The Last Treasure by Erika Marks Read Free Book Online

the elusive
Patriot
, a schooner that disappeared en route from South Carolina to New York in 1813, the ship and her passengers never found. What made this mystery all the more enduring was that the ship had been carrying the twenty-nine-year-old daughter of Vice President Aaron Burr, whose infamous duel with Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton had resulted in Hamilton’s death and Burr’s eventual disgrace. Theodosia’s devotion to her erratic father was as legendary as her remarkable academic accomplishments.
    Liv had learned of the mystery at ten, when her mother took her out of school to visit a shipwreck exhibit two hours away. She and Liv had pored over nautical books together, dreaming of the day Liv would start her own search for the lost schooner and end the mystery that no one in nearly two hundred years had managed to solve.
    Not for lack of trying, of course. Theories abounded—and Liv had memorized them all. Everything from the ship being swept up in a hurricane to pirates commandeering the
Patriot
and her passengers—the latter theory the one Liv and her mother had subscribed to, Liv even hoping that Theodosia had managed to break free of her captors and escape to shore, as many local legends had supported. Dr. Warner’s team, however, had gathered more leads that heavily supported the ship’s sinking in rough waters near Hatteras—and there was even a rumor that he’d recently located wreckage he believed might be the remains of the
Patriot
. Liv knew Warner believed a hurricane had done the schooner in—not pirates—and Warner’sintolerance of legend and lore was almost as rabid as Liv’s own father’s. She looked forward to a lively debate during the Q&A afterward.
    â€œGood evening.”
    Warner’s voice crackled through the microphone. Sam and his friends drew apart. The overheads dimmed and the screen above Warner’s buzzed ivory hair lit up. At last all rumbles ceased and the room settled into the lecture.
    Liv sank back into her seat and descended happily with the divers on the screen, the closest she and her fragile lungs would ever get to being underwater.
    â€¢Â Â Â â€¢Â Â Â â€¢
    I t is a common misconception that when a ship sinks, its wreck is frozen at the bottom of the ocean, forever locked in silt and sand—actually it’s quite the opposite. When a ship settles on the seafloor, it is still in motion. Despite the anchor of bed and darkness, it continues to move throughout its new life of decay. The sea lives and breathes around it, shifting the wreckage, changing it. Sometimes the currents are gentle; others, like surges from storms, are vicious, blowing hard enough to scatter artifacts across miles, or bury entire debris fields in a single afternoon, hiding secrets from those who seek to uncover them. When she was younger and feeling trapped by her father’s overprotective moods, Liv thought about that simple fact and it gave her hope. That even something stuck was still capable of motion, of change, maybe even escape.
    For thirty blissful minutes, she swam with Warner’s crew,diving through the slides that charted their treasure hunts, nautical charts, and maps, until the lights came up, bringing her back, grudgingly, to the surface.
    When the student moderator informed the audience there was time for a few questions, Liv’s hand shot up with several others. The first three questions focused on speculation of Warner’s upcoming and well-guarded mission off Hatteras.
    Then he pointed at her.
    She stood. “What is your opinion on the theory that the
Patriot
and her passengers were captured by the Carolina Bankers and eventually brought to shore?”
    Warner stepped out from behind the podium and offered her a placating smile. “My opinion is that it’s bunk.” A few chortles rumbled through the audience; Warner smiled at the reaction and nodded to the moderator