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Sixteen

Benny

Present Day

The rain only got worse. The meteorologist called it a very early tropical storm for the season. High winds snapped power lines, brought down trees on roads, and caused the lifeline of Wi-Fi to be on the fritz. Ten inches of rain fell in two days. People canceled their reservations at the inn, unable to get the east end of Long Island by car, train, or even helicopter. Local travel was tough too, with Benny’s mom sticking close to home to be with her rather than Harris, who she said was busy dealing with leaks and flooding at his area businesses.

Getting to an offshore lighthouse was out of the question in this weather. Benny could see the whitecaps on the water from Evelyn’s room, the sky so thick and gray, Benny wondered if they would ever see the sun again.

Not till after the Blood Orange Moon , she thought. Which is in three days.

Three days.

Three days to get to the next clue waiting in the lighthouse and whatever clue came after that. She found herself cursing the fact Evelyn hadn’t numbered the riddles—what if there were ten more? What if there were twenty? She wouldn’t make the deadline if that were the case.

Benny tried to focus on the new journal entries. She’d received two more with this riddle, giving her insight on Captain Kimble’s immortality, the treasure that seemed to keep him young—that he was itching to get rid of—and the island itself. Benny was starting to believe there was a reason the island had never been discovered. What if it only appeared every two hundred years around the Blood Orange Moon? It didn’t seem logical, but neither was a fountain of youth. So if the island only appeared every few hundred years, did that mean it was out there right now if Benny only knew how to find it?

She wished Evelyn would tell her. She hadn’t written a letter with this clue, just the riddle. To try to make sense of it all, she’d written out Post-it Notes with all the information she had so far. Maybe she was missing something.

“Knock-knock,” Mom said, coming and standing in her doorway. Benny knew immediately from the way she was dressed (silk top, heels, earrings, and her “fancy” jeans, as she called them), her mom was on the way out. “How’s it going?”

“It’s not,” Benny said slumping down on the four-poster bed she loved way too much and burying her head in the expensive pillows. “I’m stuck.”

“You? Stuck? Never.” Mom sat down beside her and rubbed her back. “What’s the issue? I thought things were going well.”

“They were,” Benny told her pillow. “But now the weather is working against me.” She wanted to be honest: I am so stressed out over finding the next clue in time so that we can keep this house and everything that comes with it that I’m not sleeping, and I don’t know how to tell you that because you look the happiest you’ve ever looked and Harris seems good for you, but I’m scared this is all going to disappear in three days like Evelyn’s island, and I can’t fix this. But she couldn’t.

“I can’t change the weather, but I can cancel my plans.” Her mom rubbed her back. “Whatever it is, we can figure it out together. Remember what Grams always said when we had a problem?”

“ You know more than you think you know ,” they both recited.

“I’ll cancel,” Mom decided. “The weather is too awful for a lunch at a fancy restaurant anyway. We were going to Hooked. Have you heard of it? Harris is a part owner.”

“Really? I though the Rudds owned it.”

Mom shook her head. “I don’t think so. Harris said he had a stake in it.”

Benny sat up. “How many restaurants does that guy own?” Ryan must be rich , Benny thought.

“Five,” Mom told her. “But he said Hooked is the finest one. They apparently have a burrata dish on the appetizer menu that is to die for. But I can have it another time.” Her mom’s smile faded. “I know time is running out to finish Evelyn’s game. I should be here helping you, not going out on dates, pretending I have a different life.”

Benny felt her heart constrict. Three days. Three days. Three days to win the game and find the island. Could she do it? Would having Mom here help at all?

Just then her phone buzzed:

ZARA: SOS! Get here ASAP! I’ve got intel!

It was followed by an address. Intel?

Aggy.

You know more than you think you know. Maybe Grams was right. Had Zara figured out what happened to Aggy? Would that help them find the island? “You should go to lunch,” Benny decided. “But can you drop me off somewhere on the way?”

“Of course,” her mom said her smile returning.

Twenty minutes later Benny’s mom was pulling up in front of a blue Victorian house with a wraparound porch a few blocks away from Greenport’s main street. The paint was chipping off the shutters, and the porch looked worn but inviting, with a swing, potted plants, and a sign that said, GRANDMA’S RULES APPLY HERE .

