Buried Secrets at Louisbourg (10 page)

They trudged up the hill,
the King's Bastion looming closer, and stopped at the first target campsite. Its tent resembled their own—old and grungy. The used-to-be-white canvas was tattered and bits of mould were spreading from the corners. The poles were caked with rust.

They stood together, surveying the tent.

“Well, someone's got to check inside, right?” Grace said.

No one moved.

She sighed and stomped over, pulling aside the flap.

“What do you want?” a voice bellowed.

“Oops, sorry, wrong tent,” she said, quickly backing away.

An old man emerged, pulling suspenders over his shoulders. His undershirt was as un-white as the tent, and he held a rifle in his hand. The blue wool pants indicated he was dressed up as a soldier.

“Can't a man get a nap around here?” he groused, scowling at them.

“Uh, sorry,” Fred said.

They walked quickly away, the man's complaints following them. Others from nearby sites seemed to have overheard the altercation, their suspicious gazes following them.

Great, just what we need—attention,
Fred thought.

“Maybe this isn't such a good idea,” Mai said. She twisted her hair in her fingers, pulling it from the loose braid. “We should go back. We could get in real trouble.”

“We'll be fine,” Fred said. “We just have to be a bit less conspicuous.”

“Well, don't blame me,” Grace said. “You're the one who said we had no time.”

“We won't have
any
time if we get kicked out of here,” Fred said. “Let's go over to the other side of the hill, away from anyone who might have seen us.”

There were fewer sites there, which meant less attention from prying eyes. A perfect place if you didn't want people to notice you. Exactly where box-stealing-criminal Lester would camp out.

“Oh, I hope the rain holds off,” Mai said, as another splatter fell. She wiped at a drop running down her face. “We'll get soaked.”

They approached another of the out-of-place sites that had no props around the tent. It looked abandoned. Fred walked slowly to the entrance and paused. “Um, hello?'

Silence.

“Hello,” he repeated. “Is anyone in there?”

Nothing.

Cautiously he moved the flap slightly to peer inside. It was empty. Not just of people, but of anything. Totally bare. Could it have been Lester's and he'd already left? Nausea churned in his gut.

He hesitated. Should he enter?

“Moved your campsite, did ya?”

Fred jerked backward from the tent and swung around. Great. Crazy Gerard.

“Uh, no,” Fred said.

“So what are you doing?” He peered past Fred toward the tent.

“Looking for a friend.”

“A friend, huh?” Gerard shot Fred a skeptical look. “What friend would that be?”

Anger coiled around Fred's insides. He was getting a little tired of being pushed around. This guy was too nosy. Didn't he have work to do? “Just a friend!”

“Hmm,” Gerard said.

Fred stared at him. What could this guy do to them, anyway? They hadn't done anything wrong. The more he thought about it, the madder he got. Besides, it didn't make any difference anyway. If this had been Lester's campsite, he was long gone. And Lester would have the box with him. So there was no point sticking around.

“He's probably out on one of the battles, or maybe in town,” Fred said curtly. “We'll come back later.” He gestured to Mai and Grace to follow him and started walking in the direction of the King's Bastion.

“Hey, I'm not done with you!” Gerard barked.

Fred didn't look back.

They had entered the gates to the bastion before Grace whistled under her breath. “Are you some kind of tough guy now?” she said. “Or some pod-hatched alien imposter? Who are you and what have you done to Freddo?”

“Ha ha,” Fred laughed, “very funny.” But he felt exhilarated, too. Adrenaline raced through his veins. One tiny bit of control over his out-of-control life.

* * *

In the interior courtyard of the King's Bastion, it was as if they'd stepped through a time-travel portal. Outside this main structure, you were always aware of the town's incomplete edges; its reconstructed centre seemed cocooned, as if inside a snow globe.

Here, in the enclosed quarters of the bastion, everything was more alive. Even the air felt different. Thicker. It vibrated with tension and danger. The grass-covered tops of the stone walls were guarded by patrolling men. Another group was huddled by the cannon, smoke billowing and sparks flaring. Soldiers in blue carried out musket-firing demonstrations. Acrid smoke filled the air. Shots boomed and echoed off the stone walls.

Other soldiers in red and blue carried out mock battles in the grassy courtyard, paired off in duelling blurs of colour, smaller versions of the bigger battles being staged in some of the outer fields. Insults boomed and swords clanged, all within a few feet of where Fred, Mai, and Grace stood.

KAABOOOM!

The cannon blast shook the glass windows.

Another group of re-enactors marched in through the archway, a drummer flanked by soldiers. A flute player was in the rear, the fluttering notes from his tune adding an eerie tone to the harsh rhythm of the fighting.

The spell was only broken when you turned right. Tourists lined the bastion wall in their out-of-place, bright, logoed T-shirts and garish, patterned shorts. Cameras obscured their faces as they captured the spectacle.

“Shouldn't we be looking in more tents for your friendly neighbourhood pirate?” Grace asked.

“We'll wait a couple of minutes to make sure Gerard's gone. Man, that guy's a pain in the butt. What's he got against me, anyway?”

“I chalk it up to great instincts.” Grace grinned at him.

