Page 14
Eleven
Benny
Present Day
The rain was just starting to fall in big fat drops as the three bikes reached the gravel path at Evelyn’s estate. Benny figured Wally must have seen her riding up with Zara and Ryan because like magic, one of the garage doors opened, allowing them to park their bikes inside. Thunder rumbled in the distance as Zara and Ryan followed Benny into the house from an entrance in the garage.
“Wow. Wow. Wow,” Ryan said as he looked around. “I haven’t been here in forever, but this place is as nice as I remember.” He looked wistful. “I can’t believe it’s yours.”
“Temporarily,” Benny stressed, glancing at the TV that was on in the living room. News 12, a local channel, was on, and the meteorologist was showing the seven-day forecast: All rain. Something about a low-pressure system that was just hovering over the east end of the island. “It all depends on whether I beat Evelyn’s game.”
“Then what are we waiting for?” Zara walked to a bookshelf in the kitchen and started pulling cookbooks off it. “Let’s find those books.”
“I see we have guests,” said Wally, appearing in the doorway with a plate of chocolate chip cookies as if he knew Benny wouldn’t come back alone.
“This is Zara and Ryan,” Benny explained. “They came back to help me find a book that is part of Evelyn’s riddle.”
“I suspected you’d find reinforcement troops in town,” Wally noted. “Would anyone like a freshly baked cookie?”
No one said no to that offer.
“Do these have cinnamon?” Ryan asked, munching away. “I feel like I taste cinnamon.”
“A hint of cinnamon, yes,” Wally said, amused.
“Do you know if you’ve seen a copy of Treasure Island anywhere in the house?” Benny asked Wally hopefully, still tasting the warm chocolate on her tongue. “An old copy?”
“ Treasure Island , you say?” Wally asked. “There isn’t a copy in the library?”
“I don’t remember seeing one,” Benny said, cursing herself for not keeping a list of book titles.
Wally thought for a moment. “Hmm…I must admit, sometimes books walk off with guests.”
The thought made Benny’s heart seize with terror. She hadn’t thought of that before. The house was rented to vacationers. What if someone already had the book? No, it’s here , her gut told her. “But there’s a chance it would be in the library, and I missed it, right?”
“I believe there’s a chance, yes,” Wally confirmed with a gentle smile.
“Lets go find it!” Benny ran down the hall. “Everyone, follow me. Not you, Wally!” she yelled back. “Unless you want to!”
“Waiting on something in the oven, dear. Good luck!” he called back.
“I’ll just take the cookies with us,” she heard Zara say as she and Ryan followed her down the hall to the library.
There was a flash of lightning followed by a gust of wind that made the windows rattle.
“Wow, that’s some storm rolling in,” Zara stopped at a window. “Think this is all from that moon?”
“Blood Orange Moon?” Ryan corrected, looking out the same window worriedly. “Yeah. It probably is.”
Benny didn’t have time to worry about the storm. She switched on the lights as the rain started to patter against the window. All three walls of bookcases lit up, and she, Zara, and Ryan stared at them reverently.
This book is in here , Benny thought, feeling a tingling sensation in her hands. “I never looked for a copy of Treasure Island , so why don’t we each take a wall and see if we can find it?” she suggested.
“You mean the books aren’t in alphabetical order?” Zara asked.
“Are they in any kind of order?” Ryan added.
“I’m afraid not,” Benny said, climbing one of the moving ladders attached to the shelves. “The book could be anywhere.”
Zara put her hands on her hips. “Then I guess we better start searching.”
They got to work, the rain and thunder serving as background noise. Each one of them found books that weren’t Treasure Island , but still seemed of interest. Moby Dick (1851) had no markings inside. Gulliver’s Travels (1726) inspired a lively debate, but there was also nothing of note in its pages. And Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818) sucked Ryan in, who stopped searching and started reading until Zara snapped at him.
“Any luck?” Benny asked, her arms aching after an hour.
