68 Knots (25 page)

She cackled awkwardly.

“The divorce happened in a hurry,” she continued, her eyes glittering coal. “My husband told the judge about my sudden ‘behavior change' and was able to get most of our assets and custody of the twins. They sold the sailboat to get the down payment back, or some of it, anyway. I was left with a little bit of money and a BMW. Still, it wasn't so bad. I was able to sell the car and buy this little sloop, and that's really all I need in this world. Just myself and my little sloop. She's a good boat. So anyway, now I just sail around. In the summers, I work my way up the coast to this area, and when fall comes, I head south toward the Georgia islands. I can always find stuff to eat, and I give people sailing lessons whenever I need a little money. I figure some day I'll get real sick, or I'll have a bad accident, or a killer storm will come along and catch me off guard—and that's when I'll die. But I'll
never
wake up and
find myself old and bitter, with nothing to show for my life but a billion sold appliances. No, I figure the end will probably come quickly out here, and I'll smile on my way out.”

Bonnie gulped down the last of her stew and put the can in the sand. The fog swirled, lightening at times and then growing thick again. No one said a word. Bonnie chuckled again.

“And you know what's really funny?” she said. “I could be rich again in three days. Anytime I choose. Hell, I could probably get rich enough to lure my husband back, get another chance to be a mother to my kids. Unless he's married again. I don't know. But money is evil. It's really the devil. People say the devil is some guy with horns and a pointy tail. But he's not. He's green. He's fashionable. He's expensive. Selling your soul to the devil is
literal
—and almost everyone has a price. So I don't even look for it. I don't want it, and if I found it again, I'd just leave it right where it is.” She shot a glance at the teenagers around her. Marietta returned her stare with eager interest.

Arthur looked around at the others. They seemed as puzzled as he was, so he decided to ask. “If you found
what
again?”

“The treasure. Blackgoat's loot. You've heard of him. Some pirate two hundred years ago. Sailed all around here. Vicious bastard. Raided a lot of boats and killed a lot of people. All for the love of money. The love of the devil. He got a lot, too. A whole lot of loot. Hid it in a cave on a little island east of here. I came across it looking for mussels for my stew. You'd never know it was there—you'd never know the cave was there—unless you were right on top of it. But I wasn't about to poison my life with that stuff again. I decided then and there to leave it be and to head off in my little sloop. Money will kill you, and I didn't want it back in my life. So I left it there. Vicious stuff.”

Then Bonnie stopped talking, and she wouldn't say anything more about her life. Whenever Arthur asked her a question, she answered with a one-sentence, vague reply. Eventually she stood, brushed the sand off her shorts, and walked away. “It's time for my nap,” she said. “No point in sailing in the middle of the day. Too hot, if you ask me.”

She waded into the ocean, swam out to her sloop, and flopped over the side. Without a wave or a look back, she ducked down into her cabin.

The
Dreadnought
crew was silent, thinking about all Bonnie had said. Then Marietta spoke. “Did she say
treasure
?” she asked.

The crew spent the rest of the morning and much of the afternoon swimming, reading, and gathering fuel for the lunch fire. Crystal practiced windsprints up and down the beach, tightening her already tight abs and quads and glutes. Jesse sat on a rock near the water's edge and drew colorful swirls on his shoulders and touched up lines that were fading elsewhere. He had covered almost every part of his body that he could reach, and the abstract patterns gave him a frightening and primitive air. Not that Bonnie had given him a second glance, though. She didn't seem to think he looked odd at all.

Dawn recognized the gift offered to her by the Goddess of Quiet Mornings, and she took the opportunity to stand on her head. It was a form of meditation she had always wanted to try, so she found a secluded bit of beach some distance away from the others—and she planted the top of her head on the sand. Bracing herself with her hands, she kicked her feet into the air.

“Mantra,” she said to herself as sand trickled from her feet to her face. “I need a mantra. Can't chant without one.”

She thought through words that felt in tune with the foggy sun below her feet and the waves that curled upside-down before her eyes.
Pineapple
, she thought. No, that's stupid. How about
flip
? No. Too silly.
Three
, like three-dimensional. Seems like the right idea, with me upside-down and all. But not quite right. Oooff! She struggled to keep her inverted balance. The strange movement of the waves before her didn't help. “Goddess, help me,” she said out loud. And then she waited.

“
Alignment
,” she said firmly. It was just the right word. “Alignment,” she chanted, grateful for the blessing she had received from the Goddess of Insights. She began to repeat the word in a loud whisper.

“Alignment.

Alignment.

Alig-nment.

Ali-gnment.

A-line-ment.

A line meant.”

The word began to sound strange, alien, wrong. She continued the chant, and she watched as the odd world laid out before her—a ground made of blue air, a world made of churning seawater, a sky made of straw-colored sand—shifted and melded and merged in her mind. It was at this level, where all that matters is earth and water and fire and fog and life and gravity, that Dawn felt her spirit soar in breaching leaps around her. This is what she was after. This is why she did this. This is why she chose to stand on her head on a beach and chant while others were tossing Frisbees and building
fires and talking about hidden treasure. There are other worlds in this world, other universes in this universe, other realities in this reality, and Dawn felt them pull her in deep and passionate ways.

When Dawn had finished her journey into alternate dimensions and was lying on the sand, trying to get the spots in front of her eyes to disappear, Joy and Logan roasted several long skewers packed tightly with chicken, peppers, and onions. The
Dreadnought
crew gathered around the fire, and as they ate, they talked about the lure of the treasure Bonnie had mentioned.

