About the Author
Originally from Nova Scotia, Mark Reynolds is a writer in Montreal.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Answers. All Dan Blankenship wanted were answers, and the small television screen in front of him might, after so many years of searching, reveal them. By August of 1971, Blankenship had already been pitting his wits and energies against the mystery of Oak Island for five years. Digging, diving, digging some more, trying to solve a mystery that had already taken six lives on this wooded island in Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia. Some months before, the drilling efforts in the shaft Blankenship considered most promising - called Borehole 10X - had broken into an underground cavern. Constantly flooded by the waters of Mahone Bay, it was too dangerous to descend into the pit, but intriguing items had come up with the drill - wood and pieces of metal. This was some of the first tangible evidence of treasure in over 100 years of searching on the island. Today, Blankenship's television screen was hooked up to a remote control underwater camera. It was slowly making its way deeper into the murk of Borehole 10X, where Blankenship believed pirate treasure, or something even more valuable, had been buried centuries before. At first, there was nothing but dark, salt water and mud masking the details of the walls of the pit. Deeper went the camera - 60 metres, then 70 metres. Finally something was on screen - a piece of wood. Maybe a pickaxe handle? And just beyond, a chest? And beside it another ... and another. Was this the evidence he had been looking for? If so, it conclusively proved that the search was not in vain, and that the curse that supposedly guarded the treasure was a myth. But then something else came on the flickering screen, floating in the water. A disembodied hand, severed at the wrist. And slumped over by the chamber wall, a body.
