Chapter 10
The pain medication had mostly done what it was supposed to do. Lark could still feel the dull, throbbing ache behind her eyes, but it had been reduced from someone-is-driving-a-nail-through-my-skull to something considerably more manageable.
Which was good because she had decided to go to the island, anyway. Perhaps it wasn’t the smartest decision she’d ever made, considering she’d recently demonstrated a remarkable talent for injuring herself simply by standing up beneath a table.
But staying home meant thinking. Thinking about the gala. Thinking about Bradley and Wren. Thinking about her mother. And, increasingly, thinking about Hoot.
The island offered none of those things. Well, hopefully none of those things.
The boat bumped gently against the island’s muddy bank, and Lark carefully climbed out, one hand gripping the side for balance.
“Easy,” she muttered to herself. The last thing she needed was another concussion.
Thankfully, this one didn’t seem too severe.
Though pain was present, she was relieved that nausea was not.
After making sure she’d securely tied up the boat, she retrieved her supplies and carried them toward the Liberty Bell.
The miniature bell was beginning to take shape.
Hundreds of pennies covered its curved surface, their coppery colors catching the late-afternoon sunlight.
She’d spent countless hours figuring out how to construct it without allowing the weight of the pennies to collapse the framework beneath them.
It was going to be beautiful.
She set her tools beside the bell and stood back. Something felt wrong. Frowning, she looked around the island. Nothing appeared different. The trees were still there. The creek flowed steadily around the island. Birds called from somewhere across the water. The breeze rustled through the leaves.
Everything was normal. Except she couldn’t shake the feeling that something had changed.
She walked around the bell, checking the framework.
Everything was exactly as she’d left it.
No missing pennies. No damage or vandalism.
That was a relief. She’d worried someone might think her installation was some sort of ridiculous eyesore and decide to destroy it.
Or rob from it. But the bell was untouched.
So what was bothering her? Lark picked up her tools and tried to work. For nearly an hour, she concentrated on attaching pennies to one of the lower sections. One penny. Another. It continued, one after another, transitioning into an almost effortless, mechanical flow.
Her headache throbbed, and she paused to look around. That feeling was still there. Something wasn’t right.
“You’re being paranoid,” she told herself. The medication probably wasn’t helping her concentration. She tried getting into the work again. Five minutes later, she dropped the tool.
“Nope.” She couldn’t work like this. She stood and stretched. “If something’s bothering me, I might as well figure out what it is.”
She began walking. She’d explored nearly every inch of the island when she’d first chosen it for the installation.
It wasn’t large. A few minutes of walking could take her from one end to the other.
She knew where the ground dipped. Where the trees grew thickest. Where the brush was dense enough to hide a rabbit.
Nothing should have surprised her. Yet something did.
Lark stopped, staring at the patch of earth beneath the trees that looked different.
Recently disturbed. She crouched. The dirt had been dug up and then packed down again.
Not perfectly. But enough that someone had clearly tried to hide the disturbance. Lark’s pulse quickened.
“What the...” Her first thought had been pirates had buried their treasure here, but she laughed it off. There were no pirates in the Blue Ridge Mountains.
She brushed away a little dirt with her fingertips, spotting a footprint. Then another. Several shoe prints. She sat back on her heels, ignoring the ache that still throbbed in her head. Someone had recently been here.
She glanced toward the river. No boat or person in sight. Nothing.
Aside from her earlier thought about pirates, her imagination immediately supplied other possibilities.
Had some teenagers decided this was a good spot to party?
Maybe someone had buried something. Or perhaps something had already been buried here, and someone had come to retrieve it. But what? And why here?
Lark stood. She slowly scanned the surrounding area. Her eyes caught on something in the brush. A piece of wood. She pushed through the branches and retrieved it. It wasn’t just a scrap. It looked like part of a crate. A thick wooden slab, broken jaggedly down one side.
Lark brushed dirt from the surface, then stopped.
There was a symbol burned into the wood.
Or what remained of one. A circle. Inside it was part of what looked like a helmet.
Not a modern military helmet. Something older.
Medieval, perhaps. A helmet with a narrow opening across the front.
Lark tilted the piece toward the fading sunlight.
Only half the image remained. The rest of the board was missing.
She turned it over. The other side was blank. She looked around again. Maybe the other piece was nearby. She searched the brush and came up empty. She checked beneath fallen branches. Still nothing.
She walked several yards in either direction, scanning the ground. There was nothing else.
The symbol kept nagging at her. It looked familiar. But she couldn’t place it. “Where have I seen that?”
Her gaze returned to the disturbed earth.
The buried thing. The rest of the crate.
The broken symbol. The footprints. A shiver traveled down her spine.
This wasn’t normal. She couldn't brush it aside as simply teenagers having a good time.
That symbol was far too sophisticated for a teenager to possess.
Besides, if it had been teenagers, she expected to find beer cans and other partying paraphernalia. There was none of that.
She looked toward the river again. The sun was sinking lower now, turning the water orange and gold. Lark sighed. “Great.”
She had no idea what she’d stumbled across. And she had no intention of finding out alone after dark. She tucked the broken piece of wood into her bag. She’d bring it back to town. Maybe Marilyn would recognize it. Maybe someone at the historical society would know something.
Maybe it was nothing. Probably nothing. If only that thought brought her a greater feeling of certainty.
Lark headed back toward the bell, gathering her tools as she went. She glanced once more over her shoulder. The disturbed patch of ground was already becoming difficult to see beneath the lengthening shadows.
She shivered. Something had happened on this island. Something she hadn’t noticed before. And for the first time since she’d chosen it as the perfect place for her Liberty Bell, Lark wasn’t entirely sure she was alone out there.