Jacob shook Emma awake. It was a little after five in the morning, and they had just arrived in Ottawa, Canada’s capital city. On one side of the street, an old stone building rose three stories, its arched windows giving it the look of a library or a church. On the other side, a department store with modern red tiles stood next to a bookstore and a Starbucks Express. Everything was closed.
The Parliament Buildings didn’t open until 8:30 a.m., so the trio went into Tim Hortons and ordered coffee and doughnuts. They sat and talked strategy, then took turns napping in their booth, out of view of the people serving coffee at the counter.
Finally, it was time, and the three of them left the coffee shop. The Parliament Buildings were only a few blocks away. They were four large stone buildings with green copper roofs and a huge green lawn. A giant clock tower was at the centre. The kids went into the building, which was open to the public. They walked through metal detectors, and Emma put her bag through the scanner, and then they were inside.
The ceilings were tall and vaulted, and columns and arches lined the long hallway. The floor was polished white stone. Even early in the morning, it was busy, with politicians on their way to work and aides running everywhere.
They walked down the long hall toward the library at the end. Emma nudged Max and pointed at the wall. “Look,” she whispered.
She touched a spot on the marble. There were chips in the stone—bullet holes from a terrorist attack a decade ago.
“How will we find a clue in all of this?” Emma whispered.
“We’re looking for the wisdom of the forest,” Jacob reminded her.
“A tree? A leaf?” Max asked.
All three of them turned to look at the walls. There were carvings everywhere.
“Oh, God,” Emma said. “It’s like finding…”
“A tree in a forest,” Jacob joked.
“We’d better get started,” Emma said. With a sigh, they headed over to the walls and began to look.
After an hour, Max had fallen asleep in a chair at one of the reading tables. Emma and Jacob were still searching the walls, looking for any carvings that stood out. They had looked over about half of the room when Jacob found a carving that looked different. It was of a tree, surrounded by seven leaves. Each leaf had a small carving on it: a fish, a gold nugget, an old musket gun, a bird, a potato, an orca whale, and wheat.
“Emma!” Jacob called as quietly as he could, waving his arms to get her attention. She hurried over to look at what he had found. “It doesn’t match any of the other carvings,” he said. “Everything else is really simple, but these leaves have these symbols in them.”
“Look! They’re loose,” Emma said. She stuck her fingernail under a leaf and, with some effort, managed to get it out. She did the same to the next, and the next.
“Maybe we have to put them in order?” Jacob said.
“But what order? There are seven leaves…that could make a million different combinations.”
“Maybe…bird eats fish, orca eats bird, bird is shot by gun…”
“What about the gold?” Emma asked.
“Oh, I thought that was poo,” Jacob said, laughing.
“Gross! Would you focus?” she shoved him playfully.
They sat down cross-legged on the floor and laid the seven leaves out in front of them. Jacob ran his fingers gently over the carvings. “The last clue was about a sport. Maybe…hockey teams?”
Ils s’assirent les jambes croisées sur le sol et étalèrent les sept feuilles devant eux. Jacob passa délicatement ses doigts sur les gravures. “Le dernier indice parlait de sport. Peut-être…des équipes de hockey?”
“Did we have hockey teams yet?”
Avions-nous déjà des équipes de hockey?”
Jacob took out his phone to check and shook his head. “1909.”
Jacob sortit son téléphone pour verifier et secoua la tête. “1909.”
“The treasure Levi buried was gold,” Emma said, touching that leaf.
“Le trésor que Lévi a enterré était de l’or,” dit Emma, en touchant cette feuille.
“And he buried it in British Columbia—where there was a gold rush!” Excited, Jacob laid out the leaf with the gold nugget. “And what’s next to B.C.? Alberta, the province famous for its wheat!” He put that leaf down next.
“There are only seven leaves, though. There are ten provinces and three territories.”
“Regions, maybe? Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba are all prairies. So then we’d be at Ontario next.”
“The gun?” Emma suggested. “Ontario and Quebec were always fighting in those days.”
“Yes! And then a bird for the East Coast, and fish. And a potato? I don’t know, that’s a lot for the East Coast.” Jacob scratched his head, frowning.
“And what about the orca? Emma picked up the tile. That’s got to be B.C., right? I went to Victoria once with my mom and there were tons of whale-watching tours. So then where does the gold go?”
“Et pour l’orque? Emma prit la gravure. “Ça peut aller avec B.C, pas vrai? Je suis allé à Victoria avec ma mère une fois et il y avait plein de sorties maritimes pour voir les baleines. Et donc où on place l’or?”
“Hold on…” Jacob went back to his phone and Googled the original British territories. He looked up at Emma with a grin. “Guess how many British territories there were before confederation?”
« Attendez... » Jacob retourna à son téléphone et chercha sur Google les territoires britanniques d'origine. Il leva les yeux vers Emma avec un sourire. « Devinez combien il y avait de territoires britanniques avant la confédération ? »
“Seven?” Emma asked hopefully.
