What does it say about this chamber?” I ask.
Ethan studies the map and then stares at the tunnels, his head slightly tilted as if he’s contemplating a problem.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
“All the next symbol says is ‘Golden Archway,’ but none of these are golden.”
Nothing in the chamber is golden. Sure, it’s carved, obviously manmade, but everything is the gray color of stone.
“So it doesn’t talk about making a choice?”
He shakes his head. “No. Just ‘Golden Archway.’”
I study the symbols on the map, looking for something that he’s missed. The stairs are there, along with the horrible number for how many we descended. There’s the archway symbol he’s talking about, but nothing else.
“We should complain to the map maker,” Ethan says.
I press my fingers to my temples. There has to be something to tell us which way to go. Some kind of clue. If only I could text Lucas. He’d be able to figure it out. But he’s not here.
What would Lucas do in this situation?
I stare at the symbol on the map, waiting for something to pop out at me. But nothing does. My eyes drift to the letters that surround the Deluge Segment that tell about the artifact we’re seeking. Nothing there either. Along the edge of the map are the notches. They’re not lined up since Lucas flipped the images around and rotated them, using the golden ratio as a guide. My eyes move back to the center piece, the part Tobin filled in. But that doesn’t help either.
“Wait …,” I say. Almost out of my peripheral vision, the notches on the edges blend together. I hold my head still but let my eyes drift over to them. “These.” I run my finger over the notches.
It’s there. I can’t believe I didn’t see it earlier.
“You see the pattern they’re in? There were five notches on each of the three pieces, right? That means fifteen total notches. And you see how even though they’re not lined up, most of them are near one other?”
Ethan’s eyes widen. “Oh, yeah. Except this one.” He points to the second from the right. “It has three notches.”
“Exactly,” I say. “Lucas used the golden ratio to align them. And I’m willing to bet the one with the three notches is our tunnel.”
Ethan walks over to the second tunnel from the right. He runs his hands along the sides of the tunnel, squatting down until he’s near the ground.
“What does this look like to you, Hannah?”
I walk over to join him. Ethan points to a carving near the base of the rock. I recognize it immediately.
“It’s the DNA symbol from the map,” I say. “It’s the same symbol.”
“Yeah, and look at this,” Ethan says, pointing to another carving.
Three notches have been carved into the wall. Three notches just like on the map. We check the other entryways but don’t find the same DNA symbol or the notches. This has to be the way we’re supposed to go. This is our golden archway.
We don’t die when we walk through which I take as a good sign that we’ve chosen correctly. Unlike the walls of the stairwell, the tunnel has been carved into a perfect arch, stretching before us. It’s also covered with the thermogenic moss. Along it, I find the first insect I’ve seen since we started down the steps.
“Albino bugs!” I say, reaching out for one.
“Don’t touch them,” Ethan says, yanking my hand back. “They’re huge! And they could be poisonous.”
“They’re not poisonous. At least I don’t think they are,” I say, placing my hand flat on the wall ahead of us. Slowly, one of the insects crawls onto the back of my hand. It’s ten times the size of a normal beetle from back home, covering almost the entire back of my glove. “Pretty sure it’s a Catops Cavicis, except it’s albino unlike the normal species.”
“Look at those teeth,” Ethan says. “Does it bite?”
“Probably,” I say. “Most beetles do. But only if you provoke them.”
“So don’t provoke this one,” Ethan says. “Put it back.”
“It’s fine,” I say. “What I’d really like to do is take it back with us.”
“We’re not here for our bug collections, Hannah,” Ethan says. “And anyway, it’s freaky with its giant crunchy white shell and weird little antennae. Just put it back where it came from.”
“You are such a wimp.” I move my hand back to the wall to release the beetle.
“It looks like it came from here,” Ethan says, shining his flashlight into a crack in the wall.
“Stop!” I say, but it’s too late.
Hundreds of the giant beetles pour from the wall, dropping to the floor and scampering across our boots before we have time to jump out of the way.
I flick the beetle off my hand. The bugs keeps coming.
“I told you that you shouldn’t have messed with them,” Ethan says, stepping back.
But he’s stepping the wrong way, back in the direction we came.
“This way,” I say, grabbing for his hand. The bugs are crawling up my legs. They’re everywhere. Biting through my clothes.
Ethan jumps over the insects, crushing them under his feet, and then we run down the passageway, swiping the beetles from our legs. The bugs pour after us, coming out of new cracks along the tunnel. We reach the end of the passageway, but it’s blocked by a small river of water, about five feet across. Neither Ethan nor I hesitate as we jump across it. We land and brush the last of the bugs off our legs, flicking them into the water.
“Do they swim?” Ethan says.
I shake my head. “Only some kinds of water beetles swim which I don’t think these are.”
“You don’t think?” He shakes some more off, swatting around his ankles where his boots meet his pants.
“That’s why I wanted to take one back with me,” I say. “To study it.”
“Yeah, well you can forget that idea,” Ethan says. “Man, their bites hurt.”
“I told you they don’t like being provoked,” I said.
“How did I provoke them? By looking at them?”
“You shined your light on them,” I say. “Remember that they’ve never seen light. They have no idea what it is.”
“Well, sorry for trying to help you see better,” Ethan says.
“I’m not saying you did anything wrong,” I say. “Only saying that you provoked them.”
“So did you,” he says. “You picked one up. They probably viewed that as some kind of act of war.”
I glare at him because his statement is ludicrous.
“Fine. I provoked them. But warn me next time,” Ethan says.
“I tried to.”
“Try earlier,” he says.
“I’ll do my best.”
The horde of albino beetles stays on the other side of the river, and Ethan and I have no need to go back, at least not right now. We’ll figure out how to deal with them when we return this way. If we return this way. Maybe there’s a different path without the insects. For now, we keep moving forward.
Instead of being in an open room with many choices, like we were before, there is only one path that lays ahead of us.
“Check out these markings,” Ethan says, shining his light on a bunch of carved symbols.
“More DNA?” I ask.
“It looks like it,” he says.
We find two more sets of the DNA carvings along with the three notches as we follow the path ahead. When we come to an intersection, our very first, Ethan and I study the map and agree that we need to go left at a giant rock with two protrusions on the top. The symbol on the map means “Devil’s Rock.”
As we turn, drawn on the rock wall of the cave, is the infinity symbol.
“It’s like on the piece of the rubbing I found. My mom put it there. And she must’ve put this one here.” I brush at it with my fingers. “It’s drawn with rubbing wax.”
“Something your parents would have had,” Ethan says.
“And something that wouldn’t have been around thousands of years ago when this place was built.”
It has to be a symbol drawn by Mom, like a message left for anyone who might come looking for her. I can’t begin to imagine what she’ll say when she finds out that someone is me.