I Do Not Trust You: A Novel

by Laura J. Burns

  Now Ash was the one about to do it. He was living Hugh’s lifelong dream, and it gave him a queasy feeling to know he couldn’t share it with his best friend.

  Focus. He pushed the thought away. The girl’s plan was still a fantasy. Even if she could translate the map, even if she could find the artifacts, he had to stop her before that happened. His mission was to retrieve the map and bring it to the Eye. That was all. And it was proving more difficult than expected. Now he would have to leave her someplace safe once he retrieved the map. He couldn’t keep her around. But he didn’t want to abandon her in a foreign place without help, either.

  I’ll slip money into her bag, he decided. She seemed savvy enough to know how to navigate an airport. If he got the map during the flight, he could ditch her in the airport at Naples. All she’d have to do was buy a ticket home.

  “Baiae,” Memphis said, jolting him out of his thoughts.

  Ash blinked, confused.

  She smirked. “You asked where we’re going?”

  “Baiae,” he repeated, trying to place it.

  “The ruins, near Cumae.” Memphis yawned and pushed the button to tilt her seat back. “Happy now?”

  “That’s not one of the locations your father gave the Set followers,” he said, his pulse quickening. “Did you find a decryption key?” If she had, then she really did know where to find the statue. It was almost impossible to believe.

  Memphis turned in her seat and stared at him. Her light green eyes were clear and intelligent, and Ash found himself feeling as if she could see through all his lies. Her father had the same eyes, the same way of making Ash squirm. But her father had decided to trust him. She would too.

  He kept his face neutral and held her gaze.

  “So,” she finally said. “Ash, short for Ashwin. Hindi name. I’m guessing some mix of Punjabi … second generation?… and straight-up Brit. Your middle name is probably something like William or Henry, right?”

  Ash swallowed hard. “Edward.”

  She took the sleeve of his linen shirt between her fingers. “Your parents have money. Grunts don’t wear bespoke clothes.”

  Don’t look away. Remain still, Ash told himself. She continued to caress the fabric, leaning uncomfortably close to him.

  “You grew up somewhere nice. Someplace like Sutton Coldfield?” Her eyes were still on his, unwavering. “But you wanted to get to London the minute you were old enough.”

  Ash nodded. Why bother pretending otherwise?

  “You had a year of university. Maybe two. Then you quit. You figured you could be an archeology grunt without a degree. You’d get to see the world, slum it a little, have some adventures, get laid in exotic places.” She chuckled, but there was no warmth in it. “You’re like a thousand other guys I’ve met.”

  “I doubt that,” Ash murmured.

  “True. Because unlike them, you’re insane,” she replied. “Somewhere along the way, you got brainwashed into joining a cult.”

  She abruptly let go of his sleeve and turned back to the window. Ash took a shaky breath. She’d gotten a lot right. His parents, their money … even Sutton Coldfield. It was unnerving to know somebody could read him so easily. Had her father seen him the same way?

  Still, there were things she didn’t, could never, know about his background.

  Memphis sighed and shifted, eventually settling into a position she was comfortable with, long legs curled up underneath her, head leaning against the window. She closed her eyes.

  Ash glanced around the cabin, not really seeing the others in first class with them. This girl irked him. She was entirely too sharp.

  Baiae. Why there? Did she have a key? Could she read the priests’ language so easily that she’d decoded a location in the half hour she’d spent at home without him? If so, she was taking him to an actual piece of the Set statue his people had been trying to find for ages.

  No amount of mental control could still his heartbeat. To find a piece and see it with his own eyes, to be the one who achieved that goal before the other devotees … the idea made him giddy. And if this girl could make it happen, why not take advantage? Even Philip would have to admit the pieces would be safer rehidden. Ash and Memphis could find them. That way, it didn’t matter if the cult of Set had a map.

  This was a much better plan than simply stealing the original.

  Once he had all the pieces, he would take them straight to the Eye. Memphis’s deal was that the Eye would get them only after they’d rescued her father. But Philip would never agree. It was too dangerous.

