“Do you believe that story?” Hector asked.
Ettore looked into his eyes. “I have never seen Pan myself,” he said. “But just because I haven’t seen something, this doesn’t mean it isn’t there, right?”
“Right,” Hector said.
“Sometimes when it’s hot in the field, and quiet, it’s almost like you can feel something. It’s as if all the different times that people have lived here are together at once.” Ettore shook his head and laughed. “I know—I sound crazy, right? But maybe this is why I became an archaeologist. I want to know my ancestors, the people who used to live here.” He yawned again and left.
His yawn made Hector yawn so long and hard that it felt like his jaw was going to pop.
His mother put her hand on his. “I know how you feel,” she said. “I want to crawl into bed and sleep for twenty-four hours. But it’s really best if you keep awake. If you fall asleep now you won’t wake up for ages and it will just take longer to get on Italian time.”
“So I’ll go watch TV,” he said. She shook her head.
“The fastest way to go to sleep is to watch TV in a language you don’t know,” she said. “Take it from one who’s been there. I’m going to try to figure out the rest of the words on that sherd. Why don’t you take a walk or something? Just don’t dig without someone there to supervise you.”
Hector didn’t need convincing. The last thing he wanted was to sleep—and dream—again. He decided to walk down to the dig.
The whole town seemed to be asleep. On the walk down all he heard was the faint whirr of some engine, and the noise just made him drowsier. He walked around the little hill near the excavation. It had gotten really hot. He wanted to go look at the olive trees but found that they were farther away than they appeared, so he sat down in the shade of a big rock and pulled off his shoes and socks, letting the air dry his sweaty feet. Someone had spray-painted ANGELA TI ADORO on the boulder in bright red. A small stream came down from the hill and flowed almost silently next to him, disappearing into the olive grove.
It was so quiet. Everything seemed to be waiting out the hour of Pan. Some insects buzzed, but that and the gurgle of the stream were all he heard. He leaned back against the rock. When he closed his eyes, he whirled with sleepiness, so he sat up straighter and shook his head.
He felt vaguely uneasy. It must be Ettore’s silly story about the hour of Pan. But despite his feeling of apprehension, he was having a hard time keeping his eyes open. Why didn’t anyone tell me jet lag felt so bad? he thought. It’s like you’re separated from your body. His eyelids grew even heavier. I’ll just close them for a minute, he told himself as once again the image of a spinning globe filled his mind.
* * *
He was in a red and brown landscape. The sky was so bright it burned his eyes, and the dry air pierced his nostrils. Gritty dust parched his throat.
“Time doesn’t work like that,” someone said behind him, but this time it wasn’t his mother. It was a young voice, a boy’s voice. Hector twisted his head, but whoever had spoken kept moving out of sight.
“Who are you?” Hector asked, still trying to catch a glimpse of the speaker.
There was no answer.
“What are you?”
“Rashna,” came the reply.
“Why are you haunting me?” he cried out, and his own voice woke him up.
6
Okay, that was enough. He’d had two nightmares in one day, and it wasn’t even night yet. He had to convince his mother to take him home. If she wanted to stay here with her Italian friends, fine. He could fly back by himself. Lots of people his age did it. He pictured the rest of the summer, with friends to hang out with, long lazy days at the lake, no bossy sister to tell him that it was her turn on the computer. He could stay up all night and sleep all day. No jet lag–induced nightmares. It would be great.
He might have to spend a lot of time on his own, though. Max was away at camp and Zach had moved to Pennsylvania as soon as school ended. Joaquin was spending the summer with his father in Costa Rica.
That was okay, though. Compared to having nightmares every time he closed his eyes, it would be better to go bike riding and swimming on his own.
Except his parents’ rule was that you needed a buddy when you went swimming. And it looked like a buddy was exactly what he’d be missing. And his dad would say that he was too busy to go to the lake or bike riding with him and that he should have stayed in Italy.
He leaned back against the boulder and tried to ignore the prickling in his eyes that meant that tears were threatening. He rubbed the back of his hand against his eyelids and thought, Stupid dust.
Voices from the dig caught his attention. Cautiously he rose to his feet and leaned around the boulder to see who it was. It was some of the archaeologists from this morning, and it looked as if they were getting ready to get to work again. He walked the short distance back and looked into the trench where the bones had been found. But a tarp was laid over them and there was nothing to see.
Ettore appeared. “Oh, Hector, there you are,” he said. “Betsy was looking for you.”
“She told me to go for a walk,” Hector said. Why did his mother treat him like a little kid who would get lost?
“I know, but that was more than two hours ago.” Ettore pulled a cell phone from his pocket.
Two hours? Had he really slept for all that time? He shook his head, trying to clear it, as Ettore spoke into the phone.
“Betsy? È qui. Dormiva.” He laughed, said, “Eh già. Ciao,” and flipped the phone shut.
“She says you’re good at sleeping,” he said. “Come on. Let’s give a look to the new trench.” Before Hector could protest that there wasn’t any point, since he was going to get his mother to send him home soon, Ettore hopped down into an opening in the earth that looked darker and fresher than the other holes. He held up a hand to help Hector in. Honestly, thought Hector, ignoring the offer of assistance as he hopped down after the man, it’s not like I’m a baby. I can jump a few feet.
“Sorry,” Ettore said, lowering his arm. “I keep forgetting you’re eleven. Your mother sent me lots of pictures when you were a baby and I’m not used to you being big.”
