by Otto Schafer
“The survey marker? My God, man, do you two even go school? It’s right on the square on Jackson Street. Actually, one street over from where we are now.” He looked at each of them in disappointment. “Across from the old middle school? You guys probably walked over it a hundred times.”
“Well, how would we know?” Lenny asked.
“I don’t know, Lenny, maybe the metal plate embedded in the sidewalk or, wait, maybe the big-ass sign next to it that says the Survey of Petersburg on it,” Pete said, shaking his head.
“You know what, Pete, just because I don’t spend my time sitting around a basement studying the history of—”
Achoo, came a muffled sneeze from across the room.
The boys froze.
“What the hell was that?” Lenny whispered.
Garrett stood slowly. “Guys, we’re not alone.”
16
The Find
Present day
Oak Island, Nova Scotia
“Paul, go up to the pit and radio your brother and get him down here! Tell him we made the greatest discovery of all time!”
Breanne wanted to open the chest so badly that the next hour of careful photography and measurements seemed like a dozen hours. “Dad, what do you think is in it? The Holy Grail? The Ark of the Covenant?”
Smiling, her father said, “Could be.” Then, pulling a deep breath of the cool, damp air, he nonchalantly placed a hand on the chest. “You know, Bre, I don’t think we will ever fully understand how this place was designed to conceal whatever is in that chest, but you have to appreciate what we can see. Think about it, these Templars somehow created a tunnel that led down to the bedrock. Then they carved through it to gain entry to this natural cavern. They create this elaborate way to ensure the cavern stays flooded, and that if anyone digs down to this place, the man-made swamp, acting as a giant reservoir, floods their hole, making it impossible for anyone to discover it. Now, add to that, they somehow knew if they chiseled into the bedrock they would hit an empty cavern in which to hide their treasure. All these years, people dig and drill and search, and each time they hit floodwater or bedrock – never knowing the treasure lay beneath the bedrock and that the entrance was almost impossible to find. Even with modern technology, we couldn’t pinpoint a hidden cavern over 150 feet underground and below bedrock. Everything they did was so precise, so purposeful in design. How? How could they know?”
Her father looked at her expectantly as if she might enlighten him, but she was as baffled as he was. Finally, she said, “And we can’t forget, nearly two hundred people helped to construct this, then died to keep secret whatever is in that chest.”
Her father nodded his agreement and stared at the knight, scratching at his beard.
Breanne followed her father’s gaze, saying what her father was probably thinking. “If only you could speak… the secrets you could tell.”
Over the next ungodly long hour – during which, much to Breanne’s dismay, they still didn’t open the chest – they performed a perimeter search of the cavern. The search, conducted only with flashlights and helmet lights, yielded no other points of egress in or out of the cavern. Additionally, no other pieces of evidence or items were discovered in the room. Finally, after all the photography, measurements, and surveying were completed to their father’s satisfaction, he announced he was finally ready to remove the chest.
The Moores would be using a portable winch system to pull the chest up the slope. “I’m not as worried about the slope as I am about getting the chest off the pillar and onto the pallet,” their father announced.
“Pops, I am sure whatever is inside this chest, Ed and I can handle.” Paul looked at his brother, who nodded in agreement.
“It isn’t that. Remember Mexico? I set off the booby trap.”
Paul and Edward instinctively stepped back from the chest while their father inspected it.
“How can we be sure?” Edward asked.
“We can’t be one hundred until we pick it up,” Paul said.
“The altar appears to be a giant piece of stalagmite that they repurposed by chiseling it down flat to about three feet tall to allow enough room for the Templar Knight and chest to sit on. I don’t see how they could have booby-trapped a piece of existing stalagmite formed right from the floor,” their father said, closely inspecting the stalagmite altar.
