Curse of the Granville Fortune (2 page)

“Mom and Dad are hiding something. Here, listen. It says, ‘The Grimault thieves are descendants of Aristede Grimault who sailed here from France in 1809 shortly after being cursed for stealing the Granville fortune along with Sebastien Granville and Jean Beaumonte.’” I almost dropped the journal as I met Holly’s stare.

“Jean Beaumonte? We have to be related to him, right?” Holly said.

“I guess so.” I felt strange all of a sudden, like I’d heard this before.

Holly tapped the page. “What else does it say?”

I forced my eyes to focus on the journal. “‘Aristede was never heard from again. There was no contact between him and either of his accomplices. And the curse remains intact until the wrongdoers restore the Granville fortune to its rightful owners.’” The curse. The three people. I
had
heard this before. It was my vision! The old woman had cursed Jean and his two friends. Now, I was cursed because of it. My whole family was cursed.

It made sense now. All of it. Strange things happened around my family, things we couldn’t explain. Like Holly’s accidents, her trips to the hospital with broken bones and rare illnesses. Dad couldn’t pay the bills no matter how much he worked because all his cases fell apart before he got paid. Mom had this weird way of making things break in her bare hands—including one potential employer’s hand when she shook it. And I had these stupid visions that took over my whole body and turned me into a total freak!

“We’re cursed!” Holly yelled. “All because some relative of ours stole something hundreds of years ago?”

I didn’t know what to say. I wasn’t about to come clean about my visions.

“Don’t just sit there. Keep reading!” Holly demanded.

I nodded. “‘The Grimault thieves discovered the forest was a safe place to live because no one would enter the woods on account of its mystical power to make a person’s fears come to life. However, there have been a few recorded incidents of men who have entered the forest and have never been heard from again. The Grimault thieves are rumored to have settled there in search of the lost Granville fortune.’ That’s all it says.”

I couldn’t believe it. I’d played at Bradley Park all my life, and my parents never mentioned the forest was dangerous. Of course, they never mentioned our family was cursed either. It’d been torture trying to keep the visions a secret from my parents so they wouldn’t think I was crazy. Now, it turned out I only thought I was crazy because my parents didn’t tell me about the family curse.

“There’s a fortune buried in those woods?” Holly asked.

“That’s what Mom wrote in the journal.”

“I’m going to ask her about this,” Holly said.

“Wait.” I knew it wouldn’t be that easy. My parents had kept this from me for nine years. “Mom and Dad hid this from us all our lives. What makes you think they’ll tell us about it now?”

“Because we found out about it. They have to tell us the truth.”

“Or they could just ground us for stealing Dad’s journal,” I said, tucking the book back under my sweatshirt and turning my bike toward the road.

“
You
stole the journal. I’m not getting in trouble for that,” Holly said, turning her bike around, too.

“Whatever. I want answers, and I’ll find them myself. I say we explore the forest.”

“You’re crazy. We find out we’re cursed and you want to go into a scary forest that’s full of thieves?”

Holly’s face was so pale she looked sick, and that gave me an idea. “We’re going into Braeden Forest when Mom goes food shopping this afternoon.”

“But—” Holly protested as I took off for home.

I left my bike on the lawn and crept to the front door. I turned to Holly and put a finger to my lips, silently praying that she’d actually be quiet and not knock over the coat rack. Mom couldn’t know we were home yet.

“Wait,” Holly whispered. “Food shopping with Mom is one of our weekly chores. How are we going to get out of it?”

“Just be quiet and leave the rest to me.” I opened the door slowly, hoping it wouldn’t creak, and peeked my head in. I could see the kitchen and the living room. Both were empty. I guessed Mom was in the upstairs den posting more of Grandma’s antiques on eBay. I shut the door behind us with only the tiniest click. So far so good.

I ducked into the bathroom, pulling Holly behind me. I grabbed the baby powder from the medicine cabinet and handed it to her. “Dab some of this on your face so you look pale,” I said.

“Why? What are we doing?”

“Not we.
You
. I’ll tell Mom you fell off your bike and got the wind knocked out of you. She won’t have any trouble believing that, especially since you still have leaves in your hair.” I pointed to the clump of leaves stuck in her ponytail.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Holly tried to grab them, but I stopped her.