Zara flung open a loud porch door as Benny got out of the car. “Get in here already! You need to hear this!”

Zara was waving her in like she was trying to medal in a track race. She had on a band concert tee that she’d frayed at the arms and cut jagged lines into the waistline of. Since they’d seen each other two days prior, she’d also drawn tattoos on her right arm. They looked like a map.

“Come on. Come on. You have to hear this. Grandma? GRAMS? Where are you?” Zara called, walking into the house ahead of her. The house smelled like cinnamon and had the air-conditioning on full blast. Benny rubbed her arms to keep warm. Loud jazz music was playing in another room.

“You call your grandma Grams too?” Benny asked, thinking of her own grandmother.

“Yes. Was your Grams also into listening to Alexa at full volume and obsessed with reading every biography ever written?” Zara asked.

“Yep. They might be the same person,” Benny said, and Zara smiled.

“Alexa! Stop!” Zara shouted.

Benny heard Zara’s grandmother groan as she came shuffling into the room wearing a turtleneck sweater. “Zara, I may let you keep your phone in your room at night, and buy you unlimited Oreo packages so you can sample every flavor even though your parents told me not, but I thought we agreed you wouldn’t shut off Alexa on me.” She saw Benny, and her expression brightened. “I see our museum explorer is back.”

“Her name is actually Everly Benedict, but she prefers Benny,” Zara explained, helping her grandmother to the sofa. “Tell her what you told me. Tell her!”

Her grandmother pursed her pink lips. “Stop shouting at me and fetch the family Bible. I’ll show her.”

Zara did as she was told, bringing over a very old-looking book with frayed edges. She placed it in her grandmother’s lap. Her grandmother put on reading glasses.

“The Agatha Bishop you found a portrait of in Evelyn Terry’s attic is one of our ancestors,” Zara’s grandmother told Benny. “She is the daughter of Alice Bishop, an only child whose mother later remarried and had another daughter, also named with an A. Her name was Abigail.”

“Tell me that is not weird?” Zara asked Benny, her brown eyes ablaze. “That you’re related to Evelyn, and I’m related to Aggy, and we both met right before the next Blood Orange Moon?”

It is weird. Is it a coincidence or something more? Benny wondered.

“What’s the Blood Orange Moon got to do with any of this?” Zara’s grandmother demanded.

Benny and Zara both stiffened. “Nothing,” they said in unison.

“Show her the Bible,” Zara pressed her grandmother.

“Zara, really, I told you these things aren’t an exact history,” her grandmother huffed, opening a very old leather book that looked like it had been stitched back together more than once.

“Just show her,” Zara insisted.

Her grandmother sighed. “Every birth, death, and important union in our family history has been recorded in our family Bible,” her grandmother explained to Benny. “But unfortunately, in Agatha’s case, only her birth date was recorded.” She flipped through the records till she found Agatha’s name and pointed it out. Born April 18, 1812 . The date she died wasn’t written down.

Benny noted all the other names and dates on the page. Only Aggy’s didn’t have a death date. “Why didn’t they enter date she died?”

“As I told Zara, they simply could have forgotten to record it. And then perhaps the knowledge of when she died wasn’t passed down to the next generations,” Zara’s grandmother explained. “I did some digging of my own and found town records, one of which listed Agatha as having died of pertussis in eighteen twenty-five. Hundreds of residents died that June. They called it the Cough back then, but its real name is whooping cough.”

“Evelyn left me pages from her journal, and they mention people getting sick, including Aggy,” Benny told her. She couldn’t believe Aggy died. Evelyn must have been devastated.

“Whooping cough could wipe out a whole town in those days,” her grandmother said. “Medicine was hard to come by and expensive, and there was no known cure. Many sought out alternate treatments.” She smiled. “I’m proud to say Zara and my ancestors—Agatha’s mother and aunt—were healers, practicing homeopathy and eclectic practices. They helped the community back then. Many women practitioners did the same, but the Bishop family was known for being a tad unusual in their treatments.”

“People thought they were witches,” Zara said, her eyes sparkling with mischief. “Because they didn’t understand their methods.”

“They were not witches.” Her grandmother tsked. “They just used methods not known to most at the time.” She pursed her lips. “Though I have heard talk in our family that the Bishop women had the gift of sight.”

