T.J. Laverne

Copyright © 2015 by T.J. Laverne

 

Chapter 1

 

A puff of sand sprayed into the air with each stroke of Wyatt’s brush as he slowly revealed the empty eye socket of a human who had been dead for perhaps a millennium. Wyatt’s heart accelerated. There was no greater felicity than revealing bones that had been buried in the sands for unimaginable lengths of time, perfectly preserved and bursting to tell their stories to anyone clever enough to interpret the clues they had left behind.

 

Wyatt Mortimer looked up and smiled at his uncle, who was watching him with close scrutiny. His uncle returned his rare, encouraging smile, creating a maze of wrinkles on his already aging face, and ushered Wyatt to continue. Readjusting the brush between his fingers, Wyatt ever so slowly revealed the second eye socket, the nose cavity, and the several teeth of a wide grin, until most of the face was uncovered. He then paused to examine his work and glanced up at his uncle for approval.

 

“From the maxillary bone, the nasal cavity and the incisors, what can we tell?” his uncle posed, taking on the tone of the teaching professor. He raised his bushy, white eyebrows at Wyatt expectantly.

 

“The person was . . . Caucasian,” Wyatt’s eager eyes shot up to his uncle’s face.

 

“And the frontal suture?” his uncle continued.

 

Wyatt’s eyes fell back to the fissure at the top of the skull, which had not yet fused together. “An adolescent.”

 

“And from the mastoid process, external occipital protuberance, the forehead and the chin?”

 

“She was a female,” Wyatt suppressed a smile.

 

His uncle nodded with approval. Though he wasn’t smiling, Wyatt knew better than to take it personally. His Uncle Spooky was a difficult person to read on a good day.

 

Family and friends had endearingly appointed Wyatt’s uncle with the nickname “Spooky,” as his favorite topic of conversation was of people who had been dead for several centuries. As a side-effect of his profession, Spooky could speak of the sometimes gruesome details of an ancient person’s death with hardly a blink of an eye. When Wyatt had been very young, the stories had seemed like ghost tales to him, which was when he had started calling him, “Uncle Spooky.” The name had caught on with his sisters and cousins, until even Spooky’s peers took up the name.

Spooky’s real name, however, was Dr. Saul Griffin. Essentially a nomad, he frequently traveled the country—and sometimes the world—giving lectures and occasionally teaching a class at the George Washington University in Washington D.C. When he was not giving lectures he was conducting field excavations in the countries of Turkey, Greece, Iraq, Egypt, or wherever his fancies led him.

 

Wyatt had taken a couple of his uncle’s courses at the university and attended many more of his lectures, but he couldn’t afford a proper education. This summer, he was under his uncle’s tutelage at an archaeological dig at the ancient site of Ephesus in Turkey, all expenses paid by his uncle.

 

Though Wyatt could not have been more fascinated each time a bone or an artifact was exhumed from the ancient dirt, he was still leagues away from being able to determine the details of the woman’s life from the tiny details of her skull, besides the basics. His uncle was there to help him with that. Most people were intimidated by Spooky’s wild shock of white hair and often curmudgeonly expression, but Wyatt found it comforting in its familiarity. It reminded him of home. He would learn as much as possible from his uncle while he could.

 

Under his uncle’s rough instructions, Wyatt switched to a wider brush and swept away the sands around the skull until it was exposed enough to lift it from the ground. Spooky took it in his hands and lifted it before his face, narrowing his eyes as he studied it. Wyatt waited patiently. This could take several minutes.

 

“Right, then,” Spooky finally spoke. “Let’s bring this over to the station and look at it under the glass.”

 

Wyatt and his uncle pulled themselves with some difficulty from the deep hole they had excavated in the ground, dusted off the dirt from their already hopelessly filthy knickers, and strode toward the canopy of canvas set up a distance from the dig site. Spooky placed the skull delicately on a table and took up his magnifying glass as Wyatt looked over his shoulder, and the two went to work staring at their find for the next half an hour. Wyatt tried to drink in as much as he could, feverishly writing down the finer details he knew he would not remember verbatim.

 

After a very satisfying afternoon of studying bones and pottery fragments, Wyatt was released to explore the coast, which was a bicycle ride from the dig site. Twenty minutes later, in a heap of sweat, he stopped on a steep hill overlooking the glistening mass that was the Aegean Sea.

 

Staring out to the horizon, he imagined 1,000 ancient Greek ships sailing ever closer to the scrubby cliff on which he stood, led by none other than Menelaus and Agamemnon. He could almost see Hector at the forefront of the Trojan army, defending his country with no shortage of courage and honor, nobly ignoring the fact that his brother’s lust for beautiful Helen’s forbidden fruits had started the war in the first place.

 

Wyatt could relate very well to Hector. Like Hector, his family and home meant more to him than anything else. He would fight off a thousand Spartans in a heartbeat if it meant protecting them. That was why Hector was his most favorite of Greek heroes. Achilles was arrogant and self-serving. He had no sense of loyalty as Hector did.

 

Wyatt gave a happy sigh, lifting up his nose and taking in a huge whiff of the salty, briny Aegean Sea air. The sea was such a delicious shade of crystal clear blue in the afternoon sunlight it looked good enough to drink. Wyatt looked at the sheer cliffs to his left and the perfect sandy beach below him to his right, and felt suddenly dizzy. He could hardly believe he was here.

 

Yet even in his state of elation, he felt a pang deep in the pit of his stomach as he thought of his family and home. It was the first time he had ever been away from his hometown, having lived a rather sheltered life, and he couldn’t stop worrying how his family was getting along. While his father had been away during the Great War, he had been solely responsible for his mother and two sisters, and couldn’t break the feeling now that he was away. He often had to remind himself that his father was home now, and was more than capable of taking care of his family in Wyatt’s absence.

