by Spear, Terry
“I think I have to project the image in the pirates’ mind, like Roberta did. We have to bring Roberts here where his pirate mates are.” She glanced around the woods.
“You see them?”
“No. Maybe because there’s no sign of the treasure. I don’t know. But, hopefully, when they’re all here, they’ll vanish forever.”
“But how will we be able to convince the pirate to move from our boat to where the treasure is?”
“He’ll want his treasure mostly, and his crew back also. Let’s go have a talk with him.”
Michael took hold of Emily’s hand. “And I thought Armando and Roberta were strange for taking strolls through the swamp together.”
* * *
Michael and Emily had no luck meeting with Roberts’s ghost for the days that followed. On Friday at school, Michael got an urgent message that he had to take his grandmother to the hospital. “Get your mother to take you home!” he whispered to her, then hurried out the door of technology class. That afternoon, he called Emily back. “Granny’s being admitted for a bout of pneumonia. I won’t make it back in time to take you home from school. We’ll have to postpone our trip to Asheley’s Restaurant for our date this evening. I’ve got to go, but make sure your mother picks you up from school. Don’t ride the bus!”
“Sure, Michael. I will.” But her mother had already taken sick leave to be with Emily the day after she collapsed in the school cafeteria. New at the job, her mother couldn’t afford to leave work early again this soon.
Emily gathered her books after the last class. Michael’s premonition would come true. She’d face Red and Rocky after they got off the school bus. But at least Daniel and Kevin were out of the picture, still in jail pending murder charges. She could handle just two of them on her own.
When she headed for the bus, Red and Rocky watched her. The sharks readied to strike. She knew just what she had to do.
She climbed onto the bus. The heat of Red’s body shadowed her as he and Rocky followed. She hoped to find a seat filled with one occupant, but either the seats were empty or two sat together. She slipped into a seat and Red pushed her, making her scoot next to the window.
Rocky sat behind them and chuckled darkly.
Red looked over at her and sneered, his teeth yellowed from smoking. The smell clung to his clothes as if someone forgot to open the flue to the chimney, and he’d been standing in the way when the smoke poured into the house. She never noticed the odor on him before, not when she sat next to him on the bus, or when she ran into him in the boys’ locker room.
The smell made her nauseous.
She looked out the window. The ride would be the longest she ever had to take.
“We’ll get you back for Daniel’s sake.”
“And Kevin’s,” Rocky growled as he leaned over the back of their seat. He yanked one of Emily’s curls. “Because of you we have to ride this stinkin’ bus.”
“Get a job. Buy your own car.”
“Guess you’ll have to do the same.”
Tears stung Emily’s eyes, but she refused to shed them and turned to stare out the window again.
Concentrating hard, she calmed her upset stomach, faced Red and attempted to read his thoughts, focusing her gaze on his green eyes. “You nearly got bitten when you trashed my car. But the snake would have died as soon as he sank his fangs into your leg as bad as your blood is.”
Rocky laughed.
Red snarled and his freckles melded into blotches of angry red skin. “Shut up, Rocky. She’s doing it again. Using her witch’s powers. So, where did you really transfer from anyway? Some witch’s school?”
“Charm school. Made top honors.”
The girl sitting in front of Emily twisted her head slightly to look at her. The girl’s curls drifted over her shoulders in waves of black licorice, and her eyes sparkled with mischief, the color of black diamonds, almost translucent in appearance. Her burgundy colored lips turned up as she nodded at Emily. “I believe I may have gone to the same charm school as you.” She turned around and leaned over the back of her seat. Reaching out her hand to Emily she said, “Rebecca. Rebecca Menendez.”
“Roberta’s sister?” Emily’s head swam with the notion.
Rebecca shook her head.
Emily frowned. “A cousin?”
Rebecca nodded just once and raised both her dark brows to punctuate the notion while her smile remained constant. “You’re the new girl in school. I’ve heard you can be a pretty loyal friend. My cousin, and mutual friend of yours, told me before she went away. I was too scared to look for her in the swamp. Thank you for aiding her.” She slipped a piece of paper into Emily’s hand. “Here’s my number. Call me sometime.”
