“Well, if you’re busy, I won’t hold you up.”
“Sorry. I don’t mean to brush you off,” Harper apologized, and she paused when she reached the doors outside the faculty building. “But I’ll see you when I come home this weekend for Gemma’s play.”
Once she got off the phone with her dad, Harper headed inside to find Professor Pine’s office. She didn’t have him as a teacher, but she’d talked to her advisor, who’d referred her to him because of his archaeology experience.
When Harper had given him a call the day before to set up the appointment, she’d had to fabricate the backstory for how she’d found the scroll. He probably would’ve sent her to a psychologist if she started talking about monsters and curses. So she’d told him simply that her sister had found an old scroll in Bernie McAllister’s house when she was cleaning it out after he’d died, and they had a few questions about it.
Pine had been kind enough to set up a time to meet her in his office, although he sounded dubious about being able to help that much. Still, Harper was willing to follow any lead to find out more about the scroll.
Harper was getting a handle on the campus quicker than she’d expected and managed to find his office with five minutes to spare. The frosted glass on the door read PROFESSOR KIPLING PINE. She thought about waiting outside, but his door was partially ajar, so she gave a slight knock.
When he didn’t answer, she pushed it open wider and saw a man hunched over his desk. He appeared to be in his early thirties—a little young for all the traveling his office and reputation suggested—with blond hair combed to the side.
Earbuds ran from his ears to an iPad resting on his large oak desk, precariously close to an open can of Red Bull. In front of him he had a small box covered in symbols that reminded Harper of a cross between a cryptex puzzle and the Lament Configuration from Hellraiser.
The professor wore a small spyglass attached to his glasses, like the monoculars jewelers used to inspect diamonds. He had a tiny needlelike tool to poke at the box, then he typed rapidly on the iPad next to him, apparently documenting some miniscule discovery.
Since he was so immersed in his work, Harper took a moment to look over his office, which was rather hard to do since it was filled floor to ceiling.
His office was a mash-up of ancient Egyptian, steampunk, and technomodern. Artifacts and old books were overflowing from the shelves, mixed in with all kinds of vaguely antique gadgets. An ankh, an old globe with a spyglass protruding from the side, and a flashing digital scale all occupied the same shelf. Then there was a slick computer, the tablet on his desk, and something flashing a blue laser light buried in a corner among textbooks and newspapers written in Syrian.
Professor Pine’s office was like the strangest episode of Hoarders ever.
“Professor?” Harper asked hesitantly.
“Yes?” He lifted his head to look at her, peering out from around the monocular, and pulled out one of his earbuds.
Harper had to suppress a smile when she realized that he kinda did look like a young Indiana Jones. Unfortunately, he wasn’t sporting a tweed jacket or fedora. Instead, he wore a dress shirt that was unbuttoned to reveal the Joy Division T-shirt underneath.
“We had a meeting at one fifteen.” Harper gestured to one of four clocks he had in his office—the only one that told the correct time. “I’m a few minutes early, but I can come back—”
“No, come on in.” Professor Pine pulled out the other earbud and clicked something on the iPad before moving it aside on his desk, along with the puzzle box. “Harper Fisher, right?”
“Yeah.” She smiled at him.
He gestured to the ergonomic chair across from his desk. “Have a seat.”
“Thank you again for seeing me,” she said. She slipped off her backpack and dropped it by her feet as she sat down.
“On the phone, you said that your sister had found some kind of artifact?” The professor took off his glasses and set them on his desk.
“Yeah, it’s, um … an old scroll,” Harper said, struggling to find the right word for it.
“And she found it near where you live?”
“Kind of. An older family friend passed away recently, and we were cleaning out his house. She found the scroll among his things.”
He leaned back in his chair and rubbed his chin. “Where are you from again?”
“Maryland,” she answered. “Capri, specifically.”
“It’s probably not that ancient, but I could take a look at it,” Pine offered.
