On Etruscan Time (7 page)

“What is it?” Ettore asked. The two women made no answer.

“Mom!” Hector said, the urgency in his own voice startling him. “What did you find?”

“Well,” his mother said, “it's a little hard to tell just yet.”

“Come on, Betsy,” Ettore said. “Why then did you say ‘Wow!'?”

“Because,” Susanna broke in, “because we can't yet be certain, but it looks like there is a picture here that will answer some questions. A picture of a sacrifice.”

8

A babble of voices greeted this news.

“A sacrifice?” Hector asked, but nobody seemed to hear him. His heart was pounding. He touched Ettore's arm. “How can they tell it's a sacrifice?”

“The priests wore special clothes during rituals,” Ettore explained as he jumped back into the trench. He looked up at Hector. “And they carried a knife to cut the throat of what they were sacrificing. Perhaps there is something like that in this picture.”

“What did they sacrifice?” Hector asked, but Ettore's attention was completely on the wall painting by now, and he didn't answer.

Hector clenched his fists.
Why
wouldn't anyone listen to him? Why couldn't they tell him what was going on? He might as well be invisible. People were crowding even closer to look into the trench, and he was pushed away.

Well, fine. If they weren't going to let him look, he wouldn't try. He walked away from the dig, taking a bottle of water out of the cooler as he passed it. He settled against the boulder a little way down the path. The small amount of shade wasn't quite enough to shield him from the blazing sun. It was better than nothing, though. He drew his feet up close to him and rested his chin on his knees.

The stone in his pocket dug into his hip. He straightened out his right leg and pulled out the eye. He was glad he hadn't tossed it away. It was the first thing he'd found on the dig, and even if it wasn't Etruscan, it was still pretty cool. He rolled it over in his hand until the blue part was gazing blankly up at him.

Maybe someday he would become an archaeologist and dig up something amazing, and the eye would go on display as Dr. Hector Fellowes's first find. Or maybe he'd wind up being a plumber, and this eye would be the only memory he'd have of his summer as an archaeologist. In either case, he was going to hold on to it.

Sometimes he envied his parents. There was no mystery left for them. They already knew what they were going to do with their lives, because they were doing it. They were married and living in Tennessee, where his father wrote screenplays that nobody produced and his mother taught Greek and Latin to college students. How would he wind up?

I wish this eye was a crystal ball,
he thought. He must have spoken out loud, because somebody answered him.

“I can't help you see the future,” the voice said. “But I can take you to the past.”

He whipped his head around to see who was talking. Nobody. He must be imagining things again. He leaned back against the rock, trailing his fingers in the dirt, which was already dry after last night's downpour. The soft dust felt almost cool. He let his eyes half close, and the shimmering of the land in the sunshine grew even more pronounced.

He realized that once again he wasn't hearing anything—no birds, not a squirrel. None of the stray dogs he'd seen in the village seemed to want to come out into the heat. He must be too far from the dig to hear the chatter of the archaeologists.

It wasn't completely silent, though. The stream made a small rippling sound. And there must be a house on the other side of the hill, or behind some trees, because once again he heard the small sound of a stringed instrument. It sounded as if someone was practicing the guitar, but he couldn't see where it was coming from. The music was high and sweet and oddly unsettling. He leaned back and listened, feeling like it was pulling him, tugging him to someplace far away. It felt so delicious that he allowed himself to be pulled.
Just for a minute,
he thought as he let himself drift.

He was jolted back into alertness by a movement in the trees.
A dog or something,
he thought. But he didn't hear anything, and surely a dog would make some noise. It must have been his imagination, he decided. Then he saw it again. Now it looked like someone was walking toward him. He sat still in the shadow of the rock, hoping whoever it was would go away. He didn't feel like making the effort to talk to anyone, especially if they didn't speak English. But the shape kept moving toward him.

As the figure approached, Hector could see that it was a boy with straight black hair. He sat up taller and squinted. The boy's clothes were weird—some sort of long white shirt and a pouch hanging around his neck that flopped on his chest as he walked. He looked familiar. Had Hector seen him in the town? No, he hadn't seen anyone there near his age except for some of the archaeologists. This kid couldn't be an archaeologist. Then it came to him. This was the boy who had been sitting on top of the arch, who had later shown up in his dream. It was a little embarrassing to see a stranger he had dreamed about, even though there was no way the other boy would know about that.

The boy walked up without speaking and sat down by the stream. He fixed his dark eyes on Hector, his thin brown arms wrapped around his shins. He looked so cool in that robe that Hector felt fussy and overdressed in his shorts with all their pockets, his shoes with multiple laces, his striped shirt.

The boy sat in silence, still looking at Hector with large, unblinking eyes. Hector cleared his throat. He felt like he had to say something, but before he could speak, the other boy said, “I can't take you to the future. But I can take you to the past.”

“What?” Hector asked, startled.

“You wanted to see the future,” the boy said. “I can't take you there. But I can take you to the past.”

This must be another dream,
Hector thought.
But it feels so real.
As real as that dream about the midnight walk to the dig, and falling into the trench.

“Who are you?” Hector asked.

“Arath,” said the boy.

“What kind of name is that? German?”

“No,” the boy answered. “It's Rashna.”

“Rashna?” Hector asked. “You mean like ancient Etruscan?” The boy nodded. “Why did your parents give you an Etruscan name?”

“Because I
am
Etruscan,” the boy said matter-of-factly.

“But I thought the Etruscans died thousands of years ago?”

“Well, I lived here thousands of years ago. But I haven't died.”

“You're nuts,” Hector said nervously. “You can't be thousands of years old.”

“Oh, no,” the boy answered. “I'm twelve.”