“Leave them. We want Mom to see you like this.”

“Ugh! Fine,” Holly said with a huff.

“And practice moaning for your pretend stomachache. Getting the wind knocked out of you isn’t enough. We have to make sure Mom won’t think you’ll feel better in an hour and just postpone the shopping.”

“What if I say my ribs hurt? I could pretend I cracked one,” Holly said with a smile. As usual, she wasn’t thinking ahead.

“If Mom thinks you broke a rib, she’ll take you to the emergency room to have it X-rayed. Stick to the stomachache. Got it?” I gave her a serious look to make sure she didn’t try to come up with any other injuries that would ruin my plan.

“Fine. Pale face and stomachache,” Holly said. Then she muttered, “How boring.”

I ran into the kitchen to heat up a bowl of canned soup. Without letting it cool, I ate two spoonfuls. It burned my tongue, but I forced myself to swallow. Then I put the bowl on the coffee table in the living room.

Holly walked into the room as I finished rearranging the pillows on the couch to make it look like she’d been lying there. I looked Holly up and down. Her face was definitely pale, but something was wrong. “Did you take some leaves out of your hair?”

“Just a couple.”

“Holly!” I said in a loud whisper.

“Fine.” She ran to the bathroom and came back a second later with the rest of the leaves in her hair. “How’s that?”

“Better. Now I’m going to help you up to bed.” I took her by the arm and led her to the stairs. We only made it up three steps before running into Mom.

“Good, you’re home. I’m about to make lun—” With one look at Holly, Mom stopped. “Sweetie, are you all right? You look pale.”

“That’s what I thought,” I said before Holly could get a word in. “She tried to go up the big ramp at the park, and she fell in a bush. I think she got the wind knocked out of her. I brought her home and made her some soup, but she could only get a few bites down. I’m taking her up to bed so she can rest.”

“Thank you, J.B.,” Mom said. “Holly’s lucky to have such a good brother.” I stuck my tongue out at Holly as Mom took her arm.

Once Holly was back in bed, I mouthed the word “moan.”

“Ohh!” Holly held her hands to her stomach. “My stomach.” I had to admit she was pretty good at pretending to be sick.

“Sweetie, why on earth did you try to go on the big bike ramp? You know you’re not—” Mom paused, not wanting to offend Holly. “You need to be more careful.”

“J.B. dared me.” Holly slowly raised her hand and pointed at me. My jaw dropped. Now she’d gone too far.

“Jack Beaumonte!” It was never good when Mom used my full name. “You’re supposed to look out for your sister, not get her hurt.”

“Sorry.” I lowered my head, pretending to be ashamed. “Let me make up for it. I’ll stay home with Holly while you go shopping. I’ll get her whatever she needs.”

“The grocery shopping. I completely forgot. I don’t want to leave Holly in this condition. The shopping will have to wait.” She patted Holly’s hand.

“No!” I said, a little too enthusiastically. “I mean, it can’t wait. Holly and I finished all the food in the fridge last night.” We never had much food in the fridge to begin with, so it wasn’t hard to do. “Besides, it’s not like you can wait for Dad to get home. We’d all starve to death by then.” No arguing with that.

“You’re right. We don’t even have anything for dinner.” Mom wrinkled her forehead.

“Mom,” Holly said in a weak voice. “I’m probably going to sleep all afternoon, but if I need anything, J.B. will get it for me.”

“Right,” I agreed, hoping I didn’t sound too eager to get rid of her.

“Well, if you think you’ll be all right, I’ll run into town and grab the necessities as quickly as I can. I’ll leave my cell on. If you need me, call and I’ll come right home. Can I get you anything before I leave?”

Holly shook her head.

Mom kissed her cheek. “What is it, dear?” she asked.

I stared at Holly, afraid she’d somehow ruined the plan. The worried look on her face didn’t make me relax any.

“Just my stomach,” Holly said. “I’m sure I’ll feel better after a nap.”

“I’ll be home as soon as I can,” Mom said. Then she whispered to me, “Take good care of her, and call me if she gets any worse.”

As soon as I saw Mom’s face, I knew why Holly had looked so worried. Mom had kissed Holly’s baby-powdered cheek, covering her lips in white powder. “Sure,” I managed to say.

