The Hotel Under the Sand (7 page)

She thought for a little while about her life before the storm, and wondered what she’d be doing right now, if the storm had never happened. It cheered her up a little to think that even if things weren’t the way they used to be, she was safe and warm and had made new friends.

N
EXT MORNING
E
MMA
woke up and washed, thinking to herself that she would have to try to find a toothbrush in the hotel shop. She had dressed and was just making the bed when she heard someone say, “Ahem.”

It wasn’t Winston’s voice. It was a lady’s voice. Emma looked around quickly, but the only lady in the room was the Victorian doll. Emma walked over and looked at her. “You can’t have said
ahem
, can you?” said Emma. “Unless you’re a magic doll.”

The doll did not reply, but seemed to stare out the window in the direction of the sea. Emma followed her gaze and saw a ship, anchored offshore.

“Oh!” She ran to the window and opened it. Yes, there it was, riding at anchor and moving gently up and down with the swell: a big, rusty-looking old tugboat. It had no sails, of course, but there was a radio mast above its wheelhouse, flying a black flag. As Emma squinted at it, the wind flapped the flag out straight for a moment. She clearly caught a glimpse of a skull and crossbones.

Lowering her gaze, she saw footprints left by someone who had come up the beach. Only the left-side print was a foot, however. The right print was a small round hole. They led in a straight track over the sand, right up to the hotel, and where they went after that Emma couldn’t see, because the edge of the verandah roof got in the way. And at that very moment she heard someone coming up the verandah:
step
thump,
step
thump,
step
thump.

“Oh, my gosh!” said Emma, remembering the glass case in the Lobby, with its warning about pirates. She ran from her room, down the corridor past an astonished Winston, who ran after her yelling, “What’s the matter, Miss Emma?”

“We’ve got pirates!” she yelled back. They ran downstairs together, arriving on the grand staircase just in time to see the front doors open and a man come into the Lobby.

“You stop right there,” said Emma, scared and angry. She didn’t know what a pirate was doing in the Dunes, but she wasn’t about to let him loot and burn her hotel. The man looked up at them, very much surprised.

He was a big middle-aged man wearing a long blue peacoat, open over blue jeans and a red and white striped shirt. One of his legs ended at the knee and had been replaced by a wooden peg leg. One of his eyes was gone, too, and he wore a black patch, but at least it did not look so odd on him as it did on Mrs. Beet. His face was rough and red and whiskery. He wore a dirty white captain’s hat, and carried a pickaxe. A green parrot with a red forehead sat on his shoulder.

“You two wouldn’t be ghosts, would you?” the man asked, in a deep hoarse voice.

“No, only him,” said Emma, pointing to Winston. “You just turn right around and leave again, you pirate!”

Startled, the sailor took off his hat. “Uh… I ain’t no pirate, dearie,” he said. “Really I ain’t!”

“Then how come you have a wooden leg?” Emma demanded.

“Well—uh—a shark bit off me real one, aye,” said the sailor. “And I had a nice plastic prosthetic, but it blew off in a hurricane, so I had to fix up a bit o’ broomstick to hobble about on until I could afford a new one.”

“And how come you have an eye patch?” said Emma.

“I was ashore in China,” explained the sailor, “when some kid threw a firecracker, and it blew me eye clear to Japan. Ain’t been able to buy no glass eye yet, dearie. They’re powerful expensive, by thunder.”

“And how come you have a parrot?” said Emma.

“Parrot? What parrot?” The sailor looked about him, and pretended to start in surprise when he saw the parrot on his shoulder. “Why, look at that! Must be a wild bird, dearie, and he just alighted here coincidental-like!”

“Pieces of eight! Pieces of eight!” squawked the parrot.

“Hush, you bloody bird!” muttered the sailor.

“And how come your ship is out there flying the Jolly Roger?” said Emma.

The sailor winced, and twisted his hat in his hand. “Well, uh—that’s just a joke, like. A bit o’ fun. I’m more what you’d call a
salvager
, dearie. Sure I am.”

“What are you planning to do with that pickaxe, then, may I ask?” said Winston, advancing on him down the stairs. The sailor smiled craftily.

“Why, I was a-planning to salvage this here derelict hotel, matey,” he said.

“Well, you can’t, because I got here first, and I’ve already salvaged it,” said Emma. “So you just take your pickaxe and go away.”

At that moment, there was a rapid patter of little feet and Shorty came rocketing up the stairs from the Kitchens. He saw the sailor and began barking fiercely. Mrs. Beet came up the stairs after him, but stopped still when she saw the sailor.

“Oh, my!” Her eye widened. Her hands fluttered up to her hair, smoothing it and tucking back loose hairpins. “Oh, goodness me, who is this handsome stranger?”

The sailor grinned, showing dreadful cavities in his teeth. “Haar! Captain Ned Doubloon, ma’am, at yer service.” He bowed low. A cutlass fell from under his coat and clattered on the marble floor.

Shorty grabbed up the cutlass in his strong little jaws, and ran up to present it to Emma. Emma took the cutlass, feeling much braver, and pointed it at Captain Doubloon.

“Go on,” she said firmly. “Go find someplace else to pillage.”

“Aw, now, dearie, who said anything about
pillaging? “
said Captain Doubloon. “That ain’t my intention in the least. Why, I been a-waiting for this here lovely phantom of the sands to show herself these fifty years and more.”

