Page 12 of In the Pursuit of Haven
Not Jessie!
“He’ll fill your head with thoughts of treasure and a better tomorrow when he can’t get his act together now. What is he? A deep-sea fisher? Do you know how dangerous that is? And at his age? His father treats him like another one of his disposable workers, and that’s what the Crabbs do; everyone’s a means to an end.” She sighed loudly again. “Are you even listening? His uncles died looking for that treasure.”
“Uncles?” There was only the one that I knew about so far.
“Yes uncles.”
“Both died in the fire?”
She took a steadying breath. “One went down in a shipwreck. He was looking for the treasure too! And the only reason Pete hasn’t kicked the bucket yet is because he’s too drunk to peel himself off the planks of the docks to go treasure hunting. Oh, I’m through talking about this. Just get inside before you catch your death of cold.”
But even after I’dgone inside to clean up, Auntie Haven wasn’t through with me:
“That boy is trouble, worse than his uncles who went after that stupid treasure. At least they showed initiative.”
“He’ll be a drunk like his father.”
“Does he always have to drive his boat around so fast?”
“Why doesn’t he put a shirt on?”
“You really want to be seen with a Crabb?”
“Crazy that Roxy married that boy!”
Haven had actually refused to go to my wedding, though she sneaked in at the last second with her tissues and immediately followed that with a box of chocolates from her best friend’s candy store. I’d tried to prove her wrong about everything, but well… she’d been right.
“Get that phone recharged,” Luther said, like he’d just invented that feature. “Jessie sounds worried about you.”
Sure he is.I nodded at Luther. “You bet.”
His hand went to my arm. “I’m sorry to hear about what happened.” I jumped, startled that he knew, but only for a moment. This was one of the perks of living in a small town. Everyone was wise to the things we couldn’t hide. There would be no mourning in privacy. “Yes.” I nodded. “Thank you. It’s been hard. Haven was amazing.”
“We’ll all miss her. I’m sorry for your loss.”
It was better to face this head-on anyway. Haven always did. We lost her to a stroke. One minute she’d been running that lighthouse in her overalls and chipper laugh, like she’d never aged a day in her life, and the next, she was gone. I guessed she preferred it that way. I sure didn’t. I wanted to say goodbye, but there was no right way to death—I would’ve been horribly upset to lose her any way it happened.
“She wanted me to go through her things,” I said.
“There’s no one better.”
Maybe my mother, but she was out with her new husband on a dental tour in Third World countries, fixing cleft palates and other dental deformities. Haven had her surrounding properties on Baker’s Island for me to get ready to sell, and then there were the government buildings to clean at the lighthouse. Clearing out Haven’s things to make way for the new keepers would be the hardest thing I’d ever done.
The lighthouse had been in the family for generations and now? We were passing on the torch… quite literally.
I wasn’t sure how I was going to handle it without Jessie by my side. And yet, I’d be doing everything I could to avoid him on my way to the island. Some might say I’d brought this loneliness and unnecessary grief on myself.
Aunt Haven, for one.And I’d give the world to be able to hear that from her own lips.
Chapter Four
“Thanks, Luther!” I expressed my gratitude to my old boss for his interference and tried to leave before I broke down in tears.
Readjusting the bag I’d hurriedly packed before I’d left our home in Boston for what might be the last time, I headed out the door, and found myself walking through history the moment the cold air hit my face on my way to the wharf.
The thing about Salem is that the streets were a crash of the modern with the past. One of the first settler graveyards of America was only steps away—The Old Burying Point Cemetery on Charter Street. I dug out a penny from my purse—Haven had started this tradition of putting a coin on her ancestors’ memorials to show we were thinking about them.
She happened to be related to John Proctor—a hero who never admitted guilt for what he didn’t do or tried to throw off the heat on himself by condemning anyone else for witchcraft. He was martyred for it. Of course, she was also related to half the other magistrates and accusers, so her bloodline was problematic, just like Jessie’s, just like mine.