Fred scowled, which only made her grin widen. Mai was silent, staring off at nothing, chewing her thumbnail. What was up with her today?

“There you guys are.”

Fred bristled at the voice.

“Where were you?” Grace asked Jeeter.

“Sorry, I didn't mean to be gone so long,” he said. “But there was a cool weapons demonstration at the armory and a mock battle in the field down there. What have you been up to?”

“Fred's box was stolen from his tent! We've been looking for it,” Grace said.

“Your little box was stolen? Did you find it?”

Fred hadn't minded a bit that Jeeter had been gone. And now that he was back, Fred wished he'd disappear again. “No!”

“Chill, Freddo,” Jeeter said, holding up his palms. “You need to relax.” He slapped Fred on the shoulder.

Fred shrugged him off. The sting of the slap lingered. What was with this guy, always punching him in the arm or hitting his shoulder? Fred's adrenaline rush at standing up to Gerard evaporated as he time-warped back to being a kindergarten pipsqueak. He opened his mouth, about to snap the insult that was on the tip of his tongue, when a familiar sight caught the corner of his eye. There. Amongst the tourists. His father was deep in conversation with Lester.

Fred's jaw clenched. The box thief. His instinct was to run to him and demand he give it back. His feet moved, as if to carry out his wish, but then he paused.

His father was shaking his head and gesturing angrily with his hands. Lester was equally angry, jabbing a pointed finger at Fred's dad. If only Fred were close enough to hear what they were saying. Urgency gripped him as the two quarrelling men turned and disappeared through the stone archway.

Mai and Grace were talking to Jeeter, all three turned away from Fred toward the battlefield. Seizing his chance, Fred stepped away, squeezing through a group of nattering senior citizens. Silently, he followed his father and the box thief into the shadowy interior of the bastion.

The building was vacant, everyone
apparently drawn to the mock battles outside. He paused, wondering which way Lester and his dad had gone.

Loud voices drew him toward the chapel.

He peered around the corner into the brightly lit room. The walls were plastered white, with skylights and windows letting in enough daylight to illuminate every corner, even under the gloomy clouds. There were no places to hide. But there was no sign of his father or the box thief. Suddenly, though, he could hear them.

“Pete, you're out of time,” Lester said.

“Look, I explained it to you,” his dad replied. “The delays couldn't be helped. We're still a go for tonight. And it's looking good.”

Fred surveyed the room. Where were the voices coming from? He turned around and went back into the hallway. There was no sign of the pair, nor could he hear them. He returned to the chapel, and the voices were clear as a bell. Where were they?

“Why don't you give me the details on what you have so far?” Lester said. “I need this. If you don't deliver…”

The threat hung in the air.

“Patience. We're a go for the boat tonight. It'll take us right to it.”

“We'll never get a chance like this again!” Lester said, his voice louder.

“Take it easy, Lester,” Fred's dad said. “You'll get what's coming to you.”

“I'd better.”

The door to the confessional cracked open, and the curtain on the other side also moved.

Overcome with an instinct to hide, Fred retreated from the room and ducked into a nearby stairwell. Pressed against the wall, he held his breath. Footsteps echoed off the stone and faded away. His heartbeat throbbed in his ears. Fred waited another full minute, and then poked his head into the tunnel. The coast was clear.

Sighing with relief at escaping detection, he couldn't resist one more look to see where they were headed. He exited the bastion and stood on the wooden bridge over the weed-filled former moat. The men had separated, Lester the box thief turning toward the campsites on the hill, and his dad veering toward the museum and the ruins down the hill to the right of town.

His eyes instinctively followed Lester as he trudged through the various sites and entered the same empty tent Fred had searched earlier. Lester must have kept the box with him.

It seemed from the conversation with his dad that whatever Lester was up to, he couldn't have opened the box. That made sense, didn't it? He'd have been talking about it if he had, wouldn't he? Not about some boat. So, Fred still had time. While his brain was busily formulating a plan, he walked slowly, returning to the crowds and noise of the bastion courtyard.

* * *

“So, what's the plan?” Grace asked. They were strolling back down the hill toward town.

Fred hadn't gotten far with the actual planning part of the plan, so he really had nothing to offer. “I'm thinking.”

“Uh-huh,” Grace said. “Translation: not a sweet clue.”

Fred scowled. Grace was annoying sometimes. Make that a lot of the time. “Well, why don't you come up with something?”

“I would, Freddo, no problem, but you haven't told us what the heck is going on around here!”

“What do you mean?”

“We're not blind,” Grace said. “We saw your dad with that Lester creep.”

“And we saw you follow them,” Mai added softly, “without us.”

He felt a flush stain his face. “Yeah, about that—”

“If he's working with your dad, then why don't you ask your dad about your box?” Jeeter suggested. “He'd be the logical choice, right?”

Fred frowned at Jeeter.

“Hey, I'm just saying,” Jeeter said.

Fred didn't answer, staring instead at the harbour. They were back on the quay. The tall ships were visiting as part of the encampment, half a dozen of them anchored in the harbour. Would his dad have been talking about one of those boats? There were no others in the harbour, so it would have to be one of them. He just had to find out which one.

