On Etruscan Time (9 page)

The screams fell ominously silent. “Arath!” Hector cried. “Where are you? I'm trying to find you! I want to help!”

*   *   *

He was standing at the window in his little room in Sporfieri, clutching the cold stone sill. He rested his head against the window frame. What was he supposed to do? One thing was certain. He had to find Arath and do something to stop the dreams that were invading his sleep. He couldn't stand hearing the screams or seeing Arath's terrified face as he begged for help.

Hector shuddered and stared out the window at the strange, silvery color that the little light-brown houses took on by moonlight. They looked flimsy, almost as though he could see through them. He shook his head and looked again. It was strange what tricks the moonlight could play on you. A flicker of movement on the street directly beneath his window caught his eye, and he leaned forward. One of those stray dogs, probably.

But no. His heart skipped a beat as he recognized Arath, his face turned up. Even his tan skin looked oddly pale in the milky light. Arath didn't say anything, didn't make a single gesture with those expressive hands. He just looked up at Hector silently, his big, dark eyes shining even in the weak moonlight. Then he turned and walked away, down the stone streets toward the dig and the remains of the Etruscan village.

Hector just wanted to go back to bed and forget the whole thing, but he knew he couldn't. He pulled on the shorts he'd been wearing earlier and dug a warm sweater out of his suitcase. He slid his feet into his shoes, not bothering with socks, not bothering to tie the laces. Grateful for the rubber soles that made no noise on the hard floor, he slipped out of the house. He had lost sight of Arath but it didn't matter. He knew where to go.

No sounds came from the bakery. There were no sounds at all, in fact. The town looked dead. No lights shone out of the little houses, no motor scooters zoomed around corners. It was like he was wandering around on a huge stage before the play began. And just as in a play, the houses appeared made of sticks and cloth. They looked—well,
ghostly
was the only word he could think of. Like he could put his hand through them. Even though he knew he was being stupid, he patted one of them as he passed to reassure himself of its solidity.

His hand went through it. Not all the way through, but it was as though the house were made of sand and the grains shifted as he pushed on them. He yanked out his hand and stared at it. What was going on? He flexed his fingers. They worked. They were firm and warm. He broke into a trot. He had to catch up to Arath and find out what was wrong with the houses.

Hector slowed to a fast walk on the steep downhill slope, following the twists and turns of the road and taking the shortcut stairs whenever he saw any. He went through the final archway and found himself on the path leading to the archaeological site where he'd been digging—was it only that afternoon? It seemed like a hundred years ago. Or thousands of years in the future. He shook his head, trying to clear it.

As he approached the big rock near the dig, he heard a familiar voice.

“I knew you'd come.”

10

Hector didn't jump at the sound of that soft voice. He had been expecting it. He sat down heavily, leaning against the boulder. He looked up at the boy with the large eyes and white shirt that gleamed in the moonlight.

“So what's going on?” Hector asked. “Really. Who are you, and why do I keep dreaming about you?”

“I didn't do it,” the boy—Arath—said. “
You
were the one who came to
my
dream. You said, ‘Where are you? I'm trying to find you! I want to help!'” Hector shuddered as he heard his own words, the ones he had shouted in his dream. How could the boy know?

Was this still a dream? That would explain why things had felt so funny on the way down, why the solid rock wall seemed almost to melt under his fingers. All his senses were numb. The few sounds—Arath's voice, an owl, a dog barking in the distance—were fuzzy, like he was wearing headphones. He touched a branch. It didn't move, and although he could tell there was something between his fingers, it felt like he was wearing gloves.

Everything looked strange, too, like when he put on his father's glasses. When he stamped his foot, the ground felt different, like rubber instead of hard-packed earth. Was he sleepwalking? But he felt wide awake.

“It woke me up,” Arath went on. “I was having a bad dream about someone beating me in the temple. Nobody would do that—you can't do something like that in the temple, especially to the son of the priest.”

“Your father's a priest?” Arath nodded. “But I thought priests couldn't get married!”

“What?” Arath said. “Of course they can. They can have as many wives as they want. How else can you ensure that the priestly line will go on?”

“More than one wife?” Hector asked, bewildered.

“My father has three wives,” Arath said, lifting his chin proudly. “My mother's the youngest, but she's the most important one. The other two never had any babies, and they're too old now. The elders said that since my father didn't have any sons, Cai—he's my father's cousin—would be the priest after him. They said there was a curse on my father. But then I was born, so Cai hates me. He knows that the only way he'll ever get to be priest is if I die.

“But my parents are worried because I'm their only child. My little sister died, and then three more times my mother thought she was going to have another one, but none of the babies got born alive. So the curse talk is starting again.”

Arath's face puckered, and he paused.

“My father's scared,” he went on after a minute. “I can tell. He says that the gods still tell him they love him and that he is their chosen one, but I don't know how long he'll keep believing that. And if something happens to me, then they'll know that the curse is true. And then Cai—” He stopped and shook his head, biting his lip as though trying not to cry.

Hector stood up again, feeling uncertain. “I—I'm sorry,” he said lamely. He didn't know what else to say. Arath nodded without speaking. Hector went on. “I don't really know what you expect me to do.”

The boy looked up at him. “I want you to help me.”

“Help you?” Hector asked, truly mystified now. “How can I help you?”

“You can come to my village,” Arath said. “You can do something from the spirit world to make Cai leave me alone. I've caught him looking at me with hatred in his eyes, and I don't know what he's planning to do, but I think he means to hurt me.”

“But—” Hector started.

