by Ron Roy
Josh moved the magnifying glass back over the drawing hanging on the wall. He focused it on the top part of the pointy rock. Up close, it did resemble an eagle’s head. And the eagle’s beak did look a bit like an X.
“It looks like the eagle is carrying a couple of branches to its nest,” Dink said, squinting one eye.
Josh put his face practically on the framed drawing. “It does sort of look like an X,” Josh said. “I wish this wasn’t so smudged.”
Clint had walked back to them. “If you want to go see the place where the Mayflower first landed, there’s a ferryboat called the Sea Witch,” he said. “It leaves from the pier next to the Mayflower II.”
Josh folded his sketch and slid it into his pocket.
“How long does it take to get there?” Ruth Rose asked.
“Under an hour,” Clint said. He glanced at his watch. “The next one leaves at one o’clock.”
Dink checked his own watch. “My mom expects us at the hotel by five,” he told Clint. “Could we make it back here by then?”
“Oh sure,” the friendly docent said. “Plenty of time.”
The kids thanked Clint, then hurried back toward the pier. They had no trouble finding the ferry called the Sea Witch. There was a colorful sign on the dock showing a life-size drawing of a Halloween witch riding her broom over the ocean. Beneath the picture were the words SEA WITCH TO PROVINCETOWN.
Dink glanced farther along the dock where the ferry was moored. The Sea Witch was twice as long as the Mayflower II, and the decks were crowded with people.
Suddenly a loud horn blast came from the ferry. “That must be a warning to hurry up,” Dink said, looking at his watch. “We still have ten minutes.”
They bought tickets at a small booth, then walked up a gangway to an outer deck. They stood at the rail, looking down at the Mayflower II, which was moored on the other side of the pier.
“Let’s go inside,” Josh suggested.
The kids walked to the seating cabin and sat on a bench. Other passengers sat nearby. There were tall windows on all sides, providing excellent views of the sky and water.
Another horn went off.
“Five minutes,” Dink announced.
An old woman entered the cabin and looked around for a seat. She wore sunglasses, and a shawl over her thick gray hair. Her long black coat reached to her shoes. The woman shuffled over to a bench in a far corner of the cabin.
They all heard a final horn blast. The engine started, and the deck under their feet began to hum and shudder. Soon the Sea Witch was backing away from its mooring.
“We’re leaving!” Ruth Rose said. She got up and hurried outside to stand at the railing. Josh went with her.
Several of the passengers moved to inside windows. The Sea Witch had left the pier and was cruising past the shoreline. Outside the windows, seagulls shrieked as they soared alongside. Some kids were throwing potato chips into the air, hoping the gulls would grab them.
Dink noticed that the old woman was watching him. Or was she? Her eyes were covered by the sunglasses, so maybe he was mistaken. But he had a feeling that she was looking at him.
Dink stood up and walked a few yards away. He casually walked back, sneaking a quick look at the woman. Now her head was down, and she seemed to be sleeping.
As Dink watched the drowsing woman, he realized that there was something familiar about her. Had he seen that mole on her face before, or those gloves with the fingers cut off?
No, he hadn’t met her before, but there was still something about her that … then he laughed at himself.
This woman looked like the cartoon witch he’d noticed on the dock sign. The cartoon witch wore a scraggly dress and a long scarf and had a mole on her face, just like the woman sitting opposite Dink.
Dink shook his head, feeling foolish. Then he walked outside to find Josh and Ruth Rose. A gust of wind made Dink shiver, and he felt goose bumps march up his arms.
Dink found Josh and Ruth Rose standing at the railing. Below them, the sea rolled beneath the boat. Seaweed clumps drifted by, and one passenger pointed at some jumping fish. The sun glistened off their silvery scales.
“Josh wouldn’t share his M&M’s with the seagulls,” Ruth Rose teased.
Dink laughed and took a deep breath of the cold air. It smelled of salt and something sweet. Soon land came into view, and the ferry began to slow.
“Won’t it be awesome if we find those stolen jewels?” Josh asked.
“What’s really awesome is that the Mayflower sailed right where we are almost four hundred years ago,” Ruth Rose said. “Think how happy those people must have been to see land!”
