On a Saturday morning in October, after suspiciously disappearing for several hours, Matthew finally returned home. "Where have you been?" Kendra asked. "Oh, just checking the mail.." Matthew replied as he handed her a pile of envelopes and magazines. "Uh huh.." she said, glancing through them.
"Bill, bill, junkmail, bill..." she listed, flipping through the stack, until she came to the last envelope: "Kendra," handwritten in script on the front. She knew immediately how this day would end, but she couldn't imagine the way it would unfold. Turning the envelope over, she broke the wax stamp and began to read:
#0: The Case
Puzzles and caches, can you find where they're put?
Let's have some fun, the game is afoot!
Each place that we go has meaning for us
A clue at each spot, find it, you must!
Start where we protested and watch geese and duck
Exausted? Sit down! You'll find it, with luck!
"You said you wanted to go on a treasure hunt!" Matthew exclaimed. "Where we protested, and watch geese and duck? Must be Buttonwood Park!" she said, and they set out in search of the next clue (with a pocket full of backup copies of the notes, just in case!)
"Sit down, huh? Is it under a bench?" Kendra questioned as they strolled along their favorite path at the edge of the park. Sure enough, she knew right where to go to find the next clue, another wax-sealed envelope containing the following note:
#1: Buttonwood Park
You and I met in a scholastic place
Our alma mater holds the next clue in the case
Under the watchful eye that looks into space
"Well, that has to be UMass. Watchful eye, the observatory? But we never went there.." No, he thought, but it IS right off the road and away from any nosy passerbys that may stumble across it and ruin the plan... He had attached another note to the side of the observatory:
#2: UMass Dartmouth
Mushroom art, glass house, owls we spooked
East side of the throne that angels overlooked
To anyone else, this would sound like gibberish, but Kendra knew exactly what it meant. "Mushroom Art" and "Glass House" were art exhibits at Slocum's River, where they later went on an "Owl Prowl". There, hidden under a rock near the chair-shaped boulder atop Angela's Overlook, was the fourth note:
#3: Slocum's River
Where to go next? Only one place to check
It's on the island with towers just past Horseneck
Look back in time where we went underground
Last but not least clue will be found!
"I had a feeling we'd end up at Gooseberry Island!" Kendra exclaimed, as Matthew stuffed the rock into a backpack. "I brought this from home," Matt said casually as he swung the 40 pound bag over his shoulder. "I had to make sure everything went perfect, I couldn't rely on finding a way to hide it once I got here!"
Proceeding into Westport, across the causeway to the island, and out the 15 minute walk to the abandoned naval observation towers on Gooseberry Island, they both beamed with anticipation and excitement. They retraced the steps they made eleven years earlier, on their first adventure together, through the overgrown beach plum bushes, to the long-since blocked-off entrance to the underground bunker. There, in a ventilation shaft emerging from the brush, was the final letter:
#4: Gooseberry Island
My dear, you have found the final clue!
And now you must decipher them too
Read back and forth, up and down, thru and thru
Reorder the clues to crack the code
Yours and my love is the story I've told!
Kendra hurriedly began to lay out the letters, but the secret message popped out right away. When the variably-sized cards were aligned on right edge by width, the following message appeared from the first letter of each line of each card:
#5: The Solution
#0 #3 #1 #4 #2 P W Y M M L I O A E E L U R A L R S Y E ?
She turned to him as he dropped to one knee and presented the Princess-cut diamond ring.
"Yes!"
