The Last Timekeepers and the Arch of Atlantis (3 page)

Trying not to laugh at Sharma’s karma, Amanda walked over to retrieve his shoe for him, and caught a glimpse of something partially revealed under the mass of greenery. She squinted. “What’s that?” Amanda asked, pointing. “There…under those vines and branches Ravi tripped over.”

Ms. Spencer looked at what Amanda was pointing at, and gasped. She stretched to pull away some plant debris. Whatever it was, it was made of stone. And it looked as though it had been there a long time.

“It…It can’t possibly be, can it?” Ms. Spencer whispered, as her brow furrowed and the corners of her eyes crinkled.

Amanda smelled a sharp humus odor. Her nose wrinkled, but didn’t itch. It was that earthy smell again. She closed her eyes and took deeper whiff. There was decaying freshness to it, as if something was alive underneath the layers of soil. The sound of grunting and huffing brought Amanda out of her sensory stupor. She opened her eyes. Bailey and Jensen were both at work, tearing away the shrubs, branches and vines.

“Can’t be what?” Sharma asked weakly.

Ms. Spencer didn’t answer. Whatever
it
was seemed to have a grip on her throat.

Treena nudged Amanda and passed her one of the three-pronged garden tools Ms. Spencer used for claws. “Let’s make like Indian Jones and dig this puppy out!”

Following Treena’s lead, Amanda knelt on the thick carpet of grass and weeds and struck the earth, again and again, digging as if there was a vein of gold underneath them. As more of the stone object was revealed, she noted that strange, ancient-looking symbols were carved all over it. Most of the designs were foreign to her, with the exception of some engraved spirals. Wiping sweat from her brow, Amanda wondered how tall it was. Her height? Twice her height? It was hard to tell. Moss had acted like layers of chewing gum, invading crevices within the stone, while the color, the dirtiest of gray, had a definite dullness to it. It resembled a forgotten tombstone, left to disintegrate with time.

“Awesome!” Bailey yelled. “This thing must be thousands of years old!”

“Get a grip, Drake,” Jensen said. “It’s probably an old lawn ornament.”

Bailey snorted. He scraped some moss away from the stone. “Look, Jordan, this is an Egyptian hieroglyphic. You know, like the writing you’d see on the walls of the pyramids.”

“I’d say too many of your genius brain cells are colliding with all those comic books you read, Bailey,” Jordan replied. He hunkered down and pointed to another engraving. “Some history freak must have carved these symbols, either for a joke or to make it look authentic for some reason. It’s the only explanation.”

“You’ve been hit in the head one too many times with a football, Jensen,” Bailey spat, balling his fists. “I’m smart enough to know what’s fake and what’s real, and these symbols happen to be the real deal, brain-drain!”

Jensen stood up. “Listen, Bailey, my Uncle John is into all this historical junk, and he’s taught me about the ancient Egyptians. If this was real, why would symbols like this pitchfork—” he pointed to the middle part of the exposed stone “—be carved on it? It’s not something you’d see in a pyramid. Answer that one, boy-genius!”

Amanda stood up, backed away, and waited for Bailey to go for Jensen’s belly button. However, it was Ms. Spencer, still kneeling and coddling Ravi, who would slay Drake’s dragon.

“Drake is correct, Jordan. It is thousands of years old,” she answered while wiping dirt away from Ravi’s brow with the tip of her skirt. “At least twelve thousand years, by my calculation.”

Amanda’s jaw dropped.
Twelve thousand years old?
She shook her head.
Impossible.
The lady must have added something other than milk and sugar into her afternoon tea. Amanda arched a brow and glanced down at the strange stone whatever-it-was. It did look ancient. Especially with all those Egyptian symbols etched into it. So what was it doing buried in Ms. Spencer’s backyard, underneath an overgrown mound of cedars, shrubs, and vines? Her inquiring mind needed to know.

“So…are you gonna keep us in suspense, Ms. Spencer?” Amanda asked, tossing the garden tool aside. She walked over to the exposed stone and began digging out a chunk of soft moss from an engraved spiral with her finger.

“I-I beg your pardon?” Ms. Spencer replied, as if she’d been beamed back to earth.

“You seem to know what this is. Care to share?” Amanda flicked the moss in the shrubs and went for seconds.

Treena joined Amanda in her quest for vegetation eradication, only she used the three-pronged garden tool. Scraping and digging, Treena suddenly stopped and looked at Amanda the way a hungry archeologist would.

“Wow, I bet this thing is worth a lot of money.”

“Actually…it’s priceless,” Ms. Spencer said. Then she took a deep breath. “And please, since we’ll be seeing a lot of each other during the next two weeks, I want you all to call me Melody.”

Amanda was fine with that. She just wanted answers. “So, Ms. Spenc—uh, Melody, if this thing is worth a lot, why has it been buried and left to disintegrate in your backyard?”

Before Melody Spencer could answer Amanda, Drake rushed over and grabbed the garden tool out of Treena’s hand. “Careful, Mui, don’t scrape away any of the glyphs! This could be some kind of ancient stele.”

