Arthur Davis Park Artwork
The artwork on the path before you reach Arthur Davis Park has caught your eye. There are random words etched in the pavement: bottlenose dolphin, cotton tree, bearded dragon, beach spinifex. You contemplate the words. They seem to be examples of local flora and fauna; that much is clear. But you have a funny feeling about the words, and the strange metal pattern that accompanies them. You feel like they’re telling you something.
One could call these things local treasures. And the steel pattern has a sharp pointed edge, which almost looks like an arrow. Just like the leaves on the ground back at the lazy tree hadn’t been as random as they seemed, neither is this pattern. It’s leading you to treasure.
You follow the point of the arrow into the patch of sandy scrub. As much as you despise physical labour (you’d take battling fifty ghosts over the gym any day, thanks), you realise you’re going to have to dig. Luckily in your large trunk full of bits and bobs, you have a spade you’ve used before for digging graves. You pull it out now and begin to dig in the scrub. You dig and you dig, and in the sea beyond, you can feel the Bramble Spirit appear again. You’re close to what the ship has come for. So close.
Finally, you feel your spade hit something hard. You reach into the ground and pull out a small trunk with a rusty lock that easily breaks when you wedge it open. Inside, you find not only twenty neat stacks of gold bars, but a collection of beautiful black-and-white photographs that depict life in Sandgate in the early 1900s. There’s a photograph of the railway station opening in 1882, and happy swimmers in their striped bathing suits enjoying the sun on Sandgate’s shores. On the back, the messy scrawl of one W. Hunter has written, Happy times in my hometown. There’s one particularly striking photo of a formidable man with his young wife, standing in front of a ship called the Bramble Spirit.
You’ve found Captain Hunter’s treasures and it’s now your duty to return them to the people of Sandgate. The gold will help recover the losses the village has suffered over the last week, and the photographs will be important additions to Sandgate’s historical archives. You know Captain Hunter wanted you to find these to repay his debt and lift the curse. He’s a nicer ghost than he was a man.
With the box in your hand, you follow the rickety wooden pathway out to the shore. You can see the Bramble Spirit in the distance, but now it’s sailing back out to the horizon. It’s found peace, and so now can Sandgate.
END.