Drowned History

by Rebecca Lovell

  “It went fine,” Nadir said. “Let me introduce you to my team.” He motioned to the threesome. “This is Alice Graesser, Phillip Harper, and Dr. George Bennett.”

  “Pleased to meet you,” Kiran said, shaking each of their hands in turn before turning to George. “Do you work at the University with Professor Kharyam?”

  “No,” George said. “I work at Bellevue Hospital. I’m a medical doctor.”

  “I see! Well, it certainly can’t hurt to have a doctor around,” Kiran said. “We’ve no shortage of accidents in a place such as this, as I’m sure you can imagine. Have you had much experience with artifacts and archaeology?”

  “Not really, no. I lived in Surat for some time about ten years ago,” he said. “I ran a business that was primarily an import shop, but we also did some exporting and I had the chance to examine a number of fakes that people would try to sell as genuine, but I wouldn’t call myself an expert.”

  “Oh, you lived here? Then you speak Gujarati?”

  “Not as well as I used to, I’m afraid.” He nodded at Alice, who still looked a little dazed. “Alice here is the fluent one.” Kiran turned his attention to her and Phillip was amazed at how quickly she perked up.

  “Did you live here as well, Miss Graesser?”

  “I did,” she said. “Around the same time as George as a matter of fact. I spent some time learning the language before I arrived but I learned most of what I know when I studied at the Vidyapith.”

  “Really!” Kiran’s eyes widened. Phillip wasn’t exactly sure what a Vidyapith was but he assumed from how impressed Kiran seemed that it was something important. “That must be how you and Professor Kharyam met.” Alice nodded and Kiran beamed at her. “Well, I’m quite glad to see all of you. We’ll get your things in order and then we can talk a little more about why you’re here.”

  “That sounds excellent,” Nadir said. “I’ve brought some things that might be of use to you here,” he said. “The boxes are in the truck with our bags.” They headed for the truck, discussing the equipment and supplies they had brought, and Phillip looked uncertainly at Alice. Everyone else seemed to know what they were doing and if he hadn’t felt like a fish out of water before, he certainly did now.

  “I guess we should get our things too.”

  “Yes,” she said. “I wonder where we’re going to be staying.” Phillip wondered the same thing. He wasn’t sure how many workers an archaeological dig had but they all had to stay somewhere. He followed Alice and George to the truck but before he could try to get Alice’s suitcase out of the back, George reached over him and pulled it out. He set it on the ground in front of Alice as he pulled down his own, giving her an annoyed look as he did.

  “What the hell do you have in this thing anyway?”

  “Books,” Alice said defensively. “What did you think I had in there? Thirty pounds of clothes?”

  “I wasn’t that concerned about it to be perfectly honest.” He held his medical bag out for her to take and she shot him a dirty look, then grabbed the handle of her suitcase with both hands and stormed after Kiran and Nadir as best she could. The effect was somewhat lessened by the way she had to drag it and George smirked after her. Phillip abandoned the group and trotted up to her with his own bag in hand.

  “I can carry that for you,” he said to the red-faced woman, reaching out for it. Alice held it away from him and continued to try to walk with it, even though it was very nearly dragging the ground by then.

  “I can carry it myself, thank you very much.” Her voice was pure venom and Phillip fell back a little. The last thing he wanted to do was push her when she was in a bad mood. He wondered why exactly George always seemed to be baiting her, then decided he didn’t need to know right then. Maybe he would ask her later.

  Kiran led them to a larger version of the tent he had stepped out of when they arrived and held aside the flap for them to come in. It was more spacious than it looked but that wasn’t saying much. There was barely room in it for the four small beds and table with the washbasin that had been wedged inside and Phillip realized with horror that there was no separate place for Alice to sleep or wash.

  “Here are your quarters.” Kiran said. “I’m afraid there isn’t much room but it’s a bit more private than the bigger ones where the workers sleep.”

  “This can’t be right,” Phillip blurted out before he could frame his words properly. “You can’t expect Alice to sleep in the same tent with us!”

  “Thank you for your concern,” Alice said, brushing a flyaway strand of hair back behind her ear. “But I’ll be fine so long as you look the other way while I change clothes. I certainly don’t think any of you gentlemen would hurt me.”

  “That’s not the point,” Phillip said, then looked at Nadir and George for support.

  “We have some screens that we use to separate the beds in our medical tent,” Kiran said. “I would be happy to have one brought in. I do apologize, I wasn’t aware a woman would be traveling with you.” He looked at Phillip. “I quite agree, it’s most impolite to ask it of her but there isn’t anywhere she could sleep that she wouldn’t be sharing with men.”

  “It’s really all right,” Alice said, putting a hand on Phillip’s arm. “I don’t mind.”

  “It’s not all right,” Phillip said. He knew he wouldn’t get anywhere with it so he fell silent and set his bag on the bed closest to the door. Alice went automatically to the one in the far corner and George put his things on the bed across from hers before Phillip could change beds. He supposed it was for the best. The last thing he wanted to do was make her uncomfortable. As cool as she and George were toward each other, he didn’t seem to make her uncomfortable.

