Chapter One
My heart pounds and my breathing labors as I sink to the earth and grab for something, anything to hold onto. The well-worn, wooden picnic table is nearest, and I stretch for a leg causing my precious, fourth honey baklava to slip from its rice paper and plummet to the hard-packed dirt. Ordinarily I’d whimper, but not today.
End. End. Come on.
I tamp down on a scream that begs to be freed as the shaking intensifies—my male colleagues will laugh at me if I don’t master myself.
The two metal trays of cooling lamb gyros slide from the table I foraged from, dumping what little remains of their bounty. The crash as they hit the ground makes my breathing stagger further.
Like rapid-fire gunshots, the falafels follow, along with the hummus, pitas, and baklava. I can’t contain a whimper.
The coffee carafe smashes on the ground, spewing its scalding contents a heartbeat later, nearly licking me.
My knuckles turn white as I clutch the quivering table leg and force my mind to envision a pair of eyes, the left silver, the right gold, that have always comforted me when I’m afraid.
I’ve never questioned the origin of the image, but every time I picture those sparkling eyes, a very real and visceral calm falls over me. I’ve always pretended it’s a powerful god looking down and smiling, assuring me everything will be okay. As the image forms once more, I bow my head and slow my breathing, still clutching the table leg as the tremor continues.
The ground isn’t supposed to move. It isn’t.
I should be used to quakes by now; this will be the fourteenth I’ve experienced since joining the Mycenae, Greece dig the summer of my sophomore year at UT Austin. But, no.
I’ll never, ever get used to them. Quakes shake the only thing I believe is truly fixed and permanent. If the ground itself can move, Ab. So. Lute. Ly. nothing is stable or dependable, and that thought terrifies me.
I exhale as the shaking finally abates. Compared with quakes, the miserable cold, wet wind making the canvas of our blue command tent thwap as it strains against its tie-downs is nothing, even though we all complain about it.
I ease to sitting, dusting off my parka and cargo pants despite their permanently soiled condition, and tighten the simple band holding back my long, port-red hair.
“A pity all our college interns are on spring break and missed it,” Irik, my fellow third-year archeologist and co-site supervisor, says in his usual aristocratic drawl that reminds me of Thurston Howell, the thhhirrrd from Gilligan’s Island reruns. He looks down at me from the end of the lunch table with a canine grin that accentuates his cat-like eyes.
I return a frown.
“Oh come on, Pelly, you know it’s just the earth letting off stress. Even you wouldn’t begrudge it that, would you?” He raises his bushy, burnt-brown unibrow, continuing to hold that asinine expression.
Anger ignites in an instant. Pelly? The kids at the group home growing up teased me mercilessly, calling me Smelly Pelly until I cried. I’ve grown tough out of necessity, and there aren’t many ways to get under my skin, but this is one and Irik knows it, despite not knowing my history. Call me a fiery redhead, but this and injustice fuel my ire equally.
Just ignore the asshole, I tell myself.
Experience has taught me that while it would feel good in the moment to let the arrogant bastard really have it, I’ll regret it later. Women just can’t get ahead being forthright in this male-dominated profession, so I clear my throat and in a very sweet voice say, “Irik, it seems that very little, teeny, tiny brain of yours has again forgotten that I’ve asked you to refer to me by Pell or Pellucid.”
Someone nearby snorts.
I about gag on the saccharine of my BS.
Irik frowns but doesn’t have an opportunity to dig a deeper hole for himself because Jude Westfall, our excavation director, rises from the other end of the row of picnic tables, swallows the last of his lunch, and rubs his hands together. “That was a pretty good shake. I want you all to check on the site and ensure our previous excavations were not disturbed.” He pushes a yellow number two pencil over his ear, picks up his clipboard, scans the eight of us, and says, “Pell, you and Irik go check on the hidden stairway and cistern, Rasen and—”
I bolt up. “Jude, I’ve got it. I can check on those by myself.” I bite down on fear that an aftershock might hit while I’m inspecting them, but there’s no way I’ll go anywhere with my co-supervisor, especially alone.
Jude shrugs. “Fine, then, Irik, go with Rasen and have a look at grave circle A.”
Irik smirks.
Imbecile.
Jude continues giving assignments, but I snatch my headlamp from where it fell, then stride around the mess on the floor, making my way to the supply closet. Thankfully, the tall cabinet remains upright and its thin steel doors are still shut but not for long because compasses, measuring tapes, plumb bobs, and more lurch for freedom the instant I turn the handle. I duck and cover my head until the avalanche finishes.
“Damn,” I mumble under my breath.
“You okay there, Pell?” Jude asks, pausing from giving assignments.
Peachy, can’t you tell? I bite back my retort as all eight males stare at me. No guys, no need to offer a girl a little help.
Irik silent claps, out of Jude’s line of sight.
I ignore him.
“I’m fine, sorry,” I reply.
I start returning things to their proper shelves, but Jude interrupts me over the noise I create, “Pell, how about we clean things up later.”
I bob my head and swallow a huff. Fine.
Grabbing a heavy-duty Maglite flashlight from the scattered equipment, I hightail it out of the tent before Jude changes his mind.
As the tent flap slides shut behind me, I exhale heavily.
Men.
A strong gust of rain-slicked wind tears into me before I can grumble more, and I zip my mud-stained parka as the cold takes another bite out of me; only residual heat from my lingering anger keeps me warm. I don my headlamp, pull up my hood, and thrust my hands into my pockets. Cradling the flashlight in the crook of my arm, I set off toward the secret stairway and cistern on the far side of the site.
I pity the ancient Mycenaeans. This weather tests even the hardiest of folk, and I’m not one. No doubt, it was a contributing factor to their demise.
The wind continues buffeting me as I hike across the site that’s vacant save for the wheelbarrows, picks, shovels, and a host of other digging equipment. My socks grow wet as my boots squelch in puddles that have grown too big to avoid as I skirt around the plethora of perfectly square excavation pits that can’t be worked again until the standing water evaporates.
Just two more years of fieldwork and I can apply for a curator position at pretty much any museum. It’s been my ambition since early on.
No one becomes an archeologist to get rich. Fieldwork is backbreaking; the repetitive actions, day in and day out, especially when cold and damp seep into your limbs and produce ongoing physical health issues. It’s why Jude won’t be checking on any of the dig sites himself today.
No, I’ve become an archeologist because I love discovering the unknown, filling in gaps in the history books. It’s what makes me get up every day. Well, that and… I rub the silver ring on my finger that bears a host of hieroglyphs. Never once have I taken it off.