“I think I may have found it,” he told me.
“Wait, seriously? How? Where?”
“One of the yacht owners who uses the marina is a huge military history buff. While I was getting his boat ready to launch, he got to talking about the War of 1812, and some of the skirmishes in northern Michigan... He says there’s a ruined 1800s military encampment in the woods. Here.”
On an old paper map of Michigan, he pointed to a body of water: a tiny lake, several miles inland from the coastal dunes, with a short river leading there. No roads around for several miles. Backcountry.
“They built a stone lookout tower,” he told me. “He doesn’t know if it’s still standing. It was in ruins when he toured the site twenty years ago. But this has to be it, Paige. Right?”
Mabel’s tower.
Could this really be it?
After poking around miliary history forums online, we dug up a little more information. Seb’s tower was, indeed, erected around the time of the War of 1812, when Michigan soldiers needed to survey the surrounding land and waters for the British. After the war, the military encampment was abandoned. Now the state owned the land.
“Sleeping Bear Dunes is just three hours up the coast from us,”Seb pointed out, full of energy and excitement. “We can drive there and back in day. But we don’t know exactly what we’ll find when we get there. Might be smarter to take tents and camp for the night.”
“Camping?”
“Why not. Easiest way to navigate through the backcountry. Don’t have to worry about chasing daylight, cheaper than a motel room.”
A zip of excitement went through me.
The Wags hadn’t been camping since we were twelve.
I was totally onboard. After speaking to Jazmine and Benny, we agreed to give it a go. We could take Benny’s canoes with us. Jazmine still had a tent. And so did I, we discovered, when Seb poked around the garage and found it stored in the rafters with old holiday decorations. We even found an old cooler and a box of sleeping bags, both kids and adult varieties.
The next day the Wags all met up at the food truck court outside the marina to discuss strategy. There were two nice surprises. The first was that Lulu wasn’t with Benny. The second was Jazmine. She walked up to the table slowly with her head down, looking depressed, then suddenly pulled her arm out the sling and lifted it in the air victoriously.
We all cheered.
“Got the all clear from my doctor this morning,” she said, smiling big.
“That’ll make a trip through the woods a little easier,” Benny said, congratulating her. “Now we won’t be a paddle down.”
“And when I come back, all the dumb kids in my paddleboard class will have to eat shit for calling me the One-Armed Bandit.”
We all laughed, then the topic turned to something Seb and I had discussed in private.
“You’ve got to convince Lulu that she can’t come,” Seb told Benny. “I know she’s your girl, and I don’t hate her, or anything, but this is a Wags-only trip. Please, man. It’s only one night away from her.”
“She’s not going to be happy,” Benny said, scratching his beard. “Sometimes I think she’s more into finding treasure than we are.”
That was what worried me. “I haven’t spent time with you without her since I got back,” I argued. “We need you, Benny.Justyou.”
“Please,” Jaz pleaded.
He looked at her and nodded. “Okay.”
We didn’t expect Benny to agree so fast. Maybe he was getting tired of her, too. He phoned her right there, even fibbed and told Lulu he was going on a boys-only camping trip with Seb and some other guys. Jazmine and I gave each other secret fist bumps under the table.
And just like that, everything was back. The Wags. The hunt for the Golden Venus. Heck, even Jazmine’s arm getting out of the sling. It was all coming together.
Everything... except me and Seb.
But even that showed signs of changing a couple days later, when we left for the dunes. The Wags all gathered at the cottage at lunchtime, carting camping supplies and treasure-hunting necessities that Benny bought for the trip: brand-new flashlights, a couple collapsible shovels—seeing as how we ditched all the other shovels with Big Red downtown. Benny even bought a special hiking GPS that would ensure we didn’t get lost in the backcountry if we couldn’t get a phone signal. Seb oohed and aahed overthe new gear while I quietly ogled how nice his arms looked in the sleeveless tee with which he was torturing me today.
Jazmine and Benny stacked my paddleboard on Jaz’s—both strapped to the top of Benny’s big black Land Rover—the vehicle we’d be taking up the coast. They’d packed two additional inflatable boards in the back. Seb helped me load up the tent we found in the garage and the sleeping bags. Jaz and Benny already had three other tents loaded, so we each had one.