We stayed in Holly’s room, listening for Mom’s car pulling out of the driveway. My heart raced. Mom usually checked her makeup in the rearview mirror before she went anywhere. I crept to the window and peeked around the curtains. The blue sedan was backing out. I breathed a sigh of relief.

“Did you see her lips?” Holly said.

“Come on. We don’t have much time.” I stashed Dad’s journal under my bed and ran down to the kitchen. As I stuffed granola bars in my pockets, I spotted a rope hanging from a hook on the garage door. I wasn’t sure what it was doing there, but I figured we shouldn’t go into the forest empty-handed, so I took the rope and wound it up.

“What’s that for?” Holly asked.

“I’m not sure. Maybe we can use it to climb trees if we see any wolves or bears.”

“Bears?” Holly’s voice quivered. “Do you really think we should go into the forest? I mean, I’m pretty sure bears can climb trees. How would we get away from them?”

“Don’t you want to break this curse? Or do you like getting hurt all the time and never having any money?” I wanted to make her angry. If Holly were angry, she’d forget about being scared.

“Let’s go,” Holly said, tearing the leaves from her hair.

I finished winding the rope into a big loop and draped it across my neck and shoulder like a sash. As I turned toward the door, the painting above the fireplace caught my eye. I’d never paid attention to it before. A bunch of trees with two paths leading into them—big deal. But after reading Dad’s journal and seeing the crazy guy wandering out of the forest, I wanted to look at the painting. I walked over and took it off the wall.

“What are you doing? We have to hurry,” Holly said, tapping her watch.

“I think this is—” I turned the painting over. There was writing on the back in faded, curvy script. “Braeden Forest.”

“So?”

I couldn’t believe she didn’t see why this was important. “First, some crazy guy comes out of the forest. Then, we find out our family is cursed. And the painting that’s been in our house forever is of the forest where the stolen Granville fortune is buried! It’s all connected.”

“You think the crazy guy has something to do with the curse?” Holly asked.

“It seems like it.” I had a crazy idea that maybe the painting was more than art. I took it into Dad’s office and grabbed the scissors off the desk.

Holly ran after me. “Stop! Mom’s going to kill you!” she said, as I stabbed the corner of the painting.

I ignored her and cut the canvas along the frame.

“Why did you do that?”

“This has to be a clue.” I rolled up the painting. “Come on. We’ll bike back to the park.” I pushed her out the door before she could yell at me anymore.

The gated entrance to the park was locked with yellow police tape draped across it, so we stashed our bikes in the bushes and climbed over the gate. As soon as we were in the park, we headed straight past the swings to the forest.

I checked the painting. “That’s weird. There are two paths entering the forest in the painting, but there’s only one path in front of us.” I closed my eyes and pictured the crazy guy coming out of the woods. He came out of the trees, not the path. “There has to be another path behind these bushes.” I put the painting on the merry-go-round and started shoving branches out of the way. Sure enough, there was another path. “There’s a trail! Let’s go!”

“What about the painting? Are you going to leave it on the merry-go-round?”

“It only shows the entrance. Why would we need to bring it?”

Holly shrugged and followed me down the overgrown path.

At first, Braeden Forest looked like any other forest. But after walking for about ten minutes, it got dark and following the path got a lot more difficult.

“The sunlight can’t get through all these trees. It looks like nighttime in here,” I said.

“Yeah, and the trees are spooky. Their branches look like bony, wrinkled arms.”

I followed Holly’s stare to a large oak tree. The bark was cracked and peeling. Some of the branches spidered out at the ends, making them look like wrinkly hands and fingers.

“The trees over there look like they have faces.” I pointed up ahead. The bark was peeling off in weird patterns that looked like ghoulish faces. One reminded me of my great uncle Lester, and that didn’t make me feel better because he gave me the creeps.

A branch brushed against my shoulder. I jumped. There wasn’t any wind to make the branches sway. Holly raised a shaky hand and pointed behind me. I turned to see the tree reaching out to grab me as if it were a person. “The trees are alive!”

Bark splintered as the branches bent like fingers and swatted at us. The faces in the trees snarled at me, making me stumble backwards.

“Run!” I pushed Holly down the path. The bony wooden fingers of an oak tree grazed my arm.

“The path splits up ahead!” Holly yelled. “Which way should we go?”