Page 9 of The Curse Breaker

“Benny?” Gil interrupted. “Forgive the interruption, but did you notice the gold stamp on the back of the parchment?”

Benny flipped the page over and noticed a very tiny gold mark on the bottom right corner of the page she had failed to see earlier. “Is that a beetle?”

“It’s a dragonfly,” Gil said, smiling softly. “Sparrow loved them. Said they meant courage and good luck. She is the only girl I know who loved bugs.”

Benny tried to think of anywhere she’d seen a dragonfly at the inn. She couldn’t recall a single spot. “Does the dragonfly mean anything to either of you?” she asked Aggy and Kimble.

“Hate big biting things,” Kimble said with a shudder. “Bug spray is the world’s best invention.”

“Bug spray?” Gil repeated, confused.

“I’m afraid Evelyn didn’t share everything with me,” Aggy said apologetically. “I warned her not to since she wasn’t the only one looking for the missing treasure. If our correspondence fell into the wrong hands…”

Benny paused. “You wrote to each other?”

“I meant, her letters to you,” Aggy backpedaled.

Still, her right eye twitched. Interesting, Benny thought.

“Who besides Axel Rudd and Ryan are after the treasure?” Zara asked. “Do any of you know?”

The others shook their heads, but Benny couldn’t help but notice Kimble, Aggy, and Gil looked guilty, just like most characters on Lawyered Up, or as if they each had something to hide. This wouldn’t work if they couldn’t trust one another. She was going to have to do some digging. “I think our best bet is to start by finding something with this dragonfly symbol on it. Maybe Evelyn hid a riddle at the house. And another diary entry. There are two missing.”

“Evelyn had a diary?” Laurel asked.

“Yes, she wrote about everything that happened leading up to when the island disappeared,” Benny explained. “With the first game she left me, every time I found a new clue, I got another diary entry. Though,” she remembered, “there are two entries that seem to be missing. I’m not sure what happened to them.”

“Any chance Evelyn gave you the entries for safekeeping?” Zara asked Aggy.

Aggy’s face held an air of mystery, but she smiled when she said, “I’m afraid not, but if she did, I would tell. We are family, after all.”

Zara inhaled sharply as she turned toward Aggy. “How’d you know we’re related?”

“You have a certain Bishop quality to you,” Aggy said matter-of-factly. “Just as I can see Evelyn in Benny, you, Zara, have a certain fire to you that is very Bishop.”

Zara grinned and pushed a wayward curl off her face. “You hear that? I have Bishop qualities! Wait till my grams hears this.”

“No! You can’t tell anyone about any of this! The island. The treasure.” Kimble’s voice was sharp. “The fewer people that know what’s happening, the better.”

Benny felt uneasy. What about Ryan? Who had he told about the treasure? Who would he tell? His dad was Harris Gale, who was dating her mom, and Ryan had said something about Harris having money trouble. Was that why Ryan wanted the treasure too? Now that Axel Rudd was with him, Ryan would have a leg up with someone from 1825 by his side.

“These familial connections are odd, no?” Thomas puzzled. “The fact that Benny is related to Evelyn and you are related to our Aggy. That can’t be a coincidence.”

Kimble looked at each of them curiously. “I think not.”

Benny felt a sudden chill. There was a reason. For all of this. She just didn’t know what it was. She focused on the problem at hand. “I know learning the truth about how long you’ve been trapped here is overwhelming, but you should all come back with us.” Wally wouldn’t mind. She’d have to figure out a way how to explain things to her mom.

Aggy started to protest, while Gil, on the other hand, seemed curious.

“At least if you’re off the island, we know you can’t get trapped here again,” Benny explained. “We have no idea how long the island will stay visible, do we?” She looked at Kimble for answers.

“A fortnight. At most. Starting on the Blood Orange Moon so…” He opened the compass Benny had just reunited him with. “Our clock started tonight.”

A fortnight. Two weeks. Her back was up against the wall again. She appealed to Aggy. “You can help us decipher Evelyn’s letter. Show us around her house. It’s not the one she grew up in, but the attic has all her old things and—”

Aggy reached for Benny’s hand. When they touched, Benny’s arm tingled. “Someone needs to stay here and protect the treasure right now. Plus,” Aggy glanced back at Laurel and Thomas, heads close together, talking quietly. “I can’t leave them, and I know they won’t set foot in a world like yours. Not unless they know they can age and be free.”

Benny felt her heart crack all over again. She looked at Zara, who was equally pained. “We understand, but we really could use your help—you knew Evelyn better than any of us.”