The Oak Island Affair

by Jane Bow

  “Or could find a sinkhole leading up from the underground cavern to above the water level, but below the earth.”

  “The water level would have been much lower way back then.”

  “But how would they breathe in there?” Brigit wondered.

  A new idea birthed itself. Vanessa smiled at it.

  “Through a system of hidden air tunnels.”

  “Air tunnels! Of course! What everyone’s been thinking were flood tunnels could have been above the water level then!”

  “Their exits carefully hidden.”

  “And none of the men who dug them would have had any idea what they were for. Henry would have marked the sinkholes’ rough locations on the surface then dug the tunnels toward them.”

  “And as a Templar he would have had the engineering knowledge to do that.”

  “Sure. Think of the pyramids in Egypt. Mademoiselle was right, sophisticated engineering is hardly new.”

  “So Henry and his close friend and fellow knight James Gunn could have crawled along the air tunnels to the sinkholes.”

  “Maybe built wooden bridges across them—”

  “Or tunnelled up into the clay above them.”

  “They could also have tunnelled off in any other direction without ever disturbing the surface. They could have swum the treasure in then up through the sinkholes, or they could have dragged it through the tunnels, whichever way would be less obvious, because the key must have been to keep the utmost secrecy.”

  “They also could have split the treasure, then hidden it in separate places, and then left markers only knights would understand. That would explain the Cave-In Pit, except nothing was found in the Cave-In Pit—”

  “Nothing that we know of.” Vanessa kept running her eyes over the bush behind them and down the shoreline to the treasure hunter’s bungalow. Nothing moved. Behind them the vehicle engine was silent. The other one went on growling. Vanessa went back to her list.

  “Where the light of Your sun will always reach. The seeing eye is the key, Brig’.”

  “Wait, what about the coconut fibres they found at the end of the tunnels?” said Brigit, “They were dated much later. As are the oak beams in the treasure shaft. And Graves found Spanish doubloons. So, either we’re wrong or someone else was here too.”

  “Brother Bart’s Captain St. Clere.”

  “So Brother Bart’s pirates brought the coconut fibre and built the treasure shaft. That fits the later carbon dating. But if St. Clere knew about Oak Island, maybe even the tunnels, why did he dig the treasure shaft?” Brigit wondered.

  “By then the hole and the stone piles and maybe the tunnels were under water.”

  “And what did he find? What did Henry Sinclair hide, the Templar gold, the archives of their learning, the severed head?”

  “Brother Bart’s Captain St. Clere found whatever it was, and left Brother Bart’s treasure buried here.”

  Brigit nodded, thinking.

  “If the cross is a sign of life, and the skull, symbol of mortality, is also a severed head, the Baphomet, symbol of Sophia, Wisdom, let’s say the headstone is the skull that lies on the coffin, symbol of the Chamber of Reflection. Remember the picture?”

  “And below it on the coffin are the crossed bones …” Vanessa looked at her, “also a symbol of mortality. They found a boulder partway down the stem of the cross. Could that have marked the crossed bones?”

  “The head — Wisdom — and the crossbones — Death — and between them—”

  “The seeing eye, the Chamber of Reflection into which an aspirant must go in order to learn to see!” This thinking together, rolling the thoughts one into the next, into unexplored territory, was a roller coaster ride on which the knowing just happened because they were on the right track. Vanessa could feel it. She thought suddenly of a preeminent symbol of both Templars and Freemasons. “Look at this.”

  She drew four dots, centreed three more above them, then two, then one:

  “The tetractys,” said Brigit.

  “Now watch.” Vanessa connected the outside dots to form the triangle.

  It pointed up. Then she added a dot to each end of the second line down, turning it into a line of four dots. She put a third dot under the baseline of four dots, and then connected the new dots to make a second intersecting triangle pointing down. The two triangles became a star:

  “The Star of David,” said Brigit.

  “Also known as Solomon’s Seal, symbol of the perfect harmony a human can achieve,” said Vanessa. “The upturned triangle stands for spiritual, the down-turned one for physical energies—”

  “And the richness is in the stillness at the centre, at the union point of body and soul!”

