Jacob pulled at the tie around his neck. He felt like he was choking—there were too many people filling up the small room. Everyone’s voices echoed off the marble walls and polished stone floor. Someone was wearing too much perfume, and another woman kept hitting Jacob in the back with her purse. Of course, none of that was what was really bothering Jacob, or making it hard for him to breathe.
The real problem was that Jacob was at his father’s funeral.
The coffin in the corner was just for show—there was no body in it. Jacob’s father had been cremated, and his ashes were sitting in a black urn in their living room right now. But they were at a funeral home, so of course there had to be a coffin.
The reception room was full of family who Jacob hadn’t seen in years. There was an uncle who lived in Vancouver, but the rest of the people were cousins and aunts and uncles of his dad, people Jacob had never met. His mother was doing the rounds, thanking everyone for coming, but Jacob had slipped away. He was hiding behind one big pillar, hoping no one would notice him in the crowd and wondering who all of these people were.
Slipping outside into the hall, Jacob pulled off his tie, undid his top button, and ran a hand through his messy black hair. He stuck his hand in his pocket, where his cell phone sat, and debated whether to pull it out. More than anything, he wanted to call his girlfriend. His mom had said it was okay to invite Emma, but he hadn’t known how. What would he say? “Hey, Emma, you know my estranged dad who you’ve never met ? He’s dead. Wanna come to the funeral?”
He knew Emma could tell something was wrong. He would tell her. He would. Just…not today.
His mom poked her head out from the door he had just closed behind him. Her brown eyes were shadowed and tired, and her perfect bun had lost a few hairs. He hadn’t realised how grey her hair was going. It made her look old, not like the mom who had protected and taken care of him all these years. “Jacob? You okay?”
Sa mère passa la tête par la porte qu'il venait de fermer derrière lui. Ses yeux bruns étaient cernés et fatigués, et de son chignon parfait s'échappaient quelques cheveux. Il n'avait pas remarqué à quel point ses cheveux étaient gris. Cela la faisait paraître plus âgée, pas comme la maman qui l'avait protégé et pris soin de lui pendant toutes ces années. « Jacob ? Ça va ? »
Jacob shrugged, and his mom came out into the hall. She brushed his now-messy hair back into place. Or tried to. It immediately fell back across his forehead.
Jacob haussa les épaules, et sa mère sortit dans le couloir. Elle repoussa ses cheveux désormais en bataille vers l'arrière. Ou du moins, elle essaya. Ils retombèrent immédiatement sur son front.
“You don’t have to be okay, you know,” she told him.
“I don’t know,” he said. “People just keep…talking about him. Like they knew him. Like I knew him.”
“You knew him,” his mom said.
Jacob raised his eyebrows at her.
“Did I? The guy waltzed into town whenever he felt like it? And we let him, every time! I always thought it would be the time he stayed. And then he goes and get shot? Like, who gets shot in Canada? How did that even happen?”
“That damn treasure hunt,” his mother said with a sigh.
“That what?” Jacob asked, shocked.
His mother opened and closed her mouth. “N-nothing,” she said. “I should get back inside.
“Mom. What treasure hunt? What are you talking about?” Jacob demanded.
His mother hesitated. She glanced over her shoulder and then back at Jacob. “I told him that he wasn’t allowed to talk about it with you. It was my condition for letting him see you. For letting him come home when he wanted to.”
Sa mère hésita. Elle regarda par dessus son épaule puis se retourna vers Jacob. “Je lui ai dit qu’il n’était pas autorisé à t’en parler. C’était ma condition pour le laisser te voir… Pour le laisser revenir à la maison quand il le souhaitait.”
Jacob couldn’t believe it. “My dad…hunted treasure? What, like a pirate?” He didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. She couldn’t mean it.
Jacob n’en revenait pas. “Mon père…chasseur de trésor? Comment, comme un pirate?” Il ne savait pas s’il devait en rire ou en pleurer. C’était pas possible.
“Just one treasure. A man named Levi Boone Helm buried millions somewhere in British Columbia. That’s part of why we moved to Toronto. Your father promised me a new life, away from his obsession. But then he would find a new clue in some old book, and he would leave again, chasing ghosts…” His mother wiped a hand under one eye as if to brush away a tear, even though she wasn’t crying.
“Levi Boone Helm… Why do I know that name?” Jacob asked.
