Heart of Gold

I wiped the sweat from my brow, streaking dirt across my face. In late July, the sun was hot and unforgiving. I told Mrs. Martin that it was not a good idea to plant roses at this time of year, but she insisted. She was paying me, so I guess I shouldn’t complain. I had law school tuition to pay, after all. But ugh, the heat! I let my shovel drop to the ground and flopped down in the dappled shade of a nearby tree: a gorgeous, old oak tree that looked to be as old as Mrs. Martin herself.

I let my mind wander as I gazed up at the house. Massive, arched windows covered the walls, allowing for magnificent views of the garden. But, despite its grandeur, the house was old. Mrs. Martin had lived here for as long as I could remember. When I was younger, I rode my bike past her house to school every day. The castle-like house inspired lots of captivating rumours. My favourite, and the most popular story, was that Mrs. Martin’s grandfather was a pirate. They even said he had buried treasure before he died. Imagine that – buried treasure!

I snapped out of my daydream when I caught a glimpse of Mrs. Martin in the window. With a sigh, I grabbed my shovel. Alas, I was not bathing in a fortune of pirate treasure, and I had bills to pay, so I had better get back to work.

Digging the hole for the rose bush was really frustrating. The ground was choked with roots and plenty of rocks, to the extent that I almost didn’t notice when my shovel knocked against something that made a hollow, wooden thud. Intrigued, I peered into the hole. I saw what looked like a piece of old, rotting wood. Its rectangular edges told me that this was no root. Upon further inspection, I realized that I had uncovered a box. It looked as if it had been in the ground for decades. The old wood disintegrated in my hands as I touched it, leaving red marks on my fingers. Gingerly, I opened the box, way too excited about what may be inside.

The box contained something small and rectangular. It was wrapped in a soft, faded oilcloth. My heart was pounding as I gently peeled it back to reveal a little black book. The book was in marvellous condition, which was surprising considering the state of the box. I plopped down in the shade to inspect it. It was a diary, each page filled with neat writing. However, the last entry was different. The usually neat handwriting was scrawled and rushed, as if the author was in a great hurry:

Dearest Virginia,

If you have found this letter, they have caught me. Therefore, I am most likely dead, and cannot provide for you any longer. But, my love, on the day that we wed, I promised that I would always take care of you. And that is a promise I intend to keep. I have hidden the remainder of the gold for you. Look for the treasure in our favourite place.

Yours forever and always,

David

I leapt to my feet. Hidden treasure? Could those childhood rumours be true? Yes, I was far too grown up to entertain such ideas – but the possibility of real pirate treasure was too much to bear. I raced up to the house and pounded on the door, bouncing impatiently as I waited for Mrs. Martin to open it.

“Molly? Are you alright?” Mrs. Martin asked, looking concerned.

“Oh, yes, thank you, I’m perfectly alright. I just found something in the garden that I want to show you.” Eagerly, I handed her the notebook.

Her wrinkled, round face broke into a radiant smile when I pointed her to the last entry. “Oh, my!” she murmured. “So, maybe it is true!”

I could not help myself. “What’s true, Mrs. Martin? Who is Virginia? Who is David?”

Mrs. Martin beckoned me into the sitting room. “Well,” she said, gesturing for me to take a seat, “I’m sure you’ve heard the rumours that my grandfather was a pirate. I never knew if he really was, because my family never talked about that. As you can imagine, after the crackdown on piracy here, having a pirate in the family would have been a great source of shame. However, I was told that shortly after the crackdown, my grandfather, David, disappeared. His young wife, Virginia, was devastated. She was left alone to raise their five boys, one of whom was my father. I never met her – she died while she was still quite young, some say of a broken heart. Virginia and David lived here, in this house. Obviously, it has changed since then, but a lot of it is much the same as when my father grew up here…” She trailed off, gazing out through the picture windows to the garden.

After a moment, she blinked herself out of her daze and continued. “I suppose that if my grandfather really was a pirate, as the rumours suggested, maybe he buried some of his fortune as he was trying to escape law enforcement. If you believe the rumours, of course. It was so long ago! And buried pirate treasure – it sounds like something out of a story!”

I shifted in my seat, hardly able to contain my excitement. The prospect of real, buried treasure had my imagination running wild. “What if it’s really out there, Mrs. Martin? Are you going to look for it? Do you know what David meant by ‘our favourite place’?”