Straight ahead, the kids could see trees and buildings come into view. Then red and green buoys appeared. The ferry kept to the left of the red buoys all the way to the long pier.
Passengers began walking toward the stairs that would take them off the boat. As the kids followed, Dink kept his eyes open for the old woman with the mole on her face. He didn’t spot her, but he wasn’t surprised. There were dozens of other people in the line leaving the boat.
Once they were on solid ground again, Dink, Josh, and Ruth Rose walked along the pier. They started following a small sign that pointed toward the center of Provincetown.
“Wait a minute, guys,” Ruth Rose said. She was pulling her guidebook from the pouch in her sweatshirt. She read for a minute. “Okay, this says there’s a place called First Encounter Beach. It’s where the Pilgrims first landed and where they first saw Indians.”
“So where is this beach?” Josh asked.
Ruth Rose turned her guidebook so Dink and Josh could see the map. “I think we take a right off the pier,” she said. “See? That doesn’t look too far.”
Ruth Rose was right. Five minutes of fast walking brought them to a windswept beach. A plaque on a boulder said FIRST ENCOUNTER BEACH.
“The Mayflower wouldn’t have been able to land here,” Dink said, remembering what he’d read in school. “They anchored pretty far out and used smaller boats to get to land.”
Josh unfolded the sketch he’d made in the Pilgrim Hall Museum. The shoreline in that drawing looked nothing like the one stretching in front of them. “So where do we start?” he asked.
Ruth Rose looked at Josh’s drawing. “Trees and shorelines could change a lot in four hundred years,” she said. “But that tall rock might still be here somewhere.”
“I don’t see any rocks,” Dink said, “let alone one that looks like an eagle.”
The three kids turned in a circle, trying to spot a tall, pointy rock. They saw a few trees that looked really old and some beach cottages. One man was scraping the bottom of a rowboat in his yard.
“Let’s ask him,” Ruth Rose suggested.
The kids walked over and told the man what they were looking for. He glanced at Josh’s sketch. “Nope. Nothin’ like that around here,” he said. “I been here thirty years and never seen a rock like that.”
Dink had an idea. “Do you know where the Pilgrims came ashore?” he asked. “Was it really here, on this beach?”
The man pointed a hundred yards to the left. “The Provincetown Historical Society says they landed over there, where that small grove of pine trees grows right up to the water’s edge,” he said.
They thanked the man and hiked toward the pine trees. The spot was silent except for the whisper of a breeze blowing through pine needles. A few seagulls floated overhead. Dink felt strange, realizing he might be standing where Pilgrims had once walked!
“Okay, if you’re that Mudgett guy and you land here, what do you do next?” Josh asked.
“He wouldn’t be alone,” Ruth Rose said, reading from her guidebook. “There’d be other crew members in the boat and some passengers. It says kids came ashore to get exercise, and women came to wash clothes.”
“Mudgett would want to find a private place to hide the jewels,” Dink added. “Somehow he must have found the rock we saw in the picture.”
&n
bsp; “But there is no rock,” Josh said, looking disappointed.
“Maybe it’s underwater now,” Ruth Rose said. “Maybe the beach that was here got covered up!”
“Oh great,” Josh said. “We have to find a rock under the ocean?”
“I’ve never read anything that says the beach where they landed is underwater now,” Dink said.
“I haven’t, either,” Ruth Rose said. “If Mudgett really had the jewels with him, he’d want to go as far away from other people as he could. So maybe he found the rock further away from the shore.”
“But the drawing shows the rock near the beach,” Josh said, pointing to his own sketch.
“There are some more cottages on the other side of that little bridge,” Ruth Rose said. “Maybe someone knows about the rock.”
The kids trekked over the bridge and walked up to the first house they came to. A woman opened the door. “Yes?” she said.
Josh showed her his sketch. “We’re trying to find this rock,” he said.
The woman took a close look at the sketch. Then she shook her head. “I don’t remember ever seeing anything like this,” she said. “Sorry, kids.”
The door swung shut, and the kids started to walk away.
