The Minoan Legacy

by R G Peterson

  Later that day at lunch Nick shared with the others that he had reacquired Wind. They reacted with great delight to the news. Grace smiled and gave him an I-told-you-so look before resting her head momentarily on his shoulder.

  Chapter 38

  “So, what about what your mom wrote?”

  They gathered at Luigi’s after their latest hockey victory. Terry agreed to join them only after much coaxing by Anthony. He relented when Anthony mentioned the others had noticed him pulling away.

  What he refused to tell Anthony was he didn’t trust his emotions around Nick. He was afraid he would either begin to cry all over again or shout at him with the rage over the injustice he felt with the loss of two of his four powers. It was exceptionally disheartening to Terry that Nick had reacquired those exact Elements. After years of wanting, hoping and needing it to be him, and finally possessing all four Elements – especially after Nick had not gained the last one, Earth –Terry reveled in the belief that he was the One Spoken of in the Prophecy. But now, what was he to make of it? He refused to believe he had lost Water and Wind. Maybe, he thought, he had suppressed it like Nick. But why? After all, wasn’t he the twin who wanted to be The One? He cherished the thought of being the most powerful person on the face of the planet. No, it just couldn’t be. So, until he was certain, he made a vow not to share it with anyone.

  Although they won with ease, Terry did not play in his usual smooth, efficient manner. Terry chalked his poor performance to stressing over the knowledge that the Clan wanted to discuss their latest find after the game.

  Once they had ordered their usual fare, Nick launched into what he had discovered so far. “The book is six-hundred and four pages long, more than double what Thanatos gave us. His was about two-forty. As far as I can tell, it contains most of the pages we took pictures of in the archives before it fell into the sea. Including the section we didn’t get a chance to quite finish.”

  Terry and Anthony shared a knowing look as they remembered they were unable to complete that task before Nick told everyone they had to leave the archives.

  “Did you find anything helpful?” Miriam asked.

  Nick nodded. “Yeah, quite a bit, actually. I only glanced at most of it, but when I got to the last part it was mainly prophecies. Most of which have come true over time. Like the fall of their civilization. The rise of different empires, like Greece and Rome. And if you read it a certain way, the rule of Napoleon. It talks about a lot of the wars that’ve occurred. You know, like the English and French wars, our split with England and the world wars. Although they didn’t call them that. It also talked about some discoveries that they hadn’t yet found. Heart transplants, television, cellphones – at least it sounded like they meant cellphones – sorry, and stuff like that.”

  “Anything that’d help us?” Maddy asked.

  “Yeah, kind of.” Seeing the way everyone looked at him he added, “Yeah, I know, I’ll get to that in a sec. Anyway, they had a similar prophecy to what the 8th Mayan Prophecy had. You know the whole; one will come along who possesses all four Elements thing. They mentioned this person would be a twin, but never mentioned the ally part. And they didn’t give a specific date like the Mayans did. Just that it would be thousands of years after the fall of their civilization.”

  “So what about what your mom wrote? Is there anything there about that?” AJ asked.

  “Yeah, and again, kind of?”

  Everyone gave him exasperated looks.

  Maddy grabbed his hand and said, “Spit it out, laddie. Yeh’re drivin’ us mad.”

  “Yeah, well, okay. It speaks ‘bout comin’ up with a way to insure the language would never die out. That there would always be someone who could read it. Of course when they left Minoa there were thousands of people who could read it. But they knew that over time the language would die out. So they passed the task for that to the Watchers – like Gabriella. The Watchers were charged with imparting it to one Element at a time. When that Element died, they would then transfer the knowledge to someone else. It kinda said that along the way that person would also be able to…read…decipher…understand,” Nick shrugged his shoulders as if he couldn’t quite grasp the right word, “other languages of the places the Minoans had traveled to as well.”

  When he paused, Grace said, “But there’s two of you. You and Ligeia.”

