🇫🇷 Jack and the Secret Under Paris
The train from Dublin to Paris — via ferry and countless sandwiches — was long but filled with laughter and planning. Jack sat by the window of their little Airbnb apartment, gazing out at the rooftops of Montmartre. His pouch lay beside him on the table, still glowing faintly from the Spiral Rellows marble tucked inside.
Bernard stirred from his nap and stretched. “Paris. City of light, cheese, and secrets.”
Ollie, with a baguette almost as tall as he was, said, “So what are we looking for? A marble in the Eiffel Tower?”
Bernard wagged his tail. “Nope. Deeper. Much deeper.”
They followed him underground.
Imogen guided them through narrow tunnels and stone corridors until they reached a gate in the famous Catacombs — rows of bones stacked into eerie walls. “This place is creepy,” Lenny whispered.
“It’s not the bones that bother me,” Jack said, holding the pouch. “It’s the silence.”
A soft click echoed from the wall. A hidden tile had shifted slightly under Ollie’s foot.
A gust of cold air swirled past them, and a glowing inscription appeared:
“Through shadowed skull and echo’s breath,
Awaits the flame that dodges death.
Seek not with sight, but sense the flame,
For only the brave shall speak its name.”
A single candle flickered to life beside the wall. Jack stepped forward and picked it up. The moment the candle flame touched the inscription, part of the wall dissolved.
Inside was a dusty pedestal. Atop it, resting in a small velvet-lined hollow, was a marble that shimmered like a dancing fire: 🧡 Sabre Squeezle.
It was fiery, bright, and shaped almost like it had tiny fangs inside.
“Squeeze it carefully,” Bernard warned. “It’s the only marble with reactive heat.”
Jack gently touched it. It pulsed.
Pop!
Into the pouch it went, and a warm breeze blew through the Catacombs, as if Paris herself had just exhaled.
“That’s two,” said Jack.
“Only ninety-seven to go,” Imogen smiled, snapping a photo of the now empty pedestal.
And as they left the tunnels behind and the bells of Notre-Dame rang far above, the pouch at Jack’s side gave off a new glow… and a new destination was calling.
