The Old Cape House (38 page)

After five minutes of cutting, I looked up and spotted another opening between two trees. An hour passed before I reached the straight trunks of my targets. When I turned around, I saw a twenty-
foot path behind me. Tired but happy, a strong sense of
accomplishment came over me.

I heard the sound of traffic stopping in front of the house and
stood taller above the brambles to hear it clearer. It was the school bus dropping Molly off from kindergarten. I held the shovel up to mark my position for her and called out, “Molly, I’m in the woods,
over here.”

“Mommy, Mommy,” she yelled out as she ran down the driveway.

It didn’t take her long to find the rustic entrance I’d made so she could enter the woods. She kept her eye on me as she ran down the
new path. My gray hair bobbed up and down as I continued to
whack and cut my way deeper into the prickly scrub. When she finally reached me, Molly dropped her little backpack and asked, “Whatcha
doing?” and gave me a big hug and kiss.

“Whacking!” I said as I brought the rake down hard onto the
unruly brambles.

“Can I try?”

“Sure, but be careful.”

Molly took hold of the big rake and smacked the ground, almost falling forward with its force.

“Whoa. Be careful.” I caught her by the shoulders before she fell over. “Go and change your clothes if you want to help me.”

“That’s okay. I’m hungry and my show is on soon. I’m gonna go
in.”

“Daddy’s in the studio. I’ll be right in. I have to put away my
tools.”

I bent over to pick up the rake and shovel. “I love you.”

“I love you too.” Molly’s tiny voice trailed off singing a little
tune from Sesame Street.

***

The following two days were filled with rain, which gave me no opportunity to continue my paths. Disappointed, I sat at the kitchen table and opened the mail. “Nothing but bills,” I said to Paul.

“So what else is new?”

I unfolded the local paper. “Hey, look at this. It says here in the
court records that Jack Hennessey was convicted of assault and
battery with attempted robbery. They gave him six years.”

Paul sat next to me. “What about Neil Hallett?”

Running my finger down the column, I spotted his name. “Neil
Hallett was convicted of breaking and entering with attempted
robbery. They gave him two years and fined him $1,000.00.”

The thought of someone breaking into our house made me upset
again. Neil Hallett should not have been so greedy and sneaky.
“God, I’m glad that’s over,” I whispered.

Paul began filling the dishwasher with the dirty dishes.

I tapped my finger on the newspaper’s words and rehashed the whole scenario in my head. I’d always felt there was a thread that
intertwined Maria Hallett, Sam Bellamy, and our property even
though
my theory was never officially recognized by the
Whydah
Museum in
Provincetown. I glanced at the two pieces of vellum from the old cellar that Paul had framed in a shadow box in the kitchen. “I was thinking, if you don’t mind, I’m going to work on my paths. It looks like it stopped raining.”

Paul smiled at me. “Sure, go ahead. I’ll listen for Daniel. Pretend all those prickers are Hallett and Hennessey and whack ‘em good!”

“Will do!”

Paul gave me a big hug. “Nancy? Please don’t go finding
anymore root cellars.”

I kissed him on his bearded cheek. “Thanks for filling it in and planting grass over it.”

“Anything for you.”

The grass wet my hiking boots after only a few steps, but they
were waterproof, so I didn’t care. Following my new path into the woods, I saw a large ivy-covered mound up ahead, ten feet beyond where I had stopped whacking the other day. I zeroed in on it as a marker, representing the goal for the day’s clearing. I smiled to myself and thought that when I finish, these paths will be so neat for the kids to play on. I could hardly wait to take everyone on a tour.

Deep in the woods, I continued cutting and trimming everything that stood in my way. Leaves and clippings were thrown off the path with my raking.

I finally stood next to the huge mound that was my goal. It was
almost as tall as I was. I noticed a tick crawling up my pants, so I
quickly
leaned one hand against the thick ivy that covered the mound to
pick off the tick.

