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Twenty-Three

Benny

Present Day

The fog thickened by nightfall, making the short bike ride into town a bit spookier than Benny would have liked. Thankfully the rain had stopped for the moment, even as the wind picked up. The sky was practically orange as she biked through the wet streets to get to Hooked. The fog was heavier by the water, making it too easy to walk right off the pier into the fog without realizing it. She didn’t even see Zara till she was right in front of her. She had her hood pulled up on her raincoat, flashlight in hand. The lights inside Hooked were on, but Benny didn’t see anyone in the windows.

“Is Ryan here yet?” Benny asked, keeping her head down to keep warm. The wind whipped around them.

“No.” Zara rubbed her arm to keep warm. “The last of the workers just left while I was standing here. I heard him say a pipe burst and flooded the kitchen.”

“Really?” Benny asked. “I assumed the flood was from the weather.”

Zara shook her head. “Nope. For once, something has nothing to do with the Blood Orange Moon. Unreal though, since Hooked just reopened this summer after an extensive renovation. How could a pipe break already?”

That is weird , Benny thought. It made her think of something Sal said to her at his diner back in Boston: When business is slow, I think of flooding this place and collecting the insurance money. Would Harris do something like that? Why would he need to?

Benny heard a meow and looked down. It was that one-eyed cat again. The tabby meowed at her feet, clawing at her sneakers. “You should not be out on a night like this,” she said to the cat. “Go home.” The cat sat down on her sneakers and looked up at her, its tail switching. Benny sighed. “Suit yourself.”

“Anyway, what is bad timing for Hooked is good timing for us.” Zara bounced on her toes. “If Ryan would just show up and we could get inside. I’m freezing, and it’s going to pour again.” A gust of wind threatened to topple them both.

“Did you try the door?” Benny asked. “Maybe someone is still in there and it’s open.”

Zara grinned. “Why didn’t I think of that?” She tried the door, and it opened. The cat scurried off, and they hurried inside. A river of water soaked the hardwood floor, splashing as they walked. “Ryan? You here?” There was no answer.

That’s weird too Benny thought. Where was he? Maybe she was just being paranoid. He was as excited about this next clue as they were. He’d show up. He was probably waiting for his dad to leave to sneak out.

Benny looked around. The restaurant’s vibe was nautical and pricey. Hooked was one large room, with massive windows overlooking the water. The walls were painted navy and accented with paintings of sailing vessels and large artsy pictures of shipping knots. The flooded floors were a shiny mahogany. Someone had placed the chairs on the tables to prevent them from getting ruined. A stack of china dishes sat on the bar.

“What a mess,” Zara said.

“If up here is flooded, do you think the room below is too?” Benny worried. There was the sound of rain again hitting the roof, followed by a flash of lightning.

They raced over to the bar. It looked like the front of a ship. Zara stepped behind the bar and shone her flashlight on the wet floor.

“Where’s the trapdoor?” Benny sloshed through an inch of water and spotted a rubber mat. She lifted it and saw a small gold latch over a square of wood. “Bingo.”

“Are we going to go down there without Ryan?” Zara asked.

“I don’t know if this can wait,” Benny said. “He knows where to find us.”

Zara dropped down behind her. “I’ve heard about this storage room my whole life. Half this town was built during the Prohibition Era, so there are a lot of these secret storage rooms.”

Benny tried turning the latch and pulling, but it was so tiny, she couldn’t get a good grip. “It must pull open, but not with this latch.” She felt around the board, pressing her hand on different areas till she suddenly heard a click.

“You got it!” Zara exclaimed. The wood lifted a smidge so that Benny could get a grip on the panel and pull it open. Water rushed inside the opening and Benny prayed there wasn’t more below. The wood creaked as she pulled the small door open and peered into the darkness below. The air smelled musty and damp. She clicked on her flashlight and saw a ladder. “I’m going down.”

“I’m coming with you,” Zara said, shining her light on the dark quarters below.

Thunder boomed, louder this time, a storm moving in as Benny started her descent. Zara was right behind her.

The room wasn’t very deep. In seconds Benny was on the wet ground. Thankfully there was only an inch or two of water down there so far. The air was much cooler, and the room was larger than expected, so much so that Benny couldn’t even see the other end of it in the darkness. She shone her flashlight around. The walls were rough, as if they were chiseled out of rock, and it was deathly quiet, the sound of dripping water the only thing she could hear. Much of the space was empty, which worried her. What if they were wrong about the riddle? Zara came into view, her flashlight’s beam shining in Benny’s eyes.

