CHAPTER TWELVE
[12]
song: under the moon by foster the people
"It's in here." Cassie says, after leading everyone up the stairs and into the dining room, where only moments prior she had pealed off a piece of wallpaper to reveal what could've only been a map.
Carla and Renfield followed slowly behind, as he helped her up the stairs, but Rafe entered the room soon after Cassie. He looked at her suspiciously, as if trying to understand her new role in all of this, before stepping over to the peeled piece of wallpaper and eyeing it.
"Is this what you were looking for?" Rafe asks, lazily gesturing to it.
Carla's eyes narrow on it as she takes a step closer, her crutches clanging against the wooden, creaky floors below them. She glances at Cassie, then back to the wall.
Cassie looks up at Rafe, "Can I—" she starts, gesturing towards it, but he was already nodding her on to continue. Cassie continues peeling the wallpaper off from earlier, tearing away while puffs of dust began to cloud around her.
Carla gasps. "Yes! That's it! That's it!" She says, while beginning to frantically tear at it too.
Cassie had stepped back, now. Letting Carla, Renfield and Rafe tear the rest of it off while she watched. More and more drawings appeared behind the wallpaper, old, and faded, but still clear enough to make out.
"This is it." Carla laughed excitedly, as she let a large chunk of wallpaper fall to her feet. She turned around and looked at Cassie, shaking her head as if in disbelief. "Thank you." She said sincerely, putting her hands to her heart.
Cassie wasn't sure what she felt. Whether she should be helping this woman was still up in the air. But it was too late now, as they'd already begun the process of tearing off the entire room's wallpaper.
"This is incredible. How did you find this?!" Carla asks, after moving on to the second wall.
Cassie was still just watching, not sure if she felt comfortable helping these people tear up the room. She swallowed before speaking, then shrugged. "I don't know— I just stumbled across it earlier and—" she glanced over to Rafe, who had stopped to listen to her speak, and it made her heart drop to glance over and find his eyes already on her. She looked away. "I don't know." She laughed quietly.
Finally, she had felt herself beginning to fit in to what everyone else had been on for so long now. She'd discovered a piece of a puzzle, and while she didn't understand it fully just yet, to be the one who found it made her feel good. Made her feel like she was actually apart of something, a needed asset.
Rafe took off a hung picture on the wall and leaned it against the table, before Renfield tore at the last bit of the wall, a loud scraping noise echoing through the room as the paper ripped off the wall.
"A church." Renfield points out, gesturing to the bit of painting that revealed a small white church.
Carla smiled. "We finally found it."
Rafe shook his head, confused. "Wh- found what?"
Carla kept her eyes glued on the church. "It's buried at the foot of the angel. That's what he said. That's— it has to be buried there. At that church."
Cassie eyes it. "Freedman's church?"
Rafe looks at it next, then nods.
She thinks for a second. "It floods over there all the time. The tide comes in and completely take over the grounds. If it was buried there it would've washed up eventually." She felt herself talking aloud, and then when she realized everyone was looking at her, she stopped. "Right?"
"I don't think a tide could pull up a seven foot tall piece of gold." Renfield spoke, almost passive aggressively.
Rafe turned towards him. "She's right." He nodded. "Shit gets washed up there all the time."
Cassie stepped back and began to scan the room. An entire painted map of Kildare island, each wall representing north, south, east and west. She examined the church, and then looked to the wall across from it, where a large mural of a giant oak tree was painted.
She blinked a few times, noticing how this was the largest landmark on all four walls, almost overtaking the entire wall. She glanced at the trunk, where in black paint, a small key hole was painted into the wood.
Her mind quickly turned over to Pope's key, the one that led her here in the first place. The path to the tomb leads to The Island Room. They'd found The Island Room, if a random painted on keyhole wasn't sign enough, then she wasn't as good at this as she thought.
"What about this?" She gestures to the tree.
Carla takes a weak step forward. "What is it?"
"A tree." Renfield remarks.
"No it's—" she felt herself start to explain the keyhole aspect, but didn't want this to lead back to Pope in any way. "It's near Freedman's church, isn't it?" She turns to Rafe. "It's huge. My dad took me fishing nearby once."
