The Golden Hinde

8:40 am

"It's official. My father is gone. My mother has set up the will reading for 2:30 this afternoon." Testu casually stated as He sipped his morning coffee in the break room.

"Oh, my word, sweetheart! I am so sorry to hear that!" Rhonda gasped in her southern drawl. "You shouldn't even be here on a day like today!"

Damien cracked a grin "Test this is great! Maybe your old man will finally give you some of that money he's been sitting on, and you can get out of here!" Rhonda cuffed the back of Damien's head.

"For heaven's sake! You shouldn't speak ill of the dead like that. And besides, Tetsu loves workin' here with us!" Patting Testu on the shoulder. "Good luck this afternoon sugar, no matter what happens, your work fam loves you!" With that she left the break room with a whoosh of the door behind her.

"For real, though. I hope you get some major cash flow. Then you can go on lavish sailboat trips and not have to worry if Q.A. is going to call you up for review." And at that, Damien strolled out into the hall.

Testu didn't move. He was lost in thought, staring through the steam of his coffee. Thoughts of the last time he and his father had been out on the sailing yacht together.

They had always gone on strange weekend trips. His father had him pouring his attention over maps and star coordinates, even though they had tracking devices and phones to tell them exactly where they were. He would scream across the deck, "One day, you won't have those damned contraptions, and this will be the difference between life and death!" Well, Testu thought. Boy, was he wrong.

2:30 pm

Everyone was unusually right on time to the reading of Elias F. Droke's will, except for Windel, the family attorney. He was always early on all occasions.

Being the neat freak she was, Elinor Droke had already gotten the maids in to clean the study. God forbid anyone sees how Elias kept it while he was still alive. Testu's younger sisters, Mary and Elizabeth, twins, had pulled themselves away from whatever they filled their time with on the day to day allowance Elias had set up for them.

"To whom it may concern," Windel began. "I leave my home and all assets to my lovely wife, Eleanor. To my most loving daughters, they may have their pick of the cars and continue to have a yearly per diem determined by their mother. She knows best. And to my son Testu, I leave my wooden desk box, all of my books, my sail yacht, The Golden Hinde and $20,000 to invest in stocks.

Love to you all,

Elias Francis Droke"

Utter silence filled the room.

Tests couldn't hear or feel anything other than his blood pounding in his ears. He should have known. All his life, it's been countless hours of work and classes for him while his sisters were doted on. Now in the afterlife, his father had given him the task of the dutiful servant child, left to clean the rest of the study, the things no one but Elias cherished.

Test sat smoldering. His mother, head held high, and sisters, tiny smirks on their faces, retreated for cocktails, while the family attorney Windel left with a nod, a grimace, and a not so heartfelt 'Sorry for your loss.'

4:15 pm

Deciding to pack his new belongings, books, maps, and the special box his father had left him, he then realized ALL his father's books. That meant the little black planner his dad always had in his shirt pocket.

Oddly enough, Elias had placed it next to the box on the richly engraved 15th-century desk that had been imported from England. His father had loved that desk.

He sat down in the great armchair. Whiffs of his late father's aroma pluming up to meet his senses. Always the smell of sea salt and tobacco.

Feeling like a child again, he reached for the book hesitantly. It's softcover, pleasing to the touch from years of being his father's constant companion. Cautiously he opened the little black book. There before the first page was an envelope with his name scrolled across the surface. Suddenly excited, reaching for it, he then paused. Remembering his father's words, "Everything I do has meaning and a purpose. With something to be learned, or something to be gained." Was this another lesson or test his father had orchestrated to confuse, trick, or belittle him? The note did have his name on it. Deciding to open the envelope, he began to read.

'Test,

As you know, my time here is over. And it is now up to you to carry the great responsibility of your true inheritance.

I'm sure that my yellow fever contraction was a strange diagnosis, but I assure you, I knew it was coming before I arrived home from my last trip on The Golden Hinde.

