Water surrounds us. It pours down from chutes lining the walls, cascading over archways in heavy blankets a foot thick. We could probably walk through it, but it would be hard, all that water pushing us to the ground. That would be okay if the archways didn’t have spikes sticking out from the floor underneath them.
“What do you think?” Dad asks.
We’re on a small island, one forgotten ages ago. Our research had brought us here, and sure enough, after pushing some rocks aside, we’d found an entrance to a tomb, a simple carved door leading down into darkness. We’d followed it down, looking for the treasure, and then, when we reached the bottom and gone through another set of doors, suddenly lanterns had flared, their paper screens long deteriorated, just stone and flame now. And then the door had fallen shut behind us.
There are three archways in front of us—left, right, and center—all covered by thick waterfalls over spikes that cut the water the same way they’ll surely cut us. The water runs into the center of the room, where it flows down through a stone grate. The floor is wet but not flooding.
“Are you asking if I think we can walk over the spikes without getting hurt?” I call back. The water is loud, and we have to shout over it. “No! I think we’d be killed.”
“It’s just water, Tenny,” Dad says, filming the room with his little camera. “We can get through water.”
“It’s a waterfall,” I correct. “Strong enough to push us down. One slip and we’ll be split in two.”
“Well, let’s look for some way to turn off the waterfalls, then,” Dad says, taking out his flashlight. I do the same. The room is lit but not bright, so we don’t see things until our beam shines directly over them—the carvings of samurai in the walls, the stone dragons wrapped around the top of each lantern, and, most important, the rings in the closed door behind us.
The pair of tall wooden doors is old but in good condition, painted with black lacquer that’s kept the wood from rotting even with all this water. On each of the doors is a raised wooden circle. They’re painted with intricate images that look jumbled. Inside each circle are more rings, getting smaller and smaller, nestled inside each other. Each ring spins independently. Whatever image was originally created when the circles line up correctly is now too mixed up to make out.
“I’ll take the left, you take the right,” Dad says, and we go to work spinning the rings on the two doors, trying to solve the puzzles.
I take out my own camera, filming with one hand as we work. The ring puzzles are harder than I thought they’d be at first—the image is complicated, almost pixelated, covered in colored squares smaller than my pinkie nail. Each one is traced in gold and a different color, and that’s most of the inner rings, so I’m not even sure what I’m trying to arrange them into. I shake my head and look at the outermost ring instead. There’s no border, nothing I can line it up with on the outside, but at least here I spot some features I can identify: an eye, a pearl. I think it’s a dragon, the long snakelike type with a pearl under the chin that is traditional here in Japan. Knowing that makes it go a little easier. The next ring has the other eye, so I line them up. After that, it’s all scales; the dragon is spiraling in on itself. It takes me what feels like ten minutes before I get the rings lined up, and then I spin them all carefully in unison, trying to find the position of the image. After a quarter turn, it clicks into place, the rings sinking farther into the door and becoming immobile.
“Got mine,” I say, turning to Dad with a grin.
Then the ground starts to shake.
At first I think it’s an earthquake, but then I look at the grate on the floor. It’s closing—which means the gallons of water pouring in around us now have nowhere to go.
“Dad,” I say, “we’re going to drown.”
Dad turns away from his puzzle. “There must be a trick,” he says. “Maybe I need to finish mine or—Look!” He points at the archway on my side of the room. “The spikes are gone.” He’s right. The water is still crashing down, but the spikes are gone. We can safely pass through one of the archways.
Safe being relative. The water is already past my ankles.
Sometimes, when I get overwhelmed, it helps me to go through the options quickly:
- 1. Stay and help Dad with his puzzle, and hope solving it stops the water.
- 2. Go through the open archway alone, and hope something there stops the water.
- 3. Pull Dad through the open archway, leaving his puzzle unfinished. Better to drown together than alone, right?
“You go,” Dad says, still shouting over the water. “I’ll keep working on this one. Look for something to open the grate.”
I stare at him a moment longer, not wanting to leave him as the room floods, but he’s right, we need to split up. I tear off. Luckily my camera is waterproof, so as I push through the water falling from the arch, I don’t need to worry about anything but dropping it. I was right about the water—it’s heavy, hard to move through, pushing me down so I’m practically crawling through it. If the spikes had still been here, I’d be dead.
On the other side is a set of stairs up to a small platform. I climb the stairs, soaking wet now but glad to be slightly above the water, which is growing ever higher. I glance back through the arch, but I can’t see Dad from here, just the water, churning, rising.
