The Theta Prophecy (5 page)

“It’s a long story,” he said and ushered them all to go help their parents.

Left to himself, he thought about his wife and his son and if there was anything he could do to change the Theta Timeline. Visions of a better life for them floated in his mind, a life free of checkpoints and armed men dragging people away for the things they said and wrote. But even as the fantasies played out—his wife and son getting in their car and being allowed to drive wherever they wanted without having to wait in line for an inspection and interrogation—reality quickly crept back into the scenario.

“Road trip!” Carter would repeat, the way he always did, “Road trip! Road trip! Road trip!”

His wife wouldn’t be able to contain her smile. But instead of driving to the park or into the city or anywhere else they wanted, they would have to go through at least one checkpoint first.

His wife would frown while also reassuring her child. “It’ll be quick.”

It would be anything but quick, however. The line of cars would stretch for miles. People would have to add hours for even the simplest trip just so they could get through the crawl of vehicles.

When it was their turn to go through the checkpoint, a man in a black uniform would approach her window.

“Where you going?” he would ask, leaning against the car, his holster pressed against her door to remind her who was in charge.

“Just wanted to take my son out for the day. Enjoy the fresh air.”

“I’m sorry,” he would say, looking down her blouse. “I’m going to need you to get out so we can do a search.”

“But I’m just—“

“Out,” the man would say.

Carter would start to cry when he saw a man with a badge and blaster touching his mommy. When the man slid his hands up her shirt, Carter would cry even harder.

“Go molest someone else,” his wife would say, pushing the guard’s hands away.

With a shiver, Anderson blinked himself out of thoughts of his former reality. He knew what would have happened next. The guard would slam his wife against the side of the car. His son would be screaming. The Tyranny’s men would either kill Debbie right there, claiming she had resisted arrest, or else they would take her away, have their way with her, and then drop her in one of their prisons.

What plagued him more than anything else was the knowledge that his disappearance would likely cause just this very kind of confrontation between his wife and the Tyranny. And it would all be for nothing. Men in black suits would show up at his wife’s door, accusing her husband of being a Thinker. If things went as they normally did, they might shoot her and Carter right in their own home, then claim Debbie had been reaching for a blaster. It wouldn’t matter that she didn’t have any weapons in their home; just the claim would be enough for the killing to be considered justified.

“It is nice day for warm sky,” a Mi’kmaq girl with pigtails said, pointing to the sun and the cloud-free sky.

“It is,” Anderson said and gave a playful chase until the girl safely darted away, leaving him alone once more on the shore, looking out over the water.

He needed for there to be a different future. Not just for his wife and son, but for everyone. For everyone who suffered because of the Tyranny’s wars. For everyone who lived in fear of what their leaders would do next. Looking around, though, with no sign of modern civilization, the sad fact was that if the future were going to be changed, someone else would have to do it. If the Theta Timeline could be shifted to a different reality, it would have to be done by one of the other time travelers. Certainly not him.

Date: 1795

Samuel kicked at the dirt that was packed underneath the spot where the flagstone had been. “What now?”

“Keep digging,” Daniel said.

But after another two feet of dirt was excavated—the same amount they had uncovered before finding the flagstone—they still only saw more earth.

Anthony said, “I’ve got to head back. My pa is gonna raise a stink if I’m late.”

“We have to come back with shovels and buckets,” Daniel said. “We need proper equipment if we’re going to uncover this treasure.” The only way he could force himself to leave whatever riches were buried down there was if he got all three friends to promise they would come back and try again.

The other boys nodded.

“Okay, let’s go.”

Each boy walked away with broken fingernails, cut hands, and filthy clothes, but also with bigger grins than any of them had seen in recent memory. Treasure was buried somewhere beneath them. Anthony was right; it was better to get back home a little early, clean up, and regroup, than to show up late for supper—in ruined clothes no less—and be forbidden from any similar adventures in the future.

They were halfway back to the canoe when Daniel stopped and said, “Wait. We all need to promise not to tell anyone else about this.”

He didn’t have to tell them why. If news of the secret spot got out, everyone from town would investigate and it would be someone else, not he and his friends, who found it and became filthy rich. Without saying anything, all four boys formed a circle, put one hand out into a collective pile, and swore a silent oath to keep what they had found a secret.

The next day, though, as Daniel was walking back from the carpenter’s shop, a boy called out, “When you going to find the treasure?”

Daniel acted as though he hadn’t heard the boy and continued on his way.

A hundred feet later, an old woman, her wrinkly face sagging into her wrinkly neck, pointed at him and laughed. “When you find your riches, don’t forget about all us regular folk!”

He could do nothing more than growl and continue walking back toward his parents’ house. One of the other boys had already let the secret out.

