Read Berried to the Hilt for Free Online

right.”
    “I’m confused. If he was supposed to have gone back to England or died in a duel, why do people think the shipwreck might be the Black Marguerite ?” I asked.
    “Ah, that’s the thing,” he said. “Local rumor is, he came back from pirating to pick up his lady love and stash his loot. Problem was, no sooner did he pick her up to whisk her away than a storm came in, and legend has it the ship went down just off the coast.” A pair of seagulls skimmed over the water toward us, then began following the little boat, diving and swooping in the chilly wind. I pulled my jacket closer around me; it was cold out on the water, and the wind bit through even the thickest jackets. “My granddaddy used to tell me stories about Davey Blue,” Eleazer continued. “They say he still sails these waters, searching for his lost treasure—and his lost lady love.”
    “Quite romantic,” I said.
    “It may sound far-fetched, but they took it mighty serious back when my granddaddy was a lobsterman. They avoided the place—and not just because of the rocks. Used to give Deadman’s Shoal a wide berth, even if the lobstering was good.” He shook his head, remembering. “Time was, you could net ten-pounders out there regular.”
    Ten pounds? Forget a pot—you’d need a hot tub to cook them in. “What about now?” I asked.
    His eyes glinted with mischief. “Not too many ten-pounders—and couldn’t keep ’em if you caught ’em, anyway.”
    “I’m talking about the ghost ship, Eli—not the lobsters!”
    “I know,” he said, eyes sparkling. “Just playing with you.” He squinted out over the water, and I followed his gaze to where two boats floated in the distance. “As for Deadman’s Shoal? Nobody pays any mind to the oldtimers’ stories,” he said. “It’s still dangerous out there—there are lots of rocks out on Deadman’s Shoal, so folks with sense steer clear of it—but no one worries about ghost ships anymore.” He gave me a wicked smile. “Till they see one, that is.”
    I leaned toward him. “Have you seen one?”
    He shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not.”
    “I sense a story,” I said.
    He shrugged again, and seemed to debate telling me for a moment. Finally, he said, “I don’t tell too many folks about it—some of them think I’m a few crackers shy of a full bag as it is, and I don’t want to encourage it, you know?”
    “I won’t say anything,” I said.
    “I know you won’t,” he said with a sharp nod, and a moment later, he began. “It was a foggy night, round about midnight, I’d say. I was fifteen at the time, out with my da, searching for a lobsterman’s boat that didn’t come back from the fishing grounds. We didn’t mean to be out by the shoals—like I said, folks with sense avoided it back then, ’specially at night—but there was a light flickering in the fog, and we headed over to see if it was our missing lobsterman.” Eli paused to reach in his pocket and pull out a bite of cake. A hopeful gull swooped overhead; as he stuffed the sweet morsel into his mouth, he batted the bird away with his other hand. “Anyway,” he said when he’d swallowed, “there was something there all right, but it weren’t no missing lobster boat.”
    I sat on the edge of my narrow bench, breathless. “What was it?”
    “That’s the thing,” he said. “I don’t rightly know what it was. But it was dark, and it was big, and it looked like a ship. My da and I could see her in the fog and hear the waves slapping up against the sides. And the smell …”
    “What did it smell like?”
    “Tar,” he said. “Tar, and wet wood, and gunpowder. And something rotten. Dead things,” he said quietly; I had to strain to hear him over the sound of the motor. He took a deep breath and looked out to sea. “It smelled like death.”
    Again, I felt the skin on my arms prickle, and I dug my hands deeper into my pockets. He was quiet a moment before continuing. “My da called out to her,