SandPeople: An Across Time Mystery

by Cheryl Kerr

  Teri nodded and went on to tell Lea about the customs of old Mexico.

  Young ladies were brought to the town square by their abuelas, who were often watchful aunts or grandmothers. They walked round and round, under the warmth of a shawl and the watchful eye of the older women. The young men stood against the wall and watched, pretending not to notice them. The girls weren't allowed to speak or sit down until the young man had made his intentions known.

  A young man would have to pay a call to the girl's home and ask formal permission to walk with her in the evening. If this was given, they could then talk.

  Teri and Lea looked at each other. "Would you want to do that?" Lea asked.

  "No." Both girls giggled at the idea of boys and dates.

  Lea sighed and took a drink. "Everything feels so old here," she said.

  "Well, the town is over two hundred years old," Teri reminded her.

  "No, not the buildings." Lea thought about it. "I almost think I'll see an old-timey person walk along here any minute."

  Lea thought how nice it was to have someone to talk to about everything that had happened. Teri didn't say things to make you feel better. She said things that she really meant. Like Laura, she thought. It made all of her wonderings about ghosts seem sort of far away and silly. Thinking about it now brought all her questions back to mind in a rush. She remembered why she had wanted Teri to show her around town today. She liked Teri for her honesty. She should be the same way with Teri. She hesitated. Should she trust Teri? She certainly seemed nice, but if she knew Lea thought she had seen a ghost would she not want to be friends anymore?

  "Teri, I sort of was looking for someone this afternoon," Lea said.

  "Oh?" Teri looked up.

  "I've seen this girl in a blue dress on the beach. She disappears before I can talk to her. I don't see her anywhere any of the places we have been. I want to know who she is. I was looking for her today when we were meeting your friends. I looked for her in the shops we went in, too. I thought maybe her parents ran one of them, but I didn't see her anywhere."

  Teri watched her for a moment, then asked. "What does she look like?"

  "She's blonde. She wears her hair braided and wound around her head."

  "What does she wear?" Teri asked.

  Lea answered. "The dress seems really long and old fashioned. Not like she's dressed to go to the beach at all. That's why I was asking if anyone lived out where we were on the beach today."

  Teri studied her for a moment. "You're really serious about this."

  "I just can't imagine where she went. I want to find out." Lea shrugged. It was hard to explain why she felt interested in the mystery girl.

  "Maybe she's a ghost," Teri said and bent to take another drink of her soda. "It's kind of exciting. Do you believe in ghosts?"

  Lea stared at her. That was the very question she had been thinking, the same one Aunt Meg had refused to even answer when she, Lea, asked it. Only now she was being asked to answer it. Her heart sank. Teri might laugh at her and she would lose her only friend in this new place.

  "I don't know if I believe in ghosts," Lea said cautiously. And she didn't. She knew she saw something; the question was what.

  Teri looked at her. "Lots of people around here do. Indians and Catholics both believe there might be ghosts. And stories about the ocean often have ghosts in them," she said.

  "Tell me exactly what happened," Teri said. "Don't change anything."

  "I saw some little figures in the sand. I wanted to see them up close," Lea said. "I was looking for them when you talked to me. You startled me is all."

  Teri looked seriously at Lea.

  "Well, that's what I've been wondering about," Lea said. "I tried to talk to my aunt, but she told me to quit my nonsense. I can't tell if she doesn't believe me or if she's just all wrapped up in her art."

  "So if we're going to find the girl, we need to do it on our own," Teri said. "How should we do that?" Both girls were silent for a minute, trying to figure out what to do next. A faint sound of laughter sounded from the old square. "Maybe we should ask around and find out if any other ghost stories are told around here," Teri said.

  Lea nodded. "Research."

  They went and found Mrs. Simon. "Mom, it's a good night for spooky stories, don't you think?" Teri asked her mother.

  Mrs. Simon smiled at her. "There is an old saying that the nights are made for confidences, for things that the day would be too harsh and bright to hold." She looked closely at Teri. "Why do you ask?"

