Ghosts ⚔️ Blackbeard's Treasure

Chapter 25.

"This wine cellar was added in the late 1800's." Roland ducks his head as he traverses the narrow stairs into a fifteen by twenty-five foot square room carved into the underground stone walls. He turns on a string of flood lights. Empty wine bins, covered with dust, line the walls. I see a bricked section of wall at the far end of the room which has been excavated to create an access point.

Inside the narrow man made tunnel isn't dripping or slimy. It's dry and spacious. "I can't believe an ancient smuggling labyrinth exists under a modern city." I adjust the head lamp Roland has provided to each of us.

"We've already inspected every inch of this passageway." He pads through the tunnel system with the grace of an animatronic teddy bear." For the most part, these side tunnels were nothing more than nooks to store produce so it would stay cool during the summer months. Unfortunately, when we excavated them they went nowhere."

That's why you need us," Blair says."

"And me," Paco adds.

Dylan pulls up the rear. "Roland, what did your family tell you about your ancestor, Blackbeard? I mean Edward Teach."

"First of all, my ancestor, Teach, didn't make these tunnels." He warms to his subject. "An unscrupulous French Pirate named, Thomas Gruchy did. He constructed them as a way to get around paying import duties to the customs houses." Sequestered beneath the modern city streets, it appears the network of tunnels goes on for miles. "Gruchy disappeared— the skeleton they found here might have been his." He shakes his head. "It's true he was a pirate, but he was also a model citizen and patron of Boston." Our headlamps cut through the darkness making shadows play over our faces. "From what I've read, Teach wasn't a bloodthirsty Pirate, either. He took good care of his crew and he never killed any of the prisoners he held for ransom. When the crown wanted public approval to hang their prisoners, they vilified them."

Small rocks fall making sharp echos through the tunnels. "Rats," Paco says.

"What would they eat down here?" Blair asks. She stumbles in her hiking boots as we round an obtuse bend in the tunnel that angles toward the right.

He grimaces. "These tunnels touch graveyards."

"That sounded like heavy wood falling on stone." Shuddering, I imagine monsters creeping through holes in the bedrock, waiting to leap on us—or even worse, Jack from the Mayor's office. "What renovations has the mayor done in this area?"

"Renovations?" Roland's face scrunches as he snorts with laughter. "It's mostly digging. These bastards aren't repairing anything."

"Enough about rats'" Dylan says, shuddering. "Keep an eye out for a bell, or a bell-related symbol. Or the triad letters we were given in the seance, C, E, and Bb. There has to be a sign."

Roland pulls a sketched diagram out of his front overall pocket. "There was a bell tower in this area in 1709. It was demolished when they built the wharf and the warehouses." He stops and we huddle around him to study the hand drawn diagram. "It's not far from here."

Paco shivers. "I recognize that area. That's where the skeleton was found."

"We're near the Old Burying Point," Roland says. "In the 1700's it was a dumping ground for murdered bodies and a safehouse for hidden treasure." He throws two long wooden boards over a blackened pit making a sketchy plank bridge.

"I don't know why I'm doing this," Paco mutters.

"We're crossing that?" I back up a few steps. "Is that a bottomless pit?"