by Jean Fischer
“I don’t think he’s a ghost anymore,” said Bailey. “Now I think he’s a space alien.”
Sydney shook the coffee mug, but nothing happened. She shook it again. Still nothing. Then she tossed it into the wastebasket. It landed with a thud. “Enough of the alien stuff already!” she said. She slid open the glass doors to the deck and went outside.
Bailey screamed at the top of her lungs.
“What’s the matter?” Sydney exclaimed, hurrying back inside.
Bailey was sitting on the bed, her knees pulled tight to her chest with her arms wrapped around them. She looked terrified.
“Bailey, what’s wrong?” Sydney asked again.
Bailey pointed to the wastebasket. The inside of it was lit with an eerie, flashing light. Sydney looked more closely and saw that it was coming from the hole in the lid of the mug.
This was too weird. For the first time, Sydney believed no logical explanation existed for the mug, the UFO, or any of the other strange things that had been going on. She bent to take the mug out of the trash, but then she stopped.
Better to leave it alone, she thought.
“Count ’em, Syd. Count ’em,” said Bailey.
“Count what?” Sydney asked.
“Count the flashes of light,” Bailey answered. “One, two, three, four, five … One, two, three, four, five …”
The mug sent out five quick flashes of light. Then it stopped briefly and sent out five more.
“So?” said Sydney.
“So, remember what Alex said in her email?” Bailey answered. “In the Close Encounters movie, the signal was five musical notes. One, two, three, four, five notes. One, two, three, four, five flashes of light. It’s a code, Sydney.”
Bailey’s phone dinged. It was a text from Kate. Bailey read aloud. “BAILEY, DO YOU KNOW ABOUT THE LAKE MICHIGAN TRIANGLE AND THE FOOTPRINTS? IF NOT, LOOK IT UP ONLINE. K8.” There was a URL address.
“What’s the Lake Michigan Triangle?” Sydney asked.
“Never heard of it,” said Bailey. “Let’s check it out.”
Sydney typed the URL address into the browser window on her computer. An article from a Michigan newspaper appeared on the screen. She read, then explained.
“This says the Lake Michigan Triangle has a history similar to the Bermuda Triangle. The lines of an imaginary triangle run from Ludington, Michigan, down to Benton Harbor, Michigan, then across the lake to Manitowoc, Wisconsin, and back across the lake to Ludington.”
“I know where Manitowoc is,” Bailey said. “Our family rented a cottage near there one summer.”
Sydney continued. “Ships have disappeared inside the triangle. This even says one of them is seen sailing on the lake from time to time, but then disappears.”
“Another ghost ship!” said Bailey. “And that’s not too far from where I live. Do you know what, Syd? I just remembered something.”
“What?” Sydney asked.
“A couple of years ago, there was a report of a UFO over O’Hare International Airport, in Chicago. Pilots saw it, and some other people did too. They said it was shaped like a saucer and spun around slowly, but didn’t make any noise. The air traffic controllers couldn’t see it on the radar. Then, zoom! It shot straight up into the sky.”
“For real?” asked Sydney.
“Really,” Bailey answered. “It was in the Chicago Tribune and on the TV news too. Nobody ever found out what it was.”
“Check this out,” said Sydney, reading the article. “There have also been reports of strange footprints on the beach near the points of the triangle.”
Bailey gasped. “Footprints! Syd, maybe those footprints were like the ones we saw this morning. Alien footprints!”
Sydney logged off her browser. “You know, Bailey,” she said, “maybe UFOs do exist.”
Bailey got up the courage to walk to the wastebasket and peer inside. The flashing light had stopped. Once again, the thing looked like an ordinary travel mug. “So what do we do now?” she asked.
“We put the mug back where we found it,” said Sydney. “Then we stay up tonight to see what happens.”
At sunset, the girls took the mug to the beach. They tried to find the exact spot in the sand where it had been buried. They put it there and hoped children hunting for ghost crabs would leave it alone. After that, they set up the deck for spying. Sydney hung a pair of binoculars around her neck. Bailey had a mini audio recorder in her pocket, a gift Kate had given her for her birthday. The girls had their digital cameras, flashlights, and a notebook and pencils. Now they only had to wait.