“Glyphs? Stele?” Treena replied indignantly. “Talk in a language we can all understand, Bailey.”

Drake rolled his eyes. “Glyphs are all those carvings in the stone, and each one means something. A stele is a kind of marker that tells us things. You know, like a grave stone or—”

“Eww! You mean somebody could be buried under this thing?” Treena squealed. She scrunched her face and ran behind Melody and Ravi.

“Hey, maybe it’s the person who was murdered here when this place used to be a hotel,” Jensen said. Then he looked down at it and started to slowly back away.

“No, no, no!” Drake shook his head wildly. “This isn’t a grave stone. The hieroglyphics don’t mention death anywhere.”

“Don’t tell me you know how to read ancient Egyptian writing, Bailey,” Amanda said haughtily. “I’ll puke if you do.”

Drake grinned. “Treena, toss Amanda that bucket you doused Ravi with. I think she’s gonna need it.”

Amanda’s face twitched. Great. The little toady loser could read ancient scribbling. She puckered her lips to one side and said, “So what’s it say then, brainiac?”

“Just one moment,” Melody said.

Melody Spencer checked the goose egg on Sharma’s forehead once more and then lifted him up off the long grass. He stumbled, but she held him firmly, and started to pick garden debris out of his ebony hair.

“How are you feeling now, Ravi?” Melody asked softly.

“Better. Thanks, Ms.—I mean, Melody,” Ravi replied, checking his bump.

Amanda could see he was still a little shaky.

Melody nodded. “Good. I’ll get you some ice to put on that bump in a few minutes. In the meantime, Treena, will you please make sure he doesn’t fall again?”

Treena pursed her lips as if mulling it over, then winked at Melody. “Sure, Melody. If Ravi has one more fall, he’ll be a shoo-in for a job as a crash-test dummy.”

Melody stifled a giggle under her breath while brushing away dead leaves from her skirt. She walked toward Amanda and Drake, then bent down to inspect one of the engravings.

“It’s not a stele, Drake. It’s something much more,” Melody said, her slender fingers tracing the chosen glyph over and over again.

“Much more? What do you mean, Ms.—um, Melody?” Drake asked.

Melody stopped tracing and looked up at Drake. “If my great aunt’s journals prove to be correct, this could very well be the top portion of an ancient stone arch. In one of her journals she wrote that for a period of time, this arch was truly a gateway to unlimited riches.”

Amanda smiled. She liked the sound of that. Riches. Unlimited riches. “What kind of riches, Melody? Gold? Jewels? Money? A lifetime membership to Chuck E. Cheese?”

Melody pursed her lips. “No, no, not
those
kind of riches, Amanda. Apparently, this arch contains ancient secrets that humankind has yet to understand, let alone acknowledge. At least that’s what I’ve read so far in her journals. There must be dozens of them in the library.”

“Ancient secrets?” Treena pleaded. “Tell us more!”

“There’s really not much to tell, Treena. I’ve been too busy sorting out everything in the house that I haven’t had the time to read through the journals I’ve found so far, much less venture into the garden. That’s why the yard is such a mess. My great aunt—her name was Florence Whitney—died last winter, and as I was her only living relative, I inherited the lot, as well as the debt and needed repairs that went with it.” Melody looked up into the sky. “Thanks a bunch, Aunt Flo.”

Jensen laughed. “I bet whoever sold that arch to dear old Aunt Flo saw her coming. She got conned big time!”

Melody frowned. “She didn’t buy it, Jordan. The house’s previous owners, Max and Frances Tarbush did. In Aunt Florence’s oldest journal she wrote that the Tarbushes had purchased the stone arch sometime in nineteen hundred from an Egyptian antiquity dealer who bragged it was eight thousand years older than the pyramids. He sweetened the deal by sharing that there were ancients secrets scrawled all over it. The Tarbushes saw the potential for the stone arch to become a tourist attraction for their flourishing hotel, so they bought it. Apparently it took over ten men to put it in place.”

“Wait, there’s no logic here, Melody,” Bailey blurted. “If this arch is eight thousand years older than the pyramids, then what was it doing in the possession of that antiquity dealer? Either the dude was sleazy and pulling a fast one on the Tarbushes or—”

“Or it’s all true,” Melody cut in. “The dealer may have known what he had all along and wanted to profit from it in any way he could.”

“Yeah, that makes sense,” Treena said. “He wouldn’t have gotten a penny or a drachma or whatever they used for money back then if the arch went to a museum.”

Ravi whistled. “Yeah, and maybe he was selling it for some slimy tomb robbers who scored it from looting a pyramid.” Then he stared at the arch for a second and took a few steps back. Amanda watched Sharma’s face tic. “Maybe it’s cursed. Maybe that’s why it’s buried. So no one will find it. But we found it. Oh, no. Guys, I think we’re in big trouble.”

“Cut the crap, Sharma,” Jordan said. “Why would the arch get buried and forgotten if it’s full of ancient secrets and unlimited riches? That’s the part I don’t get.”