 

Though the country of Turkey, itself, held many treasures for him, he felt pathetically homesick. He rather missed his armchair, his lumpy mattress, and his daily routine. Here, he could hear other people snoring at night from his tent, he couldn’t wash his face in privacy, and the food wasn’t agreeing with his digestive system. Not to mention, for one who was far from being considered a “people person,” he found himself being forced into the company of strangers with a painful regularity.

 

His entire life people had told him he was like his Uncle Spooky, meaning it rather as an insult than a compliment. His Uncle Spooky could get away with his general surliness and lack of friendliness due to his age, but Wyatt was an old curmudgeon in a 27-year-old’s body, which was much less forgivable. He was often told he needed to socialize with other people his age, party, drive recklessly, and make some horrible decisions. But he much preferred the company of his family to a room of crowded, noisy drunkards.

 

Wyatt removed his newsboy cap and ran a hand through his hair, which was quite moist in the dry heat of the Turkish summer. His coal black hair, thick and wavy, attracted the warmth like a heat conductor, and attracted the looks of a lady or two, as well. His black brows were full and serious and his eyes were a deep mahogany, so it was no wonder they could hardly keep their eyes to themselves. Wyatt didn’t notice. He knew his pocketbook would never satisfy them, so why bother?

 

Replacing his cap, he rubbed the sun from his eyes, getting sand in them instead. His hands were getting so dirty these days they would hardly wash clean anymore, and his arms were covered with dirt above the elbows. He knew he needed a bath, but he liked the feeling of dirt beneath his fingernails. Most days it didn’t matter, as the excavation crew was just as dirty as he was, but his uncle wanted to treat him at an authentic Turkish restaurant tonight in Smyrna—a large city at least an hour’s drive from Ephesus.

 

With a resolved sigh, Wyatt grabbed his bike and made his arduous way back to the dig site. As he neared the familiar ancient ruins, he passed the American archaeologist, Mr. Cowan, bent over another broken fragment of pottery, his knees sinking into the sands and the back of his shirt soaked through with sweat.

 

Wyatt squinted as he passed, hoping to see what was etched on the surface of the fragment, but the sun was glaring too harshly in his eyes. He could’ve stopped to ask, in a friendly sort of way, but he didn’t have the energy for friendliness today. Mr. Cowan had a squirrely way about him, and he wore far too much oil in his hair.

 

Mr. Cowan looked up briefly from the fragment and gave a nod, which Wyatt stiffly returned before quickly averting his eyes and scowling. He sensed Mr. Cowan’s resentment that Wyatt had not spoken or smiled, but he wasn’t about to let it bother him.

 

Not far away, Mr. Bing and Mr. Cesaro were having an animated discussion over a tablet carved with ancient Greek writing, Mr. Cesaro flapping his arms like a bird and Mr. Bing practically yelling in his excitement. Mr. Cesaro was the translator of the crew, specializing in ancient Greek and other old languages. They were both rather old and rather stout, and had grandfatherly ways about them. Wyatt understood some of what they were saying and had another urge to stop and ask questions, but would rather not get smacked in the face by one of Mr. Cesaro’s flapping arms.

 

“Oi, Wyatt!” Mr. Bing lifted his hand in a jovial wave.

 

“Mr. Bing, Mr. Cesaro,” Wyatt gave two more stiff nods and continued to pedal past. They resumed their animated discussion without missing a beat. Wyatt realized he might like Mr. Bing and Mr. Cesaro. They never pushed him into conversation, and didn’t seem to hold it against him for not joining them, the way Mr. Cowan might.

 

At the opposite end of the dig site, Mr. Brown, an Englishman, stood with his large camera and tripod. Mr. Brown photographed all of the crew’s finds and developed the photos in a strange, dark tent where he spent most of his time. The camera snapped, the bright, white light nearly blinding Wyatt, and was followed by a cloud of magnesium powder that looked like smoke. Wyatt waved the smoke away, choking, and Mr. Brown mistook it for a wave.

 

“How’s your day going, young Wyatt? You enjoying yourself, yet?” Mr. Brown’s eyes reflected his excessive excitement, magnified by thick, square glasses.

 

Wyatt nodded curtly, trying not to invite a conversation. “Thank you.”

 

“Any plans for tonight?” Mr. Brown obviously didn’t take the hint. He spent far too much time in his dark tent and obviously craved human interaction in a way Wyatt could not understand.

 

“Uncle Spooky is taking me to dinner.”

 

Wyatt knew he was preparing to ask where, but Wyatt skirted away while he could. To his surprise, the large basin beside his tent was already filled with water. He looked around and saw a tanned, barefoot Turkish boy hoisting a large bucket of water, which he used to fill the basins in front of the other tents. He wanted to help the boy, but he didn’t know much Turkish, and he hadn’t had unsupervised human interaction with any Turkish people, yet. He found they were kinder than most of the people he knew back home, yet he couldn’t actually bring any words to the surface when he tried.

 

Shaking his head at his own cowardice, he scowled deeply and turned back to his basin. With a cringe he splashed water into his dirt-covered face, emerging just in time to see the hint of a dark figure rushing behind him.

 

He turned his head quickly, but nothing was there. Even the Turkish boy had disappeared. Scowling deeper, he walked in the direction of the figure until he had reached Uncle Spooky’s tent. An oil-lamp was lit inside, casting two shimmering shadows onto the canvas. One was clearly Spooky, and the other was a medium-sized creature that appeared to be attacking his uncle.