  The girls looked at each other. "Come on." Mrs. Simon sat down on a tumbled rock.

  "Lea saw a girl on the beach," Teri told her. "And the girl just disappeared suddenly. It's happened two times so she's pretty sure she didn't imagine it. She even saw the girl had braided blond hair and wore a long blue dress."

  Mrs. Simon nodded.

  "Do you believe us?" Teri asked her mother. Her mother looked at them and smiled.

  "I believe that you believe you saw it," she said gently. "Lots of people around here do believe such tellings. Whether or not it is true isn't for me to say or for me to find out. You," she reached forward and touched Lea gently on the knee, "are the one that saw the girl in the blue dress. It is for you to look if you want to. But history, walls such as these," she waved a hand at the stone walls in the flickering light from the torches, "are full of stories of strange happenings, and miracles, and things that were said could never happen." She stood up and smiled at the girls. "I don't know what you will find, but it will be interesting to look, I think."

  "I would start with ghost stories or legends," she said thoughtfully. "Sailors were, and often still are, by nature superstitious. If a story has been told about a ship or a port, he may well have heard it.

  "I would start with what is here to find," she told them. "Stories are great, but they all came from something that was real at one time. If you think she is real, then you must set about trying to find out what other things were real. There is a big difference between facts and stories."

  "Something real has brought her here," Mrs. Simon said patiently. "Once you know what you have, then you can find out what used to be."

  Lea thought hard. What had the day at the beach, her early morning sighting, and today in common?

  "Each time I've seen her I've been feeling lonely," Lea said.

  Teri looked at her. "And?"

  Lea stopped and thought about it. "Maybe I am what brings her," she said softly. "Or maybe it is my feelings of homesickness."

  Mrs. Simon nodded. "Not you, yourself, but what you may be."

  "When I miss home. Homesick, I guess. Or really just thinking about it hard." She shrugged.

  Teri nodded. "We don't know yet what all she went through but I bet Texas was a scary new place back then."

  The girls smiled at each other. "But for now, it's time to go home. If it has kept all this time, it will keep one more night. Gather your things, girls."

  Lea remembered her manners. "It's been a good day," Lea smiled at her. "Thanks for inviting me out here."

  At Teri's, Lea fell asleep watching the moonbeams through her window.

  The next morning the girls spread out a notebook and pencils on a big library table.

  "You will do best if you keep track of where you find what you are looking for," Mrs. Simon told them. "For the story part. For the real part, you will have to go to the beach and see if you find anything there that might give you a clue."

  "So how would we do that?" Teri asked her.

  Her mother smiled. "Like every person who collects things from the sea."

  The girls looked at each other. "A metal detector!" they said in unison.

  Teri said, "People find all sorts of things along the beach."

  Her mother nodded. "I don't think we ever go to the beach without finding a watch or a knife or money of some kind."

  "So that would be a good place to start?" Teri asked her.

  "Yes, it is. I don't kn
ow what you will find but it will be fun to look," Mrs. Simon said.

  "Want to do that?" Teri asked Lea.

  "Sure." Lea nodded vigorously.

  "We can use ours?" Teri asked her mother, who nodded.

  They tied the metal detector across the handlebars of Teri's bike and rode out the highway. At the end of the road, they parked their bikes and walked down to the beach.

  "Good, the tide is out," Teri said. "We can look a little further that way."

  "Let's start kind of at one end and work from the dunes down toward the water," Lea suggested.

  Teri nodded her agreement and flipped the switch on the handle. A faint hum sounded from the machine. She lifted the long handle in her other hand and started a slow sweep from the height of the dunes behind her down toward the water. The hum stayed steady and the gauge didn't show anything. She worked slowly and steadily. A faint line of perspiration beaded along her hairline. She stopped and wiped her brow. "This thing gets heavy after a while," she said to Lea.

  "Let me take a turn," Lea suggested and took the machine. She looked along the sand. The beach was all so flat and silent. On impulse, she walked down toward the water, to where she had built the sandcastle. She took a good grip on the handle and turned it back on.

