▌Chapter 21 ─ Half A Treasure Map ▌

      ━━━━━ ABIGAIL WALKED AHEAD of the other's, Ben and Clara walked next to each other. Their hands were connected together as well. Riley was behind them. They walked towards the front door of Patrick's house. He opened the door and stood at the entrance smiling at Clara and Abigail as they got closer.

"Abigail." Patrick said, walking down the steps and towards her.

"Hey, Patrick." Abigail replied, with a smile on her face. Clara loved the friendship the two shared.

"Nice to see you again."

"Oh, well, I am happy to see you again as well."

They entered the house, Riley was left behind struggling to get his stuff pulled into the house. Once everyone was in, they proceeded to show Patrick the picture of the plank that they had found in London. Riley sat next to Patrick, with Abigail behind them. Clara and Ben stood next to each other but were behind Patrick.

"I can't read the whole thing, but I can tell you that these are definitely pre-Colonial Native American markings." Patrick informed them.

"Easily 500 years old." Ben said.

"Easily." Patrick proceeded to zoom in on the picture looking at one of the glyphs on the plank. "I can identify one symbol. Look at this. Do you know what that is?" He pointed to one of the glyphs closest to the end of the plank.

"Sacred calendrical? I don't know."

"That symbol is Cibola. That's Cibola."

"The City of Gold." Ben and Clara said at the same time.

"The City of Gold."

Ben proceeded to pull a book out and hand it over to Abigail and Clara. Patrick sat next to Clara while Riley sat on the other couch near Abigail. Ben stood near the fireplace. He grabbed another one and started to read from it.

"'In 1527, a Spanish ship wrecked on the Florida coast. There were only four survivors. One was a slave named Esteban, who saved a local tribe's dying chief. As a reward, he was taken to their sacred city, a city built from solid gold. Later, when Esteban tried to find the city again, he never could. But the legend grew, and every explorer came to the New World in search of it. When General Custer's search for gold ended with his last stand at Little bighorn, it became clear none would ever find it.'"

Ben closed the book and looked at Clara as she looked at him. Patrick proceeded to lift his gaze staring at his son.

"Ben, can you imagine if the Confederates got their hands on the City of Gold?" Patrick questioned him." Patrick stood up from the chair. "My God." He then started to walk away from them.

"I'm gonna go talk to her." Ben told his father. Clara and Abigail exchanged a look with each other, both knowing very well who he was talking about. Patrick turned around and looked back at Ben. He lifted his hand that had the book and pointed to his father. "You're coming with me."

"No!" Patrick exclaimed. He then tried to leave the room, Ben walked away from the fireplace to get to his father before he could leave the room.

"Hey, no one else can translate it."

"There are others. There are several others." Clara and Abigail moved onto the couch, the two blondes as well as Riley turned to look at Ben and Patrick.

"For ancient Native American? There's no one better."

"Who?" Riley asked, looking at Clara and Abigail. The two held their hands up to Riley.

"Look, Ben... I can't go with you. It's been, what, 25 years."

"Thirty-two."

"That long?" Patrick started to walk away from him and Ben followed right behind him. "There's a reason why we haven't spoken in 32 years." Riley, Clara and Abigail turned back around to look at the two as Patrick stopped to look at his son. "We have nothing in common."

"Me?" Ben asked him.

"Oh, yes, of course. And I'm sure she's just as proud of you as I am."

"Who?" Riley asked, still confused as to who they had been talking about.

"His mom." Clara whispered.

───── ❝ ◂ ❚ ⊱ꕥ⊰ ❚ ▸ ❞ ─────

They were now at the University of Maryland where Ben's mother taught. Ben held onto Clara's hand as they walked with Patrick. Riley and Abigail were behind the three. Both Ben and Clara looked at Patrick.

"Will you relax? It's gonna be fine." Ben told his father.

"Sure. I should look at the bright side. It's been a long time. Maybe she's lost her memory, and she won't recognize me." Patrick replied. They came up to her office, and a student stormed out, closing the door behind her.

"I hate her!" She exclaimed. She came to a brief stop as they were all in the way but she pushed past them.

"We're in the right place." Patrick said.

Clara and Ben proceeded to walk towards the door. Patrick soon followed behind them, with Abigail by his side.

"I'm gonna go ahead and take myself out of the line of fire for this one, guys." Clara heard Riley say.

"Hi, Mom." Ben said.

"Benjamin. Clara, Abigail, what a surprise." Emily said, looking at the three.

"Emily." Abigail said, hugging her.

"Hello, sweetheart." She said, pulling Clara in for a hug. Clara smiled and hugged her back as well. She then pulled away and walked over to Ben standing next to him. Emily turned slightly and saw Patrick standing in the room. "Oh."

