Plunging her upper body into the water and letting her scooped hands push through like an arrow, Emily quickly slid through the channel cutting through towards the speed boat with long, strong strokes. Taylor followed right behind her though at about half the pace of her more athletic friend.
Phoebe glanced to Katie, who still stood beside her and hesitantly asked as her attention moved back to the water and the girls swimming towards the crippled boat, “Should we…?”
The curly blond quickly shook her head. “When they get closer we can wade in and use the anchor’s rope to pull them in. Emily and Taylor can handle it. Besides there are only four paddles so we’d just add weight and get in their way, unless you wanted to try kick paddling behind them to push the boat?”
Scrunching up her face at the idea, Phoebe quickly shook her head. “No, I like your idea better. When they get closer we can wade out to grab the rope and pull them in then.”
The plan decided, the two girls waited for the others. Emily made it to the boat first and gave Taylor a hand up before getting onboard. Everyone could tell that the elder sister was angry at Faith, but the blond haired girl said little about the fact that her little sister had done something reckless and stupid. Instead she set Taylor to work with Brook on one side of the boat and joined her sister using another paddle to paddle from the other.
Sitting a few feet above the water and having to lean over the side of the boat, the four girls struggled for nearly twenty minutes against the tide despite only being a short distance away from the island to start. The currents fought their efforts refusing to let them take shelter by the island. It was as if the boat had become an uncooperative enemy beneath their feet.
While the girls paddled, Phoebe looked at the part of the island that might end up being their refuge for longer than she could have known when they first arrived that afternoon. Only twenty feet back from the water, the island jutted upward in a forty foot climb to a cliff top. It had a lot of loose stone, the girl thought, though she wasn’t a skilled climber so her guess was hardly an educated one. Vines and other greenery dotted the off white stone and the brown of dirt colored it in places where the cracks were big enough to give purchase.
The sand near where they stood was worn into an odd groove like a river’s bed nearly ten feet across and five feet deeper than the ridges to either side leading back towards the wall of stone. She guessed that at higher tides the water might enter the trough that extended all the way to the steep wall. The wall of the cliff curled a bit coming closer to them on the near side and obscured the end of the trough from Phoebe’s sight, but instead of dwelling further on the land she returned her attention to the water and the approaching boat.
“I think we can get the rope now,” Katie stated grabbing the other girl’s attention from her search.
Emily must have thought the same thing. Abandoning her oar a moment, the girl moved to the anchor and swung it for a decent throw ahead of the boat. With a splash, it sunk quickly and dug into the sand beneath the water unseen. Worries of the tide pulling them back were over as the anchor would be tough to pull free.
Katie and Phoebe waded up to the taller girl’s chest and the smaller blond dove under to find the rope. It still took a few seconds to find the thick cord in the murky water, but Katie was able to pass off the strong strand. Letting Phoebe, who was taller, pull the length to where she could help pull the craft towards shore, the two then began pulling the boat with the rope. Their feet were set in the soft bed of the channel but the boat began to turn as the girls strained to pull the boat after them.
Paddling to assist the girls in the water, the six soon had the boat close enough to shore that the anchor was forced into the sand in the sandy groove which had begun to fill with water as the tide began to rise. The moon was rising in the east even as the sun continued to fall into the west. Time was getting to be a scarce thing and when the daylight left them, the girls would have no hope of fixing the engine or rotor until morning.
Phoebe noticed Emily searching thru the bag she had brought along which held a smaller handbag. Producing her cell phone, the blond flicked it on with an answering chime of music. After only a few moments, Emily’s forehead knotted worriedly. “I can’t get any bars,” she announced in disappointment.
While the other girls on the boat began searching for their own phones, Katie tripped a set of levers on the housing and forced the motor assembly forward. The shaft with attached rotor lifted out of the water revealing a snarl of seaweed and other plant material. Phoebe waded over taking a look at the mess that had been made of machinery.
As Katie began to pull the weeds free, the other girls began to add announcements of their cell phones having no signal.
Emily walked over to the rear of the boat looming over Katie where she worked at the snarl. “How bad is it?”
“The shaft doesn’t appear bent or broken, but I can’t see everything yet,” the wavy haired blond said glanced up with her blue eyes meeting her friend’s gaze. A slight smile of relief flit across her mouth trying to be encouraging.
Returning the smile with a grim one of her own, Emily stated, “Well, then it’s up to you, because it doesn’t look like we’ll be phoning for help from here.”
“We could try climbing higher and see if we can pick up a signal from there,” Taylor proposed as she lowered her useless smart phone. For all its bells and whistles, the piece of technology was little more than a dead piece of plastic in her hand without a tower to make a connection.
Nodding, Emily said, “Let’s give Katie a minute to see if clearing the rotor will get the engine running again. If she can’t make it start then we’ll send a couple people up to test all the phones.”
Curiosity forced Phoebe to ask, “Do you know much about motors?”
“I’ve helped my dad and brothers with their cars. Dad has a garage. He and my oldest brother Jack run the place,” the girl said with most of her attention on the mess in front of her. “We don’t have a boat but I’ve messed with Emily’s a little bit. Usually I have tools to work with in a garage, so this is a little more challenging. As long as nothing’s broken or bent too much, it’s no big deal.” Glancing up to Emily momentarily, she asked, “Check the first aid kit. There might be a knife or scissors in there. This is pretty tough stuff.”
Her friend did as she was asked while the other girls watched and waited with various levels of patience.
After nearly half an hour and a little help from other hands, Katie managed to clear the rotor of tangling weeds. Despite the run in with both plants and what was guessed to be a hidden sandbar, the blades looked to be none the worse for wear. Using a Phillips screwdriver, the only tool they could find besides the small scissors in the first aid kit, Katie managed to open the cover on the motor and did her best to make sure there was no damage hidden that would ruin the machine even more if it was restarted.
