On Etruscan Time (14 page)

He stopped with a jolt as the statues knocked into the door, still on the inside of the hut. He gripped them more tightly and just managed to keep from dropping them. His hands holding the little gods were still inside the house. He shoved himself back into the dark hut and stared at them angrily.

“Damn!” he said, and instantly felt better. No one could hear him anyway, so he said it again. “Damn!” Now what?

Then he noticed that the back door, the one that Arath's mother had used the other day, was slightly ajar. The opening was too small for Hector, but it was plenty wide enough for the tiny figures. He set them down on the floor and pushed them, one by one, onto the outside step, praying that nobody was looking in that direction. Then he threw himself through the wood, in his haste hardly noticing the shivery feeling.

He was in a dark and dirty alley, and some people were there. No one was paying attention to him, or rather, to the three tiny statues on the step. Instead, they were hurrying toward the temple, where loud voices were shouting. They sounded terribly angry. Someone must have noticed that the statues were gone. That terrible Cai must have already told his lies about Arath stealing them. There was no way Hector could put them back now with everyone gathered around the temple like that. What should he do with them? Drop them in a well? But then he could never retrieve them. Maybe he should take them back to his own time for now, until he had a plan.

The first thing he had to do was get them away, and then he could figure something out. Pretty soon people would be coming to Arath's house. They would see the statues on the doorstep. He scooped them up and held them close to his belly, hunching over. He didn't know if that would give them his invisibility, but it was worth a try. And still bent over, he ran blindly away from the crowd, away from the noise and danger.

He slowed down and caught his breath as he looked around. Where was he? He searched for landmarks. Oh, good, there was the boulder. He could hide behind it with the figures, moving around it if anyone approached, and wait until nightfall before deciding what to do.

But suddenly he felt that strange tugging, as though an undertow in the ocean were dragging at him. He stared at his hands in horror as they became translucent. One by one the gold statues fell through his fingers, first Tinia, then Uni, and finally Menrva. They lay in full sight of anyone passing on the road.

“No!” he shouted. “I'm not ready yet!”

He made a huge effort to pull himself back. Everything was fading. He put his hand in his pocket, searching for the familiar, hard lump of the blue eye. As he wrapped his fingers around it, the weak feeling subsided slightly, and he saw with relief that his body was becoming more solid.

Although the tugging wasn't as strong as before, it was still there. He knew he didn't have much time. And he knew that he couldn't take the statues to the present with him. They would just fall from his hands as he drifted away. He had to hide them where no one from this time would find them until he could think what to do. Frantically, he looked around. People walked near this boulder frequently; he could tell by the dusty paths around it. If he just dropped the statues, someone would be sure to find them. Then all sorts of questions would come up, and that sneaky Cai would be sure to think of some way to make everyone believe it was Arath's fault.

Maybe Hector should leave the statues on top of the rock. He shoved them into his pocket. He tried to pull himself up the side, but it was too high and steep.

The dragging started up again, stronger than before. He fought the pull of time the way he'd fought the downward pull of his eyelids when he was first struggling with jet lag.

He looked up at the boulder. The rough gray rock was taller than it would be later, in his own time. Probably dirt was going to drift around it during all those decades between now and the twenty-first century, covering it partway up the sides. He circled the rock closely. Suddenly, his foot slipped into a little hole at its base.

Well, that would have to do until he could come up with a better plan. The pulling was getting worse, and he knew he couldn't resist it much longer. He carefully poked each statue into the hole, pressing them down into the soft earth as far as he could. A little red dirt fell around them, covering their glitter. He stood back and looked down. Was it enough to keep them out of sight until he could come back and find a way to return them to the temple?

Not a glint of gold shone through the red dirt, not a shadow—nothing. The voices from the town grew fainter, and the colors around him faded and then swirled around him. The next minute he was sitting on the floor of his room in Sporfieri, with his summer reading book lying open on the bedside table.

17

Hector leaped to his feet. He had to get back and find a better hiding place for the statues, or better yet, return them to the temple. Maybe he could go at night, when no one was around, and sneak them in with less risk. But most importantly, he had to see what happened to Arath. He held the eye, staring into it wildly.

Nothing. The eye looked like what it was, a lump of rock. He tried again. Still nothing.

He had failed. Arath would never come again. He had died a couple of thousand years ago, tortured and executed for something he hadn't done. That must be it, because something was keeping him from coming back to Sporfieri. Now that Arath was dead, the eye had nobody to protect and no reason to pull Hector back in time.

Cai must have told everyone that Arath had stolen the statues, and the people must have searched Arath's house. Even if the gods weren't found there, Cai could have said that Arath had hidden them someplace or destroyed them.

Hector stifled a sob in his pillow.

“'Ector?” It was Susanna.

He didn't want to see anyone but didn't know what else to do, so he said, “Come in.”

She cracked the door and looked in. “We decided to rest for less time so we can perhaps find things before they close the dig the next week. Do you like to come?”

He nodded and got up. Better than lying there in that stuffy room, imagining what had happened to Arath.

“It's still hot,” Susanna said. “You can wait until later, if you like.”

“No,” he answered. “I'll come now. Maybe I'll find another sherd and someone will give you more money.”

“That would be good,” she said. But she didn't sound convinced.

She was right about how hot it was. The heat slapped Hector's face as he jumped down into the trench.

“Wow,” he said.

“Wow,” agreed Ettore. “Why don't you wait until the sun has moved and we're in the shade?”

“But
you're
in here,” Hector pointed out.

“I am accustomed,” Ettore said. “You are not. Sit in the shade and have some water.”

Hector didn't feel like arguing, so he sat under the tree near the cooler. He looked down toward the olive grove and wished that Arath would appear, even though in his heart he knew it would never happen again. Arath would have come before now if he could have. He must have died that day.