  “Here it is,” Kiran said, coming back through the tent flap with a screen in his hands. It was big enough to wrap around the bed’s side and front so that only Alice’s shadow would be visible through the thin sheet that separated them, and his cheeks were suddenly on fire as he imagined her half-naked body in shadow.

  “Thank you,” Alice said as Kiran set it up with some help from Nadir. “You really didn’t need to go to all this trouble.”

  “It’s no trouble,” Kiran said. “We wish to make you all as comfortable as possible with our limited resources. I’m not certain how we’ll handle the bathing arrangements but we’ll make sure you don’t come to any harm.”

  “Now that we’ve got that settled,” Nadir said with a smile, “May we see the cave?”

  “Of course,” Kiran replied with an equally wide smile. “I assumed you’d want to see it right away so I made sure they left some torches burning. Come with me.”

  “Torches?” Alice frowned slightly as they followed him back out into the night. It was still a little warm out, and the difference between the weather here and in New York was staggering. “You don’t have lights in there?”

  “We would need a generator to power them,” Kiran explained. “This dig is not funded by the government and we simply do not have the resources.”

  “And who is funding the dig?” George looked at Kiran, who shrugged evasively.

  “A private company.” He didn’t elaborate and Phillip couldn’t help thinking it sounded a little shady but he didn’t say anything. He knew almost nothing about the world in which they had found themselves and didn’t want to sound like an idiot.

  They crossed through the field where the pots and walls were becoming little more than shadows and up to the façade. A white marble rectangle was beneath their feet and Phillip looked down at it.

  “What is that?”

  “Most likely the top of the stairs,” Nadir said. “Am I correct in assuming that the ground we’re standing on isn’t where the building’s foundation is?”

  “Correct,” Kiran said. “The temple itself seems to have been sunk into the ground, making even our wildest estimates of how old it is seem trivial.”

  “It would take hundreds of years for that much dirt and stone to collect,” George said, shak
ing his head as he looked around. “Perhaps thousands.”

  “That’s why this is so exciting,” Kiran said, leading them forward into what Phillip supposed was the temple but looked more like the mouth of a cave he and his brothers had explored when he was a boy. “The artifact in question could very well date back thousands of years, which makes it frustrating that we can’t get past the wall. In reality, we don’t even know if there is anything behind the wall.” He stopped and motioned to the back of the cave. “There you have it.”

  As promised, there were torches lining the walls of the cave and their flickering light made it feel like they’d walked into somewhere dark and primitive. A semicircular flat stone came to about the center of the room and there was a stone pedestal that appeared to be growing out of the center of it. Partially unearthed stone troughs were placed around it, but what Phillip and the others were most interested in was the wall.

  Stretching from the floor to the ceiling, the wall looked as if it was made of solid earth. The circular stone almost looked like it was growing out of the wall and George pointed at it.

  “Are we to assume that the rest of the platform we’re on is buried in the wall?”

  “We believe so, yes.” Kiran stood near the pedestal with his hands on his hips. “The room seems like it should be larger, don’t you think?”

  “It does. It feels like we’re only seeing a small part of it.” George squatted down beside the pedestal, then looked up at Kiran. “This looks almost fluted. If it didn’t look like it was part of the stone I might question its authenticity. It looks a little more Western than I’m comfortable with, to be honest.”

  “And you say that the carvings are in the wall itself?” Alice looked around the room. “Was this how much light there was when you took the photographs?”

  “There was a bit more than this,” Kiran said. “When it’s light outside there is a little natural light that comes in. There was a flash on the camera that we used to take the photographs, though. There’s no reason they should have come out the way they did.”

  “I see,” Alice said thoughtfully. She took a long, hard look at the wall, then pointed at it. “The carvings you want me to read are over here, right?” Kiran nodded and she went toward the wall. “If we think the room has been cut in half it seems odd that the carving would be right on the wall. It looks like it’s made of earth, not stone. There’s no way something like that would hold up over time.” She was talking as much to herself as any of the others and Phillip felt somewhat left out. Nadir was discussing who knew what with Kiran, Alice was completely focused on the wall, and George was running a hand over the pedestal. With nothing else to do, Phillip walked around the room. Maybe it would give him an idea that could help the others out.

  Nothing came to him, not even when he ran a hand over the cool stone of the platform and pedestal, and he was just turning around to tell them that he was going back to the tent to put away his things when he saw Alice crumple to the ground, her fingertips brushing the wall as she fell.

  “Alice!” Phillip’s shout brought everyone’s attention to the wall and the woman lying in front of it. Easily the tallest of the four, George made it to her first and knelt down beside her. “What happened to her?”

  “That’s what I’m trying to find out.” He had no sooner reached out for her wrist than he passed out as well. Phillip looked from them to Kiran and Nadir, and was just about to ask them what the hell was going on when black stars exploded behind his eyes and darkness swallowed him whole.

  Seven

  A ray of light made its way into the mouth of the cave and reached George, whose eyes snapped open when it touched him. Remembering what had happened, he sat up and found Alice still laying where she’d fallen. He looked around and saw that the others were still asleep as well but his first concern was Alice. She didn’t appear to be moving and it was hard to see her chest rising or falling with only the light from the door. The torches had burned down to nothing and George realized that it meant they had been out all night.