“Okay, fine,” Hector muttered. If this was some kind of joke, he didn't want to play along. He stood up and brushed the dirt off the seat of his pants. Maybe the crowd around the trench had thinned and he could go back and see what they had been so excited about.

But as he turned, he caught sight of the valley. He must have fallen asleep, because now it was cool evening and the long shadows made everything look different.

But it was more than the change in light. Something was terribly wrong.

The dig—where was the dig? Where was the shed, and where were his mother and Ettore and Susanna?

Instead of the blue-jeaned and T-shirted Americans and Germans and Italians, small people with copper skin and long dark hair were walking in the flat area where the trenches should be. Hector swung around. The hill still rose above him, but the houses were gone, and a thick forest covered its steep slopes. Where there had been a crowded town splattered on its sides now there were just a few low buildings. He looked back down to where the dig should be, disbelief crowding every thought out of his mind. Instead of a silver-green olive grove in the distance, tall, dark trees now cast a heavy shadow. In place of the trench where he'd found the broken pot, there was a pile of wood scraps and pieces of pottery, and behind it stood a magnificent, colorful building with a double row of columns in front and an inhuman, brightly painted face glaring down from the peak of the roof. He had seen that building before, but that was in a dream—a dream where something terrible was happening to that same boy. But now there was no silent, waiting crowd, and the boy was sitting next to him, hands unbound, no tearstains on his cheeks.

Hector swallowed hard. “What's happening?” he whispered. “What did you do with them?”

The other boy didn't answer, but he, too, rose to his feet and watched the activity with his hands on his hips, a smile curling his mouth.

There were lots of people. The littler children were naked except for a pouch hanging around each of their necks, and the adults weren't wearing much either. Some were talking, some were repairing a wall, and two young men were wrestling and laughing as older men looked on and shouted what sounded like encouragement.

Arath turned to Hector. “Welcome to my home,” he said softly.

9

For a moment, Hector could only stare and blink, his mouth hanging open. Then he managed to sputter, “Your—your
home?
What are you talking about? What have you done with all the people? And the dig? And my
mom?
” Without waiting for an answer he tore along the path down to where the dig should have been.

In a few seconds he was in the midst of all those dark-haired people. They strode past him as though they didn't see him. Two women came by, and one of them almost bumped into him.

“Hey!” he protested, backing up. She didn't pay any attention but said something to the little girl with her, who nodded and ran off to join a group of naked children playing with what looked like marbles or jacks in the dirt.

What was the matter with her? Was she deaf? Or just ignoring him?

Something was weird about the sunlight, but he couldn't figure it out. And then he saw. He had no shadow.

The boy—Arath—had caught up and stood panting next to him.

“What's going on?” Hector demanded. “How did you do this?”

“Do what?” Arath asked. The woman who had just passed by turned and looked at Arath curiously and then moved on.

“This,” Hector said, pointing at the busy square, the bright building, the group of children squabbling over something. “How did you get all these buildings here? Is this some kind of hypnotism?”

“No, it's real,” Arath said, but Hector shook his head.

“You hypnotized me,” he said, panic making his voice thin. “Or I fell asleep against that rock. This is just another dream.” He pinched his arm, but it made no difference. He slapped his own cheek. The sting brought tears to his eyes, yet he did not wake up leaning against the boulder on a hot afternoon, with that unsettling music playing someplace far away. He was still there, in that strange place on a cool evening, with the boy watching him with a strange smile, as people walked and played, not noticing him.

Fear exploded in his stomach, shooting a tingling sensation down to his fingers and toes. “There's something wrong with me. I'm seeing things. I must be going crazy.”

“No, you're not,” Arath said soothingly, but Hector was lost in his terror and hardly heard him.

“I'm going crazy,” he repeated. “I've lost my mind.”

Arath gripped him by both arms and dragged him, still babbling, back to where they had been standing before. He pulled Hector behind a tree, where they couldn't be seen from the square below.

“Stop,” he commanded. Hector shut up and stood there panting. “I'll take you home now, but you have to come back later and help me. You must promise.”

Hector nodded. “I promise,” he croaked. He would agree to anything, as long as things went back to normal.

Arath said some strange words, and Hector felt something suddenly squeeze his rib cage. He gasped for breath and lurched as the ground under his feet became soft, like mud, and then soupier, like pudding. The world turned dark, then gray, then had no color at all, and it swirled around him. All Hector could see were those dark eyes, and all he could hear was that guttural chant.

Then the swirling stopped and the voice fell silent. The eyes disappeared. Something solid was under him, and he lay as though gravity had increased until it flattened him.

He stayed that way for a moment, his eyes closed. What if he were to see those long-haired people when he opened them? What if that brightly colored building was still right behind him, the young men wrestling playfully in the open area? Finally he sat up and looked around. He was alone, next to the spray-painted boulder. He could have kissed the graffiti.

It was a hot, slow afternoon. He could hear the faint buzz of insects. The sun pierced through the dark leaves of the nearby trees, and on his left was the olive grove. Down to his right was a trench full of busy archaeologists. A trowel lay nearby and from up the hill he heard sounds of traffic, accompanied by the smell of diesel fumes, even at that distance. No temple, no forest, no dark-skinned, half-naked people.

And no Arath. Was he a dream after all? Had Hector fallen asleep against the rock and had another nightmare? But as his head cleared and he began to breathe normally again, a voice tickled his ear.

“You promised,” it said. Hector whipped his head around but saw no one.

He got shakily to his feet and made his way down to the dig. There was his mother leaning against a tree, sound asleep with her Etruscan dictionary open on her lap. He had to tell her what had happened, although she would never believe it. In the bright sun, with all the normal activity going on, he could hardly believe it himself.

“Mom!” he said. No response. He tried again, a little louder. “Mom!” She groaned and opened her eyes a crack.

“Heck, let me sleep a little,” she mumbled.