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Thick, dark mud squelched beneath my feet and I felt a thrill go through me, determination taking even stronger root in my chest. So far, so good. I’d made it to the bottom of the pit without anyone catching me. How long would it take to dig to the treasure? Thirty minutes? Hours? All I knew was that I didn’t have time to waste—not if I was going to beat McCrery to his prize.
Unhooking from the ropes I’d rappelled in on, I felt around for the bag I’d also carefully lowered down. The dark canvas brushed against my fingers and I quickly pulled out a green glow stick, breaking and shaking it to activate the light. Suddenly, the area around me was visible and I took in the excavation site that should have been my father’s.
The walls were reinforced with metal beams, some small tools leaning against them. The ground underneath me was soggy and obviously hard to work through, covered in sludge. Glancing up, a deep sigh brushed past my lips as I stared at the faraway sky. It was now or never.
Reaching into my bag, I pulled out the only remaining item besides more glow sticks. The collapsible shovel felt strangely heavy in my hands as I brought it to its full size, like it was unwilling to do what we’d come to perform.
The metal tip dove into the muck, sliding through with some hesitancy. When I pulled it back up, I dumped the pile into the waiting suspended box, luckily already emptied by the crew. With each load I dropped into the case, my heart beat faster and faster, partly out of fear of being caught, but mostly out of excitement for what I was about to see.
It took almost an hour to clear the dirt down to the top of the “vault” as the news had called it, by which time I’d shed my sweater and was in a full on sweat from the amount of work. My white tank top was striped with filth and sticking to my skin, but I couldn’t find a moment to care. With the timber finally cleared, I set to prying it apart, hacking at the wood until it broke. It was loud business, but graciously quick, the lumber already rotted from centuries of being buried.
Breaking another glow stick, I tossed it into the cavity, almost shrieking as it landed next to what appeared to be a skull. The way it was laying suggested that the rest of the skeleton was here as well, buried under years of mud and muck. The skull wasn’t really what held my interest, as amazing a find as it was. No, it was the piece of gold next to it, bright and shiny as the day it was made.
Gingerly, I dropped myself down into the box, wishing the glow stick lit more than just the immediate area, and began feeling around the mud surrounding the find, hoping to come across some type of container still hidden. Why would there be only a skeleton here and no treasure? Finally, I hit on something harder than the ground, but softer than rock. Excitedly, I dropped to my knees and began feeling around with my hands, unearthing the front of a wooden package—a treasure chest.
Awe filled me as I wiped my fingers over the front of it, feeling the gold lock on the front, an elaborate “O” engraved on the pieces. It appeared to be a type of puzzle lock, only revealing the design when it was put together correctly. I’d never seen anything like it in person before. In the middle of the lock was a very clear cross—the cross of the Knights Templar.
“He was right!” I laughed, not able to fully believe my dad had been right about one of the world’s greatest mysteries. All those years I’d wished he would just leave it alone and he’d been right. “If only he was here to see it.”
A moment of sadness overtook me as I examined the legacy I’d been left. As the mourning turned to anger, I grabbed the box in front of me, accidentally pulling the entire front off it. Inside, an old jar sat, a lid screwed onto the top. “How about this, McCrery,” I muttered. “I’m going to find out what’s here first.” Taking the jar, I twisted the top off, wanting nothing more than to know exactly what was hidden here in the Templar’s treasure. Suddenly, a cracking sound from above brought me right back, my eyes desperately trying to find the culprit of the noise. If I was caught . . .
Nothing greeted my straining eyes and I turned back to the jar, hurriedly trying to see inside. It looked like it would fit in my canvas bag, if not I would have to risk tying the ropes around it and carrying it up with me in its fragile state.
Sweat clung to me, as I started looking for other things that might be hidden here, dripping in my eyes and causing me to rub muck across my face whenever I tried to wipe it away. Even with all of the added moisture, I still felt the first drop of water hit me.
It was like a gentle kiss, brushing through my hair and spreading across my scalp as I looked up in alarm, knowing there were no rain clouds in the sky. The mechanism holding back the floodwaters was coming apart, shaking against the sides, the gates leaking the salty liquid down the walls in silent advancement. With a shock, I realized that the water was already starting to pool in the bottom of the vault, dripping through the opening I’d hacked.
Frantically, I dropped the jar, stepping on the skull in my haste as I jumped up, grabbing the edges of the opening and squirming my way out of the vault. With a deafening crack, the floodgates above burst open and a torrent of water rained down on me. Cold seeped through my skin, filling my lungs with its sudden force, twisting around my hands and stealing the rope I’d climbed in on. Desperate, I tried to reach for it, but the need for air had me swimming for the surface instead.
It was like trying to swim straight up a waterfall, which was essentially what I was doing. My chest burned, begging me to take a breath, but I couldn’t get to the surface. Finally, my head broke the rapidly rising waterline and I sucked in all the air I could manage before I was pushed back under.
Reaching for something, anything, I could grab and pull myself up on, my hands brushed over the muddy walls, nails digging into the pit that was killing me. The water pushed in every direction, confusing me when it came to knowing up from down. I felt like I was being sucked through a stone wall, my jeans ripping open on a jagged rock that cut through my leg. The salt stung the wound as I flailed, my eyes going dark and lungs about to burst as I slipped further and further from the surface.