As they entered the sitting room area, they all felt a chill. Brenda looked at William and Jessica, “I feel a very strong presence in here, a lot stronger then it was yesterday.” Jessica was rubbing her arms, “I feel it too. It’s like someone really doesn’t want us to be here.” William looked at the Brenda and Jessica, and was surprised to see their facial expressions turning to fear or concern. Jessica was looking around the room, “I think we should just go. Someone really doesn’t want us here.”
William became more determined than ever to figure out what was going on and decided to start looking around the room. Every time William would go by the curtains where the traveller disappeared, both Brenda and Jessica would sense a strong chill. After it happened a couple times, Brenda told William, “I don’t think whatever is in here doesn’t want you to go near the window.” Jessica agreed, “Yeah William, every time you go near the window it seems to get angry. I don’t think we should be staying here.”
William, always feeling like the protector of the group was starting to become angry. He did not like anyone, or anything threatening his friends. He walked right up to the window and started looking around. He was down on his knees looking under the furniture when he turned to the window and grabbed one of the curtains. At this moment, both Brenda and Jessica saw a reddish orange patch of fog materialize behind William and then it flew towards him. As it went to where William was, he felt a strong chill go through his entire body. The hairs on his arm were standing up like he was charged with static electricity. William turn to the girls and shouted, “What the heck was that? I felt something send a chill through my entire body.” The girls stood there, shocked and speechless. William repeated, “So what the heck was that?”
Finally, Brenda told William that they saw a patch of fog materialize right behind him and fly towards him. William stood up and shook off the chill. He looked at the girls and told them, “I am more sure than ever that whatever is in here doesn’t want us to find something and it has to do with these curtains.”
Brenda and Jessica looked down at the video recorder Jessica was holding and rewound it and pushed play. The camera was pointed off to the side of where they witnessed the fog, so nothing was caught on tape. “So, did you get it on tape,” asked William as he was walking towards the girls. Jessica looked at him, and the look in her eyes told him the answer, “Sorry William, I was so freaked out by what we saw I didn’t even realize that the camera wasn’t pointing at the right spot.”
William stopped walking towards the girls and turned back towards the window. He grabbed a hold of the first curtain and moved it away from the wall. There was nothing behind it. He started checking for loose floor boards or anything that could be a hiding spot. As he grabbed the second curtain and flung it away from the wall, he noticed that it was heavier at the bottom, as it flew in a weird pattern. Brenda and Jessica both noticed this too and they walked over to William. “I wonder why that curtain is so heavy,” asked Jessica. Brenda grabbed it and slowly lifted it up, “Someone probably put more weights in the bottom seem to keep it from blowing in the wind. That was how they used to keep old curtains from blowing around.”
William looked at the seam and noticed that there was a hole that a mouse had chewed. He bent down to look at it, “I wonder what those old weights look like?” William grabbed the curtain where it was torn and tried to shake out one of the weights. He felt one close to the area of the hole, and he was trying to slide it over. As the weight moved over the hole, it fell to the floor and rolled under the sofa. “Just great, now I have to move the sofa.”
As William slid the sofa over, his eyes saw the weight the same time as Brenda’s and Jessica’s. All three were amazed; it was lying in the sun glistening like gold. William picked it up and was surprised to see the image of a monarch inside the center of the coin with the words “UNITED STATES OF AMERICA” stamped on the outside. Her turned it over and saw it was stamped “1 DOLLAR 1862” inside of what looked like a band of leaves. He handed the coin to Brenda.
Brenda looked closely at the coin, and then handed it to Jessica, “I think we just found our missing bag of gold?” Jessica looked at the coin with her eyes widened due to her amazement, “We’re rich. We found the treasure and now we’re rich!”
While Jessica was admiring the coin, William was trying to get the rest of the weights out to see if they were coins as well. As each one dropped out into his hand, his smile just grew larger and larger. After getting all the coins out of the seam, he picked up the other curtain to see if it contained any gold coins. As he was feeling the weights, his smile left his face. “These aren’t coins, their thin pieces of rods or something. As he kept feeling he noticed a small tear at one of the rods, “It looks like its iron or something, but definitely not gold.”
Brenda and Jessica were trying to determine how the gold got into the curtains in the first place. Jessica suggested that Mrs. Johnson was getting concerned over Mr. Johnsons increased drinking, so when she realized there was a bag of coins left, she decided to hide them, sort of like a rainy day fund. Brenda agreed that that would make the most sense, and that when she moved back east, she must have forgotten they were there, or maybe assumed she’d come back to visit and retrieve them at a later time.
