Race for the Escape by Christopher Edge

Author:Christopher Edge [Edge, Christopher]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2022-07-05T00:00:00+00:00

I hold the stone butterfly between my fingertips, the spiral patterns on its wings lit with an eerie red glow. It looks as though it’s been carved from this hollow, the red light gleaming deep inside. It’s the same light I’ve seen all the way through this game—the one that’s telling me now that I must be right.

As the others crowd around my shoulders, I carefully place the butterfly inside the keyhole, feeling the carving click into place.

“It fits,” Adjoa whispers, her voice hushed in the shadows.

Holding my breath, I wait to see what happens next, but as the seconds stretch into silence, I’m forced to let it out again in a puzzled sigh.

“This can’t be right,” I say, peering closer to see a faint glow still glimmering around the edge of the butterfly’s wings. “It hasn’t worked.”

“It has to work,” Adjoa says. “It all fits—the gateway, the butterfly, the Hunab Ku. This has to be the key.”

I turn around, looking to the others for any kind of clue. Ibrahim frowns, his fingers fidgeting as if the hieroglyphs are a scrambled Rubik’s cube for him to solve. Oscar has his arms folded nonchalantly across his chest and a know-it-all look on his face.

“What is it?” I snap, his smirk already annoying me.

“If you think it’s a key,” Oscar says slowly, as if I’m stupid, “don’t you need to turn it?”

I blink. He’s right.

Facing the wall again, I reach for the butterfly. The carved stone feels smooth, but as I start to turn it, I hear a juddering sound like the grinding of ancient gears. The spiraling hieroglyphs suddenly shine with an eerie red light, and I watch as the wheels start to turn.

“It’s working,” Adjoa says, a buzz of excitement in her voice. “Keep turning.”

As I slowly twist the stone butterfly, the hieroglyphs continue to revolve. Mesmerized, I watch as the snarling stone faces wheel around, the roar of hidden machinery making the wall shake. As it turns, the outer wheel seems to be counting the months off, the symbols that Adjoa showed us glowing red as each one glides by, while the inner wheel seems to turn back time as it revolves counterclockwise. I keep on turning the key, waiting for a click that never comes.

“I don’t understand,” I say, raising my voice over the clattering noise. “If this is the gate, why won’t it open? What else do we need to do?”

“Let me try,” Oscar says, pushing me out of the way to get his hand on the key. “I have a knack for these things.”

But as he turns the butterfly key, the concentric rings of hieroglyphs just keep spinning, the tomb shaking as they revolve in opposite directions. I glance up in fear as shards of stone start to fall from the ceiling. If we don’t stop turning the wheels, we’re going to be buried alive. The crimson glow seems to seep through the carved symbols and faces, the color blood-red, but there’s no sign of any gate starting to open.

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