Page 51 of The Curse Breaker

She grabbed my arm. “Don’t do anything funny. You can use this coin to get on the island, then it comes right back to me.” Her grip tightened. “Or your friends don’t make it off. Understood?”

“Understood,” I said. I held out my shaking palm, and Charlotte dropped one of the coins into it.

The change in the air was instant. The wind swirled around us like a vortex, the water sucking away from the shore as if the tide was going out at a great speed. The ground started to shake, and the two of us held on to one another. For a moment I thought we were about to be sucked into the earth. And then suddenly, I saw the sandbar, stretching out in front of me, piece by piece. The island flickered into view like a shadow.

“I see it! It’s there!” I cried both literal tears of joys and ones of deep tiredness. Aggy. Gil. Laurel. Thomas. Axel. They were there. In seconds, I would be too. I could bring them home!

Charlotte grabbed my hand. “Good! Lead the way!” I could hear her excitement too.

I stepped onto the sandbar and was yanked back.

Charlotte hadn’t moved.

“What’s the matter?” I asked.

“Nothing is the matter. Just pull me,” she said, irritation creeping into her voice.

I pulled as hard as I could, and Charlotte didn’t budge. I could see her face, concentrating hard, looking as if she was struggling against an immovable force.

Charlotte let out a scream of frustration. “You aren’t pulling hard enough!”

“I’m trying!” I said, pulling on her hand with both of my own now. Still, Charlotte didn’t move. She tightened her grasp.

“You are not going without me!” Charlotte shouted.

The whispers of the island grew louder, but with Charlotte anchoring me down, I was going nowhere. “The island doesn’t want you there.” I knew now for sure. “It doesn’t trust you.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, child!” she practically growled.

“Then why is it I can step onto the sandbar and you cannot?” I asked, feeling lighter now.

Charlotte dug her feet into the sand. She screamed out in vain, cursing the very island she wanted so desperately to reach. “What do you want from me?” she yelled at the sandbar. “I have what you need! Don’t you want it back? Why say, Welcome, Grace, if I can’t join you?” She sunk down on the sand, and tears streamed down her cheeks.

“Grace,” I whispered. “Is that your real name?”

She looked at me hard. “Give me back the coin. We must find another way together.”

I could feel my heart beating fast. I knew this was my only chance. I pulled out of Charlotte’s grasp and opened my palm to reveal the coin. But before Charlotte could take it, I made a fist. Then I waved my other hand over the hand with the coin, tapping it before I dropped a nickel into Charlotte’s outstretched fingers. Confusion flickered over her face as I took off at a run.

“Evelyn! Stop!” she shouted.

But at that point, I was already running across the sandbar, the real treasure in my fist, while Charlotte was left holding a shiny nickel.

Eighteen

Gil

Present Day

Zara told the gentleman working at Hooked a real thumper to get him inside the establishment. Something about having a missing cat. The man in the strange hard hat let him in, Zara handed him an instant light called a flashlight, and soon Gil found himself descending into the room below the restaurant.

In the short time he’d been in Greenport, he realized a lot had changed in two hundred years. He was in awe of everything he saw and learned, and it made him want to be free of the island. Look at the gift Sparrow had given him. Not only had he lived, he was living in the future. This was wonderful and also made him anxious—would they break the curse, or would he have to live in this world as a fourteen-year-old forever? And if they broke the curse, where would he live? How would he complete school? Zara and Benny both said school was something children went to till they were seventeen or eighteen, and then many went on to college or did a vocation before gaining employment. They said college was expensive. If he needed college, how would he afford it? He was alone in this world now.

Actually, that wasn’t true. Aggy, Laurel, and Thomas were in the same predicament. Perhaps they would continue to be a family when this was over.

This is an adventure, he reminded himself. Take it one step at a time.

Gil made it to the bottom and was plunged into darkness, just the small instant light as a guide. He didn’t mind. He’d never been afraid of the dark. The apartment above the mercantile was small, his aunt and uncle retired early, and they hated when he left a candle lit. He shone the light on each wall but didn’t see an opening. Carefully, he took the coin out of his pocket. “Island? I do not seek to plunder your treasure. I only seek to help return it so that we all can be free.” For a moment, nothing happened; then he heard a hissing sound, and a sudden gust blew through the bunker. The wall in front of him seemed to shimmer like the sea and disappeared. Gil stared at it in wonder, then walked through to the other side and found his way to the waterfall. He stepped through it, getting drenched, and emerged on the beach. Aggy was waiting with Laurel and Thomas.