Page 12
Nine
Benny
Present Day
“You know why my deadline is June twelfth? Really ?” Benny stared Ryan down. Was he bluffing or telling the truth? While she’d taken to Zara a bit too easily, there was something about Ryan that made her put her guard up. Benny didn’t want to reveal her cards or show too much interest. She knew how to play the game. Knew when to speak and when to be quiet.
“You have to find the missing island by June twelfth, or Evelyn’s game is over,” Ryan said with confidence.
Benny rolled her eyes. “Tell me something I don’t know.” She grabbed her bag.
Zara blocked her path. “I’m sorry, did he just say ‘missing island’? How can an island go missing?”
Benny and Ryan looked at each other and she wondered if he knew any more than she did. She had to be careful with her next words. “It can’t.”
“If you believe that, then you’ll never find it,” Ryan told her, his voice even. “But you must want to. Otherwise, why would you visit the museum? You’re looking for intel on Evelyn, aren’t you? She left you riddles, right?”
“A riddle. In her letter,” Zara said knowingly.
Ryan’s eyes widened. “What’s the riddle?”
Benny wasn’t sure she wanted either of these people knowing. She didn’t know them. Which meant she didn’t trust them, even if she was starting to warm up to Zara. Evelyn had entrusted this game to her, and she was meant to play it alone. Wasn’t she? You were going to partner with Mom , a small voice in her head said. She’s family.
“Tell me the riddle; I’ll tell you why you have a deadline of June twelfth,” Ryan said, his eyes challenging.
She knew the look well. Benny folded her arms and waited. Benny had learned a long time ago that people liked to hear themselves talk. When she made them uncomfortable with silence, they tended to spill more and give her what she wanted. Whether it was an extension of the rent due date or an ice cream cone when she was twenty cents short. Ryan was no exception. “Tell me why the deadline is June twelfth, and then I’ll decide if I want to tell you the clue,” she volleyed back.
“Ooh. This is getting good.” Zara sat down and put her hands under her chin.
“Fine,” he groaned. “June twelfth is the date of the next Blood Orange Moon.”
Benny froze.
Zara started laughing. “The Blood Orange what ?”
“Blood Orange Moon,” he repeated, his expression serious now. “There hasn’t been one in two hundred years, and the next one is due June twelfth.”
“How do you know?” Benny whispered, her heart beating faster. Evelyn’s journal pages mentioned this Blood Orange Moon. Why didn’t she think to google whether it was a real thing? She just assumed Evelyn was referring to a full moon or some sort of made-up storm nickname.
“A Blood Orange Moon is when a lunar eclipse, a second full moon in one calendar month, and an orange moon, which is when the sun and moon appear in the sky at the same time, all happen on the same night,” Ryan explained. “And the next one is June twelfth.”
“That’s a weird coincidence, no?” Zara asked.
Very weird , Benny thought but didn’t want to say. “This moon—was there superstitions around it in the 1800s?”
“Oh yeah.” Ryan nodded. “Farmers thought it was a bad omen. Said they were cursed.”
Cursed. Evelyn mentioned a curse in her letter.
Ryan motioned to the sky. “Traditionally Blood Orange Moons usher in a lot of rain and bad weather, ruin crops, cause strange events…if you believe almanacs. And for some reason, Evelyn Terry wants you to find her island by that specific date. I don’t think it is a coincidence, but I’d have to read your letter to know for sure.”
It wasn’t a coincidence. Benny could see that now. But she was in over her head here. Did she trust these two to tell them more? Zara had already read the riddle. Why was she hesitating with Ryan? You’re being paranoid she told herself. You have to learn to trust people. She made a snap decision. She pulled out the letter. Her heart was beating fast. Ryan’s eyes widened as he looked at the faded page in Benny’s hands. “I’m taking a break!” he called back to the kitchen. “May I?” he asked, nodding to the paper. Benny held it out to him. Carefully, he took the note and read it fast. With the wind picking up, the paper flapped in his hand and Benny prayed he was holding on tight. He handed it back to her and looked at her strangely. “Carrie? Can we get three orders of crab legs? We’re going to be here a while.”
Ten minutes later, after Ryan had a heated conversation with the woman behind the counter, who it turned out was his aunt and the Crabby Carrie (the name fit), the three of them were sitting at a table near the water, and Benny was eating the freshest seafood she’d ever had. And the first crab legs she’d ever eaten. Not that she was telling them that. The other two didn’t notice how hard it was for her to use the tool to crack the legs open. They both had on bibs and fingers full of butter. The food had sated her and she was starting to feel more comfortable around both of them.
“So let me get this straight,” Zara said, cracking open another leg and pulling out the crabmeat. “Evelyn wants you to find an island that doesn’t exist, and if you do, you inherit her fortune?”
“Yes, but…no?” Benny said carefully. “She must have believed the island existed, or why else would she leave her whole inheritance to me? So I have to believe it’s out there too.”
“She’s got a point,” Ryan said to Zara. “If she loses, the Rudds get everything.” He turned to Benny. “Sorry, my dad is on the board, so that part I knew. He’s been showing your mom around.”
“Your dad is Harris?” Benny said in surprise.
Ryan nodded. “He didn’t mention me, did he? Probably talked about my little sister though, right? She lives with my stepmom. Or is that ex-stepmom since they just got divorced? We only get to see her every other weekend now so mostly it’s just him and me,” Ryan said miserably and leaned back in his chair. He would have fallen off if she and Zara hadn’t righted it at the same time. A look flickered across his face she couldn’t read. “We have zero in common except Evelyn Terry’s game.” He bit his lip. “He doesn’t want you to lose. Bad for his businesses so maybe if I help you find the island...” Ryan drummed his fingers on the table. “...he’ll remember I exist.”
