The Little Black Book

It was ninety-five degrees outside, and a hundred and five inside the lower barracks. I fought long and hard this morning with Mom about going out to the fort on such a hot and humid day. Summers in coastal North Carolina are the southern cliche of hot, humid, and sticky. To put it short, it's a terrible day to be outside, much less deep inside Fort Macon's inner structure.

"It's a gorgeous day to be outside, and besides your cousin doesn't come around as often as he used to. And y'all used to love playing hide and go seek in the old fort." Mom told me that morning.

"Yeah, when we were eight, mom," I replied, rolling my eyes at her willful ignorance; I'm sixteen, and the woman still treats me like a child.

So here we all are, my mom, stepdad, me, and my cousin Kyler sweating our pants off in some musty, asbestos-filled brick prison.

"Dammit, it's hot as hades!" my dad shouted as we made our way into the fort's kitchen, "I think I'm gonna try my luck castin' at the jetty. It'd be cooler by the water."

My mom fanned herself with the fort's tourist brochure (which was probably the only reason she grabbed it in the first place), and turning to my dad. She said, "That sounds like a good idea honey, I'd love to layout on the beach; I'll tag along."

"Finally! We can get outta here. This place smells!" Kyler commented.

I wiped the sweat from my brow and inserted my two cents, "Yeah, it does! It reeks! Not to mention the history of this place is racist and creepy! They should have demolished this place years ago!"

"How dare you!?" Mom shouted back at me, her tone on the verge between anger and disappointment. "This place is history, and bad or good, historical structures are important. Yes, bad things happened here, but as long as we learn that we should not repeat those events, then places like this need to stay. So, both of you will stay here until you learn something from Fort Macon's history. We will come pick you up this afternoon."

"But-" Kyler and I both said in defeat. We both knew that any further argument would have been in vain; There ain't no point in arguing with an opinionated southern woman. We watched as my parents gleefully made their victorious retreat out of the fort and into the cool sea breeze outside.

"This sucks," Kyler said, making his way through the fort's arched brick doorways.

I followed him all the way to the end of the long narrow passageway. The room we ended up in was smaller and stuffier than the kitchen, and in the far corner, a dark slender opening stood gazing as if beckoning for someone to enter. This was an area of the fort we knew well; it was the last room before the dark, windowless jail that no one ever went into. As kids, we would dare each other to go into the jail, often shoving and teasing one another just to see if one of us would be brave enough to step inside.

Walking up to Kyler's ear, I whispered, "I dare you."

Shoving me away, he repeated my dare, "I dare you!"

For a few moments, the nostalgia of our childhood overwhelmed us, and our laughter echoed through the empty room. Our laughter died down, and silent awkwardness replaced the nostalgic joy we just shared mere moments ago.

Breaking the silence, I offered, "Ya know, we could both go in there."

Kyler looked at me, looked at the dark doorway, looked at me, and then stared into the void. More silence. When he finally spoke again, he was still looking at the opening, "We are older now, it's just an empty room, and I'm not afraid anymore," he said as if he was trying to convince himself of his own claims.

Without overthinking about it, (because I knew if I did, then I would have stopped myself), I grabbed Kyler's arm and rushed both of us into the darkness. "Hold on! Go slow! There might be a-!" Kyler shouted at me just as we both tripped over the step-down leading into the jail.

The room was smaller than I anticipated because when I fell, I hit my head on the wall opposite the door, and I couldn't have fallen forward more than four feet.

"Jeez! We could have just walked and used the lights on our phones to avoid falling to our deaths!" I could hear Kyler yelling beside me, but I couldn't see him.

"Did you die?" I asked rhetorically, "No, you did not...but...I do see your point, and our flashlights would've been very helpful," I said, rubbing the knot on my forehead.

