Hidden Treasure

Rebecca gazed serenely at a Hawksbill sea turtle as it went about the shipwreck in search of marine algae to eat. She quickly shook her head clear; she had a job to do and a nasty habit of getting sidetracked. She had come to Queensland, Australia to research the SS Yongala, a century old freight steamer that became a popular dive spot for travellers.

After photographing the outside of the wreck, she took one last glance and noticed something she had previously missed: a small black book tucked under a rock beside the boat. She couldn’t help but feel curious, so she descended quickly and snatched the book from its resting place.

As she slowly ascended, she thought about what writings the book could contain. Was it a passenger’s diary? A captain’s log? She finally broke the surface, creating a saltwater spray as she cleared her regulator.

“Attention! Humpback Whale spotted off the port bow!” her fiance, Paul, bellowed from their research ship. She rolled her eyes at his joke, despite it being somewhat accurate. Between her scuba gear and her open ocean camera, she was quite a clunky character.

“Cut the jokes and help me up, loser,” Rebecca replied as she climbed the ladder into the boat. It was no grand vessel, being more akin to a dinghy than a fancy yacht, but it was suitable enough for their purposes.

“How was it down there? I was beginning to think you ditched me to go marry a merman,” Paul joked.

“Good one. I see that you’ve spent the last hour coming up with witty one-liners to use when I resurfaced, huh?” Rebecca responded. “But to answer your first question, it was absolutely breathtaking. Leave it to nature to take a tragedy and transform it into something beautiful. That rusty shipwreck is now one of the most vibrant coral reefs I’ve seen to date.”

“Breathtaking you say? Seems to me like everything underwater is breathtaking, seeing as how there’s no air down there,” Paul grinned.

“Whenever you’re finished with your stand-up routine, I want you to check this out,” Rebecca said.

She handed him the black book she found at the end of her dive. He grabbed it and began examining the front and back covers. “Well my first impression is that it’s either magical or waterproof because it’s completely dry,” he announced. Paul opened the leatherbound book and began leafing through the pages. “Also, it’s totally blank. What a piece of garbage.” He tossed the book back to Rebecca.

“Don’t you dare denounce the treasures of the sea,” she teased. “Isn’t it strange? That it’s miraculously dry and I’m the first person to find it?”

“I’m sure someone has noticed it before. They probably threw it back in the water once they found out it was blank,” Paul stated matter-of-factly.

“Whatever you say, captain,” she replied. “Let’s move on to more pressing matters: getting some food and calling it a night.”

As the sun gradually sank, it cast rays of orange light that reflected off the water. Rebecca gazed dreamily at the scene, lost in her own thoughts and exhausted after setting up camp back on shore.

She walked over to her rucksack and pulled out the treasure from her dive: the little black book. She couldn’t explain it, but she felt a strange pull towards the object. Paul is going to think I’m crazy for this, she thought to herself. She began slowly flipping the pages, searching for any small writings that Paul might have overlooked.

As she worked, she noticed that her fingertips started to burn. How strange, she thought. Still seeing no real markings or words, she turned the page and discovered a small red blot, followed by a slightly larger red stain. The next dozen pages yielded the same result; a red stain that grew successively larger. Rebecca was so engrossed in her discoveries that she hadn’t realized the pain in her fingertips had increased with each turn of the page as well.

She stopped briefly to look down at her hands, and let out a cry of horror. All ten of her fingertips were bruised and bloody; it looked as though she had been haphazardly handling broken glass. As she was tending to her injury, she watched as markings began to slowly appear on the book’s cover. Written there, in bright scarlet red, were the coordinates -19.13°, 146.84°.

Rebecca stared at the book, nonplussed. That location was only about half a mile from the dive site. She felt a knot of fear churning in her stomach. She swallowed the lump in her throat as she realized that her need for adventure outweighed her sense of caution. Against her better judgement, she snuck back onto the research vessel and headed toward the destination listed on the book, as Paul snored lazily on shore.

As she sailed into the inky black night, she kept a straight course and found the location rather quickly. The only feature close by was a rocky outcropping that jutted awkwardly into the water. She let the gentle waves push her closer to the rocks and made a makeshift cleat hitch knot to secure her boat.

She hopped out onto the rocks and began scoping the area. Her search ended in success, as she found a wooden chest hidden behind a pile of rocks. She knelt down to open it, shocked to find a few neatly stacked piles of $100 bills inside. “There must be thousands of dollars here!” she exclaimed. $20,000 to be exact, as later counting determined. She began packing as much money as she could into her rucksack, her heart pounding with excitement at such a windfall.

With the $20,000 safely stowed in her pack, she stumbled back over the jagged rocks and set sail back to camp. As the boat glided smoothly over the water, she searched in her pockets for the small black book that had guided her. She continued to search while back at camp, emptying the contents of all her gear and scouring the boat to find it.

“What’s all this ruckus? Don’t you know it’s late? Why are you-” Paul trailed off as his eyes locked on the bills spilling out of Rebecca’s rucksack. “So, you did marry a merman. And this is some sort of dowry, I presume?” He sounded equal parts elated and concerned.

“You’re not gonna believe this,” she said with a grin before excitedly recounting her midnight adventure. She finished by saying, “The thing is, I can’t find that book anywhere now.”

“Who cares? We hit it big, baby!” he exclaimed. “I’m sure the book will turn up eventually.”

Despite hours of searching, though, the couple never found that mysterious small book. Rebecca just assumed that it found another place to remain hidden under the ocean’s surface, perhaps for another hundred years, waiting to be discovered. Regardless of its sudden absence, Rebecca knew better than to question a good thing. She would trade a couple sore fingertips for $20,000 any day. And she couldn’t wait for her next series of adventures.