“Hey, I just thought of something,” the woman said, opening the door again. She pointed toward a tall, bare tree. “There’s a little park there. It’s called Rock Park. There are a few big boulders, but nothing tall and pointy like the one you showed me. Anyway, good luck!”
The kids hurried toward the tall tree. Beneath it, they found a couple of benches and a set of swings. There was a sandy place near a row of flat rocks partly buried in the sand. Dink saw a plastic pail and a little shovel under one of the benches. The whole area was Surrounded by boulders as tall as Ruth Rose.
“Well, unless the rock shrank over the years, it isn’t here,” Josh said.
Dink noticed something shiny on one of the boulders. He walked over to see what it was. “Hey, guys, check this out,” he said, kneeling to read a brass plate.
WELCOME TO ROCK PARK. IT IS BELIEVED THAT SOME OF THE MAYFLOWER PASSENGERS PASSED THROUGH HERE AS THEY EXPLORED THIS AREA OF PROVINCETOWN IN
NOVEMBER 1620. THERE WERE MORE BOULDERS THEN. THE ROW OF FIVE FLAT ROCKS BEHIND YOU WAS ONCE A SINGLE MONOLITH THAT STOOD TWENTY FEET TALL. YEARS AGO, THE ROCK TOPPLED AND BROKE INTO SECTIONS DURING A HURRICANE.
Dink, Josh, and Ruth Rose whipped around to look at the flat rocks that had once been a tall rock. A few people were walking near the park. Dink wondered if they had come on the ferry.
Dink noticed someone sitting on one of the benches. She was hunched over, with a long shawl covering her head and most of her face. It was the same old woman he had seen on the ferry.
“You see that woman?” Dink whispered to Josh and Ruth Rose.
“What about her?” Josh said.
“I think she’s following us!” Dink said. “She was watching me on the ferry, too.”
“Maybe she’s just following the trail of the Pilgrims, like we are,” Ruth Rose said. “She looks like she’s sleeping.”
“How did she get here so fast?” Dink said, keeping his voice low. “One minute that bench was empty, and then she appeared out of nowhere!”
“Dink, a lot of the people on the ferry-were probably coming here,” Ruth Rose said. “Maybe that woman wanted to see the place where the Pilgrims landed.”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” Dink said.
“You know, if this was a tall rock before it fell over, one of these five pieces must have been the pointy top,” Josh said. “Like in my drawing.”
The kids looked at the five flat rocks. They were all in a row. A few inches of each rock was exposed above the sand.
“If the rock fell over straight, the top part should be one of the two end ones,” Ruth Rose said. “Maybe there was a hole in the top of the rock, and that’s why Mudgett hid the jewels there.”
“You’re right, Ruth Rose,” Josh said. “So let’s dig around the two end pieces first.” He dropped to his knees and started scraping sand away from the flat rocks. Dink and Ruth Rose joined him.
Dink grabbed the plastic pail and shovel. The old woman was still on the bench. Her chin was on her chest, and she was snoring quietly.
Dink handed the shovel to Ruth Rose and the pail to Josh. “I’ll try to find something else to dig with,” he said. He walked toward the tall tree and found a dead branch. One end was sharp and flat, perfect for scooping sand.
Josh was examining his sketch again. “Which of these two end rocks seems to have a pointy end?” he asked. “That should be the top, the eagle’s mouth.”
“I can’t tell yet,” Ruth Rose said. She was twenty feet away from Josh, tossing sand out of a hole she’d dug at the very end of the rock.
The kids dug as the afternoon grew colder and the sun disappeared behind some clouds. Dink checked his watch. “We have to be on the four o’clock ferry no matter what,” he said. “It’s three-fifteen now.”
They dug faster and faster. Piles of sand grew around their knees. They uncovered all sorts of things that had gotten left behind over the years: empty bottles, a button, part of a comic book.
“Guys, my rock is getting narrow! I think it has a pointy end!” Ruth Rose said. The boys scrambled over to where she was digging. Ruth Rose had exposed about two feet more of the rock. They all helped her dig until the entire end was visible.