Not only was Rebecca Roberta’s cousin, but she could read minds, too. Emily smiled, then opened the paper. Numbers appeared, then faded away. They weren’t there. Not really. Rebecca had just given them to her via her mind. But then the paper disappeared also, and Emily’s skin prickled.
The bus driver pulled to a stop where Emily would normally get off, but Red wouldn’t budge. Before she could make him move, he fell off the seat. She looked at Rebecca who grinned at her. Emily had a new friend. Things were really looking up at school.
“I’ll call you.”
“Soon.”
Emily climbed over Red and headed for the door.
“You were supposed to keep her on the bus.”
Running down the steps, she didn’t hear any more of Rocky’s words. They’d follow her, she knew. She just had to make some distance between them and…
Their heavy footsteps tromped down the metal steps after her. When the bus drove off, she stopped, turned, and made her stand. They’d catch up with her anyway with their much longer stride. This way she could concentrate on one of the kids before they hurt her.
Red’s fingers clenched into white-knuckled fists, and she knew she’d have a black eye if she didn’t do it to him first.
Narrowing her eyes, she studied Rocky, frowned, then cocked a brow. Immediately, he grabbed Red’s arm and yanked him to a stop. Before Red could say a word in retort, Rocky socked him right in the eye.
Despite how infuriated Red must have been with his friend, he turned and headed for Emily instead. Her plan wasn’t working. She tried again. This time Rocky tripped Red and kicked him in the ribs as soon as he was down.
That did it.
Red jumped to his feet and with lightning, boxing-match action, he punched Rocky in the nose. Emily beat a hasty retreat home. She didn’t need to use mind control any longer. They wouldn’t quit until they’d beaten each other sufficiently. Use some of that pent up frustration on each other for a change.
Before she reached her house, something caught her eye at the gate to Michael’s house. His car was gone, and she imagined he must have still been at the hospital. Was it the pirate ghost, then?
She headed for the gate.
Chapter 21
Emily ducked into the backyard and saw him with his back mostly turned to her…standing only a couple of inches taller than herself. The dreaded pirate Roberts. A man of negligible stature, but he wore a sinister expression that made up for it.
An ebony felt, three-cornered hat topped his head, while curly, matted black hair hung down his shoulders, some of it decorated with colorful wooden beads, or braided with strips of leather. A long burgundy coat hung from his broad shoulders and reached to his knees. Buttoned beneath this, a gaudy yellow waistcoat of silk brocade and a linen shirt drew close to his tanned skin. A brace of pistols, a steel cutlass, and a throwing dagger rode at his waist, making Emily realize how dangerous he must have been. Below these, breeches of butternut brown disappeared into knee-high leather boots.
He raised his arms in the air, cursing the world for his misfortune, then turned when he realized he had an audience. Looking down at Emily from his perch on the sailboat’s deck above, he folded his arms and narrowed bushy black brows crusted with salt. Eyes as black as a moonle
ss night stared back at her, intrigued, and a smile tugged at his colorless lips. His tanned and weathered face was so deeply lined it appeared to be etched. But further examination revealed a scar below one eye and another stretched across his chin…the result of some kind of swordplay, no doubt. “Now, who be you?”
Before Emily could speak, he grinned and she shuddered to see the blank holes where teeth were missing and others were mottled yellow and black like a picket fence in ill repair.
“C’mere, me beauty. Me thinks you be the old sea wench. Now I sees that you be not. Emily, the redheaded wench. Avast, me beauty. Come aboard.” He stomped his ragged boot. “Smartly, me lass. Times a’wastin.”
She crossed her arms. “I know where your treasure is, Roberts.”
“Captain Roberts to you, me lass.” He squinted his beady eyes into bullets of iron. “Whar be me booty?”
“Not far from here, but you’ll have to follow me.”