“I don’t have it with me, but I have some pictures on my phone.” Harper quickly pulled her phone out of her pocket.
He held his hand out for it. “I’ll have a look.”
Harper scrolled through her phone until she came to the photos she’d taken of the scroll. Over the weekend, she’d easily taken two dozen pictures.
“We think it’s ancient Greek,” Harper said as she handed him the phone.
“Well…” He put on his glasses, removing the monocular first, and examined the pictures, turning the phone to the side to get a better look. “It has some of the qualities of Grecian text, but I’m not sure that’s what it is.”
“Do you think you could translate it?” Harper asked.
Marcy’s friend Lydia was already working on the translation, thanks to the visit that Harper and Gemma had paid to Cherry Lane Books on Saturday. But the sooner they got the translation, the better, and if Professor Pine could do it now, that would save them time.
“Sorry.” He shook his head. “I’m a bit rusty on ancient languages. Egyptian was always my forte.” He motioned to the Eye of Horus poster he had hanging behind his desk.
“Can you make out any of the words?” Harper asked.
“I can pick out some letters.” He scrolled to another picture and propped his head up on his hand, then shook his head again. “But this isn’t truly Greek. Is there a way I can zoom in?”
“Yeah, sorry. Here.” She leaned over the desk and enlarged the picture for him. “Is that better?”
He nodded. “Yeah, see this…” He let out a deep breath through his teeth. “If I had to guess, I’d say this was possibly Phoenician or maybe Aramaic. That might be a kappa or an aleph”—he pointed to a jagged figure that looked like a cross between a “k” and an “x”—“but I can’t say that with any certainty.”
“So there’s nothing you can tell me?” Harper asked, trying not to sound deflated.
“Not without looking at it more.” He handed her back the phone. “There’s a good chance that it’s nothing. The reason I can’t decipher it is probably because it’s chicken scratch and a mixture of old languages thrown together to look ancient.”
“And what if it’s not?” Harper pressed. “What if it’s real?”
“If it’s real…” He sighed and took his glasses off, tossing them on his desk. “Again, I’d have to see it to be sure, but it’s incredibly old and amazingly well preserved. Where did you say you found it again?”
“Um, in the attic.”
“Do you have any idea where it came from before then? Or how it got there?” Pine asked.
“Not really. I think Mr. McAllister had some Greek relatives,” Harper lied.
He leaned back in his chair, thinking. “And you’re from a town called Capri?”
“Yes, Capri, Maryland.”
“You know, the real Capri is an island off the coast of Italy. But centuries ago, it was part of Magna Graecia—or Great Greece. Many Greeks still refer to it that way.” He swiveled a bit in his chair, so he had to look back over his shoulder to see Harper. “When was your town founded? Do you know?”
“June 14…” Harper furrowed her brow in thought. “I think like 1801? Or 1802? Something like that.”
He raised both his eyebrows in surprise. “That’s oddly precise.”
“We have a Founder’s Day Picnic every year on the fourteenth of June.” She shrugged.
“So Capri—your Capri—is a re
latively young town, at least compared to the island off Italy, which was settled nearly two thousand years ago.” He paused as he stared out the window. “What are the odds of an ancient Greek scroll just happening to turn up in a fairly modern town named after an ancient Greek island?”
“I don’t know,” Harper said. “The town was founded by a man from Greece, and he named it after an island where he’d spent his childhood because it reminded him of Capri. Or at least that’s what they told me in grade school.”
“That’s the thing.” Pine leaned forward and rested his elbows on his desk. “According to the pictures you have on your phone, that scroll has some signs and hints at possibly being old, but that seems like too much of a happenstance, doesn’t it?”
“I’d never really thought about it,” Harper admitted.
And she hadn’t. In her research of Greek mythology, she had learned that sirens were from the island of Anthemusa, and by some texts, that was believed to be an earlier name for the island of Capri.
