by Lauren Wolk
For once, I was up before Osh, though he was stirring in his bed as I slipped past him.
The stove was cold, so I twisted a length of grocery paper into a wick and coiled it in the firebox. We kept a bin of driftwood twigs nearby, perfect kindling that caught easily when I lit the paper and blew gently on the flame. More driftwood on top, and I soon had a good fire going. By the time Osh joined me, yawning and stretching, I had his coffee at the simmer.
“Did I do something good?” he asked me, knuckling his eyes like a child.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Did you?”
He shrugged. “Then did you do something bad?”
“Like what?”
He shrugged again. “In all our years, you’ve never made me coffee,” he said.
“Well, since you’re going over to Penikese with me today, it’s the least I can do.”
Osh filled his mug with coffee and opened the door for Mouse. She stepped out into the rain, back, out again, and then arranged herself on the threshold, just at the edge of dry ground.
Osh leaned over her and took a good look at the sky. “In this rain?”
I remembered what Miss Maggie had once said to me. “We’re not made of sugar,” I told him. “We won’t melt.”
Osh frowned. “You sound like Miss Maggie.”
“We’ll probably be the only ones over there on a day like this,” I said. “Especially since no one’s dug up anything yet but rabbit bones and an old ax head.”
Osh drank his coffee. “I meant to go after some bass today,” he said.
“They’ll still be there tomorrow,” I replied, cracking two eggs into a skillet.
He gave me a hard look. “If you think imitating Miss Maggie is going to convince me, you’re wrong.”
“Go sit down,” I said, tending the eggs. “Your breakfast is almost ready.”
“I’m warning you,” he said. But he sat at the table, both hands wrapped around his mug. “Last thing I need is two Miss Maggies,” he muttered.
But no matter what he said, we both knew that Osh would be in trouble without the one he had.
Chapter 29
The rain was nothing but a heavy mist by the time we set sail, armed with a shovel and canvas bags to carry back whatever we might find, even if it was only woadwaxen.
Miss Maggie was in trousers for our unusual quest, her hair stuffed into an old newsy cap, her little hands in work gloves. She dressed like that often when she went after her sheep or helped one of her cows with a calving—all business and matter-of-fact—but the pink in her cheeks made me think of roses.
“You look pretty,” I said to her as we sailed out through the Narrows.
“Oh, go on,” she said.
But I could tell she was pleased. She glanced at Osh.
“Coming about,” he said, and we ducked our heads and shifted to the starboard bench as the boom swung across and we tacked past the last of the land.
It began to rain again in earnest as we crossed to Penikese. Miss Maggie and I raised our hoods and bowed our heads while Osh carried on as if he were a seal, unfazed by a little wet.
A catboat was just leaving the harbor as we sailed in. A single sailor, slumped in the stern, tipped his cap wearily as we sailed past. “Good luck,” he yelled. “Been diggin’ for three days. Nothing on that island but birds and birds.”
We waved back, glad to see no other craft in the harbor. Gladder, still, when the rain tapered off again the minute we pulled up on the beach and tied the skiff to a post.
We already knew where we were going, so I didn’t need to say a word as we collected the shovel and sacks and began, single file, across the island.
I led the way.
There were holes everywhere, and of course the mounds of dirt dug up alongside them. Crossing the moor in the dark would be a risky business, but we were able to navigate our way just fine and in no time came up along the opposite shore.
The graveyard was as we’d left it.
It hurt me to know that children had frolicked on this island just days ago. Here, in this place where “monsters” had once lived.
But the fear that had for years kept the treasure hunters away from Penikese persisted enough to keep them away from the graveyard where the lepers were buried, my parents among them, and I was grateful for that fear. It had kept this small plot of land safe.
As I stood at the gate, Osh and Miss Maggie at my back, I pictured Susanna in her bed, Elvan at her side, both of them watching as Nurse Evelyn wrapped me tenderly in the softest cloth they had. I pictured them wanting to kiss me good-bye, careful with their tears, holding each other because they could not hold me. I pictured their agony as I drifted away on the tide. Heard their prayers. Heard the answer. I pictured Elvan with the treasure that Susanna had found. Tucking it into a small trunk. Nurse Evelyn helping him carry it across the moon-blackened moors. Burying it in the graveyard, his poor hands terrible, his body aching with such work. Carving MORGAN into the wood that marked the new “grave.” And then returning to Susanna just as I reached a fresh shore. Just as Osh woke, perhaps at the cry of a crow nearby.
The gate was latched, the ground inside the fence undisturbed.
We stopped first at the graves where my parents were buried. Miss Maggie touched the top of each marker.
Osh said something in his other language.
I didn’t have any words. The ground where I stood seemed warmer than the moors. The wind here more musical. How could I miss the people buried here? Parents I had never known?
But I did.
Then we stood around the grave with the wooden marker that read MORGAN, and Osh said, “Are you sure about this?”
I nodded. “My mother wanted everyone to think I’d died,” I said. “She didn’t want anyone coming to look for me or treating me like a leper, whether I was one or not.”
