Oliver Finch's Arc

Chapter 8 of 9

Oliver woke before dawn in the tall green townhouse. The bills still sat on the kitchen table. His father coughed two floors up. Five of his family slept behind the yellow window frames, and none of them had a plan. Oliver had one now. If the cave held two flowers, then the other one had an owner. Someone had put it there and locked the chest. That person knew how to profit from a flower without robbers coming. Oliver needed to reach the chest and learn the truth. He dressed and slipped out the green front door. The blue centipede waited on the step. It led him up the hills for an hour, then between the two boulders. Oliver squeezed through into the cave. The crystals threw their colors across the stone. The little guardian sat on the chest lid, hawk head high, lion body still. When Oliver stepped closer, it stood and spread its wings. "Easy," Oliver said. He held out his empty hands. "I only need to look inside." The guardian did not move aside this time. Last visit, Oliver had come to give. Now he came to take, and the creature knew it. Its throat rumbled. Oliver lifted his wrist to show the centipede. The guardian glanced at it, then fixed its eyes back on Oliver. The trick would not work twice. Oliver knelt slowly. He set his hand flat on the cold floor, not reaching for the chest. "You keep these safe," he said. "I understand now. But my family will lose our house." He pointed at himself, then held up two fingers, then pointed at the chest. Two flowers. One owner. The guardian tilted its head. It stepped down off the lid. With one talon it pushed the chest a few inches toward Oliver. The lid was already open. Inside, on the velvet beside the empty space where his own flower had lain, sat a folded paper. Oliver picked it up. His hands shook. The paper held a name and a place, written in old ink. A buyer. The other flower's owner had left instructions for whoever came next. Oliver read it twice to be sure. Someone in the far town paid good money for these blooms and asked no questions. But the note carried a price. To sell, he had to take his flower out of the cave and carry it days across open country. The moment he lifted it from the velvet, it became bait again. Robbers could smell it. The guardian could not follow past the boulders. Oliver folded the paper into his pocket. He reached in and lifted his flower from the chest. The guardian watched but did not stop him. Outside, the morning was bright and empty. He had a buyer at last. Now he had to survive the road to reach them, alone, with a treasure that pulled thieves like iron to a stone.