When Harper had read that, she hadn’t given it much thought. It never seemed all that relevant why the sirens had chosen her Capri. It seemed far more important to try to figure out how to get rid of them. At one point, Harper had just assumed that the sirens had stopped there because the name reminded them of home, and then they’d gotten caught up in turning Gemma.
But none of the sirens seemed to be particularly nostalgic, and on many occasions, both Penn and Lexi had talked about how much they hated it there and how they wanted to get out. Now, with Professor Pine pointing out the obvious correlation, Harper began to wonder what exactly had drawn the sirens to Capri in the first place.
“I just don’t trust things that are coincidental. But, you know, obviously, I don’t think you or your sister are trying to dupe anybody with this,” Pine went on. “I don’t think you made this or are attempting some kind of a hoax, although you might have one being perpetrated on you.”
“I don’t know about that.” Harper lowered her eyes and shook her head.
“And I would be more than happy to take a look at the real thing if you could bring it in,” Pine said. “In fact, you’d be doing me a favor. I’d really love to get my hands on it. Even if there’s only the slightest chance that the thing is legit.”
“My sister is pretty attached to it, but I’m going home this weekend. I’ll see if I can get her to part with it for a few days.”
That would be easier said than done. Gemma didn’t like allowing the scroll out of her sight for too long, afraid that Penn would find it, or it would disappear.
“Well, if you can get it, let me know.” Pine leaned back in his chair. “It’d be really interesting to see what it turns up.”
Thanking him, Harper closed his office door behind her, realizing dourly that she was leaving with more questions than she’d come with. But at the top of her list was figuring out what language the scroll was written in and finding out why the sirens had come to Capri.
FOUR
Provocative
Daniel slipped on his work boots just as his phone began to vibrate in his pocket. Harper had been text messaging him on her break between classes, and he’d showered and gotten dressed while reading her lengthy explanation about her meeting with the professor at college.
Unfortunately, neither Harper nor Gemma appeared to be making much headway with the scroll. Daniel helped as much as he could, but so far, that mostly amounted to letting them bounce ideas off him and contributing when he could.
He’d hoped that they’d be closer to cracking this curse by now. Mostly, it was for the obvious reasons—he wanted Gemma safe and free, and since the sirens killed without mercy, they needed to be stopped.
But there was a selfish reason, too. He wanted a reprieve from his “date” with Penn. In order to keep Harper and Gemma safe, he’d agreed to let Penn have her way with him. They’d decided on last Friday as the official day for it, but since he’d been injured on Thursday during the fight with Lexi, Penn had postponed things until he healed.
They had yet to set a new date, and that was making him nervous. Penn wasn’t the type to wait for things. He was afraid she was brewing some other mischief, something that could hurt him or Harper or Gemma even worse.
But right now, he pushed Penn from his mind. He pulled his phone out from his pocket, knowing he needed to focus on his girlfriend. He loved Harper, and if he wanted to be with her, he couldn’t spend all his time worrying about Penn.
So he can’t really tell me anything until I bring him the scroll, Harper texted.
Sorry the teacher couldn’t help you more, Daniel texted back as he walked out of his house.
He locked the door behind him even though he lived out on Bernie’s Island because he didn’t trust Penn or the other sirens not to go in and rummage through his things. Locking the door wouldn’t stop them if they really wanted to get in, but at least there’d be evidence of a break-in, so he’d know they’d been there.
Daniel had made it halfway down the trail to the boathouse when he got another text from Harper: So I was thinking about coming to town for your birthday next week.
Daniel stopped to reply to her since texting and walking had never been his strong suit. He was a few feet away from the boathouse, standing among the cypress and pines, when he typed back to her, You don’t have to do that. We can just celebrate this weekend.
“Ooh, it’s your birthday next week?” Penn asked, her voice mellifluous in his ear.
“Holy crap, Penn.” He wheeled around, shoving his phone in his pocket before she could read any more of the messages, and tried to look like she hadn’t scared him. “You can’t sneak up on a guy like that.”
