Plundered Christmas (12 page)

“Really?” I asked Josie.

She nodded. “See the
W
at the top, that has to be west.”

I had thought that initially. “But don't most maps have
N
at the top for north?”

“Well, yes. But if it's hard to orient to north, the map might choose one of the other cardinal directions. If you look at the area that would be to the north on the map, it's mostly water. Maybe the person who drew this found that distracting.”

Water, she said. I looked at the wavy lines. I guess it could be water. “I'll give you that those lines might mean water. So why else do you say it's a map?”

“Because,” she said, matter-of-factly, “I recognize part of it. I think it's this island.”

I would have asked for more details, but just then, the three Banet women and my father came back into the great room. They were arguing, especially Margo and Anne, so loudly that they announced their arrival before they walked in.

I pointed to the square and put a finger to my lips so that both the kids would get what I meant. Then I slipped the paper back into my pocket and zipped it shut. I'd pick their brains on it later.

“You shouldn't have touched anything!” Margo was yelling. Funny, how quickly the ladylike manners had evaporated when we came to her home territory. “He's still part of a crime scene!”

“But he's my boy,” Anne protested. “I had to give him something to remember me by.”

“It didn't look like you were giving him something,” Margo said. “It looked more like you were trying to find something.”

“Ladies,” my dad interrupted trying to calm both of them down. “We have more important things to consider now. Margo, if she took something from William, the authorities will find out when they arrive. Anne, if you were simply trying to leave a memento for William's burial, that could have been done at a better time. I do, though, understand why you would want to.”

I rose from the couch to greet the others. Something in what my dad had said had sent the alarm bells off. “What more important things do we need to consider now, Dad?”

But my father didn't answer. Mary did. Staring at her smart phone, she grimaced. “Last night was just a warm-up. The worst of the storm is heading our way in a couple of hours. I got through to the mainland about what had happened here, but there's nothing they can do. As soon as it blows by, they promise to send us both medical and law enforcement help. But before that, we need to prepare. In fact, we probably should get busy boarding up the windows. The great room is still the safest place on the island, all things considered.”

I didn't intend for them to, but the words escaped my mouth of their own accord. “Another storm! On Christmas Day! It just isn't fair.” As soon as I heard my voice saying that, I felt about Justin's age. I was throwing my own little temper tantrum. I regretted that my emotions had spoken before my brain had a chance to engage. Just looking at the expressions on the faces of everyone in the room chastised me enough.

“Jeanine…” my dad cautioned.

“I know. I know. I'm sorry.” I went to the other side of Margo. I figured acting an apology out was better than just saying it. Dad was on her injured side, helping her baby it. “Let me help you to the couch so you can get comfortable again. And then I'll ask Mrs. Smith to make you something special.”

“Thank you,” she said. All the prim and proper and ladylike demeanor came back in full force when I offered to wait on her.

Well, I guess that was better. At least, that way we could all talk to one another. We would need to communicate and work together while we prepared for round two of this storm.

Once I got Margo settled, I took Josie back into the kitchen with me. She had started taking German at the G-SEFH co-op. I thought the woman might like to hear a little of her native tongue. Because even though James and I had met not too far from Frankfurt, I only knew the phrases for “hello,” “goodbye,” “how much,” and “where's the bathroom.”

“Mrs. Schmidt,” I called as we entered. “Miss Margo would like a little refreshment. And then I'll help you do whatever you need for the rest of the day's food.”

“Nonsense,
Liebling
. I have Juliana. We can certainly feed the few people in the house.”

I would have to find a way past the staff versus management attitude. And the storm was the perfect way to do so. “I don't doubt you could. But the power's still out and another storm is coming. So whatever needs to be done, should be done quickly. With Josie and me helping, you can make sure that whatever people need to eat until tomorrow morning has been prepared and safely stored or set out for people to help themselves. And while we work, you can do me a favor. Josie has been studying German and needs to practice.”

Mrs. Schmidt came over to Josie and formally stuck out her hand. “
Wilkommen zu meiner Küche
, Josie.”

Josie shook it with all seriousness. “
Dankeschön, Frau Schmidt. Was möchten Sie machen?”

They went off talking ingredients and preparation steps in German. Every once in a while, Josie would pause for quite a while. Then she'd ask, “
Wie sagt man das?”
and point at something she didn't know how to say.

Soon, the four of us were busy assembling sandwiches, brewing massive quantities of coffee, as well as heating water for other uses, cutting finger fruits and vegetables, and assorted other things. It amazed me how much hot food could be prepared on the top of the stove.

Juliana was even using a frying pan to make fresh bread.

It was peaceful in the kitchen.

James came in a couple of times to check on us and to say that he, Frank, Justin, Captain Blake, and to a more limited level, Charlie and Dad, were doing their best to board up all the windows. They'd also gone out by the cellar and brought in more of the wood for the fire.

What I liked best was that anytime James came in to give us an update, I got a kiss. Those presents made it seem more like Christmas.

Dad couldn't help the guys as much as he would have liked to because he had to run interference between the Banet women more often than not.

My poor father. He had no idea what he was getting into when he fell for Margo.

 

 

 

 

 

8

 

The winds of the storm began to howl almost an hour before the thunder, rain, and lightning came in all their fury.

I was grateful we were inside and sheltered.

The four of us who had done kitchen duty, had moved all the efforts of our labor to the sideboard at the back of the great room. We put the kettles of coffee over alcohol burners. But if those used up their fuel before the storm ended, I'd be drinking cold coffee. The rest of the food we had prepared was designed to keep for a long time at room temperature. We had most of the platters covered with plastic wrap. People could unwrap a plate as the other trays got used up. Plus there were tons of Christmas cookies of various flavors and shapes that Frau Schmidt had made well in advance of our visit.

