Treasure in the Woods

by E. A. House

  Back in the state park, at a beat-up aluminum picnic table currently covered in camera pieces and coffee cups, Robin Redd was fixing his hat. He’d been wearing it when a sudden rainstorm blew up, and he and his hat had been drenched, which had made the feathers tucked into his hatband droop sadly. Redd had borne the shame of his hat bravely while they got all the filming they needed for the day, and hadn’t even yelped when a snake slithered over his shoe, but as soon as they were done he had hurried off to fetch his sewing kit and the little collection of feathers he kept for just this sort of emergency.

  Twilight was swiftly falling but there was still just enough light remaining for him to sit outside and attach the new feathers to his hat with a few neat stiches. He was humming away to himself and admiring the effect of a dyed purple feather next to a natural brown one when Bethy Bradlaw came up behind him and thwacked her notebook on the table. Redd’s sewing supplies rattled and Redd himself jumped almost a foot in the air and pricked himself with his needle. He was jumpy today, but his producer had gone berserk earlier, so he had a right to be jumpy.

  “Bethy!” Redd said, wondering why she looked irritated this time. Irritated and confused, and Bethy was often irritated and confused by the people she had chosen to spend her life working with but she didn’t usually throw her notebook at them. Okay, there had been that one time, but David was a pest.

  “Robin,” Bethy asked patiently, “why did you take a Sharpie and mark out all my notes on the San Telmo segment?”

  “Oh, that,” Redd said guiltily. “It was a moment of weakness on my part when you were sending Harry off to your mom’s. I was overreacting, it’s fiiine.”

  “Sure it is,” Bethy said, sitting down across from Redd. “Robin, what’s wrong with the San Telmo?”

  “Did you know the ship isn’t even said to be haunted?” Redd asked, fiddling with the feathers on his hat. “A long-lost treasure ship, and not one single legend or scary story has formed around its figurehead or its crew or the mythical place where it landed! It’s absurd!”

  “So, you don’t want to do a segment on the San Telmo because it isn’t supposed to be haunted?” Bethy opened her binder and pulled out the worst sheet. It was nothing but a page of black lines. “This is going a little far, even for you.”

  Redd didn’t want the explanation to come out but his mouth had other ideas, because he said, “Nobody looks for the San Telmo and comes away unharmed,” before he could stop himself, and then since it was already out he gave in and told Bethy the rest.

  “I had a friend in college who died looking for the San Telmo,” Redd explained. “He just disappeared one day and was never seen again. It shattered those of us who knew him. There aren’t any stories about the San Telmo being haunted,” Redd said, “but the ship has to be cursed. It ruins the people who go looking for it. That’s why I won’t try anymore.”

  “Okay,” Bethy said. “Thank you for telling me, but this is the sort of thing you let me know about when I start researching the place we’re shooting.” Redd looked sadly down at his hat and she relented. “But I won’t make you tempt fate by doing a piece on the San Telmo. Now come help me convince the network to send us looking for dolphins next month,” she said, and swatted one of the growing number of mosquitos.

  Redd lingered, gathering his hat and feathers, and when he was certain he was alone, he looked up at the sky, and at the moon just peeking through the clouds, and asked of someone who wasn’t there: “My dear, what are you doing?”