Penn smiled, apparently proud of having frightened him. Her black hair was dripping wet down her back, and her dress was soaking, so it clung to her flesh. She usually flew over on her visits to the island, but maybe since it was the middle of the afternoon, she thought swimming would be less conspicuous than a giant bird flying in the sky.
“Sorry,” Penn said, without the slightest hint of sincerity.
“How did you do that, anyway? You didn’t make a sound.” He gestured out to Anthemusa Bay behind her, which should’ve made some kind of noise when she climbed out. Not to mention all the pine needles and twigs on the ground that should’ve crunched or cracked under her feet.
She shrugged, still smiling. “It’s an evil-villain trick.”
“Evil villain?” Daniel arched an eyebrow, surprised that she was self-aware enough to realize that’s what she was.
“What?” Penn smirked and started walking to the side, circling him, but he stayed where he was, with his eyes facing forward. “You thought I didn’t know that you’d cast me as the villain in your little soap opera?”
“I’d never really thought of my life as a ‘soap opera.’”
She’d made her way back around and stopped right in front of him, but she was closer this time, nearly touching him. “You didn’t answer my question. It’s your birthday next week?”
“Yeah, on Wednesday.” He nodded. “I’ll be twenty-one.”
A bald cypress had broken in half during the storm last week, so the trunk was leaning down at an angle, almost blocking the trail to the boathouse. Daniel had been meaning to clear it up, but he’d been so busy with everything else that he hadn’t had a chance to.
“You’re still such a baby,” Penn remarked, and she walked back to the fallen tree. She leaned against the rough bark, making it move slightly and the branches groan. “I’m really robbing the cradle with this one.”
“You could try dating a shark,” Daniel suggested. “They live a long time, and they’re the closest thing to your species.”
Penn did not look amused. “Charming.”
“Thanks, and I hate to cut and run like this, but I really have to be going,” he said, and stepped to the side, meaning to make his escape.
She was up in a flash, blocking his path before he even had a chance to
react. “Not so fast, Birthday Boy.”
“Listen, Penn, I’m sure you came out here so I could render payment on our little agreement, but I really can’t right now,” he insisted. “We’re having one of the last rehearsals for the play, and I need to be there for last-minute tweaks and touch-ups.”
“I don’t think you’re in a position to tell me what I can and can’t do,” Penn assured him with such cool certainty that it terrified him. “You’re already mine. It’s just a matter of collecting what I’m owed.”
Daniel didn’t even see her move. One second he was standing directly in front of Penn, the next he was on his back. He knew he’d fallen to the ground because he felt twigs cracking under his back and the wind being pushed from his lungs, but, otherwise, he didn’t know how exactly Penn had gotten him there.
He only had a split second to ponder it before Penn was on top of him, straddling him between her legs, and he felt the cold water from her dress seeping in through his jeans.
“Trust me, Daniel.” She smiled down at him as she slid her hands underneath his T-shirt. “You’ll thank me for this later.”
“I seriously doubt that,” he muttered. She leaned forward, pushing up his shirt as she did, and she stared down at his exposed chest and abdomen. He craned his neck up, trying to see what she was getting at. “What are you doing?”
“Checking you out,” Penn replied simply.
Her fingers were cold when she touched him, and he inhaled sharply. He laid his head back down, not wanting to watch her hands slide all over his torso, her tanned fingers moving over the purple-and-gray bruise that covered most of his right side.
“Yeah, I can see that, but—” He winced as she pushed painfully on his ribs.
“It’s still sore?” Penn asked, and she moved her hands away, alleviating the pain.
“Yeah. Lexi wasn’t messing around.”
Daniel had put up as much of a fight as he could against the giant bird-monster, but Lexi had thrown him around plenty. The worst of it had been when she’d thrown him through the window, causing the massive bruise and possible cracked rib on his right side. He refused to go to the doctor, so he couldn’t be certain how bad the damage was, but he could get around okay, so he knew he could recover.
Elegy (Watersong #4) Page 3