Benny felt her heart start to pound. Evelyn talked about Aggy having the gift of sight. That’s why her and Aggy had fought too, because Aggy saw something happening with the Blood Orange Moon and she wouldn’t tell Evelyn what it was. Just that she’d be leaving soon. So did that mean Aggy ran away? Or had she known she was going to die of pertussis? She thought again of how Evelyn thought Kimble was immortal. “Is it possible Aggy didn’t die from whooping cough?” Benny asked cautiously.

Zara’s grandmother looked pensive. “It is certainly possible. Public records were written by hand, and mistakes happened.” Her grandmother patted the Bible. “Which could explain why her death at that time or in the future isn’t recorded here.”

Benny thought for a moment. Axel reported missing. Aggy’s death shrouded in mystery. Aggy’s gift of sight. She had a feeling this all had something to do with the island. Benny felt her heart beat faster. You are going to go on a big adventure, Guppy , Grams said, and she’d been right.

Things were coming together in a way Benny couldn’t begin to describe, like whispers on the wind. It was the game, but it was more than that. She could call it fate, call it luck, but the things that were happening were no accident. She owed it to Evelyn to see it through. Reach the end of her story. The lighthouse was the next step. “Thank you for sharing this with me.”

Zara’s grandma smiled. “I hope it helps with the project you’re working on.”

Benny looked at Zara quizzically.

“For summer extra credit,” Zara said pointedly.

Benny caught on fast. “Yes, it does,” Benny said with a smile.

Zara’s grandmother rose. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a date with Alexa to listen to Miles Davis.” She raised an eyebrow at Zara. “And I’ll listen at any volume I want.”

“You and Miles have fun,” Zara said. “Benny and I are going to visit the lighthouse.”

Her grandmother’s eyes flashed. “No, no, no one is going out on a boat out in this weather. We’re in the middle of a tropical storm!”

“ Remnants of a tropical storm,” Zara reminded her. “We’ll be fine.”

“You sound like your parents, who go off in pursuit of pirate lore and leave me here with teenagers who don’t listen,” her grandmother muttered.

“But, Grams, we have to go,” Zara tried. “Benny’s, er, project is due on the twelfth.”

The sound of rain hitting the porch interrupted the conversation. It was pouring again.

“No one is going anywhere this afternoon by boat,” Grams declared. “We may need a boat to get through this town if this rain keeps up.” She looked out at the porch, now barely visible in all the rain. “I’m not even sure how we’re going to get people to the gala at the lighthouse in this weather. If Vivian Rudd’s hair gets wet on her ride over, I’ll never hear the end of it.”

Zara groaned. “Gramsssssssss, pleasssseeeee.”

Benny put a hand on Zara’s grandmother’s arm. She had experiences with grandmas too, and arguing was never going to get them anywhere. “You’re right. We’ll go another day.”

Satisfied, her grandmother headed back to the other room, where she promptly told Alexa to play Miles Davis at full volume.

Benny grabbed Zara’s arm and pulled her out on the porch, where the air was warmer, sticky, and hot. “She’s never going to send the historical society boat out in this. We have to get there another way.”

Zara sighed. “’You’re right. Maybe we can hire someone down at the docks. The Crab, aka Ansel, is always doing private fishing charters. He’s probably expensive though. Maybe Ryan can float us a loan. He’s going to want to come with us anyway.”

Benny felt odd asking to borrow money. “We’ll tell him to meet us at the docks in the morning. And don’t worry about the money. I’ve got a few hundred dollars saved for an emergency,” Benny said. Normally an emergency constituted rent. Food. Gas. But if they found this island, she wouldn’t need to worry about those things or where Mom’s next paycheck was coming from. “Hopefully that will be enough. One more thing.” Benny pulled Aggy’s pendant out of her pocket. “I think this belongs to you. After all, you and Aggy are family.”

“No.” Zara shook her head. “What if the charm is a key to the game and you don’t know it yet? Keep it.” She smiled. “Till you win the game.”

Benny smiled now too. Outside, the rain was stopping. “Till I win the game,” she repeated, and that’s when she heard a meow.

In the walkway was an orange tabby. It stared at Benny intently, watching them, seemingly listening to their conversation. Benny had a sudden chill.

“Hey, is that the cat from the docks?” she started to ask, but when she turned back to point the cat out to Zara, it was already gone.