On Etruscan Time (6 page)

He tightened his hand on the railing. Was it his imagination, or did the light come back faintly when he turned toward the stairs? Experimentally, he faced his mother's bedroom. The eye was cold and heavy and as dark as a piece of ordinary rock. He turned toward Susanna's room. No change. He took a step toward the head of the stairs.

It was unmistakable. A faint white glow came from the eye. He took a step down and it grew slightly stronger. With each step, it became brighter.

At the foot of the stairs, he turned toward the kitchen. The light dimmed until it was almost out. Then he faced the front door and the glow came back. He reached out a hand and turned the knob, and he could have sworn that the eye shimmered as though with joy.

Hector stepped out into the night air. It was cool, especially since he was wearing nothing but boxers. Not a sound disturbed the peace of the streets. He started down the hill, keeping his gaze fixed on the eye in his hand, watching it grow brighter and brighter. When the light dimmed, he knew he had headed in the wrong direction, and so he turned until it brightened again.

Almost before Hector knew it, he was standing at the edge of the dig.
That must be what it wants,
he thought.
I have to put it back where I dug it up.
So he turned away and took a step toward the spot by the tree where he'd found the eye-shaped stone that morning.

Instantly, the light went out.

What did it want? He turned slowly until he saw the glow on his palm, then took a step, and then another. He stumbled forward, over mounds of earth and tree roots and stones. When the light stayed steadily bright, he kept going in the same direction. When it grew dim, he turned until it shone again. It was like playing a game of hot-and-cold at a little kid's birthday party.

He wasn't paying attention to where he was going. The moon came out from behind a cloud, casting a cool light on the ground in front of him, just as the eye flashed a single triumphant ray and then went out.

Hector jerked himself backward just in time. If he had stepped forward instead, he would have pitched headfirst into a trench. And not just any trench. The trench where Ettore had found the human bones.

7

Hector froze and swallowed hard. Why had the eye led him here? What did it want him to do? And why hadn't he noticed before how much the trenches looked like open graves, yawning blackly in the moonlight?

“What do you want?” he asked. “Do you want me to go in there?” The sound of his own voice rang strangely in the stillness. At that moment, the moon slid behind another cloud. The wind picked up, and the leaves moving in the breeze sounded like rain. Then he realized that it
was
rain, and it was coming down pretty hard.

Now what? He could hardly see to find his way back in the downpour, and the path into town would be too slick to walk on. He glanced into the trench, made up his mind, and slid cautiously down into it. He plastered himself against the side farthest away from the bones and pulled the tarp over his head.

It didn't help much. Water ran down the sides of the trench and pooled beneath him. The air was thick under the waterproof covering. The smell of mud and of something heavier, thicker, was inescapable.

Stupid eye,
Hector thought.
If only I hadn't found it. I'd be in my bed right now, and dry.
He shifted his weight uncomfortably, hearing a squelch from every part of his body that touched the earth. He leaned back against the wall of the trench and tried to get comfortable, hugging his knees to his chest.

*   *   *

The people were still looking toward the columned building, and when the door flew open, everyone standing near it jumped back as though startled.

“What is it?” Hector asked, but no one seemed to hear him. He cleared his throat and tried again, louder. “What's in there?” Nobody paid him the least attention.

Then a shadow moved in the doorway of the building, and everyone leaned forward.

It was only a boy. He was a little smaller than Hector, with long black hair that fell forward, covering most of his face. He was dressed in a kind of T-shirt that fell to the middle of his thighs. He wore a pouch of what looked like leather on a cord around his neck. He was barefoot. As he hesitated in the doorway, someone must have pushed him from behind. He stumbled down the short stairway and fell heavily to his knees. He couldn't break his fall, Hector realized, because his arms were tied behind him.

Nobody stepped forward to help the boy. Nobody said anything to him, either, although a low buzz of voices arose as people turned to each other and murmured.

The boy struggled to his feet and looked behind him toward the building. He said something in a pleading tone. There was no answer, and he turned his tear-stained face toward the crowd. He scanned it as though looking for someone or something.

The boy's face turned in Hector's direction, and Hector shuddered as a wave of déjà vu washed over him again. This time it didn't slip away. Hector knew that boy, knew the face that was revealed when the shiny hair fell back to show the dark skin, the long, bright eyes.

It was the boy he had seen on the wall, the one who had waved casually at Hector as he walked up toward the town.

The boy gave a start, and his large eyes widened as though in surprise or in recognition.

“It's you!” he cried hoarsely. “I knew you'd come! You must help me! I'm almost out of time!”

“How?” Hector asked, but at the sound of his own voice, the déjà vu started to fade, and the dream with it. As he felt himself slide from the hot, dry square full of murmuring people into the mud and the air under the tarp, which was warm and wet with his breath, the boy's voice, fading rapidly, said, “You have it … I know you have it … Use it to come back…” And then there was silence.

The rain had stopped. Hector pulled the tarp away from his head, and the cool night air washed over him, lifting the damp hair off his forehead. He pushed back his bangs with trembling fingers and got shakily to his feet.
It was a dream,
he told himself firmly.
Just a dream, and now it's over.
But what did that boy mean by being almost out of time?
Just a dream,
he reminded himself, as he searched for a toehold in the packed earth. If his mother woke up and noticed he was missing, his life wouldn't be worth living.

Clouds still covered the moon, and the wind was chilly. He hoisted himself out and, clutching the eye-stone, picked his way around the trenches. He was starting to breathe more easily. Only a few trenches lay between him and the shed and then the path up the hill. But something grabbed his ankle, and with a sickening lurch, he fell face forward into nothingness.

