Page 12 of The Curse Breaker

Papa put down the bucket of seed, and the chickens swarmed it. He squinted at the figures on the porch. The light was bright despite the gloomy cloud cover. “She must mean the Williamses’ place. They only bought it last year. He would have told me if he was selling.”

“Maybe I’m wrong then,” I said, not understanding why Papa cared so much. Calia seemed nice. I don’t remember the Williamses ever coming over and bringing us lavender or the wife sitting with Mama on the porch.

Papa continued to stare at Mama and Calia, who were now standing several feet apart on the porch steps. “Yes, but…John told me not more than three weeks ago they were taking a trip to see family in Pennsylvania.” He blotted his forehead and looked at the stormy sky again. “Strange. Evelyn, do me a favor,” Papa said, touching my arm. “Tell Mama I’m going to skip lunch today. There’s someone I need to go see.”

“Okay, Papa,” I said, watching him walk away with a speed in his step, leaving me with the chickens and more questions than answers.

Five

Gil

Present Day

Gil took a deep breath and ducked his head under the waterfall to enter the cave to head…home.

To Greenport.

Two hundred years in the future.

Correction: present day.

He had been trapped in the past.

He was shivering, and he knew it wasn’t because he was wet from the waterfall. It felt odd leaving the island behind. Laurel and Thomas had hugged him tight while Aggy had whispered in his ear, “Go have a big adventure, Gil.” She sounded so much like his mother, he felt homesick.

Evelyn’s relative, Benny, turned to look at him. “Are you doing alright?”

“I am well, thank you,” Gil said, his voice sounding shaky as he felt his way along the damp rock walls, his fingers tracing over moss and cobwebs.

“Pay attention and watch your step!” Kimble told them. “And stop dawdling. Stick close behind me. No idea how much water is waiting for us in Hooked.”

“Who says dawdling anymore, old man?” Zara teased. Kimble just scowled.

The pirate was intimidating, and Gil also was feeling a bit ill at ease. But he had so many questions! What was the world like? What had changed? He wanted to see it. All of it. Now that he was off the island, he wanted to travel. But he couldn’t do that if he stayed fourteen forever. He had to break the treasure’s curse Benny and Kimble spoke of first.

He could feel the air thickening, the humidity sticking to his body as he walked. When they finally emerged in a waterlogged room—Benny said it was underneath something called Hooked Restaurant—Gil expected the world to look different. Instead, it was just dark and dusty, and he had to slosh through water up to his calves till he reached a ladder and followed Benny and Zara upstairs. Hands shaking, he started the climb.

“I half expected Ryan and Axel to lock us down here,” he heard Zara say.

“Me too,” Benny said. “I wonder where they are right now.” She reached down behind her and offered Gil a hand as he reached the final rung.

Gil hesitated half a second. This was it. The future. The present. Greenport 2025. He took Benny’s hand and climbed into the light.

He was standing in a dining establishment with numerous tables and chairs. There were many paintings on the walls. The floor was wet, as if it had been flooded. There was a strange box hanging from the ceiling that had what he could only describe as a moving painting on it. A talking, moving painting that appeared to be discussing the weather. What was that? Gil felt his stomach churn from nerves. He tried to tamp them down and focus on what Benny and Zara were saying. From what he could overhear, that Ryan boy had somehow caused the flooding. Gil took a tentative step toward a window to look out at the water. The building was on a dock, and the boats looked vastly different, but the sky was still (thankfully) the sky. The world was dark and gray, and it was drizzling. “I haven’t seen a rainy morning in a long time,” Gil said softly.

“Morning? Why is it morning?” Benny panicked and rushed to a window. “What happened to night?”

“I don’t understand,” Gil said with a frown.

“It was night when we entered the cave,” Zara explained, her dark hair frizzing in the humidity. “Like ten p.m., and we weren’t gone that long, and somehow it’s morning.”

“I missed curfew,” Benny moaned. “My mom is going to freak! Where is my phone?” She checked her pockets, patting her damp clothes. “I think I lost it in the tunnel.”

“Phone?” Gil asked. He had no idea what such a thing was, so he couldn’t look for it.

“It’s…a tiny device we carry to watch videos and make calls or text,” Zara explained.

“What is a text?” Gil tried again, still not understanding.