I clamber like a mountain goat over the mound of displaced rock, but in my haste, my foot lands unevenly and my arms peddle for purchase to no avail.
“Whoa!”
My palms feel the sting of the rough limestone first, then my elbow and hip land hard, smarting. Call me Grace. Hopefully, I haven’t crushed my phone.
The Maglite shines at me from just inside the gaping hole where it came to rest, as if bragging that it beat me to it, unscathed. I mutter several particularly unladylike words before grunting to standing. I shake my smarting hands, trying to ease the pain. I’ve skinned both and one leeches blood, but I won’t die.
I move my arm in and out, making sure my elbow still functions. It does. Thank god for padded parkas. My hip will have a beautiful bruise, but nothing else seems hurt.
Good thing Irik and the others didn’t witness my fall from grace. I roll my eyes, that’s all I’d have needed.
I unbutton the hip pocket of my cargo pants, then hold my rubber gloves back as I pull out my phone. “Great, just great.” The glass has shattered. I blow out a breath. I’ll deal with it later. I tuck it back in my pants and refocus.
I ease across the fallen rock, the smell of chalky limestone filling my nose, then stop and reach inside the cavity. Plucking up the bragging flashlight, I direct it into the darkness.
Thick dust floats about the space as I peer in and trace the arched ceiling, noting the same construction as the stairway, a balancing act of huge limestone blocks. Like its sibling, the stones appear to still be aligned.
I step into the dusty darkness, my boots shuffling on the dry earth. They don’t exactly echo, but their sound makes it feel as though it’s a fairly large room.
What did I stumble upon?
No cobwebs, so it has to have been completely sealed off all these years. I take two, three, four more slow steps studying the dirt floor and limestone block walls to the left and right through the haze. There’s no bones, no ancient dishes or other artifacts. It’s just an empty space.
My shoulders slump. Why would an empty cavity be hidden behind the stairway wall? It makes no sense.
I shine my light into the floating dust ahead, and my eyes spot something other than the block wall. I squint and my mouth falls open.
I suck in a breath making myself cough as my pulse speeds. Tingling erupts in my chest as I stride forward.
Is this… is it what I think it is?
Chapter Three
My lips quiver and I feel moisture well up in my eyes. I’m not this lucky. I’m not.
I swallow hard.
Scrolls! Floor to ceiling, as wide as the wall stretches, the ancient wooden shelves brim with them, and I stare, dumbfounded. So much history, committed to ancient texts, lays rolled up, and I can’t wrap my head around it.
The Terracotta Army in China, the Behistun Inscription in Persia, Olduvai Gorge. These and a handful of other discoveries including the Dead Sea scrolls have created tsunamis in the archeological world. I cut my professional teeth studying every aspect of each of these discoveries in college. They’re what fanned the flames of my passion for all things ancient, ever hotter. But it’s been decades since anything close to the significance of any of those finds has surfaced.
My legs feel weak, but I force myself to stay standing as I run the beam of my flashlight back and forth over the trove again and again struggling to grasp the magnitude of the find.
I swipe at a stray tear. Nothing in my life has come easy. Has karma at last seen fit to bless me?
That thought releases a river of tears, and I draw a hand to my mouth as my chest constricts with emotion. I’ve dreamed of becoming a curator, but this… Am I really this lucky?
I can’t hold back a soggy chuckle. Luck. Right. Sure. I’m never lucky, but how can I argue with… all this?
I shake my head as I continue staring through watery eyes. I want to believe, I really do, but…
At length, I take a deep breath and let it out slowly, resisting the urge to cough, then snort. Great, now my nose’ll keep running. I snicker as I scrounge in my pocket for another Kleenex. So emotional.
Blowing my nose, I laugh, “Guess I better see if anything’s written on them before counting my chickens.”
I pull the broken phone out of my pocket hoping the camera still works. Proper protocol stipulates photo documentation before disturbing anything; for while we archeologists might fool you into believing we’re harmless as flies, in fact we’re as destructive as voicing an unpopular opinion in a social forum.
Archeologists have gotten better at recording a lot more during excavations, but at the end of a dig there’s no arguing that a site has been irreparably changed. Anything not recorded is gone. And that is the very last thing I’ll tolerate with this find… my find.
Squeezing the Maglite under my arm, I hold up the phone.
Please work, I beg my imaginary god. Miraculously the flash goes off.
Yes!
I capture several wide angles of the fragile wooden shelves brimming with bounty, then divide the probably twenty-foot span into seven close-to-equal parts for close-ups.
As I step closer a pleasant, aromatic smell fills my nose and I sniff. Woody, earthy… with a hint of dryness.
“Is that… papyrus?” I wonder aloud.
It doesn’t have the signature leather, caramel, and dust mixed with sunlight scent that I associate with old parchments. I’ve certainly smelled enough to know. But papyrus? Egyptians used it.
“Egyptian scrolls in Greece?” I rub my ring, my excitement growing yet more.
Thoroughly enraptured by the old, seductive scent, I inhale another whiff and can’t suppress a sneeze. I grin as I blow my nose again. Another mystery to solve and I feel giddy.
As I capture close-ups of each of the six shelves, I do the math, calculating no less than one thousand two-hundred and sixty scrolls. And my legs buckle. The Dead Sea scrolls number close to nine hundred.
When I finish, I quickly scroll through the picture roll and snicker when I realize I made a punny. Scroll…
After satisfying myself that I haven’t missed anything, I stow my phone back in my cargo pants and step back, again scanning the trove in disbelief.
My fingers itch with the need to read just one before I report my find to Jude. Just one. A tiny one perhaps.
I know I shouldn’t. I’ll probably get in trouble, but it is my find. My sense of right wars with the rebellious streak I’ve been punished for a time or two, okay more than that. The folks at the group home thought they beat it out of me. No, they just taught me to use it stealthily.
The room’s been securely sealed, judging by the amazing condition the papyrus is in, so it ought to still be flexible enough to open without damaging it. I grin as I realize I’m rationalizing.
Surely they can’t fire me, not for this. Jude’ll get that stern frowny face, but that’ll be the worst of it.
My pulse speeds. I play by the rules when on the dig site, but aren’t I owed this? I’ll tell Jude I exercised “professional judgment.”
The argument makes me snicker again as I set the flashlight down, dig in my pants pocket for the pair of rubber gloves, then pull out a sheet of plastic that I keep folded in the inside pocket of my jacket; I discovered ages ago that kneeling on the plastic helps the knees of my pants last longer, and when you’re on a tight budget, every little bit helps. I pull on the gloves, then spread the plastic out.