It did taper to a kind of point. But they couldn’t find a hole where anyone might have hidden something. It was impossible to tell if this part of the rock was the same as the eagle’s mouth in Josh’s sketch. Or if this had been at the very top of the rock when it was still standing.
Dink felt disappointed. He’d begun to get excited about solving this 400-year-old mystery. Maybe someone else had found the stolen jewels years ago. Heck, some squirrel could have carried them off!
“Let’s dig this whole area up,” he said. “There might be another section of rock that’s buried.”
Their two-foot hole became three feet deep and three feet wide. Dink’s fingers were sore, and one of his knuckles was bleeding.
“Yuck!” Josh yelled suddenly, falling back on his knees. “I found a dead animal!”
Dink looked at what had made Josh’s face turn white. It was about the size of a hamster and covered with rotted brown skin.
Dink used his stick to lift the thing out of the hole. The brown skin fell apart.
“OH MY GOSH!” Ruth Rose yelled.
It wasn’t an animal skin at all. It was a decayed leather bag. As it fell away, something still hung from Dink’s stick.
It was a necklace.
“The Mayflower jewels!” Dink said.
Tiny roots clung to it. Still, the metal looked like gold, and held at least fifteen blue gemstones.
“We were right!” Josh said. “Mudgett hid the loot here, then drew that picture as a map!”
Dink pulled his stick over and dropped the necklace into Ruth Rose’s hands. “I’ll keep it in my sweatshirt pouch,” she said. She gathered up the remnants of the leather bag and put that inside with the necklace.
Just then the kids heard a long, loud horn blast in the distance.
“It’s the ferry!” Dink said. He checked his watch. “Quarter to four. Let’s go!”
The three kids took off running. As Dink passed the bench where the woman had been dozing, he noticed that she was gone. How does she keep disappearing? he wondered as they raced across the beach toward the ferry landing.
With only a minute to spare, they tore up the walkway to the Sea Witch’s outer deck. Out of breath, they stepped into the cabin and huddled on a bench.
“Still got it?” Dink whispered to Ruth Rose.
She nodded and patted the lump in her sweatshirt pouch.
The final horn blast sounded, and the kids sat back. Dink closed his eyes. The boat’s engine came to life and they slowly began to move. Dink grinned. He couldn’t wait to tell
his mom about their adventure.
“She’s baaaack,” Josh whispered in Dink’s ear.
Dink opened his eyes as Josh nudged him.
The old woman had taken a seat not far from where the kids sat.
Dink stared at her. Don’t get paranoid, he told himself. She could be just another tourist. Maybe she just wanted to see the place where the Mayflower first landed. She’s probably some nice old schoolteacher trying to learn more about the Pilgrims. Or maybe she’s a writer, doing research for a book. She’s not a witch who disappears, and she’s not following us!
Dink relaxed. He watched through the windows as two kids and their parents tried to persuade seagulls to snatch food from their fingers.
“What should we do with the … you-know-what?” Ruth Rose asked.
“Sell it and get rich,” Josh said.
“Sell it to who?” Dink asked. “Who’d buy it?”
“We’re not selling anything,” Ruth Rose said. “That … package belongs to that poor woman who lost it.”
“She’s dead,” Josh said.
“She might have relatives,” Dink said. “Her heirs should get it.”
Josh giggled. “Maybe I’m her heir,” he said.
As the kids talked, Dink glanced over toward the old woman. At least she wasn’t staring at Dink this time. She was gazing out the windows. As Dink watched, she took something from a pocket and slipped it into her mouth, then sat back and closed her eyes.
The sky was growing darker. Black clouds had blocked the sun, and even inside the cabin Dink felt cold. He shivered, shut his eyes, and huddled deeper into his sweatshirt. The boat’s gentle movement made him sleepy.
“Wake up,” Josh said, giving Dink a nudge. “We’re almost at the pier.”
Dink opened his eyes and blinked. He had been asleep. Everyone was inside the cabin now. A wind had come up, and it had grown dark. Thick snowflakes were slapping against the glass. An early moon came and went behind black clouds. Lights in the cabin ceiling blinked on.