by Kailin Gow
Chapter 16
Weekends came all too quickly when I was in Pompeii. The worst part about it was that they left me feeling lonely and antsy, not able to fully enjoy the sights and sceneries of my overseas excursion. Plus, what Salvatore showed me was much more exciting—a personal tour from a local. You couldn’t beat that!
My mind was so distracted with what Salvatore was doing that day, though. Telling his family news that changed the entire course of what they had planned out for his life was highly significant, and I had no idea how it would go. As I’d learned during my time in Pompeii, the best place to take my mind off of my worries was to take it to the place I was most curious about—the dig site. I headed off to the site, all my co-workers gone, out and about on their weekend adventures, and hoped to find some adventure in the ruins I’d stumbled upon. There had been one area that I’d kept thinking about because it seemed that there was something more there than what had been uncovered thus far. Call it boredom, distraction, or determination—I wanted to find it first. The fact that I’d made a connection between Salvatore’s heritage and that site had nothing to do with it either…or so I kept telling myself.
The weekend ferry captain was used to seeing me on the boat most every weekend and I sat up front near him, not able to talk a lot, but a little. He spoke way more English than I spoke Italian. The rest of the boat had tourists on it that could go to places on the island that were not a part of the dig site.
With my weathered and dirty hiking boots, field pants, and t-shirt with jean shirt over it, I made my way up the rocky area to the dig site and didn’t waste any time going to the place that I had on my mind.
From what I had uncovered thus far, it seemed that Salvatore’s had an aunt from many generations ago that had lived at that specific site. What was she like? I couldn’t help but imagine that the two of us were the same. She had been obligated to marry someone that would promote the family’s social status, just as I had been, and she seemed to rebel against it for love, which I had also done. And, of course, there was Salvatore, who was going to attempt to rebel against the ‘chosen one’ for him to pursue a life of love and passion with me. Who would have ever thought that I, Taylor First, would be living a life that sounded like a soap opera? Not me!
“Here you are,” I said out loud. I was excited with no one to share it with so the words just came out despite there being no answer. It felt nice to have the silence of the site broken, though. All I’d been able to hear were a few laughing tourists from far away on the island.
I walked into the house, which seemed to be underground because of the built up ash, lava rock, and sediment from time and veered off to the left, where I believed I’d find another room that we hadn’t opened yet.
“I wish I had access to all the tools,” I mumbled. Professor Leanza took them to shore with him on the weekends because of their value and also to try and stop me from working too much. “Oh well, I’ll just have to be extra cautious and make do without them.”
With a small shove, I began to dig at the spot where there looked to be the top of a door. I kept going and going, feeling heat spots on my hands, which made me regret forgetting my gloves. As I cleared away the ash and soil, I found small artifacts, pieces such as broken pottery, sticks that looked to be old pens, perhaps, and every day tools, such as spoons and forks. I set them all aside carefully and kept on going, feeling more determined than ever to see what was on the other side of that door. If I’d had the proper equipment it would have been done already but that wasn’t the case.
I have nothing else to do, I thought.
“Salvatore, I want to help you discover something amazing about your family’s past,” I said, talking more loudly to make the time pass and me forget that my shoulders were really starting to ache.
Finally I got to the door knob of the room, which was more of a metal handle of sorts, not one that was modern like what I’d grown up with, and I pushed in, hoping to not be met with any resistance. I wasn’t sure how much more my muscles could take that day. I’d been going straight for five hours.
With a little bit of resistance, I finally got the door to loosen and open up, revealing a room that hadn’t been seen by anyone for close to two thousand years. For a second, I had to adjust my eyes but thanks to the sunny day, I could see quite well.
In front of me was a completely preserved room, one that hadn’t been interrupted by the events of the volcano that day or any of the mayhem that likely existed leading up to it. It was clearly a girl’s room, as evidenced by the delicate, ornate features. There was also an olive theme present and in order to identify with it more I decided to call the girl Olivia. From there, I began to dig into speculation about her life.
“Were you here on that day it all happened, Olivia?” I asked, looking around and half expecting an answer from her. I didn’t think she was because everything was so tidy and orderly. When people were experiencing the fear of the volcano two things led us to believe that there was anything but serenity happening on the island city. First, people’s fingerprints were found clawing into their walls as they tried to escape before drawing their last breaths; and, second, there was ash everywhere. If Olivia had been in this room, her body would still be there and likely be mummified because of the lack of oxygen—something I had to be mindful of.
I made the hole a bit wider, making sure I could breathe easy enough and have as much light as possible in the room. Afterward, I walked over to a dresser that was in the corner and saw elaborate trinket boxes on top with mosaic prints and golden carvings. They were amazing.
