Page 20 of The Curse Breaker

If. If. If.

The thought made her stomach tighten. “I guess he meant more to you than cockroach dude.”

“Yes!” her mom said with a laugh, snapping back to reality. “Alright, enough reminiscing. You three go Scooby this game of Evelyn’s, and I’m going to find something to wear for tonight.”

She headed up the stairs, and Gil watched her go. He looked overwhelmed, and Benny couldn’t blame him.

“We will!” Zara shouted cheerily, then looked at Benny, her expression darkening. “We aren’t going to tell her what we find, right? She’s with Harris. Yes? We can’t trust it won’t get back to Ryan.”

“We are definitely not telling her.” Benny looked at a row of old books on one of the library shelves (none were about insects). She was so mad at herself still about Ryan, but she had to concentrate on the big picture. “How are you doing, Gil?”

Gil’s face brightened. “Zara’s grandmother drove us here in a car. And music played while we drove up to this vast homestead that Zara said Evelyn owned. I can’t believe Sparrow owned all of this.” He ran his hand over the fireplace mantel. “She had good fortune in life.” He swallowed hard then.

Benny bit her lip and glanced at Zara. This had to be so hard for him.

“May I ask what a Scooby is though?” Gil asked as she studied a painting on the wall of a large boat caught in swells. No dragonflies there either.

Zara cracked up. “It’s a cartoon. Like a…painting that moves? It’s also a TV show and movie. And there are books.”

Recognition dawned on his face. “Ah, yes, the TV.” He looked around. “I look forward to watching that, and oh! The box is on now…” He gravitated toward it. The local news was on doing a segment on the Blood Orange Moon.

“Hey. You didn’t tell me you never met your dad,” Zara said quietly while Ryan was mesmerized by the news.

“There’s not much to tell,” Benny admitted. “They met when my mom was here in Greenport on vacation. This is only the second time in my life she’s ever she’s brought him up without me asking questions.”

Zara hit Benny. “He’s from Greenport? Or do you mean he was here on vacation too?”

“I don’t know the answer to that question actually,” Benny realized. Her dad had never been a part of her life, so she didn’t focus on him. What she was focused on right now was finding something gold and insect-like.

“Either way, you don’t think that’s weird?” Zara asked, kneeling down to examine the contents of a built-in bottom shelf. “They met in Greenport, and now you’re here in Greenport solving some mystery your ancestor, who is also from Greenport, left you?”

Benny felt her fingers tingle. “That is weird,” she said almost to herself.

“What’s that bird your mom was talking about?” Zara asked.

“It’s a small wood carving.” Benny went to her backpack in the foyer. Even though they’d been at Evelyn’s house for a few weeks, she hadn’t unpacked her prized possessions. Those included her favorite book (Ready Player One), a tortoiseshell hair clip that had belonged to Grams, and the bird. It felt too permanent to unpack. Too confident that this fortune would all someday be hers. She pulled out the small wooden bird, stained cherry with a high-sheen finish, and handed it to Zara.

Zara examined it from all angles. “This is pretty good. No clue what kind of bird it is, but at least we know it’s a bird.” She flipped it over, revealing the chunky little bird’s underbelly and pointed to a small round insignia that been carved in the bottom. “What’s this?”

“Maybe his signature? I always thought it was a circle with letters that just faded from me rubbing the spot so much as a kid.” The stain had bled over whatever letters had once been visible, but Benny could still feel the identation when she ran her fingers along the circle, so tiny it was barely bigger than her pinkie nail.

Zara stared at it, squinting harder. “It must mean something…”

Benny gently took the bird back. “Maybe. Right now, we’re on a dragonfly mission.”

Zara grinned. “Right! Finding your dad will be our next Scooby mystery.” She got back down on the floor and began searching under the rug. “But speaking of dads, I spoke to mine. He and my mom are going out on a boat for the day to some small island. I asked him to look into a Captain Jonas Kimble and Tesouro Eterno.” She rolled her eyes. “He geeked out. He told me he’d call me again when they got back to where they were staying tonight.”

“And your grandmother was okay with Gil?” Benny asked, lifting a framed picture off the wall.

“Yep. She’s in storm recovery mode—leading the charge to move the fundraiser to your vineyard, helping out neighborhoods without power, doing a food drive.” Zara lifted a blue vase on a bookshelf and looked inside it. “I didn’t exactly ask if he could stay with us, but—”

In the other room, they heard a crash.

Gil.

Benny and Zara rushed into the dining room. Gil was holding a cracked frame. “My apologies! I can take this to the blacksmith and see if he has a spare pane of glass to fix this.”

“It’s alright,” Benny took the picture from him. She didn’t have the heart to tell him the Greenport blacksmith shop was a museum now. She checked the back of the frame to see if anything was tucked inside. Of course, there wasn’t. Evelyn was smarter than that.