Trouble and Treasure (#1, Trouble and Treasure Series) (12 page)

I turned back to the gravestone, sticking my
tongue firmly behind my teeth as I tried to think. The inscription
on the gravestone was simple, and it didn’t seem like a clue.

“
The stone under the tree,” I mumbled under
my breath. I repeated it several times as I walked around the
gravestone, careful not to walk over the grave itself. Unlike
Sebastian, I had respect for the dead.

I checked the back of the gravestone,
running my hand all the way across its length in case there was a
mark to indicate a message had worn off over the years. There
wasn’t anything. I then decided that perhaps the stone under the
tree indicated something else, and I turned to survey the old oak
behind me.

I stared up into its gnarled, many-branched
trunk. There wasn't a stone lodged anywhere, not that I could see.
If the stone was buried at the roots of the enormous tree, then I
was stiff out of luck, because I didn't have a spade and I didn't
fancy asking Sebastian for one. It was at that moment I started to
hear loud banging noises emanating from the church behind me,
interspersed with even louder and irritatingly manly grunts.

Muttering to myself about how annoying that
man was, I tried to think of what else a stone could be. Whenever
my great-uncle had posed me a riddle, or begun a game which I
couldn’t end, he had always told me to think of at least 10
possibilities of what I could do next. He called it fluid thinking,
and had muttered something about how he had learned it from a great
priest in Peru. Basically, when you are stuck, try to think of 10
possible solutions, and force your mind to finish the task, no
matter how hard it gets, and no matter how much your mind wants to
wander away.

So I held out my fingers in front of me
and waggled them for a bit. “The stone could mean the gravestone.”
I held up a thumb. “The stone could mean a stone buried under the
roots of the tree.” I held up another finger. “It could mean a
name, like John Stone or something.” I held up another finger,
smiling as my answers were starting to become more creative. “It
could mean a gem or some other precious stone, perhaps in a ring,
and perhaps the inscription is on the inside of the ring.” I held
up another finger, my answers coming quicker. “It could mean a
characteristic, perhaps something that is stone-like, concrete,
solid, but not technically made of stone.” I began to bite at my
lip harder, turning around as I stood there, staring up at the
church, the rest of the graveyard, the oak, even the woods beyond,
as I tried to think of yet more possibilities. “What else does
stone mean?”

I blinked, smiling with surprise as a
fantastic thought popped to mind. “Stone as in the unit of
measurement.” I couldn't keep the smile off my face. I turned back
to the tree and wondered how a clue could be found in a unit of
measurement that was somehow meant to be under a tree.

I remembered another snippet of my
great-uncle's advice: if you are having trouble seeing a solution,
take 10 steps back. Arthur Stanton, bless his soul, always did
things in groups of 10. It was another reason that the rest of my
family, especially my Great-Aunt Imelda, had thought him batty.

Considering how crazy my current situation
was, adding some more crazy to it didn't seem like it would make a
difference. So I took 10 steps back from my situation, my hands
clasped behind me as I inched my way through the graveyard, keeping
my eyes on the oak tree.

The solution didn't pop out at me, and I
stared at the oak tree, head on the side, waiting for inspiration
to strike.

That would be when I heard the guffaws of
laughter behind me.

“
You are fucking mad,” Sebastian said
between even harsher laughs.

I turned, cheeks irritatingly flushed at
being disturbed so rudely. “Shut up,” was all I could
manage.

He had a spade slung across his shoulder,
one arm resting on it easily. He had taken that ridiculously
expensive-looking jacket off, and had rolled up the sleeves of his
white shirt, the first several buttons undone. I noticed the deep
marks on his wrists – no wonder he’d been so well dressed this
morning. I wondered to myself what had happened to him last night –
perhaps he was into S&M? I noticed also that somehow, despite
the fact that the end of his spade was covered with dust and
clogged with dirt, his shirt was still as pristine as it had been
first thing that morning – so he was a neat freak too.

