The Bottle in the Sand
With the sun now climbing high, the crew raised anchor.
The motor hummed as Bonny steered the boat forward, the bow cutting clean through the calm sea.
The sunlight on the water like a hot summers day.
The island slipped behind them slowly.
In the distance, the harbor came into view the one with the tavern, where the Captain had first stormed in like thunder and met the fire-eyed Bonny Vale.
But they didn’t turn.
The Captain stood at the helm beside Bonny, arms crossed, watching as they passed the familiar sight.
Not even a glance.
They sailed on toward the place of buried secrets.
When they arrived at the beach once more, the anchor dropped with a heavy splash.
No one waited.
No signs of watchers.
Just seaweed on wet sand, gulls circling high, and the faint scent of salt and pine.
They went ashore, spreading out across the stretch of beach where they once lay in shallow graves.
“Fan out,” the Captain called. “Look for anything Crow might’ve left behind.”
Time passed.
Sweat beaded. Sand shifted.
Then: “Nothing yet, Captain!” Elias called.
The Captain snarled. “Keep searching, you fool! Dig as you go storms have ravaged this coast. What’s buried may no longer be still.”
He stood still for a moment, scanning the beach.
The shallow graves were long since disturbed nothing left but uneven dips and broken roots.
He squinted.
There where the fire had once burned. Ash long gone, but the pattern of the sand, the way it sagged… it spoke of heat.
He traced the scene in his mind.
The fire. The rum. The betrayal.
Crow’s ship had fled from this very stretch.
“Finn!” he barked. “Get over here!”
Finn ran, kicking sand behind him.
“Dig there,” the Captain ordered, drawing a wide circle in the sand with the toe of his boot. “Sift every grain if you must.”
“Yes, Captain!”
The Captain returned alone to the boat, sun warming his skin, the sea breeze making his eyelids heavy.
He sat on the rear deck, staring at the horizon.
His thoughts swirled. Sand. Crow. The Black Stone.
He drifted.
Then darkness.
In the dream, Crow appeared.
Grinning like a madman, eyes like coal, voice like thunder cracking through cloud.
His laughter echoed through the Captain’s skull.
"You'll never find it, old friend," Crow sneered. "You're always chasing what you already lost…"
The Captain jolted upright drenched in sweat.
The captain trudged back to the beach, jaw tight, eyes scanning the shoreline. Still nothing. The wind had picked up, tossing sand over his boots, but the tide offered no answers.
Then a shout.
“We’re back, Captain! We’ve got food and drink for us all!”
He turned toward the sound, blinking against the sun and froze.
Striding down the path like he owned the place was Luca, a vision of madness in a sand-coloured trilby, white sunglasses, and something that looked suspiciously like a sweet stick poking from the corner of his mouth. He swayed to some godawful noise blaring from Bonney’s phone hips loose, arms swinging, bags of supplies hanging from each side like he was on a beach holiday.
“What in the blazes are you wearing, you fool?!” the captain barked.
Bonney threw her hands up. “I tried to stop him! He wanted everything.”
“Turn that noise off!”
But Bonney shook her head. “Let him listen. It’s all new to him he’s having fun.”
The captain growled, pointing toward the boat. “Get the food onboard, you damned peacock!”
Luca, grinning ear to ear, dipped into a half-dance, kicking up sand as he sauntered toward the boat. “Aye aye, Captain!
A voice screamed in the distance.
It was Finn on the beach, waving his arms like a man on fire.
The Captain ran up the beach, boots slapping the sand.
He ran toward Finn, heart pounding.
“What is it? Speak!”
Finn held up something dark and heavy, dripping with salt walter and sand.
“It’s a bottle,” Finn said. “There’s something inside.”
The Captain grabbed it.
It was black glass, the kind used to seal strong rum or dangerous liquids.
Something rattled within.
Without hesitation, the Captain hurled it against a nearby rock.
It shattered with a sharp crack, glass flying into the dune.
Inside a folded piece of parchment, stained and curled at the edges… and a small, strangely shaped stone, smooth and dark as the deep.
The Captain knelt, brushing sand from both.
He unrolled the note slowly.
It was old.
But the ink was still legible.
The Captain unrolled the parchment slowly, his fingers brushing away grains of sand. The paper was torn and sea-stained, but the ink held strong.
The letters were jagged. Erratic. Scratched in haste or fear.
Bonny moved closer, her voice hushed. “What does it say?”
The Captain read aloud, his voice low and steady:
“HE MUST NOT GO IN THE PLACE THAT HE KNOW,
FOR DANGER WILL GROW!”
NASS — AV BETRAYAL
NASS — AV US GOLD.
THE PORT IS THE PLACE,
10 STRIDES YE MUST PACE,
10 TO THE EAST, 20 TO THE NORTH,
60 TO THE SOUTH UNDER THE GROTH!”
They stood frozen.
Elias stepped forward. “Groth? What’s that?”
Bonny shook her head. “Could be a misspelling. Could be dialect. Could be…”
“Something,” the Captain finished, folding the note. “Or someone.”
He looked down at the dark, smooth stone resting in the sand beside where the bottle shattered.
It looked ordinary.
But the longer he stared, the less ordinary it seemed.
The Captain picked it up.
It was cold. Too cold.
He held it close and for a moment, it felt like something inside it moved.
Bonny took a step back.
“I don’t like that thing.”
“Neither do I,” he said. Back to the boat the captain ordered.
