Lost Pirates

by Jamie Hawke

  Despite all his protests over the years, Frank loved that his grandfather had always been there for him and considered him both smart and helpful.

  One of his professors had called Frank a Renaissance Man. While he wasn’t entirely sure he agreed with that, it sounded a hell of a lot better than “misfit,” which was how he felt most of the time. It was like that in his life, too—spread out. He was acquainted with a lot of people but they weren’t friends.

  Except Grandpa… the man who was gone.

  Frank quickly looked around his grandpa’s room, taking in every detail, trying to focus on the good times.

  His eyes landed on a couple of old multi-colored glass lamps that sat on a dusty bookshelf. The lamps were switched off, as always, and Frank wasn’t even sure if they still worked. He walked over and pulled the tiny brass chain on one of the lamps.

  Nothing.

  A hint of a smile formed at the corner of his mouth. That was just like Grandpa—collecting broken and unwanted memorabilia, especially the kind that no one seemed to want to remember anymore.

  He turned to the shelves lining the side of the room. Most of the books were already in boxes and the only things still out were odds and ends, the fragile bits that even Frank’s father was hesitant to just casually toss in the trash. For all the talk and legitimate disapproval, his dad still respected and loved Grandpa, and knew that these things weren’t just souvenirs—they were treasured by the old man.

  Frank picked up a wooden mallard from one of the middle shelves. It had been a relic of the room for as long as Frank could remember, and it had never been far from anywhere his grandfather spent most of his time. Frank caressed the mallard, rubbing a thumb over its one remaining marble eye.

  He’d never understood why his grandpa kept this thing. It was old, but it looked like it had been hand-carved by someone who barely understood the craft. Rough sections of unsanded wood had been smoothed over time, but he could still feel the numerous imperfections on the bulky object. And it was marked up with random squiggles and letters all around its base. Some of the letters were carved into the duck itself, scratched there using a knife or some other sharp object, but other sections of the wood featured inked markings. Many of the ink stains had faded off over time, making the words unreadable and indecipherable. It had to have some kind of sentimental value to Grandpa, but he’d never thought to ask, and Grandpa had never shared what it was. Like Grandpa himself, the history of this thing was gone forever.

  Frank placed it back on the table but then paused, realizing he’d set the duck on his grandpa’s old treasure map.

  The map had been fun when Frank was younger. Believing an old man’s stories of lost gold and treasure of immeasurable value was great when he was ten, but that excitement had worn off long ago. Frank smiled, remembering a cold afternoon sitting at his grandpa’s side and sipping a ginger brew while Grandpa told him tales of a pirate king who had amassed great treasures and ruled the seven seas. The way the old man’s eyes would crease and sparkle when he told those tales, Frank had always felt there was something deeply personal about his stories. Maybe just memories of his own father or grandpa, telling similar tales? But it had always seemed so close, so real, the way Grandpa told it. It was almost like there were parts of the story he wasn’t telling. Something he kept only for himself.

  It was this map, though, and his grandpa’s insistence on the existence of some legend called the Pirate King, that had kept Grandpa from ever being much more than a low-level professor in his career. He had spent thousands of hours and every dime he could get his hands on in pursuit of artifacts, documentation, and anything else he could discover, all in pursuit of the Pirate King. The community laughed him out of a career, forcing him into retirement and dismissing him as a nuisance.

  Dad had always seen him as being somehow senile or crazy. “Serves you right to lose your job over this garbage,” he had said once. “Can’t you see how this has ruined your life? And mine? Did my mother leave because of this obsession?”

  It was the only time that Frank could remember his grandpa getting truly angry at his dad, or anyone else. There had been a lot of yelling and arguing, and a lot of threats. And in the end, Grandpa had stopped talking to his dad for almost two years.

  This map had caused so much grief in his family, but it had meant everything to Grandpa. And now, Dad wanted to just toss it out like garbage. Maybe Frank could save it somehow.

  He was about to start rolling the map up to sneak it back to his room when he noticed something odd. The wooden mallard was sitting on a corner of the map, in an open section of sea that appeared to be just the right size for the duck’s base. He noticed that some of the squiggles and markings on the base of the mallard matched up with some of the squiggles on the paper. Where one line or symbol on the mallard ended, the same line appeared on the map.

  Frank turned the mallard so that the symbols lined up better, shifting the wooden duck slightly on the old paper. He watched as every line on the duck’s side, whether drawn, scratched, or carefully carved, had a counterpart in ink on the old map. He noticed that some of these symbols actually combined to form letters, turning what was once gibberish and nonsensical scratches into coherent words that read:

  IRON AND INK ALONG THE SHORES

  WILL MAKE YOU THINK THE WORLD IS YOURS

  Frank felt his heart pounding as he read the phrase. He had no idea what it meant—but the mere fact that it existed was unbelievable! How many times had he and his grandfather looked at this map, as Grandpa told him story after story? How many riddles had Grandpa described, as he told stories of pirate treasure and daring heroes and courageous damsels?

  And now, here was a riddle, hidden in plain sight.

