by Bella Falls
Luke flipped the page over to finish reading the contents, and then back again to start from the beginning. “You have no idea what you just found.”
“What did she find?” Auggie cried out from the doorway. “Why are you all standing in an old room with no lights on? If we’re gonna get to the museum in time to look at things before the British professor arrives, then we need to get going. Ruby Mae, your granny told me to tell you that you’re out of luck if you wanted any bacon because she threw the rest away.”
“No, she didn’t,” I scoffed. “She would never waste any bacon. And there’s a long explanation as to what this place is.”
“Let me guess. It’s got something to do with magic?” The crank of an old lady joked. “You don’t have to tell me the particulars, but at least clue me in as to why hot pants there looks like he might explode from glee.”
“Listen to this,” Luke insisted, letting his finger follow the words he finally read out loud. “My dear Daniel.”
The three of us women waited an extra beat for him to continue. When he glanced up at us with excitement, we stared back in confusion.
“Okay. So, it’s a good bet that this space may have belonged to a Daniel Jewell. There have been a couple of them down through the family tree.” I’d have to take a look at all the portraits hanging in the front foyer to figure out which ones, but my gut told me I knew exactly which Daniel the letter referred to.
“No, you’re not getting it. Here, let me read you the close of the correspondence.” He turned the letter over and let his fingers trace it. “I will always be indebted to your kindness. Your truly loving friend in this life and the next, Ann.”
An awed silence joined the stale air of the room. Auggie cleared her throat, “Well, I never encourage leaping to conclusions without clear evidence. The scholar in me wants at least three more primary sources to identify the writer of the letter as our Ann. As one of the most common names of several centuries, I am loath to make a definitive decision as to the identities of said persons in that correspondence. That being said—”
“If you add up all the coincidences that are occurring one on top of the other with the storm and the ship, the fact that the map was given to the coven leader by Daniel Jewell,” I finished, blurting out all of the thoughts swirling in my head. “And now, this room finally reveals itself? It may not be the kind of evidence you want to put your trust in, Professor, but I’m willing to speculate that my ancestor, Daniel Jewell, has some direct connection to Ann Bonnet.”
My spell phone buzzed in my pocket, fracturing my moment of revelation. “It’s Rissa,” I informed the others, answering the call.
“Ruby Mae, how fast can you get here?” the museum’s educational director asked, her voice thin with panic.
I walked out of the room and into the morning light in the upstairs hallway. “Why? What’s going on?” The whole déjà vu of our short conversation heightened my alertness. I put her on speaker phone and asked her to talk to all of us.
“Somebody’s been inside the museum,” she declared with tangible outrage. “I’m sure of it now. I know I should probably call the police or at least get the wardens involved, but with what we’re dealing with, I didn’t know what to do.”
Charli talked into the phone. “I’ll bring Mason with me and have him do his warden thing. If he thinks you should contact your local authorities, he’ll tell you.”
We could almost feel the sigh of relief Rissa released. “Good. But I still hope you’re headed my way. I found some maps I’d like to use in comparison.”
I glanced at the door, a little torn about where my focus should be. “We’re leaving in the next five minutes.” After giving a couple more promises to reassure her, I got her off the phone.
“I’ll go tell Mason.” Charli bounded down the stairs.
Luke placed his hand on the small of my back. “I think you know how I’d like to contribute today. Since I have the ability to read through whatever that room contains, it’s the smart decision for me to stay here.”
I tilted my head up and kissed his cheek. “It’s probably the best use of your knowledge. Auggie and I will drive over—”
“I’m actually going to stay here with your boyfriend,” the professor declared, cutting me off. “I’m a researcher at heart, and every atom in me wants to dive in that room and not emerge until I’ve soaked up all the history. Until the ink stains my skin.”
“But don’t you want to use the stone with the map once we pinpoint the starting point for the next clue?” I asked, surprised at Auggie’s decision.
The professor pushed Luke out of her way with a gentle nudge of her elbow. “If there’s something that needs my attention, call. But I think there’s entirely too much woo woo funny stuff involved for me to be as big of a help as I can be going through old texts.” Holding onto the edge of the door, she addressed my boyfriend. “Come on, hot pants. I’ll let you keep me entertained with tales from your past.”
“It would be my honor.” Luke bowed with regal formality in a manner that made me think he had done it before.
Before he disappeared into the secret study of my long-departed ancestor, I kissed him long and hard until he gave into the moment and melted his body against mine.
“That’s so you won’t forget about the present as you get lost in the past.” I caressed his cheek. “You and I will continue our talk from earlier at another time.”
“Why’s it so blasted dark in here?” Auggie complained at the top of her lungs from inside the room.
“I’d better go.” Luke planted a brief kiss on my lips and let me go. “And, cara, no matter what stories you think I keep from you, I want you to know that you are the subject of my favorite ones. And those aren’t for anyone else’s ears but ours.”
My cheeks heated from his flattery and an intense desire to complete the job the coven hired me to do. The sooner we secured the pieces of the witch pirate’s treasure, the sooner my vampire boyfriend and I could move forward into our future together.
