Seven Wonders Journals (7 page)

“Go now before I change my mind!” Artemisia shrieked, ripping our eardrums to shreds.

Osman grabbed the orb. We started toward the severed end of the rope that led to the surface. I reached for it.

Then it moved.

Was Artemisia playing tricks on us?

I heard a thump, and another. Heavy footsteps approached as the end of the rope slid back into the darkness. Then Father appeared, lit only by the dim blue light of Artemisia's smoky armor.

“You're alive!” Father gasped. “And . . .” His voice dried up as he saw Artemisia.

“Thank you, boy,” she said. “This man's soul will tide me over until you bring me the rest.”

I realized what we had just done. Osman shook his head. “No,” he said. “You can't do this.”

“Osman . . . ?” Father said, his eyes widening.

Artemisia reached a clawlike hand toward him. With surprising gentleness, she laid it against his chest. Father looked uncertain. Then he knew exactly what was happening. As the life flowed from him, his eyes met mine.
Go!
he mouthed.

But I froze in horror as a flash of light burst from his chest. He shuddered, his eyes rolled back in his head, and his knees buckled.

Before our eyes he crumpled to the ground, lifeless and inert.

Osman screamed. My mouth hung open as my brain searched for a way to react. Bitter bile rose in my throat. I felt like I was going to be sick.

Father's body was drained of all color, a rag doll left on the floor, as if it had never been alive. Never been that enthusiastic, foolish man, leaping for joy at the news of some distant treasure, rubbing his hands as he crafted another misguided plan, smiling all the while.

“Father!” Osman moaned, tears cascading down his cheeks.

I tried to scream, to cry, but my body seemed like it was no longer mine, frozen by the sight of my father lying on the ground like a pile of old clothes.

Artemisia, however, was a changed woman. Her wrinkled skin was no longer cracked, her shoulders no longer stooped. Through the fog I noticed that her hair had more black than gray in it now. Her voice was clearer, healthier.

“Thaaank youuu,” she said.

She grinned widely, and her head tipped back as she began to rise off the tunnel floor.

Osman looked up from Father's side, face streaked with tears. His lips bunched together, his hands shook. “You're not a queen!” he screamed, “You're a killer! You're a witch!” But Artemisia was oblivious to his cries. She floated there, blissfully ignoring us.

This was our chance. I shook free of my trance, blinking back tears, and tucked the ball under my arm. “Let's go!” I cried, starting toward the end of the tunnel.

“I'm coming.” Osman knelt at Father's side, trying to lift the body into his arms.

Osman might have grown up that day, but he was still no match for the dead weight of a grown man. “Leave him, Osman! We have to go. Now!” I screamed.

Sobbing, Osman let go and we began scrambling up the steep tunnel.

I found the severed rope and gathered it in my hands,
yanking as hard as I could. I shouted wordlessly up the tunnel, hoping desperately that Father's team had enough loyalty to wait for him to return.

I felt a tug on the rope and relief washed over me. We were going to make it. I could see pale light at the end of the tunnel. Daylight. I held on to the rope as Ali and Ahmet hauled me up.

As I reached for Osman's hand, I heard a rushing noise, like a waterfall. A billow of hot air hit us from below.

“MINE!” Artemisia's voice erupted from the tunnel. At the same moment, Osman's hand jerked out of my grasp.

“Aliyah!” Osman screamed.

Then he was gone, snatched backward into the dark. Loose soil and stones rattled after him, a small avalanche, blocking the mouth of the tunnel.

And then . . . silence.

The queen of the underworld was gone.

Osman was gone.

Father was gone.

All I had left was the blue bauble from the legend.

I stared at it as tears welled up and blinded me. “No,” I screamed, but my throat was too dry to make a sound.

My eyes are closing, Diary. I need a few minutes of rest before I—

Friday evening

I'
M AWAKE AGAIN.

I wish I were dreaming, Diary, but there's more to tell.

Hands reached down into the tunnel and pulled me up after a minute or two of climbing. I crawled onto solid ground. Gencer gasped and snatched the blue bauble out of my hands. The men cheered and crowded around him.

I burst into tears.

“What's wrong with you?” Gencer asked. “Where's Khalid and your brother? What happened?”

“Sh-she took them,” I sobbed. “Artemisia!”

“Arte-who?” Ahmet said.

“You were right here! We weren't more than twenty meters away! You didn't hear anything?” I screamed, falling to my hands and knees. Sobs racked my body.

“All we heard was you shouting Osman's name.” Gencer shook his head.

“She took them both—Father and Osman,” I said.

“What do you mean? Who is she? Are they alive?” Gencer said.

I shook with anger. “The Queen of the Underworld. Artemisia. She's down there—and she took my brother!” Suddenly a thought struck me. How could I have been so
stupid! “Maybe it's not too late! She said Osman had some sort of . . . mark . . . maybe she's not going to rip out his soul so fast. If we hurry maybe we can . . .”