Two hours later, Sydney wrote in the notebook:
UFO Log
9 p.m. Kids on beach with flashlights looking for ghost crabs.
“Can you see if our mug is still there?” Bailey asked.
“I think so,” Sydney answered from a folding chair set up near the hammock. “I can only see when one of the kids shines a flashlight in that direction, but so far, it’s there.”
Bailey settled into a chair next to Sydney’s. She opened a bottle of water and sipped. “So did you talk to Beth while I was in the shower?”
“I did,” Sydney answered.
“What did Bettyboo say when you told her what was going on?”
“She already knew about it,” said Sydney as she took the cap off her water bottle. “McKenzie heard about it from Kate, and she emailed Beth. And don’t call her Bettyboo. She hates that.”
“What did she think about the UFO?” Bailey asked as she put her feet on the deck railing.
“She doesn’t believe in UFOs, and she sure doesn’t think the Wrights are aliens. She said we should be careful, and she suggested that we look for a logical explanation instead of thinking about UFOs and spirits.” Sydney gulped her water.
“What do you think, Syd?” asked Bailey. “Do you think that God created UFOs?”
Sydney put her feet up on the railing and settled back in her chair. “In my heart of hearts, I don’t,” she said. “I mean, the Bible says that He created the heavens and the earth and humans and animals, but it doesn’t say anything about UFOs.”
Bailey looked up at the stars. “I don’t want to believe in UFOs and ghosts and stuff, Syd. I don’t think that God would create anything bad. But, I know what I saw, and I don’t see any other explanation for it.” She sighed.
“Tomorrow, Gramps is taking us to the Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum,” said Sydney. “Maybe we’ll find some answers there. And do you know what, Bailey? We both need to get some sleep. Otherwise we’ll be really tired tomorrow. We should watch the beach in shifts. One of us sleeps while the other one watches.”
Sydney wrote in the notebook:
Sydney—10 p.m. to midnight
Bailey—midnight to 2 a.m.
Sydney—2 a.m. to 4 a.m.
Bailey—4 a.m. to dawn
At ten o’clock, Bailey stretched out in the hammock and was soon asleep. Sydney had a hard time staying awake. The beach was deserted except for a couple of four-wheelers heading back up north. She watched the moon dodge in and out of clouds. Besides it, the stars, and an occasional airplane flying above the ocean, nothing was in the sky.
When the little travel alarm clock she’d brought on the deck said 12:00, Sydney wrote in the notebook. “Midnight and all is well”. Then she woke Bailey.
“What time is it?” Bailey groaned.
“It’s midnight,” Sydney said. “I didn’t see anything, and it’s your turn. Try hard to stay awake. It’s easy to get bored.” Sydney and Bailey traded places, and Sydney fell asleep.
At first, Bailey scouted every inch of the beach with the binoculars, but she couldn’t see anything in the darkness. There was no sound except the waves rolling up on shore. She tried to occupy her mind by singing songs in her head and reciting scripture verses Elizabeth had taught her. Finally, it was 2 a.m. She wrote in the notebook “2 a.m. Nothing to report.”
“Syd?” she said, shaking her friend awake. “It’s your tur
n.”
Sydney rolled over in the hammock. “Anything?” she sighed, rubbing the sleep from her eyes.
“Nothing,” said Bailey. Then the girls again traded places.
By 3:30 a.m., Sydney was ready to give up. She was bored out of her mind sitting on the deck looking at nothing. She felt her chin hit her chest as she fought off sleep. Then, out of the corner of her eye, she saw something. At least, she thought she did. She thought she saw a flash of bright, white light in the ocean. It flashed briefly and then it disappeared. She waited a few minutes, but there was nothing. Then it flashed again. Five quick bursts of light!
“Bailey! Bailey! Get up. I see something,” she urgently whispered.
Bailey rolled so fast in the hammock that she almost sent it flying upside down. “What?” she asked, trying to sit up.