Rafe nodded, slowly, then he smiled, letting out a chuckle as realization hit him. "And it's called Angel's Oak." He speaks, as he turns to Carla.
And then that realization hit her, and she turns to Renfield. "Call the crew, tell them to meet us there now." She says urgently. "It's has to be there."
Renfield was dialing a number on his phone and leaving the room with Carla before Cassie even got a chance to process anything. These people were so desperate for this treasure that they'd just simply take two kid's word for it.
She was left in the room feeling deeply confused, not only on what had just happened but how she felt about all of it. She lingered in her spot for a few moments before Rafe, who had followed Carla and Renfield out, poked his head back in to see if she was coming.
"What are you doing?" He asks, in a slight whisper, as he walks back in the room.
Cassie swallowed. "Nothing."
Rafe eyed her, the excitement of it all still left on his features. The corner of his lip was lifted slightly in a smirk, and his eyes were brighter than only seconds before. But his confusion came from the fact that he didn't know why Cassie wasn't feeling the same. "Stop second guessing yourself." He says.
Cassie looks up at him and lets out a small laugh, slightly embarrassed. "I'm not."
"You just got us one step closer to a billion dollars, do you realize that?" He asked, narrowing his eyes and nodding to get the point across.
She didn't, actually. She hadn't really had a moment to process that this wasn't some silly, made up scavenger hunt, and that these were real adults, with real research, searching for a real treasure that was worth more money than even the Cameron's had. And she was promised a cut of it.
A flutter of adrenaline crossed her chest at the thought of it, and she let out a breathy laugh. One made up of shock, and excitement.
And he laughed too, seeing her process it, seeing her understand and realize that now, they were in this together. That any loyalties to her friends, or to her brother, weren't even apart of her thought process right now.
Rafe couldn't say that he was shocked that all it took was a bit of money to convince the girl to switch sides. He thought maybe her connection to the Pogues ran deeper than that, especially given all of his previous threats. There was more to the story he was sure, after what she'd said and what he'd seen, but he didn't really care.
Cassie knew more than she was letting on. Rafe knew that, but he needed her now. His family needed her now. A golden cross worth a billion dollars could solve all of the problems Ward left them with. And then, then, he could make his father proud.
The thrill of the moment lead Cassie into Rafe's passenger seat once again, except this time much soberer, as they lead Carla and Renfield, and a crew of construction workers with their big machinery brought to dig up the cross.
They drove through town, south towards The Cut and then through the woods for a long while, the morning sun beginning to rise as Cassie realized she hadn't gotten any sleep, and the night was over.
"This is crazy." Cassie says, turned around in the passenger seat as she watched the crew follow behind them down the road.
Rafe had one elbow leaned on the middle console, scratching his chin, as his other hand stayed on the wheel. He looked up at his mirror to see those behind him, then nodded.
She turned back around, glancing at him before relaxing into her seat with a deep breath. She wondered if it were better to continue in this silence, or if she should speak.
But he decided that for himself, "You sobered up pretty quickly."
She wasn't expecting that to be what he brought up. She shrugged. "Yeah, I mean. A lot happened." She scoffed. "Didn't you?"
"Didn't I what?" He asked, keeping his eyes on the road.
"Sober up?" She spoke like it was obvious.
He glanced at her for a second before returning his focus on the road. Then he laughed, continuing to scratch his chin. "It doesn't last long anyways." He eventually says.
Cassie got the urge to start lecturing him on how bad that was for you, but knew that that sentiment coming from her was laughable. But it was funny how when a Kook was high all the time, that was just labeled as normal, they're rich so they do rich people drugs, and that's fine because they all do it. But when a Pogue did it, they get shipped off to rehab and labeled an addict. And she wasn't saying she wasn't one. But she was realizing he was one too, he just wasn't held accountable to the fact.
The thought of her brother clouded her brain for a moment. Of him calling Kitty Hawk, of him worrying for the safety and well-being of his sister, of him wanting her to be healthy, even if it meant sacrificing his relationship with her.