He must have caught my gaze as it lingered
over his arms. “Staring again?” he questioned.

I shot him an irritated look. I tapped my
hands on my legs and tried to raise my head up until I was staring
down my nose at him, despite the fact that he was a fair bit taller
than me. “Well, so have you found it then?”

I could tell by the less-than-triumphant
look on his face that the answer was no. That didn't stop him from
offering me one of those awful, excessively-arrogant smiles. “No,
have you fallen over and broken your neck from walking backwards in
a graveyard yet?” He brought the spade down in an easy arc and let
it sink into the soft ground below him.

I sucked in my lips, trying hard to think of
something more dignified and witty than shut up.

“
Excellent comeback,” he said after a
while. His expression hardened. “How can you be so sure,” he
grabbed the journal that had been tucked into the pocket of his
pants and gestured with it, “That your great-uncle wasn’t
lying?”

“
Are you suggesting that because you
haven't been able to find the globe after two minutes of digging,
in a place that you arbitrarily decided was the right one, that the
globe isn't here?”

His lips pulled back over his teeth and he
snorted out a laugh. “Listen to me, lady, I have been in this
business a lot longer than you have. This,” he gestured to the
church and the graveyard with the journal, “Doesn't feel like a
treasure trove to me.”

I crossed my arms and stared back at him.
“Well, it isn't meant to be a treasure trove, is it? It's meant to
be the location of a treasure map. The map is meant to lead us to
treasure,” I said each word clearly, as if I was talking to the
densest of children.

He shook his head, lips pulling up even
further over his perfect teeth.

“
Did you find anything in there?” I didn’t
uncross my arms, and nor did I tone down the harsh edge to my
voice; this guy deserved it. “Or did you just find
dirt?”

He raised his eyebrows and dipped them
again. “You are showing far too much attitude, and not nearly
enough gratitude. Or have you forgotten that I saved you last
night? Would you have preferred I left you to the less-than-kind
activities those mercenaries and criminals could have dished out to
you?”

I hated the fact I shook at that. I might
have been holding it together, even going toe-to-toe with this
irascible and pompous idiot, but that didn’t mean that I had
forgotten what happened last night. Nor did it mean that I had
gotten over it. I was going full steam ahead here, in the hope that
I didn’t have the chance to truly appreciate how much trouble I was
in.

Sebastian kept his gaze stony, his stance
tense and macho. I fancied, as my own shoulders twitched at his
words, and my eyes blinked and half closed, that he softened.
Shifting his jaw from side-to-side, he glanced at the oak behind
me. “Did you find anything?”

I shook my head. “I'm still in the
looking-for-clues stage,” I admitted honestly and with an
annoyingly innocent voice which I tried to cough into
submission.

“
Well, all I found was a set of scales. But
I was right. There was treasure at the center of the church; it
just isn't what we're looking for.”

I looked up sharply, letting my lips open in
surprise.

He must have thought I was shocked and
awed by his ability to find treasure so quickly, and one corner of
his mouth clinked up in a self-satisfied grin. “It is gold too, or
at least gold-plated.”

Blinking, I rushed past him, heading to
the church. It was a long shot, but he had found scales, so did
that mean that the stone in the clue was the unit of measurement?
Before I could race off and see the scales for myself, I realized I
still hadn’t solved the clue properly. It had spoken of the stone
found beneath a tree.

Sebastian chuckled lightly as he drew to a
stop beside me, spade slung over his shoulder again. “Keep your
skirt on, rookie; the treasure isn't going anywhere.”

“
Is there a tree in the church?” I asked,
playing with the end of my fingers as I always did when I was
thinking hard.

“
Not yet, but I imagine when these woods
have their way, they will encroach right into that church,”
Sebastian answered, and for the first time he didn’t add a
sarcastic grin or mean wink to it.

I plunged my top teeth into my bottom lip,
noted the way Sebastian smiled curiously at that, and turned to run
towards the church.

