by Mute80
“Dang it,” I cursed. “I’m going to the lobby to see if they sell shoelaces in the little store. I’ll be right back,” I yelled as I slammed our door behind me.
There were a lot of people roaming around the lobby and I suddenly became self-conscious. What if Nick and Sophia lost track of the Goodwins? What if the Goodwins have other ghosts working with them and they’re following us? Any one of these people could be a ghost and I wouldn’t even know it. I closed my eyes and concentrated, trying to see if I could sense anything.
“Is everything okay? Can I help you find anything?” I opened my eyes to find the clerk tapping me on my shoulder.
“Umm . . . shoelaces. I need shoelaces,” I said, embarrassed.
“We have some right over here,” she said as she led me to a box in the back. I chose a pair and paid for them before grabbing a couple of matchbooks with the hotel’s logo out of a basket by the cash register on my way out. I figured I needed a souvenir of our little adventure.
At nine o’clock, I called Sophia. “We’re ready to leave. Are the Goodwins still in their hotel?”
“I hope so. They’re staying in a place where all the doors open to the outside and we haven’t seen any auras or people come out yet, but it’s hard to watch all the doors at once.”
“Good. We’ll try to hurry and we’ll call you if we find something.”
“I can’t wait until I have my license. This sucks,” Peter said as we waited for yet another cab to take us out to the beach.
“I know. We’re so close, yet so far away.” Peter and I both had birthdays in the fall and had less than six months until we could get our permits. It couldn’t come soon enough.
We gave instructions to our driver on where we wanted to go. “Are you sure you want to go there in the rain?” he asked in a thick accent.
“We’re sure,” Peter answered.
The driver muttered something under his breath about stupid teenagers, but obediently drove us where we asked. I can only imagine what he thought we were going to do there. By the time we pulled into the beach access parking lot, the skies had started to release their cargo and giant raindrops were landing on the windshield. The driver didn’t say anything else to us as we paid him and jumped out. Peter grabbed my hand and started walking toward a rocky outcropping.
“He thinks we’re up to something,” I said, nodding toward the cab that slowly turned around.
“If he thinks we’re here to do something, we might as well give him a show,” he said and pulled me in for a hug.
“Peter.” I punched him in the chest.
“I’m just kidding, Jamie.” He laughed at me.
“I know. I’m just tense.”
“Yeah, I can tell.”
He grabbed my hand again and we continued walking in the dark. As soon as the taillights of the cab were out of sight we reversed our direction and headed back to the road on which we’d just arrived. Making sure there were no cars in sight we darted across the road. Following a barbed wire fence, we stayed close to the highway until we got to the place where it forked. At one point a car came toward us and we crouched down with our hoods covering our faces. I felt like a criminal. I was about to trespass on private property, so I guess I was.
At the fork, we left the main road and I crawled through the fence to the field on the other side. My hair got caught in some of the barbs on the way through and Peter had to help me untangle it. I had to hold the barbs up for him since he was a lot bigger, but he managed to shimmy through with only a couple of scratches.
The rain had turned from an occasional drip to a full downpour and the ground was getting slippery. I lost my footing as we ran through a field and started to fall. Peter caught me just before I hit the ground and held me up. Hand in hand we made it to the first set of trees and stopped to get our bearings. I put my hands on my knees, panting—partly from our dash through the field and partly from anxiety. I desperately wanted to turn on a flashlight, but that would be stupid. I didn’t know how many homes were out there, but I could see a few lights off in the distance. We didn’t want someone coming to investigate.
We continued running through the trees, our clothes dripping wet and our feet sloshing until a clearing came in to view. “Peter, I think that’s the old well Sophia told us about,” I said.
We could see a crumbling rock structure just past the line of trees, and beyond that the lights of the new home that had been built on the Goodwin property.
“You’re right. It’s exactly where Sophia told us it would be. Why do they still have so many lights on over there at the house? It’s ten o’clock. I thought old people went to bed early.”
“With our luck, they’re probably having a party tonight.”
We watched the house for a little while to make sure no one was staring out any windows or on the back porch or upstairs balcony before we quietly stepped out from the trees and over to the well.
“So much of Sophia and Nick’s history surrounds this place,” I said as I ran my hands along the top of it. I peered over the edge, but it was too dark to see anything. An old wooden bucket was still attached to a rope hanging from the top cover of the well. I wondered if it was the same one Sophia would send down to retrieve water every morning when she was alive.
“Hey, Jamie, look at this. I think the path to the old house is right here.” Peter had crouched down and turned a flashlight on, aiming it at the ground with his back toward the house to help block the light.
I followed behind him, stepping where he stepped as we did our best to follow the overgrown ruts up the sloping land in the rain. A few minutes later we found ourselves standing at the burned out shell of Sophia’s former home. An overwhelming urge to cry suddenly came over me and I had to grab onto a piece of the charred wood to keep my balance. My chest burned and every part of my body screamed, This is it.
“Jamie? Are you okay?” Peter asked.
