by Caleb Wygal
Near the rear of the area, at a point farthest away from the water, he saw another clump about twenty feet from the nearest wall. Grass climbed over something in a roughly four-foot-by-four-foot area. It was only a few inches high in most spots. The areas around the edge were slightly higher. Cole wondered if this used to be the outhouse or a storage shed. He jabbed the edge with his foot and hit something solid. He took the pickaxe and ripped away some of the covering grass to reveal the same decayed wood used on the house.
He stuck the head of the pickaxe into the middle of the small area and pushed. He wanted to step into the area, although if this was an outhouse at one time, he didn’t want to fall into the waste area. He wasn’t afraid of getting trapped, he was afraid of the possible snakes and, well, he didn’t want to get into where Blackbeard may have taken his bowel movements—even if the feces and urine would have been long gone. It just seemed gross to him.
He had nothing to fear. The pickaxe hit a solid bottom a few inches deep into the grass. He bent over and used the pointed end of the pickaxe to scrape away the grass covering the area’s interior. A few black insects scurried away while Cole worked. Thankfully, he saw no snakes. He hadn’t had to swat at any mosquitoes in the past few minutes either, and he hoped it would stay that way.
After he finished clearing the leaves of grass, he stepped back to see what was now exposed. The wood on one side of the area was higher than the other and he saw an opening towards the center of the elevated area. Not a shed, this was the outhouse, Cole thought. He placed a foot inside the area and tested it before stepping in fully. The first foot held firm. Satisfied, he stepped into lower elevated area. He bent over to look down through the hole. It was dark, so he pulled a heavy-duty metal flashlight from his pack and ignited the beam. He aimed the light down the hole, and sure enough, saw a snake moving around the wet bottom about three feet down.
He didn’t want to find any artifacts down there.
He looked around him at the open area. This was something he had wanted to do for a while. Come out to Plum Point and see if he could something belonging to Blackbeard. He thought about the kitchenware he had found so far, and was somewhat disappointed. At least it’s something, he thought. How many people made it out here over the past three hundred years and missed seeing the eating utensils and single, chipped plate?
He could take pride in that, at least. It might earn him some respect among his peers back at the museum.
Feeling a little frustration, Cole slammed the pickaxe against the old floor of the outhouse. What should have been a solid smack was instead a hollow thump. Surprised, Cole repeated the action. Same result.
“What was this?” he thought.
He knelt down and rapped against the soft wood with his knuckles. He figured that three hundred years ago when they built the house, they would have leveled off this area before the builders laid wood directly over the dirt. They would have dug a pit on the other side for the refuse. This part of the floor should have been solid.
He found a seam in the wooden planks and inserted the edge of the pickaxe in the dark groove. The board gave way with a rusty creak. Cole moved it aside. He flashed the beam of the light into the opening.
Thankfully, see didn’t see any snakes. He did see what looked to be a wooden box. His heart leaped in his chest.
He looked around, almost feeling like a thief pilfering something valuable while watching for the police. He reached in and pulled out the box.
It was wood. Cedar, he thought. Remarkably, it was dry. The closely placed planks of wood covered the floor. Cole thought it would have been difficult for moisture to make it through, even over the centuries.
Amazing, he thought. Who would think to hide something valuable in the floor of an outhouse?
A smart, cunning pirate such as Blackbeard was the answer.
Cole’s chest hurt and he had to force himself to breathe. No matter what was in the box, this was the most exciting thing that had ever happened to him. He couldn’t imagine finding anything else for the rest of his life that rivaled what was in his hands.
He took a deep breath, and opened the lid of the box.
Jackpot.
• • •
Cole chose not to meet the man’s condition of telling him what he found, although it was after the fact. That was what got him in his current situation.
He could still get out of this and grant the man his wish. However, he wouldn’t do so in the interests of archaeology. He had made a significant, history-changing discovery. The only problem was that he had yet to tell anyone at the office about it. He hoped someone would go through the box he placed in the archives earlier.
After dealing with this man, Cole knew he couldn’t let him know what he had found. It may never fall into the right hands if he did.
Cole did not know it would come to this, and in the back of his mind, he held out hope that there was more to life than the physical form he was about to leave. His too short life flashed in front of his eyes.
"Cole," his friend said softly, "you knew the rules."
"I'm sorry," Cole pleaded and squeezed his eyes together, waiting for the man to pull the trigger.
The man did. Travis Cole’s life ended.
PRESENT DAY
1
It must have been a mistake, Darwin Trickett thought. How did no one see this years ago?
Trickett was a graduate assistant at North Carolina State University, working in the archives at the North Carolina Museum of History in Raleigh. His job was, for the most part, boring, although it would make a good entry on his resume down the line.
He was a massive human. Standing at six feet, eight inches tall and weighing close to three-hundred and fifty pounds, he had to squeeze himself between the already generous amounts of space in between shelving units in this dank, dark, musty storage area underneath the old part of the museum. At twenty-three years of age, he already had a rapidly receding hairline. The rest of his scalp consisted of dense, puffy, black curls. He wore a pair of black horn-rimmed glasses. He was so farsighted that the lenses magnified his eyes greatly.