The damp ivy felt unusually sturdy under my palm. Curious, I pulled some of the green vines away and exposed the gray coloring of a huge rock underneath. I grabbed the clippers and started cutting
into the dense ivy. As I pulled the long spindly strands of the
invasive plant up and out of the ground, dirt sprinkled across my boots. The more I pulled and cut, the larger the exposed surface of the boulder
grew. I stood back to see exactly how big this behemoth was. My
eyes followed the curve of the huge stone, tracing its outline from top to bottom. Then something shiny caught my attention at its base.

I ripped off my garden gloves and hurried over to it. I pulled out
a round yellow disc from the freshly scattered, loose dirt and
recognized it immediately. It was just like the three gold coins that had been found in the old root cellar. My stomach did flip-flops. I knelt down and frantically started to dig with my bare hands on the hope that there were more coins. I only had to go down a few inches to see the remnants of a rotted wooden lid.

I felt a little dizzy as my fingers scratched at the black dirt
around its outside, exposing a rectangular shape. I sat against the back of my calves, staring at what I had uncovered. I couldn’t believe my eyes and pushed my hair back so I could see it better. I brushed as much dirt as I could away from what lay before me. My hands were filthy–I wiped them on my pants–then reached deeper into the rotting lid and down into layers of gold coins, red rubies, and gold necklaces.

I picked up a pendant with an emerald green stone embedded within its center and then dropped it back into the jumbled mess. It was happening again–only this time it really was the answer to my prayers. I felt a euphoria rise into my neck and face. A fortune like
this was something beyond my wildest dreams! I thought
discovering the old cellar and the three small gold coins was the closest thing
that I would ever get to real treasure. I thought of Neil Hallett and
laughed out loud. He was right after all; he was just in the wrong spot. My heart raced. I felt vindicated.

I looked down at the gold pieces and for a second, thought of Maria Hallett. I didn’t know why she and Sam were in Brewster and not Eastham, but I did know that I’d just found the missing treasure of the pirate Sam Bellamy, the legendary booty that everyone had been after for almost 300 years.

I wiped my face and streaked my cheeks with dirt, just the way
Molly did when she played outside in the gardens; only I wasn’t
playing. A handful of gold coins sifted through my fingertips. The
next ones were cradled in the front of my shirt close to my waist. I could
hardly get off my knees, but managed to push my way up to a
standing position with my free hand.

Fearful of stumbling over exposed roots because my legs were shaking, I forced myself to slow down and walk the new path with care. I started to yell as loud as I could, “Paul! Paul!”

As I came closer to the edge of the woods I couldn’t contain
myself anymore. I screamed Paul’s name and ran towards the house while clutching the treasure in a rolled up ball against my stomach. “Paul! Paul! You’re not going to believe this. Look what I found!”

The End

On my 11
th
birthday, I received my first diary. Recording my daily activities and thoughts became a labor of love for me and still continues to this day. Throughout those many decades, my passion
for writing and telling a good story grew stronger along with
enjoying the process. But bringing a novel into a published book was a task that took me by surprise. It was a lot of work.

So, I would like to thank first and foremost my patient, attentive, and loving husband Tim, who encouraged me to never give up and provided one of his beautiful watercolors to grace the cover of my
book.  To my children and their spouses: Scott, Carly, Tim, Jen,
Heather, Annie, Eric, and Michael, who hovered behind me when it
was close to dinner or humored me on the phone as I worked
through my plots and premises.

Of course, I could not forget my two writing groups who were there when no one else wanted to listen to the same words that I had written over and over but only slightly different in arrangement or meaning.

The Monday, Tuesday Group That Meets On Friday
: Anita, Joan, Barbara#1, Yvonne, Jeri, Pat, Nicole, Marie, Iris, and Carol.

Writers In Common
: Dona, Marsha, Katrina, Jason, Debbie, Susan, and Barbara K.

Thank you to my early readers who caught the little details that I missed, like giving the same name to two of my minor characters. They are: Heather, Sara, Charlotte, Barbara#1, Pat M., Ezra H. and Maryanne.

Last but not least, Nicola Burnell, who was my first mentor in
writing and became my editor for
The Old Cape House
and the
wonderful people at Booktrope.

Thank you all for being there when I needed you.

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