“I can’t believe I’m agreeing with Jensen, but he’s right, Ravi,” Amanda said, as she pushed her long, single braid off her shoulder. “There’s a reason someone wanted the arch hidden. We just have to figure out what it is.”

“What else did you find out from Aunt Flo’s journals, Melody?” Drake asked.

Melody brushed her hands against her tan skirt, and then stood up. She sighed, and said, “Well, I hadn’t realized my great aunt came over here as a home child from England when she was quite young, and was eventually adopted by Francis Tarbush.”

“What’s a home child?” Treena asked.

Bailey snorted. “It’s another form of child slavery.”

“Pretty much, Drake,” Melody said. “Shipping poor or orphaned children to foreign countries to forcibly work in homes or on farms is nothing short of barbaric. Although I do believe that my great aunt was one of the lucky ones. While growing up here she had managed to decipher some of the arch’s hieroglyphics, most of which were simple recipes to cure certain sicknesses. But some cures—” she paused to lick her bottom lip “—used different healing remedies like colored crystals and sound. Aunt Florence wrote that she experimented with this crystal treatment and became quite adept at it. It’s possible she was ahead of her time.”

“Or maybe she was a witch,” Amanda blurted. “It seems to run in the family.”

Amanda’s classmates stared at her. All mouths but Sharma’s fell open. His face started to tic again. Okay, maybe she had been to-the-point and blunt. But talk around town insinuated that Melody Spencer was a bona fide, true-blue hex-machine from England. Amanda suddenly felt the need to take a step back but couldn’t because the unearthed portion of the twelve-thousand-year-old arch was blocking her path. She gulped, tasting bile. Maybe it was time to vomit after all.

However, Melody Spencer seemed unfazed. Like she couldn’t care less what Amanda had suggested. Without taking her fierce green eyes off Amanda, Melody slowly crossed her arms over her cotton blouse and said, “So you think I’m a witch, do you, Amanda?”

Amanda nodded. It was all she could do because her teeth were frozen shut. At least she had been the brave one. Everybody else remained tight-lipped.

Melody’s face turned serious. “Listening to rumors not only poisons the soul, but also seeps into the garden of the mind. I’m no more of a witch than you are, Amanda. Just because I do things differently from others doesn’t mean I gas up my broomstick and go looking for children to eat. I’m an herbalist. I practice healing by using herbs, as I’m sure your ancestors did years ago, and may still do.”

Amanda dropped her chin to her chest. Melody was right. Even her grandmother, a full-blooded Ojibwa, preferred to use certain plants to heal cuts and take pain away. Okay, maybe she jumped the canoe on this one. But what about those weird night rituals Amanda had heard Melody Spencer perform? Herbs just didn’t cut it.

Amanda lifted her chin. “Then explain why you’ve been seen reciting weird poetry and lighting candles outside whenever there’s a full moon?”

Melody laughed. It was actually a musical laugh, like a wind chime coming alive in the breeze. “I celebrate every full moon, as well as every new season. It’s just my way of embracing change and welcoming new things to come, Amanda. It’s no different than saying a prayer or mantra, and there’s nothing wrong with how I choose to live my life as long as I’m not hurting myself or anyone. I’ve learned that people fear what they don’t understand. Maybe that’s the reason why this stone arch was buried and hidden away in Aunt Florence’s garden. Maybe, deep down, she knew people weren’t ready for the kind of knowledge and secrets it held.”

Amanda’s balloon burst. “I…I guess I owe you an apology. Sorry, Melody.”

Melody smiled and walked over to Amanda. Amanda felt the wall disappear between them the moment Melody hugged her. “On the contrary, Amanda, if you don’t ask questions, you’ll never know the truth. Do you see?”

Amanda nodded. There was something soothing about being in Melody Spencer’s embrace. Witch or no witch, the woman cast a spell over Amanda in that moment.

Melody briskly patted Amanda on the back and stepped away. “Good. Now, Drake, did you say that you could interpret these hieroglyphics?”

Drake cracked his knuckles and nodded. “I’ll give it my best shot, Melody.”

Melody raised a dark brow. She tapped Drake under the chin, and pointed down to the exposed portion of the arch. “What does it say under the carved-out trident?” she asked.

Amanda followed Melody’s finger. She squinted. Melody was talking about the pitchfork that Jensen had spoken of earlier. It was etched in the top middle section they had uncovered, and was about the size of a bookmark. It looked like a three-pronged spear a fisherman would use. Underneath this trident were four small, slightly slanted Egyptian symbols flecked with moss. Boy-genius was silent for the moment. His brain must have gone into overdrive because he was usually quick with answers. Using the air as if it were a piece of paper, Drake started drawing out shapes and symbols. He scrunched his face, muttered something to himself, shook his head, and then pulled out his cell phone.

Tapping it a few times, Drake’s fingers flew across the screen. Mumbling, he nodded once, twice, three times before shoving his phone back in the side pocket of his baggy pants.

Amanda rolled her eyes. “Well? Do I puke or not?”

Bailey smirked. He kicked the bucket toward Amanda. “I’m positive it says,
Time flows through us
.”