Kathy Reichs - Seizure

“We did this already.” The little patience Chance had started out with was long gone.

The other Virals shushed him.

“The cross is the key,” I said. “The last line says, ‘let a clear heart guide you through the field of bones.’”

“Wonderful. How does that help us?”

“Look at the cross, Chance. Inside the ring. What do you see?”

“The crystal? That’s the clear heart?”

“Ohmygod,” Shelton exhaled. “You’ve got it!”

Hi shook his head. “I’m lost. How can that guide us?”

“What strikes you as odd about this design?” I slowly tipped the cross this way and that.

“It’s bent,” Ben said.

“Exactly. Why is it bent?”

Holding the cross at eye level, I gazed down at the landscape below.

Felt a charge in my chest, as if someone had lit a match.

Identical mounds of rock rose on each side of Jack’s Creek. They seemed wrong, out of place in the lowland swamp.

I aligned the two mounds with the horizontal arms of Bonny’s cross.

Perfect fit.

“What are you doing?” Chance asked.

“This cross is going to reveal the treasure’s location.”

Hi was the first to catch on. “Hold the cross straight up and down. If the arms correspond to topographical features, this hill would be the bottom point.”

I did as instructed, but lost the alignment. “I can’t make it fit that way.”

Ben smacked his forehead. “We’re too low! There was a fort on this hilltop.”

“The difference in elevation wouldn’t be much!” Shelton exclaimed. “Martello towers were basically squatty stone shelters. The floor would’ve only been a yard or two higher!”

“Lift me,” I said to Ben.

“Seriously?”

“Of course I’m serious!”

Chance dropped to a knee. “Hop on. I’m the tallest.”

I swung my legs over Chance’s shoulders. He rose easily and grabbed my ankles to help me balance.

I raised the cross. From my new vantage point, the mounds clicked into perfect formation.

Heart pounding, I squinted, one eye squeezed shut, searching for the final piece.

The bent upper tine had to align with something.

I pointed to a dark spot on the ridge fronting Boneyard Beach. “Is that water?”

“Moccasin Pond,” Hi answered.

“Take two steps left,” I instructed Chance. “Now a half step back.”

Suddenly, everything slotted true. The curved portion of the cross arced to the center of Moccasin Pond.

I stared hard. The full moon was directly behind me, bright enough to tease details from the shadows below.

“There’s an island in the pond!” I yelped. “A third pile of rocks!”

Three mounds of stone.

The crude landmarks triangulated perfectly with the three points of Bonny’s cross.

Coincidence? Not a chance.

“Let a clear heart guide me.” I peered through the crystal in the cross’s center.

And saw nothing.

“Tory!” Hi pointed to the lower portion of the cross. “It’s not vertical!”

“Got it.” Orienting the cross fully upright, I realigned the three points.

A beam of moonlight shot from the crystal heart and knifed across the sky.

“Ohmygod!” Shelton squeaked.

“Get out!” Hi said.

“The full moon,” Ben breathed.

The disk was lighting an object in the distance.

I craned my neck to see, terrified of losing the proper orientation.

The object was a massive tree, bone white, with skeletal branches fanning out like satanic fingers.

“Gotcha,” I whispered.

The moon moved in its arc, and the beacon faded. I strained to absorb every detail, knowing I wouldn’t get another chance.

“Stop squirming!” Chance placed a steadying hand on my back.

“It worked!” I screeched, twisting in excitement. “I know where to dig!”

Then I was tumbling.

Ben and Hi managed to break my fall. Chance wasn’t as fortunate.

“Thanks, guys.” Flat on his back, rubbing a shoulder. “Don’t worry about me.”

“Suck it up,” Shelton said. “You dropped our fearless leader.”

Chance sniffed. “She wouldn’t last five seconds in a chicken fight.”

“I know where to dig! I know where to dig!”

“Where?” Spoken as one.

“Get me to Boneyard Beach!”

BEN INSISTED WE head back toward Sewee and walk along the coastline.

“We can’t travel the inland paths at night,” he said. “Full moon or not, you can’t see anything down in that swamp.”

“FYI, those marshes are known as Alligator Alley,” Hi added.

“No thanks.” Shelton shouldered his pack. “The long way sounds just fine.”

We retraced our steps, then followed a deer track along the coastline. The moon now took up half the sky. The ocean was flat and smooth as glass, the air still and muggy. Every mosquito in the county was snacking on our sweat-slicked skin.

After a half hour, we swung back south and reached Boneyard Beach.

“I’ll just say it.” Hi gestured to the ghostly stretch before us. “This is the creepiest place in the world. So glad we came in the middle of the night.”

Hundreds of dead trees lay on the beach, all bleached morgue-white by exposure to sun and salt water. The nickname was perfect. Gnarled trunks. Twisted limbs. The sand was strewn with corroded seashells and the carapaces of long-dead crustaceans. The place looked like a Paleozoic graveyard.

“Spread out,” I said. “Look for a gigantic tree with branches spreading like Medusa’s hair.”

I crept through the Boneyard, stopping every few yards to check the hill across the lake. Finally, I locked onto target.

A petrified cedar, standing all alone.

The weathered old trunk was ten feet in diameter. Two yards above ground it divided into five limbs that snaked low across the sand. Every branch reached inland, as if running away from the sea.

The whole tree formed a lopsided V ten yards across at its widest point.

“The devil’s hand!” Ben exclaimed. “Of course!”

“Come again?” Hi said.

“The Sewee legend!” Ben pumped his fist. “Remember what my uncle told me? ‘When the night sky burned as daytime, a flaming brand mounted the field of bones, and staked the devil’s hand.’ This tree has to be it!”

Another piece clicked into place. “Anne Bonny had long red tresses, like flames. The story must describe the night she buried her treasure!”

“The Sewee wove the event into their oral history.” Ben squeezed my shoulder. “We dig here.”

“Okay, so this chunk of firewood is the devil’s hand.” Chance was sizing up the cedar. “Where do we stake it?”

Ben made a quick circuit, weaving through and clambering over the twisted, dead limbs.

“The branches all run inland,” he said when finished. “Three on the right, two on the left. There’s nothing noteworthy on the seaward side of the tree.”

I walked inside the V and put my back to the trunk. Nestled between the tree’s ancient arms, I felt sheltered and safe, protected from winds and tides.

If it were my treasure, I’d bury it here .

I drew a line in the wet sand. Crossed it with another.

“X marks the spot.”

“We’re digging in the wrong place!” Chance tossed his shovel from the hole and hopped out. “It’s a dead end.”

“Get back in here!” Ben snapped. “We’ve only gone a few feet.”

“And found zilch.” Chance stretched his arms wide. “It’s been over an hour!”