“It won’t matter,” Sapphira said. “If she’s hungry enough, she’ll eat it.”
“I’ll be right back.” Acacia hurried to the museum and returned with a thick scroll tucked under her arm.
Sapphira pointed at it. “Is that for opening a portal or bashing snakes?”
“Both.” Acacia opened the scroll a few inches. “It’s one I’ve been saving for portal travel, but if it breaks on a snake’s head, I won’t mind. Besides, we have lots of modern books now.”
Sapphira took Acacia’s hand. “Let’s get going.”
The two oracles walked into the column. As usual, Sapphira’s vision sharpened, enabling her to distinguish the tiniest slivers of radiant energy as they swirled around her head. Fighting the sadness, she grasped a stream of light and pulled. Instantly, the cavern dissolved, and they zoomed upward. A heavy, wet wind buffeted their heads. Sapphira pulled out her cross and shouted through the gusts. “Ignite!” Wind-beaten flames covered the cross and sizzled in the moisture-laden air.
Suddenly, they blasted through the surface of the swamp. Flying upward within a spewing cylindrical geyser, Sapphira wriggled around to get her bearings. The swamp lay about twenty feet below, and she and Acacia were still soaring higher, though their acceleration seemed to be slowing.
Acacia readied her scroll. “Flying is pretty cool,” she said with a deadpan tone, “but I think we’re going to fall now.”
The two girls linked arms and plummeted toward the water. Sapphira pointed her cross downward and shouted, “Give me all you’ve got!”
A narrow fountain of flames roared from the cross and sizzled into the swamp, creating a thrust that slowed their plunge. Erupting from the water’s surface, a dense column of steam struck Sapphira’s buttocks, soaking her jeans with scalding moisture.
Sapphira and Acacia splashed into the swamp and immediately lunged toward shore through its scummy, waist-deep water. “Hurry!” Sapphira yelled, holding her still-flaming cross high.
Acacia trudged at her side with the scroll clenched in her fist. Behind them, the water began to stir. Serpentine scales broke the surface and glinted in the sunlight.
Sapphira slogged through the muddy bottom. Every step seemed an eternity as they waded to thigh-deep, then knee-deep water. Finally, Sapphira began to sprint, but as she splashed toward shore, a horrible scream made her spin around. Close behind her, Acacia limped toward shore dragging a huge serpent that had latched on to her ankle. She fell to her knees and smacked its body with her scroll.
Snatching the scroll, Sapphira pounded the snake’s midsection. When it finally let go, she grabbed it by the tail and whipped it out into the swamp. Pushing her arms under Acacia’s shoulders, she heaved her sister onto dry land.
Acacia’s face twisted in pain. “My leg’s on fire!”
Sapphira brushed a strand of hair from Acacia’s forehead. “It’s the venom. I can see red lines crawling up your skin.”
“My heart!” Acacia gasped. “It’s jumping like crazy.”
Sapphira whispered for the cross to darken and laid it on Acacia’s chest. “Don’t die on me, now. Just hang on.”
Acacia’s voice fell to a whisper as she labored through convulsive breaths. “Morgan said. . she has the only cure.”
“Morgan’s a liar!” Sapphira dug into her pocket and retrieved the fruit. “Maybe this will help.”
“But we said. . we weren’t going to eat it unless. . we were starving.”
“You’re not going to eat it.” Sapphira squeezed the fruit between her palms. Now that it was wet, it smashed easily into a thick, pasty poultice. She held the mash in her palm and picked up her cross again. “I’m going to rub this stuff in, but first, I’m going to open up the wound a bit more to make sure it gets into your bloodstream.”
“What makes you think. . this will work?”
“It healed the rash on my palm, so I think it’s worth a try.” Bringing the cross near Acacia’s ankle, she whispered, “A small flame, please, right at the tip.” The top of the cross ignited with a conical flame. “Okay,” she said, looking back at Acacia. “This is really going to hurt.”