What he didn’t know was that it wasn’t just one of his three friends that had told someone else, it was all of them. Samuel had told his older sister and younger brother. Anthony had told the men down by the dock. And poor old John had told that hand-holding floozy, Sarah Cunningham, in hopes that it would impress her enough that she might hold his hand too (it hadn’t). Each of those people all ended up telling two or three other people. Within a day, everyone in town knew about the supposed treasure hidden out on Oak Island.

As much as Daniel wanted to be mad, he couldn’t be. After all, to his own surprise, he had told his father about the island, even recounting the specifics of the block and tackle and the stones arranged two feet underground.

To his even greater surprise, his father hadn’t scolded him, hadn’t laughed at his childish hopes of finding treasure, hadn’t belittled the ways his boy spent his time. He had merely stuck out his lower lip the way he did when he heard something he didn’t expect to hear and grunted. “Huh.”

Daniel couldn’t be sure if it was the day’s fatigue or the beer that made his father more thoughtful than usual. He still had no idea why he had told his father. He certainly hadn’t planned to. Now, the next time he should have a day off from his chores, his father wouldn’t feel bad about telling his son to stick around and help around the farm if all he was going to be doing was hunting for some fool’s treasure.

After that pint was empty, however, and his father was halfway through another one, Daniel actually heard the question: “So, when are you going back?”

For a moment, Daniel was afraid to answer. Part of him wished he could go back in time and not tell his father anything. If he said “as soon as possible,”
his father would burst out laughing and, the inevitable scorn hitting Daniel across the face, say “never thought I’d have a son who believed in all that pirate treasure nonsense.”

“On my next day off,” Daniel said, holding his breath.

His father downed the rest of his beer. He did not make a joke out of the treasure hunt. Nor did he shake his head and wonder aloud at all the better ways his son could spend his time.

He merely said, “Tomorrow. You have the day off tomorrow.” And when Daniel opened his mouth to offer a reminder of all the chores he was supposed to do the following day, his father added, “I can handle everything for a day. Go be young while you still can.”

The few other times Daniel’s father had said things like this it had turned out to be a putdown, a reminder to his son that he still had a lot to learn about life. But tonight, there was an honest and friendly tone behind the comment, as if he remembered how hard his own childhood had been, how little time he had to laugh and play before, at age eight, he had started spending days out on the field with his own father. And without being told as much, Daniel knew he was being given another chance to have a carefree day while there was still time.

That night, right before going to sleep, Daniel didn’t fantasize the way he always had of finding a beautiful woman stranded on one of the nearby islands. That daydream didn’t seem as important as it once had. Nor did he envision himself finding some forgotten land filled with dinosaurs or other fantastic beasts. That idea no longer seemed as adventurous as it used to.

Taking up the empty space left by the two fading fantasies was the only dream still remaining, the possibility of finding riches, of uncovering vast amounts of gold and jewels. He would discover so much wealth that he would never have to worry about plowing fields or milking cows. The fantasy grew larger and larger until it filled the void left by the other two. He saw himself in the nicest house money could buy. All of his meals would be prepared by professional chefs. It went without saying that he would never have to work out on the fields another day in his life. So much gold would be uncovered that he would be able to ensure his parents never had to work either.

And then he fell asleep.

The next day, it took a lot of wrangling to get the other three boys to join him. It turned out that as much as Daniel viewed his father as the hard-ass in the lot, he was the only one who let his boy go free for the day without a lot of begging and promises to make up the missed time.

When the boys arrived back on the island, though, they had with them four shovels, four buckets, two lengths of rope, food and water, and even a lucky rabbit’s foot. Daniel expected the hole to be deeper than they had left it—someone from town having sneaked over to the island after hearing everyone whisper about the mysterious stone circle the boys had found—but it was just as they had left it, still four feet deep with the flagstone pushed to the side. If anyone else had come to look at the supposed treasure spot, they either hadn’t found it or else saw the pit that the boys had started and thought the task too great for them.

Without speaking, the four friends all took up their shovels and began to dig. Using actual tools instead of their fingers, their rapid progress was encouraging. After only a few minutes, they had dug down another foot, to the point they needed one of the boys to climb back out of the hole to receive the full buckets. After another two feet of progress, even this became a burden and they strung one of their ropes through the same block and tackle Daniel had seen in the sunlight, guiding them to this spot in the first place. Using the existing pulley system, one boy hauled up buckets full of dirt while the other three boys kept digging.

After another two feet, one of their shovels thumped against a hard surface and Samuel yelled, “I think I found something.”

“What’d you find?” Anthony asked from ten feet above them, peering into the shadows for whatever the boys had stumbled upon.