Mrs. Martin chuckled lightly, showing delicate wrinkles in the corners of her eyes. “Darling, I am much too old to go treasure hunting, and I have all the money I could ever need. This little book is priceless to me, though – I’ve always wanted to know my grandparents’ story. But, hold on, I may know what my grandfather meant by their favourite place…”

Gesturing for me to follow, she shuffled into the hall, where an old, black-and-white photo hung. A young man and woman in funny old-fashioned clothes peered stiffly back at me from the frame. Behind them was a beach and a big oak tree. “This is one of the only photos I have of my grandparents,” Mrs. Martin remarked wistfully. “It was taken on Hickory Island – you know the one? Just off the coast here. My father said that David would row the family out to the island with a picnic, and they would sit and enjoy it under this oak tree. My father said that the whole family absolutely loved it there. Maybe this was their favourite place.”

At this point, I was practically jumping up and down. “Can I look for it, Mrs. Martin? What if the treasure is really there?”

Mrs. Martin’s face broke into a smile. “Well, I don’t see why not,” she said. “On one condition: if you find it, the money is yours. I know how hard you’re working to put yourself through school.” She paused. “But that’s if there is any treasure at all… it’s been a very long time, you know. And,” she added, “you have to come back and finish planting my roses!”

I was already halfway out the door. “Of course, Mrs. Martin! I will plant all the roses you could ever want! Thank you for everything!”

Shovel in hand, I raced down the road to the pier. In this tiny town, the distances were not far at all. I vaulted over the railing at the pier and stuck my head into the little office.

“Hey, Callum,” I called. Callum, the manager of the little marina, almost jumped out of his skin in fright.

“Yikes, Molly! Don’t scare me like that. What are you doing?” he asked, eyeing my shovel.

“Can I borrow a dinghy to take to Hickory Island?”

“I mean, yeah, but you have to sign it out and pay the deposit… Molly!”

I was already halfway to the end of the dock. I jumped into a small, white dinghy, and gunned the engine. I waved back at Callum, who had failed to catch up with me. He waved too – he knew I’d be back with his boat eventually.

The dinghy ride to Hickory Island took about five minutes, but it felt like an eternity. I could not believe the rumours might be real. I was so excited that I had to keep reminding myself to breathe. Fortunately for me, much like the rest of our sleepy little town, Hickory Island was quiet and deserted. It was framed in beautiful, sandy white beaches. The first beach was where people visited on day trips, and it was definitely the biggest. But I did not stop there. I continued around the small island, looking for the oak tree that was in the photo of David and Virginia. Eventually, on the westernmost coast of the island, I spotted it. The tree was significantly bigger than the one in the photo, but I supposed it had been decades since that photo was taken.

I leapt from the dinghy onto the soft sand. Where should I dig? There was no X-marks-the-spot, and the beach was much too big to search, never mind the brush that covered what was once a grassy clearing. Suddenly, I had an idea. I found the little black book buried about three meters from the old oak tree in Mrs. Martin’s garden, where I had been digging the hole for the roses. Maybe David had buried the treasure in a similar place by this tree. They were both oak trees, after all…

I paced around the tree at about a three-meter radius, looking for a place to start digging. Suddenly, my foot sank into a shallow indentation in the grass. I prodded the dip with my shovel, thinking that this was a good place to start. It didn’t take long before I heard a familiar thud. Unable to contain my excitement, I dug furiously to reveal another wooden box. But, when I tried to lift it out, it was ridiculously heavy. Using my shovel as a lever, I managed to wrestle the box from the hole. This box was not much bigger than the one from the garden, but this one had a lock. Luckily, it had rusted to the extent that it was easy to pry the latch free. Holding my breath, I carefully lifted the lid.

Gleaming in the sunlight was a nest of gold coins. It was easy to tell that they were real by the weight of them. I could not believe it – the rumours were true! I had just found real pirate treasure. I may have performed a small dance of joy.

⋆⋆⋆

The next day, after bringing the treasure home and returning the boat to Callum, I went into the bank to have the gold appraised. The old man at the counter peered at me dubiously through his thick glasses, but after a quick appraisal, he was convinced that it was real gold. “Well, miss, this is quite the find! So, I suppose the rumours were true, then?” he chuckled.

“Yeah – who would’ve known?” I grinned. “How much is the gold worth?”

“Twenty-thousand dollars I believe, miss,” the man told me happily.

I was stunned. With this money, I could finish law school! And, I have to tell you, that is exactly what I did. I went on to become a very successful lawyer, and I gave Mrs. Martin the twenty-thousand dollars that was rightfully hers. But, the first thing I did was return to Mrs. Martin’s house and finish planting her roses – free of charge.