Page 142 of Shadow Charms

“You check left. I’ll check right,” Paige said as she glanced upward.

They each raced around the room in search of a door and met at the back wall.

“This looks like a door,” Dewey said, banged against a slab inset in the wall.

“Why won’t it open?” Paige asked, pounding against it.

Dewey spun to face the room again. “We must have to do something to stop the ceiling.”

“What?” Paige shrieked.

Dewey narrowed his eyes at the pyramids in the center of the room.

“Maybe we can stack those together and block the ceiling.”

Dewey shook his head, his gaze flitting back and forth from the pyramids to the ceiling. “There’s a hole in the center of the ceiling.”

“I see it. Do you think we need to move the pyramids to line up with the middle?”

“There’s a pyramid missing,” Dewey said, his finger rubbing his chin.

Paige squinted at the hole in the floor. She approached it, studying it. “Looks like a pressure pad.”

“This is a peg puzzle,” Dewey said, fluttering around the grid.

“What?”

“A peg puzzle. Jump the pyramids over one another until only one is left–”

“In the center of the board,” Paige finished.

“Right.”

“Great,” Paige muttered, stamping a foot on the floor. “I suck at these.”

“Not me,” Dewey said. “Played them every day as a kid because I was too small to do much else.”

He poked at a pyramid.

“This one over that one. Then remove the one we jumped over and put it on the side here.” He tapped his finger down toward a platform with squares the size of the pyramid bases.

“Right.” Paige wrapped her arms around the pyramid and lifted. “Oh, holy crap, this is heavy.”

She grunted as she side-stepped to the open hole and dropped the pyramid into it before she dragged the other one off the board to the side.

Dewey buzzed past her and pointed to another pyramid. “This one to the empty space.”

Paige hurried across the board and moved the massive playing piece before dragging the forfeited piece to the trough on the side.

She shot a glance at the ceiling as it marched toward them, raking a hand across her sweaty forehead.

“You’re never going to make it,” the pixie shouted.

“Shut up,” Dewey and Paige yelled back simultaneously.

“That one over this one,” Dewey said, waving his arm around.

“Ugh, these are not getting lighter,” Paige said as she waddled over to an open spot and dropped the pyramid into it before removing the other piece.