Chapter Four Benny
Four
Benny
Benny felt like her heart was breaking when she saw Gil run off and Aggy chase after him.
From reading Evelyn’s journals, Benny could tell Gil and Evelyn had been close.
Maybe even had a crush on each other, if Benny was reading things right, but now Evelyn was gone, and the others’ lives were completely changed.
The treasure really is a curse, she thought.
Thomas and Laurel had gone off on their own too and were a little ways down the beach whispering intently and comforting one another.
“Wow, what a gut punch,” Zara said. “I feel so bad for them.”
“Me too.” Benny could only imagine how she’d feel if she learned the world had kept spinning and she’d been standing still, and that her mom, who she loved most in the world, was gone and she was alone in the world.
“Can you imagine being the same age for two hundred years?” Zara suddenly remembered Kimble standing there too and did a double take. “No offense.”
Kimble’s face was blank as he said: “Try four hundred, kid.”
“Four hundred?” Zara’s dark eyes practically overtook her face. She seemed to look at the pirate anew. “That is a lot to wrap your head around.”
“Tell me about it.” He ran a hand through his messy mop of blond hair. “It goes by faster and slower than you think.” He looked out at the water. “Faster if you don’t wallow and remember those you lost along the way.”
“But you still remember everything, don’t you?” Zara pressed. “Because my grandmother—who runs the Greenport Historical Society—would love to pick your brain about piracy and life here in the eighteen hundreds.” Zara paused and grinned at Benny. “God, I’m starting to sound like her.”
“Maybe you haven’t noticed, kid, but I am not in the habit of telling anyone how long I’ve been living in Greenport,” Kimble’s voice was gruff.
“My motto has always been, Don’t get attached.
The only person I’ve had a real relationship with in a long while was Evelyn, and she’s been gone a long time too. ”
“You’ve lived on Long Island this whole time?” Benny asked, curious.
The island’s warm sun seemed to settle on Kimble’s face.
“I may have escaped being trapped on the island, but the island doesn’t let you go.
It’s like a rubber band—you can only go so far before it yanks you back.
Doesn’t matter if I’m on land or water. Wherever you happen to be when you take the treasure, is where you remain till the treasure is returned. ”
“How far away have you gotten?” Zara played with the rope bracelet on her wrist.
“New York City,” he said, his expression clouding over.
“I was looking for someone. I wasn’t there long.
The rest of the time I’ve been on the North Fork.
All four hundred years.” A wrinkle formed between his eyes.
“I don’t even remember my birthday anymore.
Who needs one when you don’t age?” His eyes crinkled warmly.
Benny was fascinated, but she couldn’t let herself be sidetracked. She held up Evelyn’s letter. “Do you remember when Evelyn gave you this? You must if you had it on you.”
He held up his left arm and showed her three red strings wrapped around his wrist. They looked worn and dirty.
“I do. Only because the kid—I called her ‘kid’ even when she was older than I was—made me come up with a system so I wouldn’t forget.
I use strings now for everything.” He frowned at one on his wrist. “Though I might have forgotten to do this one.” His blue eyes were shining now, taking on a glow Benny noticed all the immortal kids had too.
“Evelyn was emphatic that I put the letter someplace safe, and there’s nowhere safer than the wooden memory box on my boat.
I’ve had the same one for almost two hundred years.
” He looked smug. “Whittled it myself, actually. I’m a pretty decent wood-carver. ”
“Carve anything in Greenport we’d recognize?” Zara asked hopefully.
Kimble fidgeted slightly and dropped eye contact. “I…no. Low profile, remember?”
From all her time watching her favorite cop show, Lawyered Up, Benny could tell he was lying. “Back to the letter,” she pressed. “Did Evelyn give you just one? Or are there multiple letters? More diary entries, maybe?”
“That’s all she wrote, kid,” Kimble plucked a piece of bark off the palm tree he was leaning against and bit on it like it was a toothpick. “Why?”
Benny deflated slightly, her shoulders tensing. “Usually, she’s given me a riddle and a diary entry that explains what was happening in your time. Her time. Eighteen twenty-five.” Benny’s head hurt trying to keep things straight. “This letter tells me nothing. I need a clue to start this new game.”
Kimble nudged Zara. “Is she always like this?”