“Which they do anyway,” he said.
Miss Maggie touched his arm. “Hush about all that,” she said.
“I want to do this myself,” I said, a quiver of fear in my voice. Whether it was a real grave or not, this was a piece of holy ground close by the remains of my mother and father. I hated the thought of digging here.
But before I had a chance to do another thing, we heard a shout from across the moor and looked to see two men coming over a rise toward us, waving as they walked.
“Who are they?” I asked, squinting into the distance.
“Nobody we want here,” Osh said.
I laid the shovel flat in the tall grass and we left the graveyard, shutting the gate behind us, walking quickly toward the two men.
Officers Reardon and Kelly.
“What can they want here?” Miss Maggie said.
“They can’t have come for us,” Osh said, pulling his hood closer around his face. “Nobody knows we’re here.”
He was right. When we met them, midway across the open ground, the officers were as surprised to see us as we were to see them. “We never expected to find you three,” Officer Kelly said.
“And we never expected you two, either,” Miss Maggie said.
“We’ve come to look for the man you drew,” Officer Reardon said, nodding at Osh. “Mr. Kendall.”
Miss Maggie took a half step closer to Osh, who bowed his head a little, the gathered mist running off his hood in a stream.
“We took that picture of him to New Bedford, to the pawnbroker and all along the waterfront. And this morning someone came and told us they’d seen him just yesterday, heading out in a skiff, most likely the one he stole from the gamekeeper. We figure he heard we were asking about him. Maybe he’s finally running. So the precincts all along the coast are watching for him, but we’re covering our own ground.”
“And all the other Elizabeths, too?” I asked. There were islands in the chain that had little more than sheep li
ving on them. No better place for someone laying low.
They were, they said, as best they could. “Lots of people looking now,” Officer Reardon said. “If he’s still around here, someone will see him.”
“But I still don’t understand why he’d stay where he’s most likely to get caught,” Miss Maggie said.
“Nor do we,” Officer Kelly said. “It makes no sense.”
“Unless he’s still after whatever’s buried here,” Officer Reardon said.
We all looked around at the pocked moor, the hundreds of dirt hills, the mist hanging like still smoke above the ravaged ground.
“Less likely to find it now than before when he was the only one looking,” Officer Kelly said. “But we’re making sure. We’ll have a look in the buildings and then be off.” But as they turned toward the big hospital and the littler cottages, he paused and asked, “When we saw your skiff, we thought maybe it was his. Why are you three here, yourselves?”
I looked to Osh, but he was busy looking at the sea, his back to the rest of us. After a moment, Miss Maggie said, “To harvest plants for his paints,” she said. “And to visit the graveyard. We come out here from time to time, now that there’s no one else to tend it.”
They seemed satisfied with that answer, though Officer Reardon kept his eyes on her for a beat too long. “That’s mighty nice of you,” he said thoughtfully.
At which she stood up a little straighter and lifted her chin. “Just plain decent is what it is,” she said.
And we headed off toward the graveyard, the officers toward the hospital, the rain starting up again.
The swales and small hills soon hid the officers from us, and us from them, but I felt very anxious about digging up a grave when they were on the island.
“Anyone could come at any time,” Miss Maggie said as we stood in the rain around the little grave. “Including that Mr. Kendall.”
“Dig,” Osh said. “Or let’s go.” He kept glancing in the direction of the hospital, then out across Buzzards Bay as if Mr. Sloan’s stolen skiff might appear at any moment, that bully man in the stern.
So I dug.
It was easier after the first cut, but I went carefully, my shovel slicing through the sandy soil, for fear I would hit something too hard. Surely not a casket. Surely nothing of the kind. There was no baby buried here. I knew that. But I still went carefully, and my heart clenched when I hit something.
With Osh standing watch and Miss Maggie at my back, whispering to herself, I knelt down and went on digging with my hands, scooping the dirt aside, until I had cleared the top of a metal trunk as long as the distance from my elbow to the tips of my fingers. My shovel had dented the top of it, but it was still whole and sound even after years in the earth.
I cleared the sides enough to see a handle at either end. “Come help me, Osh,” I said.
He did, taking one handle as I took the other, and we tried to lift it free of the grave. But the wet hole had a good grip on the box, and it took help from Miss Maggie, too, before we managed to drag it up out of the hole and onto level ground.
It was far too heavy to hold nothing but bones.
We backed away from it.
The lid was closed with a hasp and pin, but no lock.
“Open it,” Osh said, looking over his shoulder.
Miss Maggie, her hands over her eyes, took a step away as I knelt again next to the little trunk.
I pulled out the pin and let it drop to the length of its chain.
“I’m afraid,” I said, though I was sure of what was inside.
“Then put it back and let’s go,” Osh said. He sounded afraid himself.
“Open it, Crow,” Miss Maggie said. “This is why we came. This is what Susanna wanted.”
The lid stuck enough so I had to work it open. When it suddenly fell back on its hinges, I too fell back and sat on the wet ground, speechless.