As I write this letter, please know I've just arrived home and have yet to be seen by our family physician. I'm still of sound mind and need the following information I convey to you to be taken seriously and not discredited as rantings of a fever-induced mad man.

I know I haven't been present most of your life, but I made sure to equip you properly for the events you are most likely to encounter in your near future, with the time I had. This last correspondence to you must be heeded as truth.

All your classes. The fencing, the chess tournaments, language studies, cartography courses, and the endless hours I made you read through our library aloud, and yes, even our weekend boat trips, was my way of training you.

In the box, you will find an artifact I found in my 20's while on an archaeological dig in Costa Rica at Las Bolas.

The first time I activated the device, I was hurled back to 600 A.D., where I appeared as a god formed from lightning to the indigenous peoples there. I grew to love these people, even taking a wife.

As the Spaniards began to make their descent on the region, I knew I'd be unable to hide the fact I was English, and much less a god. I activated the apparatus again, knowing that the Spanish conquest for gold would lead to my new friends and family's extinction.

Upon my return home, I realize I had only been gone a whole day in this timeline.

There is a method for using the device I have come to call Leap Week. Every week you are gone in a past timeline, you are gone an hour in the present. Heartbroken, I devised a plan of revenge forever to be a thorn in Spain's conquest for gold.

I then became as you have read, time and time again in our library's books, Sir. Francis Drake, or as all of Spain came to deem me, El Draque' translated to The Dragon.

I went back to 1560, convinced the Drakes I was their lost sibling and began to intercept large gold trade and slave ships of the Spanish on our family's boats and others commissioned by Queen Elizabeth I.

Along the way, I met my best friend and your namesake, Guillaume Le Testu. He saved my life many times, and we hid several fortunes in different locations, of which all coordinates are in my black planner, complete with times and dates of when they are available.

Take only what you need. Making fortunes overnight is questionable by our societal standards, which is why I have decided to leave you only $20,000. having lucky investments to blame your new fortune on. I have a few trusted contacts that deal in antiquities and stocks in a red address book also inside the box. They will make everything mesh properly on paper.

I know you are ready. You're the only one in our family who can pull this off. God knows, Elizabeth and Mary wouldn't take very seriously in the 1500s.

How you do this is up to you. I've lived two lifetimes, had four wives, and made a fortune beyond compare, all in the name of love and revenge. I have also done horrible, unforgivable things for those same reasons. I trust that you will be a better man than I and do much greater things. The world must never know our secret Testu.

I hope to meet the man you become somewhere in time.

Your father,

Elias Francis Droke 2021

Sir Francis Drake 1596

The Dragon'- Eternally

P.s. There will be clothes for you on The Golden Hind for several periods per location. When in doubt, refer to the book. My blessings to you, my son, and God speed!'

Test read and re-read the letter. Baffled by what his father had written him. With trembling hands, he reached for the box with the gold inlay dragon on the top. Unlatching the hooked lock, he opened it.

A brassy pyramid-shaped object sat inside with a pencil-like shaft that lay next to it and under that, the red booklet with the contacts he would need later on. Closing the box, Testu gathered his new prized possessions, a map, and his phone and headed out the arched back doors of the study, down to the family's private marina.

6:30 pm

It all made sense now. Sitting at his desk in The Golden Hinde, the waves gently rocking his thoughts back and forth. The sailing yacht was how he would reach the locations. Once there, the Leap week would transport him to the time destination and then back.

His hands were sweaty, and If he did this, there'd be no claiming all this was nonsense.

He set the concordance for one of the various properties around the world his family owned to South America. Which just so happened to be one of the first locations and timestamps. Where in a cave, one of many fortunes awaited his arrival.

The sea breeze snapping the sails taught, Luminous sky colors reflecting brilliantly across the surface of the Pacific, Testu began to smile. Smile for the first time, it felt like, in his entire life, with the realization that his father had loved him and given him a gift more significant than just an inheritance. He had given him the power to choose a better life, or several for that matter, worth living.