There was a booming sound from deep inside the tunnel. I knew my plea would go unanswered but I tried anyway. “Ahmet? P-please?” My voice broke.

The men exchanged glances.

“I'm not going down there, I won't fit,” Ahmet said.

“The tunnel is completely blocked,” Dodi added.

“Khalid should never have gone down there,” Ali said. “Is this the curse Nigel talked about?”

“I warned him,” Gencer sighed, shaking his head. “I told him it was a bad idea.”

I turned away, sickened, as one by one Father's friends abandoned him.

For a piece of jewelry.

A fortune, yes, but was it worth it?

They think so, but they didn't just lose their whole family.

I can't even think about tomorrow, Diary. I am lost.

Saturday

I
DON
'
T KNOW
if I slept or not. Or if I ever will again. All I know is that I am wrapped in Father's military coat. My arms are stiff, my back bruised. No one remains. The blue bauble is gone, too.

I have scoured the earth for the gash, but it, too, has disappeared as if it never existed.

So this is it, Diary. Today I bury you and start a new life. Today I am alone.

I will embrace Alone. Alone will be my ally. If you have no one, then you have nothing to lose.

I know Artemisia is down there. I can feel her through the earth. She may think she has the souls of my father and my brother. But she is wrong. I have them. My mother's, too, deep inside me. In a way the zombie queen could never understand.

I am all of them. And I will have my revenge.

My vow:

I will track down that scum, Gencer, and get the jewel back. It might well have magical powers, and if it does I will find out how to use them. I will become rich, powerful, and influential. Gencer will wish he'd never met my father and my family.

And then I will teach Artemisia the meaning of pain.

Dear Diary, I know now that my brother had the mark. I will find out what that is. I know this blue ball is the key to more than nothingness. My father and brother will not have died in vain. I will make their lives mean something.

This is my solemn promise. Even if it takes all of eternity.

—Aliyah

L
EAVING THE LOCULI
at home was out of the question. Dad and I were both paranoid the Massa—or some snoop hired by Morty Reese—would break in and steal them. So we took them with us on Dad's jet. For protection.

The ride was bumpy. We argued for six hours about how to proceed. Aly was still thin and quiet from being sick. But by the time we reached the Kalamata Airport, we had a plan. Cass, Aly, and I would grab a taxi. Alone. Bringing Dad with us, we decided, would make the Massa suspicious.

So we left him and the Loculi behind in the plane.

I was a nervous wreck.

The taxi had no air-conditioning and a hole in the front passenger floor. Rocks spat up into the car from the road as we drove. As we sped noisily across Greece, the mountains of the Peloponnese rose up in the distance to our right. And Cass had a revelation. “Whoa,” he cried out, looking up from his phone. “The meaning of
Roudouni
is
nostril
!”

“Is geography!” our driver said. (Everything he said seemed to come with an exclamation point.) “Just north of Roudouni is long mountain with—how do you say? Ridge! To Ancient Greeks, this looks like straight nose! Greek nose! Strong! At bottom is two valleys—round valleys! Is like, you know . . .
thio roudounia
. . . two nostrils!”

“And thus,” Cass announced, “Roudouni
picked
its name.”

“Cass, please . . .” Aly said.

Cass began narrating like a TV host. “Our car develops a moist coating as it enters the rim of the
roudouni
. It is said that the people here are a bit snotty, tough around the edges but soft at the core.”

“Ha! Is funny boy!” the driver exclaimed.

Cass gestured grandly out the window. “Exotic giant black hairs, waving upward from the ground and dotted with festive greenish globs, greet visiting tourists as they plunge upward into the—”

“Ew, Cass—just
ew
!” Aly said. “Can we leave him by the side of the road?”

On the outskirts of town, goats roamed in vast, sparse fields. Old men in ragged coats stared at us, their backs bent and their hands clinging to gnarled wooden canes. Black-clad old ladies sat knitting in front of rickety shacks, and a donkey ignored our driver's horn, just staring at us in the middle of the street. I felt strangely paranoid. I clutched
the backpack tightly.

As we drove slowly through a flock of squawking chickens, I read the English section of a big, multilingual road sign:

YOU ARE APROCHING ROUDOUNI

THE PRID OF THE PELOPONNESE!!!

“Prid?” Cass said.

“I think they mean ‘pride,'” Aly answered.

Where on earth
were
we?

“Maybe we should have brought Dad along,” I said. “This is pretty remote.”

“We want the Massa to think we're alone,” Aly said. “That was the plan. If we need to, we can call him.”

I nodded. Dad had promised to hire a chopper if necessary, if anything were to go wrong. Which seemed weird, considering that “going right” meant being captured.

I tried to imagine Brother Dimitrios and his gang actually traveling to this place. I couldn't imagine
anyone
in his right mind traveling here.