“Nothing. Not even a phony door like in the movies, where you press on a book and the wall opens,” Ryan said. To demonstrate, he pressed hard on a book and shoved it, but all that happened was the two books next to it fell off the shelf.
“I was excited to find an early edition of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. But that doesn’t exactly help us here,” Zara was three rungs up on her bookcase ladder, nearing the top. “Some of the books on this shelf are much newer.” She pulled a brown book off the shelves. “ The Hidden Staircase , which is Nancy Drew, was written in 1930 long after Evelyn was gone.”
“My grandma gave me some of her old Nancy Drew books to read,” Benny said wistfully. Look around for the clues , Grams taught her. But what were the clues in this room?
“Maybe the book isn’t here,” Ryan said.
Please be here she thought. She wasn’t ready to give up yet. Benny pushed thoughts of a guest walking off with the book out of her mind and racked her brain for answers. “Alright. Hear me out: What if the book isn’t in plain sight? If Evelyn hid something she wanted me to find two hundred years later, she couldn’t risk someone finding it, right?”
“Right,” Zara agreed,. “So maybe she hid it somewhere she thought you would look. Read the riddle again.”
Benny pulled out the letter from Evelyn. “‘Treasure, the object of this game, waits on an island with no name. Find one or two of my favorite tomes sitting somewhere in my home. Take care to read behind the lines for that first clue, so bound to find.’”
“‘ Sitting somewhere in my home,’” Ryan repeated. “Let’s check the chair cushions!” He lifted both leather chairs, and the cushions didn’t budge. “I don’t feel anything hard in this seat, but we could slice them open and check the stuffing.”
“No!” Benny said. I can’t afford to replace those chairs if he’s wrong . “But maybe there is something to the sitting line.” She walked over to the window bench and started to feel around.
“I’ll keep pressing on books,” Ryan said, running at another bookshelf and sending books flying.
“You do that,” Zara deadpanned and joined Benny at the window bench. “You might be on to something. Many old homes have built-in, and many, pre-war, had hidden compartments.”
A hidden compartment. Benny knocked on the bench. “It sounds hollow.”
Zara grinned. “Which means it’s the perfect place to hide something.” She lifted the top cushion on the bench and frowned. “This is solid on top. We could try to hammer it open though.”
“No,” Benny said again. She wasn’t tearing apart this house if she didn’t have to. “Maybe there is another way in.” She pulled at a piece of wide-lipped decorative molding on the front of the bench, and it snapped off, revealing a hollow interior. She stuck her hand inside. Immediately she started feeling around.
“Anything?” Zara said, sounding excited as she shined her light onto the small opening.
“There could be rats or bugs in there,” Ryan said nervously. “Definitely bugs. We get big water bugs out here.”
And just when Benny was ready to say no, her fingers latched on to something soft, like a pillow. “I’ve got something!” she said, pulling out a sack closed with twine. This is it. This is it , Benny thought as she unwrapped the package.
Two books were nestled inside: Treasure Island and Robinson Crusoe . The brown frayed edges of the leather spines told her the editions were old; the gold lettering had faded, but the titles were clear. Benny’s heart started to thud in her chest.
“Yes!” Zara crowed.
“Holy crap,” Ryan said, stunned. “Wait, what’s the second book?”
“ Robinson Crusoe ?” Benny said, holding it up. “I don’t know this one.”
“Hang on,” said Zara, searching on her phone. “Okay so get this: Robinson Crusoe was first published in 1719, and it’s about a castaway who gets trapped on a deserted island for twenty-eight years before being rescued.”
A strange sensation prickled at the back of Benny’s neck. Rescued? Why did Evelyn pick that book? Is there a reason?
Ryan took the book from Benny and shook the pages. “No letter or note though. You’d think she’d leave one if this was a clue.”
He was right. Benny dusted the book off and felt her heart start to pump wildly as she cracked open the spine on Treasure Island , waiting for a letter or diary pages to fall out. Instead, she found nothing there either. “‘Read behind the lines,’” Benny repeated. “That was in the clue too.”