“I’ll not leave me ship. Besides, we’ve run aground. When the tide’s in, and I have a new crew, we’ll get me booty. C’mere and join me.” He waggled his brows. “I’ll even share a bit o’ me grog with you, me lass.”
Emily tilted her chin up. “You hurt Granny. Don’t hurt her again or you’ll never get your treasure back.”
Roberts pulled the sword from its scabbard, the metal glistening in the sunlight, and shook it at her. “No wench speaks t’ me in such a manner. Hang you from the yardarm like the last bilge rat who dared speak mutiny, I will.”
“I warn you—”
“Warn me? Captain Roberts?” He laughed, and his boisterous, dark voice brought a chill to the humid breeze.
“Your crew waits for you.”
He grumbled something under his breath. Was he angry, thinking his shipmates had his treasure?
“Meg waits for you. A lot of people depend on you.”
“Meg,” he said softly.
She opened her mouth to speak, to encourage him to leave Granny’s backyard, but the squeak of the gate made her turn instead.
“Michael.”
He hurried across the backyard to join her. “Emily, I tried calling your house and there wasn’t any answer. I called your mom’s office, and she hadn’t left work. Tell me you didn’t ride the school bus.”
Emily glanced over at the sailboat to find Roberts had vanished. “I made a new friend.”
“Oh?” Michael took her hand and led her inside the house. “You need to call your mother. She’s frantic.”
Emily called her mother’s work, and once she put her mind at ease, she watched Michael pull a package of chicken from the fridge. “What are you doing?”
“Cooking chicken wings and fried potatoes.”
“Hmm, you’re a cook, too.” She smiled. “How is Granny?”
“She’s doing fine. They wanted to keep her overnight, then she’ll be coming home tomorrow if she’s doing all right. Who’s your new friend?” He pulled out a couple of potatoes from the crisper in the fridge.
“Rebecca Menendez.”
Michael stopped peeling the potato. “Rebecca Menendez?”
“Yes, she’s a cousin to Roberta. She can read minds, too.”
“Oh?” He finished peeling the potato, then worked on another. “What happened on the bus? Or I should say, after you got off the bus?”
“Rocky and Red got into a fist fight. They may not be speaking to each other for a while.”
Michael shook his head and glanced out the window. “What were you doing in my backyard?”
Emily looked out the window; the sailboat rocked gently in the stiff breeze. “I spoke to Roberts. Told him not to hurt Granny anymore, and we’d show him where his treasure was when the time was right.”
Michael set down his paring knife and took hold of Emily’s hands. “Together, Emily. We have to do this together. He hurt Granny already. I don’t want him to hurt you, too.”
“He likes me.”
“Great.” Michael sliced up the potatoes into dollars and tossed them in a pan coated with corn oil. “Now I have to fight a pirate to keep my girl.”
Emily wrapped her arms around Michael’s waist and leaned her cheek against his back. “Michael, you’re my hero.”
“Hmpf. So, what did he say?”
“He wanted me to share his grog with him.”
“And other things.”
Michael sounded bitter and Emily was amused he could be jealous of a pirate ghost.
“He can’t have me. But he said he wouldn’t leave the boat. Can you sail it?”
“Yeah, but we can’t get close to where the treasure is without running aground.”
“How about the dinghy?”
“We could try it.”
“All right. It’s a deal. We can do it right after we eat. It’ll still be light out. It’s only four now.”
“Okay. You’re the expert ghost appeaser. We’ll try it your way.” He turned around to face her and pulled her close. With her head resting against his chest, he asked, “Since my grandmother’s tucked away in bed at the hospital tonight, do you want to have a slumber party with me this evening? Keep me company? Make sure I don’t get scared of things that go bump in the night?”
She laughed. “I believe Roberts wanted me to spend the night with him, too.” She tugged at Michael’s button. “But if you must know, I’m not that kind of a wench.”
Michael leaned down to kiss her lips. “Hmm, just my kind.”