Zara looked Benny’s way. “I’ve only known her a few weeks, but I’d be this anxious too if my family fortune was at stake.”
“Fortune?” Kimble’s brow furrowed once more, the frown on his face deepening.
“Evelyn left Benny her estate,” Zara said before Benny could explain. “The house, the vineyard business, the inn and resort. All of it. If Benny found the island and saved everyone.”
Kimble’s expression darkened. “Ah. I see how it is then.”
“No,” Benny said hurriedly. “I mean, yes, I want to inherit what Evelyn left me, but it’s more than that now. Evelyn is family. Breaking this curse and saving all of you from this treasure was her dying wish.”
“Saving.” Kimble scoffed. “As if you kids could do that.”
Benny stood up straighter. “Evelyn was my age when she learned I was the key to ending this curse. Look at the game and inheritance she grew so I could do this. I wouldn’t count me out.” Benny thought she saw the hint of a smile under that grumpy facade of his.
“Fine,” Kimble placed a hand in one of his pockets. “Then you should know the treasure has a name—Tesouro Eterno. It means eternal treasure.”
“Tesouro Eterno,” Benny committed it to memory.
“Now…back to the letter.” She waved it in the air again as Aggy and Gil approached, arm in arm.
Laurel and Thomas were rejoining them too.
“Why wouldn’t Evelyn give me a clue to start me off?
If this new game is to lead to another piece of treasure, I need a way to find it. ”
“Benny?” Gil interrupted. “Forgive the interruption, but did you notice the gold stamp on the back of the parchment?”
Benny flipped the page over and noticed a very tiny gold mark on the bottom right corner of the page she had failed to see earlier. “Is that a beetle?”
“It’s a dragonfly,” Gil said, smiling softly. “Sparrow loved them. Said they meant courage and good luck. She is the only girl I know who loved bugs.”
Benny tried to think of anywhere she’d seen a dragonfly at the inn. She couldn’t recall a single spot. “Does the dragonfly mean anything to either of you?” she asked Aggy and Kimble.
“Hate big biting things,” Kimble said with a shudder. “Bug spray is the world’s best invention.”
“Bug spray?” Gil repeated, confused.
“I’m afraid Evelyn didn’t share everything with me,” Aggy said apologetically. “I warned her not to since she wasn’t the only one looking for the missing treasure. If our correspondence fell into the wrong hands…”
Benny paused. “You wrote to each other?”
“I meant, her letters to you,” Aggy backpedaled.
Still, her right eye twitched. Interesting, Benny thought.
“Who besides Axel Rudd and Ryan are after the treasure?” Zara asked. “Do any of you know?”
The others shook their heads, but Benny couldn’t help but notice Kimble, Aggy, and Gil looked guilty, just like most characters on Lawyered Up, or as if they each had something to hide.
This wouldn’t work if they couldn’t trust one another.
She was going to have to do some digging.
“I think our best bet is to start by finding something with this dragonfly symbol on it. Maybe Evelyn hid a riddle at the house. And another diary entry. There are two missing.”
“Evelyn had a diary?” Laurel asked.
“Yes, she wrote about everything that happened leading up to when the island disappeared,” Benny explained.
“With the first game she left me, every time I found a new clue, I got another diary entry. Though,” she remembered, “there are two entries that seem to be missing. I’m not sure what happened to them. ”
“Any chance Evelyn gave you the entries for safekeeping?” Zara asked Aggy.
Aggy’s face held an air of mystery, but she smiled when she said, “I’m afraid not, but if she did, I would tell. We are family, after all.”
Zara inhaled sharply as she turned toward Aggy. “How’d you know we’re related?”
“You have a certain Bishop quality to you,” Aggy said matter-of-factly. “Just as I can see Evelyn in Benny, you, Zara, have a certain fire to you that is very Bishop.”
Zara grinned and pushed a wayward curl off her face. “You hear that? I have Bishop qualities! Wait till my grams hears this.”
“No! You can’t tell anyone about any of this! The island. The treasure.” Kimble’s voice was sharp. “The fewer people that know what’s happening, the better.”
Benny felt uneasy. What about Ryan? Who had he told about the treasure?
Who would he tell? His dad was Harris Gale, who was dating her mom, and Ryan had said something about Harris having money trouble.
Was that why Ryan wanted the treasure too?
Now that Axel Rudd was with him, Ryan would have a leg up with someone from 1825 by his side.
