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I could tell there were a thousand questions she could ask me. I shook my head. “Don’t ask, Myra. I love you, and nothing is going to change that. I have to get home.” Before she could say anything, I grabbed the box of watches and went out the side door, my gaze landing on the rope swing hanging from the tree in the front yard.
“Swing me higher, Daddy!” I squealed. “Higher.”
“If you go any higher you’ll touch the stars, Elliphant.”
“Can I really touch the stars, Daddy?”
He laughed. “A child of opposites. You want to touch the stars while you dig into the earth.”
I used to bury things under that tree.
I ran underneath it, finding a patch that looked like it had been recently disturbed. Using my hands, I dug up the loose dirt until my fingertips hit a flat metal surface. Excited, I crammed my fingers around the edge of the object and pried a mint tin free. Something metal clanged inside. My fingers trembled as I opened the lid.
A dull gold ring on a chain lay inside.
I’d found the ring. Now what did I do with it?
Pulling out my phone, I texted David that I’d found something important, asking him to meet me at the apartment.
He arrived only minutes after I did, bursting through the door. “What is it?” he asked, breathless.
“I found Daddy’s ring.”
We examined it together, and had I not known that he’d told Myra it was important, I never would have suspected. The band resembled a wedding band, but it was engraved with symbols. Some we recognized, some we didn’t.
“Symbols for nature,” David murmured, turning it in his fingers yet again. “But no signs for gods—that we know of. There are about half a dozen I don’t recognize, and most of them aren’t on the plank from the colony site.” He looked inside the band. “But the most noticeable thing about it is the fact that the entire inside of the ring is engraved with alternating signs for the land and the sea.”
“The question is how do I use it?”
David’s jaw hardened. “I wish I had more time to figure that out.”
“So, I show up to fight these monsters carting my assortment of good luck charms like I’m going to play bingo? Because without knowing how to use them, that’s all they are at the moment.”
His mouth quirked. “I’m sure that might be more amusing if I knew what it meant.”
“Don’t worry your pretty little head about it.” I gave him a kiss. “We need to figure out where to find Ukinim.”
David pulled a map of Roanoke Island from a bag he’d brought in and laid it out on my table. “You said Tom told you that the victims were found at the lighthouse, and a quarter mile west and north of the apartment. That leaves east.”
I looked up. “That’s Festival Park.”
He nodded.
“Well, that’s good, right? It will be closed and deserted after dark. Less of a chance that someone else will get hurt.”
“But we’ll have to break in.”
I shot him a grin. “All we need is a pair of bolt cutters.” When he looked surprised, I winked. “I learned a thing or two from Collin.”
“Ah, the education of the American youth.”
“So what time do you want to do this? We need to be here at eleven when Marino’s guy shows up.”
“Ellie, I cannot express my disapproval of that idea strongly enough.”
“And your disapproval is noted, David, but he might know something important.”
“So we wait for you to have tea with a thug before we go off to fight demonic badgers? Just another Sunday night in sleepy Manteo. What do you plan on telling him?”
