On Etruscan Time (11 page)

Hector's eyes were used to the dim light by now, and he saw that the wooden box the large man picked up next was beautifully carved and had gold on its corners. The man said some words quickly, in that singsong, and Arath and the other man repeated his words in unison. The priest opened the box and Arath scooped something out of it with the bowl. Hector stood on tiptoe to see over his shoulder. It was some kind of seeds or grain.

The priest closed the box and placed it carefully on the low table behind him. Next, he picked up a bright white cloth from the table and draped it over his head, hiding his face from view from the sides. Then the three of them turned and walked slowly to the door. First Arath's father went out, then Arath, then the taller man. Hector broke into a trot and slid out just before the door closed.

As Hector stumbled onto the portico, Arath flinched away from him and spilled some grain. The man cried out angrily and the priest spun around. When he saw what had happened, he barked something at Arath. The boy stood with his head bowed, looking like he was going to cry as the two men scolded him. The cruel-looking man lifted his arm threateningly, but the other one said something and he lowered his arm again, although he stood with his hands on his hips, scowling.

What's the big deal?
Hector wondered. They could easily pick up the few grains that had fallen, and it looked like there was plenty more in that box, anyway.

The man grabbed the dish away from Arath and roughly spun him around by the shoulder so that the boy was facing the temple. He shoved Arath back into the building so hard that the boy tripped over the stone step and fell heavily to his knees.

“Hey!” protested Hector, forgetting that only Arath could hear him.

“Shut up,” Arath said, and then clapped his hand over his mouth.

The man shouted something to the priest, pointing at Arath accusingly. Hector caught the word
hinthial
a few times, and another word,
aisna
or
eisna
or something, over and over again. Arath's father caught the man's arm and spoke sharply to him. He turned to Arath and said something that must have meant that he had to leave, for Arath ran out the door.

He raced back the way they had come, his head down, Hector hurrying after him.

“Hey, Arath,” he said. At least
he
could still talk, even if Arath couldn't answer in public. “That guy is a real jerk—I mean, yelling at you just because you spilled a little of that stuff—”

Arath slowed to a fast walk and shot Hector a glare from beneath his dark brows that said “shut up” even more clearly than his earlier words. Hector stopped talking and followed him into the house. It was empty. Arath flung himself down on a mat and stared into the cold fireplace.

Hector waited until he couldn't stand it anymore. “So you want to tell me what that was all about?” he asked.

“I spoiled the sacrifice,” Arath said, his voice jerking with the strain of not crying. “For my father, that is a terrible thing. His religion is the most important thing to him—more important than me, more important than my mother, more important than his own life. Then Cai heard what I said to you and told my father I was talking to evil spirits in their own language.”

“That was Cai? The one who wants to be priest instead of you?” Arath nodded miserably.

“Why was that a mess-up?” Hector asked. “All you did was spill a little of that stuff.”

“That
stuff
is holy grain,” Arath said. “Didn't you see how I had to scoop it out?” Hector nodded. “Once it's been blessed it belongs to the gods and no one can touch it ever again. The bowl is specially made so you can scoop it without your fingers getting in it. And then to spill it on the ground—” He shook his head. “Well, it shows disrespect for the gods. And Cai said it means I'm not a worthy successor to my father. He hates me.”

“You shouldn't be the priest just because you spilled some grain?” Hector couldn't believe it.

“There are other things too,” Arath said, sitting up and wrapping his arms around his knees. “I can read even though no one ever taught me, and sometimes I'm in one place and just an instant later I'm in another place because I traveled in time in the meanwhile. And sometimes in my sleep I talk in other languages that I learned when I was time traveling, and people say I'm speaking with
hinthials.
”

“With what?”

“
Hinthials.
What you would call ghosts or spirits or angels.”

“Can't you just tell them about time travel?”

Arath shook his head, looking wretched. “Then they'd know I read the holy books,” he said. “And I'm not the priest, so that's sacrilege.”

His voice was getting fainter and fainter. Suddenly Hector was tired—more than tired. He felt like when he was a little kid after a day at the beach. He never realized how exhausted he was until he got in the car and found he couldn't hold his head up.

“Arath—” he said, but his voice was blurry. Arath looked at him sharply.

“Don't fight it,” he said. “You won't win.” It sounded like he was speaking from far, far away.

“Fight what?” Hector asked.

“Your own time is pulling you back,” Arath answered.

“What?” Hector tried to say, but he felt himself being tugged harder, and then he was tumbling upside down, backward, every way—and then he was lying on the grass, and it was night. He could tell by the way the grass felt sharp on his skin and how sounds weren't muffled, and even by the clean, dry smell of the dirt under his face, that he was back in the twenty-first century.

13

Hector sat up, dizzy and muddleheaded. The sky was pale blue and birds were making a racket, so morning must be near. He'd better get back to Susanna's house and into bed before anyone noticed he was gone. Then he could think about everything that had happened and try to straighten it all out.

His footsteps were painfully loud, even on the dirt. He must have gotten so used to the dullness of sounds in Etruscan time that a real noise was almost deafening by contrast.

By the time he reached the house his calves were sore from the climb up the steep streets. He headed for the stairs, aching for bed.

“Heck?”

Oh, no. Just when he thought he was safe. He hesitated, his hand on the banister, then turned and went into the kitchen. His mother sat there, dressed, holding a cup of coffee.

“Where have you been?” she asked, an edge to her voice. “I woke up an hour ago and saw your door open. You weren't there. I've been going out of my mind with worry. Where have you been?”

He gestured vaguely behind him toward the town, the hill, the dig.

“Outside? At this hour? What were you doing out there?”

What would be the point of telling her? She would never believe him. She'd think he was crazy or was making up some story so he wouldn't get in trouble for wandering around in the dark.