  HuMMM! The tone grew high and loud. Then, just as quickly, it faded away. Teri drew a line in the sand with her toe and smiled at Lea.

  "Now bring it back the other way.” The humming grew loud again. Teri marked the other side and then the top and bottom to indicate the area where the detector was picking up sound. Lea ran back to her bike and took the shovels out of her basket. She walked back to Teri and held a shovel out to her.

  "Ready?"

  "I guess," Lea answered.

  They both dropped to their knees and Lea turned the first spadeful of sand and dumped it to the side. They dug. Teri grinned at her. With her hands, she reached past Lea and began pushing sand to the side. Her fingers touched the smooth surface of an old log, buried deep in the sand.

  Lea sat back. "Is that all we found?"

  "No, there must be something else; wood wouldn't register on the metal detector." Teri stood and turned the detector on again and swept it over the hole they had dug. HumMM! The sound was louder and more intense than before.

  "We're getting closer.” With their hands, they scooped sand and pushed it way back to the side. A little way down, Lea's fingers brushed something solid. More slowly now, she continued moving dirt to the side.

  "What can that be?" she murmured. She knelt and dug into the sand with her hands. She heaped it to one side, pushing it way back. Her hand brushed something solid on one side of the hole. She slowed and brushed her fingers around it carefully. A rough surface appeared under her fingers. She brushed the rest of the sand from around it. It was the squat, thick top of a spike.

  She dug deeper. The shaft of the peg went down almost a foot. Lea squatted, her hands still, and looked at the log with the nail stuck in it. As she brushed more, the spike end of it came into view. A long peg lay uncovered where she had dug.

  "Oh, wow," Teri said beside her and sat back on her heels. It looked old. The edges were beaten and uneven, as though it had been made by hand. Teri looked excited. "I think that might be something important," she said. "Let's get my mom to come and look."

  "Should we cover it up so no one can find it?" Lea asked.

  "I guess so," Teri said. They dropped to their knees and brushed sand back over the log so that only a hollow remained in the sand. Then they biked back to town as fast as they could.

  "What do you think?" Teri yelled to Lea as they pedaled.

  "I want to know what it is," Lea called back. But she still wasn't sure she knew what this had to do with the girl in the long blue dress.

  Chapter 5

  Teri's mother knelt on the beach between the two girls. They brushed the sand to the side for the second time. This time the spike seemed to be near the surface right where Lea thought it would be.

  "Because this time you knew something was there." Teri's mother smiled at her.

  Carefully, they cleared all the sand away and then sat back and waited. Teri's mother bent close and looked. She took out her glasses and put them on to look even closer. She ran her fingers gently along the spike.

  Finally, Teri could wait no longer. "Well?" she asked her mother.

  Her mother sat back and then looked up at the girls with a wide smile. "You have found a marker," she told Teri. "It was probably driven in this log long ago and left here as a marker to show where a certain place was."

  "At the end of the cay?" Lea asked.

  "It's a lonely spot you've chosen. This end of the cay was the old Stephens Ranch until a few years ago. No one was here but deer and turtles.

  "Pirates used markers on the beach to help them re-find the looted hauls they brought from ships."

  "Treasure?" Lea squeaked.

  The woman smiled. "Oh, yes. Pirates, especially Jean Lafitte, were very active in the Gulf of Mexico at one time."

  Lea was excited. "You mean we might actually have found something?"

  "Yes. This coastline changes all the time with tides and storms and wind. The pirates tried to use pins to help them re-find their treasure if the landmarks had changed or disappeared. They buried the looted hauls they brought from ships."

  "What ships?" Lea asked, fascinated.

  Teri’s mother smiled. “For a while, sailing ships. Then, as the settlers began to arrive here, the pirates learned that many of them brought their life savings to the New World."

  The ships were sometimes foundered by storms, sometimes stuck fast on sandbars; sometimes the people were waiting on the beach. At Shell Ridge Point," she nodded at Lea. "Right here."