And she understood it. For a second. Before she remembered the countless letters sent back and forth, the ones detailing all of the shit they put her through, all of the abuse, and mistreatment, and the depression she'd slipped into. And even when she told him how she was ready to come home, she was fully healthy and didn't even think about drugs anymore. He was the one who kept her there. For a year. Most girls were there two months. Max. And she watched them come and go, move into the bunk below her, listen to them weep themselves to sleep every night, but felt no sympathy for them because she knew they'd at least get to go home soon.
And then she was angry again.
"You gonna answer that?" Rafe spoke.
And Cassie physically had to blink herself out of her own thoughts, consciousness slipping back into her world as she realized her phone was ringing.
It was JJ, and she scoffed at the coincidence of it all, before shaking her head and turning her phone off. "Nope."
She felt him look at her, and she felt him hesitate to ask the question of 'what's going on?'. But he never asked, and she was glad, because that was the last thing she wanted to think about right now.
It wasn't long before the crew had pulled up and surrounded Angel's Oak, the morning sun soon beating down on them as the digging began.
They all watched. Cassie against the hood of Rafe's car, arms crossed as she watched the excavators dig into the dirt below the massive, mossy tree. Carla sat in a lawn chair, assumedly resting her legs as Renfield stood behind her.
Rafe, however, was standing closest to the operation, wanting to be the first one to spot the gold as the machinery beeped in whirred in his ears. When it had taken longer than he expected, he walked back over to Cassie whose eyes were zoned out, and focused on the ground in front of her.
"You're tired." He commented as he approached her.
She snaps her head up, getting pulled out of another trance. Then she smiled, and nodded lazily. "And hungover. Or still drunk. I can't really tell." She laughed.
He smiled. "We can get lunch after this."
And it caught her off guard, she looked up at him, her smile slowly fading, and realization set in. What was she doing? What was she doing with him? She'd let him hold her face, and she'd let him get information out of her, and she'd let him make her feel like she was something. But he was still Rafe Cameron.
He still killed Sheriff Peterkin. He still tried to kill Sarah. He still tried to drown Kiara in the sewers. He still showed up to The Chateau with a gun. He threatened to send her back to Kitty Hawk. He'd threatened Rose with a knife only hours ago, and here he was, smiling at her and offering to take her out to lunch.
To probably The Island Club. Where they'd sit outside, with the rest of the Kooks, and she'd see whoever they hired there as a waitress to replace her, and she'd order something expensive, because he'd probably pay. And it'd feel good. And this, being treated like she was part of something...
That felt good.
"Sure." She responded eventually.
There was a loud crunch of wood, and then Carla was yelling. "Hey!" She started, reaching for her crutches which Renfield held. "Wait! Stop! Stop!" She gestured to one of the men operating the excavator.
Cassie and Rafe had walked over to the hole, where the rest of the crew had circled around.
"Get in there, boys. Do it by hand." Carla says breathlessly, standing up and walking over too. "This has gotta be the cross."
Cassie was expecting something shiny, at least. But all she saw buried underneath all that dirt was a large, wooden box.
"It's smaller than I thought." Carla says, smiling as she watched the crew dust off the dirt. "It looks like a—"
"Casket." Rafe interrupted.
Cassie looked at him, looked at the way his eyes were glued down at the object in a sort of familiar light. And she quickly remembered that she hadn't even asked him how he was doing. It'd only been a couple days since his father died. And she didn't even have enough sense to ask.
He must've felt her staring. Because he stepped back and scrunched his nose, then cracked his knuckles, one of those nervous tics that she'd seen him do so many times before.
"He put it in a casket." Carla chuckled. "Denmark put it in a casket. Come on, get it up!"
Cassie stepped back as the crew lifted the casket up and out of the hole, Rafe pulling it up from above.
"Be careful." Carla spoke, watching as they grabbed their crowbars and used it to split the wood open.
Cassie watched carefully, her mind quickly beginning to piece things together. This casket wasn't seven feet. And it certainly wasn't difficult for three men to lift it out of a four foot hole, so any gold that would be in there, couldn't be real.
"Don't touch anything inside!" Carla demanded frantically, watching their every move with hope filled eyes that Cassie knew would fade in seconds.
Now it was just a matter of 'what the hell was in this casket if not the cross?'
The old wood split as Rafe pryed it open, and as the lid was pulled off and shoved to the side with an exasperated huff, everyone fell quiet as the only thing that remained inside was dust and bones.