His appearance often frightened small children.
Those who took the time to get to know Darwin—who was few—knew him to be a gentle, caring person who would do almost anything for his friends.
The museum opened a new research wing during the late winter of 2012, and now they were looking for low-paid, recent college graduates to sift through the archives in the old wing to clear out space. Boxes and crates filled the numerous storage areas, filled with artifacts and documents from various types of archaeological expeditions. Most of the contents of the storerooms came from projects and digs around the Carolinas. There was a room for prehistory, ancient history, and recent history. In the grand scope of time, the museum curators defined “Recent History” as any time since Christopher Columbus landed in the New World.
Trickett sat on the floor in one corner of the recent history section, looking through a cardboard box of unfiled papers and artifacts from what must have been a small project. A strong, musty odor emanated from the box. A common smell to Darwin. Lying atop a wooden plate, a manila envelope and other assorted kitchen tools was a hastily scrawled note in a large Ziploc bag.
It read:
Plum Point Artifacts
Project Leader: Travis Cole
Bath, NC
April 16, 1982
That was it. No notation of who worked on the project besides Cole or any indication of why the box’s contents were important. He had been through dozens of crates and boxes, and all had standard documentation: Name of Project, Project Leader, Place, Date, Findings, Dig Leader, and Assistants. Trickett couldn’t place the name Plum Point, although he thought Bath was somewhere near the Outer Banks. It sounded familiar.
With no context to go upon, the various artifacts were meaningless. He pushed the contents around, hoping something would jump out at him. The interior consisted of different artifacts that
came from everyday life such as plates, cutlery, a wooden box, and cups. Just like most of the other boxes he had gone through thus far. He grabbed a manila envelope tucked along the edge of the box in hopes of finding some shred of information that would help him decide if he should keep the box or throw it away.
At the moment, he leaned towards the latter.
The packet was a standard manila envelope. It was thick, but not heavy. He released the metal clasp and lifted the flap. The musty smell returned, however unlike the odor in the rest of the box, it reminded Trickett more of an old library than anything else.
Inside was an old leather-bound journal—the source of the smell—and another handwritten note. Again, the note did little to help Trickett. It read:
From the Teach ruins.
This is presumed to be the diary of Mary Ormond.
Trickett set the note aside. He wasn't familiar with the names, although he had a sense he'd seen or heard it somewhere before. He'd have to go back and check later and made a note to do so.
There wasn’t an identifying name written inside the first few pages. The cover of the journal was black and unadorned. The pages were yellowed with age and frayed at some of the edges. Dates preceded many of the entries with the first one beginning in 1717. Whatever this was, it was almost 300 years old. Nowhere near being the oldest of the artifacts in this basement (there was most of an acrocanthosaurus claw in another room that was over 130 million years old); although that didn't mean he could take this any less seriously. Trickett thought the thin book was in amazing condition, considering its age.
He leafed through a few of the entries near the back of the journal, and was surprised at the intimacy portrayed. The entries depicted a woman much in love with Blackbeard, who worried about him while he was away. In one of the final entries, she awoke to a surprise on her pillow: a gold necklace with a large ruby.
Nov. 2, 1718: I miss that man dearly. he has been hence at sea for a fortnight. I spend hours at the docks, hoping to see his ship come ov'r the horizon. I desire that he is safe. He promised me this part of his life was behind that him. tis too dangerous.
Nov. 5, 1718: He returned home in the dead of night and demanded mine attention, which I gave t to him. He wast rough, but oh how I missed him. So glad that he is safe and home. I desire this is the last time that he does this.
Nov. 15, 1718: This morning I awoke to quite a shock on my pillow. He had placed the most quite quaint gold necklace adorned with a large ruby. I shall treasure t always. He came in from the dockside around noon and I kissed him ever so gently. oft I find his beard to beest scratchy and a nuisance, but it is his mark. I thanked him for the necklace and then he said to me something exciting. He said “there’s more whither that came from.”
I can’t wait to see what he hath in store. He can be so generous with me and his men.
He departed for Ocracoke that afternoon.
Some of the lettering was faded, although Trickett could still make out what was written. Of the few entries he read, this Mary Ormond did not mention the name of her lover. He figured that from the period and the coastal location where Cole found this journal and from what he had read that the bearded man was the captain of a ship of some sort.
He thought the journal seemed interesting enough, at least, to catalogue. This might be the only thing he’d save from the carton. Trickett was getting ready to close the journal and set it aside when he fumbled it in his hands, causing a folded piece of yellowed parchment to come loose from somewhere in the recesses of the book and flutter to the floor.
He looked at the parchment in surprise. He wondered what was special enough about it that made Ormond tuck it away in her personal diary.
He picked it up between his chubby fingers, and unfolded the frail paper slowly. There was something sacrosanct about it causing Trickett to treat it with even more care than the journal. The parchment had a silken quality. This was expensive paper for the time period it was made. The left edge of the paper looked as though it came from a notebook of some sort. Like someone ripped it out in a hurry.
Darwin didn’t know it at the time, but the words and lines on that piece of parchment would change his and others lives as well as rewrite the history books.
