A Spirited Gift

dust and the grimy smears I’d just added to it.

Joe started to say something, then shook his head. “What am I doing? You’re Eleanore’s granddaughter! You can tell me where it is, right?” He rolled up close to me and held out his hands. “Not sure how this works exactly. What do I do?”

“You think about what’s lost,” I told him, taking his hands. They were cold and leathery. “Close your eyes and let’s see if we can find it.”

Being in someone else’s mind searching for a lost possession was like looking through an attic full of memories and pictures. Most of them had nothing to do with what was lost. But if the person could hold the thought of the lost item in the front of their minds, the search was as easy as walking up the stairs and finding the item at the front of the crowded attic.

In Joe’s case, the attic was so overcrowded, I wasn’t sure I could find the old diary he’d hidden. Then suddenly, as he concentrated, there it was. I could see the old, scarred box resting in a pool of sunlight.

I opened my eyes to find him staring at me. “I think I see it.” I glanced around the room again. The box was hidden under a tobacco humidor. “You used to smoke before you had your stroke. I think you left it over here.”

The box and humidor were both near the window where the sunshine was flooding in from the beautiful day outside. I lifted the humidor with one hand and pulled out the box with the other.

On the outside of the box, still intact after so many generations, was the Forester crest. I recognized it from the makeup case William Astor had made for his adopted mother, Suzanne. My dreams seemed to have been right about this. I could hardly wait to see if the magistrate had chronicled his near death at Rafe’s hands—and the revenge he’d taken on the pirate.

I sat down again near Joe. He smiled at me as I opened the box. I pulled out the worn, leather-bound diary. In an instant, emotions from the diary flooded through me.

Wild Johnny Simpson had rummaged through Joe Endy’s parents’home looking for anything he could hold until Joe paid him back the money he owed him. He’d heard Joe talk about the old diary. Johnny laughed as he took it back to the Blue Whale.

He wasn’t laughing as Joe shot him and took what belonged to him before leaving Johnny there to die.

Chapter 46

I came back to myself, slumped in my chair, the diary still in my lap. Joe was staring at me with a horrified expression on his face. I could tell he wasn’t sure what to do.

“Are you okay?” he asked finally.

“I’m fine.” I smiled and opened the diary again—Rafe prodding me to hurry.

“Go to the middle or so,” Rafe demanded. “Find where that bastard murdered me.”

But there was so much more. I could’ve gotten lost in it for days. No wonder the historical society wanted it. The rich history of the area was well chronicled by the urchin saved from death by Lady Suzanne Forester on the beach centuries ago.

She’d educated him—treated him as her son. She had no children of her own and never married. William and his surrogate mother were very close.

She’d died in a fall from a horse. William had been away at the time and though she’d left him a fortune, he never forgave himself.

He never carried her name—her family had forbidden it. But he’d been raised with privileges he’d never dreamed existed when he was surviving on a pirate ship.

After Suzanne’s death in England, William had come back to North Carolina and the Outer Banks where he’d grown up. “Imagine my amazement,” he wrote in the diary, “to find that blackguard Rafe Masterson still alive and married to a fetching wench! He has children, no less. My mind is reeling with possibilities.”

It became William’s obsession to kill the man who’d once tried to kill him. With his money, power and background, it was simple to become a sworn magistrate of the law.

But as such, he had to find a way to get his revenge without stepping beyond the bounds of what he thought of as justice.

He finally gave up on that idea when he realized no one else knew that Rafe was the same pirate who’d pillaged ships along the coast twenty years before. To everyone else, the big, gruff man was a simple trader. William hired two men to set Rafe up as a smuggler, then revealed that he’d also been a pirate.

He’d wanted to torture Rafe but had fallen in love with Mary Masterson. That emotion hadn’t stopped the cruel magistrate from exacting punishment from her in exchange for Rafe’s quick death on the noose.

William detailed every event in his life—his children, failures and successes. He died a very wealthy man with lands and holdings in both Carolinas. Though there had been a seed of evil in him regarding Rafe, he’d lived a good, long life.

“And there it is!” Rafe breathed a sigh near my ear that made me shiver. “There it is in his own bloody hand. I was not guilty of any crime when he hanged me. As my blood relation, I expect you to chronicle this event, girl. Tell that little man who is writing my glorious life story that he was right. I am vindicated.”

I looked up in time to see the pirate begin fading away for what might be the last time. In a moment, there were only rays of sunshine where he’d been.

His trauma was over. I hoped he was reunited with Mary and their children.

But in the meantime, I was sitting across from the man who’d murdered Johnny Simpson more than thirty years ago. There was no way for me to prove it—at least as far as I could tell. It would’ve been better if I’d found the .22 pistol with the diary. What was I supposed to do?

The front door opened and Marissa came inside, a confused expression on her face. “Dae? What are you doing here?”

I wished I could hide the diary. Maybe if I could take it with me, I could think of some way to use it to prove what had happened that fateful night at the Blue Whale. “Hi, Marissa. I just stopped in to bring your grandfather some cookies. Would you like some?”

She closed the door and looked at the diary I was holding. “I’m sorry. I hope my grandfather hasn’t been boring you with his stories. He can run a little long sometimes.”

“I wasn’t boring anybody,” Joe snapped. “Dae likes history. I’m thinking about giving her that old diary. Nobody in my family wants it anymore. You’re not interested.”

Marissa smiled and smoothed Joe’s silver hair. “Of course I’m interested. But we can’t live in the past.”

“Maybe not.” I tried to tread carefully. I was either seconds from keeping the diary—or possibly never seeing it again. “I’m a member of the historical society. There’s so much information in this that could be helpful in piecing together our past. I’d love to have it. On loan, if nothing else.”

Joe made a spitting sound. “I hate those old biddies at the museum! If I’d known you were involved with them, I wouldn’t have let you in the front door!”

“Simmer down, Grandpa. I’m sure the museum could make better use of the diary than using it to hold up that old cigar box.” Marissa smiled at me. “Take it, Dae. The box too. We need to do some cleaning around here anyway. I hope you all get good use of it.”

“You can’t do that,” Joe charged. “That’s mine.”

“I think Dae should leave now,” Marissa said. “I think you need your nap.”

I didn’t wait to be invited again to take the book. I grabbed the box and stuffed the diary into it, then headed out the door. I felt bad for Joe. It had to be hard to have someone come in and tell you what to do with your possessions.

On the other hand, a man was dead because of Joe. Maybe there was some way to prove it.

I took the box to the Blue Whale. Kevin and I examined both items, then sat and stared at them. “If only the book could talk and its testimony be admissible in court,” I said.

“Tell me again what you saw in the vision,” Kevin instructed. “Even little details.”