43 pages • 1 hour read
Lauren WolkA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Crow and Osh put the treasure in bags and hide it out of sight, while she considers where to store it. In the night, she ponders the near-miracle of having found out details about her family as well as discovering the treasure. She takes an old coffee tin and hides a few pieces of treasure in it without telling anyone, to “cherish it because it had come from [her] mother” (212). Crow wants to divide the treasure and hide it in two spots. She decides that half of the treasure is Jason’s, and plans to perhaps give her half away to an orphanage. They tightly bundle the treasure, planning to hide one in the water and the other at Maggie’s.
Over the coming days, Crow keeps busy with her chores, looks out for the Shearwater, and wonders if anyone on Penikese will find out that they’ve discovered the treasure. One day in town, she plucks up the courage to shake hands with Mr. Benson, who is surprised but not alarmed. She thinks about how people on Cuttyhunk keep their distance from her, which puts her into a bad mood. Afterwards, she sees a skiff heading toward Penikese and wonders if it is Kendall.
That night, Kendall finds them. Osh and Crow hear his boat land on their island, escape out the back door, and go to Maggie’s. Crow realizes that even though they have hidden the bulk of the treasure, Kendall will know they’ve found it if he opens the coffee tin. In the morning, they return and see that Kendall has ransacked their cabin and has taken the coffee tin. Outside, Mr. Johnson from Cuttyhunk brings a telegram saying that Kendall has been arrested pawning jewelry in New Bedford.
Realizing that the police will need their testimony to convict Kendall, Osh says they should tell the truth about the treasure if asked. Crow, however, doesn’t want anyone else getting the treasure because they “never would have stepped foot” on Penikese or associated with the lepers in any way (236). Osh points out that they never did anything to help the lepers, either.
They accompany Maggie to New Bedford to give their statement. Crow talks to them about the man she believes is Jason, while Osh and Maggie urge her to wait until she has proof. The police ask about their interest in the graves on Penikese; Crow admits that her parents are buried there. The officers retrieved an empty trunk from one of the graves, and now assume that Kendall robbed the treasure from it. Since they recovered so few treasure pieces, the officers wonder what he did with the rest. Maggie, Crow, and Osh say nothing. At the police lineup, they pick out Kendall immediately. He is livid, and the police drag him away. As they leave New Bedford, the dockmaster tells Crow Shearwater is expected to return soon.
A powerful storm is clearly on its way, and everyone in the area prepares. Everyone is also advised to lock up because Kendall choked a guard in the jail and escaped. That night, Crow hears the lighthouse signal, meaning that a ship is going down. She heads to the channel, and sees the shipwreck and the sailors fighting to save their lives. Knowing that the ship is a schooner, Crow is afraid that it might be the Shearwater.
Crow sees the treasure as a connection to her parents more than as a chance to profit. She decides to split it with a brother she’s never met and to give her half away. She only keeps a few pieces for sentimental value, as a way to “remember the faces I’d seen only for moments, when my eyes were still foggy with birth” (212).
Just as the onslaught of treasure hunters disturbed the physical space of Penikese, Kendall’s incursion onto Osh’s island brutally disrupts the normally peacefully isolated nature of life on the island. The natural world echoes these manmade disturbances, as a horrific storm builds in the area until it destroys a ship and threatens the lives of its sailors. The novel contrasts these eruptions of violence with the more mundane hardships of living in the Elizabeths—the privation, hard physical labor, and poverty that Osh and Crow have grown accustomed to.
For the second time in her life, Crow locks eyes with Kendall. Her boldness at confronting like this someone who believes “was not a reasonable man […] not someone who could be made to see sense” (242) is a sharp contrast to her heretofore-tentative interactions with regular townspeople. She has grown more physically self-assured, as also demonstrated in her decision to shake hands with Mr. Benson despite the expectation that he would shrink from her touch.
By Lauren Wolk