Slamming the laptop shut, she moved to sit on her bed.Moonlight drifted in from the port window, streaking her blanket and pillows in silver.How many times had she sat here, watching the boats rock gently in the marina below, pretending she was back in time?On a tall ship.A privateer’s schooner.Wind snapping the sails.Heart wild with something she couldn’t name.
Just like her experience today.
She rubbed her eyes.Had it really happened?Or had she been dreaming?Like all the dreams she’d had over the years.All of them the same, the ship, the crew, the sound of the wind and waves so real.Even the scents filling her nose.Something or someone called to her from the past.Not in words.But in the deep pull of tide and memory.
Maybe when she’d found that wreck today, she’d somehow slipped into those dreams.That must be it.Nothing else made sense.
Yet… that man, those eyes… and his words.She could not shake them.
The gentle thrum of a guitar echoed up from below.Ethan.Her captain rented a room behind the divers’ war room and often practiced his guitar at night.Desi didn’t mind.The music soothed her and helped release the tension of the day.Even though they were usually religious songs.The man was a saint.Attended church regularly, performed on the worship team, and when he wasn’t working atOcean’s Echo, he taught local orphans how to surf.Handsome, skilled, intelligent, and one of the most moral and kind people she knew.Especially compared to men his age.
Then why wasn’t she attracted to him?Why was there no chemistry between them?Not that they hadn’t tried.But after two dates, they agreed to remain friends.
She gazed out the window at the moonlit boats swaying in the marina.Why was she never attracted to the good guys?Only the losers, the self-centered, prideful jerks who only wanted a good time.Total wimps, more worried about their clothes, hair, gym muscles, new tech, and expensive cars than on qualities that make up a real man—courage, honor, chivalry, and depth of character.
Where were the heroes of today?Ethan was the only man who’d come close, and, wouldn’t you know it, her feelings toward him were more like a sister to a brother.
A shaft of moonlight landed on her ankle, and she reached down to rub her Compass Rose tattoo.“For you, Dad.For you.”She’d been only ten when he disappeared at sea, fifteen when she’d gotten the tattoo, a homage to his memory that was fading from her young mind.She and her sister had been raised by their grandfather, who did his best to share all he could about his son.But he joined her parents in the grave two years ago, all their memories intertwined with a family quest to find a certain ship, a British privateer that sank in these coastal waters some three centuries ago.Pops had made her promise to find it, though he’d never told her why this ship was so important.Perhaps a fortune had sunk with it—one she desperately needed—but she sensed there was more to it than money… something mysterious, epic…eternal.
Her gaze landed on the old sea chest that belonged to him, and rising, she knelt before it.Even though the oak planks were scarred and stained and the brass fittings dulled and rusted, she could not part with it.It had meant so much to her Pops, and he’d wanted her to have it.
It holds secrets, my little urchin.Cling to them.Search for them.Never give up.
She opened the heavy lid, and a whiff of musty cedar, leather, and brine escaped as if the chest had held its breath all these years.Inside, a jumble of relics lay waiting.A coil of tarred rope, stiff and blackened, a dented brass spyglass.A bundle of old letters tied with a fraying ribbon.An ivory-handled knife, worn smooth by countless hands.She lifted a leather pouch and dumped a scatter of coins into her palm—Spanish silver, English shillings…the clink of metal echoed like a distant bell from another world.
Beneath the pouch lay a wooden crucifix, carved with simple devotion.Next to it, a compass in a brass case, its needle trembling to point her somewhere.She smiled.This was her grandfather—sailor, collector, keeper of stories.
She was about to return the items when a seam along the bottom board caught her eye, almost invisible beneath the layer of charts and maps.Odd.Tracking her nail along the groove, the wood gave a faint click and loosened.Gently prying, she lifted a false panel to reveal a hidden compartment no bigger than a shoebox.Why had she not seen this before?Inside lay a single leather-bound journal, a cross carved into its cracked cover.
Desi’s breath caught.She lifted the journal, the leather cool and fragile in her hands.Her grandfather’s secret?The thing he had wanted her to find.The weight of it seemed heavier than mere paper and ink, as though it carried centuries.
She whispered into the quiet room, “What were you hiding, Pops?”
Hesitating, she tugged the strap free and opened it.The faint smell of salt and smoke clung to the pages.No title.No name.An illustration was taped to the inside cover, a leather journal just like this one, but older, frayed at the edges.A paper slipped out.Her grandfather’s writing.
You found it, my little urchin.I knew you would.This journal has been passed down through our family for centuries with strict instructions for it to be copied line by line in each generation.The original has long since been overtaken by age, but each word has been faithfully preserved.Now it is up to you.
She gently flipped through the pages, the edges yellowed and curling.They were blank except for the first one.That made no sense.Had the last person tasked with preserving the words failed to copy the rest?
On the first page, strong handwriting, trembling yet bold, stared back at her.
I do not know how I came to be here.One moment I was in my world, the next I stood upon a wooden deck beneath a sky so vast it stole my breath.He saw me.His eyes, full of shock and wonder, found mine, and his words still echo through me.‘You found me.’What does it mean?What am I to do?
Her pulse hammered in her ears.What?She tumbled backward, bumping into the wall, trying to catch her breath.The story was hers!The words familiar.But that was impossible.
She had never seen this book before.
Besides, why would her grandfather hide a nearly empty journal?In a secret compartment?And who had written these words?Who from the past knew what would happen to her today?
The room pressed in around her.She couldn’t breathe.Either she was going nuts, or someone was playing a cruel joke.Closing the journal, she eased it back into its hiding place, chalking it up to her grandfather’s eccentricity.Some had called him crazy.Others outlandish.That was all this was.She had no time for riddles, wacky grandfathers, or journals from the past.It was a coincidence, a very strange one, but just a coincidence.
Besides, she had a business to run, money to make, and a sister’s life to save.
Chapter 3: Hopes and Dreams
The Sentinel, Somewhere in the Caribbean, 1718
The snap of sails overhead cracked like whips against the cloud-brushed sky, but Captain Caleb Hyde heard nothing—nothing but the echo of a voice he hadn’t meant to speak.