  Nick nodded. “Yeah, it seems they saw that too. They predicted that one of the fallen Watchers would give that ability to a person who would use it to help those who wanted to rule the world, while one of the faithful Watchers would impart it to a person who they saw as more worthy. So they split and since around the 15th century there have been two people who can read their language. One who would side with, um, they referred to it as ‘the righteous group.’ The other person who can read it would be – um, it sounded like ally but not really an ally. More like a helper.”

  “Possibly an assistant?” Grace offered.

  “Yeah, I guess. That sounds about right. Anyway, that second person would be a part of the side that held the same kind of views as Thanatos.”

  “Like Ligeia?” AJ stated the conclusion all of them had already leapt to.

  “Yeah, like Ligeia,” Nick answered with a small chuckle.

  Grace reached over and took hold of Nick’s hand, encouraging him to continue because he had abruptly stopped talking. He offered her a weak smile.

  “Anyway, since that time there’s always been two. So it seems when our mom died, someone or something passed it on to me. And that’s how I can read it.”

  Terry, unable to hide his eagerness, asked, “Was there anything said about one of the twins losing his gifts?”

  Nick assumed Terry was simply curious as to why Nick had lost all of his powers. “There was a strange prediction that was very unclear. It said something like, ‘both will gain most and then turn about.’ But, like I said, it’s pretty unclear because that’s all it said.”

  “How ‘bout the riddles? Any mention o’ the ring o’ the bracelet?” Maddy queried.

  “Nah, nothing. Sorry.”

  They all sat silent, reading their own thoughts into what Nick had discovered. He brought them out of their musings when he said, “I haven’t read the entire book yet, of course. So there could be more. But…”

  “Yes,” Grace asked.

  “One last thing. It said that Aether…Wait a minute I wrote it down to make sure I get it right.” He pulled a crumpled piece of paper out of his pocket, laid it on the table and tried to smooth it before reading, “Four no match for Aether. The remedy lies among the twilight skinned people across the Great Waters who believed us to be feathered gods.”

  “Aether?” the boys all muttered at once. “Feathered gods,” the girls said together.

  Instinctively, Grace reached down and touched the Quetzalcoatl statue Nick had given her and that she carried with her as her good luck charm.

  Nick took in the astonished faces, “Yeah, but that’s not all. In the margins of the book on that page my mom wrote in English, Plumed Serpent, followed by about six question marks. Then she wrote something else. Go to, the place of flight mural.”

  Chapter 39

  “So what’s he been telling you?”

  The Manitowoc Ship Builders breezed through their hockey regional and headed to Madison to play in the State Tournament on March 3rd. They hoped they would be playing the 4th and 5th as well.

  Their first-round match proved to be an easy victory against the Homestead Knights. Nick recorded his sixth straight shutout since coming back from his near death experience. The visions played loud and clear in his head despite him trying to ward them off and “play it straight,” as Grace suggested. But it was like trying not to think of an elephant standing on one leg if someone mentioned one. AJ scored three times and Braden Smith scored a fourth. Terry struggled whenever he was on the ice. He was a step or two behind the action, often mishandling the puck when it was passed to him. Fortunately, none of his mista
kes had resulted in the Knights scoring. Unfortunately, he was letting it affect him more and more.

  After the team’s post game meal, AJ and Nick went to Terry’s room to talk to him.

  “So what’s going on?” Nick asked, once they had closed the motel room door.

  “Whadaya mean?”

  AJ gave a short grunt of laughter, “We mean, you don’t seem to be all here. So where are you?”

  Terry shrugged and said, “Lay off me, I had one bad game. No big deal, right?”

  “Man, no offense, but you’ve been playin’ like dog crap for the last few weeks. Nowhere close to before. So what’s up?”

  “Nuthin’ really. Just this whole Thanatos thing, that’s all. The guy’s still buggin’ me. Givin’ me ‘lessons.’ You know?” Terry used air quotes to emphasize his statement. “Thank god, Red’s not there when he shows up, but I guess, I kinda made a deal. None of us want Anthony’s secret to get out, at least not ‘til he’s ready.”