Her room was so magical to me, making me dive into the possible story of her life and I could see that it was a well-off life but what I didn’t understand was what had happened to Olivia. Did she die in the volcano? I hoped not. I preferred to think that she’d made it safely away with her lover and married him, leaving everything else behind. It was wildly romantic and a heartwarming thought to know that something like that could happen in real life, not just in a romantic fairytale.
“A preserved piece of life and I’m the first to see it,” I said, marveling at my good fortune. I really loved my internship and couldn’t imagine doing anything better. It was like I was meant to be there.
I walked over to the bed and lifted up the pillow, which was very small and firm, unlike most pillows you’d find today, but it had a soft, silky covering over it that was embroidered and showed the family crest on it, too. Underneath the pillow was a small round rock with painting on it. I could see a red heart and a name on it. It looked like it perhaps said Emilio but I couldn’t be certain.
There was also some writing on the back of it in Italian that I couldn’t read. I pulled out my telephone and snapped a picture of it and sent it off in a text message to Salvatore, hoping he could depict it for me. I also typed in: Amazing find. This is from your auntie’s bedroom…a trinket to show she had a lover.
About five minutes later I got a text message back from Salvatore: Amazing yes but you should not be there alone. It’s not safe.”
I smiled, thinking it was endearing that he was so protective of me but then I heard a noise behind me. I whipped my head around and saw that the dirt behind the door was starting to pile in and the walls were collapsing, making the perfect room an instant disaster.
“Oh no!” I shouted and ran over to try and get out but it was too late. The dirt ran down like an avalanche, before I could get out. Now I was trapped in this thousand year old room.
I screamed, which I quickly realized was dumb. There was no one to hear me and if I panicked I’d use up the oxygen more quickly. In fact, it had likely been the sudden burst of oxygen that made the room collapse in.
I’m an idiot, I thought. However, I knew I had to act calmly and quickly. There would be plenty of time to reprimand myself for doing such a foolish thing later.
Looking around the room, I could barely see anything and had to rely on my memory of where everything was more than any a
ctual light. I had a flashlight with me but it wasn’t that bright and I didn’t want to risk it going dead any more than I wanted to end up being the dead body preserved in this room.
Chapter 17
The tools I had to work with to dig me out of the buried room were limited and trying to do it in the dark was nearly impossible. The thought of not having any light at all terrified me and if I was the type of person to be spooked by horror movies I would have been out of luck. Fear kept trying to seep into my mind and control me but I wouldn’t let it.
It pained me to do so but faced with life or death, I was going to use the artifacts around me to dig my way out of that room as carefully and quickly as possible. I could already feel myself getting a bit more lightheaded and my thoughts were becoming more muddled, making me most nervous about collapsing from lack of oxygen and eventually suffocating or being too weak to call out to someone on the slight chance someone would be looking for me.
Using a small, wooden bowl that I had seen on the dresser in the room, I began to dig at the dirt carefully, hoping I wouldn’t cause a further avalanche of dirt to flood into the room. I scooped it downward carefully and stepped on top of each new scoop, hoping I could make a ladder to eventually get me to the surface where I could at least get some light and fresh air, if not get out.
There was a noise behind me and I turned around quickly, trying to peer into the pitch darkness and see what it was. Of course I couldn’t see anything but I was positive I heard something. Plus, it sounded like the ground was trembling.
What if that volcano is getting ready to erupt again by chance, I thought. Wouldn’t that be ironic!
Tired and my fingers aching, I had to take a rest. Not wanting to move in case I couldn’t find where I’d been digging again, I sat down and stared straight ahead. A small light was darting around, making me wonder if it was a ghost.
“Who are you?” I asked, knowing that if I heard an answer I’d be likely to have a heart attack on the spot than anything else. There was only silence, though.
As I rested, I thought of all the spirits and wandering souls that might be trapped in the earth around there. There were many skeletons and I was grateful that I hadn’t uncovered any of them because I didn’t appreciate the thought of being trapped in the dark room with them. Olivia had worked hard to leave a room in proper condition and my curiosity had put an abrupt end to its eons of preservation.
“Does Salvatore know I’m missing? I kept thinking that question and my instincts told me that he may have realized something was up—if for no other reason, for the fact that I’d stopped texting him after that one cautionary message he sent me. He knew that even if I was busy I’d always respond to his message.
My body started trembling and I had to realize that I was closer to dying than I was to living at that moment. Adrenaline burst through my veins and I let out a loud scream, which, in turn, made some dirt fall down from above. I almost had to slap myself to remind myself to still be cautious and not surrender hope. If I did, I was certain all would be lost.
