“Or maybe it’s a moon,” Gil added.
“A crescent is a moon,” Harry snapped. He traced the mark with his finger. “The professor didn’t make a map, Sophie said, because he thought it would be too dangerous to leave around. But he had to have some way to figure out where he’d kept it.”
“You think this is it? This mark?” Uma asked.
“Shall I grab the shovels?” Gil asked.
“I don’t think this symbol marks the treasure. Remember, we’re looking for a trail. The path isn’t on the ground. It’s written on trees. If I’m right, there are more of these markings. Follow them, and we’ll find the treasure,” said Harry.
“Or we’ll find out where two lovers carved a heart in some tree,” said Uma.
“Are you trying to tell me something?” Harry joked.
“That I’ll cut you if you don’t find the treasure chest?” Uma snorted. “There’s nothing here that says trail to me.”
“Fine, you’ve got a better idea on how to find this thing?” Harry said.
Uma shook her head reluctantly. “It’s just there are a lot of trees, and it’s not exactly easy to get a look at their bark.”
“I know, I had to hack off a branch to find this one, but I think that’s the point. The trail is hidden. It’s not supposed to be easy to find.”
And it wasn’t. They searched trees and shrubs, rocks, and moss. They cut aside branches and sheared the leaves off of bushes.
“I’m beginning to feel like a lumberjack,” Gil whined.
“And I’m—” Uma stopped.
“What is it?” Harry asked.
“About to give up. That was what I was going to say, but look here.”
Her toe had hit a rock. A small sun—a rough circle, ringed by radiating lines—graced its surface. “I think our professor had a chisel,” said Uma. “It’s a sun, and I think that last one was a moon. This might be a trail after all,” she said. Now her spirits were lifted. The impossible suddenly seemed a tad more possible, though they had found only two symbols. It wasn’t exactly a trail, but it was a good enough start.
“Two points make a line,” said Uma, “so let’s look this way and that and see if there is another marker that aligns with these first two.” She stood at a spot midway between the two marks and pointed in either direction. Gil went one way, Harry the other, hacking his way into the jungle as he went.
The third mark was easier to find than the second. It wasn’t exactly in line with the first two, but it was close enough, so Harry found it relatively quickly.
“It’s a star,” said Uma when she caught up to him.
“We’re on the right path,” said Harry. “Three marks: the sun, the moon, and a star. Just like the symbols on the wizard’s hat. It cannot be a coincidence.”
As the crew drove deeper into the jungle, the marks were more difficult to unearth, hidden as they were among tangled branches or scratched on stones half covered by clumps of moss. And the trail bent in every direction, not following a straight line, but curving to and fro, making it difficult for the pirates to judge where they might find the next mark.
Branch after branch fell to the earth. Stones were overturned. They made a royal mess of the island, but there was no one there to complain about it. And Uma doubted the goblins would mind, although she still hoped they wouldn’t notice all the noise. They followed the celestial markers. There were stars of all different types, and even a few constellations carved into the trees and rocks, but at last one symbol stood apart from the rest.
“This is it!” said Harry. He was kneeling in a clearing, brushing away some scattered leaves from the earth as Uma approached. Over his shoulder she read the words TOPS EHT SKRAM X deeply scrawled into the hard-packed dirt.
“Is it telling us to scram?” asked Harry, reading the text. “I do feel like getting out of here. That fortress gives me the creeps.”
Uma shushed him. “It must be here. This is the spot. There’s an X! Pirates love them. It’s highly piratical.”
“Yen Sid is a sorcerer, not a pirate. And this is a bit clichéd, if you ask me,” Harry said.
“I didn’t ask you,” Uma replied, looking around, trying to discern what import the message held.
Harry stood and put away his sword.
Gil wandered over from the other side of the clearing and looked at the message upside down and backward. “‘X MARKS THE SPOT’!” he declared.
“You’re a genius!” said Harry.
“Let’s not go that far,” said Uma. “It’s written backward. Even brats can figure out this code.”
“But you guys didn’t,” Gil pointed out.
“Who cares? It was hard enough just finding this thing—let’s start digging,” said Harry, removing the shovel that he’d strapped to his back. He whistled for the rest of the crew, who came running, clanking through the jungle, picks and shovels at the ready. “We found it!” he told them. “Dig!”
“Where?” said Gil.
“On the X, just like it says,” said Harry. “Makes sense, right?”
They dug, shoveling dirt and stone, and the pit grew larger and deeper. Harry and Gil were down in the hole as it grew in width as well as depth, but they didn’t find a treasure chest.
“I knew this was too easy,” said Harry as he climbed his way out of the hole. They had dug exactly on the spot the X had marked, but they’d found nothing. “There must be more to it. I mean, any random goblin could wander through the forest, find the X, and dig this thing up.”
“You’re right,” Uma acknowledged. “The professor would never have done something so obvious. He hid his symbols well, so clearly he hid the chest just as well.” She looked down at the symbol. “Wonder why he wrote the words backward. I mean, it’s not much of a code.”
“What if it’s not a code?” Harry offered.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, what if it’s a direction of some sort,” said Harry.
Gil was already ahead of them. He had turned around backward and walked to a place where two trees grew at strange angles. One tipped to the right and the other to the left. Together they formed an X.
“There it is!” Uma saw the X formed by the trees. If she turned so the hole was at her back, this tree was exactly in line with where the carving had been. So once more, they drew shovels and thrust them into the earth, digging as fast as they could.
Harry dug furiously by the X-shaped trees, forming a pit that was too small for anyone else to stand in when the sound of steel striking wood echoed in the hole. “I think I found it!” he crowed, his entire body covered with mud.
Uma ran to the edge of the pit, Gil at her shoulder. “You found it?” she asked, sounding as if she didn’t quite believe it.