  Nick and AJ sat up straight. “Is that what he threatened you with? Is that why you agreed?” Nick asked aghast.

  “Ah, well, yeah. Sorry, I shouldn’t have said anything. It’s between me and that asshat. And don’t go saying nothin’ to the girls. I don’t want Anthony finding out and feelin’ like it’s his fault. Okay?”

  “Okay,” Nick said reluctantly.

  “So what’s he been telling you?” AJ asked.

  “The usual stuff. The same garbage my father used to feed me. You know, how important it is to do what’s necessary. People are like kids and don’t know what’s good for them. Thanajerk sees it the same way as my father did. Tells me I should go to an Ivy League school and then into politics and eventually becoming President.”

  AJ stared at him mouth agape.

  Terry looked at AJ and then turned to Nick, “Um, I guess you didn’t tell him?”

  Nick shook his head, “I knew he’d freak out. I only told Grace. The others don’t know.”

  “Anthony does. I told him, too.”

  AJ hadn’t moved. His face was frozen, eyes unblinking, mouth open.

  Nick gave a short chortle. “Where’s Maddy when you need her.” He reached over and slapped AJ on the back. “Snap out of it, buddy.”

  AJ closed his mouth, but his eyes stayed wide staring first at Nick then back to Terry. After a few seconds, he said in an awe-induced voice, “President? President, like of the U.S. of A. President?”

  Terry looked away as Nick answered, “Yeah, the one and the same.”

  Nick turned his attention to Terry and encouraged him, “Come on, for the next few days we forget all about this other garbage. You’ve got to focus on the games ahead. If we’re going to win this thing we’re gonna need you.”

  That brought AJ around, “Ah, yeah, for sure. Carp a day-oh. You know size the day.”

  “Yeah, you gotta size the day,” Nick said with a chuckle. Then he got serious. “We’ll all tackle this thing once the weekend is over. Okay?”

  “Yeah, you’re right. I’m okay, you’ll see.”

  After Nick and AJ left to go back to their room, Terry sat up most of the night, first trying to control the water cascading out of the shower then willing wind to blow pieces of paper off the desk from across the room. At three in the morning he gave up and slept fitfully for the next four hours.

  Ω

  They handily won their Friday game 5-0. Once more Nick was brilliant in goal and AJ equally so on the offensive end. Terry, although slightly better than the day before, struggled.

  The girls drove down the day of the game, but Anthony had a basketball regional and had to stay back in Manitowoc. Coach Johnson set a curfew that started five minutes after the team got back to its hotel so there was no way AJ and Nick could share with the girls what had happened the night before. Besides, AJ was so locked into what they were trying to accomplish that he barely acknowledged the girls when he did see them.

  Terry once more had a rough night. He kept rolling the events of the past few months round in his head in an attempt to make sense of it all. Near four in the morning, he convinced himself he had done the same thing Nick had, that he had suppressed his skills, and one day soon they would come roaring back. After all, he reasoned, Nick never acquired Earth. Only he had. He had to be The One of the prophecy. He just needed to relax. It would come.

  The night of the championship game the tension was so great inside the Manitowoc locker room that hardly anyone spoke. Players’ usual routines were discarded. There was no music. Worse, there was no banter. Coach Johnson tried to lighten the mood, but to no avail. It was as if someone had wound a guitar string an octave too high.

  The first period ended in a scoreless tie. Despite, or because he was so nervous, Nick’s visions were stronger than ever. He easily stopped the six shots on goal by the La Crosse Central Bears. AJ looked as if he had taken puck-handling lessons from Terry. His passes were off and the two shots on goal he attempted were nowhere near their mark.

  Coach Johnson addressed the team between periods. He stayed encouraging and upbeat. “It’s okay, guys. We’re okay. Now that we have a period behind us we’ll be fine. A little nervous at first, but I can see you’re starting to get into the game. Let’s move the puck a little quicker and a little more on target. We’ll be fine. Nick, great job. Keep it up. Okay, let’s go get ‘em.”

