I step through the creaking screen door of Blackbeard’s Inn and the woman calls out.
“Howdy-do-do-do.” She is folding a stack of white napkins. “You must be Raleigh, I’m Betty, Charlotte told me to watch for you. She’s gone hunting.”
I tuck the blade of dune grass into my pocket. “Hunting?”
“That’s all she would tell me. And believe me, I asked.”
I nod, trying to let Betty know my aunt confuses me, too. “Could I get a key to our room?”
“If you lose it, it’s twenty dollars.” She sets down the napkin, half-folded into a boat shape, and scurries to the back wall. Brass skeleton keys with wooden tags hang on a black peg board. She hands me a key. I read the wooden tag. Queen Anne’s Revenge.
“His last ship!” she says.
“Whose?”
“Blackbeard! Queen Anne’s Revenge was his last ship.” She lifts an arm, flinging it out. I step back just in time to miss one claw-like finger that points toward the beach. “Ran aground on the sandbar. Took the secret gold to his grave.”
I nod. Nodding seems like the best tactic. “Would you happen to know where I might find a library?”
“Why, yes!” The claw flings the other way. “Down the hall you’ll find everything you ever wanted to know about Edward Teach.”
“Who?”
“Blackbeard!”
I nod.
“Edward Teach was his real name and by golly did he ever teach some lessons.” She snaps open the white napkin, rebuilding the boat all over again. “But the library’s locked. You’ll need a special pass key. And no books leave these premises.”
I nod. “What about a public library?”
“Closed. Everything’s closed this week. Except me and the Chinese food place. And the fishermen.” She rattles off several more names, like these are people I should know.
I nod. “So no public library?”
“Thursday!” she caws. “Today is Thursday.”
No way am I nodding. What the heck does Thursday have to do with anything? This woman is crazy. Crazier than Aunt Charlotte.
But she leans toward me and slows her voice like she’s talking to an idiot. “The library always closes on Thursdays.”
I nod.
She tells me how to get to my room upstairs, past the Edward Teach Memorial Library, and some other rooms whose names she rattles off—all related to Blackbeard.
I’m making my way up the old wooden stairs, which are as creaky as the screen door, when she calls out, “Hold it!”
I freeze. When I dare to look, she is scurrying like a sandpiper, small and urgent, over to a black phone. The thing’s the same kind of relic in my parents’ house in Richmond—circa Alexander Graham Bell. The claw-finger stabs the rotary dial. Every pull stutters into eternity.
“Fran!” She hollers into the humongous receiver. “It’s Betty!”
There’s a pause. Maybe Fran is bracing herself.
“At the inn! Yes, I’m still here.”
Maybe Fran’s going to hang up.
“One of Bill’s kids is staying here. She asked about the library. I told her it’s Thurs—what?!”
She listens a moment.
“Well, I’ll be a dingy lost at sea! Thank you!” She hangs up. There’s an excited expression on her face and it scares me. “Fran just opened the library!”