Trouble & Treasure by Dave Moyer (robert munsch read aloud .txt) 📕

a clue, then you restrict your possibilities.”

That was total bullshit; I’d been in this business long enough to know that. Maybe that was the reason I was bringing Amanda along. It was obvious I didn't think like Arthur Stanton, and that she did. Yeah, that made me horrible, and yeah, I was still having trouble coming to terms with what I was doing, but it didn't mean I was about to stop. “So, what do you think the clue means?”

She leaned back in her seat, eyes blinking. It drew my attention to them, made me realize that they were a pretty almond shape, one you don't see too often.

“Okay, what are 10 things on the coast that make light and shadow?” She put her hand up, getting ready to count. “Lights,” she held up a thumb, “Um, I guess there could be some luminescent fish,” she said, voice awkward as it was obvious she realized how stupid the suggestion was.

I couldn't help but snort with laughter. “Luminescent fish? Are you serious?” I knew I should be nice to her yet I couldn't imagine Arthur Stanton leaving one of the Stargazer Globes to the watchful protection of a school of luminescent fish.

“It's just a suggestion. The entire point of this exercise is that you try to think laterally and creatively. If you knew the right answer to begin with, then you wouldn't be doing it, would you? Do you know the answer, Sebastian?” She crossed her arms and looked across at me challengingly.

I took my hands off the steering wheel and held them in the air in surrender, careful to ensure the car was going straight before I did.

“Put your hands back on the wheel,” she said tersely.

“Okay, okay,” I said through a light chuckle, “And ignore me. Keep on thinking.”

She looked across at me, eyes narrowed. She was sitting straight in her seat, her hands no longer tensed in her lap, and that sick, pale white color was gone from her face. Apparently all it was taking was an argument with me. Well there you go, I didn't know that I could have that effect on women, but life is full of surprises.

She held up a third finger. “Well, it could mean,” she pressed the finger into her palm and looked around, “Perhaps there's a specific streetlamp somewhere, or for all we know there might be a famous lamp store in that town.”

I nodded, not wanting to discourage her, but realizing her suggestions weren't amazing. I was starting to question whether she could solve the clue, and obviously, whether I should keep her along.

“What's the name of this town anyway? Can you tell me anything about it? Are there any famous landmarks? Anything particularly notorious that happened there?” She asked one question straight after the other, hardly with a breath between them.

“There's not much there, a beach made of rocks, a pretty boring promenade, a couple of pubs, and a lighthouse,” I listed off all I could remember. Though I hadn't been to that town for some time, I could remember it wasn't the pinnacle of culture, history, or infrastructure. We would be lucky to find a seat at the local pub that didn’t smell powerfully of fish; most of the town being populated by fishermen, and fishermen being what they were, never giving a fuck what they smelt like.

You should have seen her eyes – they widened so quickly and she blinked with such a stiff, wild look on her face I couldn’t help but be drawn in, my own jaw slackening, lips parting.

“Did you say a lighthouse?” She waved a hand in front of her face as if she was hot or flustered.

My eyes narrowed; I didn't get where she was going. I nodded nonetheless. “A big one, out on the headlands.”

The look on her face was damn near infectious. “My great-uncle loved lighthouses. He had a picture of this big one up on his wall when I was young.”

I didn’t laugh at her, though the inclination was there. After her reaction, I'd expected her to come up with a brilliant insight, not a fairly innocuous fact that her great-uncle had been partial to lighthouses.

She must have seen the less-than-impressed look I gave her, and her cheeks dropped. “You don't get it, do you?”

Though I didn't think there was anything to get, I shrugged.

“The point where the light crosses the shadow.” She put one hand down as she said light and one hand down as she said shadow. “My great-uncle wouldn’t have given that clue unless it was important, unless we could locate something that had a light source, but also a shadow, and that the both of them crossed at the same time.” She played with her hands as she spoke, crossing them and uncrossing them. “If you think about it, a lighthouse can do that. If it is during the day, or if it is at night and there is a bright enough external light, then the lighthouse will have a long shadow. Because you can—”

“Turn on the lights,” I jumped in, “You could shine the flood lamps over the light house’s shadow.”

She leaned back and nodded.

I didn't want to tell her it sounded crazy. Firstly, why would you turn on the lighthouse during the day? If you had enough sunshine to cast a shadow from the building, then presumably the atmospheric conditions were such that you didn’t need the lighthouse to be on to shepherd ships.