“That’s okay,” Hector said. “I’m short for my age, anyway.” Now he couldn’t say anything about leaving Italy. Ettore would think he was acting like a little kid with hurt feelings.
“We just opened this trench last week,” Ettore was saying. He poked a finger thoughtfully into the soil and rubbed the dust between his fingers. “There’s something that interests me here. The grass above here was growing differently, and it made me think there might be something large under the ground. We have not dug very deeply yet, but I think that we may find a building.”
“What kind of building?” Hector asked.
Ettore shrugged. “That much, I do not know,” he said. “But we are in the center of the city, so it could be something important. Shall we find out?”
“Sure!” Hector said. Talking to his mom about the nightmares could wait. She hadn’t yet reappeared at the dig, anyway, and he didn’t feel like trekking all the way back up that steep hill to find her. Maybe that evening. If lunch was that good, he couldn’t wait to see what they’d serve for dinner.
“Where are your tools?” Ettore asked.
“Eh già,” Hector said as he hoisted himself out of the trench again, earning a grin from Ettore.
When he returned, clutching his collection of picks and brushes, Ettore was already at work. He moved over to make room for Hector, and for an hour or so they worked in companionable silence. Hector’s mother poked her head in and said something about him being a sleepyhead, but Hector just answered her briefly and kept on working. Scrape, poke, brush, shake. It could have gotten monotonous, but since there was always the chance that something might turn up, the time passed quickly.
When they put down their tools and hoisted themselves out of the trench, a breeze had sprung up and
the air was cooler. Ettore glanced at the sky.
“Perhaps it will rain,” he said. Hector nodded cautiously, his neck too stiff from bending close to the trench wall to allow him to look up. He wiped his tools with the cloth that Ettore passed him and slid them back in their pouch.
As Ettore stopped to talk with the freckled-faced archaeologist, Hector joined the stream of people heading up the slope to the opening in the city wall.
“What do you think they’ll have for dinner?” he asked his mother as she fell into step next to him.
“Oh, some kind of pasta first,” she answered. “And then, who knows? Why, are you hungry?”
“Starving,” he said, and she laughed.
“As usual. Watch out, or we’ll have to pay for two seats for you when we go back in August.”
“Speaking about going back—” he started, but she just went on as though he hadn’t said anything.
“And anyway, first a shower, then dinner,” she said. “You’re filthy, and dinner isn’t for another half hour.” She yawned. “What a long afternoon.”
“It went fast for me,” he said.
“Well, time’s relative,” she observed. “It’s not fair that it should go slower when you’re bored, but that’s the way it is. Why was it such a good afternoon, anyway? Did you find something else?”
“No.”
“Yes, we did.” Ettore had caught up with them. “We found discolorations in the soil that I think will show that the earth has been moved. Perhaps this is because something large was built there.”
“Like a temple,” Hector said, passing through the arch. He kept his eyes on the ground, not knowing why the thought of seeing that boy again made him so uneasy.
“I hope,” Ettore said. “A temple would be magnificent.”
“I didn’t see any discolorations,” Hector said.
“You need some experience, and you need to know how to see it,” Ettore said. “I will show you tomorrow.”
Dinner started with pasta, as his mother had predicted. Long strands of something like spaghetti, but flat, were served in a creamy cheese sauce, followed by pork chops and salad. There was more of that tasteless bread, and apples for dessert. They were small and dull-colored but so sweet and juicy that Hector ate three of them.
That must be why he was having so much trouble falling asleep, he thought an hour later as he flopped over on his narrow bed. He was wide awake and uncomfortably full. And the longer he lay there, the more alert he felt. He turned over again.
Well, no wonder he couldn’t sleep, with that bright light shining from his bedside table. Funny he hadn’t noticed it before. But where was it coming from? It wasn’t his clock; the red numbers that showed 11:46 and then 11:47 were dim and familiar. Had someone left a flashlight in a drawer and he had somehow turned it on by accident? He groped to find it and switch it off. Maybe then he could get some sleep.
But there was no drawer in the table. He picked up his summer reading book, which he’d halfheartedly started at bedtime, and the light that shot out at him from under it made him drop the book and cover his eyes.
After a moment, when his heart had stopped thumping and when he thought his eyes must have adjusted to the glare, he squinted out from behind his fingers.
It was coming from that Greek good-luck piece, or whatever it was. Maybe it was one of those glow-in-the-dark things.
But no. He had seen glow-in-the-dark toys before and their light was nothing like this. It was always pale green and very dim. This was pure white and so bright that he still couldn’t look directly at it. With his head half turned away, he wrapped his hand around the stone, hoping to muffle its glare with his fingers. As he did so, his stomach lurched with a feeling of panic.
What is with this crazy thing? he thought. Maybe it was radioactive. He made up his mind to show it to his mother. Surely she would have some logical explanation. He rose to his feet, the light streaming from between his fingers, and made his way out the bedroom door, then toward his mother’s room.
Instantly, the light went out. Hector’s eyes had been so dazzled that now he felt blind in the dark hallway, and he put his hand on the rail to steady himself. Now what? He couldn’t go to his mother with this cold, dark stone and tell her that it had been glowing. She’d say he’d been dreaming and send him back to bed. Then she’d tell everybody about it in the morning and they’d all have a good laugh at him. No thanks.
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 ju
mped 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.
On Etruscan Time Page 4