The sun was almost directly overhead, so the tree cast little shade and didn't provide much relief. The dry grass felt like crepe paper. The biggest patch of shade was by the boulder. Hector looked at it with loathing. Rotten rock. If only he'd found a better place to leave the statues.

Despite the heat and the stillness of the air, he suddenly felt the hairs on his arms stir with goose bumps.

He had left the statues under the boulder. What if they were still there? Gold didn't rot, did it? They
had
to still exist. If they weren't around in both Etruscan time and Hector's time, he wouldn't have been able to shove them into the dirt on that awful day.

He went back to the trench. “Ettore?”

“Mmm?”

“Is it okay if I dig over there?”

Ettore looked up over the edge of the trench. “Over where?” Hector gestured to the boulder. “Why there? There is no point. You never find things in that kind of place. Better to try where we have already found objects.”

“But I think maybe I can find something there.”

“What makes you think that?”

“I just think so, that's all,” Hector said, knowing he was sounding like a kid.

Ettore said a little sharply, “Hector, if you really want to help, you must do what the person with experience says. There is no point in digging by that rock. Now either help one of the others who is working in the shade or go back to the house.”

Hector almost gave up. But Ettore himself had said that when something was important, you had to keep trying, no matter what. And this was important.

Susanna, who had been talking to someone in another trench, came up.

“
Che caldo,
eh?” she said, and wiped a handkerchief across her glistening face. “Are you too hot to dig, 'Ector?”

“He wants to work near that big stone,” Ettore said.

“Why there?” asked Susanna, like Ettore.

“I just feel like I'll find something,” Hector said. The two adults looked at each other. He held his breath.
Please listen to me,
he begged inwardly.

“Well,” Susanna said, “you found that sherd after I and Ettore didn't see it for two days. You have a good eye.”
Please,
Hector thought.
Please let me dig there.
Susanna turned to Ettore. “I think we can permit it, don't you?”

Ettore made an exasperated face. “I don't see why you want that place,” he said, “but Susi is the boss, and if she says it's okay, it's okay. Just stay in the shade so you don't get too hot.”

Hector couldn't promise that, so he didn't say anything. He just collected a trowel and some extra water bottles. He carefully put the bottles in the shade, hoping to keep them from turning warm too fast. He walked around the rock. It was huge. How could he hope to find those three tiny statues?

Where exactly had he buried them? He looked back toward the dig. If that was the temple, and the road in Arath's time had come out this way—he measured the distance with his eyes—and then he had circled around the boulder, the hole must be on the other side. Great, the sunny side. Nothing to be done about that, though.

He wished he'd made a mark on the rock when he had buried them, but it was too late to think of that. Any mark he'd made most likely wouldn't have lasted all these centuries, anyway. Not like the spray-painted
ANGELA TI ADORO
, which would probably still be there when the world came to an end. He squatted down and started to dig.

The ground wasn't too hard here, fortunately. He scraped a wide area right near the boulder and stuck in the point of his trowel. He dug and dug until the heat made his head swim and little dots of light danced in front of his eyes. He went back to the shady side and drank half a bottle of water, then dumped the rest on his head.

“What on earth are you doing?” It was his mother, and she didn't sound happy.

“Ettore said I could.”

“I don't care what Ettore said,” she answered. “It's much too hot for this. You look awful. Go back to the house and rest.”

“Please, Mom,” he said, trying not to sound like a begging little kid. “Please. The dig is about to close and I'll never get to do this again. This is my last chance.”

“But Heck—”

“Please,” he pleaded. “Why don't you ever listen to me? This is something I really want to do. I'll be careful. I'm drinking lots of water and I just got my head all wet.”

She hesitated. “Hector, honey,” she said finally. “I do listen to you. Really. It's just that I don't want you to get sick.”

“Just half an hour more,” he said. “Then I'll stop. I promise.”

“All
right!
I give up.” She took off her broad-brimmed hat and plopped it on his head. “At least wear this to keep your brain from frying.”

He knew he looked totally ridiculous, but the shade on the back of his neck did feel good.

“Thanks, Mom,” he said, and meant it.

“Half an hour, Heck,” she warned him.

But it turned out that he didn't need that much time. His mother had barely gotten out of sight when his trowel hit something hard.

He threw down the tool and dug and scratched with his hands. As the sides of the hole got deeper, the soft, red earth slid down as fast as he could dig it out. He dumped in some water and scooped out the resulting mud with shaking hands.

And then he saw a glint of gold. Unmistakably gold. Time seemed to stand still.

He didn't dare take his eyes off the sparkle. He was afraid it would disappear.

“Ettore!” he called. “Mom! Susanna!” He called louder. “I found something!”

He heard footsteps behind him. “What did you find?” Ettore asked in a tired voice. Hector pointed with a trembling finger. Ettore bent over and peered into the hole. “I don't see anything,” he said. Hector's heart sank. Were the statues going to be invisible to everyone but him?

But just then Susanna came up and said, “What is that thing there that is—” she turned to Ettore. “How do you say
scintillando?
”

“Shining,” he answered. “But I don't see anything shining.”

Hector reached in and scooped out another lump of mud, revealing to even the most tired, sun-dazzled eyes a tiny gold arm holding a crooked stick.

Everything got confused after that. Ettore stood up and shouted something in Italian over his shoulder, and a woman came running with his tools. Ettore handed them to Susanna, who dug and prodded and scooped and at last gently, tenderly, pulled out the little male god.

“Tinia,” breathed Hector. Susanna glanced at him sharply. The others pressed forward to see. No one seemed to mind that the heat of all their bodies made it practically impossible to breathe.