As her brothers prepared to lift the chest, Breanne was directed to go back up the slope and wait in the tunnel, just in case. She tried to convince her father to at least wait by the slope with her in case the whole place came down like in Mexico. She knew that her athletic brothers stood a decent chance if forced to run, but her dad didn’t. Of course, hardheaded Dr. Charles Moore was not leaving their side, insisting he be present when the chest was lifted. So she went to the slope, waiting and watching, and when her father was engrossed, she crept back over to a smaller piece of stalagmite and crouched, staying just inside the shadow’s edge with her helmet light off.
Her brothers did some light stretching, and Paul slapped each thigh a few times. The two acted as if about to square off against each other in a wrestling match. Posturing, she thought. Just pick it up already! Finally finished with their macho-boy ritual, they were ready. They carefully positioned themselves on either side of the altar and began cautiously sliding the chest towards the edge. As they all held their breaths, the sound of scraping metal on stone echoed throughout the cave as they reached the edge of the altar and paused. The brothers looked apprehensively into the empty eye sockets of the Templar Knight. The knight stared back vacantly.
Nothing happened.
“Pops, do you think he was alive when they sealed and flooded this place?” Paul asked in a whisper, nodding up at the knight.
The three men paused.
His father answered in a low whisper. “No. He was placed here after death, after his body had somehow been prepared to stay rigid. I can’t tell through the robe. I still don’t know how they got his bones to stay fixed like this. Some type of wire maybe?”
“Why would they do that?” Edward asked, also speaking softly, as if trying to be careful not to wake the sleeping Templar Knight as they attempted to steal his chest right from under his nose.
Breanne rubbed the back of her arms, hugging herself. No different than the tomb of a pharaoh, she thought.
“Maybe he is here as a warning or as a guardian of this chest, or maybe this was his treasure and this is his tomb. When you think about it, this place really isn’t much different than how you would expect to find an ancient Egyptian pharaoh or a Mayan king entombed. The application may be different, but we could be looking at something very similar here,” their father said.
She grinned to herself.
“Alright now, let’s do this.” Grinning with uneasy excitement, Charles raised his voice back to its normal volume. “Alright, boys, on my count – one, two, three… lift!” They lifted the chest off the altar, straining with every muscle fiber to keep from dropping it. Realizing they could not hold the heavy load long, they quickly squatted down, plonking the chest onto the skid with a loud thud.
“Easy, easy,” their father said, checking for damage. The brothers froze, their eyes darting all around, waiting for something and prepared for anything. They expected at any moment to hear a low rumble and to feel the earth beneath them begin to shake. As the moments passed, the men dared to exhale and venture a look into the vacant eyes of the Templar Knight. The hollow black sockets stared back, expressionless, as nothing happened.
Once Breanne was sure her family was safe, she let out a relieved breath and retreated back to the base of the slope and shouted, “Everything okay?” as if she had been there the whole time. Then she flipped on her headlamp and crossed the distance back to her family.
“Yep! We’re good. Okay, let’s get her out and get her open!” her father said, climbing onto the pallet with the chest. “Bre, take her away!”
Her brother tossed her the winch contr
oller, and she toggled the up button. “Engaged!” she announced as the skid jerked, then slowly began to slide across the cavern floor with one Templar treasure and one archeologist father.
“What?” her father smiled. “I need to make sure this baby stays secure until we get to the top of the slope. We can’t risk any errors with a priceless treasure now, can we?”
“Sure, Pops, right. You hold the hundreds of pounds of treasure secure. Wouldn’t want the one-mile-an-hour winch to throw it off the pallet it’s strapped to,” Paul teased.
Edward laughed. “At least we solved the mystery of how Pops planned to get back up the slope.”
17
Eavesdropper
Present day
Petersburg, Illinois
“That came from behind the middle row in the fantasy section,” Pete whispered with assurance.
Lenny rose from his chair silently.
“Who’s back there?” Garrett demanded as he and Lenny slowly worked their way around the bookcase from either direction.
Silence.
Pete hung back at the table, quickly gathering his notebook and other supplies and hastily packing them into his backpack in case he needed to make a run for it.