“Yeah, I think so. I feel weird. I think it’s my connection to Nick and Sophia. I feel like I’m on the right path and I’m being urged on.”
He didn’t say anything. It was a strange feeling to try to describe and I’m sure the only thing he understood was that he couldn’t understand. We walked around the structure for a minute, trying to see if anything stood out. Nothing did. The home was a complete loss and barely even looked like a home. If I didn’t know better, I would have thought it was nothing more than the remnants of a huge bonfire. With the strange feeling still urging me on, I told Peter we needed to move to the barn. From where we were we could only see the upper floor of the new home and we watched as one by one the lights went out. Good—they’ve finally gone to bed.
The rain slowed, but we were already soaked through and both of us were shivering. Peter kept his arm around my shoulder, trying to warm me up as we crossed to the old barn. The lady of the house was right—it had collapsed in on itself, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as I’d imagined. Instead of a pile of rubble, a dreadfully dilapidated building loomed in front of us.
“Nick and Sophia said there were two entrances to the barn with a walkway between them and stalls on either side,” I reminded Peter as we approached. “Nick said we should go in the back entrance if possible.”
We circled around the building and stared at the rotting wood. The doorway no longer existed. In its place were giant pieces of wood, splintered like matchsticks.
“This doesn’t look safe. I think you should stay out here while I go in,” Peter volunteered.
“No way. I’m going in, too. I didn’t come all this way to just watch.”
“You definitely aren’t as much like Camille as I thought you were.”
“Is that a bad thing?”
“Not at all. I like this side of you.”
We examined the pile again and shook a few of the bigger pieces of wood to see how sturdy they were. Nothing moved and the jumble seemed to hold up. Peter climbed onto the pile and jumped up and down a couple of times. Still nothing.
“Okay. Let’s do this.” He reached down and pulled me up next to him.
A cracking sound in the trees behind the barn stopped us. We both crouched down, not daring to move. I don’t think I even breathed. There it is again. It sounded as if someone were stepping on tiny twigs. My legs wobbled from crouching on the pile of wood, and I was getting lightheaded from holding my breath. Suddenly, a figure emerged from the trees.
CHAPTER 24
Peter nudged me and tilted his head toward the figure that had just stepped from the trees. “Do you see it?” he whispered.
I nodded, terrified. “Who is it?”
He snickered. “Jamie, it’s a deer.”
I looked closer and sure enough, the figure stood on four legs, looking our way with its ears alert and listening. Peter tossed a stick to the ground and the deer bounded away back into the trees.
“I thought for sure it was going to be Jeremiah,” I finally breathed.
“I have a feeling that if Jeremiah were to come, he’d be a lot quieter.”
“Thanks, but that’s not reassuring at all.”
“It wasn’t supposed to be.”
We continued to scramble up the pile until we found an opening big enough for us to slip through. Peter turned on his flashlight and shined it down into the hole. Debris littered the floor below us, but for the most part it was open space. The main part of the barn had been preserved when the walls started to crumble.
“Let me help you go down first,” he said.
“Okay.” I slid through the hole on my stomach as far as I could and then Peter took both my hands and lowered me down. I let go of him and dropped the last two feet to the floor. The thud of my feet hitting the ground echoed through the room. I flipped on my light and shined it around, turning in every direction. A mouse scurried across the floor in front of me and I shivered.
“Is it clear?” Peter called through the hole.
“Yeah. Come down.”
He dropped through the hole and landed gracefully on his feet. For some reason I began to laugh.
“What’s so funny?”
“All of this. Last month I was making plans to spend my summer at the library and now I’m trespassing in an old barn, in a different state, while looking for a treasure map. I keep expecting to wake up from a really long dream.”
“Would you rather be at the library than doing this?”
I didn’t even have to think about it. “Absolutely not.”
“Nick said he put Jeremiah’s pouch under a floorboard just outside the second stall from the back on the right, correct?” Peter asked.
“That’s how I remember it.”
We both dropped to our knees and began to brush dirt and debris away with our gloved hands. None of the boards were the slightest bit loose.
“Look at these nails,” Peter said as he aimed the light close to the floor, “they’ve definitely been added since the barn was built. They’re modern.”
My heart fell. “Do you think the whole floor has been replaced? If so, whoever tore it out would have found the pouch for sure.”
Peter slowly walked forward, still bending down with his light close to the floor.
“Look over here, Jamie. Do you see the difference between the nails over there and the ones here?”
I walked to him and crouched down. “The nail heads are a different shape,” I said.
“Exactly. I would bet money that the ones over here are from the 1800s. I don’t think the floor has been completely replaced. They probably just nailed down the loose boards at some point.”
“Is that something you learned from your parents?”
He grinned. “Sometimes it pays to live with a couple of archaeologists.”
We crawled back to the spot where we thought the pouch should be and began to pull on the boards. It was a tight fit and I could barely fit my fingers into the cracks between the boards. I removed my gloves and pulled.
“Stand back, I’m going to see if I can pry a board up,” Peter said. I obeyed and turned to see him holding an old pitchfork.
