Chapter Two
Seashells
Nanny Eleanor owned a cottage out by the sea. It was small and made of brick, and so antiquated that it still had a thatch roof. The wooden door had a little glass window in it which distorted everything; Sariah wished that she had Frances or Lizzie there. They could make faces at each other and it would be such a lark to watch the glass skew their reflections.
The cottage was right on the sand, with lots of tall, brown beach grass waving in the wind. It perfectly matched the thatch roof, which made everything look like an artist had painted the scene with a very limited color palette.
Nanny Eleanor twisted the key in the lock and ushered Sariah and her big trunk in. “Hurry, hurry. It’s a beautiful day, and we can have a picnic on the beach for supper if you don’t dawdle.”
“A picnic?” If Sariah was strong enough to lift her suitcase, she would have dropped it in her shock. Her mouth fell open, and her grip on the handle went lax. “Really?”
There were several hundred things Sariah had never seen her grandmother do, and at the top of the list was have a picnic. Having fun was probably number two.
“Oh, yes,” Nanny Eleanor said with a wave of her hand. “Hurry along, now. I’ve got to unpack and make supper. Will sandwiches do? I had a neighbor drop off some bread and toppings yesterday; I thought that would hold us until we could get to the store.”
“That’s fine!” Sariah croaked.
Frances and Lizzie would never believe her if she told them this! A picnic on the beach with Nanny Eleanor—it sounded like something right out of Frances’s imagination.
Sariah tugged her suitcase down the hallway to the left. She assumed this was the way to the bedrooms, as they’d entered into a large living room with a door opposite that led straight to the beach. To the right, as far as Sariah could tell, was only the kitchen, an open space with nothing but a pantry door, which Nanny Eleanor had already thrown open with a “tsk.” It seemed perhaps the neighbor, whoever he or she was, had not adequately lived up to Nanny Eleanor’s expectations.
To the left, Sariah found two bedrooms—which meant, thank goodness, that she and Nanny Eleanor wouldn’t have to share—a bathroom, and a large study which held all the books Nanny Eleanor had spoken so fondly about. Sariah shut this door quickly and claimed the room with the single bed, the last door in the tiny cottage, by throwing her satchel with her inhaler onto the pillow.
The windows were the first thing she attended to. There were two grand windows, made out of the same glass in the door, but with a tiny latch that kept them together. Sariah undid them both and thrust them open. One overlooked the front of the house and the dusty road she’d trod with Nanny Eleanor. The other one, to the side of the room, was surrounded by beach grass, but if she tilted her head out, she could catch a glimpse of the waves beating against the shoreline. And the sound—oh! The sound was magnificent. The gentle lullaby of the ocean, like a natural lullaby. Sariah had never been to the ocean before, but she’d heard the sound through tapes and when she held up one of those large conch shells Nanny Eleanor had brought her against her ear.
Sariah bounded back on her bed, accidentally kicked her knee against her suitcase, glared at the leather trunk, and hobbled back out of the room. “I put my things in my room! Are we ready to go? Can I go right now?”
“Sariah, a lady always asks if there is any way that she may help before she enjoys her frivolities.” Nanny Eleanor leveled a knife filled with mayonnaise at her granddaughter. It was a good thing there was a kitchen island and a whole living room in between them. “Come and help me make the sandwiches.”
Sariah resisted the urge to twist her face up in disgust. Instead, she placidly endured Nanny Eleanor’s harangue about the loss of manners in the young generation while applying a thin layer of ham slices to each tiny sandwich. By the time they were done, Sariah was beginning to wonder if she’d ever really been promised a picnic at all, or if she’d been promised a beachside lecture.
The basket was packed with goodies, and it was sometime during the loading process that Nanny Eleanor finally ran out of complaints...at least for the time being. Together, they hurried out into the sand.
Sariah couldn’t help the little shriek as her feet sank into the sand for the first time. She winced and expected a reprimand from Nanny Eleanor, but her grandmother only smiled—and then did something completely unexpected.
Sariah stared, mouth agape, as Nanny Eleanor took off her high boots and socks and slipped her own bare feet into the sand. “I think you’ll get much more enjoyment out of this if your feet are free.”
Sariah wasted no time following that instruction.
And the sand was wonderful. It was wiggly and Sariah sank down into it as she plodded along the path. Seashells were buried deep inside of it, along with half-grown sticks of beach grass that threatened to poke her. All of these she learned to avoid like it was some game, and she was a natural at it. She could hardly wait to dip her toes into the water!
They stopped a fair bit back from the tide, though. Nanny Eleanor settled out the blanket she’d grabbed and made Sariah eat all her meal before any “tomfoolery” happened. Breakfast felt like so long ago that the young girl had no problem with wolfing down her sandwiches, per Nanny Eleanor’s request. Then she bolted down to the water—the sand changed underneath her feet from warm and shifting to cooler and hard as she got to the places where the water had touched. She screeched as the first bit of foam brushed up against her bare toes. It was chilled and warm all at the same time, and the second brush with the ocean was just as enjoyable as the first.
Sariah gathered up all her bulky skirts and raced further in, only to be chased out when a too-big wave threatened to get her all wet.