  “Of Isis and Osiris. Did you know that Solomon’s Seal is also the name of a wildflower?” said Vanessa. “Gran has some in her garden.”

  “So maybe the headstone, symbol of both Sophia and the skull, is the centre of the line that goes out to make the top two points of the star, and the cone-shaped boulder they found partway down the stem of the cross is the place where the line for the bottom two points of the star goes out.”

  They looked at the star.

  “And the Chamber of Reflection, where the initiate learns to see the perfect connection between body and soul, would lie at the centre of the star,” Vanessa pointed at the central dot, “halfway between the two.”

  “The still centre, completely unmarked in any way.” They looked at each other.

  It was brilliant. They turned back onto the path into the island’s interior.

  “What about the swamp though, Van? Only the eastern end of the island is limestone.”

  “In Henry Sinclair’s time, six hundred years ago, when the sea level was low, maybe there was no swamp.”

  “When the sea level rose the water came up from underground—”

  “Through sinkholes. There could be limestone underground—”

  “But if that’s right, why didn’t the swamp fill again after the treasure hunter drained it?”

  “Maybe all the digging and blasting blocked off the tunnels and sinkholes.”

  “Another thing,” Brigit took the map out of Vanessa’s hand, “what about the dimensions of the cross? They don’t look right for a Solomon’s Seal.”

  “That could be because we don’t have all the markings. All kinds of cut stones and markers have been found but no one’s been able to make any sense of them.”

  “Or,” said Brigit, still gazing at the map, “maybe the tunnels form a labyrinth, Van. You know like the one at Chartres Cathedral?”

  “Which was built by the Templars.”

  “They built a labyrinth into the floor, it’s a circuitous path — it looks a bit like a brain — leading to guess where? The centre of self, the home of love. So that too would put the treasure at the centre—”

  “Where the seeing eye of the sun will always reach it once a day.”

  “In a cavern roofed with stones, something that lets the light in when the sun reaches a certain height. I know where we can get an axe, Van. The centre point may be covered by grass now, but under it there’ll be an opening.”

  “Imagine if the treasure’s right there!”

  “If it’s not, it’s sure to be close.”

  The grasses caressed their ankles, tree limbs bent on the wind as they ran, stealthy as deer, back through the woods to the place where they had left the road.

  The pickup truck must have been just a few metres away, the whine of its engine snatched by the wind until it came around a curve in the road. Brigit leapt into the underbrush.

  Vanessa did not think, did not decide to stay there, standing in the middle of the road. Passion, rage, freedom, truth make their own choices; the truths here were that Vanessa had loved Mlle Durocher, and the old librarian had challenged Edward Sanger.

  The truck stopped. Sanger stepped out of the passenger side. He was carrying an axe. The burgundy golf shirt and khaki slacks he was wearing l
ooked immaculate even in the dust. Sweat popped out on Vanessa’s skin, trickled down her sides. Her face felt hot.

  “Vanessa, doll! There you are.” He looked around. “Where’s your friend?”

  So Gorpo had called. Sanger was very close now. One arm came around her, strong, hard, warm. She smelled his impatience. He would put her in his truck, find Brigit, take them both off the island. She looked at his axe.

  “What are you going to do with that?”

  But, steering her toward the pickup truck, he was not listening.

  “Ed, wait.” She turned away, out of the view of the truck’s driver.

  “My friend Mlle Durocher is dead.” She tried to watch him — to divine whether he was a murderer as well as a thief — but the fact spoken aloud threatened to crumble her power. What if she started to cry? Sanger would put an arm around her, take her off the island—

  “I know, I heard,” he said. “Tragic.” As if it were a news item, nothing to do with him.

  Vanessa’s fingers found the doubloon around her neck.

  “Brigit has gone back to the car but I wanted to — your deal can wait a few more minutes, can’t it?”

  Give Brigit a chance. “I know where we can get an axe,” she had said.