"You see?" He asked, looking at his son. "One syllable. A knife in the heart." Patrick proceeded to walk towards them.

"Oh, no, no." Ben breathed out.

"She can do that."

"Yes, and I can also track the whereabouts of my toothbrush." She fought back, soon standing in front of her ex-husband.

"I was not the one that left the toothbrushes in Marrakesh. I stowed them both in the travel case as instructed." Clara and Abigail walked away from Ben and leaned on the desk while Ben stood near his parents.

"Yes, and you also insisted on loading the luggage into the taxi."

"I can not believe this is what there arguing about." Clara mumbled, briefly looking at her friend.

"I loaded the luggage." Patrick argued back.

"Yes, but not the travel case." Emily hollered back.

"The travel case is not luggage. The travel case goes into the luggage." Ben was trying to get them to stop but they were both making it difficult.

"Who was in charge of packing the luggage?"

"I could not get the travel case into the luggage because it was full with that stupid rug you bought..."

"Mom?" Ben questioned.

"...some kind of secret stitching."

"It did have secret stitching..."

"Mom."

"...cheap secret stitching..."

"...green leather suitcases..."

"Mom." Emily stopped arguing and turned to look at Ben. "I need you to take a look at his." He said, unrolling the paper and handing it over to her. Ben briefly looked at his father.

"What is that a picture of?" Emily asked.

"It's very interesting. We think it might be Olmec." Ben said, as she walked away from them.

"It is." She replied walking to the other side of her desk. Ben walked to the other side of her desk as well with Clara and Abigail following behind him. "Yes, definitely proto-Zoquean."

"We were hoping that you could translate it." Patrick voiced out.

Emily grabbed a hold of her glasses and looked up at Patrick. "Yes, of course you were." Patrick then walked away while Emily started to place her glasses over her eyes. "Oh, this doesn't involve another treasure hunt, does it?" She asked them, looking around at each of them.

"Mom, this is actually very important." Ben responded.

"All right." She looked down at the glyphs on the plank. "What have we got here? This... this glyph here, that means 'bird', and that means─" Patrick stood up from the couch he had sat down on. Emily looked up from the picture and looked towards Patrick. He soon sat back down on the couch. "Uh, noble bird. Find the noble bird, let him take you by the hand and give you passage to the sacred temple."

Emily looked up from the picture, her eyes were on her ex-husband. He stared back at her, as she started to laugh. Abigail briefly looked at Patrick, while Clara and Ben looked at Emily.

"Oh, you think this is a treasure map for Cibola, don't you?" She asked Patrick.

Patrick stood up and started to walk towards them. "Well, that is exactly what it is." He remarked.

"No, Patrick, this glyph doesn't mean 'Cibola'. It means 'the center of the world'."

"You know, you used to like it. She fell in love with me on a treasure hunt." Patrick said, causing Clara to look at her husband. That was the same reason she had fallen in love with Ben.

"That was not love. That was excitement, adrenaline and tequila." Clara leaned next to Ben placing her hand on his back and rubbing it.

"Mom..." Ben called out.

"And I was just trying to get course credit."

"Mom."

"The treasure hunting paid off in case you haven't read the papers lately."

"That had nothing to do with you. That was Ben. Ben found the treasure. You did nothing."

"Patrick, Emily, please, can we just figure out what's on the page?" Clara asked, looking between her in-laws. Emily soon walked back over to them to look at the pictures.

"Well, that's it, I'm afraid. And all these glyphs are only partials, so you only have half a treasure map. I'm sorry." She said, handing the pictures back over to Ben. She then leaned down. "Not that I'm surprised."

They walked out of Emily's office and proceeded towards the front of the school exiting out of it. Clara was once again holding hands with Ben, the two leading the others.

"At least we know where the rest of the map is." Ben said, Clara and Ben both exchanging a look with each other.

"What?" Patrick asked. "You know where it is? Why didn't you tell me?"

Ben let go of Clara's hand and turned around to look at his father. "Because obviously you have a tendency to overact!" Ben shouted.

Patrick shrugged his shoulders. "I'm sorry." He said.

"So am I."

"So where is it?"

"The inscription on the statue in Paris said, 'These twins stand resolute.'"

"We think the map is divided between the two Resolute desks." Abigail added on.

"The Resolute desk. The Resolute desk?" Ben nodded his head. "The president's desk?" Abigail nodded her head soon after.

"The president? What president? Our president?" Riley questioned, looking at Abigail.

"Unfortunately, yes." She said, looking at Riley.

"But that'd mean ─ So, we have to ─" He then sighed, his eyes on Ben and Clara. "The White House?"

Ben looked at his father. "The Oval Office to be exact."

Patrick shrugged his shoulders again. "Why would I overreact to that?"