  "It's a marker for buried treasure?" Lea's voice was high.

  "Maybe." Mrs. Simon sat back on her heels. “Or the log might not be from here at all."

  "What do you mean?" Teri asked.

  "It was washed ashore from somewhere else."

  Teri looked at it doubtfully. "The log is pretty heavy," she said. "It was probably placed there."

  "Yes." Her mother nodded. "But a huge storm and waves will tear most things loose."

  "If that is the case then we will not be able to find out where it washed up from," Teri said dejectedly.

  "Maybe not. You won't know if you don't ask." Mrs. Simon stood up. "I'm getting too old for sitting in the sand," she laughed and brushed the sand off her knees.

  "Now, let's mark where we found this."

  "Why?"

  "For one thing we might not remember where it was. And, two, we have to call someone. This beach is public property. That means we have to report things like this that we find."

  "Are they going to take it?" Teri asked.

  "You don't have anything to take yet." Her mother reached out and ruffled Teri's short hair. "But we won't advertise it." They all scooped sand back into the hole until the log wasn't visible anymore. Then they headed for the car.

  Lea trailed behind. She watched the tiny wavelets riffle onto the beach. Today the sea was flat and blue and calm. She turned and looked at the log again. How had it gotten here? And did it have something, anything, to do with the girl in the blue dress?

  Teri's mother turned and looked at her. "Come on, Lea, don't you want to know what this is?" she called.

  Lea trudged back to the car. "Yes."

  Lea’s mom put the Jeep into gear and drove slowly back toward the pavement. In the rearview mirror, she caught Lea's gaze. "What about telling your aunt?" she asked.

  Lea shrugged. "I don't know. She didn’t seem very interested in it to me. Do I have to have permission to take this any further?"

  "Probably not, but I think it would be a good idea for you to tell her. That way she can't say that you were doing something she didn't approve of."

  From the library, Mrs. Simon called the sheriff's office. They called the Texas Historical Commission.

  "They sure
are calm about this," Teri said indignantly. Lea smiled. From her dad, she knew how many finds got called in. They would call, they said when they reached one of the historians in the area.

  Lea nodded and gathered her stuff. Mrs. Simon was going to drop her off at Aunt Meg's.

  "Lucky you." Teri smiled at her from the front seat.

  Lea smiled back a little bit. She knew that it was a neat find. But she hadn't wanted to have a problem. She was trying hard to be good. "Just my luck," she told Teri, "I'm supposed to be quiet and stay out of the way. And what do I do? I find something that is really old and now I have to tell her."

  "You are lucky," Teri's mother said firmly from the front seat. "Some people are treasure-seekers for a lifetime and never find anything at all. You are going to get a chance to see if this is something. How very lucky you are." She watched Lea in the rearview mirror. "Do you want me to tell her with you?"

  "No thanks." Lea shook her head. "I'll do it."

  The Jeep pulled up by the cabin. Teri watched her from the front seat. "Good luck," she said.

  Lea nodded and slid out of the backseat. She stood for a minute and watched the Jeep pull away. When she couldn't see it any longer on the road into town she turned and went inside.

  In the kitchen, Aunt Meg called, "Did you have a nice afternoon?"

  "Yes," Lea called back. "I met Teri in town and we went to the beach."

  She watched her aunt's face. "Good," Aunt Meg said. There was no mistaking the look of relief on her face. Neither of them mentioned Lea's earlier questions.

  "What are you doing?" she asked her aunt curiously.

  "Oh, I was trying to do a picture of your mom and had gotten out some old movies to study her face." Aunt Meg wiped her hands. "Would you like to watch them with me after dinner?"

  "Sure," Lea said.

  After her bath, Lea slipped her thick robe and padded down the stairs. A funny noise of something loose flopping came up the stairs. The sound became the rewinding whir of a roll of movie film that had run all the way through. The end of it flapped loose, slapping the roller each time the wheel came around.