Inside was the sort of treasure I had never expected to see. Gold in coins and ingots. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful jewelry. The kind that queens wear. The kind that Captain Kidd had buried on islands like Penikese.
The rain made the treasure more beautiful still. I could only imagine what it might look like in the sun.
“I thought there would be a little sack buried here,” I whispered. “With a bracelet or another ring. Or maybe some coin.”
Osh stood above me and stared, his face a picture of shock and worry.
“We have to get this out of here as fast as we can,” he said. “This will mean terrible things if people know about it.”
“Susanna,” Miss Maggie whispered. “Your mother was remarkable, Crow. To bury this for you when she might have spent it to buy whatever ease she could.”
“If the state let her spend it on this place,” Osh said. “Which is doubtful.” He knelt next to me and began to fill the canvas bags. Spread between them, the treasure was manageable. Osh hung one sack from each shoulder.
“Close the trunk,” he said, “and bury it again, Crow.” He started back for the skiff. “And bring the shovel. Hurry now.”
I pictured the officers heading back for their own boat and crossing paths with us as they came.
I did what he said, as fast as I could, sorry to leave the grave looking new, a clue for anyone coming along after us.
At the last moment, I dropped the shovel and hurried to the graves where Susanna and Elvan were buried.
I put my open hand on the marker at Elvan’s grave. He was a stranger, my father. A man long dead and gone. But I said some things to him and hoped he would know me a little that way.
At my mother’s grave, I knelt and leaned my forehead against the wet ground, my eyes open, as close to her bones as I could get.
And then I gathered up the shovel and ran.
Chapter 30
We reached the shore and loaded the bags and the shovel into the skiff just moments before the officers came over the bluff and headed for their own boat, tied up at the dock.
The tide had gone out some, and I helped Osh push the beached skiff afloat. Then Osh and Miss Maggie climbed in while I stood in the shallows, hanging on to the bow.
The policemen waved to us from the dock, we waved back, and I jumped into the skiff, giving it a good shove into deeper water so Osh could lower the centerboard while I hoisted the sail. Miss Maggie, in the stern, looked smaller than she ever had.
It was a quiet crossing, none of us in the mood for talk. I was pretty sure that most people would have been whooping with joy over a find such as ours, but we were not.
None of us cared about money, as long as we had food and fuel and boots in the winter.
None of us wanted to bring the world down around our ears. None of us wanted anything further to do with Mr. Kendall, who would be furious if he learned that we had found what he had failed to find.
Miss Maggie and Osh had both been in the wider world and found it lacking. Though I had never strayed beyond the nearest city, even I had seen enough to know that I wasn’t ready yet for what was waiting.
“We have to keep this a secret,” I said.
Osh nodded. “Unless we have to, we won’t tell a soul,” he said.
We listened for a while to the rain having its own conversation with the sea, the wind chiming in when it had something to say.
“And we can’t hide it on our island,” Osh finally said, and it was clear that he’d been thinking about what to do with Susanna’s treasure.
“Why not?” I asked. True, our island wasn’t very big, but I couldn’t imagine hiding it anywhere else.
“Bad enough that the police have been there. I don’t want anyone else looking too hard at where we live.”
“Why not?” I asked.
Osh didn’t answer at first. Miss Maggie and I waited patiently.
“Before I came to the islands, I had
to give up some things.” He paused, his face dark in the shadow of his hood. He gave the tiller a hard push away from him and then pulled it back. “Coming about,” he said, and Miss Maggie and I ducked under the boom and resettled to port.
“What things?” I asked.
He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. I’m not interested in all that anymore. But if someone tries to force us off the island, I’ll fight to stay. And I don’t want to if I don’t have to.”
“Why would they do that?” I asked.
Miss Maggie, her eyes on Osh, said, “Because that’s what people do when they think something doesn’t belong to you. Like taking the treasure because it was buried on state land, even if it belonged to someone else before that. And like claiming a little island that nobody else would ever have thought of wanting, until someone else wanted it.”
I thought about such things for the rest of the crossing, looking at the Elizabeths as if I’d never seen them before.
“But what makes it ours?” I asked, though I didn’t want to. The island was my home, and I, too, would fight to stay there if I had to.
Osh smiled, which confused me even more. “We may call it that, but it isn’t,” he said. “It’s nobody’s.”
When we came ashore, wet and weary, Mouse scampered down from the rocks to tell us how to furl the sail, and she fairly danced with curiosity as we lugged the bags of treasure up to the cottage.
After we’d put on clean clothes and locked the door, Osh and I spread the treasure out in front of the hearth while Miss Maggie lit a fire in the stove.
“You two must live on air,” she said. She was wearing a pair of trousers and an old shirt that Osh had given her until her clothes dried out. She looked ridiculous, everything rolled up and tucked in. “There’s nothing here worth cooking.”
“I’ll pick some mussels,” I said, scrambling to my feet.
But Osh shook his head. “Tide’s high.”
“Well, we don’t need to cook,” I told her. “We have bread and cheese. And the last of the strawberries you brought yesterday.”