Benny tensed. Was Harris a jerk? He seemed so nice whenever Benny saw him, and he treated her mom well, which sounded like the opposite way he treated his kid. “That bites.” Ryan nodded.
“Before you go letting Ryan help you, don’t forget,” Zara butted in. “I’m the one with a grandmother who is a walking, talking Greenport history book. I may have never heard about this orange moon thing, but I know stuff.”
“Just not science stuff,” Ryan mumbled.
Zara brandished her seafood cracker at his nose. “My grams has lots of old papers, journals. She has one from a girl who supposedly went looking for Captain Jonas Kimble’s treasure. Said it was like a fountain of youth. That it could heal her.”
Benny felt the hair on her arms stand up. Treasure? Fountain of youth?
Ryan started to laugh. “A pirate treasure? In Greenport?” He gave Benny a look. “People have looked for Kimble’s treasure for years and never found it. Nothing is here.”
“You say that because it hasn’t been found,” Zara argued. “Doesn’t mean it’s not out there.”
“It’s just hearsay,” Ryan told her. “Just a reason to have a pirate festival every July.”
“Festival or not, Kimble is still a legend in these parts,” Zara said passionately. “Right up there with Blackbeard and Captain Kidd. His ship, the Kraken , was supposedly stolen from the British army, had twenty cannons, was the fastest in the sea, and could carry two hundred tons.”
Benny had goose bumps, but maybe that was from the wind picking up on the water. Dark clouds were rolling in again, and it looked like more rain was coming. At the same time, she could feel the tension in her shoulders unclenching. It felt good to talk about the game. Here were two people her own age who seemed actually interested and—was she wrong here?—wanted to help her. But should she let them? Or do it on her own like she did everything else? She was so conflicted. “So you believe the treasure really is buried somewhere out here?”
“My parents do, so yeah.” Zara nodded. “They think he stole his biggest treasure from his love, who was also a pirate by the name of Grace O’Malley. And in a classic pirate move, she stole that treasure from an actual queen in the British Virgin Islands.” Zara dipped a crab leg in butter. “That’s part of the reason why they’re there this summer. Apparently that treasure was cursed.” Zara shrugged. “If you believe the legend.”
“That’s what they say about Blood Orange Moons—they’re cursed,” Ryan added, just as a large gust of wind threatened to blow several tablecloths off the tables.
Benny didn’t believe in curses. Luck, yes. Curses, no. Then again, she was currently searching for an island that didn’t seem to exist. Maybe she shouldn’t be so narrow-minded. But if there was a treasure, and it was cursed, and on this missing island…why did Evelyn want Benny to find it?
Benny tapped her buttery fingers on the paper tablecloth making grease stains. Treasure. The fact it was mentioned in the first riddle couldn’t be a coincidence. Evelyn knew what a Blood Orange Moon was, and that one was coming, which is why she gave Benny the deadline. Could she really have thought that far ahead? she asked herself. She needed to get ahold of more pages from Evelyn’s journal, but to do that, she’d have to figure out this riddle and find the books.
But did she have to go it alone? It’s okay to ask for help sometimes, Guppy , she could hear Grams say. Her back was up against the wall, and she had a deadline. Ryan and Zara were local and knew town history. Was it against the rules of the game to ask for help?
“Alright,” Benny said, the words feeling foreign on her tongue. “If you two are free, maybe I could use some help.”
“Yes!” Ryan crowed, a bit too enthusiastically, and butter sloshed out of the cups and onto the table.
“I’m in,” Zara said. “I even think I can figure out what book or books you’re looking for. It needs to be published during Evelyn’s time, right?”
“And it’s one of her favorite books?” Ryan asked.
“Yes, but her house has hundreds of books. Thousands! And I’ve tried all the classics,” Benny said miserably. “ David Copperfield, Jane Eyre , Wuthering Heights …”
“But did you look for a book about pirate treasure?” Zara challenged.
“No,” Benny realized and pulled out her phone, quickly googling the words, books 1800s pirates treasure . She gasped. “Oh my god.” She looked at Zara. Treasure Island was written in 1883!
They looked at one another.
Zara stood up fast and grabbed Ryan by the arm. “Let’s go find that book.”
GREENPORT HERALD
June 13, 1825
Weary Greenport Recovers from Blood Orange Moon
By Jake Batteron
The people of Greenport are recovering today from a celestial moon event referred to in the Farmers’ Annual as the Blood Orange Moon. The rare occurrence, said to only happen once every two hundred years, caused heavy rain and flooding. Ernest Cooper’s corn crop was destroyed, ruining his prospects for the upcoming harvest season. Ashley Ford says the wind was so fierce, a tree took out her barn, spooking several horses that have yet to be recovered. Please alert the Fords if any colts are spotted.
Elias Rudd is asking Greenport to be on the lookout for his son Axel Rudd, who disappeared last night during the storm. Anyone who knows of Axel Rudd’s whereabouts may call on Elias Rudd immediately. The Henderson family is also searching for their daughter Laurel, who stepped out to get some air before the weather turned.
As the Blood Orange Moon comes on the heels of a Cough outbreak, it is important to note there has been much confusion, and no word has come yet from many households that may be affected by storm or illness. The Cough has shut down the new Greenport School House for almost a week. Elias Rudd says the Greenport Mercantile will remain closed for the foreseeable future.