“Look, I know how my great-uncle used to think, and trust me, this is the riddle he would have thought up, and the solution he would have made to it.”

I mumbled, not saying yes and not saying no. Chapter Thirteen

Sebastian Shaw

It wouldn't be long until we reached the coastal town, just as it wouldn’t be long until the growing ominous gray clouds above roared into a thunderstorm. If, on the slimmest of chances, Amanda was somehow right, and somehow the next clue would be found at the lighthouse, then we were running out of daylight.

I put my finger in my collar again and pulled my shirt away from my neck. I was sweating something chronic here; the heat had been on full bore for the last half hour. Though I wanted to turn it off and open a window, I noted Amanda was still huddled, her arms wrapped around her middle. She looked cold, so I kept them on, because maybe I wasn't that much of a bastard after all.

We spent the next 20 minutes in complete silence. Soon the road before us opened up and a clear view of the coastal town opened out below, the headland visible beyond, a small white and red line indicating the lighthouse.

Though my first choice would have been to drive to the site where the scales had been manufactured, I decided to go to the lighthouse. We had half an hour before the heavens opened up and things got wet and rumbly. While it wouldn’t bother me to work in the rain, I wasn't entirely sure I could do that to Amanda, not after what she been through today.

It took us less than 10 minutes to negotiate the narrow road up past the town to the headland, and we hardly passed any vehicles on the way. As we drew closer and closer to the coast, the road on my right dropping off to the sea below, I couldn't help but notice how choppy the waves were getting. With the promise of a storm brewing, and the wind whipping up, pushing the car as I drove, the sea below was getting ever more violent. That was another fact against us: not only were we running out of light here, but lighthouses were built to resist storms, people weren't so much. If the next clue was buried at the point where the shadow crossed the light (notwithstanding that that could be any point along the circumference surrounding the lighthouse) then I didn’t want to be digging during a freaking storm.

Amanda had her face turned towards the sky above, her lips opened slightly, her eyes blinking occasionally as they fixed up at the racing clouds. She looked cold, she looked thirsty, she looked tired, and she didn’t look as if she was prepared to go digging for a clue at a lighthouse in a storm.

Not for the first time I checked my rear-vision mirror, twisting around in my seat to ensure I got a full view of the road both in front and behind. So far I’d seen precious few vehicles, and none that piqued my interest or elicited any concern. This was a good thing, because I didn’t need more company. I could imagine battling a crew of criminals in a lighthouse as a vicious storm whipped up waves on either side. I could imagine what would happen to Amanda in such a situation, too. She would either drown, be captured, be shot, or worse. Dammit if I hadn't promised to keep her safe.

As we neared the lighthouse, I wanted to turn back towards town. As far as I could tell, no one had followed us and no one should know where we were. It meant that I could book us into a hotel for the night and we should be fine. Amanda could get her shower, get her meal, and get a soft bed for the night. And I could jolly well get a beer.

She picked up the closer we got to the lighthouse, her shoulders angling towards the window, her cheeks pressed against it as she tried to get the best view of the building.

I’d seen my fair share of lighthouses over the years, not because I was an aficionado or anything, but because I’d been to many places and plenty of coasts. It was always popular to bury your treasure on the coast. Probably because it was the first point of contact with land after lengthy sea voyages, and also the point at which sunken treasure might wash ashore after a storm.

The lighthouse before us was built into the rock behind it. The first two thirds of the tower looking as if it almost grew organically from the cliff face itself; being made from the same light-colored stone. In familiar style, reinforced windows appeared along the length of the tower, spiraling around so they could match the internal staircase that spiraled around inside, leading to the powerful lamps above.

Though the clouds were gathering faster and faster, there was still enough light that the lighthouse cast a shadow, and I had to admit my eyes were drawn to it with keen interest. Though I honestly didn’t think that any of this would work, and that this wasn’t the real solution to the clue, I couldn't deny the tingle of exhilaration that jumped across the back of my arms and down my back. Dammit if I wasn't a treasure hunter, and dammit if I didn't love my job.

These days most lighthouses were automated, and I was thankful not to see a car as I pulled up on the bare gravel parking area on the cliff above the lighthouse. There was a serious rail that ran around the edge of the cliff, splitting only at one point as it led onto