Read Online The Dreamer by May Nicole Abbey - Free Book Online Page B

the future again.”
    “Find the treasure? You are mad.”
    “I’m not! The answers are all here.” I gestured to the buckle. “They’ve been here all the time, just waiting for someone to unlock them.”
    His brows came down and he looked at me sternly. “What nonsense.”
    “It isn’t nonsense,” I exclaimed. “You said the map didn’t have a legend, that it was illegible. But this is the legend. You’ve been wearing it around your middle all your life.”
    He abruptly rose and walked away from me. “I told you, the treasure is a myth. It doesn’t exist.”
    “Your father didn’t even know it for what it was. Perhaps he suspected, I don’t know. But he had the images on those scraps of paper engraved on his belt and burned the papers, knowing that the safest place to hide something was in plain sight.”
    The captain turned and looked at me.
    “It’s why I was sent to you, don’t you see?”
    “ Sent to me?”
    “Yes. It’s why I’m here. My calling. My mission. This is what I’ve been looking for since I arrived.”
    He looked at me. “What are you saying?” he asked, intrigued despite himself.
    I stood and went to him again. But when I did, he backed away from me and put the desk between us as if he were afraid of me.
    “We retrieve the map. We search for the treasure. We bring it to land and present it to the world. Our reputations will provide us with opportunities until the end of our days.”
    He looked at me in horror. “You really are mad, aren’t you? Just how do you suggest we do all this?”
    I blinked. “You know where the map is, don’t you?”
    “I most certainly do not .”
    I looked at him sternly, and he had the grace to look away. “Do you want to know what I think, Captain?” Without waiting for him to answer, I continued, “I think your father’s friends, the pirates who sided with him during the mutiny, continued in their piracy after your father retired from it. Fredrick, didn’t you say his name was? It was he and his men who arrived in time to save you when you were a child, and it was he and his men who raised you. And that’s why you can pilot these waters without being molested. Because you have allies in these waters. But you also have enemies, don’t you, Captain?”
    He stared at me in surprise, but he did not dispute me.
    “I could tell by the look on Finley’s face he was afraid when he heard the word pirate, yet a look at that pirate ship and he was at ease again. It’s the only explanation. And you know Marshall Looper still has that map, and that he is still searching. It’s the truth, isn’t it?”
    The captain came around the table and seized my arm. “Keep your voice down,” he bit between his teeth.
    “Don’t you see, Captain? We can do this. We must.”
    “What can we do? Are you seriously suggesting I take you out on the open ocean yet again? That we attack a pirate ship, steal a map that may or may not still exist, and go treasure hunting ?”
    “Yes,” I cried happily.
    He released my arm, throwing me from him. “It’s out of the question,” he said succinctly, and then turned away and tore off the pretty jacket with no regard for its delicate material. “And what’s more, I don’t want you breathing a hint of this to anyone. Do you understand?”
    I looked down at the buckle, carefully reading it. “It is very cryptic,” I said. “I can know very little until I see the map itself. It gives the direction of North, possible markings for landscape.”
    “The fact you claim you can read the legend puts you in more danger than ever before,” he said more to himself than to me, nearly tearing his hair out with his hands. He turned to me suddenly. “Not anyone, not the crew, not anyone ashore, not even Finley, can know about it. You understand?”
    I scoffed, still reading the buckle. “It also gives a date and time. Interesting.”
    There was a noise at the door, and the captain looked up in consternation while I turned