Page 9 of In the Pursuit of Haven
A weapon? It was half rattle, half battle club? The artifact looked like it belonged to the Naumkeag Tribe, except for the circle in the front and the odd notch down the length of its strange, leathery skin that made it look like a snake tail.
It was mystical enough to belong to the old wizard Dimond himself, and if not? Still stuck in the throes of Jessie’s haunting story from the night before, I almost wondered if it was one of the clues Crabb left behind to find that cursed treasure.
But that was too coincidental, right?
Chapter Three
—Way Back When—the Present—Everything in Between—
Jessie held the strange rattle in his hands to inspect it. “Your turn,” he said. “You never told me your story.”
When would I havehad time? He’d kissed me until we were breathless during that storm… not to say that I hadn’t already been breathless.
I licked my lips. “My family doesn’t have one. Last night was my first scary story.”
He broke into a grin—in the light of day, it revealed his every adorable dimple. “What was that story, Roxy?” he asked. “The one about your first kiss?”
My cheeks flooded with heat. “Who said anything about a first kiss?”
“And this is your second.” He caught me by the waist and planted another one on me, and I got lost in Jessie. That was hardly our second kiss. I’d quite honestly lost count at this point. The world had become a dizzying blur of hearts and rainbows… and strange artifacts.
It rattled behind my back where he held it. I twisted to catch it. “I’m keeping this,” I said. “If you want to see it again, you have to come visit me on my island.”
“Lady Liberty! I don’t need an excuse to visit you. I’ll come every day.”
“As soon as you find your boat,” I reminded him.
He rolled his eyes and brushed his lips across my cheek—his touch was beginning to feel natural. “Losing it was definitely worth it.”
I remembered what his sister Abby had said and asked, “Were you really trying to find an excuse to talk to me?”
“From the moment I saw you,” he said.
“I was five,” I reminded him.
“Yeah.”
I couldn’t keep back my smiles.
I pushed back these memories as I scraped at the paint against the figurehead’s eye with a delicate blade. Glancing up at the archeologist who was taking over the job for me, I forced another fake smile. “It’s tedious work,” I told Mariah, “but worth it.”
“I bet.” She already sounded bored with my demonstration. I clenched my teeth to keep from saying anything more.
My team in Boston had already chipped away fifteen layers from The Lady of the Sea. After three years of this backbreaking work, her eyes were bluer now.
To think I’d picked up the figurehead at an obscure auction. An anonymous museum patron had given me the tip, and the find was absolutely miraculous, and I estimated her creation date to be around the 1700s. We had our guesses as to the artist, but my bet was that it was the artwork of Miles Sedgewick. If so, she was worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, not to mention her pure historical significance.
We just had to clean her up.
She’d been whitewashed with thick, globby paint. It had been my hope to restore The Lady to her original glory. Unfortunately, last week my museum worked out a deal with the Salem branch under my former employer, and only yesterday, I supervised the transfer.
It was like losing a member of my family.
Staring down at The Lady, I imagined the journey that had brought her to me. Choppy waters, sailing for the New World and to the old; she’d looked upon dignitaries, adventurers, the faces of the past and she was still here. The things these blue eyes had seen? What secrets did she hold? What mysteries? And to think of the endless finds like these throughout the world? It was why I’d gone into history, archeology, and now worked as a museum archivist. I loved a good mystery.
Jessie inspected the rattling weapon with the light on his phone. The jagged edges were constructed of wood made lethal with cuts of obsidian. “I can’t figure out what it is.”
“What kind of leather is it made out of?” I turned the strange artifact over in my hand, wrinkling my nose. The smell was off.