Chapter Thirteen
“We should have stayed long enough to make sure the museum was secure before we left.” Mason stood in Rissa’s office, leaning against the doorway with his arms crossed over his chest. “I’ve got bad news and then some more bad news. Which do you want first?”
Rissa sat down on the edge of her desk. “I don’t know. I guess I was exhausted from our adventure and overly excited about the stone and the map. And then with Dr. Simons calling and telling me he was here visiting from London specifically to talk with me…I wasn’t thinking straight.”
“Oh, honey.” Dani put a comforting arm around her shoulders. “We’ll figure this out together.”
When my cousin asked to tag along this morning, I almost strangled her with a happy hug. It didn’t hurt that she’d made me a breakfast biscuit to go with the last of the bacon to bribe her way to the museum. She’d been left out yesterday, and with Cate needing to rebuild a few of the broken vegetable stands at the farmers’ market and Crystal and Odie busy patching up the roof of her business, there was plenty of room for Dani to join in. Plus, her knack for connecting to the emotions of things and empathizing with everyone was already coming in handy.
Mason continued in his professional tone, “I wish I could tell you with certainty that no one has been in here. If someone has, they had to be mortal. There’s no trace of magic except in the lab where we were, and that’s pretty faint and most likely related to what we were doing.”
“But that’s a good thing, right?” Rissa asked with hope.
“Depends on how you take it.” He pushed himself off the desk. “Since there’s no magic involved, I’m limited as to how much I can detect without regular tools of law enforcement. Yes, I can tell that people have been back in this area, but that matches our own actions.”
“And on top of that, without me being able to tell if something’s missing, we can’t know for sure if my instincts are right,” Rissa finished for
him. “I know I’m not crazy, even if I sound like it.”
Dani squeezed her shoulders again. “We’ve all been stressed out with the hurricane and all. Plus, you were really involved in the Pirate Festival. I’ll bet you’ve been running yourself ragged for weeks.”
While my cousin worked on cheering up the educational director, a thought popped into my head. “Hey, Charli. Is it possible that you can help her figure out if anything is missing using your tracking talents?”
“I’ve been considering that,” she said, “but usually, I need specifics. You’ll have to take my word for it that finding that shell yesterday pushed me to my current limits. And that’s because we didn’t know what it was we would find. I don’t think I can help if you don’t even know what you’re looking for.” Charli bent her head in frustration.
Mason closed the space between them and lifted her chin with his finger. “You did good,” he uttered, waiting for her to hear the truth in his voice.
A little embarrassed for asking, I volunteered a service I could do. “We’ve got about an hour left before your guest arrives. If you want, we’ll all pitch in and help look through everything to see if something jumps out at you as missing.”
Rissa considered the offer, biting her thumbnail. “No, Charli has a point. Even without her talents, it would be wasteful to look for something that might just be all up in my head. Let’s stick with our original plan and work with what we already have.”
With less enthusiasm than the day before, we filed into the small laboratory where two maps covered the surface of the light table side by side. A small wooden box sat in between them, and I went to open it and retrieve the stone from inside.
The interior of the handmade container was lined with the same fabric as what my family used to neutralize any magical energy. Dad had insisted on using it since we knew from past mistakes that placing small objects of power in our pockets could result in disaster.
Unwrapping the cloth, I presented the stone to Rissa for her use. She took it out of my palm and placed it on our map. It took a shorter amount of time for her to find the spot where the X flashed inside the sea of greenish-blue of the polished gem again.
“There it is.” She left the aquamarine in the right spot and moved to hover over the other chart. “This is a copy of the Miller map of the area from later in the eighteenth century, but I picked it because of the similarities between the two.” Rissa’s finger floated over the map until she tapped on it. “I think this is the same area.”
I leaned forward and glanced between the two hand drawn surveys. “Move your finger to the right and up a little bit,” I requested.
“No, too far,” Mason said from the opposite side of the table.
Dani shook her head. “You’re looking at it upside down. May I?” She dragged her own finger over the map until she stopped. “Here. I think this is the same spot.”
Rissa stood back and checked, her head turning back and forth. “I think you’re right. So, that places whatever the X stands for in the township of Bellfort. There wouldn’t have been that much there other than property granted by the Crown and a few shared public spaces. Hold on, let me grab the Houston survey of Bellfort.”
“What should we do once this Dr. Simons shows up?” I asked. “Since he told her over the phone that he wants to talk to her about something connected to Ann Bonnet, I don’t think we should leave her alone with him.”
Dani bumped me with her hip. “You know you have a thing for men with accents.”
“You, hush,” I demanded, nudging her back with my elbow. Note to self, I shouldn’t share so much with my cousin.
Mason agreed with me. “Let’s stick around long enough to hear what it is he has to contribute. And I don’t think he should see our map. And definitely not the stone.”
Ebonee already gave one limited-time exception for Auggie. I didn’t want to press my luck by exposing another mortal to the existence of magic.
Breathless, Rissa returned with another replica of a map. “The original one is in a glass display case in the exhibitions, but this might give us a better idea of where the location is in regard to the layout of the township. Now, here are the farms at the edge and here’s the waterfront, so if I’m judging the distance correctly, then…oh no.”
