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( chapter twelve )
━━━ ☼ ━━━
( TW: talk of sexual assault)
The Pogues got to Rixon's Cove and sat around on logs in front of a fire. Lia sat next to JJ as their knees knocked together periodically. Pope and Kie were sitting across from them with John B standing in front of them.
"Hey, guys," Pope started, "so, like, my dads already gonna kill me. So, what's this mandatory meeting about?"
"Might as well tell him, man, before we're gaffed."
John B nodded, "you ready for this."
"Yeah," Kie and Lia chorused.
"So, the gold never went down with the Royal Merchant," JB stated.
"Oh, my God," Pope groaned, "here we go again with this."
Lia sighed, "just hear him out, okay?"
"It's been here the whole time. It's on the island."
"Are you serious," Kie asked, "oh, my God."
"I'd like to voice my skepticism."
"I'm sure you would, Pope, but can I please present with my evidence, sir?"
"Proceed."
"All right. So, in my backpack, I have a letter from Denmark Tanny—"
"Who the hell's that?"
"Denmark Tanny was a slave that survived the Royal Merchant wreck," John B answered Kie and continued, "okay, slaves weren't mentioned as crew members on the ship, but my dad, he found the complete manifest. That was his big discovery. So Tanny used the gold from the Merchant to buy his freedom. After that, he bought his farm. Drumroll, please, because that farm is... Tannyhill Plantation."
Kie shot up her brows, "Tannyhill?"
John B nodded, "Yeah. So, after that, he used his money to free even more slaves, and then he sold a shit-ton of rice, which pisses off all the white planters, and then they decide to lynch him. So on the day they were coming to get him, he writes a letter to his son as a farewell, and in the last line of that letter, he leaves a coded message about where to find the gold. 'Harvest the wheat, in parcel nine, near the water.' Except... there's no wheat. You see, wheat is code for gold. Check this out," he showed his friends the letter, "the gold is in parcel nine, near the water."
"Holy shit."
"All we need is an original survey map of a property, and we've found the gold."
The group smiled in disbelief at each other as Pope commented, "okay, so this might have a small chance of being actually true."