“I think perhaps you should explain yourself, sir,” said Winston.

“To be sure, matey,” said Captain Doubloon, rubbing his whiskery chin. He looked around. “That looks like a nice Bar over there. Why don’t we all go sit down friendly-like, and if you’ve a glass of rum for an old sailor, I’ll be happy to tell you me story.”

T
HEY ALL WENT
into the Bar, which was a rather dark room full of model ships and framed prints of sea-battles. Winston went behind the bar and brought out rum for Captain Doubloon and Mrs. Beet, and a bottle of sarsaparilla for Emma. They all sat down at a table. Captain Doubloon began:

“I been a sailor since I was a little lad, and me father afore me, and his father afore him. That was me grandfather, Jack Doubloon. Now, when me granddad was only a cabin boy, he was working on a ship that sailed along this very coast, trading in coconuts and spice from the islands.

“He’d heard tales of a fine big hotel some rich man was a-building here in these Dunes, but he didn’t believe ‘em. Every sailor knows that the Storm of the Equinox hits pretty hard in these parts. Didn’t seem smart-like, if you know what I mean.

“Well, so the Equinox come around that spring, and it were a powerful storm indeed. His ship, that was the old
Tiger’s Eye
, was near cast on a lee shore five times that night. Come dawn, the sailors was all so tired they was asleep in the rigging, taking in sail in their dreams.

“Then the lookout, he gave a yell, and young Jack Doubloon he looked to windward and saw something he’d never seen afore: a band pavilion, floating on the open sea, all a-crowded with folks crying and praying and waving their handkerchiefs to be rescued.

“The captain, that was old Howlin’ Tom Flintigold, he gave orders to put down a boat to go fetch ‘em. Mostly they was pretty little chambermaids in black and white dresses, and young bellboys with brass buttons, and a night clerk or two. But one of ‘em was a tall man with a black beard, proud as the devil, all in fine clothes.

“Well, so they come aboard. The tall man said his name was Wenlocke, and told a sad tale of the Storm of the Equinox sinking his fine big hotel under the Dunes, and blowing his steamer pier to pieces, and washing him and his staff out to sea. He wanted Captain Flintigold to take him to Europe. He promised him gold and jewels from some castle he had.

“But all Mr. Wenlocke had on him to pay for his passage, see, was a gold watch and seal. And Captain Flintigold, he was a hard man. He said the most he’d do for the gold watch and seal was drop Mr. Wenlocke and his staff off at his next port of call, which was San Francisco.

“Mr. Wenlocke, he cursed some mighty strange curses, but there wasn’t nothing he could do. He and his staff had to settle down in the hold amongst the coconuts and make themselves as comfortable as they could whilst the
Tiger’s Eye
sailed on to San Francisco.

“But Jack Doubloon, he liked Mr. Wenlocke. He never heard such fine cursing in his life as he heard from that man. So he made himself agreeable, smuggling him extra bits of salt horse and hardtack to eat, and they become friendly. Mr. Wenlocke asked for paper and ink, and me granddad stole ‘em from the ship’s clerk for him, and Mr. Wenlocke used to sit up nights drawing and writing away by the light of a candle.

“When they come to San Francisco, what should they spy lined up all along the waterfront but a dozen lawyers, all a-waiting for poor Mr. Wenlocke with hungry eyes. ‘I’m done for,’ says Mr. Wenlocke, and he gets ready to jump overboard and drown hisself in the sea.

“ ‘Never fear,’ says young Jack Doubloon. ‘We’ll save you yet.’ And as the
Tiger’s Eye
docked, a powerful thick fog come down, such as they get in San Francisco. Me granddad, he traded clothes with Mr. Wenlocke, and gave him a knife and a compass. He lowered him in a boat off the port side of the ship, whilst the lawyers was a-coming up the gangplank on the starboard side like sharks on legs.

“Mr. Wenlocke, afore he rowed away into the fog, he said, ‘Doubloon, you been a good friend to me. Here’s something for your trouble.’ And he slipped him a rolled-up bit of paper with writing on it. And I wouldn’t sail with Captain Flintigold any more, either, if I were you,’ he added. Then he bent to the oars and slipped away, and escaped. Where he went, I never heard.

“Well, me granddad were smart as paint, but he never had no schooling, so he couldn’t read. He put that piece of paper in his sea-chest, and there it stayed for forty year. Me dad, Roger Doubloon, he couldn’t read neither, so he passed the paper on to me without knowing what it was. But he told me the whole story, so he did, including the bit where me granddad left Captain Flintigold and shipped out with somebody else, and heard that the
Tiger’s Eye
ran aground off Cape San Martin not three months later.

“Now, I
had
to go to school, what with the law and all, so as soon as I learned to read I looked at that bit of paper and saw it was a map, with directions. It gave the longitude and latitude of where his hotel sunk, so it did, but there was more: a scribble saying as how he had a treasure hid in the hotel, and how to find it.

“And all me life, dearie, I been a-sailing up and down this here coast, every spring and every autumn, waiting for the Storms of the Equinox. ‘Some day, Ned,’ I said to meself, ‘Some day there’ll be another almighty
big
storm what’ll uncover that there hotel again, and you can go hunt for that treasure, what’s rightfully yours on account of Mr. Wenlocke gave your granddad the map to it.’