Kyler turned the light on his phone and held out a hand to help me up. Moving both of our flashlights all over, we scanned the room for any skeletons, ghosts, or clanking chains. And much to our disappointment, we found nothing. Absolutely nothing. The room was maybe four feet wide and eight feet long; there were no shelves, chairs, or cots. It looked nothing like the other jail cells that were displayed with civil war era furniture. The place that once shrouded our childhood in mystery was nothing more than an empty closet. Much like the rest of the day, the dark jail was an utter disappointment.

"This sucks!" Kyler shouted, punching the same brick I hit my head on moments before causing it to come loose and crash onto the cobblestone floor. He immediately regretted it, and held his fist in agony.

Laughing at his stupidity, "Is that your catchphrase now?" I teased him, trying to imitate his pubescent tone, "This sucks!"

"No way!"

"It totally is!" I continued to laugh.

"No, you idiot, look!" Kyler was kneeling beside the brick that fell from the wall; I didn't even notice he was on his knees before.

"What?" I shined my light on the brick.

"This little black book was jammed inside it."

"Whoa. Come on. We can see it better in the daylight."

We replaced the brick and brought the book into the last room we were in. Finding a corner out of view from the open windows, we sat and read the pages carefully. The pages were yellowed from age, and the leather binding was falling apart, but the ink tattooed into each page was dark and vibrant. One of the first things we noticed was that two there were two different authors due to the divergent handwritings, one was soft and feminine, and the other was firm and masculine.

"It's almost like a message board. It's like they are talking to each other. You read the first, and I'll read the second, and so on, okay?" I said to Kyler.

July 7, 1862

"Sarah, my love, I am so terribly sorry. I tried to stop my father, but I could not reach the plantation in time before they sent you off with Colonel Hancock. I joined the confederate army to find you, and we could be together as we always dreamed. The confederates are on the side of hate, the side of anger and greed. Please know, I am only pretending. Sarah, please use this book to communicate with me; I will leave it on my barrack cot every morning, when they force you to clean. Trust me, my darling, I have a plan. We will escape, and you will be free. Yours always, Christopher."

"My dear Christopher, I was so happy to see you that I thought my heart would quit working, and I would drop dead right there on the Parade Ground. But, Christopher, I am scared. They are mean here, meaner than your father. And this place is a fortress, and they would shoot us dead before we took two steps out of here. Not to mention, we don't have any money, and how's a slave girl and a white man going to be able to live a normal life like you white folks do? I don't mean to doubt you, Christopher, but I pray to the Lord above that you've thought all this through. Yours forever, Sarah."

We continued to read the correspondences in awe of the story sitting in our laps. "They were in love, but they weren't allowed to be," I said.

Kyler agreed, "Yeah, Sarah was a slave, and Christopher was a confederate soldier."

"Christopher didn't want to be, though, and he only did it to get her out."

We read through the rest of the pages, detailing the lives of this Civil War-era Romeo and Juliet. Towards the middle of the journal, Christopher revealed his plan. He worked hard to befriend Colonel Hancock, which eventually secured him access into the Colonel's personal quarters where $20,000 of confederate gold was locked in a lead safe.

In one of Christopher's entries, he asked Sarah to forgive him for his drunkenness the night before. Still, it was all according to his plan: He needed to get the Colonel drunk enough to reveal the safe's combination, which he then gave to Sarah.

Every evening Sarah would clean the Colonel's quarters, and every evening she would take just enough of the gold to fit into the hidden pockets of her petticoat. She would then keep the gold on her person until the next morning where she would hide it in Christopher's cot's cotton stuffing. With this money, Christopher and Sarah could head north, and eventually, start a life together.

The process took months. In between their scheme of passion, their love grew with beautifully poetic affirmations day after day.

I gently flipped through the rest of the journal, and I noticed something odd. "Kyler, this is weird. Sarah only has one more entry. The rest are Christopher's."

"Well, maybe, they made it, and Christopher just wanted to say a few more things in case some stupid kids like us found it, ya know?"

"I don't know. That doesn't seem right, and you'd think he'd want to leave it all behind and get outta here so he could be with Sarah."

"Keep going. Maybe he will explain it later on."