  Maybe after the pieces are rehidden, we can save her father, Ash thought, his eyes moving over her. Without her, they’d have nothing. At least they could try to help. She was right that Dr. Engel would be dead as soon as his usefulness was over.

  Still, the consequences of the Set cult rejoining the pieces of the artifact were too great. Her father might need to be collateral damage.

  Ash eased his phone out of his pocket and texted Philip, keeping one eye on the girl.

  ASH: The girl has the original & can translate. Will lead me to pieces in return for her father’s rescue.

  PHILIP: No.

  ASH: We can move the pieces, make a new map. This is the safest way.

  PHILIP: Under no circumstances are you to hunt for the pieces. Stick to the plan. Contact me when you have the map.

  The plan. Ash sighed, deflated. His opportunity to find the Set artifact didn’t matter. He’d been so thrilled at the prospect. But Philip spoke for the god, and the god wasn’t concerned with Ash’s feelings.

  He stared at Memphis, watching her back slowly rise and fall. Her long hair fell over her face, but he could still see her eyes were closed. She was asleep. Ash leaned forward, reaching for the backpack she’d stashed under the seat. She had refused to check it or to let him put it in the overhead bin. Even now, one strap was wound loosely around her ankle, which dangled from the seat.

  Ash moved with excruciating slowness, pulling the strap off her, one inch at a time. The map had to be in the backpack—it was the only thing she’d brought. Once he’d freed the strap, he carefully slid the pack toward himself.

  Her foot came down hard on his hand.

  Ash gasped and looked up at her.

  Her eyes were still closed, her breath still slow. But she wasn’t asleep. She pushed her foot down on his hand once more for emphasis, and a small smile spread across her face. “Dream on,” she said.

  * * *

  The car was a new, low-slung Ferrari. M really wanted to make fun of Ash. Who rented a Ferrari? But she had to admit it was nice to go flying down an Italian road in luxury. She and Dad had never traveled like this—it was always beaten-up old Jeeps for them.

  She shifted her gaze from the landscape to Ash. He was undeniably gorgeous. Rich, well dressed, well spoken. And, apparently, batshit insane. Why had Dad trusted him? Maybe there’d been no other choice. The idea of her father being so desperate made her stomach churn. She needed to focus. On Ash. On his lunacy.

  “What?” he asked, not taking his eyes off the road.

  “You can’t really believe all that stuff. You don’t, right?” M asked. “That a bunch of cultists can glue a few pieces of rock back together and—bam!—an ancient god will pop up and destroy the world?”

  A muscle in his cheek twitched, but he didn’t say anything.

  “It doesn’t even make sense,” she went on. “Why would he destroy the world when he just finally got back into it?”

  That one at least got a frown from him, but still no answers. She shrugged. “We need to stop on the way for spelunking gear. And snorkels. I reserved some at a shop on the coast.”

  “Spelunking gear?” Ash sounded appalled. “Why?”

  “It’s good to have when spelunking,” she replied. If he was going to be silent and obtuse, she would be too.

  He sighed. “I thought we were going to some Roman ruins. Are there caves involved? Water?”

  “Both.”
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  “Well, how do you know there’s a piece there?”

  “I read the map.”

  “And what did it say?” The impatience in his voice was increasing. Good.

  “It said a bunch of stuff in a language you don’t know,” M replied.

  Suddenly Ash cut the wheel, veering off the road and onto a rocky shoulder before jerking to a stop. “Why should I follow you anywhere if you won’t tell me the reason we’re going?”

  “Why should I lead you anywhere if you won’t tell me where my father is?” she countered.

  The anger in his eyes evaporated. He stared out the window. Silently.

  Were they going to sit there all day? M gazed across the landscape, watching a wisp of steam rise in the distance. This area had a lot of volcanic activity; even with the car windows closed and the AC on she could smell the sulfur in the air.

  “I’m not the one who took your father,” Ash finally said.

  “But you’re not helping me get him back, either,” she said.

  “I don’t have a choice!” he burst out. “I’m already going against orders by even being here with you. The least you can do is tell me why we’re here.”

