The Pirate Boy Returns I

Wherein treasures are found, buried or not

HAVE NEVER SEEN MY BOY SO SCARED. Except maybe an hour ago when I pulled that rubber snake out of the ground, him screaming bloody murder as he ran into the woods. So did Angela, actually, in the opposite direction, and she’s an adult woman. It took a while to get them back.

But this is different: the kind of fear that grows, envelops, holds you fixed in one place — there in his car seat as he stares out the window clutching his cutlass, the black patch still over his right eye. How the winding road must look to him now, through one eye: muddy bogs bubbling, naked trees like skeletons, the yellow rays of sunlight a scurvy dog’s gleaming teeth. And I wonder if I’ve gone too far — if it’s all too much. “Hey, Captain Zevvy,” I say. “Do you know what it is to be brave?” He nods. “To not be scared,” he says, in a small gasping voice. “Actually. That’s being fearless. Fearless is easy. Brave is when you’re scared, but you still move forward; it’s when you face your fears.” We cross the railroad tracks and turn into the old cemetery. “Are you ready?” I say. Zevvy shakes his head. The switched-off car fades into silence.

“Look,” I say, pointing through the windshield. “That tree at the back. Should we check it out?”

But Captain Zevvy won’t budge. “I’m really, really, really scared,” he says. “Of what, exactly?” I ask him. “I don’t know,” he says. And I can see this is the crux of it. “Well, let’s try to name it then.” He takes a breath. “Other tricks and traps. And even more scary than the snake — with dead people... like skeletons or zombies .... ”

It’s a fair point. Since finding that first note this morning, in an ancient bottle at the bottom of the lake, one thing’s been clear: today, anything could happen.

“Well how about this?” I say. “I go first. You guys come after. And when we’re done, we can eat our lunch.”

“Here?” says Captain Zevvy, whose love of lunch, particularly picnics, can override most things.

“If you like,” I say, and step out of the car. Then Ange and Zevvy get out after. He adjusts his patch, straightens his hat, and the three of us walk through the graveyard.

There, around the giant gnarled tree, are seven faded stones, and deep in a hole in the trunk of the tree, hidden by nylon webs and spiders made of plastic, the brave Captain Zevvy finds an apothecary bottle full of dirty white powder. I read the label: “Bone Dust,” I say. “Bone dust?” says Cutthroat Ange. “Bone dust,” says Zevvy, nodding sagely. “And look! A bone!”

We open it up, pull it out, and what looked like a bone, stuck in dust, is in fact a rolled-up scroll.

“A map!” says Captain Zevvy.