We rounded a bend, following a narrow alley lined with whitewashed buildings. The car began swerving around potholes, bouncing like crazy. “Who paved this road,” Aly grumbled, “Plato?”

“Is funny girl!” the driver barked.

He slowed to ten kilometers an hour as we crept toward the town center. I knew we were getting close by the sound
of Greek music and the smell of fried food. Soon the dark, tiny street opened up into a big cobblestoned circular plaza surrounded by storefronts. We paid the driver and got out. I don't what they were cooking, but I had to swallow back a mouthful of drool.

Did I say I was starving?

I was starving. I hadn't eaten in five hours.

Most of the shops were shuttered for the night, but the cafés and restaurants were jumping. People strolled across the plaza, slowly and aimlessly, arm in arm. Kids chased each other and played catch. In the restaurants, stray cats wove around people's legs, looking for scraps, while entertainers in flowing costumes sang and played tambourines, guitars, and strange instruments that sounded like oboes. Old men sat silently outside the cafés at backgammon tables, sipping coffee and amber-colored drinks. An outdoor bar called AMERICA!! had two huge flat-screen TVs, one blaring a soccer game in Greek and the other an old rerun of
Everybody Loves Raymond
in English.

In the center was Zeus.

Or something Zeus-ish.

The statue glowered over the surroundings like a creepy, unwanted party guest. No one seemed to be paying it much notice. Its face and shoulders were peeling and pockmarked, like it had a skin disease. Its eyes were pointed in the direction of a flat-screen TV. Over time the eyeballs had eroded,
so it looked like a grown-up Child of the Corn. In its raised hand was a big soccer-ball-like thing, but I could barely see it under a dense crowd of birds.

“The Loculus of Pigeon Droppings,” Cass mumbled, as we slowly walked around the plaza. I could feel the curious eyes of the café-dwelling old men. One of the musicians moved toward us through the crowd—a girl about our age, maybe a little older. The hem of her skirt was raggedy, but the fabric was a rich patchwork of reds, purples, and blues, spangled with bright baubles. Her ankles and wrists jangled with bracelets. As she caught my eye, she smiled and then said,
“Deutsch? Svenska? Eenglees?”

“Uh, English,” I said. “American. No money. Sorry.”

One of the café waiters came running toward us, shouting at the beggar girl to chase her away. As she ran off, he gestured toward the café. “Come! Eat! Fish! Music! I give you good price!”

Now customers and coffee sippers were staring at the commotion. “This is bad,” I whispered. “We don't want to attract public attention. This is not how you stage an abduction. Kidnappers need quiet.”

“Don't look now,” Cass said, “but they're here. Other side of the plaza. We're six o'clock, they're twelve. Just to the left of the big TV!”

The TV was no longer playing
Everybody Loves Raymond
but an old black-and-white episode of
I Love Lucy
.
Sitting at a small round table were four men in brown monk robes.

The Massarene.

I couldn't tell if they were the exact same goons who'd tried to kill us in Rhodes. We were too far away. Those pious robes hid a gang of thugs who would shoot at thirteen-year-old kids from helicopters.

“What do we do?” Aly asked.

“They tried to murder us once already!” Cass said.

“That was before the Massa knew who we were,” I said. “Remember, they need us.”

“So we just walk up to their tables?” Cass asked. “Like, ‘
Yia sou
, dudes! Can we offer you some baklava for dessert, or maybe a kidnapping?'”

“Just let them see us,” I said. “Come on, follow me.”

The shortest route was directly across the plaza. People crisscrossed back and forth in front of us, as the sitcom's laugh track washed over the town square. The monks were eating and talking quietly, ignoring the TV. As we passed the statue, one of them looked up toward us. He had a thick brown unibrow and an intense, angry stare.

Aly tugged at my arm. “Where's Cass?”

I whirled around. I could see Cass a few feet behind us, at the base of the statue. He was helping up a crying little boy who had fallen on the cobblestones. The kid's parents smiled and thanked him, jabbering away in Greek. Cass
backed away and tripped over a stone, too, landing against the statue. It looked like he was doing it on purpose, to cheer up the little boy and make him laugh. “I'll get him,” I said.

But as I stepped toward Cass, I heard an odd cracking noise, like the turning of an ancient mill wheel.

The little boy shrieked, jumping into his father's arms. I could hear chairs scraping behind us, people screaming.

Pop!
A jagged projectile of broken stone flew toward me and I ducked.

Pop!
Pop!
Pop!
They were flying all around now.

I scrambled backward toward the café. The monks had left their seats and were backing away. Desserts and dinners lay abandoned on tables, dropped to the ground.

“Jack!” Cass screamed.

High above him, the statue of Zeus turned, shedding more marble pieces. And it reared back its spear, pointing it toward Cass.