“You got it!” Jacob stood up and gathered the leaves. One by one, he put them into the carving. “Orca for Vancouver Island. Gold for B.C., a gun for Ontario and Quebec—or, as it was known then, the territory of Canada. Fish for New Brunswick, a bird for Nova Scotia, and…a potato for Prince Edward Island.” As Jacob clicked the last leaf back into place, the trunk of the tree rumbled. After a second the whole trunk popped out, revealing a small compartment underneath it. Jacob pulled out a folded-up note as Emma clapped her hands, thrilled.
“Another riddle!” he told her.
“Wait, let me wake Max up.” Emma hurried over and got her brother while Jacob read the note. When they were back, she asked him, “What does it say?”
“It’s not a riddle,” Jacob said. “I think it’s…a map?
All three of them clustered around to look at the paper he held. It did look like a map, but covered in little notes. It showed a hill, with a large X on it. There were waves on the left side, with a small boat in them. The notes were scattered and random. “Defender,” “the deep,” “high above,” “new,” and “star.”
Tous trois se rapprochèrent pour regarder le papier qu’il tenait. Cela ressemblait à une carte, mais couverte de petites notes. Ça représentait une colline, avec un grand X dessiné dessus. Il y avait des vagues sur la gauche, avec un petit bateau au milieu. Les notes étaient dispersées au hasard. “Défenseur,” “la profondeur,” “haut au-dessus,” “nouvelle” et “étoile.”
“So it’s a building, on a hill, by the water,” Max said.
“A place with ships, so probably the ocean, not a lake,” Emma pointed out.
“Or the St. Lawrence.” Jacob ran a finger over the waves. “Ships go down that river all the time.”
Max pointed to part of the map. “Home is crossed out, what does it say above it? New?”
“Not home, but new… Nova Scotia! That’s New Scotland, and Galt was Scottish,” Jacob said.
Emma grinned. “And the water is on the left. Nova Scotia is on the East Coast! So what are some famous landmarks in Nova Scotia?”
“A place on a hill. That defends ships…a lighthouse? The Peggy’s Cove lighthouse!” Jacob said.
“That’s got to be it!” Emma hugged Jacob and ruffled Max’s hair.
“I guess we’re on our way to Halifax,” Jacob said.
“How? Do you know how much plane tickets to Halifax will cost?” Emma told him. “Your mom would kill you if you put that on her card.”
“We could take the bus,” Max said
“It would take hours.” Emma checked her phone again. “Like…fifteen hours.”
“If we get the treasure, I can pay her back for the tickets. And then some!” Jacob said.
“But we have the clue now. Whoever that woman is, she won’t be able to find the treasure. We can go back home, tell your mom everything, and get her to help us.”
“Or she could just get the security footage and read the note over your shoulder,” Max said. He pointed up…way up…to where a security camera was clearly pointing right at them. They all looked down at the map that Jacob was holding perfectly flat, in view of the camera.
Jacob winced and stuffed it into his pocket. “So…Halifax?”
Emma sighed. “Halifax,” she agreed.
They took a bus out to the airport, where they were lucky to find a flight from a discount airline leaving at noon. It would get them to Halifax by 2 p.m. and only cost a few hundred dollars each. Since the regular airline was charging $600 for one ticket, Jacob counted himself lucky as he handed over his credit card and hoped his mom would forgive him.
Ils prirent un bus pour l’aéroport, où ils eurent la chance de trouver le vol d’une compagnie low-cost qui décollait à midi. Il les amènerait à Halifax avant 14 heures et ne coûterait que quelques centaines de dollars chacun. Puisque la compagnie aérienne régulière facturait 600 $ pour un billet, Jacob s’estima heureux en utilisant sa carte de crédit et espérait que sa mère le pardonnerait.
“Why this treasure?” Jacob asked Emma a little later. They were sitting in the airport lounge, eating a quick lunch before their flight.
“Pourquoi ce trésor?” demanda Jacob à Emma un peu plus tard. Ils étaient assis dans le salon de l’aéroport, et prenaient un rapide déjeuner avant leur vol.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“Que veux-tu dire ?” demanda-t-elle.
“Mom said my dad was obsessed with finding Levi Boone Helm’s lost treasure. But there are so many lost treasures in the world. He gave up so much to hunt for this one… I can’t help but wonder why. What it meant to him.”
“Maman disait que mon père était obsédé à l’idée de trouver le trésor de Levi Boone Helm. Mais il y a tant de trésors perdus dans le monde, et il a tout abandonné pour celui-ci… Je ne peux m’empêcher de me demander pourquoi. Ce que cela signifiait pour lui.”
“Maybe we’ll find out when we find the treasure.” She reached for his hand and he took hers and held it tight.
“I hope so. I never really knew him. I wonder if… I don’t know, it’s stupid.”
“It’s not stupid,” Emma said. “I get it. You want to know why he wasn’t there for you. What made it worth it.”
Jacob nodded. He hoped that finding the treasure would help him understand his father. Who he had been…and what he had died for.