He wedged the tines under a board and started prying. I helped push back on the pitchfork’s handle with him, but nothing budged. I stood in front of the pitchfork and we kept pushing, putting all our weight into it, until the handle snapped and we both flew backward. I hit my head on one of the old stalls and immediately felt a trickle of blood run down my forehead. I pulled my hood tighter around my face in hopes that Peter wouldn’t notice.
“You okay?”
“Yeah. I’m fine,” I lied.
I crawled back to the board we’d been working on. “Peter, we got it loose.” I yanked and pulled on the board until it broke off with a thunderous cracking sound. Peter moved quickly to my side and shined his flashlight at the dirt below the board I’d just removed. There was nothing but empty space.
“Pull up another board.” Now that we had a way to get at the boards we could pry them up fairly easy with our hands and the little shovels we’d brought. My bare hands were full of slivers and started to bleed. I should have put my gloves back on, but I didn’t even care.
Underneath the seventh board sat the old, brown, leather pouch. The burning sensation in my chest deepened and I again felt lightheaded.
“We found it,” I whispered in amazement.
“You do the honors,” Peter said as he shone the light at the pouch.
I reached down and lifted it from the hole. It was covered in dust, but not wet—which was a good thing considering where it was found. I sat on the floor, cross-legged, and unwound the string holding it closed. Peter sat next to me, his head close to mine.
The papers inside were brittle and I touched them gingerly, afraid they would fall apart in my hands. I slowly turned each sheet over. Most of them seemed to be financial records—contracts, and things like that. Finally, near the bottom of the pile was a page with squiggles, symbols and weird markings. At the top of the page was a large ‘H’ written just the same as the signature on the letter to the mysterious Catherine we’d found back home in my attic.
Peter and I looked at each other. This is it. This is what we came all this way to find. Suddenly we both laughed.
Peter reached over, put his hands on my shoulders, and kissed me right on the lips. I felt the familiar tingle run through my spine and up through my body, warming me all over. Again, he pulled away after just a few seconds. Our moment was interrupted by the ringing of my phone. The sound of such a modern device in that cave of antiquity was horribly out of place as the noise bounced from wall to wall.
“It’s Sophia,” I whispered before putting the phone to my ear and saying, “Hello?”
“Jam . . . I . . . sorry . . . Goodwins . . .”
“Sophia, you’re breaking up. I can’t tell what you’re saying.”
“Goodwi . . . gone . . . can’t . . . find . . . hide . . .” The phone beeped, alerting me that the call had been dropped.
“Crap, Peter, I think she said they lost the Goodwins. We’ve got to get out of here. I’m sure their old home site is one of the first places they’ll go.”
We scrambled to put the remaining pages back in the pouch and Peter slipped it inside his jacket. I carefully folded the map and tucked it down inside my shirt. Going back out the way we came in would be difficult and it would take a long time. We decided to try the front entrance to the barn instead. We wouldn’t have to climb, but we’d have to move some of the boards apart. It probably wasn’t the safest idea, but we were left with no other choice. I wanted to get as far from there as we could get—and fast.
“Pull on that board,” Peter commanded as he pushed on another. He used the broken pitchfork as a wedge to make an opening just big enough for me to crawl through to the cold air outside.
The rain had completely stopped by that point and the earth smelled musty in the darkness. I held the boards I’d just slipped between as Peter tried to climb out after me. Since he was bigger, the opening had to be pried open even fa
rther. I pulled as hard as I could, but just as I managed to open up a space big enough for him to slip through, the boards above shifted and the barn began to groan as boards snapped and pieces fell.
“Peter,” I screamed as the wall he was climbing through completely collapsed. Flying debris knocked me to the ground, but I quickly jumped back up on my hands and knees and crawled to where I’d last seen Peter.
“Jamie. Jamie!” he yelled from somewhere under the rubble.
“I’m here, Peter.”
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine, but what about you?” A sob escaped my throat as I pulled at the boards holding him down.
“I’m okay. They mostly fell around me. My foot is stuck, though. I can’t get it out.”
I continued to pull on the boards, but every time I did the pile shifted. I was terrified that if I pulled on the wrong board the entire structure would collapse, crushing Peter beneath it.
“Peter, I can’t do this without help.” I fumbled for the phone in my pocket, grateful that Camille had stayed back at the hotel—she could get Sophia and Nick to come help. I turned it on and began to dial before I realized that I still didn’t have any reception.
“Peter?”
“I’m still here.”
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I think so.”
“I can’t get any reception on my phone. I’m going to go find a place where I can call Camille. Will you be all right until I get back?”
From under the pile of wood I heard him laugh. “I’ll be fine, Jamie. It’s not like I’m going anywhere anytime soon. Please be careful.”
“I will.” I stood to leave and turned around.
“I can help.”
I screamed again, breaking the silence of the still night air. Birds in the nearby trees fluttered away, rattling the leaves as they went. And there, right in front of me, appeared Jeremiah Goodwin.
“What’re ya doing in the old barn?” he asked in a mocking tone.
I didn’t say anything.
“You wouldn’t be looking for something would you?”