“You forget about our stalker?” Shelton complained.
“There must be a thousand gators on this island,” Ben said. “I’d rather not surprise any that might be snoozing on this path.”
Ten more paces. Shelton began humming “Who Let the Dogs Out?”
A stream took shape alongside the trail, eventually dumping into a large pond. Rising from the pond’s shoreline was the steep wooded hill we’d seen from the boat.
“The watchtower must be up there.” Ben pointed to the crest. “Highest point for miles around.”
Hi squinted. “Could be. I see some broken stones littering the hilltop.”
“There’s a marker here.” Shelton rubbed at the plaque, then read aloud. “‘Near this site the first permanent European settlers of South Carolina landed on March 17, 1670, on their way to establish the settlement of Charles Town.’ Man, that’s old.”
“This way.” Ben led us along a narrower side path branching toward the water’s edge. Shelton’s humming grew louder. And shakier.
In twenty yards we reached the base of the hill. Grabbing my tool kit from where he’d left it, Ben started up a broken track barely visible in the moonlight.
As we climbed, questions lined up for attention.
Bonny’s poem was cryptic and vague. Did we have the correct translation? The right location? What were we supposed to do next?
Bull Island is immense. We could spend years digging in random spots and still find nothing. To have any hope, we had to solve the clues.
At the summit, we stopped to catch our breath and look around. A ring of stones circled the tiny hilltop. From this vantage, I could see the whole island.
“Look at this.” Shelton had dropped to a knee beside one of the rocks. “These were cut and fitted in place. This must’ve been the tower’s foundation.”
“So.” Hi walked a circuit. “We’re supposed to do what, exactly?”
“Focus on the poem,” I said. “The first line said, ‘On the moon’s high day, seek Island People.’”
“Full moon on Bull Island,” Shelton said. “Check and check.”
“Then we move to line two,” I said. “‘Stand the high watch, hold to thy faith, and look to the sea.’”
“Hopefully we’re standing the high watch right now,” said Hi. “So we need to ‘hold to thy faith and look to the sea.’ Whatever that means.”
“The last part is easy.” Chance pointed. “There’s the Atlantic.”
Everyone gazed at the iridescent black ocean stretching endlessly eastward.
Across the pond, beyond a low wooded ridge, I could just make out a jumble of debris on the seaward shore.
We surveyed the eastern landscape for long minutes, seeking inspiration. Found none.
“Um.” Hi shuffled his feet. “Okay.”
“We skipped the middle part,” Shelton said. “We’re supposed to ‘hold to thy faith’ somehow.”
“Which means?” Chance crossed his arms.
“Bonny’s clues have been literal,” I said. “What could we hold?”
Hi sucked in his breath, then scurried to my backpack. “The second rhyme from Bonny’s treasure map had similar wording.”
Of course! I felt like a dunce. “The riddle about the bridge!”
“Exactly.” Hi withdrew and scanned the map. “Here, Bonny used the phrase ‘thy faithful servant’ to describe the correct lever to pull.”
“The lever shaped like Bonny’s Celtic cross!” Shelton was working his earlobe double-time.
“And we have Bonny’s cross,” Ben said. “A tangible thing.” “That makes sense.” Chance pulled the cross from his pack and handed it to me.
“This cross has been the key,” I said. “Bonny’s touchstone. The symbolic expression of her faith.”
“Don’t just stand there!” Shelton was on fire.
“Do what, exactly?”
No one could answer.
“Talk the instructions through,” Ben said. “Step by step.”
Worth a shot.
“Stand the high watch.”
I moved to the center of the hill.
“Hold to thy faith.”
Grasping the cross with both hands, I held it aloft before me.
“Look to the sea.”
I turned due east and faced the Atlantic Ocean.
Holding that position, I peered across the moonlit island. Searched. My arms soon grew heavy.
“Now what?” I said finally.
“See anything unusual?” Hi stepped up beside me. “If the treasure is hidden below, there must be some indication from this spot.”
“Unless it’s gone,” Ben said. “That poem was written three hundred years ago.”
“But nothing’s changed!” Shelton whined. “There’s been no development here. No houses. No sewers. No Time Warner Cable.”
I studied the panorama below. “Hi, what am I seeing?”
“Jack’s Creek. It’s kind of a swampy lake that spreads out like an amoeba with tentacles. Shallow water riddled with sandbars and small islets.”
“That’s probably where the gators live,” Chance said.
“A terrible place to bury valuables,” Ben said. “You’d never get them back.”
“What’s beyond Jack’s Creek?” I asked. “Straight east.”
Hi checked his phone. “There’s a ridge, then a wide beach.”
“Hold up!” Shelton piped. “I forgot to tell you my hunch.”
“Anytime you’re ready,” I said.
“We’ve followed Bonny’s poem so far, but there’s one line remaining.”
“You’re right.” I recited the last part of Aunt Tempe’s translation. “‘Let a clear heart guide you through the field of bones.’”
“That stretch down there?” Shelton pointed to the debris-littered beach bordering the Atlantic. “It’s called the Boneyard.”
An electric sizzle traveled through me. “Why?”
“Hiking websites list Boneyard Beach as Bull Island’s top attraction. The sand is littered with dead trees and branches, giving it the appearance of a graveyard of half-buried monster bones.”
“Everything fits!” Hi exclaimed. “We must be looking in the right place!”
“But we don’t know where to dig.” Chance’s frustration was making him cranky.
“I don’t see you helping,” Ben said. “All you do is complain.”
I ignored the bickering.
There was a stirring deep in my brainpan. The tiniest jolt of recognition. What? Something Shelton said? Hiking? Bonny’s poem?
No go. The idea refused to surface.
“Quiet!”
The other Virals stilled. Chance started to protest, thought better of it.
“Let Tory do her thing,” Hi whispered. “Trust me, this is our best shot.”
I shut out the chatter. Something about that last line nagged at me.
“‘Let a clear heart guide you through the field of bones,’” I repeated. “Shelton’s right—that must refer to the Boneyard. But the poem directed us to this watchtower first.”
I spoke aloud, snapping facts together like Legos, encouraging the subliminal idea to the surface.
“Hold to thy faith, and look to the sea. I’m to stand here, but what I want is down on the beach. And I need the cross to find it.”
The cross. Why was the cross important?
I rotated Bonny’s artifact. “The top tine is bent?” I said. “Why?”
A design flaw? I didn’t think so. The delicate curve made the cross utterly unique.
Using two hands, I spun the cross. The crystal in the central ring flashed in the moonlight.
Suddenly, the pieces aligned like the tumblers in Hollis Claybourne’s safe.
“Anne,” I whispered to the night. “I understand.”
The boys watched in silence as I walked to the edge of the hillside.
“‘On the moon’s high day, seek Island People.’” I recited. “‘Stand the high watch, hold to thy faith, and look to the sea.’”