“Freddy,” a soft voice said.

He whipped around. “Mom?”

She was as white and pasty as uncooked dough. Tendrils of her hair had escaped her bonnet and clung limply to her damp forehead. She grasped his sleeve. Her hand was shaking.

“I think I overdid it,” she said shakily. “I need to lie down for a minute.”

He thought of the heaping pile he'd left in his tent. “C'mon, I'll take you. Mai, I'm going to put her in yours, okay?”

Mai's brown eyes, full of concern, met his. “Of course.” She gently took his mom's other arm and they guided her the short distance to their site.

Grace pulled back the tent flap. “Um, excuse my mess,” she said, grabbing clothes off the floor on her side of the tent and tossing them to the corner.

Mai helped his mom to her sleeping bag, neatly arranged on the floor. His mom sighed and closed her eyes, draping her arm across her forehead. “Don't let me sleep more than fifteen minutes,” she said, her voice already thick and sluggish. Within seconds, her breathing was slow and deep.

Grace went back outside, leaving Fred and Mai inside with his sleeping mother. Fred flopped down onto Grace's crumpled sleeping bag. He felt winded, like he'd just run a race.

Mai's hair brushed against his face as she sat down beside him. She wrapped her arms around her bent legs and rested her chin on her knees. They watched his mom as she slept.

“Why didn't you tell me about your mom?”

Fred could hear the hurt in Mai's voice. “I'm sorry.”

“I'm your best friend. I could have helped.”

Fred sighed. “I know.”

“So why didn't you?”

He searched for the words. His thoughts from the past two months were all crammed together in his head, like a pile of dirty laundry stuffed in a hamper. He struggled to pull them apart. Into something that made sense.

“It was so weird,” he said. That was lame. Not really what he meant, either. “I mean, it came out of nowhere. It was suppertime. Mom was sitting in the lawnchair wrapped in a blanket. I was barbecuing hamburgers and she says, ‘The cancer is back,' as if she was asking me to pass the ketchup.” He heard his voice, raspy and uneven.

Mai reached out and squeezed his hand.

“She said she had felt something was wrong for a while, that it might be back, but she'd been afraid to get tested. She was catching every cold, everything that was going around all winter. Her immune system was toast. I was out spelunking in sinkholes without a care in the world and Mom had cancer.”

“That's not your fault. You didn't know.”

Blood rushed to his head. Fred sucked in a deep breath and blew it out slowly. “Then I kept thinking, you know, how we saved Grace's dad and everything. I felt like…I felt like all the
‘
save the parents' luck had been used up, you know? I mean, what were the odds both of them would be okay? Grace's dad
and
my mom? I couldn't face you guys. I couldn't face Grace's happy ending day after day. Not while I was looking after Mom.”

“It's okay.”

Tears leaked from his eyes and his throat burned. “Mom didn't have any benefits from the bakery. No sick days. No insurance. And Dad was self-employed. She was so sick from the pneumonia, she could hardly get out of bed. It was like that for weeks. I was doing everything—cooking, laundry, all of it. Then the dive shop closed a couple of weeks ago out of the blue. Dad's contract he'd been working on was cancelled.”

Mai sniffed and brushed her free hand across her face, squeezing his hand tighter. Fred turned to look at her and saw her cheeks were wet, too.

Thunder crashed overhead. Rain erupted and pelted the tent, a ceaseless drum roll. His mother didn't stir.

“You know, at first Mom said she wasn't going to get any treatment. That she couldn't go through it again. Said she wasn't strong enough. She was talking about just enjoying our time together, however long that was.” His breath caught on the sob that burst from him. “I hadn't asked her about it. But I knew it must have been bad…the last time.”

“Oh, Fred,” Mai whispered.

“She kept these journals. In a box in her closet. One afternoon when she was sleeping on the couch, I searched through them and found it. The one from the last time she had cancer. It was all in there. How she'd thrown up all the time and been so sick she could barely lift her head. The pain. How much she cried. And she wrote lots of times that it wasn't worth living. That if she survived, she'd never do it again.”

“Your poor mom.”

“It was awful! How could I ask her to go through that again? But she felt bad about her decision, I know she did. Couldn't look at me without tears in her eyes. She got really depressed. She hardly ate and she slept all the time. I think that's partly why she had pneumonia for so long. But then a couple of weeks ago, something changed. She seemed to come around.”

He stared out at the rain. “It's weird, like when things were the worst, when Dad's business went under, she came out of this fog she was in. And last week she finally said yes. They're going to start treatments right away. I think…I think she wants to fight, because…because maybe she thinks Dad can't look after me.”

Mai gasped, her hand covering her mouth. “You really think that?”

“I don't know. Maybe it isn't that. It could be it took her awhile to get ready for it in her mind, you know? Like getting ready for battle or something. I guess it doesn't matter why, just that she's going to do it. Fight. But that's why I've got to get my box back, Mai,” he said. Conviction surged through him like a fever. “Mom will be able to go to one of those places like the Mayo Clinic or something. Get the best, you know? And she won't have to worry about working, or money. It'll fix everything.”