“Sshhh,” Sydney whispered. “Look out there.” She pointed at the ocean in front of where they sat. After a few seconds, the light flashed again. Sydney noticed that the bursts of light were sometimes long and sometimes short. “It’s a code!” she said. “See? Sometimes it flashes longer than others. Write it down, Bailey.”
Bailey shone her flashlight onto the notebook paper. “Hide under something,” Sydney commanded. “They might see your flashlight.”
Bailey dodged under the sleeping bag. As Sydney dictated, Bailey wrote:
Short short long
Short short short
SS
LS
LSL …
She wrote for what seemed like forever. Then Sydney stopped dictating. “What’s going on?” Bailey asked from under the sleeping bag.
Sydney didn’t answer.
“Syd?” Bailey asked. Her muscles tightened and her heart began to race.
“It stopped,” Sydney said. “I think you can come out now.”
Bailey turned off the flashlight and crawled out from under the sleeping bag. “How weird was that?” she asked.
“Pretty weird,” Sydney answered. “Did you get it all written down?”
“Every flash of it,” said Bailey proudly. “What do you think it means?”
“I don’t know,” Sydney answered. “I think we should email it to McKenzie. She’s good at analyzing things.”
It was just past 4:30 a.m. now, and the beach was pitch-black. It was about the same time that Bailey had seen the UFO the morning before. As the girls looked out at the water, nothing was above it but fading stars. In a little while, the sun would come up over the Atlantic, and another day would begin.
“Hey,” Sydney whispered. “Listen.”
The girls heard footsteps along the wet sand at the edge of the beach. They came from the south and plodded along rhythmically, passing Sydney’s grandparents’ beach house, and then stopping just to the north.
“Did you see?” said an older male voice in the darkness.
“It’s Captain Swain!” Bailey gasped.
“I saw,” a younger male voice answered. “I didn’t put the vehicle in the water. Probably best not to until that girl leaves. At least I got my light back.” Suddenly, Sydney and Bailey saw their coffee mug flash on and off.
“I think they broke it,” said the younger voice.
“That’s too bad,” said Captain Swain. “We should get out of here before the sun comes up.”
Bailey and Sydney sat quietly until they thought the men were gone.
“See?” said Bailey. “The captain is one of them, and they do have a vehicle. I think that they’re trying to get back to the Mother Ship, Syd.”
“Let’s email McKenzie right away,” said Sydney. “She won’t be up for a few hours, but I know she checks her email first thing in the morning. Maybe she can tell us what the code says before we leave for the museum.”
The girls went inside, and Bailey copied the code from her notebook pages to the email document. “There,” she said, typing the last Long short long. “Let’s hope she can figure this out.” She hit SEND, and the message flew off through cyberspace.
In less than a minute, they got a reply.
I’m up. Our horse, Princess, foaled about an hour ago. She had a darling colt that we named Benny. I just came in from the barn. I’ll check out your code and email you back.
As the sun rose, Bailey and Sydney got dressed and packed their backpacks for the drive to Hatteras. After breakfast, just before Gramps went to get his pickup truck, they checked the email. A message was waiting from McKenzie.
It’s morse code. It says: “I think we’re being watched from the Lincoln house. Someone is on the deck with a flashlight.”
Double Trouble
After a long drive down Highway 12 from the top of the Outer Banks to the bottom, the girls and Gramps stopped at the museum, ready to stretch their legs.
“It kind of looks like a shipwreck,” said Sydney as she climbed out of her grandfather’s truck. She had never been to the Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum, and she had no idea what to expect. The front of the building was outlined in weathered timbers shaped like the hull of a wooden sailing vessel. The building resembled a long, gray ship. Four porthole windows protruded from its roof, reminding Sydney of giant bug eyes.
“I think you’ll find some pieces of the ghost ship in here,” Gramps said as they walked to the front door.
“Pieces?” said Bailey holding the door for them. “What happened to the rest of it?”
“It stayed aground on the shoals,” said Gramps. “After weeks and months of the wind and waves pounding against it, it started to break apart. Then the coast guard dynamited what was left of it.”