Cassie brought a hand to her mouth to hide a gasp at the sight of it, taking a step back.
"Just a corpse." One of the crewmen announced.
Carla stayed kneeled over it, eyes searching for something that would make sense.
"Sorry Carla." Renfield said.
Cassie glanced at Rafe, hand still on her mouth, as he remained leaned down beside it, wiping the corners of his mouth as a quiet, annoyed scoff escaped his lips.
Carla struggled to stand up, shaking as she went to get back on her crutches. "We must have missed something."
"Of course. No, of course it's just a dead body. Jesus!" Rafe yelled.
Cassie returned his focus to him as Carla muttered to herself and walked off, he stood up and tossed the crowbar to the side frustratedly, barely sparing her a glance.
"We're going back." Carla spoke, as the crew stood up next and began to start the process of loading their machinery back onto their trucks. "We're going back to The Island Room!" She yelled.
Cassie's eyes fell down to the casket, the body so old that the bones could disintegrate at even the slightest of touch. Lining it, was what appeared to have been a fine silk, but had been eaten away by moths. And atop the bones was jewelry, old necklaces, a ring. A wedding ring.
She frowned, feeling the urge to cry, a strong wave of guilt washing over her body at the thought of whoever buried this woman, seeing how her resting spot was torn up, and how ruthlessly she was handled.
Rafe walked past Cassie as she stared down at it, and she looked up as he left her. "Where are you going?" She asks, confused.
"Back to The Island Room. Apparently." He gestured to Carla, his voice filled with frustration and annoyance.
Cassie started to shake her head, looking around at the crew. "Wait— wait— hold on are we just leaving this? Like— we're not gonna put her back?"
Rafe shrugged, continuing his walk back to the car. Cassie let out a scoff, that sounded more like a choke, as a knot began to grow in her throat. "We can't just leave her like this, that's—" she realized no one was listening, just loading back up. "That's horrible." She finished anyways, in shock. She looked up at Rafe, waiting for his response. "Rafe?"
He rubbed his eyes, about to open his car door before he turned back around to face her. "Wh— what?" He spoke, so clearly irritated that Cassie was visibly taken aback by the change in mood.
"We just dug up someone's grave on accident and now we're just gonna leave it here?!" She shook her head confusedly.
He shrugged it off. "We'll get it later, alright? There's—" he took a breath, realizing he was coming off too harsh. "But we need to get this first."
Cassie glances down at the casket, knowing that whoever spent that much money on the silk lining, and on the painted wood, must've loved whoever sat in there now very much. Enough to bury her here, under the Angel's Oak, by herself.
Cassie shook her head, disappointed with herself as she quickly bent down into the dirt. She hauled the heavy lid off the ground herself, and recovered the casket with a frown. She was embarrassed by how quickly tears formed in her eyes, but she could also appreciate the fact that she had enough humanity inside of her to be capable of crying. Because clearly, everyone else's was long gone.
She knew she couldn't lift it back into the hole by herself. Not without causing more damage than they already had. And not while Carla was already in her car, ready to go, and she was confident these people wouldn't care if they just left her here, either.
Cassie looked up at Rafe, who was waiting for her, watching her carefully, and her lip trembled as she kept her hands on the sides of the casket.
He let out a huff as he leaned up off his car, quickly walking over to her. "Grab that side." He gestures to the other side, wiping his hands off on his jeans.
Cassie stood up quickly, nodding. "Thank you."
She wasn't entirely sure if she was glad he decided to join out of her true desire to rebury this casket, or because she wanted to see if he was truly that callous.
"Got it?" He asked, as they started to lift it up. She nodded, and Rafe carefully climbed back into the hole, as Cassie lowered it down slowly to him.
She let out a huff of exhaustion as she released it and watched him lower it down carefully himself. He looked back up at her and waited for an answer. "Better?" He asked, squinting as the sun sat right behind her head.
Cassie took a deep breath, then nodded slightly. "I guess so."
He held his hand up and Cassie bent down to lift him out of the hole, pulling until he stumbled out.
"Jesus." He muttered, wiping his hands on his jeans again. Cassie must've kept that frown on her face for too long, as Rafe spoke again. "Oh my g— what?"
