68 Jar for the Northern Cave

Baldur was still sleeping at 2 o'clock while Magee and George were looking at each other with winsome ways.

"Why?" George restively smiled at her.

" My wound, you said you'll gonna dress it today." She simpered looking at him.

" Ah, yes, okay." He right away took the kit and had some hot water from the kitchen to sterilize the dressing forcep.

Irrespective of his busy dressing activity, she started to shatter the silence.

"George, the jar. I found under a papyrus cover a smaller but an identical copy of the map upstairs with a covered sheet over it showing the jar, fork, cabinet and..." George had a glimpse on her eyes; scissored the gauze and covered it in a thoroughgoing manner. He then positioned to recline her comfortably on the pillow behind her.

" Where's that paper and the small map. May I see it Mag."

" She handed to him the journal, pointing its back cover."

" Its here?" He asked in awe.

" Yes. That jar you see is a mark but I tried inspecting all over it and see nothing."

George settled himself on a bamboo chair next to Magee's bed and scrutinized the map then alters the piece of paper to and fro. Magee as well had her eye on him likewise analyzing the jar thing on a clue.

The silence again got a load of query when suddenly George utter a word.

" Jar." The he immediately proceeded to the jar inside the room.

" He carry it out from its placement and tried to check below it. Magee then slowly slid down and joined him.

" Oh, careful. You should have stayed there Mag." Then he aided her so insistent to come closer towards the jar.

" Did you switch the position of this jar this morning?"

"I only touched it but I never changed its position."

" You stay for a while in here, don't move." Then he hurriedly ran heading to the kitchen.

" Albrecht, since you get back in this house, have you ever touched the position of the jar inside our bedroom?"

" No, I haven't. In fact, I promised my self not to even look at it and I remember what I have read in the journal that Sr. Sibal had written that I almost rip yesterday."

" What did he say?"

" Haha...its funny!"

" Its okay, just tell me."

" Sr. Sibal wrote that I kept on embracing the jar when I was little and said, "...when Albrecht was still young he said, "I will move mountains with my jar's faucet. Where my faucet heads be the door of my kingdom that no one knows." Then Sr. Sibal added, " Edward's step children are great dreamers, at least we made Albrecht's dream came true." "It was Sr. Sibal's embarrassing notation of my childhood, haha."

It was enough to make George hastily returned to the bedroom and opened the window beside Baldur who was still sleeping.

" That exact point!" He whispered.

He got back to where Mag was standing and he spoke on her ear in undertone. " The tunnel possibly goes to that direction where the cave is - its on that rocky wall. But the risk maybe is, they don't usually use that tunnel before.

"But its a plain floor." She gazed on his eyes forming tiny wrinkles on her forehead.

" The 'mangkono' (Philippine ironwood) floor underneath the jar has to be removed if we're going to find it out later. When Baldur would wake up I would tell him about this. I'm pretty sure he could recall some excavation before.

" George, I don't know but, why did Sr. Sibal and Dad made all of these? Do you have any idea. Did they know that this war would really arise?" She looked at him.

" I don't know either. But for one, a soldier have a lot of reservations and overprotective ways for his family. Its maybe what Dad thought, to protect you, your siblings and me. In synch to his thoughts was ama Sibal's carpentry skills that teamed up with Dad's vision of this war. He really had the intention of bringing me here to meet, marry and protect you since he could no longer steal you from ina Lolita. So this is it! They left us a mysterious house, treasures, tunnels, caves and a great agricultural place. Although, the journals are our prim guide. Likewise, the fork mentioned could be found in the kitchen, the way to the tunnel could be there so let's tell Albrecht about it." He gazed on her.

" Oh dear, look! Baldur's waking up."

Then they moved closer to Baldur who charmed with his long hours of sleep.

" Its already 5'oclock, brother." George smiled at him."

" Wow! thank God. I feel so much better now."

Then George shared to him about about what they've found out from the journal. He was shocked and tried to rewind his participation to the excavation and expressed some memories.

" As far as I remember, I was already 12-15 when we dug for the secret entrance gate and I turned 16 up to 18 when we're done with the tunnel going to the south. I guess it was the most difficult, its too small and the excavation avoided the river so it has to stop beside the stream and has to go down again to another hole going to the old entrance gate of this mountain. But my role was just to throw the soil, stones and gravel and hadn't given any chance to peek below. It wasn't a straight job with them but I acquired my muscles from those tasks, interesting! But the two men have had a hard labor all the time that's why I loved seeing them so fit despite their age, huh!"

" But what have you remembered in the northern tunnel and cave." George asked while pinpointing the direction."

" They recruited me to join the job in the middle of the tunnel already. It was different, I carried round timbers and there were big nails and carpentry accessories and they worked at night. They were the ones who cut them elsewhere during daytime while Albrecht and I slept during night time. We just wonder if why Albrecht had to cook sometimes 10 or 5 'gantang' of rice and a lot of 'duma.' They were as busy as a bee. Hmm...there were only few nights within the duration of that northern ground construction where I woke up at night hearing some laughter of men. Sounds of hammer were too often and they do it at night. But there were weird noise of some tools I've heard. As for Albrecht, he never heard any of those, he slept so deeply because during daytime, he's cooking a lot of food. But during those times, this house have plenty of food. Meat, big fishes, yes, I even wondered if where those food came from and just found them in the morning ready for butcher at the kitchen. We even have wheat. In fact, there's so many western food that Dad told Albrecht to cook, huh! I now beginning to recall those days. The funny thing is, since they're both our teachers so we solved chemistry , physics and some mathematical problems. Those algorithms and all. They made us very busy from learning with less time on wandering around. although, I watered all the root crops and trees everyday.

"