* * *
After they ate, Michael and Emily motored his grandfather’s boat down the canal to the Banana River. When they had access to a steady wind, he unfurled the sails. Emily worried when Captain Robert didn’t appear, but she was certain as soon as they found the treasure he’d make his presence known. Maybe he didn’t like it that she had her own guy to keep her company. Or maybe he only felt he could bully a woman, and Michael was too much of a man for him.
Michael pulled off his shirt and showed off the sinewy muscles. He flexed them for her. “What do you think?”
Perfectly huggable, that’s what she thought. “Just right.”
“Landlubber,” Roberts growled.
Emily jumped up in fright to see Roberts standing so close to her. “Michael’s taking you to your treasure,” she said quickly, to avoid any trouble.
“I can see he’s a way with the ship.”
“He’s a good sailor.”
“Aye.”
Michael cast a wary glance in Robert’s direction, then looked back at Emily. “Come over here, Emily.”
“Can you see him, Michael?”
He didn’t answer her, just glared in the direction Emily had faced.
“He thinks he owns me lass, does he?”
“You need him to sail the ship, Captain Roberts.” She edged over to Michael.
“Aye, that I do. Sail on, then, lad.”
She could sense there’d be trouble as soon as Roberts got his treasure. Michael seemed to realize the problem also. But could he suddenly see the ghost?
Roberts ran his grimy fingers over his brace of pistols. “Wenches aren’t allowed on my ship.”
“That’s why you hurt Granny?” Emily stood slightly behind Michael.
“She was swabbing me deck. Me crew does that. None had permission to bring a wench aboard. Bad luck they be.”
Michael stiffened his back as if prepared to fight Roberts if he had to, to keep Emily safe. Again, she wondered if he could see the ghost.
Roberts scratched his head. “Course, me beauty be welcome, says I.”
Emily took a deep breath. She hoped when Roberts found his treasure, he’d forget her.
Michael attempted to project his thoughts to her, to her surprise. She looked over at him, but he kept his sights on Roberts.
“Emily, when we reach the swampland with the dinghy, we’ll pretend we can’t get close to it. He’ll have to get out and wade or float or whatever he does through the swamp. When he does, we’ll return to the sailboat.”
If
he could read her mind when she was in the cafeteria… Had their special connection grown? Just like the symbiotic reaction she had when he felt strongly about something, had they developed more of an attachment?
“Michael, what if the pirate insists you join him to get the treasure? What if he makes you get out alone while Roberts stays with me?”
He glanced at her, his face revealing a mixture of surprise and anxiety. The notion he could read her mind would take him sometime to get used to, she figured.
“Well?”
“Won’t happen.”
She wasn’t so sure.
When they reached the area where the treasure chest rested, Michael tossed the anchor into the river, then readied the dinghy. He leaned over to Emily and whispered, “I want you to stay here.”
“Together, Michael. We do this together.”
“Me lass goes with me.” Roberts pointed his sword at the dinghy. “Climb aboard, me maties.”
“Can you hear and see him, Michael?” she asked, hushed.
“No,” he said under his breath, “but I don’t want him to know.”
“He wants us both to go in the dinghy.”
Michael’s face reddened, and he furrowed his brow, then started to object. “I want you to stay behind.”
Roberts cut the air with his sword.
Could he hurt Michael with a ghostly weapon? She didn’t think so, but what if he pushed him from the boat? What if…she didn’t want to consider any other “what ifs.”
“Michael, I’m going with you.”
His jaw twitched with tension, but he climbed into the small boat first and reached up to assist Emily. When she took her seat, Michael began to row.
“Strappin’ lad,” Roberts said, nodding his head. “You’ll do.”
For several minutes, Michael rowed while Roberts watched for signs of his treasure. When Emily saw the raised spot of earth where the treasure had once been, she projected the chest’s image into the pirate’s thoughts. Immediately he spied it and pointed in its direction.
“His treasure is there,” Emily whispered to Michael.
As if on cue, Michael shook his head. “Can’t get the boat any closer. Too shallow, Captain.”