“Sorry! I hate to sound like Ryan, but it is creepy down here.” Zara shone a light on the nearest wall, and Benny saw wooden shelves, a few still with very dusty bottles on them. “Where is he anyway? It looks like no one has been down here in a while. Ryan!” Zara yelled up to him. “Are you here? This place is creepy!” The room echoed, which meant it was larger than either of them knew, but it felt like a tomb. Benny tried not to think about that fact.

“If no one comes down here, that’s a good thing,” Benny said, scanning the bottles, looking for something that might be out of place. She pushed a large cobweb out of the way. “That means no one found whatever Evelyn hid.” Where could you have hidden something important? Benny wondered, her heart beating faster.

“Hopefully,” Zara moved around the room. “If she put something down here, then we have to hope a bootlegger didn’t find it. This building may have been here when Evelyn was alive, but remember, afterward the Rudds bought it and people used to boat in under this pier to pass crates of bottles through a secret window.”

“Why would Evelyn sell Hooked to the Rudds?” Benny wondered aloud. If they didn’t get along, why would a sale like this even come about?

Zara’s flashlight landed on a small window. “It doesn’t make sense. They didn’t trust each other, so why sell to them unless she had a good reason? Unless she was hiding something under their very noses.”

“I wouldn’t put it past her,” Benny admitted. Evelyn seemed to think of everything. “Do you see a window anywhere? Isn’t that what they used to take shipments?”

“Yes.” Zara’s flashlight stream moved around the room. “My parents said rooms like this existed even during the height of piracy, so there has to be one under here. Even in the 1800s I’m sure people were doing deals they didn’t want anyone to know about. They’d use a secret password and knock to get someone to open the window and make the trade.”

Where was the window? Benny spun around, searching in the darkness. “Which means the window has to be relatively large, right? If they were passing crates through? And it can’t be underwater, but we are in a building on a pier, which means this room is probably half on land and half on the water…”

“We just need to find the wall that overlooks the water, and I’m all turned around down here.” Zara spun around.

Benny tried to be brave and walk farther into the darkness to find the other wall. She walked slowly, until she hit a wall and shone a light on it. There was the window. “Found it!”

Zara hurried over, and the two shone their lights on the window frame. It was warped and splintering from years of neglect. Dirt and grime, cobwebs and spiders had taken residence in the glass panes, but it was there, a window out to the water that was just below the waterline under the dock. Benny’s heart started to pound.

“Evelyn would have thought to place something in a wall that wouldn’t be disturbed till my time so she might have thought a window frame in a hidden room wouldn’t be disturbed,” Benny guessed, running her hand along the wood, looking for something out of place. She felt a vibration in her pocket and thought it was her phone. She pulled the item out of her pocket and realized it was the compass. It started to spin wildly, then stop, its arrow facing the window. Benny inhaled sharply.

“Okay, that’s weird, right?” Zara asked, her voice hushed.

“Very,” Benny agreed. “I think something’s here. Shine your light on the frame while I check this out.”

Their beams crossed, and they slowly moved their lights down every inch of the frame till they came to a place on the left side that looked like a black smudge, splintered and chipping away. Benny peered closer. It wasn’t a smudge at all. It was a stamp. Of a sparrow. “Look!”

“It’s the same bird that was on the pouches in the clues!” Zara said excitedly. “I can’t believe Ryan is missing this. Ryan! Where are you?” she shouted. “We think we found something!” She suddenly screamed. “Okay, something just ran past my feet.”

Benny tried not to think of rats. “Ignore it! Something is behind this wood,” she said, trying to focus as her heart beat faster. “Help me pull the frame away.”

The two pulled at the wood around the window, struggling to get a grip, even though the wood was old. Benny turned around, found a bottle opener on one shelf, and tried to use it to pry the wood till a piece sprung free. She hammered at it, kicking up dust that made them cough. Finally, she heard a crack, and they pulled the splintered wood away. Benny couldn’t believe her eyes. Her hands started to shake.

Inside was a familiar-looking pouch.

“Is that what I think it is?” Zara asked quietly.

Benny pulled the pouch out, her heart fluttering, her lips dry. The pouch had a black bird stamped on it too. Inside was only an envelope. She read aloud what was written on the front.

For Everly Benedict: Here enclosed is my final journal entry. Read this and finish the game. If I’m right, an entrance to the island should be here in this very room during the time of the Blood Orange Moon.

Get to the island. Save them.

Finish this, and do what I could not in my lifetime. I have faith in you.

Benny got the chills. Quickly, she broke the seal on the envelope with trembling hands and pulled out the final pages.

“Read them aloud,” Zara said with urgency, shining her flashlight on the pages.

Benny held her own light steady and began.