No one would starve during this storm. At least not in this house.

However, I don't think people were thinking about food as the wind and wave attacked. I knew, from the storms and hurricanes the manor had weathered in the past, that I was as safe as I could be. But as the building creaked in the force of the gale, I still worried.

God
, I prayed
. I know You are in charge of everything. This storm has not escaped Your notice or Your power. Watch over us.

One flash of lightning was so close that its glow came through the slats. I happened to follow the angle of light. It hit the shark hanging above the fireplace. The gleam of light made the shark seem alive again, and ready to attack. “Just come a little closer,” the eyes seemed to say. “You do, and I'll do to you what I did to Margo.”

How creepy.

“Did you see that?” James whispered, elbowing me.

“Yes. It seemed like a sign or something. As soon as we can, we need to look more into the shark attack on Margo. I have a feeling that ties into everything.”

James agreed. “Didn't William harpoon that shark for Margo?”

“Yes, he did. So obviously, he knew the sharks and understood their habits. And Margo blamed him for her accident…” I leaned into my hubby.

Across the room, I could see our two huddled over Justin's game system, trying to ignore the storm, the fighting women, and the definite lack of Christmas. It was so cute to see them together. They might fight, argue, pick on each other and generally, act like brother and sister, but when they were the only kids around, they supported each other and actually seemed to like each other.

I hoped that when they were all grown up they would continue to get along well—not like the sisters-in-law in this very room.

But perhaps Anne had gotten along well with her brother, Margo's deceased husband, Mark Banet, and she just didn't like his choice in wives. What was the ill-will between Aimee's father, another Banet relative, and Margo? What history could drive these family members so far apart?

 

****

 

The people huddled in the great room stayed quiet during the deluge. They conversed in low tones. The rolls of thunder silenced any conversations that did go on.

After about an hour of the storm, Justin must have gotten tired of playing the game. He had actually left it in Josie's hands. Maybe she had programmed the mystery game that her brother had brought for her occasional amusement. Anyway, he had gone over to Charlie and was talking with the older man.

Then Justin brought Charlie over to us. “Mom, I told Charlie about the map. Can you show it to him?”

“Justin!”

Charlie put a hand on my arm. “Go easy on the boy, ma'am. I asked if he figured out anything else about the scroll. And I could tell when he got quiet that he knew something, so I pried.”

I brought the map out of my pocket. James hadn't even seen it yet. “I'm not even convinced that it is a map.”

Charlie took one long look at it. “Oh, it's definitely a map. Where did you find it?” he asked.

I pointed to the fireplace behind us.

“In the fireplace?” he asked.

“No, in the wood. It was in one of the big pieces of the palm tree that fell down earlier this year. Margo called it…some name. Like it was something special.”

“Old Moses,” Charlie said.

“Yes, that was it.”

He looked at the map again. “You see that small squiggled circle close to the W? That would be Old Moses. Josie was right that this was the island. The square was probably the original house since it's about where the cellar would be.”

Josie came over to join us. I should have known that she wouldn't stay off by herself when she saw the rest of her family together. “But that's not what I recognized when I saw the map, Mommy. I saw the marsh. Remember the purple flowers? And how deadly Miss Margo said it was? Well, that's what made sense to me was the skull and crossbones of purple flowers. That's how I knew it was here.”

Once she said that, I could see it. “And those upside down U's?”

Charlie cleared his throat. “The graveyard, ma'am. I imagine back when Miss Bonney drew it, there were only the two graves.”

Why did it sound as if he knew much more about this than he should? “Charlie? What do you need to tell us?”

He scratched at his gray head. I imagined where he had hit it last night was starting to itch. He looked at us, then over at Mrs. Banet, then back at us as if trying to make up his mind.

“The scroll you found yesterday morning wasn't the first. You see all those stars on the map? I think they was all scrolls, pages of the journal Miss Bonney promised to her father. The first one we found a long, long time ago when Mrs. Banet's husband, Mark, and I grew up here. He and I were a couple of scallywags and did all sorts of things we probably shouldn't have.

“My parents were the servants here: Mom was their cook and Dad kept the grounds and piloted one of the boats to and from the mainland. Anyway, one of Mark's and my favorite things was to explore just beyond the sandbar. If you swim out far enough, where it starts to get dangerous, you can see a couple of wrecked ships at the bottom. On one such journey, we got nearly sucked down by an undertow. The whole experience scared the daylights out of us. It also took us far to the west of our usual route. Do you see that square with the star within the waves? That would be about where we found a letter buried along with several gold pieces in a little metal box.”

This news didn't make a whole lot of sense. If one of these letters had been found so long ago, why was there such a stink about the current one? And why did the family have so many issues with the possibility, which looked stronger minute by minute, that Anne Bonny was their ancestor? Didn't many people relish the fact that they descended from pirate stock?

James seemed just as confused as I was. “So why did that letter lead you to believe that there were two graves on this island at that time?”

The older man scuffed his shoe against the floor. He looked down at his foot, and then did it again. “Let me go ask Miss Margo.” He shuffled away, leaving us as confused, maybe even more confused as before.

James took the square of parchment from my hand and turned it various directions. “Have any of you looked up the Bible verse in Psalms or figured out what HLEF means?”

We admitted we hadn't. James carries with him a small military Bible that he received when he was stationed overseas, so he pulled it out of his pocket and looked up the verses. Then he read them to us. Like most of Psalms, the verses had a very poetic sound. “To him who alone does great wonders, His love endures forever. Who by His understanding made the heavens, His love endures forever. Who spread out the earth upon the waters, His love endures forever. Who made the great lights—His love endures forever. The sun to govern the day, His love endures forever. The moon and stars to govern the night; His love endures forever.”