The boys’ apprehension grew as they crept closer and closer. Garrett and Lenny locked eyes with each other in one final confirmation before springing around the corner from both sides.
A petite girl with black-rimmed glasses and brown hair cut in a bob sat on the floor, leaning back on the bookcase. Her knees were pulled to her chest, and the heels of her Chuck Taylor tennis shoes were pulled up to her butt. She wore a V-neck sweater and a long plaid skirt covering her knees. She looked up from a book. “Heya, fellas.”
“Janis? What are you doing back here?” Garrett asked, recognizing the girl from one of his classes.
“Well, what most people do here, I suppose. It should be kind of obvious from the book I’m holding, right?”
“Why didn’t you say something? I’m sure you heard us, right?” Lenny asked, narrowing his eyes at the girl.
“Um, I was kinda back here already when you guys came down and then, well, um, yeah, I kinda overheard your secret thing. And I admit, as you guys kept talking I kinda became interested, and then, well, it kinda of felt too late to get up and be like, ‘hey I’m here,’ so basically, I was kinda waiting you out… but, yeah… then I sneezed,” Janis said, scrunching her nose.
Just what he needed. He already had Jack to worry about, and now this. “Listen, Janis, you need to just forget what you heard, okay? Can you do that? Can you keep a secret?” Garrett asked.
“Um, sure, I guess so. But it might be better if I could help. I’m really good at research, and maybe if I can look at the journal with you guys, I can help you solve it?”
“Garrett, can I talk to you for a minute in private?” Lenny asked.
“Sure.” Garrett turned to Janis. “Be right back.”
As the two boys stepped across the library, Janis looked at Pete, who up until this very moment had stood mesmerized by the realization this mystery person behind the bookshelf was Janis.
“Hold up, Lenny, look,” Garrett whispered, pointing carefully back towards Pete and Janis.
“Oh, this is going to be good,” Lenny said in a low voice.
“Hi, Pete,” Janis said.
“Hell-hi-o, Janis,” Pete said, flapping his hand back and forth in the kind of wave a toddler gives a stranger at the grocery store.
Janis laughed and gave Pete a kind smile. “You’re funny. I have you in a few classes, right?”
Pete nodded, using his opposite hand to pull the other unruly appendage back down to his side.
Janis stood, holding her book to her chest as if giving it a long, tight hug. “Yeah, you’re smart… for-real smart. I just overheard you explaining your theory of that journal you found. You figured all this out by yourself? That’s so cool – you could be some kind of detective or investigator or something.”
Pete smiled dumbly, his face reddening by the second.
“Jesus, he looks like he is going to burst into flames,” Lenny whispered with a smirk.
“Why is he staring at her chest?” Garrett asked, wishing he could elbow his friend.
“Probably wishes he could be that book.” Lenny laughed. “If he doesn’t find her eyes quick, he’s going to blow it.”
“Thanks,” Pete managed finally. “I see… you, um… read.”
“Yeah, I read.” She giggled, then glanced down at her book. “Oh, this? It’s Quantum Sorcery, Druids, and Earth Magic: A Complete Guide.”
“Interesting,” Pete blurted.
“Hah, well, it’s interesting. Not my normal jam, but I am researching for a book report. Now, the Keepers of the Light. That sounds important and far more interesting. I can help you research that if you want?”
“I’ll, um… don’t go back, uh… in just a sec. I mean, um, don’t go. Stay here. I mean wait here… I mean I’ll be back.”
Janis giggled.
Pete hurried over to where Garrett and Lenny were pretending to not be paying attention.
“Here he comes,” Garrett said, tapping Lenny with the back of his hand. “Pretend like we’ve been talking.”
Lenny nodded. “Like I said, just get rid of her. She doesn’t know where the tunnel even is.”
Garrett rubbed a hand over his face. “But she knows way too much, man. She knows where we got the journal and everything. She heard us explain the whole thing to you, and then she heard Pete’s theories on everything. Crap, man, she even knows about Jack. This thing is getting out of hand. We need—”
“I’m keeping her,” Pete interjected.