  They trundled out to the ice and warmed up for the second period. As Terry skated past, Nick noticed a look he hadn’t seen in months. It could only mean trouble. As AJ glided toward Nick he motioned for him to come over and talk.

  “Keep an eye on Terry would you? I think he’s off his meds. He’s got that scary look going on.”

  AJ patted him on his pads, nodded and skated off.

  Halfway through the second period, with Terry’s line on the ice, Terry mishandled the puck once more. A La Crosse player picked it up and headed toward Nick on a breakaway. Nick had it under control as he saw where and when the player was going to take his shot. But he also saw Terry come after the player and swing his stick at the kid from behind. He signaled to AJ for help, but he hesitated to come off the team bench for fear of being called for a penalty.

  When Nick saw that no help was on the way, he swung his goalie stick from his right side to the left, but in mid-swing he made it look as if he lost control and dropped it. He reached down as if to pick it up and touched the ice sending a ripple toward Terry, knocking him off his skates and sending him sliding into the boards at the end of the rink. At the same time Nick stuck out his leg and deflected the shot toward his reacquired stick. He gave a swift backhanded flick of the puck up the ice, toward the center redline – the area of the boards between the two teams’ benches. It was as if Nick had hit a slap shot from his goal. The puck caromed off the board and sailed toward the opponent’s net. The opposing goalie lost sight of the puck until it was almost on top of him. He scrambled to cover the corner of the goal, but in his haste he slipped and over extended. The puck, having lost much of its momentum, dribbled under his outstretched leg.

  Ship Builders 1 – Bears 0.

  Nick’s teammates swarmed the ice and buried him at the bottom of a celebration pile. Terry, who seconds before looked as if he wanted to kill someone, jumped for joy and joined the small mountain of players lying on top of Nick.

  As the players skated back to the bench, Terry looked over his shoulder at Nick and shook his head in disbelief. Nick watched as Terry’s broad smile turned forlorn. His shoulders drooped and his head dropped as if his whole world had just come apart.

  AJ scored a second goal two minutes later. The La Crosse goalie was so shook that everyone in the arena sensed the game was over. Manitowoc scored two more times in the third period.

  The only drama left in the game was whether La Crosse would score. But as they only attempted two more shots on goal the rest of the game – which Nick easily stopped – it proved to be anticlimactic. Unlike what he had so often done in the past, Nick gave no thought whats
oever of allowing them to score once Manitowoc had a big lead. He wanted the shutout and the record for fewest goals allowed in tournament history even if it meant sharing it with one other player.

  Nick was named Most Outstanding Player for the tourney. AJ, with a smile as wide as the Grand Canyon, shook his head thinking back to the time when Nick was unaffectionately called “the Sieve” for allowing virtually everything shot on goal to get past him.

  The team, their fans and boosters went to Ella’s Deli and Ice Cream Parlor. The Clan, now including Anthony, (they had lost their game the night before) eventually got a table all their own. They laughed and joked about the game and how Nick’s goal had turned things around.

  Grace gave him a quizzical look, to which he replied, “Nope. Didn’t use my water element to do that. It was all me.”

  Although Terry joined in and smiled occasionally, he was quite subdued for someone whose team had just won its first State title. His mind was back in Manitowoc and the events that he suspected were about to unfold.

  Chapter 40

  “It shouldn’t have bothered him much, if at all”

  When they arrived in Manitowoc late that night Grace flew over to Nick’s bedroom and tapped lightly on his window with her beak. As quietly as possible Nick raised the sash and Grace flew inside and morphed. She threw her arms around Nick and gave him a long kiss.

  “Congratulations,” she said when she pulled slightly away and stared deep into his eyes. “I wish I could have done that earlier but…Well, anyway. How’s it feel? I mean to be State Champions. Oh, and Most Outstanding Player. I can’t imagine.”