Phoebe watched as the sun continued to dip towards the horizon. Clouds caused the light to scatter looking more orange as the globe fell further and further. She didn’t want to rush Katie knowing that, if the engine was on the verge of failing, only bad things could happen. As it was, if the engine and rotor all worked properly or enough to limp home, it was probably going to be dark while they were on the river. The house seemed very far away.
Turning away from a view that would have seemed beautiful had the circumstances not been so uncomfortable, the tall brunette decided it was time to either get into the boat or return to the beach. She and Katie hadn’t left the water since going in to help pull the craft to shore. Fingers were wrinkled and she could assume that her feet were as well just from the tightening that she could feel on her skin. As she looked past the boat, Phoebe noticed that the tide had indeed been rising. The channel was filling and the beach had shrunk. Their piled clothes were still there and in danger if being washed away by the water climbing the sand.
“I’m going to move our clothes before they’re washed away,” the
girl stated into Katie’s ear as she lay a cold hand on the smaller blonde’s shoulder. Being cold as well, she didn’t even start at the clammy touch.
With a brief nod, Katie turned to look at her and Phoebe noticed that the girl’s jaw was fighting a shiver. She was cold as well, but refused to give up on the engine for fear of stranding them all on the island. “Yeah, if you could move mine to safety, I’d appreciate it. I’m going to want to snuggle into something warm in a minute. It’s getting pretty cold already.”
The taller girl returned the nod with a smile. As she began to walk past the boat and the water slipped below her shoulders again, the breeze caught her skin making her shiver with its passing. The day had certainly taken a turn. It had been in the mid eighties Fahrenheit, so the Americans had said. Phoebe guessed that it was now closer to seventy as clouds began to build in the west. Another rain was coming which was another reason they needed the boat to work and flee for home or they would have to suffer with no shelter.
In the midst of a shudder, Phoebe glanced up the newly filled channel and noticed a strange glint as the sunlight hit the cliff face.
As she climbed from the water and gathered the clothes of all four girls, Phoebe felt movement in the ground as if some giant stone was grinding against the earth. Forehead wrinkling in confusion, the brunette pushed back a strand of hair that fell across her face and looked towards the cliff. She was almost certain that it came from that direction.
Throwing on her shirt for the warmth it could provide after being heated by the sun and being dry, Phoebe glanced back to the boat noting the girls were gathered in the back of the craft. Katie must have been close to finished with what she could do for the engine, she thought.
Instead of returning to the beach or trying to ferry the clothes onto the boat for now, Phoebe let her curiosity carry her up the channel. Following the water inland, the girl found she could ford the water closer to the cliff and only step in to her knees. Quickly, passing through to the opposite side, Phoebe was able to see that the shape of the cliff led into a pocket only about ten feet from one side to the other. The water had climbed the channel and touched the stone of the cliff, but now there appeared to be a doorway where a large piece of the stone had moved away.
As she watched, she noted the opening widening even as the feeling in the ground continued.
Even more curious about such a strange mechanism being hidden on the island, Phoebe moved closer to look inside a darkened chamber. It almost seemed to absorb the day’s light in comparison and the girl found that her eyes could do little to penetrate the darkness within the chamber from where she stood in the daylight that was beginning to wane with the sun but was still much too bright to allow her vision to work at the mystery. All except one thing was hidden from her, a glint of metal flashing back the light of day as she turned her to head to peer into the chamber.
Her mind suddenly reeled with what she believed her eyes had seen. With a big grin suddenly crossing her face, Phoebe turned to run back out of the depression yelling, “Hey, guys, you have to see what I found!”
The other girls hadn’t heard the first cry but by the second all but Katie were moving towards the front of the boat aimed at the island.
“What’s going on, Phoebe?” Emily asked as her cousin exited the hidden opening.
“You won’t believe this, but I think I may have found a pirate’s treasure!”
After a moment of disbelief voiced to varying degrees by the girls on the boat, Phoebe elaborated as she pointed back to the cliff, “There’s a hidden chamber. It opened up all by itself. Maybe it was the water triggering it. I don’t really know, but I think I see a treasure chest inside. Come on!”
The girls in the boat all began to move as one. Such an odd find after the troubles with the boat seemed beyond belief. Katie had to be urged to worry over the engine later.
Emily urged her most, as she said, “Come on, it will just take a moment and then we can come back and try the motor.
Frowning, Katie quickly sighed then complained grumpily as she pushed through the water heading towards shore still shivering, “But I was just about to try it and we really need to pray that it works. As it is, we’ll be lucky if we make it home before dark.”
“We’ll be fine. I just know it,” Emily said positively. “This must mean our luck is changing. If it is a pirate’s chest, we could be making the most important discovery found near Charleston in like a century, I bet.”
Grabbing their shirts as Phoebe had, the older girls paused just long enough to fall a few steps behind Faith and Brook, who were eager to see what the Australian had found. As a group they rounded the obstructive wall, most gasped in surprise at a perfectly squared opening in the stone. It had to be a thing of man’s creation, but it seemed unnaturally brilliant in its operation. How could pirates have possibly invented such a thing of genius?
“Look,” Phoebe pointed into the dark opening and noted a glint flicker within as they stepped towards the mouth of the man made cavern. “See that’s got to be a treasure chest.”
The others caught sight of the flicker and the girls nearly ran full speed to the open doorway eager to find out the source of the reflected light. In a moment their eyes became accustomed to the darkness of the chamber and they could tell that they were indeed looking on a treasure chest.
Battle Mage: Winter's Edge Page 52