None of the others answered him. They were too busy using their hands to wipe dirt away from whatever the shovel had hit.

“A treasure chest!” John said when he saw a series of wood planks.

But it wasn’t a wood chest at all, just boards laid all the way from one side of the circular hole to the other, the same way the flagstone had been. Daniel grabbed his shovel and used it to pry one of the planks away.

“What in the world?” he said.

“What is it?” Anthony said again from ground level, but none of his friends answered him this time either.

The other three boys looked down in disbelief while Anthony danced around the top of the hole, trying to get a look at what the other boys were seeing.

“More dirt?” Daniel said, leaning with all of his weight on his shovel.

He pulled the other wood planks away to make sure they weren’t missing anything. Two feet down, they had found flagstone, then more dirt. Now, ten feet into the earth they found wood planks and, underneath that, still more dirt.

“We have to be close,” John said and began digging again.

The other two boys joined him. After another five feet of dirt was removed, the hole looked exactly as it had before, only much deeper. Every half an hour, one of the boys would climb out of the hole and take a turn emptying the buckets while the other three would be down in the dark pit. By the time they were twenty feet beneath ground level, it was Samuel who was standing out in the fresh air.

Anthony’s shovel hit something. “My God!” he said, “This is it.”

He dropped to his knees and began pulling dirt away from the treasure chest. John and Daniel did the same. But as they moved the remaining dirt to the sides of the hole, they found a smooth wooden surface, just as they had ten feet earlier. More wood planks.

“What the jiminy,” Anthony said, closing his eyes.

“This has to be a joke.”

“Well, it’s not a funny one.”

No one disagreed with this. Daniel didn’t say it, but as much as he wanted there to be treasure in the hole, he dreaded what he knew he would find when he pulled the wood planks away. And after he jammed his shovel under the furthest board and wedged it upward, his fear was realized. Nothing but more dirt.

No one said anything for a long time. Finally, Daniel broke the silence, telling the other boys they were done for the day. But when he said it, he spoke so softly the others didn’t even hear him; they merely saw him tug on the rope to signal that he was ready to be hoisted out of the hole.

Back in town, everyone wanted to hear about the treasure the kids must have unearthed. But now, instead of wanting to tell everyone about their discovery, all four boys wished they had kept the entire thing to themselves. The pain of having to admit they hadn’t found anything, of having their nearly-realized dreams torn from them, and being asked about it over and over, made the boys walk with their heads down. It was easier to avoid making eye contact and thus avoid another conversation about the treasure hole that didn’t actually have any treasure.

That night, as he lay in bed, wanting sleep to take him so he didn’t have to keep thinking about that damned hole, Daniel still only had one dream. The buried treasure. But now, instead of seeing himself with riches beyond his comprehension, he envisioned living out the same life as his father. He would grow old on the fields. He would toil away, day after day, on the land. Some days he would wish the clouds would come and offer a reprieve from the scorching sun, and other days his clothes would be so waterlogged from the constant rain that he would feel like his flesh was rotting away as he worked. While the fantasy of treasure existed, the treasure itself no longer belonged to him. If there were chests full of gold coins out there, someone else would find them.

He fought against this idea, hating himself for thinking it, but no matter how much he wanted to fantasize about gold and rubies and sapphires and emeralds and everything else that shined so nicely, the dream seemed distant, unrealistic—maybe even immature.

They went back to the island one last time. The hole was just as the four boys had left it—still twenty feet deep, with the pulley above it, and giant mounds of excavated dirt littering the nearby area.

All of the joy and wonder that the boys had initially been filled with was gone, however. They either dug in silence or bickered with one another about who might not be pulling their weight. Everything took longer. By the time one bucket of dirt was hauled up, emptied, and lowered back down again, all of the other buckets were full. It took so long for the boys to take their turns getting out of the hole and getting fresh air that they stopped swapping roles. By the time they got to thirty feet below ground and hit another set of wood planks, Daniel’s eyes burned and he didn’t want his friends to see him wipe at them.

Without speaking, he pulled the wood planks away.

More dirt.

John actually laughed. It was the same dumb laugh he always gave when he was devastated, but this time it made Daniel want to strangle him. Samuel kicked at the wall of the pit. Anthony just shook his head in disbelief.

“I can’t believe it.”

“This has to be the most evil joke I’ve ever seen. Who would do this?”

That night, as his father drank his beer, Daniel thought of all the things he would have been happy to find in the hole. It wouldn’t even have to have been a full treasure chest of gold; he would have been happy with a small pouch of coins. It didn’t have to be enough money to rival the King of England; it could have been just enough to move to a place where they didn’t have to work the land each day from sunrise to sunset.