His mother shrugged. “He was a cannibal in the Wild West. A lot of people know about him.”
“If he’s that famous, why did Dad think he had a hidden treasure? Wouldn’t someone else have found it by now?”
“That’s the trouble with treasure,” his mother said. “People always think they’ll be the one to find it. They want the easy way out. They want to be rich. Real life just…doesn’t feel as exciting as that. A wife. A kid. A mortgage. Where’s the adventure?” She leaned over and kissed Jacob on the cheek. He was too tall for her to kiss him on the top of his head anymore, and he suddenly felt too tall, too serious, too thoughtful. He wasn’t ready to be a grown-up.
“C’est le problème avec les trésors, dit sa mère. Les gens pensent toujours qu’ils seront celui qui le trouvera. Ils veulent la solution facile. Ils veulent être riches. La vraie vie n’est…pas aussi excitante que ça. Une épouse. Un enfant. Une hypothèque. Où est l’aventure?” Elle se pencha et embrassa Jacob sur la joue. Il était trop grand pour qu’elle puisse encore l’embrasser sur le front, et il s’est soudain senti trop grand, trop sérieux, trop attentionné. Il n’était pas prêt à être un adulte.
“Why didn’t you want me to know?” Jacob asked.
“Are you kidding? What seven-year-old doesn’t want to hunt for buried treasure? I didn’t want you getting caught up in his…” She stopped herself from whatever curse word she had been about to say, and instead said, “stuff. Treasure hunts, Jacob…they promise you everything. Then they take everything instead.”
That night, Jacob couldn’t sleep. He tossed and turned, thinking about everything he had learned. He had Googled Levi Boone Helm on the ride home, making sure his mom didn’t see his screen. The man was famous for murdering people (and, yes, sometimes for eating them, which had gotten him the nickname the Kentucky Cannibal), but there wasn’t anything written about a buried treasure. Only one page even mentioned British Columbia, and that was just to say that Helm was there for a month during the gold rush, before going back to the United States.
Jacob gave up after the third article. It went into a whole lot of detail about how the man ate a body “like a hyena,” and made Jacob feel pretty sick. He thought for sure he knew more than he would ever need to about Levi Boone Helm.
But he couldn’t keep thoughts of the treasure—and his father’s search for it—out of his brain. And lying in bed that night, trying not to think about it, meant it was all he could think about. The treasure. The cannibal. His dad, the man who had missed most of his birthdays and every school concert.
Finally, Jacob got up and went downstairs. He got a glass from the kitchen and filled it with cold water from the tap. Taking a drink, he wandered through the quiet house. His mom was asleep upstairs, and the night-light in the corner made everything into shadows.
Finalement, Jacob se leva et descendit. Il prit un verre dans la cuisine et le remplit avec de l’eau froide du robinet. Tout en buvant, il errait dans la maison calme. Sa mère dormait en haut, et la lumière de la nuit qui rentrait faisait des ombres partout.
The living room was full of boxes. His dad’s stuff had arrived two days before, shipped over from a storage company where his dad had rented space. Jacob and his mom had spent a few hours going through the boxes, then decided to leave the rest for later.
Jacob opened a box. Before, it had seemed to be full of strange things: a journal, a compass, a bunch of old letters, a leather belt stuffed full of tools, a large wooden box. Now Jacob pulled out the belt. He ran his fingers over the tools. A set of lock picks, a compass, a small hammer and chisel. Treasure-hunting tools. He put the belt on, walking around to feel the weight. For a second he felt really cool, like Indiana Jones or something.
Then he felt silly.
Silly and angry. Was that what his dad had given up so much for? To pretend to be the hero in some bad movie? Jacob kicked the cardboard box, and the wooden box inside tumbled out. It fell into a beam of light from outside, and Jacob saw that the box was old and engraved with pictures. As he bent over to pick it up, he heard a gasp from behind him.
Jacob spun around. There was someone in the room with him!
The person was dressed in black jeans and a dark grey sweater, and had a black ski mask over their face. In the first moment that Jacob looked over they froze; then, realising it was too late and they had been seen, they rushed at Jacob.
Jacob gasped and fell backward, pinwheeling to get away from the person. The attacker pressed the advantage, grabbing Jacob’s foot and dragging him close. Jacob kicked out with his other foot, but the attacker blocked the blow with their arm. Jacob used the box he was holding as a weapon, clubbing the attacker’s fingers. The person swore—Jacob was fairly sure she was a woman—and scrambled after the box. Jacob wasn’t sure if she had been looking for the box the whole time, or if it was just a convenient weapon. Either way, he wasn’t going to let her have it!