  He couldn’t let this stuff get thrown out. What else might reveal some secret? What if his grandfather had kept something hidden all this time? There was something else there. He turned on the light attached to the magnifying glass on his grandfather’s desk. Peering through the polished glass, he turned the mallard so that the light filled the dimple at its base:

  Fe

  Those letters. He’d seen them before, though he wasn’t sure where. It took a moment, and then he had it. He knew exactly where he’d seen those letters, a million times. A quick glance around confirmed—over by one of the lamps sat the old, weathered brass compass his grandpa had always worn like a pocket watch. He was always stroking it absently when in deep thought, and Frank’s dad had made fun of it for years.

  “No one carries a compass with them wherever they go, Dad,” his father had said.

  “You never know when you’re going to need a little direction,” Grandpa had said, smiling and ignoring any and all jibes.

  Frank picked up the compass now, and turned it over in his hand, rubbing it as his grandpa had. There, etched into the brass and fading with age, were the letters “Fe”.

  Frank had always assumed they must have been the first two letters of a name, long-ago rubbed to obscurity.

  But now that he saw those same letters on the mallard, he wasn’t so sure.

  Could it mean something? Was it a clue?

  A puzzle?

  He laughed at himself. This was just like old times. Grandpa would tease him with riddles and puzzles for hours when he was a kid. And somehow, they always led right back to this old treasure map. And here he was again. His grandpa was gone, and he still, somehow, was playing the same old tricks, the same old game. It was kind of perfect, really. Frank found himself wanting this—it was the closest he could get to having his grandpa back.

  “Ok,” Frank said aloud. “One last riddle, Grandpa.”

  He brought the compass to where he was studying the map and the mallard, and he studied the two of them together.

  Just like the map and the mallard, Frank had seen this compass a million times. He’d held it in his hands, had opened it and studied it with Grandpa as they had navigated in the woods, on camping and hiking trips. All this time, he’d st
ared at this little brass object, and had never really seen it.

  Until now.

  It was like seeing a camera come into focus. In one moment, the compass was exactly as it had always been—some old, brass piece of junk. But as he studied it alongside the map and the mallard, it was like seeing those “hidden image” pictures. Suddenly, without quite knowing when it happened, an image became clear.

  The compass had some of the same symbols as the mallard. And they matched with more symbols on the map. This meant that his grandpa might not have been just a crazy, treasure-seeking old man after all.

  With a glance over his shoulder to make sure his dad wasn’t watching, Frank placed the compass on the circle of squiggles and characters on the map, aligning those on the compass to the pattern. As he turned the compass to make the characters match up in a way that made sense, he noticed something that didn’t make sense at all.

  The compass needle kept itself oriented north as Frank turned it to line up the symbols. But “north” wasn’t north.

  When Grandpa had first moved into this room, Frank had sat with him for a while and listened to the Pirate King stories again. And during that conversation, Grandpa had handed him the compass, as a sort of visual aid for the part of the story where the hero was navigating through rough seas, trying to find a place called “Stone and Hammer.” At the time, Frank was pretending to actually be the hero, and he’d been “navigating” by moving the compass around, holding it in the palm of his hand, and noting where the needle pointed. North, then, had always and only been in the direction of the large window of his grandfather’s room.

  At the moment, though, it was suddenly to the left of the window.

  Frank looked closer, and noted that the north point of the compass rose—the little multi-point star that indicated north, south, east, and west on the map—was currently oriented in exactly the same direction as north on the compass.

  As a test, Frank picked up the compass and saw that the needle moved instantly, reorienting itself to actual north, in the direction of the window. He then placed it back on the map, and the needle moved again to point to north on the map.

  He turned the compass while keeping it in contact with the map, and the needle remained constant and insistent in its direction, always pointing in the direction that the map indicated as north. He even moved the compass to the other side of the compass rose, and the needle dutifully reoriented and pointed back to the ornate letter “N.”

  What the fuck is going on?

  He moved the compass again, testing to see how far the effect could reach. Would the needle always point to North on the map, as long as it was in contact?

  But as he slid the compass across the weathered parchment of the map, the needle began to move, and occasionally bounce. And, at one point, it quickly turned in a new direction, away from North, and pointed to a gnarl of coastline.

  Frank looked closer and noticed that the needle was pointing firmly at some of the text. A group of letters:

  AFT

  In nautical terms, “aft” meant the back of a ship. More or less. Frank had learned some nautical terminology by osmosis, as Grandpa had told his stories. He moved the compass again and watched as the needle moved. As he made progress around the map he noticed that the needle would orient on key words or just random combinations of letters and numbers. He shuffled through some of his grandfather’s things and found a pen and notepad, and began jotting down whatever he saw when the compass reacted.

  It took the better part of an hour, but as he scribbled on the notepad, a complex pattern of characters was starting to grow. Some made sense as whole words, such as “aft.” Others seemed random and felt as if they had no pattern at all.