“It's a lie,” Crystal said as she helped herself to a chicken shish kebob. “It's some fucking line she's come up with to find out whether she's talking to brainless tourists or not. If we fall for it—if we ask her where the treasure is—she'll know we're just stupid kids, and she'll laugh about us for months. Besides, think about it. Do you really think she knows where a fortune's worth of treasure is, and she doesn't want to get her hands on it? Her story is cute, but it doesn't make sense. And whoever heard of a pirate named Blackgoat?”

“I have,” Dawn said. “I read about him in one of the books in the captain's quarters. Bonnie is right. He sailed all around here, he gathered a lot of gold and things from the ships and towns he raided, and he was nasty. We're lucky he's not around today.”

Crystal shook her head. “Okay, so he was real,” she said. “That doesn't mean anything—and it sure as hell doesn't mean that Bonnie stumbled on his treasure and then just left it there. I'm telling you, it's a test. I think we should try to pass it like adults.”

“And I think we should grab the treasure while we can,” Marietta said, pulling a piece of chicken off her skewer with her teeth. “This is the chance of a lifetime. We meet up with
some crazy lady who's decided that money is evil. Then she tells us that she left behind a treasure worth a fortune. And you're telling us that we should just ignore it? Not me. I want to know where the treasure is, and I want to go get it.”

The crew nibbled food off of sticks and debated the issue well after lunch. Then Bonnie emerged from the cabin of her sloop and began to rig her sails. It was time for a decision. It was time for leadership. Joy dug the Saint Christopher/Saint Francis coin from her pocket, but Arthur cut her off.

“It seems to me,” he said, standing up and watching the little sloop, “that we're missing the point. It doesn't matter whether the treasure is real or not—if we don't pursue it, we'll never know. And it really doesn't matter what Bonnie thinks of us—we'll probably never see her again. So the question really boils down to whether we're willing to go over to Bonnie's sloop and ask her about it. That doesn't seem too tough. She's the one who told us so much this morning. It seems only natural to want to know more. Some of you might disagree, but I'm
going
to go over there and talk to her about it. And besides, we're forgetting one important thing. BillFi said we'd meet someone today who would help us. I'm beginning to trust his crazy little hunches, and I figure Bonnie can't help us if we don't follow her lead. Who knows—we might find enough treasure to let us stop stealing stuff from boats.”

Arthur rowed the dinghy alongside Bonnie's sloop. Through the light fog, he could see Bonnie moving around down in the tiny cabin.

“Ahoy,” he said. “Permission to come aboard?”

Bonnie was packing some odd pieces of scrap fabric into a box. She didn't look up. “I can't exactly stop you, can I?” she said. “I don't carry a gun.”

Arthur wasn't sure whether that constituted an invitation or not, but he tied up the dinghy and scrambled over the side. He sat down in the boat's shallow cockpit.

“Got a glass of water down here for you,” Bonnie said, still without looking up. “Don't mind sharing water. It's free in most places around here.”

Arthur glanced over at the towering
Dreadnought
, shrugged, and climbed down into the cabin.

The space was almost entirely filled by a table that had a wooden bench on each side. There were no other rooms. A counter along one wall held a small green camping stove that was surrounded by a clutter of spice bags and stained mugs. The air was musty with odors of mildew, sweat, and cooking fuel. Tucked under the bow was a roll of soft crumbling foam; Arthur guessed that Bonnie rolled it out each night across the table and slept right there. He sat down on the port bench as Bonnie filled two smudged glasses with water from a plastic jug. She put the glasses on the table and sat down opposite Arthur.

“So,” she said, “you're here about Blackgoat.”

Arthur accepted the glass and took a drink. “Well, you got us kind of curious,” he said. “What exactly did this guy do?”

“Who are you kids?” Bonnie asked, her gaze solid. “What are you doing out here?”

“We're part of a camp,” Arthur said. “A summer sailing camp. Our instructor sent us out for a while on our own to improve our sailing skills.”

Bonnie looked out the tiny porthole at the looming mass of the
Dreadnought
. “Bullshit,” she said. “Try again.”

“It's true,” Arthur insisted. “We all signed up for a sailing—”

“Yes, yes, a sailing camp,” Bonnie interrupted. “That much I believe. But your instructor didn't trust you with that ship
just so you could learn a jib from a jenny. What happened? He dead?”

Arthur gasped. “What? Um, no. Not—”

“Okay, so he's dead,” Bonnie said without a smile. There was no hint of accusation or fear in her eyes. “You kids kill him, or what?”

Arthur took a deep breath and told Bonnie the whole story—McKinley's oppression, his suicide, the burial at sea.

When he was done, Bonnie chuckled. “Slid him off a plank, did you?” she asked. “Right into the ocean? Hell, probably serves him right.” She chuckled again. “Okay, you've done your bit. I'll tell you about Blackgoat and his treasure.”

Arthur returned to the beach about an hour later. He said he'd tell everyone about Bonnie once they were back on the
Dreadnought
.

A short while later, sitting at the head of the dining table, Arthur smiled at the others.

“What did she say?” Marietta asked. “Did she tell you where the treasure is?”

Arthur nodded. “She told me where it is, and she told me how to find it,” he said. “It was weird, though. I got over there, and she acted like she was expecting me. She poured us glasses of water, and we sat in the cabin and then she asked about McKinley. I told her the truth. She didn't seem to care. Then she told me all about Blackgoat and the things he did around here. He was a serious pirate for about twenty years before he finally disappeared. People say his ship went down in a battle with an English warship, but no one knows for sure. All they know is that he suddenly stopped raiding boats.”