“Sariah, come here,” Nanny Eleanor called.
Breathless, Sariah turned and expected Nanny Eleanor to say how a lady doesn’t have fun, or something else like that.
Instead, Nanny Eleanor had her skirts all bunched up in tiny knots around her waist, her leggings drawn up to almost past her bare knees.
Under most circumstances, Sariah was convinced that grandchildren should never see the knees of their grandparents. Knobby and wrinkled and generally disgusting to think about—but at the beach, she was willing to make an exception.
“This will keep your skirt from getting wet,” Nanny Eleanor said.
She leaned down and began knotting Sariah’s skirt in tiny strips, just like hers. Soon, Sariah’s pale chicken legs, as Lizzie always called them, were on display for the aquatic world.
Sariah tramped amongst the waves and splattered herself with seafoam and bits of sand as she did. With each new splatter she gave an appreciative squeal and splashed further into the surf. Nanny Eleanor was right behind her, though her attention seemed to be more on the sand.
“Sariah! Sariah, come look at this.”
Nanny Eleanor was squatted down, her bottom almost brushing the sand. That in itself was some kind of miracle, but even more miraculous was the way she held up a conch shell with almost Frances-like wonder. “I always love these shells. I used to bring some for you all, before you got as numerous as the stars and I stopped coming out here.”
“Why did you stop coming out here, Nanny Eleanor?”
Sariah held out her hands. Nanny Eleanor dropped the shell into them and seemed to contemplate Sariah’s question while the younger girl held up the seashell to her ear. There was the typical whoosh inside, but considering the locale, that was hardly a surprise.
“Oh...your grandfather passed away.” Nanny Eleanor scanned the horizon. “We met up here when we were young adults at a soiree a friend of mine threw. Right down there.” Nanny Eleanor gestured to the right and far away. “An old seaside mansion, much more stately than this. I didn’t have money but I had spark, and sometimes that alone is good enough to catch a husband, you see.”
Sariah didn’t see, not exactly. But she expected it was one of those things that Lizzie and Mother always said would “come with age.” Frances never said anything would come with age—probably because she was too busy daydreaming to even realize that she was growing up.
Sariah tucked the conch shell against her flat chest. “So what made you come back now?”
“Well, now, I have you.” Nanny Eleanor dusted the sand off her hands and stood up.
“Me?” Sariah puzzled over it. “But what made you choose me?”
Before, Sariah might have asked the question in a fit of ingratitude. But now it was more with a sense of wonder that she uttered the phrase. Somehow, during the time on the sand and sea, Sariah had stopped asking why she was the ill-fated sacrifice, and instead asked why, out of all her siblings, she was the lucky one.
“Oh, look here. Look at this. A sand dollar.”
Whether that was Nanny Eleanor’s way of changing the subject or not, it certainly distracted her granddaughter from her train of thought. She darted after Nanny Eleanor, and for the next hour or so—Sariah couldn’t rightly tell, but the sun changed positions quite dramatically—they collected as many seashells as they desired.
“Well, Sariah. I must say, you’ve been quite a little treasure hunter today.” Nanny Eleanor undid two of the knots to make a basket with her skirt. Into here Sariah helped her dump all their finds. “I’m going to clean these off. Why don’t you play for a few more minutes and then come in to wash up?”
Sariah nodded enthusiastically. She practically bounced up and down, and her hat flapped in the breeze.
“Careful,” Nanny Eleanor remarked dryly. “You might just fly away in the wind if you keep up like that.”
But that was the only reprimand received, so Sariah bounded down the path. As her feet left little trails behind, she couldn’t help but wonder: who had come before her? Had there been pirates? Or what of Nanny Eleanor and Grandpa Clive? Had they taken moonlit walks here during the courtship or marriage?
Sariah plucked a bit of beach grass to use as her sword. Seeing as she had no lover with her—and playing a solo romantic adventure held no appeal for the young girl—she instead focused on the supposed pirates that used this cove as their haunt years ago.
The Royal Armada fleet was on her tail. They’d been chasing her ever since she last raided one of their ships and made off with the gold inside. She must stash her booty in the cave nearby before anyone caught sight of her!
Sariah glanced over her shoulder to ascertain that one of the rotten galleys wasn’t chasing her now. She headed to the left, with the evening sun at her back, to the high cave that seemed to be carved out of the cliff of the mountain.
There was a tiny inlet that blocked off the entrance, but it was shallow. Sariah sloshed through the knee-deep water until she came to a conundrum.
The cave did not have a rock bottom, like she expected. Instead, ocean water spilled in, waves crashing against the back. And—the strangest thing…
It looked like there was something back there. Sariah squinted, but the thing—it looked like a door, almost—was all the way in the rear of the cave. The inlet she had waded in gave way to the sea, and there was no sand to walk upon. She glanced upwards and wondered how long this cliff had stood, so hollow inside.
Well, if it had stood for centuries—millennium—it probably would crash down on her now.
Besides: she was a pirate. What more could she ask for than an unexplained mystery that needed to be solved?
It was decided, then.
Sariah splashed into the water and swam towards the door and whatever treasure lay behind it.
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