2
Lucas Caine was at his absolute limit. He had enjoyed moderate success through his first years of post-college life. Now in his early-thirties, Caine had once been near the top of a successful chain of restaurants and now owned a growing bookstore. The restaurant chain, Mahoney's, was now under the ownership of a dining conglomerate, and his bookstore was on autopilot. He had hired a savvy library science graduate from UNC-Charlotte to take care of the day-to-day tasks while he went in search of a location for a second location for his business. In an age where brick-and-mortar bookstores went out of business on a daily basis, Lucas found a business model combining current technologies and old-fashioned book selling that consumers liked. With the original store doing so well in its Concord, North Carolina location, he decided it was time to branch out.
While his professional life was great, his personal life is what brought him to this low. A few months ago, he found out that his wife of five years, Kristen, had been cheating on him with their family doctor. He never suspected it.
Lucas noticed that she seemed to be going to the doctor quite often. When he asked her the reason, if everything was okay, she said she had some things she needed taken care of and not to worry.
Then Lucas found their "code."
He noticed Kristen had begun frequenting a sub shop near their doctor's practice. He knew this because she would do a "Check-In" on Facebook when she went. When Lucas and Kristen went places, she didn't check-in anywhere. What made Lucas suspicious was when Kristen would check-in somewhere when Lucas wasn’t with her and then a few minutes later their doctor would leave a comment on her check-ins with an emoticon. :)
This mostly happened while Lucas was working at the bookstore. When he asked her about it she said without hesitation that she had been cheating on him with the doctor and had recently spoken to an attorney about getting a divorce.
The news stunned Lucas. He didn't know what to say, how to react, or what to do. When he and Kristen were together, everything seemed normal, as it always had since they'd met that one day. And perhaps that was the problem. After a few years of marriage, Kristen got bored with their day-to-day lives.
She wanted something new. Something to do. Lucas's business and the sizable severance package he received when he left Mahoney's made it so Kristen didn't have to work. At first, she continued to work at Not Just Franks in downtown Concord across from the courthouse. As time went by, she worked less and less until one day, she just quit.
Lucas was fine with that. In fact, he had suggested several times that she didn’t need the job if she didn’t want it. That maybe if she didn’t work, they could start a family. He didn’t know if the affair came because of her aversion to having a child and she wanted to find a way out of the marriage. Communication between the two of them over family matters broke down, and Lucas had a hard time understanding her position on starting a family. She was three years younger than he was, still in her late-twenties. He wondered if she still thought she was too young to have a child. A few of their friends of the same relative age had children. Maybe she didn’t have the same goal and didn’t know how to express it. When they talked about having children before they wed, she never once expressed any reservations.
She told Lucas she still loved him. However, the deplorable act she committed by sleeping with another man—a married man at that—made Lucas nauseous in the pit of his stomach. He still loved her on some level, but it was too much to bear. There would be no getting back together.
A sense of self-loathing came over Lucas after that. For weeks, he couldn’t look at his face in a mirror. He had done nothing wrong that he knew of. If he had, he may never know. That’s the question that kept him up at all hours of the night: what did I do?
He doted on Kristen, bought her presents, took her out on dates and on spontaneous romantic getaways. Despite his busy schedule, he helped her cook, clean and keep the house tidy. He tried to make her life as easy as possible. As soon as she quit her job and the real prospect of having a baby struck her, she couldn’t handle it or tell Lucas whether she had any misgivings.
It drove Lucas to the verge of madness. He didn’t know what to do. If he went to a psychiatrist, they would probably put him on medication. He wanted to figure it out and come up with a solution that caused him to come out better for it in the end. For now, he spent many nights with a half-finished bottle of Kentucky’s finest.
Under North Carolina law, a couple has to wait one year before filing for divorce after separation. The state hoped couples would reconcile during that period. In this instance, there was little hope of the two of them getting back together. That waiting period was almost over for Lucas and Kristen.
Lucas’s parents were saddened when they heard the news of their separation and rushed down from his home state of West Virginia to give him comfort and support. They stayed a week while he met with a divorce attorney and Kristen moved all of her things away from their house in downtown Concord.
Lucas’s dad had doctor’s appointments he had to keep the following week at a VA hospital in central West Virginia. They left town, leaving Lucas alone for the first time at home.
This day was an overcast, cloudy day in early October. The leaves on the trees were beginning to change. The air was getting noticeably cooler. A few weeks ago, temperatures were in the low nineties. This morning, Lucas wore a light jacket during his morning jog.
As the seasons transitioned, so did Lucas’s life.
He sat in a leather recliner in his dimly lit home office. The only light in the room originated from a single bulb under the cover of an antique wooden lampstand. Golden liquid sloshed around the small tumbler in his hand. An instrumental jazz station on Pandora played through the speakers on his surround-sound system. Around the house, a few pieces of furniture left with Kristen. A side-table here, a bookshelf there. From where he sat, he knew more of her things were gone in other parts of the house. Her pink razor, her body wash, her clothes. The picture of her and her departed aunt that once sat on the mantle now left a thin line clear of dust.