While they were admiring the coins, Brenda told William and Jessica that the coins were actually the property of the city, since they now owned the land and buildings. They both looked at Brenda as the smiles let their faces. “That sucks,” said William, “after everything that happened and all the different pieces to the puzzle we had to put together, we have to give these back to the city?” Brenda, a a sombre tone told him, “I’m afraid so William. This is part of the history of the area. They should be in a museum, not in someone’s pocket.”
Both Jessica and William knew Brenda was right, but they were bummed out that after all this, on top of not getting the gold, they were going to have to explain to everyone else why they were in the old mill house to begin with. They could see all the other kids making fun of them because they liked to hunt the supernatural and unexplained. They explained to Brenda their concern and how cruel other kids can be if you are in any way different from them. Brenda thought for a moment about her own situation. If the people in charge of the schools new she was out hunting ghost with some of her students, would she even be given another substitute job? Children weren’t the only ones who can be cruel to someone that doesn’t conform to their way of thinking.
After thinking about it for a few moments, Brenda came up with a solution. What they’d do is donate the coins to the local museum, with a typed out letter explaining that they are the last of the union gold coins that were hidden in the area. This way, other treasure hunters wouldn’t be coming around and digging up people’s property anymore, and there would still be the mystery of where the coins were actually found and how they ended up at the museum. No one would know that the Johnson’s actually spent the other coins and the family reputation would remain in tacked.
Although reluctant at first, William and Jessica agreed with this solution. Brenda collected the coins and before putting them into her pocket, looked through them quickly and put three of the better shaped ones down on a table. As she put the other coins in her pocket, Jessica asked her why she left the three coins out. Brenda smiled at her, “No one knows how many coins we found. Since we did do all the work to find them, and your dreams were a big portion as to how we found them, why shouldn’t there be a little finder’s fee?
William’s face lit up with a smile again: “You mean we are each going to keep one of the gold coins? Are you sure it’s alright?”
Jessica, a little concerned added: “Can’t objects retain energies though? I don’t want the traveller to follow me to my house!”
Brenda explained why she thought it would be fine: “If you think about it Jessica, the traveller was only hanging out here because the gold was here. With most of the coins going to the museum, if he is going to go anywhere from here it would be where most of the gold coins end up, and not where just one coin is. As for it being alright William, I think it’s obvious that one of the Johnson’s wanted us to find them. And if a ghost wants us have the coins, who are we to argue? We don’t want to upset the spirits, do we?”
William laughed: “I sure don’t want to anger any spirits, so I guess I’ll take one of the coins just to make them happy.”
Jessica agreed with William’s statement: “You’re right William. Why would we want to anger some spirits who just want to give us a gift?
They each pick up one of the three coins and place it in their pocket. As they were leaving he sitting room, Jessica looked back, and felt like the traveller had finally moved on. Just before she turned to leave and felt a warm touch on her shoulder. She assumed it was William and turned to talk to him, but was surprised to see him standing at the front door, with Brenda right beside him. Jessica just smiled, and said, “Good bye Mrs. Johnson, or Miss Johnson, whichever one you are.” Jessica walked to catch up to the other two.
As Brenda was relocking the padlock on the front door, she looked at Jessica, “The air felt much lighter in there as we were leaving.” Jessica agreed, “Yeah, like everyone in the house is finally at piece.”
As Brenda was driving the kid’s home, they discussed how they were going to explain to the rest of the group how they found the gold coins, but they decided not to tell them that they each kept one. They may resent the fact that they weren’t invited on the hunt, and therefore missed out on getting a coin for themselves.
As Brenda was letting the kids off at William’s house, they thanked her for including them in the investigation today. She smiled, “Since we solved that mystery, we’ll have to find a new one to investigate.”
As Brenda drove away, William and Jessica went into the house and down to the recreation room. William realized that he had forgotten his smart phone on the table when he left at noon. He looked at it and it was flashing he had missed texts. He picked it up and noticed he had a bunch of text messages from the other group members asking where he was. They were also asking if he knew where Jessica was because she wasn’t answering her phone. He asked Jessica where her phone was, and as she looked through her purse she realized she left it on her dresser. He decided he would tell them they made a quick investigation of the old mill with Brenda, and how they wanted to check out the old buildings with a smaller group, due to safety concerns. He also would tell them that they didn’t miss anything, as nothing special happened. Jessica agreed with the story and they decided to stick to it.
Suddenly, Jessica remembered her mother said she was having an old friend for dinner tonight and she really didn’t want to be late. There were very few things that were important to Jessica’s mother, but family gatherings were one of them. Her mom loved entertaining friends and family. She was a true homemaker who took immense pride in everything she did in her home, from how clean and organized it was to how special the meals she prepared were. She told William she had to run but would call him later. William walked Jessica to the front door and as she left, he told her not to forget to put her coin away when she got home. She smiled an said, “Don’t worry, I don’t know how I’d explain it to my mom if she found it in the pocket while doing laundry.”