  Vanessa pulled Sanger off the road, slipped his hand up under her tank top, watched as his face registered pleasure. But he was also checking his knowledge inventory of her, calculating—

  She moved closer.

  “I just wanted to say thanks.” Chewy, Plasticine words. “For returning the diary.”

  He gave her the easy amused look she had first encountered at their Stewart Hall dinner.

  “You’re welcome.” He bent his head, opening her mouth with his lips, and pushed in his tongue, filling her, as if her forgiveness of his theft was a given. He tasted of oranges and spearmint. “Wait here.” Walking back to the truck, he spoke to the driver. The engine revved, the wheels spitting stones. Overhead the pines creaked and sighed in the wind.

  He came back, remembered the axe in his hand, and put it down to lift the tank top over her head.

  “Oh my.” Leaning down, he kissed her nipples through the silk brassiere, leaving a wet circle. The power inside Vanessa turned to rage. She struggled to cage it.

  “I just have this one chore, doll.” He picked up the axe again. “Then we’ll go on home.”

  “What chore? Why don’t we just—”

  But he was pulling her with him now, down through the trees.

  “No, I’ve got a better idea. There’s a clearing down here. Remember that tent I saw from the boat?”

  It was light green, and there was a stove. Beside it several early tomatoes had been set out to ripen in the sun. A paperback book about Oak Island lay on a stump. Mlle Durocher’s?

  Sanger leaned the axe against the stump and held back the tent flap.

  “Go on inside.”

  Let him take her here, then leave her, his seed spilling out between her thighs while he used his axe to demolish all traces of Mlle Durocher’s ownership? Then drove her back to Stewart Hall, another treasure to own, to dress, to feed, have sex with. Vanessa backed away.

  Through the brush, down at the beach, she saw a sailboat. Her own Dancer, pulled up above the tide line!

  Who except Brigit could have sailed it here? While she was out cruising with Sanger. Was that why she had known where to find an axe?

  Sanger’s hand fastened on her arm. Vanessa shook it off, ran down to the boat. The sails lay in an untidy heap in the cockpit. The wind snatched at Vanessa’s hair, raised goosebumps on her bare stomach.

  “Come on!” she called. “Let’s go for a sail.”

  Brigit, are you watching? She would take Sanger right off the island, do whatever was necessary to give Brigit time to find the Chamber access point.

  Sanger did not move. She came back to him, sidling close to kiss his neck.

  “Come on, Ed. There are seat cushions stored in the bow. We’ll be more comfortable.”

  He shook his head, held her against him.

  “Please, Ed. Tents are so hot and cramped.”

  “Come home with me, darlin’.” He nuzzled her hair, both his hands running up her sides, down her back, closing on her rump as he bent to suck at her neck.

  “No.” She twisted out of his grasp and danced away. His expression sharpened.

  “What is this?”

  But where rage is the propeller caution does not stand a chance. Vanessa struck a model’s pose: tall, arms akimbo, breasts jutting.

  “I just don’t want to go back to that stuffy hotel, Ed. I went out yachting with you. Now it’s your turn to do it my way.” She began to push Dancer down the beach and once again it was as if the Vanessa she had always been was watching this new one whose mind seemed to have untethered itself from reason’s tiller, to be riding free. He crunched across the beach toward her and she saw him thinking, a crazy lady? Or—

  “Come on, help me push.”

  Waves were running in on the wind, breaking against the back of the boat. She saw him calculating risks versus return. She unzipped her shorts, let them drop onto the pebbles and spread her arms, felt the wind stroking her back as she stood before him wearing nothing but the cream silk brassiere and panties he had chosen for her, and the doubloon.

  “Do you still not get it, Ed? I tried to tell you the other night. I need to be with someone who’s willing to play, to fly with me!” All her senses were quivering now, beyond the reach of terror, of risk, of her own will. She heard herself laugh. “It’s okay, I’ve been sailing all my life, and we don’t have to go far.” Just far enough to give Brigit enough time.