Perhaps I’d been wrong, and the tree
referred to in the passage wasn’t the one in the graveyard.
Perhaps, somehow, there was a tree in the church, or at least
something that technically fitted the description of the sky god’s
tree.

Showing too much excitement, and even
grinning wildly at the possibility I might solve this clue, I ran
into the church. Sebastian had pulled aside the broken pews and had
even rolled several of the massive stones that had fallen down from
the ceiling above to the side, clearing a neat semicircle right in
the dead center of the church.

There was a rough hole dug right into the
middle of the clearing, several of the flag stones shifted off to
the side, and a neat package sitting reverently on top of one,
chunks of dirt covering the stained cloth with leather tied around
it like a parcel.

I rushed over to it, Sebastian warning yet
again that unless I slowed down, I would break my neck.

I sat down next to the package once I
reached it, pulling down my skirt as I did, lest it rode up from
behind.

I picked up the package gently, placing it
on my lap as I unwrapped it. It was a set of scales; Sebastian
hadn’t lied about that. It did look like it was gold. An infectious
smile spread across my face as I tried not to get too excited at
the possibility I could figure this clue out.

“
I found that; it's mine,” Sebastian
clarified, letting the spade clang down beside him as he walked
right up to me and loomed there.

As I held the scales, playing lightly with
the mechanism, and gently moving it around as I surveyed it, I
strove to ignore him.

“
As great as it is – and you should
remember it's mine,” he clarified again, “We need to find the globe
that is meant to be here. If it is here,” he sighed deeply. “Every
second we stay here, is a second they,” he stabbed a finger at the
door, “Get closer to finding us.”

I put a finger to my lips and hissed out a
shhh. Then, still biting my lips, I looked around the church. There
weren't any trees that I could see, unless they were tiny. I let my
eyes settle above me, and noticed a sturdy wooden beam that ran
across the length of the church, supporting the heavy ceiling
above.

I stood up, careful not to drop the heavy
scales, head still turned towards the ceiling.

“
What wood do you think that beam is up
there?”

“
Probably oak, probably from the woods
outside, why? Do you think we can knock it down and use it to smash
our enemies?” He took the chance to gesture with his gun. “I think
I'll stick with my gun.”

I did a dance as the word ‘oak’ issued from
his mouth. The tree of the sky god. I had a set of scales in my
hand, scales that had been found under an oak tree, or at least a
section of such a tree.

“
Do you have a stone on you?” I asked
Sebastian.

Sebastian's eyebrows smoothly peaked
together. He leaned down, picked up a small stone from next to my
foot, brushing too close to my leg as he rose, and handed it to me.
“You are mad.”

I took the stone and threw it away. “Not a
stone, a stone.”

He laughed loudly. “Fuck,” he let the word
draw out. “Sorry, a stone,” he said, voice dripping with
sarcasm.

I put one hand on my hip, despite how
heavy it was to hold up the scales with the other. “I need a unit
of measurement. You know, a stone of weight.”

If he looked incredulous and sarcastic
before, he looked dismissive now.

“
Look, there is a passage in my
great-uncle's journal that says there is a clue to the globe's
whereabouts on a stone under the sky god’s tree. The sky god’s
tree, I think, means an oak tree, because that’s what was often
associated with sky deities in ancient times,” I kept my words
clear and slow, as if I was leading a class of five-year-olds, “And
now that you've found a set of scales, I think the word stone
refers to the unit of measurement. So maybe if we
could—”

Sebastian leaned in, grabbed the scales off
me, brushing past my arms as he did, and stared down at them.

“
Excuse me,” I blurted out.

He placed the scales on the ground, picked
up his spade, and before I could stop him swung it around in a
great arc and struck it.

I gave a stifled scream. “What are you
doing?”

While his first blow had dented the scales,
it hadn’t broken them. He pulled up his spade to strike again, and
before I could stop him, he settled yet another blow.