  Along with the characters themselves, Frank began noting their coordinates on the map. There were numbers running along each side of the map, forming a grid. It was the first time he’d noticed this, and it was a bit confusing. As far as he knew, this sort of grid-like system of dividing a map hadn’t been invented until maybe the 1800s, and this map supposedly predated that. But it came in handy nonetheless. Frank backtracked to place six-digit coordinates next to each character set he found, using the notation system Grandpa had taught him.

  Finally, with one last scratch of the pen, the work was done, and Frank placed the notepad, the compass, and the pen in a neat arrangement, oriented next to the map. He sat back and studied what he’d written.

  “Rose stems from Stone and Hammer,” he read it aloud, seeing if that would trigger anything. Nope. He had no clue what it meant.

  He picked up the compass again and saw the letters “Fe” once more. What was it about those letters that was so familiar? It had bugged him before, but it flat-out nagged him now. It had been because of those letters that he’d started messing around with the compass and the map in the first place. That’s when he’d discovered that the needle was orienting itself to characters on the map. How did it do that, exactly?

  Unless…

  Frank turned and scanned the room, and then sprang forward. His grandfather’s old steel filing cabinet dominated one corner of the room, and it was festooned with novelty magnets. There were magnets in the shape of states—every place in the US that Grandpa had visited over the years. Frank took hold of the large Texas magnet and brought it back with him to the map.

  He took a breath, and then slowly lowered the magnet until it was hovering just an inch or so above the map. He lowered it a bit more and …

  Suddenly the map bowed upward as if straining to reach the magnet Frank held in his hands. “Fe” was the periodic symbol for iron. And that explained a lot. Iron could be magnetized. It could also be ground up and used in ink—could this map contain traces of magnetic ink that was attracting the compass needle? Nothing else made sense.

  This time he lowered the compass to the map, and then followed the coordinates in order, letting the compass guide him. As he did, each one triggered the compass, causing a light red glow that increased in brightness with each coordinate, until with the fourth it became clear there was a bright light shining within.

  Frank was beside himself with excitement but was now able to see the switch at the side, highlighted so that he was able to locate it and open the top of the compass. Within was more than a simple compass: there were gears and symbols he didn’t understand, but also a roman numeral one at the edge. Two main circles formed the center, both seemingly mobile. When he moved them so that they overlapped, the light focused and, from the bottom, projected a map through the base of the unit.

  “What the fuck…?” Frank said, moving the compass so that the projected map fit the other one perfectly. Now there was a destination displayed, marked with a stylized X.

  Then, letters seemed to hover between the map and the compass, like a hologram. They read:

  Level One: Accept?

  He stared, baffled and intrigued. There was no way in hell he wasn’t going to see where this went. With a trembling hand, he reached out and touched “Accept,” and the words vanished immediately, replaced by a whirring from the compass.

  The whirring sound grew louder and the entire room lit up. A few sparks shot out from the device, and little wispy tendrils of smoke spiraled into the air, then began to swirl in a series of concentric circles, like the rings on a target.

  He felt the sensation of spinning, but when he tried to reach his hand out to stabilize himself it wouldn’t move. He was locked in place, staring directly at the map on the desk. The sparks grew in intensity, and the light quickly engulfed the room and his vision. He felt like he was in the center of an exploding firework, but there was no pain or heat.

  He screamed and closed his eyes, waiting…

  “Dad!” Frank shouted. “DAD!”

  But the sparks continued and the room kept spinning, until finally—

  Silence. Stillness. Darkness.

  2

  Nothing moved. He couldn’t hear anything.

  Frank realized his eyes were s
till closed. He opened them to see it was indeed dark, but little sparks floated in the air nearby.

  Sparks? No, not… They weren’t sparks. They moved around, blinking, as if they were alive somehow. They were...

  Fireflies!

  He leaned in close, amazed. He’d never seen fireflies in real life, and here they were everywhere. One landed on his outstretched hand, then took off into the air again. It blinked away and joined the circus of lights that surrounded him. It was all so magical, so insane.

  Where am I?

  A low purr sounded, seemingly not far from him. It was a faint rushing sound, a crashing.

  Waves.

  His eyes adjusted more to the darkness, lit up further by the fireflies and stars above him. The dim moonlight shone on palm trees that swayed gently in the night breeze, and in the distance, the purring—water—sound ebbed and flowed in time with his breathing. He thought he could hear the low sound of distant music playing, but couldn’t be sure. The sound of the water was making it difficult to pinpoint other sounds. But it seemed to come from off to his right generally.

  Confused, surprised, and not a little scared, Frank decided that “toward the music” was as good a direction to go as any. He stumbled toward it through thick foliage and over uneven ground. He was tinkering with the compass still clutched firmly in his hand. It wasn’t heavy or bulky. It was small enough to fit into his cargo pants pocket, so that’s where he put it. He knelt, checked his laces, and then made his way toward the strange sounds not so far off.

  As he grew close, there was no question that the sound he’d heard was music. It quickly rose over the sound of the waves, but both grew louder as he cleared the tree line and neared the shore.

  I’m on a beach, he realized. And there’s someone singing. A gentle glow lit the sky just above the horizon, casting an orange backdrop to the fireflies’ display in front of him.