The box was illustrated with a beautiful, original picture on the top surface of it. This was
something I had never seen before. Although it was covered partly by the soil covering it,
it was still amazing to see. Trust me. It's probably one of the prettiest pictures I've ever seen
in my most recently...crazy life.
Ben picked up the box and set it on the surface of the ground. He wiped his hand across the
top and revealed the entire picture, letting the colors reflect from it. Now, it was even more
gorgeous than before.
"Wow." I said blankly. "Just...wow."
Ben turned around, facing me with a smile opening up to me. "Is that the only adjective you
can think of?"
"Yeah," I said, not knowing what I had allowed my mouth to say.
He chuckled. "Well, in order to be married to me, you're going to have to use a lot more
adjectives than that," he teased.
"Okay. Fine then. I'll think of some new words to use. Just tell me, why did you come over
here without telling me? I'm not mad. I'm just wondering why."
"I-"
"Why was I abandoned all alone? At least she could've been with me." We turned around. Riley was standing there, with a not so Mary Sunshine expression on his face.
"Oh. Sorry, Riley. But I wanted to test a hunch I had."
"Okaaay. What was your hunch that was so important." There was a hint of anger in Riley's tone, as you can imagine. He doesn't like to be left alone. Especially in that episode in
Philadelphia when I ran to hide from Shaw directly after entering a market, leaving him in my tracks.
"My hunch was the clue wasn't hidden in one of the other gardens, but here, George
Washington's 'little garden.' Some of his time was spent here, experimenting with plants,
planting them in various ways. I thought if he had anything valuable to bury, he'd do it
here most likely. However, I didn't want to let you and Abigail know about it until I either
had proved it right or wrong, so I went by myself." He then pointed at me. "She just followed
me here without me even knowing about it. So technically, both of you were abandoned."
"Oh."
Turning back towards the hopeful clue, Ben gripped onto the two locks that secured the
contents inside. Then, with some force, CLICK! went the locks, opening up the box. Riley
seemed to jump back in some sort of fear.
"Don't break it, Ben! You know how jumpy I get when you open antique things!"
Another small smile spread across Ben's face. "Yes, I know that. But we'll deal with your
problems later when we ACTUALLY have the time and attention to."
"Man!" Riley was having a bad day, and we all knew it. But Ben and I really didn't care at the
moment how bad his day was and could get. The question that floated in our minds were was,
'Does our next clue lay in here?'
Ben continued opening up the box. He lifted the top up and down at the bottom lied our
supposedly clue. He took hold of the folded piece of delicate paper and unfolded it and read
the message in a loudness of tone Riley and I could hear.
"Now, you're ready for your last and final clue.
In order to find what your heart desires,
Go to the location of where you found the last part of the treasure
And look in the coast, near the dock.
Look hard enough and you will indeed find
The other missing part of the Knights' Templar treasure."
I couldn't believe what I just heard. "Wow-" I saw Ben give me the look and I suddenly had
a second thought. "I mean, that's...amazing."
"Atta, girl."
Riley stared at us confused as ever. "Huh?"
"She's learning how to use better adjectives than wow. Aren't we, Abi?"
"Ummmm, hmmmm," I responding, hinting something to Ben in my tone saying, 'Please stop
using Abi on me. NOW.
"Okay, can we just figure out this clue now? Please, Ben?"
"Alright, Riley. We'll do what you want to do. It's not fair Abi gets all of this special treatment
and you don't," he said, sympathy flooding out.
"Thank you, Ben," Riley told him sweetly.
"You're welcome. Now, in the clue, since it says to go to the location of the last part of the
treasure, we should be going to New York."
"And when it says in the coast, it's referring to the Hudson River," I added in.
"Right. And the dock is where they probably unloaded the treasure. But what dock are they
referring to?"
There was a moment of silence before Riley commented, "Maybe if you had a friend who was
smart and had a LAPTOP to figure the route of the ships, maybe we could figure out what
dock they're talking about."
Ben turned around. "Is that a hint, Riley?"
"Yup."
"Well then, I suggest we get out of here, go back to the house really quick and get some
necessities, and make our way to New York while Riley figures out the route of the ships."
"I agree with him," I said, pointing at him. My legs straightened as I stood up, my muscles wanting to stretch for three hours. But due to time, my muscles would have to stick it out and
be stiff. "Just one thing, Ben."
"Umm, hmmm?" He got up fully on his feet, his muscles probably screaming for a stretch as
well.
"It might be a great idea if we covered up the holes we made."
"Oh, right. I'll cover this one up. You two go and cover up the other ones before the tour
goes over there. Let's plan to meet at the car in 10 minutes."
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"Uck." I looked at my fingernails in disgust. They pleaded out for a long, nice soak due to
the brown that destroyed the usual white color. However, they were at the bottom of my
'NEED to do list,' so unfortunately as much as it wanted and probably needed something,
they'd have to wait, just like my stiff muscles.
"Hmmm...I'm assuming your nails are a wreck," Ben commented as he drove, his eyes on
the road and NOT my nails.
"Yeah."
"See. This is what happens when you get your nails done for I don't know how much money
and then go with Riley and me and dig and bury up holes in the ground."
"I'll think about that next time, if we ever discover something like this again and need to do
the exact same things we did." I looked in my mirror and suddenly saw the same black
car that caused us the wreck behind us, about 100 feet from us. I looked at the road ahead of
me for just a second and blinked so I could really get into reality before looking back. But
when I did, it was gone. For the rest of the time, I sat silent in my seat, thinking about what
car Ian had, other than the stolen catering truck.
When we parked in front of the house, Ben asked, "You seem so quiet, Abigail. Why?"
"B-Ben, is Ian's car...small and black perhaps? With no tag on the front?"
"Yes. Why?"
"Because...I think I saw him when we were heading back. I turned to see the road in front of
me, blinked, and looked back. But when I did, it was gone. Like magic."
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It's amazing what u can do n only less than 2 days! The original document
got deleted last night, and I had 2 start over. UUUGGGHHH! Long story.
Don't wanna talk about it!