“Time to dig again,” I whispered, barely able to muster up the strength to even hear my own voice talking.
I grabbed the bowl and began to dig at the dirt, moving more slowly than I had before and not even aware of if my eyes were open or closed most of the time. There was no difference in what I saw…my mind was playing tricks on me either way.
My right hand got a horrible cramp in it and I shook it but my left hand released the bowl, too numb to realize I didn’t have a firm grasp on it. Now there was noise in the darkness. The bowl tumbled down to the ground, landing with a dull thud. I quickly put the flashlight on and it took me only a split second to realize that it was too bright. My eyes were so accustomed to the darkness by that point.
On hands and knees, I crawled around the space, feeling the floor for the bowl and hoping that I’d find it again. If I didn’t, I had no other options that I could think of.
“You can’t die today,” I said, trying to keep myself motivated despite my ever increasing lethargic feeling.
Shit, I thought. I can’t feel it anywhere. I kept on crawling and my head bumped into something. I felt it and realized that it was the dresser. My hands began to feel underneath it because I was fairly certain it was tall enough that the small bowl could have rolled underneath. I began to feel around and something brushed against the top of my hand, making me jump for a moment. I reached underneath to feel what it was and discovered that it was rectangular and seemed to have a leather cover on it. It was wedged in a piece of wood underneath a drawer and I wiggled it out and pulled it out, feeling it in the dark.
“It feels like a journal,” I said. The thought was so exciting and I shook my head, trying to clear my thoughts a bit. It was getting harder to do with each passing minute.
I put the piece of leather bound goods into the inside of my jean shirt and continued to reach around for the bowl, which I could not find. It made a tear spring to my eyes. “Who am I kidding? Even if I found it I don’t have the strength to dig anymore.
In that moment, whether it was a demand to satisfy my curiosity about Olivia or an attempt to not think about the inevitable—that I was probably going to die—I grew determined to find out what was in that leather wrapped package. I turned on the flashlight again, squinting until my eyes adjusted enough so I could look at where I was shining it.
There were two ties on the leather and I gently tugged at them and they easily opened up, revealing a thorough, yet amateur set of drawings on the backside of the leather. As carefully as I could, I opened it up so it was all visible. There was some writing, most of which I could not read, and a map there with dates, which I was able to read from my work on the dig.
I stared at the map and a wide smile slowly spread across my face and I felt a spark of excitement. “You clever minx, because you and your lover planned on meeting up, eloping days before the eruption, you escaped all this!”
The joy I felt at knowing that Olivia had been given a chance and had likely been with Emilio to start a new life together made me so happy. I knew that I could die knowing they’d made it and that was good enough for me at that moment. On a personal level, I could die knowing that I’d risked a great deal for love and adventure. That meant something to me and so much had changed in the past half a year. I’d learned so much about myself and was grateful for the journey.
And, as many people near death often realize, I felt that I truly did love Salvatore and that’s who I was meant to be with and if I got out of my situation I would not squander that knowledge.
One last sense of perseverance immersed my body in energy and I put my hand down, laughing as I bumped the bowl on my left side. It had only fallen about a foot away from where I’d been seated. “Maybe this has all happened for a reason,” I said softly.
I grabbed the bowl and began to dig. Then, as if I was being called to my afterlife, I saw a hand reach down and it was surrounded by light. I reached up, determined to touch it and go wherever I was destined to go. When I did connect with that hand, I felt a familiar spark.
Then everything went black.
Chapter 18
My body was being pulled through a hole ahead of me, which was growing bigger and I could hear a familiar voice repeating, “Tay, Tay.” It sounded panicked and I opened my eyes, surprised that it was so dark outside.
“Salvatore?” I asked softly.
“Yes baby, close your eyes.”
I did and that was the last thing I remembered until I woke up, lying in an unfamiliar bedroom with one set of intense, passionate, dark brown eyes staring down at me. I immediately recalled what I’d been doing.
“I found the map…the map about Olivia,” I whispered.
“What are you talking about?” Salvatore asked, looking at me oddly.
Then I looked around and realized that I was in a hospital room. “Oh my God, the map, where is it?” I asked, jumping up and feeling my heart starting to race.
“Calm down, baby, you’re okay. The map is over there,” Salvatore said. “You have to stay calm. You’ve been through a lot, okay.”
“Get the map, please,” I asked, smiling softly at Salvatore. I’ll admit, even in my weak state I knew that he’d never resist my look.
“You don’t have to use your feminine wiles, I’m glad to get it,” he said with a laugh. “I am so glad you’re awake. Your parents will be pleased and the doctors, too. I should get them.”