“What?” I asked, trying to see what she did over her shoulder.
Rissa leaned her hands against the table for support. “If I’m right, then I don’t know where we go from here. That X marks right where the meeting house was.”
Dani examined the Bellfort survey. “I don’t see why that’s a problem.”
“Because our current courthouse sits right where that would have been. Does anyone fancy trying to dig underneath an official seat of law?” Rissa asked in frustration. “Even with the use of magic, I don’t see how we can go looking for whatever the next clue means.”
I wanted to find another solution or a silver lining, but she had a point. If what we were meant to find existed underneath a courthouse, then we were stuck unless one of us could figure out a way to do it without getting arrested.
My phone buzzed in my pocket, and I welcomed the interruption. “Crystal’s texting a video she wants us to watch.”
Hitting play, I turned the spell phone on its side to enlarge the view. Nigel Lansing’s head bobbed up and down as he sat in the same yellow dinghy as he had the day before. The wind blew through his thick hair, and he brushed his fingers through it like a hair commercial.
“Hello, fellow adventurers. I’m here this morning in the Bellfort Channel with something exciting to share with you,” his smarmy voice called out.
“Is he broadcasting live right now?” Mason asked.
I shushed him and kept watching. “Does anybody else recognize that bit of beach behind him?”
Rissa gasped, and Charli pressed in to look. “No, he’s not in front of where we found him yesterday, is he?”
“This little bit of land behind me,” Nigel continued, “Is where the pirate ‘Bonny’ Ann Bonnet came ashore after her ship, the Neptune’s Rose, sank in the area I filmed in before. My team and I have been diving this morning, and I want to show you what I’ve found. But first, let me give you a bit more history to get you excited.”
We stood in silence listening to lies mixed with a few truths to lend authenticity. Rissa stopped watching and paced around the table, muttering angry comments to herself.
“Why is he talking about having done a dive in that area? That place isn’t that deep.” Dani mused.
I nodded in agreement and snorted. “It’s not, but he’s definitely swimming in deep something.”
Nigel would tease showing his discovery but never do it, still spinning his tale. “Although the original settlers that attempted to start a new life here in the New World seemed to disappear, the remains of what they left behind on that small sea island behind me provided a perfect place for ‘Bonny’ Ann to bury some of her vast treasure.”
“If he had gone looking, wouldn’t he have gotten stuck in that time thingy like we were?” Charli accused.
“I don’t think we’re dealing in truth here,” I remarked, turning up the volume. “Just show us what you think you’ve got,” I yelled at the small screen of my phone.
Nigel stopped spinning his tale. “And now, here’s what you’ve been waiting to see.” He held up a small metal disk in his hand. “This coin is representative of what pirates used to call pieces of eight. I found it buried on that small sea island behind me, and my team is working now to recover even more. Let me zoom in so you can get a better look.”
I hit the pause button, stopping the video. “Holy hexes,” I exhaled.
Rissa grabbed my hand and pulled it close enough for her to examine. “I knew I was right!” she exclaimed. “Someone has been in my office. That’s the coin Auggie brought to me when I gave my presentation.”
Taking a closer look, I recognized the resemblance to the box full of them sitting in my family’s home.
“That came from your professor’s stash. And that makes two things we know he took from her. First the bell at her cabin, and now the coin left with you here at the museum.”
“I hate to say it, but I think it’s time to call in the authorities one way or the other,” Mason said. “You can’t keep ignoring someone who’s blatantly attacked another person and stolen things. The longer we wait, the harder it will be to make a case against him.”
“Except, getting the law involved will slow down any chance we have at finding what the clues lead to.” I tapped the map on the table. “If what I’ve been told about the treasure is true, that there really is an actual curse on it, then we can’t risk it being found and out there in the regular world.”
“I hope it is cursed,” spit Rissa. “Then Nigel won’t be able to get away with what he’s done.”
Mason furrowed his brow, caught between wanting to help and his duties as a warden. “Fine. I’ll compromise. After we get done here, we go find him and let me determine how much of a risk he poses.” He sighed and glanced at Charli. “Big Willie’s gonna kill me. I promised him I was on this trip as a civilian.”
“Who’s Big Willie?” I asked.
“Our town’s sheriff,” Charli said with a grin. “He’s also a Sasquatch.”
Dani grabbed my arm in excitement. “Can we go visit in the near future?” she asked me. “Honeysuckle Hollow sounds like an interesting place.”
“Let’s focus on what we need to accomplish right now. Then we’ll work out the right time to visit Charli when we’re finished,” I assured my cousin, ignoring my own interest in meeting a real live Big Foot.
Loud pounding on the metal door at the side of the museum startled us. “Oh, no,” Rissa exclaimed, rushing to roll up our map. “That has to be Dr. Simons. He’s early.” She looked around for the poster tube.
“Here,” I said, finding it on the floor and handing it to her.
When she screwed on the top, she clutched it to her chest. “I would say let’s keep it in my office, but after what we just watched, I don’t think it’s safe anywhere.”