“Go ahead. It can’t hurt more than it already does.”
Sapphira pushed the tip of the fire into one of the puncture wounds on Acacia’s ankle.
“Aaaauuugh!” Acacia gritted her teeth. Her words barely punched through. “Okay. . I was. . wrong.”
“Shhh! The dog might show up.” The flame sliced a nearly bloodless gash, the heat cauterizing most of the vessels as they blistered open. With the wound now raw and gaping, Sapphira rubbed in the poultice, hoping she could massage it into Acacia’s bloodstream.
Her entire body trembling, Acacia bit her shirt and let out a muffled scream.
Sapphira grimaced. “I’m sorry. I have no idea if I’m doing this right. I’m no surgeon, you know.”
“No kidding.” Acacia shook even harder, but after a few seconds, her tremors subsided, and she let out a long sigh.
Sapphira kept her hand over the wound. Heat radiated through the mash and stung her palm. “Is it feeling better?”
“A little. Now it’s more like Nabal’s whip hitting me on the ankle about a thousand times.”
Sapphira lifted her hand. The goop had turned pink, but a small white spot stood out in the mixture. She plucked out a tough, yet flexible bead about the size of a baby’s tooth. Tiny red stripes encircled the bead three times.
“The fruit had a seed in the middle,” Sapphira said, stuffing it into her pocket. “I’ll save it for later.”
“So what are we going to do now? We don’t have any food to give Shiloh.”
“I guess I’ll tell her I’ll come back once I create a safe portal.”
“Okay.” Acacia folded her hands over her waist. “I’ll wait here for you.”
“No. If Morgan doesn’t find you, that dog probably will.”
Acacia pushed up to a sitting position. “Then I’ll go with you.”
Sapphira touched Acacia’s leg just above her wound. “You have to drop through a hole and land pretty hard. I don’t think your leg could handle it.”
“Okay,” Acacia said. “Do you have a plan?”
“I thought of a way you might be able to go home without fighting those snakes again.”
“Go on. I’m listening.”
Sapphira nodded toward Morgan’s castle at the top of the hill. “Remember the three doors I told you about in the dungeon up there? Usually one of them opens to a dimension I’ve been to before. Elam, Gabriel, and I went through a portal we found there and ended up at Patrick’s mansion.”
“So you think I can find the exit portal?”
“It’s easy. A skeleton marks the spot.”
“A skeleton?” Acacia rolled her eyes. “Wonderful. Sounds like a safe place.”
“Don’t worry. It seemed safe while we were there, and I’ll help you.” Sapphira stood and held out her hand for Acacia. “Think you can walk?”
Acacia pulled up on Sapphira’s hand and tested her ankle. “Maybe. We’ll see.”
Sapphira helped Acacia sneak up to Morgan’s house. Sapphira had to climb into the window by herself, but since no one seemed to be home, she unlocked the door from the inside, and the two of them took their time descending the dungeon’s staircase.
As darkness flooded their surroundings, Sapphira reignited the cross. When they arrived at the lantern gateway, she illuminated and extinguished the lanterns in the usual numbered sequence, and the gate creaked open. Acacia leaned heavily against Sapphira as they passed through. Every few seconds, she breathed a muffled groan.
“Are you going to make it?” Sapphira asked.
Acacia sat down in front of the trio of doors and extended her sore ankle. “I’ll rest while you open the doors.”
When Sapphira swung open the first door, the endless field of grass appeared. Stepping over to the second, she turned the handle and opened it more slowly. Behind this one, she found the hole that led to the sixth circle. “Here’s my door,” she said.
As she crept toward the third door, her hand trembled. This had to be the forest! It just had to be! She reached for the knob and slung the door open. Tropical trees arched over a winding dirt path that slipped under dozens of low-hanging vines. She spun around and dramatically swept her arms toward the doorway. “Acacia, I give you the path home.”