  M turned to look at him. “Do you think I don’t know that you’d knock me out and steal the map if you only knew where I hid it?”

  His perfect nose wrinkled in disgust. “I don’t use violence to get my way.”

  “Good for you,” she murmured. He did appear to be shocked. An image of Nick on the cafeteria floor flitted through her mind, and she winced. “I do, sometimes. By accident.”

  Ash’s baffled expression made her laugh.

  “Okay, look, I don’t trust you and I know you only want my map. But the place we’re going is probably dangerous. We need to use the buddy system,” M told him. “So can we agree to be a team for today?”

  “Yes,” he said. “But I’m not going anyplace dangerous without knowing what brings me there.”

  M paused. “Fair enough. I’ll explain while you drive.”

  He managed to hide his satisfaction, mostly. They pulled back onto the road. She ran over the translation in her mind, trying to remember everything her father had worked out about this location. Ash was assuming she’d found some hidden clue, but the truth was she’d gotten lucky when she picked this place—lucky the Set cult hadn’t already come to Baiae on her father’s recommendation. Why hadn’t he sent them here? Was he lying to them about his translations?

  What if I never find the decryption key? I can’t keep bluffing forever.

  “There are hieroglyphs,” she said. “That’s what the map is, just a bunch of glyphs. It describes locations, it doesn’t show them on a map the way we think of it.”

  “Yes, I know.” His tone was dry.

  “Well, sorry, genius, I didn’t think you’d seen my father’s copy,” she retorted. “Anyway, the glyphs for this one were goddess, cave, dead, and tree thief.”

  “Tree thief?”

  “It’s a weird one,” she said. “And there was also a phonogram. You know what that is, of course.”

  He smirked. “A group of hieroglyphs that symbolize a sound. We do study the ancient texts. It’s just the hidden meanings that have been forgotten.”

  “By you.” She smiled. “Anyway, this phonogram is for Vesuvius.”

  “The volcano?”

  She nodded. “It’s right over there, you know.” She pointed out the window.

  “We’re not spelunking in lava, are we?” he asked. “Because that equipment would be quite expensive.”

  M laughed, surprised he had any sense of humor at all. “Not lava, but the water might be hot.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. Listen. Vesuvius means it’s in Italy. So we start with that. Then the glyphs for goddess and tree thief obviously lead to a sibyl.”

  “There is nothing obvious about that,” he said.

  “Well, goddess means goddess,” M replied. “Tree thief was harder to understand.” It had taken her father more than a year to figure it out. “You’ve read The Aeneid, right?”

  “I read the CliffsNotes…”

  “Aeneas visits an oracle, the sibyl of Cumae, and she tells him the future,” M said. “She also tells him to offer the Golden Bough to the goddess Proserpina. The Golden Bough was mistletoe.”

  “It was?”

  “It was. It’s a very sacred plant,” M said. “But I’m telling this backwards. There is a type of oak mistletoe called Phoradendron. Tree thief.”

  Ash frowned. “You’ve lost me.”

  “In Greek. ‘Phoradendron’ means tree thief in Greek. Mistletoe is a parasitic plant that grows on trees.”

  “How did Greek get involved in this?”

  “Whoever wrote this map didn’t have a hieroglyph for mistletoe—such a glyph wouldn’t have existed in the language of the ancient Horus priests, because mistletoe never grew in Egypt.”

  “But by the time they were making this map, they had left Egypt,” Ash guessed.

  M nodded. “They spoke Greek, of course. It was the tongue the last pharaohs of Egypt used,” M said. “So they did the best they could. You know, use glyphs to say tree thief, assume your descendants will still know Greek, and hope they figure it out. Like we figured it out.”

  Ash looked at her with fresh interest, but didn’t say anything. M supposed he was embarrassed he didn’t even speak Greek, let alone the Horus language.

  “Anyway,” she went on, “a goddess that had something to do with mistletoe, and was in Italy. Initially Proserpina seemed like the clear answer.”

  “She’s the queen of Hades,” Ash put in. “I know that one. Hades kidnapped her and she ate a pomegranate.”

