Riptide Read Free

and into a solid block of a softer metal. When the corer was extracted,
     a long, heavy curl of pure gold was found inside its grooves, along with a rotten piece of parchment with two broken phrases:
     “silks, canary wine, ivory” and “John Hyde rotting on the Deptford gibbet.”
    Half an hour after the discovery was made, one of the massive boilers exploded, killing an Irish stoker and leveling many
     of the company’s structures. Thirteen were injured and one of the principals, Ezekiel Harris, was left blinded. Gold Seekers
     Ltd. followed its predecessors into bankrupty.
    The years immediately before and after 1900 saw three more companies try their luck at the Water Pit. Unsuccessful in duplicating
     the discovery of Gold Seekers Ltd., these companies used newly designed pumps in concert with randomly placed underwater charges
     in an attempt to seal and drain the waterlogged island. Working at their utmost capacity, the pumps were able to lower the
     water level in several of the central shafts by about twenty feet at low tide. Excavators sent down to examine the condition
     of the pits complained of noxious gases; several fainted and had to be hauled to the surface. While the last of the three
     companies was at work in early September 1907, a man lost one arm and both legs when an explosive charge went off prematurely.
     Two days later, a vicious Nor’easter howled up the coast and wrecked the primary pump. Work was abandoned.
    Although no more companies came forward, individual diggers and enthusiasts still occasionally dared to try their hands at
     exploratory tunnels. By this time, the original location of the Water Pit had been lost among the countless flooded side shafts,
     holes, and tunnels that riddled the heart of the island. At last the island was abandoned to the ospreys and the chokecherry
     bushes, its very surface unstable and dangerous, shunned by the mainland townspeople. It was in 1940 that Alfred Westgate
     Hatch, Sr., a young, wealthy New York financier, brought his family to Maine for the summer. He learned of the island and,
     growing intrigued, researched its history. Documentation was spotty: none of the previous companies had bothered to keep careful
     records. Six years later, Hatch purchased the island from a land speculator and moved his family to Stormhaven.
    As had so many others before him, A. W Hatch, Sr., became obsessed with the Water Pit and was ruined by it. Within two years
     the family’s finances had been drained and Hatch was forced to declare personal bankruptcy; he turned to drink and died soon
     after, leaving A. W Hatch, Jr., at nineteen, the sole support for his family.

1

    July 1971
    M alin Hatch was bored with summer. He and Johnny had spent the early part of the morning throwing rocks at the hornet’s nest
     in the old well-house. That had been fun. But now there was nothing else to do. It was just past eleven, but he’d already
     eaten the two peanut-butter-and-banana sandwiches his mother had made him for lunch. Now he sat crosslegged on the floating
     dock in front of their house, looking out to sea, hoping to spot a battleship steaming over the horizon. Even a big oil tanker
     would do. Maybe it would head for one of the outer islands, run aground and blow up. Now
that
would be something.
    His brother came out of the house and rattled down the wooden ramp leading to the dock. He was holding a piece of ice on his
     neck.
    “Got you good,” Malin said, secretly satisfied that he had escaped stinging and that his older, supposedly wiser, brother
     had not.
    “You just didn’t get close enough,” Johnny said through his last mouthful of sandwich. “Chicken.”
    “I got as close as you.”
    “Yeah, sure. All those bees could see was your skinny butt running away.” He snorted and winged the piece of ice into the
     water.
    “No, sir. I was right there.”
    Johnny plopped down beside him on the dock, dropping his satchel next to him. “We fixed those bees