Jacob expira et tomba en arrière, se tortillant pour s’éloigner de la personne. L’assaillant en profita, attrapant un pied de Jacob pour l’attirer à lui. Jacob le frappa avec son autre pied, mais l’assaillant bloqua le coup avec son bras. Jacob utilisa la boîte qu’il tenait comme une arme, tapant sur les doigts de l’assaillant. La personne jura—Jacob était à peu près sûr que c’était une femme—et chercha à attraper la boîte. Jacob ne savait pas si elle avait recherché la boîte tout ce temps, ou si c’était juste une arme de circonstance. De toute façon, il n’allait pas la laisser l’avoir.
He dragged the box up over his head, using his height to keep it away, and jumped to his feet. “Who are you?” Jacob asked. “What do you want?”
The woman reached for something at her belt. Jacob’s eyes widened in horror. A gun. The woman had a gun!
Jacob had never seen a gun in real life, but he had no doubt what he was looking at. And he had a feeling that if he was still standing in front of her when she pulled it out, he wasn’t going to make it to his seventeenth birthday. So Jacob did the only thing he could think to do: he ran for it.
They always left their back door locked, but Jacob could see that it was hanging open. He decided that he had a good chance of losing his attacker if he could get over the fence in the backyard. If he went upstairs, his mom might get shot when she came to see what the noise was. And out the front door, there was nothing but a long, deserted street.
Ils laissaient toujours la porte de derrière fermée, mais Jacob pouvait voir qu’elle était grande ouverte. Il se dit qu’il avait une bonne chance de semer son assaillante s’il pouvait passer au dessus de la barrière du fond du jardin. S’il montait à l’étage, sa mère pourrait être abattue quand elle viendrait voir ce qui faisait du bruit. Et après la porte d’entrée, il n’y avait qu’une longue rue déserte.
As Jacob made it to the far wall, a shot rang out. Jacob screamed and ducked, almost falling out the back door. It was so much louder than he had ever imagined. He pictured the bullet hitting him, sending him to the ground…but as he stumbled down the steps and felt his arms and legs, he realised the bullet hadn’t hit him. He was still alive.
Jacob ran to the back fence, running in zig zags like he had heard you were supposed to do. Or was that if you were running from bees?! Jacob couldn’t remember. Another shot cracked out, and this time Jacob heard it hit the fence, a foot or two away from where he had been standing. He wanted to be sick. Who was this woman? Why was she shooting at him?
Jacob tossed the box over the fence, then jumped up onto the old plastic chair that was sitting nearby. He grabbed on and swung himself up and over, catching the chair on the edge of his toe and bringing it up with him. He hit the ground on the other side hard enough to knock all the air out of his lungs, but he was safe.
Jacob jeta la boîte par dessus la barrière, puis sauta sur la vieille chaise en plastique qui était à proximité. Il s’agrippa en haut de la clôture et s’envoya par dessus, attrapant la chaise avec le bout de son pied pour l’amener avec lui. Il percuta le sol de l’autre côté assez fort pour en avoir le souffle coupé, mais il était en sécurité.
Mostly.
Another gunshot filled the air. Jacob was torn. He wanted to make sure the woman chased him and left his mother alone—but he also didn’t want to get caught.
He decided to make as much noise as he could. “I don’t know who you are, lady, but you’re a really bad shot!” he screamed. He picked up the box, ran across his neighbour’s yard, and jumped over the next fence. “Someone call the police!” he yelled. He could hear the woman trying to get over the fence behind him. From the sound, she was having some trouble.
Going silent, Jacob grabbed a bicycle behind his neighbour’s house, silently apologising for stealing it, and climbed on. He slipped the box inside his shirt, tucked his shirt into his pants, and headed for the road.
En silence, Jacob attrapa une bicyclette derrière la maison de ses voisins, s’excusant en silence de la voler, et grimpa dessus. Il glissa la boîte dans son tee-shirt, a enfilé son tee-shirt dans son pantalon, et s’est dirigé vers la route.
He had to get out of here—and figure out what the hell was in this box that was worth killing for.
Il devait partir de là—et découvrir ce qui dans cette boîte valait la peine de tuer quelqu’un.