“Why did they do that?” Bailey asked.
“Because it was a hazard to ships sailing out there. Most of the pieces ended up on the beach. Some of them floated down here to Hatter as Island and got put in the museum. Look over there. There’s the capstan. It was used to haul in the ropes on the ship.”
The heavy, rusty metal device of the Carroll A. Deering rested in front of them. The top was shaped like a lampshade, and a pole came out of the bottom like a rusty old water pipe.
“Was that really a part of the ship?” Sydney asked.
“Yes,” said Gramps. “It’s the part that raised and lowered the anchors.”
Bailey was busy looking at other pieces in the exhibit. She saw timbers from the hull and also pieces of the ship’s boom—the long wooden pole that had held up the sails.
“Can you imagine,” she said. “This thing was on the ship when all of those sailors disappeared.” She felt a shiver run down her spine. “It was there when it happened. The wind probably tore the sails off it when it rocked back and forth on the shoals.”
Something ran up the side of her arm and made her jump.
“Scrape … scrape …,” Sydney whispered as her fingers tickled Bailey’s shoulder.
“That’s not funny!” Bailey protested. “If this thing could talk, it would tell us exactly what happened.”
“Interested in the Carroll A. Deering, are you?” The museum curator walked toward them. He was a short, older man with a bald head and a happy smile.
Gramps shook his hand. “Travis Lincoln,” he introduced himself.
“David Jones,” said the curator.
“We’d like to know what really happened to the sailors on the ghost ship,” said Sydney. “They couldn’t have just disappeared. There has to be a logical explanation.”
Mr. Jones stood with his elbow resting against a glass cabinet that held more artifacts from the ship. “Well,” he said, “that depends on who you talk to. What do you girls think?”
“I’m not sure,” said Sydney. “A lot of ships have wrecked off the coast around here. But this one seems so mysterious.” She looked inside the glass case at a model of the Carroll A. Deering.
“I think they were abducted by aliens!” said Bailey. “I’m almost sure of it.”
“Aliens,” said Mr. Jones. “Why, that’s a theory I haven’t heard before. What makes you think it was aliens?”
Bailey waited for a few visitors to pass out of earshot before she answered. “Because we’ve seen them,” she said softly. “With our own eyes.”
Sydney frowned at Bailey. “We’re not sure what we saw,” Sydney said. “We saw some strange lights over the ocean the other night and unusual footprints on the beach.”
“Big footprints that looked like waffles!” Bailey added. “And then an alien spacecraft whooshed past us on the beach in the dark. It didn’t make a sound, but it hit us with a big puff of air.”
Gramps looked confused.
“Young lady, you have quite the imagination,” said Mr. Jones. “Let’s sit down and talk about this. Maybe I can shed some light on what really happened to the crew of the Carroll A. Deering.”
He led them to a small, round table and some chairs. The table held a book about the ghost ship and some brochures about the museum. “Now, tell me. What are your names?”
“Sydney Lincoln.”
“Bailey Chang.”
“Well, Sydney and Bailey, folks have come up with three logical explanations. The first one is that the crew abandoned ship. When the coast guard got to the Carroll A. Deering, the rope ladder was hanging over the side, and both lifeboats were gone. Someone had run red flares up the rigging to indicate trouble on board.”
“Red flares?” said Sydney. “The lights we saw over the ocean the other night were red.”
“And sometimes multicolored and flashing,” said Bailey. “Maybe it wasn’t a spaceship we saw. Maybe it was the ghost ship!”
“I doubt that, Bailey,” said Mr. Jones. “Because what’s left of the ghost ship is right here.”
“You have a point,” Bailey said. “But how about a ghost of the ghost ship?”
Mr. Jones smiled and continued. “Now, if the crew did jump ship, they did it in a big hurry, because the galley was set up for a meal, and everything was left behind. However, the theory of abandonment doesn’t add up.”
“Why?” Sydney asked.
“Because the men were professional sailors who knew what they were doing. In stormy seas, they would be able to steer the ship away from the shoals, but the evidence shows that they sailed right into them!