April 5, 1863

"Dearest Sarah, tonight is the night. Remember to stuff your blanket with your clothes to make it seem as if you are still in bed. Tread carefully. Avoid the watch at the southern gunnery, and head towards The Mound. I will be waiting for you at the edge of Hoop Hole Creek. It is only hours until our freedom, but it feels like years. Soon enough, my love, soon enough. Yours always, Christopher."

"My love, my life, Christopher. I will meet you underneath the moon. It will be our guiding light to freedom. I wish it were then so I could finally touch you, and you could hold me and never let me go. Tonight, we will be free forever. Free from the south, and free to love. Yours forever, Sarah."

June 28, 1863

"Sarah, my beautiful soul, it has been almost two months since they took you away from me forever. You warned me that the risk was too great, but I was greedy for love and pushed on. Hancock found us out. I should have known he would have looked into me. The man was always suspicious, even of his closest allies. He found our letters. Our secrets concealed in the pages of the black book. I am so deeply sorry. It is my doing, my love. Yours always, Christopher."

August 3, 1863

They finally allowed me to have our letters, Sarah. I read over your words every day, and it is almost as if you are here with me. I will continue to write to you. My life is darkness without you, so it is only fitting that I remain here in this dark cell, and dark will be my physical life until my eternal rest. Then I will be with you once again. Yours always, Christopher."

Tears began to roll down my cheeks, and I shoved the book off my lap as if I had something to do with the terrible things that occurred within its pages. "They killed her!" I shouted, "And for what!? Because she was in love!?"

Kyler wrapped his arms around my shoulders as he used to when he was upset. We sat for a while in silence, hoping that silence would show the two lovers our empathy and respect.

After some time had passed, Kyler asked, "But what happened to the money?"

"Is that all you can think of is the money!?" I pushed my cousin off of me and stood up.

"No! That's not what I mean. I want to know if Colonel Hancock got it back because if he didn't, he couldn't do any harm with it. Ya know? I mean, at least Christopher would have that satisfaction."

Kyler was right, and I couldn't ignore my own curiosity about where the gold got to either. "Okay," I said, "I'll keep reading."

The remainder of Christopher's entries continued to talk to Sarah as if she was physically in the cell with him. It was his only way of coping, I suppose, but it was hard to get through. His words became remorseful, and his sentences jagged, until his last entry, which was titled, unlike all the rest.

March 2, 1864

The Root of It

"I hid it, Sarah. I saw them take you, and I hid it, in hopes of us still being able to escape. Maybe someone will find this little black book and find the gold, and they will be able to use it for good, maybe to free themselves or others. It was the root of it all, and there it is hidden. Yours forever and always, Christopher."

The realization washed over me like a flood, "I know where it is," I said.

"What? Where?" Kyler said, shaking me.

"They were supposed to meet at Hoop Hole Creek, right over the dunes, yes?"

"Yes! So?"

"So, the old oak tree at the edge of the creek, the one we used to play pirates on! The 'root of it!' It's at the base of the tree!" I exclaimed.

"Let's go!"

Kyler and I ran down the fort's cobblestone pathways, past the southern gunnery, over The Mound, and cleared the dunes, following in Sarah and Christopher's footsteps to Hoop Hole Creek, only we would be the ones to finish their journey.

We made it to the old oak; its branches spread out to us in welcome. Sweating and dehydrated, we dug our hands into the sandy earth, digging all around the tree. We worked for two hours until a small piece of burlap caught the end of my fingernail.

"I found it!" I cheered, "Come help me! It's heavy!"

Kyler and I pulled the heavy sack out of the sand and peeked inside. Gold. Confederate gold. Gold conquered in hate and hidden in love.

"What should we do with it?" Kyler asked.

Wiping a tear from my cheek, I replied, "What Sarah and Christopher would have wanted, to give it to the fort. That way Fort Macon can continue to live on, and everyone can learn from Sarah and Christopher’s story. We will do it in remembrance of them and of those that died for love when hate divided them."