  He moved a little closer to Alice and pressed two fingers to the side of her neck, relief washing over him when he felt a strong, regular pulse. He shook her much more gently than he had in the truck but she didn’t move.

  “Alice,” he said quietly. “Alice, wake up.”

  “Not just now, George,” she mumbled. George was startled to hear that she said it with a trace of a British accent and it made his blood run cold.

  “Is she all right?” Nadir was standing beside them looking down at Alice and George looked up at them, surprised. He hadn’t even been aware that they had woken up but there they were, all three of them standing and looking at Alice with an interest that felt close to the detachment he normally felt when examining a patient. The only one that seemed truly concerned was Phillip.

  “Why hasn’t she woken up?”

  “I don’t know,” George said. He didn’t feel like telling them she’d spoken, and since none of them asked about it he had to assume they hadn’t seen or heard anything from her. “We’d best get her to the tent. Let her wake up there.”

  “I’ll carry her,” Phillip said, kneeling down. George gave him a look of barely disguised contempt.

  “You can’t even carry her suitcase,” he said sarcastically. Not waiting for the boy’s reply, George scooped Alice into his arms and stood up. She was as light as she’d always been – maybe even lighter – which was strange in and of itself. Normally a body as limp as hers felt heavier. He was careful to hold her to his chest so her head didn’t dangle and when one of her shoes fell off Phillip was quick to retrieve it.

  George carried her to the tent past a number of workers who were just getting to the dig site, ignoring their curious stares. He laid Alice gently on the thin mattress before he shook back his sleeve from his watch in order to take her pulse properly. It was slower than he was entirely comfortable with but she seemed to be all right so he turned to Phillip, who was standing at the edge of the thin screen.

  “Hand me my bag,” he said, trying not to sound snappish. He was used to giving nurses and residents orders and tried to remember that he wasn’t at the hospital. Never mind that he had a patient here, he wasn’t at Bellevue. Phillip did as he was told, handing the black medical bag to George. He opened it and took out his stethoscope to listen to her heart and lungs. When he took it out of his ears he looked at Phillip again. “Did you see if she hit her head when she fell?”

  “I don’t think so,” Phillip said. “She sort of just went limp. She was touching the wall when it happened, though. Do you think she’ll be all right?”

  “I don’t know for sure,” George said honestly. “Right now it looks like she just fainted. Her vital signs are normal and she doesn’t seem hurt. As to why she won’t wake up, it’s a complete mystery to me.” He sighed and considered Alice, then stood up straight. “I suppose all we can do is keep an eye on her and wait for her to regain consciousness.”

  “It’s a relief to have an actual doctor around and not just a medic,” Kiran said. George couldn’t agree more. “Let’s go to the tent to talk so we don’t disturb her. You can check in on her as often as you’d like.”

  George nodded, then went to his own bed and pulled off the thin blanket. He laid it over Alice’s body, making sure it covered her up to her shoulders. If anyone thought it was odd they didn’t say anything and he looked down at her one more time before following Kiran to the tent. She seemed peaceful but he was still reluctant to leave her. She wasn’t the sort of patient he was used to in the trauma department, and for that he was unendingly glad, but she was more of a mystery than anyone he’d treated in his career.

  The sun was fully up when they stepped out of the tent and George looked at his watch again. It was after nine in the morning and he looked over his shoulder at the cave. What the hell happened to us in there? They went into the tent, a much smaller version of the one they had meant to sleep in, where a small table with three chairs sat
in the center. A radio sat against the back wall and there was a tall box filled with rolled-up papers that George assumed were maps.

  “Well,” Kiran said as Nadir and Phillip sat down, “Now you know the reason we haven’t been able to get much done in the temple. Some of the men that were supposed to be clearing the wall passed out and now no one will go near it. Someone put forth the thought that it’s bad luck so we lost quite a few workers. We’re lucky we were able to get the photographs we did but as I’m sure you saw, they’re useless.”

  “I thought you said they wouldn’t develop properly,” George said to Nadir.

  “That’s what I was told,” the professor said. “This is much more curious. If they were taken from the distance Phillip, Kiran, and I fell the photos should have at least been a little clearer than what was sent to me.”

  “Alice mentioned the light in the cave,” George said. “Maybe the combination of low light and distance caused a lot of your problems.”

  “Let’s try taking more,” Phillip said, getting all of their attention. “Alice was able to get all the way to the wall, maybe one of us could get closer too.” George hadn’t expected the boy to have much input but in a way he was glad. Two people with the same idea had much more influence than one. “I could go in there and just go slowly toward it, and wherever I pass out someone else could come that far and take pictures.”

  “That is an excellent idea,” George said, hoping he didn’t sound as surprised as he felt. “It would give us something to go on and prevent any damage to the camera at the same time.”

  “All right,” Kiran said, nodding. “It will take some time for the photographs to be developed but I agree that this is the best course of action. Miss Graesser may be the only one who can read the carvings, we certainly can’t risk her being unconscious for the duration of your stay.”