did sound a bit odd, but I kept my poker face. “Well, we and the police searched everywhere the next day. A hundred people were looking for him in the park and nearby villages night and day for a month.”
“I see. I don’t know why, but I just thought of something Charlie told me about.”
I noticed Jared’s phone–that he had put down on the table–was blinking with incoming messages, but he did not check it. I was sure that he was going to tell me whatever it was, so I just looked at him, waiting for another flashback to surface.
“He told me about this scary chest that your family kept in the attic,” he said. “If I remember correctly, it was a pirate’s chest filled with cursed treasure, and if you took anything from it, the pirates’ ghosts would hunt you forever.”
“Yes, there were actually two. One was in the attic and “‘his identical brother’” was in my dad’s study. The one in the attic was ‘cursed,’ and I was the one who told him that story. It’s kind of a thing that gets passed from one generation to the next to scare the bejesus out of the younger kids in the house so that the older kids can hide their stuff in it. A family tradition, as it were.”
I didn’t need to tell Jared that this was the place where I kept my product. I had to reinvent a few scary stories to make sure Charlie never got closer to that chest. There was some powerful weed, and it smelled so strong that I had to double bag it and keep it inside so that no one knew.
“Were they really pirate chests?” Jared sounded intrigued.
“Well, the legend has it that the first Montague, Ezekiel, wasn’t a savory character. He travelled a lot and was involved in some shady trading business somewhere close to the end or right after “the golden age of piracy”.
“When was that?”
“I imagine it was in the early or mid-1800s. In any case, for some reason, he got to keep what he ‘traded,’ I think he was pardoned, and invested it in railways. Later, he was smart enough to pull his money plus interest out before the railway mania and the revolution in France …the last one, I think. Anyway, he bought the land and built the house in 1862. The chests were among his possessions when he moved in. It was said that he got them from some Chinese sailors in Asia. My grandfather used to say that the chests were filled with gold coins that helped the family through some challenging times, but I haven’t seen any of that alleged pirate loot.”
“Interesting.”
“Yeah,” I said, twisting the glass in my hand and looking at my drink.
As a little boy, I had been fascinated by the story myself and kept asking my father to tell it to me again and again. Unfortunately, it had been a rare treat because my father had usually been too busy for this sort of things.
“All the kids in the family, including Charlie and I, were trying to find those coins. Alas, the chests were filled with everything but.” I shrugged.
Jared smiled. “I remember wanting to look at that thing and being scared at the same time. I also remember Charlie thought that it was an ideal place to hide from everyone.”
“He was a bit afraid of the attic and the chest. Plus, the lid was too heavy for him to open anyway,” I said, massaging my belly which had started to feel strange. It wasn’t a “nature call” type of strange, but a feeling as if my mind was trying to tell me something and it chose my gut to send me the message.
I remembered what happened during that day in more detail, which wasn’t hard to do. When I found out that my parents had called the police, I had that chest moved down to the cellar the next day. I did not want the police with a dog anywhere near it. I did not have any desire to be questioned about where I had got the money to buy that batch.
“Why did you mention the chest?” I asked.
“I don’t know. As a kid, every time I watched a pirate movie I would think about that chest,” Jared said and had another sip from his glass. “In any case, I’m sure you did everything you could to find him.”
Chapter 6
Back in the taxi, I was thinking about that chest. Did we check it before it was moved down to the cellar? Of course, we didn’t. I was too worried about the police, and it never occurred to me that someone could’ve been hiding in it. Besides, I was not actually there when a couple of our footmen carried it down upon my request. No, it was crazy, but it’s driving me off the wall now. I had to be sure.
I arrived at the train station on time and gave a generous tip to my indifferent taxi driver. I got on the train and threw myself into the seat. Now I could think a bit.
“Alex?”
I turned my head and saw my old university friend James Harding. His family were our neighbors. The Hardings had lived in the area where our estate was long before Ezekiel Montague arrived but lost most of their land piece by piece over the years. They had been land-rich but cash-poor and had to make a lot of compromises to stay afloat. They still owned their Baroque-style manor house, Wintersmith Hall, which was built in the late 1600s, but was mostly uninhabitable due to lack of proper maintenance and funding. James’s family had been occupying one wing and using former stables for their needs for as long as I can remember. Our fathers were friends, until James’s dad passed away seven years ago, but our great-grandfathers weren’t as such. I remembered my father used to tell me that when I became the head of the family, I would have to make sure that the Hardings were always welcome in the house. I used to see him and his family at the parties that my parents had organized, but we hadn’t been awfully close. Perhaps the closeness of our fathers had been the reason why James and I went to the same university and that technically made us close enough to call each other friends. He studied history and I took business courses. After graduation, we didn’t keep in touch much but occasionally saw each other at different events in town.
I always thought of him as a sloppy nerd whose head was always in the clouds. He was a bit shorter than me and paid attention to neither the cleanliness nor tidiness of his wardrobe and hair. I remembered once, when I came to his dorm room to pick him up for some event when we were students, marveling at the mess that cluttered his living space. He pulled a white dress shirt from under his shoes, put it on and was ready to go. James had started to hide his weak chin under his dark beard long before it became fashionable, but food crumbs that had got stuck in his facial hair like little hostages. His lean body that rarely saw the gym, never looked too sexy to women. After his father had passed away, James returned to his house to help his formidable mother with what was left of their estate, which as far as I could remember, wasn’t making them much money. After that I hadn’t seen him much until today.
“It’s been years,” he said. “How the heck have you been?”
It felt unexpectedly good to see him. I could see a few greasy spots, sauce from burgers no doubt, on his jacket.
“James” I said, “I haven’t seen you since …” I squinted my eyes, trying to remember when was the last time when we’d seen each other.
“Since forever would be the right estimation.” I laughed.
“Come, man,” I said pointing to the seat next to me.
He sat down.
“How’s your back?” he asked.
I’d had a nasty car accident a few years ago when my car’s brakes malfunctioned, and I crashed into a brick wall. I hurt my back,