We’re missing something , Benny thought, flipping through Treasure Island page by page. “Evelyn went through a lot of trouble to hide two books about pirates and deserted islands in this window bench in a room that was original to her house. There has to be a message in here, somewhere.” Lightning flashed, and that’s when she noticed a short sentence on the inside binding in the back of Treasure Island . “Wait! Look!”
Ryan opened the other book again. The same wording appeared in that book as well. “It’s in Crusoe too!” Ryan said, excited.
Zara read the tiny marking. “‘High tide three low tide.’ What does that mean?”
“It’s the time till low tide,” Ryan explained. “It means there are three hours till the next low tide.” She and Zara looked at him. “I know how to read a tide clock. My dad is a boater. He lives by one of these.”
“Greenport is a big fishing village—or was one once,” Zara mused. “This could mean something. But why no letter? How do you find the clue without one?”
“Maybe the books aren’t the actual clue. Just a way to find it.” Benny stood up, feeling like she was closer. She needed to break down what she knew. The books were about treasure and castaways, in the library that had been there since the house was built, hidden away for her to find a written message. It’s a clue meant to lead me to the actual prize, isn’t it? She looked around at the room again, thinking of everything old and new, and her eyes landed on the strange clock on the mantel. She lunged for it and held it up. “Isn’t this a tide clock? It was Evelyn’s.”
“Yes! Let’s move the dials to the numbers in the book.” Ryan took the clock from her. “Maybe if you move it to the exact time as the book…”
Her heart was beating faster now, like the rain that sounded like a stampede. She watched Ryan turn the dials, the little image of a seaport moving with the changing of the time, and then Ryan clicked the numbers into position and pressed in the dial.
As he did, the bottom of the clock popped open. Out fell an envelope.
For Everly Benedict. Enclosed is your second riddle.
Benny swooped down to pick it up, her fingers trembling as she saw the familiar handwriting and the inscription on the thick aged envelope. Carefully she opened it and realized something else was inside: a key.
“What do you think that’s for?” Zara whispered, staring at the small gold key with interest.
Benny was equally intrigued. Her stomach felt like a ship at sea, swooping back and forth. “I don’t know but I’m hoping this letter tells us.”
“Hurry up and read it!” Ryan said excitedly. “And read it aloud.”
His excitement was contagious. Benny cleared her throat. “Here it goes. Everly…”
June 17, 1850
Everly,
Congratulations! You’ve passed my first test.
I knew you could do it. And if you’ve played the game this far, hopefully you’re willing to go further.
Hidden in this tide clock are more entries from my journal. My hope is they will help you understand what happened in those days after I met Kimble and learned about his curse. I say curse because while you may read my story and think, Pirate! Treasure! Adventure afoot! as if we were part of Robinson Crusoe (a book that delighted me in my youth), this treasure I speak of comes at a high cost.
I’m hopeful that by sharing my journal, you will understand why I made the choices I did. There are those who call me selfish for what happened, but even now I choose to think I was brave. Sacrificing everything you love to save what’s most important is not easy. I will live with the choices I made for the rest of my life and pray that by the time you come along, together we will have found a way to right my wrongs.
But if you ask me even now, in my thirties, a mother myself, if I wished Captain Kimble and my island had never appeared at all, I would tell you no. As my friend Aggy once said, some things are meant to be.
I will say nothing more in case this letter falls into the wrong hands, but be careful who you trust, and be mindful of the ticking clock. Time waits for no one, I’m afraid. And as I’ve learned, sometimes the journey is more important than the final destination.
This riddle comes with a tool to aid you: this key.
So godspeed, Everly Benedict, and may luck help you with your second riddle.
Somewhere in this house is a door hidden from view.
Though it has no locks, you’ll need the key to get through.
With much respect and admiration,
Evelyn Terry