She snapped her head up at him. "You don't have to be a dick!" She shouted.
He flung his arms out confusedly. "We fixed it! She's back in her hole—"
Cassie stormed past him, back over to his car. "You people have no sympathy. For anyone. Or anything—"
He latched onto her arm and she was tugged back from walking any further. "Chill out." He talked down to her. Like she was a kid.
"I'm serious!" She raised her voice again, pulling her arm from his grip, then gestured around to the Carla, and Renfield, who continued on like nothing had just happened. "You rich people! You're all so— so far removed from everything. It's sickening, actually. That's sick. What we just did. But no one else seems to care."
"Don't act so above it all." He says, almost mocking her. "At the slightest mention of money you jumped at the opportunity—"
"Yeah, because I need money." Cassie says eagerly, her eyes wide. "I'm poor, Rafe." She spoke in a sarcastic tone.
"Just get in the car." Rafe responds, too tired to have this conversation. He starts to walk past her, but she was already making her way in that direction.
The car doors slammed just seconds after each other as the two piled into their respective seats. Rafe took a breath, flexing his fingers over the steering wheel as Cassie crossed her arms.
It was barely ten seconds of silence, besides the beeping of the reversing excavator as it was loaded back onto the truck, before he spoke again.
"I didn't mean to offend you." He lets out— as if he was being forced to— but at least he did.
She clenched her jaw. "You didn't offend me you're just so off and on sometimes. I was just trying to—"
"I know." He interrupts her. "I'm working on it. I'm sorry."
Cassie turns to look at him, trying to see if she could see if he was just saying that so she'd shut up, because only hearing it, it sounded genuine. He was either really good at playing this part, or he was just actually apologetic.
She lets out a deep, satisfied breath, feeling like she just needed to get that out. "Okay." She says. "Thank you."
Rafe kept his eyes forward as he watched the crew finish up loading their machinery, then spoke again. "Does this mean we got our argument of the day out of the way?" He starts. "I mean, it's pretty early so..."
Cassie was still for a few moments, and then her lips twisted into a smile, and she let out a small laugh, and he did too, watching her with a smile. Because her laugh made him laugh, and he liked that way it felt.
And she liked the way it sounded when he referred to them as 'we'. Even if she shouldn't. And she knew she shouldn't. But she couldn't deny that happy feeling in her heart at the thought of them being a we.
And for ten seconds, life felt normal, they were just two people in a car together, laughing over a dumb argument, and that's all it should've been.
The sound of Carla honking at them caught both of their attentions, and they found themselves immediately sucked back into reality. She was hanging out her car window, impatiently waving them on to drive.
Cassie takes a deep breath, remembering her existence outside of this day. "I do actually need you to take me home, though." She starts.
Rafe glances at her as he reverses the car, his hand on the back of her headrest. "What? Right now?"
She glances at the time. "I need to check on my grandma. She doesn't use her phone and she has no idea I went out last night."
He gave her a glance that read as 'seriously?', and she felt her cheeks flush from embarrassment. She'd spent half her day hunting down a seven foot gold cross with a bunch of crazy rich people, and still found herself worried about her grandma knowing where she was.
"I can meet up with you later, though?" Cassie says, feeling a tinge of excitement at the idea that this wasn't over just because she had to run home for a bit. "I'll bring lunch."
He started driving, and Carla, Renfield, and the rest of the excavation crew followed shortly behind. "Sure."
She relaxed into her seat, and she felt comfortable sitting here with him. In his car. She wondered how many girls had sat here and thought the same things she was thinking. But she knew none of them had experienced the same things they'd experienced together. And that meant something. To both of them.
She liked the idea of texting him and asking him what he wanted to lunch. And being able to drive to his house later and hang out with him there. And she liked the idea of him dropping her off at her house, and someone seeing them together, and wondering if something was going on between the two of them.
And she wished it was that simple. She wished there weren't golden crosses, or crazy rich people, or old wallpaper-covered maps, or dug up caskets, or murder-charges, or suicidal fathers, or drug addictions and wilderness therapy camps. She wished it was just normal.
But it was never going to be normal. Even despite all of that. He was still a Cameron, and she was still a Maybank.