The two boys turned to Pete.
“I mean we’re keeping her… I mean she’s in.” He stole a shy glance back towards Janis.
“What? What the hell are you talking about?” Lenny asked.
Garrett’s lips twisted into a smirk.
Pete stepped closer to the two boys and whispered with an uncharacteristic authority, “We are keeping her. She is going to help me research. She’s in. I’m bringing her in. I need her for my research.”
“Garrett, are you sure this is such a good idea?” Lenny asked with a skeptical glance towards Janis.
“Lenny, man, I’m not sure any of this is a good idea, but we’re in it now. And you heard him. He needs her for his research. Decision made.” Garrett slapped Pete on the shoulder.
Pete let out a relieved sigh.
“Janis, can you come over here for a second?” Garrett asked.
“Sure, you fellas done deciding my fate?”
“Listen, Janis, Pete here convinced us to bring you in, and because we trust him, we’re going to trust you too. But you have to pinky swear with all of us right now that you won’t tell a soul about this. Agreed?” Garrett held out his pinky.
“Well, of course.” Janis locked her pinky into his, then, holding a piece of her skirt in the other hand, she promptly curtsied. “I swear. I won’t tell a soul.” She repeated the process with Lenny, then finally Pete.
Garrett watched Pete hold her pinky as if it was the first pinky he’d ever held, the first girl he’d ever touched, and knew it just might have been. His friend didn’t let go and, oddly, Janis made no attempt to let go either, so the two stood there, pinkies locked.
Garrett looked to Lenny and grinned. “And then we were four.”
18
The Find
Present day
Oak Island, Nova Scotia
The sun descended off the western coast of Oak Island little by little, as if being softly quenched into the ocean. In its wake remained only a faint auburn glow on the horizon; soon it too faded, like a fleeting afterthought, chasing the setting sun into the evening-blue abyss. Darkness followed as clouds crept across the late-evening sky, the harbinger of a moonless night.
The Money Pit lay vacant, cast into dark anonymity. Its only occupant still knelt on one knee atop a stone altar
where it had been for hundreds of years, surrounded by absolute darkness and deafening silence.
Topside, however, was a bustle of excitement and energy. The chest sat under the field tent, washed in artificial light from a tripod work light. The entire family and Jerry gathered round for the reveal. It was time to open the chest.
“Even after all these years covered in stagnant swamp water, the chest is still in phenomenal condition. It’s almost like the water preserved it,” Dr. Moore said.
“I don’t understand why it wasn’t like that for my cross?” Paul asked, having taken to calling it his cross.
Breanne snapped a photo, then let the camera fall back into place around her neck. She pulled her folded field journal from the pocket of her cargo pants and began scratching notes, an excited smile stretching across her face.
“Yes, good question,” her father said, kneeling and examining it closely. “The wood is not the same. This is some species of rare wood, probably acacia. It’s bound together with—”
“Acacia?” Breanne asked in disbelief. “You know what you are saying, Dad?”
“Yes. I know,” he said with a smile.
“Well, I don’t bloody know! Care to enlighten me?” Jerry asked.
“I’m not sure, but look at it. An adornment of golden bands, and through the bands are staves of wood. It’s similar to the biblical account of the Ark of the Covenant.”
“The Ark of the Covenant? Charles… I… Bloody hell, man!” Jerry said, slapping both hands against his face.
“Settle down, Jerry. I said similar. According to the Old Testament, the Ark of the Covenant was built by Moses to hold the Ten Commandments handed down to him by God. Could this be the Ark of the Covenant? I’m not certain.”
Breanne walked around it, snapping more photos. “I don’t see some of the features I would expect to see based on the Bible’s description of the Ark. For example, the mercy seat was supposed to be a solid golden lid, complete with the two golden statues of cherubs on either side, but this lid doesn’t seem to fit the description. The size measures a little larger than the biblical account at approximately three feet wide by two feet tall and two feet deep.”