He hit the ground almost right away. What had tripped him up, he realized even as he fell, was not some ghostly hand but one of the strings stretched across the edge of a trench. And this one was fairly shallow, so although he was shaken from the fall, he didn't think he was hurt. It must be the trench he and Ettore had started earlier that day, the one that Ettore thought would lead them to a temple. All the others were much deeper.

He had dislodged a lot of clumps of soggy dirt in his fall. They were cold and scratchy, and they fell apart when he stepped on them.

More cautiously this time, he made his way through the dig and onto the path that led through the stone arch. The flat rocks that made up the path were as slick as if they had been oiled. He walked slowly and carefully but still stumbled a few times. He shivered as the cold air bit into his wet skin. It started to rain again and soon it was pouring hard. The mud streamed off him until he was as clean as if he had just come out of the shower, with water plastering his hair to his head and running into his eyes and ears.

Standing in his small bedroom, he peeled off his sodden boxers, dropping them next to his bed. He slid between the rough sheets, which felt comfortably warm and real.

Slowly his shivering ceased and he started to feel deliciously drowsy. He had put the eye-rock on his bedside table, but now it cast no light.
Maybe it's tired too,
he thought nonsensically as he felt himself slip into a dreamless sleep.

When he woke, Hector could tell that the house was empty. Bright light squeezed through the cracks of the wooden shutters, which someone must have closed while he slept. He sat up, his mouth dry and his belly aching with hunger. And why did he have a nagging feeling of dread?

Then last night's dream came back to him. Of all the dreams he'd had since arriving in Italy, that one was the weirdest: a light coming from that Greek eye, leading him down to the dig, and then into the trench. He shook his head. Where had
that
come from? Because surely it had all been a dream. There was no way he would have gone wandering around a strange town in Italy, or anywhere else, in the middle of the night. Especially wearing nothing but a pair of old boxers.

The dream had probably come from the way the sun had reflected off the eye-stone when he'd found it the day before. In the way dreams happen, that reflection had twisted around into a light that sent him a message. The creepiness of those bones had somehow worked their way into the dream, and he was probably remembering the way he'd nearly fallen into the trench earlier but was caught by Ettore, and that's why he had dreamed about actually falling into one.

But it had been so vivid. He could still feel the cold stones under his bare feet as he walked first down, then up, the hill. He still felt the shock of tripping over the string and tumbling into the new trench. It was as real as if it had actually happened.

His boxers lay crumpled on the floor next to his bed. As he picked them up to toss them into the wicker laundry basket, they felt a little damp from lying on the cold stone floor all night.

Or from getting soaked in a midnight rain?

Ridiculous,
he thought.
That was just a dream.
And he ran down the stairs.

A note in the kitchen read, “Bread on the counter, juice in the fridge. Come down to the dig when you've eaten. Mom.”

It was the first time Hector had been alone in the house. The silence and the lack of supervision were relaxing. Now that there was nobody to tell him he had to eat at the table, he took his roll, spread with butter and strawberry jam, into the small living room. He watched music videos while he ate. He eyed the computer longingly, but his mother had threatened him with all sorts of consequences if he touched it. It was for Susi's work and it was ancient, anyway. He doubted that the connection was fast enough to make instant messaging possible. His mother had said he should write letters to his friends, but he didn't think it was worth explaining to her how stupid that would be, so he let it drop.

It felt late, somehow, when he went back upstairs to put on his shoes and brush his teeth.

As he was about to start down the stairs again, he hesitated and glanced back into his room. The stone lay on his bedside table, its blue and black eye facing away from him. It looked like a golf ball, cold and lifeless and inert.

So why did he feel as if he had to take it with him?

This was silly. He took a step down the stairs and paused again.
Oh, all right,
he thought. In his room, he picked up the stone and jammed it into his shorts pocket. Then he took off for the dig. It looked like it was already afternoon, or at least late morning, and who knew what had been turned up in the hours he'd wasted, first by sleeping and then by taking so long over breakfast?

When he got to the excavation, he thought at first that the archaeologists were back in the village taking their afternoon break. Where was everyone? Then he saw a group clustered around the trench where he and Ettore had been working the day before, the one that he'd dreamed about falling into last night. Something important must have happened for them all to be there instead of scraping dirt in their own areas.

It was impossible to see past all the bodies crowded around the edge of the trench. Hector felt awkward trying to push his way through, and he still didn't know which of the archaeologists spoke English, so he hovered on the edge until one woman moved aside to say something to the man next to her. He took advantage of the temporary gap to squeeze through.

Susanna and his mother squatted at one end of the trench. His mother was pointing at the wall of the trench while Susanna looked as though she was going to burst with curiosity or excitement. Ettore, behind them, leaned forward and tried to look over Susanna's shoulder. He glanced up and saw Hector.

“You slept too much!” Ettore called over the babble. “Something of interest is here. Can you see?”

“No,” Hector answered. “What is it? Another sherd?”

“Better than a sherd,” Ettore said. He stepped out and brushed the damp earth from his hands. “They won't let me near it anyway,” he said, glancing at the two women, whose noses were practically pressed against the earth.

“What did you find?” Hector asked.

“A part of a wall, I think,” he said. “A strange thing happened last night. It rained, did you know?” Hector nodded. “And in the darkness, an animal—a dog, probably—fell into the trench. When he fell, he broke the side we had dug. Large pieces of dirt came off and uncovered something flat and red. I think it is an
affresco
—a painted wall.”

Hector nodded again and swallowed. A dog had fallen into the trench? The same trench that he'd dreamed about falling into last night?

“How do you know it was a dog?”

“A dog?” Ettore looked puzzled. “Oh, you mean what fell in the trench? There's not much other animals here. It was either a dog or a person, and I don't think many people like to go out at night in the rain.”

An exclamation from inside the trench made them both look in that direction. Susanna had brushed away more dirt, and even from where they stood they could see that a picture was starting to emerge.