“These familial connections are odd, no?” Thomas puzzled. “The fact that Benny is related to Evelyn and you are related to our Aggy. That can’t be a coincidence.”
Kimble looked at each of them curiously. “I think not.”
Benny felt a sudden chill. There was a reason.
For all of this. She just didn’t know what it was.
She focused on the problem at hand. “I know learning the truth about how long you’ve been trapped here is overwhelming, but you should all come back with us.
” Wally wouldn’t mind. She’d have to figure out a way how to explain things to her mom.
Aggy started to protest, while Gil, on the other hand, seemed curious.
“At least if you’re off the island, we know you can’t get trapped here again,” Benny explained. “We have no idea how long the island will stay visible, do we?” She looked at Kimble for answers.
“A fortnight. At most. Starting on the Blood Orange Moon so…” He opened the compass Benny had just reunited him with. “Our clock started tonight.”
A fortnight. Two weeks. Her back was up against the wall again. She appealed to Aggy. “You can help us decipher Evelyn’s letter. Show us around her house. It’s not the one she grew up in, but the attic has all her old things and—”
Aggy reached for Benny’s hand. When they touched, Benny’s arm tingled.
“Someone needs to stay here and protect the treasure right now. Plus,” Aggy glanced back at Laurel and Thomas, heads close together, talking quietly.
“I can’t leave them, and I know they won’t set foot in a world like yours.
Not unless they know they can age and be free. ”
Benny felt her heart crack all over again. She looked at Zara, who was equally pained. “We understand, but we really could use your help—you knew Evelyn better than any of us.”
“Gil knows Sparrow as well as I do,” Aggy said with a knowing smile. “And it would be good to have someone from our time, other than the captain, go with you.” She nodded to to Gil. “You should go with them to Greenport.”
Gil’s eyes lit up for a moment, then dimmed. “I don’t know… I don’t want to leave the rest of you behind.”
“You’re not,” Aggy said decisively. “You’ll be a good aide to Benny and Zara. There is no one more trustworthy than you.”
Benny was pretty sure she saw Gil falter when Aggy said that.
“Alright,” he agreed. “I’ll come. I might be of assistance in finding these clues you speak of. I played many a game with Sparrow. And then, when we find this dragonfly”—he turned to his friends—“we will find the missing treasure and leave this island together.”
“Great!” Kimble clasped his hands together. “What are we waiting for? Let’s move. Evelyn has one coin for sure that I know of.” He paused. “There are more out there, however. I’ll deal with those.”
“How many more?” Benny asked. “What’s missing?”
Kimble sucked his teeth, thinking. “You find what Evelyn is hiding, and let me do the rest, kid,” Kimble said evenly. “Once I can get ahold of...I mean, every last piece is accounted for, I can place them back in the chest, and then this curse of immortality should lift from all of us.”
Curse of immortality. Now wasn’t the time to bring up the fact that not everyone would see immortality as a curse. All Kimble had to do was watch one vampire movie, and he would see there were many people who would kill to get ahold of a treasure such as this. Was this the danger Evelyn meant?
“We’ll rendezvous at the cave entrance in Greenport in a couple of hours to discuss what we’ve found out,” Kimble instructed them.
“To the cave!” Zara said, reenergized, beckoning Gil to follow. He stopped to hug Thomas and Laurel, then followed quickly. Kimble was right behind him.
Benny hesitated. She could sense people were still holding back—Kimble, Gil. Even Aggy. She could feel Evelyn’s best friend staring at her. Aggy was studying her the way Benny usually studied others.
“Go ahead,” Aggy said, as if she anticipated this moment. “Ask me what you want to know.”
Aggy really did have the gift of sight. Benny pressed her hands into her thighs, afraid. “Why did you tell Evelyn I was the one who could break the curse?” Winks wound her way around Benny’s legs. “I know she and I are related, but I still don’t understand why I’m the key.”
Aggy’s mouth ticked up ever so slightly, as if she was biting back a smile. “I can’t tell you that. But I promise the answer is coming soon enough.”
Everly—
This diary entry was written before the Blood Orange Moon, but I didn’t want you to read it before you found the island. Now that you have, I think you’re ready to know the danger finding the island brings. All will be clear soon, I promise.
With deep love and respect,
Evelyn Terry