  Pomegranate seeds. M rolled her eyes. “She’s a goddess of the underworld, so that would explain the glyph for dead. And we know she liked mistletoe because that’s what Aeneas gave her as a gift. So it made sense.”

  “But?” he prompted.

  “But the glyph for cave didn’t fit. There are no Italian caves that were really sacred to Proserpina. So it had to be the sibyl.”

  “The sibyl who talked to Aeneas?” Ash sounded skeptical. “But you said he visited a sibyl in Cumae. We’re going to Baiae.”

  “Right. But from other myths, we know there were two sibyls in this area. One in Cumae, one in Baiae. Or maybe it was always just one and the locations got confused. Who knows? Over time, stories get twisted so much that their real meaning is lost.” M smiled. That was her father’s favorite warning when he spoke of mythology.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “The sibyl in Baiae supposedly lived in a cave that hid the entrance to the underworld,” M explained. “So, dead and cave. Simple.”

  He snorted. “Convoluted.”

  “Well, let’s hope it’s right,” she muttered.

  By the time they reached the ruins, it was midafternoon. The place was nearly deserted—most tourists went to the nearby archeological park instead, since it had an entire underwater town to explore. These ruins, in contrast, were crumbling and overgrown, and had never been properly excavated. Baiae had been a resort town once, full of villas and enormous bath houses, during the Roman Republic. But M wasn’t looking for those. Dad’s translation of the glyphs meant “the sibyl cave at Baiae,” and that’s where she was going.

  “Wikipedia says Cleopatra was in Baiae when Julius Caesar was murdered,” Ash commented, looking at his phone instead of the ruins.

  “Guess he should’ve gone with her,” M said, scanning the stone walls for the entrance. Other than a half-asleep guard near the road and a couple of Japanese tourists eating a picnic lunch, they had the place to themselves. M knew what the tunnel entry looked like, but it was small and hard to find.

  “Mistletoe,” Ash said. “I hope this means we’re in the right place.”

  M followed his gaze to a scrubby tree that had seen better days. Half of it was covered with oddly shaped balls of leaves, almost like tumbleweeds stuck in the tre
e branches. One or two had sprouted small yellow flowers shaped like berries. On impulse, M went over and broke off a sprig. “Can’t hurt to bring the golden bough with us,” she commented.

  Ash nodded. “It worked for Aeneas.”

  M stuck the branch in her jacket pocket, telling herself it was good luck. A minute later, she broke into a smile. She found it: a tall, narrow crack in an ancient wall abutting a hillside. It was half hidden by a pile of boulders. A thick, rusted chain stretched across the opening.

  “It’s off-limits,” Ash said.

  “You’re right, there’s no way we can step over the chain,” M deadpanned.

  “Or limbo under it.” He winked.

  M grinned, catching his eye a second too long before glancing quickly back at the guard and climbing over the chain into the darkness beyond. Ash followed.

  Inside, the tunnel was barely wide enough for her shoulders to fit. Ash had to turn and walk sideways. When they were far enough in that nobody would see, M snaked her hand up and turned on the small head lamp she was wearing. The light illuminated the tunnel about three feet ahead, but there was nothing to see.

  “Does it open up soon?” Ash asked.

  “Nope,” she said cheerfully. “It stays narrow the whole way down. Why? Claustrophobic?”

  “Well, I’m not a fan of being squeezed like a tube of toothpaste,” he said. “How could anyone think this was an acceptable tunnel?”

  “It’s the sibyl’s cave,” she said. “She was probably smaller than you.”

  “How did Aeneas fit?” he complained.

  M sighed. “You know he’s a fictional character, right?”

  “You said he visited the sibyl.”

  “In the story he does. Stories are based on truths, so you can use them as a guide. But you can’t take them literally,” she explained, talking to keep her own panic at bay. Between the dense blackness ahead, the stone walls pressing in on her, and Ash completely blocking the way out, she was anxious. “Nobody really thinks Aeneas existed. He was a way for the Romans to say they were descended from the Trojans. Aeneas was from Troy, and after his journeys he founded the city that later became Rome.”