But she was glaring at him. So he sat down at the table and told her about seeing Arath on top of the arch that day. Told her about Cai, the temple, and Arath's mother and his father, the priest. That he knew that Cai was going to hurt Arath terribly unless someone did something, that he, Hector, seemed to be the only one who could help, and that he appeared to have been chosen by Arath's protective eye-stone.

His mother kept her eyes fixed on him and once or twice acted as if she was going to say something. But she sat with her lips pressed tight until he finished.

“And then time pulled me back and dumped me in the field,” Hector finished.

Silence. Finally she said, “Heck, now tell me what you've really been up to.”

“But Mom,” Hector protested, “I
did
tell you what I've been up to. It's true. I swear. I met an Etruscan boy named Arath…” His voice trailed off.

She stood up. “Honey,” she said, in a patient tone, “lots of people have nightmares and even walk in their sleep, but it's not—they usually don't believe that their dreams are real. If you truly believe that this happened, that means you're—that something is going on with you and we're going to need to find someone to make you better.”

“Better? What do you mean, ‘better'?” Hector asked, his voice rising. “I'm not crazy! I never should have told you!”

“Oh Hector, cut it out,” she said, turning to put her coffee cup in the sink. She stood with her back to him. “Lots of people need help with this kind of thing, and there's nothing to be ashamed of about seeing a psychiatrist or—”

“I don't need help,” he interrupted. “I thought Arath was crazy at first but it turns out he's not, he's really an Etruscan. And you think I'm crazy but I'm not. I really went back to his time.”

“Prove it, then,” his mother said.

“Prove it? How can I?”

“Show me something you found there.”

“I can't bring you anything,” Hector said. “I'm there but not there. I can feel things, kind of—but I can't pick them up.”

“Enough,” his mother said. “That makes no sense. Think about what I said. Decide how important this fantasy is to you. If you keep telling me this time-travel stuff we'll have to find someone who can help you.”

“What makes you think it's impossible?”

She threw up her hands in exasperation. “It just is, Hector. Time isn't a physical thing that you can walk around in.”

Great,
Hector thought.
Parents always say they want you to tell them things, but when you do they don't believe you. So I'll just stop talking.

His mother was still glaring at him. “Oh, all right,” he mumbled, looking down.

“Good,” she said. “Now go upstairs and get cleaned up. Then come back down and have breakfast. We want to get to the dig good and early to get some work in before it gets too hot. You coming today?”

He nodded.

“Excellent,” his mother said. “You'd better take advantage of it while you can. The foundation says that they've already spent too much money here, and they're threatening to close the dig in a week or two.”

Hector rose and walked slowly to the stairs. As he put one foot on the bottom step, he turned around to try one last time.

“Mom,” he said. “I do have an Etruscan thing.” She raised a glowering face, but he went on. “It's this,” and he pulled the stone eye out of his pocket.

She made an exasperated noise. “Oh, Hector,” she said. “Now you're being just plain ridiculous. You didn't bring that back from some other time. You found it right here. And anyway, Ettore said it wasn't Etruscan. Nobody has ever found anything like it before.”

“That's because they get destroyed when a kid has his manhood ceremony,” Hector said.

“What?”
his mother said. “That's nonsense. There's no evidence of a manhood ceremony among the Etruscans.”

“There's no evidence of a lot of things among the Etruscans,” Hector retorted. “You keep telling me that nobody knows much about them. So maybe—”

“I don't have time for this,” his mother said. “I've got to get down to the dig. Have something to eat and then either come down there if you want or hang out here. Just don't give me any more silliness about traveling in time.”

Fine,
he thought as he sat on his bed and took off his shoes to pull on some socks. He flopped down on his back and stared at the ceiling.
No one ever listens to me anyway, so I should have expected this. I won't tell anyone else about Arath and Cai and traveling in time.
But a thought nagged at the back of his mind. He tried to push it away, but it returned.

What if she was right? What if he had just imagined Arath and all the rest?

No, that couldn't be. It was so real. He could still see the young men talking and wrestling, the women with jugs on their heads, Arath's mother smiling as she gave her son his breakfast. But if he were crazy, all those things would seem real to him anyway, wouldn't they?

He rolled over onto his belly. The stone eye dug into his hip through his pocket and he pulled it out. He rolled it in his hands and stared into it thoughtfully. If you were crazy, how could you tell what was real and what wasn't?

Voices were coming from downstairs. It was his mother and Susanna, and he heard his name. He put the eye down on his bedside table, walked silently in his bare feet to the top of the stairs, and leaned over to listen.

“Don't worry,
cara,
” Susanna was saying. “He is almost an adolescent. He is having difficulty finding out who he is, like all adolescents. This Etruscan boy must be a kind of fantasy hero to him. Soon 'Ector will be an adult and he will be too serious and he won't have these dreams anymore. And then I think you will miss your little boy with the good imagination.”

“But Susi,” his mother said, “he is so convinced that this boy is real and that he went back in time to an Etruscan village. Don't you think that's strange?”

“He needs attention,” Susanna said. “Attention from you. You are always busy with your work, no? And you said that you were passing much time with Ariadne because she gave you problems. And maybe you were not with 'Ector so much then, no? He feels like no one listens to him. Perhaps that's why he thinks of a place where no one can see him or hear him, eh?” No answer. “What do you think, Betsy?”

“Well,” his mother said slowly, “you could be right. Maybe I should be paying more attention to him. It's just that he's never given us any trouble.”

“You should give him a prize for that—”

“A reward,” Hector's mom said, but Hector could tell that she was correcting automatically and was really listening to Susanna.

“A prize, reward, what you like,” Susanna went on, “for being good, instead of waiting for him to be bad before you pay attention.”