The platform is built into the wall, like a shelf with steps leading to it, but I don’t find anything else once I’m up there. The walls are rough stone, and I don’t see carvings or anything to indicate what to do next. Only the platform’s floor looks at all interesting. It’s wooden, decorated with a pattern like the ring puzzles but cut in half, the circle sliced down the middle. There’s no way to turn the pieces into a different position.
“Got it!” I hear Dad shout over the water. But the water doesn’t begin to drain like I’d hoped it would. “The other archway is safe now, Tenny!” Dad calls. “I’m going to go through it. Get out the walkies!”
I take my walkie-talkie out of my backpack. It’s not one of those cheap plastic things; this is more like a short-range phone, waterproof, shockproof.
“Okay, there’s some stairs to a platform,” Dad says through the walkie-talkie. “But … nothing up here.”
“Same here,” I say. “The floor has a pattern, though.” I glance behind me and see the water still rushing up toward my feet. It’s high enough now that it’s only a few steps down. If I went back into it, I’d have to swim.
“Yeah, there’s a pattern on my floor, too. A half circle made of four half rings, like one of the door puzzles. What do you think yours shows?”
I look down at the pieces. I recognize some of the scale pattern. “Maybe a dragon? That’s what my door puzzle was.”
“Mine was a bunch of katanas,” Dad says. “All in sheaths, one sort of in front of the rest, which were making a circle.”
“The Misumune katana?” I ask. That’s the treasure we’re after.
“Probably. And the dragon is probably the one who gave it to Misumune, according to
the legend.”
“So, what is …?” I look down at the half circle again. Some pieces are scaled, but others have longer lines, overlapping—like swords. “I think … some of these pieces don’t belong.”
“I was thinking the same thing. You think we need to switch them?”
“Yeah,” I say, already stripping off my backpack. “You wait there. I’ll swim over with mine.”
“Be careful,” Dad says.
“Just get the camera out,” I say, kicking off my shoes and rolling off my socks. I’m sure the water is filled with bugs and maybe leeches, and it’s not like I haven’t already been drenched, but I also hate waterlogged shoes. We once got caught in a water trap in a Mayan temple, and afterward my shoes were soggy for what seemed like forever. It was gross. The less water in them, the better.
I pick out the two half rings that look like swords, not scales, and jump into the water, leaving my backpack, jacket, shoes and socks behind. The water isn’t just pouring down at a high speed; it’s rushing everywhere. I’m immediately pushed away from the archway and then into a corner, where the water ricochets me against one wall, then the other, until I drift back out toward where I jumped in. It’s like a whirlpool. I kick hard and try pushing myself off a wall with my foot to get out of it, and I manage to get a little farther toward the archway. The pieces of the puzzle are light and wooden, and they float, which makes it easier to keep my head above the water but harder to actually swim, since they start to drift away and I have to grab them in both hands. I have to rely just on my legs.
I kick forward as hard as I can, my head bobbing above the water, but with all the splashing and churning, it’s easy to lose sight of where I’m going. The water almost half fills the chamber, and at this rate, it’ll be past the platform edge by the time I make it back. Will I be able to slot in the puzzle pieces if they’re underwater?
I reach the arch into the main chamber, and grab the wall again, pulling myself through it, both pieces in one hand now. The force of the water pushes me under for a moment, but I hold my breath and keep using the wall to pull myself along until I can feel the pressure lighten. Then I pop up. I’m back in the central chamber, but one of the puzzle pieces I was carrying is now floating a foot away.
I kick off the wall and grab it. The water here is swirling, too, but it’s more open and less forceful. The lanterns that hang from the ceiling cast a weird flickering light on the surface. I swim forward, my legs already burning, and reach the next archway, the one on Dad’s side. Again, I grab the wall and pull myself through it while underwater. My lungs ache from how much air I’ve been pumping in and out just swimming over here. Holding my breath for so long makes me feel like I’m going to burst, but when I can’t stand it anymore and pop up through
the surface, I’m through. Dad is waiting on his platform, filming me, but he stretches out a hand. I tread water, throwing him the two pieces one by one.
“Give me the dragon pieces!” I shout.
“Do you want me to swim back? You look tired.”
“No, just put these in. There’s no time.” The water is just inches away from covering the platform. I don’t think I’ll make it back in time to assemble my puzzle on dry land.
Dad tosses two pieces into the water, and I grab them and immediately swim back. I need to go faster this time. I don’t know if whatever mechanism this is will work when it’s underwater.
The first waterfall pushes me under again, and this time I shove the puzzle pieces under my arms, going as low as I can, farther from the pressure of the falling water. ...
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