  Sanger was a land man, used to setting his stance, to running his patterns on terra firma, but now he kicked off his loafers, peeled off his socks, rolled up his pant legs. One last shove and they were both aboard. Vanessa uncleated the jib sail and bundled it into the storage hold in the bow. There was too much wind for it. Then, taking the tiller, she pulled up the mainsail.

  “Sit up there.” She pointed ahead of her on the other side of the cockpit.

  “It’ll help keep us flat while we tack out.”

  He was out of his element but adapting does not take a winner long. Hanging onto the jib stay, he braced his feet against the top of the centreboard and leaned out, swaying into the swells, turning his face into the wind. The bow, sliding down one wave, into the side of the next, drenched him with spray, pasted his hair to his head. Sea water dripped off his chin.

  What, she wondered, was she thinking? The wind out here was too strong for a small boat. Oak Island was receding fast. Soon they would be out on the open bay.

  “Prepare to come about!” She had to shout.

  “What’s that?”

  “It means duck, watch that the boom doesn’t hit you when it comes across.” She changed their tack. Ten minutes, fifteen, that was all she could buy out here. “Coming about again. Once we get out a little way, we can run back in. It’ll be a nice smooth ride.”

  When Oak Island was barely distinguishable from the mainland behind it, she set their course back toward where she thought the beach was, and let the mainsail out all the way, cleating the line and lashing the tiller as both waves and wind pushed the boat. The cockpit floor was flat now. Sanger let go of the jib stay.

  “You said there were cushions?”

  “There, in the bow hold.”

  And now, watching Sanger reach for them, Vanessa understood that never before had she been truly alone, beyond the barriers of safety, the confines of choice, out past civility’s border where the self counts for nothing, cares for nothing, is nothing.

  He pulled her down onto the cushions, the wind ruffling his hair as he undid the brassiere’s front clasp, took one of her nipples into his mouth.

  “Here?”

  “Come on girl, you keep telling me you want it.”

  And then she was lying beneath him as he unzipped his pants, yanked her silk panties down, break
ing the elastic, so that his fingers could explore. Down at the far end of their bodies she glimpsed one of his feet braced against the centreboard. It was white, stubby, more than forty years old, toes curled over the coping, tendons taut. His free hand moved up to her breasts, his grey hair flopping into her eyes, his face suspended between her and the full white sail and the sky, his elegance sliding away. Tipping her head back, he plunged his tongue into her mouth again and she was no longer Athena, a goddess, graceful, ethereal, elusive. He pushed her legs apart and shifted onto his knees between them. In his eyes nothing else existed now. He nudged her thighs wider—

  But there, suddenly, beyond his head was the Oak Island tree line.

  Too close! She twisted under him.

  “No doll—”

  “Watch out, Ed!” She reached up behind her head, managed to work the tiller line free, pulled the tiller hard over. “Prepare to jibe!”

  “What?” Sanger’s head came up. He did not know about jibing.

  Dancer’s metal boom, swinging across, struck his left temple.

  A sickening crack. Blue accusation sliding away as his body lifted, then dropped over the gunwale. Dragging, head down, the dead weight of him worked with the boat’s momentum to bring them around, up into the wind. The boat stopped. His body slid into the water. Bobbed there, face down.

  “Ed!” She reached for him, grabbed the back of his shirt, tried to pull him back into the boat but he was too heavy, limp as a sack of stones. She jumped into the water — they were only a few metres from the campsite by the shore — and turned him face up. “Ed!”

  Seawater washed the nasty purple lump already swelling above his left ear. His face was a bluish grey, dead color, his eyes closed.

  “Wake up, Ed!”

  She towed him in to the beach then pulled him by the arms, stones slicing the bottoms of her feet, sticking to his wet shirt as she dragged him out of the water. He was so heavy, must be two hundred pounds.

  The tide lapped at his feet. She felt for a pulse. Found none. Opened his mouth, cleared the airway, breathed into him.

  Nothing.

  Pressed the heel of her hand into his chest, breathed again.