“I know what you're going to say,” Arath interrupted him. “I know that when we went there before nobody could hear you or see you. I don't understand everything the sacred books say, but I think you would always be visible only to the person who took you to another time. You could tell me what to do, and I'll do it.”

“That wasn't what I was going to say,” Hector said. “I was going to say that it's impossible. You can't go backwards in time. What would happen if I went back in time and killed my own grandfather when he was a kid? Then I would never get born. But if I never was born, then I couldn't go back in time and kill my grandfather. And if I didn't kill my grandfather, then I'd get born, and then I could go back in time and kill him, which means I wouldn't get born, which means—”

“
Stop
it,” Arath said. “Time doesn't work like that. If nobody can see you or hear you, you can't change things.”

“So why should I go with you? If I can't change things, what's the point?”

“I already told you,” Arath said. “If I take you,
I
can see you and hear you. You can tell me what to do and I'll do it. Then you can come back to your own time and we won't be in each other's dreams anymore.”

“But if I tell you to do something it could still change the present, the same as if
I
were the one who did it. So what's the difference?”

Arath looked uncomfortable. His right hand strayed up to his chest and wrapped around the pouch that hung from his neck, as though for reassurance.

“I don't know for sure,” he said. “But I think—I
think
—that if someone does something in his time, like me doing something in my time, it works out somehow—even if it's something you told me to do.”

“But you're not sure.”

Arath shook his head and clutched the pouch even more tightly.

“Who told you all this?” Hector asked. “Because you could ask them—”

“I read it in the holy books,” Arath said. He looked guilty.

“So?” Hector asked.

“I read the holy books,” the boy repeated.

“So what's wrong with that?”

“Only the priest is supposed to know how to read the holy books,” Arath explained, as though talking to a small child. “He passes the knowledge on to his successor once the successor has had his manhood ceremony. I used to get bored during the rituals and would follow along with my eyes when he held the gold pointer under the words he was reading, and after a while I realized that I knew what he was going to say before he even got there. That meant I was reading.” He stopped and looked at Hector, who realized that this was a kind of confession.

“Go on,” he said.

“And then—” Arath hesitated, then seemed to gather up his courage. The next words came out in a rush. “And then, sometimes when I was supposed to be tending to the temple, I would take down the books and read them. I wanted to see if I could find some way of keeping myself safe from Cai. It's getting worse. I think he's planning something. And nobody is supposed to touch the sacred books but the priest. If you do—” He stopped talking and shivered.

“And did you?”

“Did I what?”

“Find something to keep you safe from Cai?”

The boy looked surprised. “Of course,” he said. “I consulted them after my dream and learned how to find you here.”

“Here?” Hector repeated.

“Here, in my time,” the boy said. He made a sweeping motion with his arm. Hector followed the gesture and looked around him.

Dawn must be near. The sky was turning grayish pink, and the air was tinged with warmth. For a moment he thought that it was the strange light that was making everything look different.

Then he realized that it was not just the light. Once again everything had disappeared—the dig, the shed, the olive groves, even the houses on the hill.

11

“All right,” Hector said. “Enough. I give up. How do you do it?”

Arath sighed impatiently. Even in the dim light, Hector could see that he was rolling his eyes.

This was just too much. Here he was in the middle of the night—or the early morning, whichever—with a kid who was dragging him around in time, and when he asked for an explanation, all he got was one of those sighs, like when your parents are about to explain something for what they claim is the hundredth time. It was infuriating.

Hector stood up. “Forget it,” he said coldly. “I don't believe you.” Of course he believed him. But he had to do something to get that smug look off the kid's face.

Arath jumped up. “Why not?” he asked angrily, his hands on his hips. “I'm telling you the truth! Look around you. Is this your world? Don't you even believe your own eyes?”

“Well,” Hector demanded, “if you're an ancient Etruscan, how come you speak English? And why don't you come to me when there's anyone else around? Are you afraid someone will recognize you? And why me, anyway? If you need someone to help you, why not go to the police or one of the adults around here? What can
I
do?” he finished.

For a moment, Arath stood in silence. Then he dropped his hands by his sides.

“I don't know,” he said miserably.

“You don't know how come you speak English?”

“Oh, I know
that,
” he said. “After I learned how to read the sacred books, I used to go to the temple when no one else was there and read parts out loud. I wanted to learn the ritual words beforehand. You know, so my father would be impressed with how little time it took to teach me. And one time I was reading the words for how to do a prophecy—you do know what a prophecy is, don't you?”

“Seeing the future,” Hector said. “I'm not as stupid as you think I am.”

“I don't think you're stupid,” Arath said earnestly. “Really, I don't. I just don't know what you know and what you don't know.”

“Okay,” Hector said. “I know what a prophecy is. Go on.”

“Well, it said not to read the next part out loud, but I didn't know any other way to memorize it, so I did, and it must have been some kind of magic, because all of a sudden, instead of just
seeing
the future, I was
in
the future.”

“How could you tell?”

“Lots of ways,” Arath said. “It couldn't have been too far in the future, because I recognized the trees, but they were bigger than they should have been. I knew the houses, but some had cracks in them. Places that used to have forests were cleared. And then, then it was like I slipped, not on the ground, but in time, and I wound up back in my own place.”

“So how did you learn English?”

“Oh, that,” the boy said. “I just listened to people in the different times when I traveled to the future. I learned Latin and Tuscan and Italian, and in the last few centuries I've learned English and German and French. And a little Spanish.”

Hector looked at the boy without speaking. It made sense in a weird kind of way.

“¿Qué tal?”
Arath asked hopefully in Spanish. Hector didn't answer.

“How far in the future did you go that first time?” Hector asked, interested in spite of himself.