The Dig (4 page)

For a second I think about giving up. If I backtrack down the wall, I might make it to the ground with just a twisted ankle or sprained knee….

But the thought of the hidden room directly behind me, unseen by anyone in three thousand years, spurs me on. Come on, Zoe, I urge.

Gathering all my strength and courage, I bend my knees and then push off with my left leg, springing toward the top of the wall. It‘s a crazy, risky, one-armed leap, and panic hits me when I feel the dust beneath the fingers of my right hand—I‘m not going to make it!—but then my hand is gripping the top of the stone wall and I‘m suspended by one arm, my shoulders and back muscles aching. Quickly, I swing my other arm up and pull myself onto the top of the wall. I‘m gasping and tears are streaming down my eyes with fear and relief. What was I thinking, trying a move like that?

At least descending the other side is easier. Within a minute, I climb down without incident and drop safely into the mystery room.

I‘m still so rattled from the climb up that I don‘t even react when an enormous spider scurries over my boots and onto the dusty floor. The Greek word for spider is
arachnid
. I read about the origin of the spider on the plane. Basically, the goddess Athena could be
very
jealous.

So when this girl Arachne was telling everyone that she was great at crafting tapestries, Athena ran down from her little palace in the sky and challenged the girl to a weaving contest. When Athena won, she was
still
mad at the earthling, so she turned her into a spider so that she‘d be running scared and weaving for the rest of her life. I guess the moral of that story is, basically, you can‘t win with the gods.

As the spider scurries away, I glance around to see if it has any friends.

Hopefully I didn‘t just go through all of that to land in a spider nest.

That‘s when I see it. In the corner, a giant, seven-foot-tall iPhone leans against a wall.

I blink. Huh?

I know the Greeks contributed a lot to society, with all their inventions and philosophies and sports. But I‘m pretty sure that Apple wasn‘t around in 1000 BC, so what could explain a giant black iPhone, angled against the wall like a full-length mirror in a dorm room?

My imagination takes off. Maybe this wasn‘t a temple. Maybe it was a giant‘s storage unit.

Or maybe this is some kind of hoax my uncle pulled as a way to teach me to leave my phone behind. It‘s also possible that the crew put this immovable block of glass and graphite here as a practical joke on my uncle.

Or maybe it‘s not an iPhone at all. The closer I get to it, the more it looks to be made of some kind of smooth stone, like pure and unveined black marble. But as I squat to examine it closer, I spot the signature circular indentation at the bottom of every iPhone. I run my hand over the circle and it‘s a bizarre sensation, feeling something so familiar in such an unfamiliar place. I leap back, suddenly scared.

The iPhone thingy is not coated in dust. How can that be? It‘s as brand-new as any phone fresh out of the shiny white cardboard box.

Seeing myself reflected in the dark screen, I feel like a ghost. And I will be a ghost soon because my aunt and uncle will be furious with me when they find out that I just touched something foreign without gloves.

My fingerprints are now on that artifact. An archeology site is kind of like a crime scene.

You aren‘t supposed to go rubbing your DNA all over everything you see. This time, when the spider flutters near my boot, I scream. Top of my lungs. A full-blown girly-girl-who‘s-scared-of-spiders kind of scream. Nobody hears me.

I am on my feet, running as hard as I can toward the wall. I am a bad girl, disobedient and arrogant. God, what is wrong with me? And how will I climb back up the wall in this condition, a sweaty nervous wreck? As I swipe my cowlick off my forehead, I see something shimmering and small on the ground. It looks like a coin. I bend down to pick it up, only to shake my head with disappointment.

This isn‘t a coin. It‘s made out of stone, not metal, and it has a slightly luminous glow to it.

The bottom is rounded while the top is flat. It‘s also dense. So dense that it feels condensed, as if the sum of the parts is infinitely greater than the whole and about to explode at any moment. When I hold it between my two pointer fingers, I marvel at its fat round bottom…just the right size and dimension to fit into the concave circle on the bottom of that big iPhone over there.

Why not? I think. I already got my fingerprints on the thing; what‘s one more trespass?

I lean down and press the obolus into the circle, smiling as it clicks into place. Presto! It‘s always fun when things fit together. I‘m about to take off my backpack and grab my phone when the wind hits my neck.

Wind? That‘s impossible. I‘m indoors.

I turn around. No. It can‘t be…

A wall of water and lighting and wind and god knows what else is charging at me at full speed. It‘s as if a hurricane appeared out of nowhere to engulf me I scream.

Black out.

And then, just like that, I am coughing.

Curled on my side, I clench my fists and fight for air. My eyes sting so much I can‘t open them. But when I touch my face, I realize that I‘m not wet at all, which makes no sense, given the tidal wave that hit me.

I feel the ground beneath me, and it‘s bone-dry too. I must have been knocked out for an hour, maybe more, for everything to have dried. I sniff the air, my other senses coming alive while my eyes continue to sting.

Something smells different. I could swear that my nostrils are picking up on turpentine or paint, but that‘s ridiculous. Maybe I got a concussion, I reason. I feel my head for a bump but can‘t find one. Still, you don‘t need a physical injury to have a concussion; I know that much. And everything is going to be fine anyway because I can hear a couple of men talking and their voices are clear enough that I know they can‘t be that far away. I will soon be safe, the medical examiner checking me out, my uncle chastising me for getting caught in a…

Tempest?

Windstorm?

Rogue wave beneath sea level?

I sit up.

The last thing I can remember is the wall of water and light, the way it came after me, almost as if it was aiming for me. I laugh because it‘s so silly to think of nature, which we all know to be indifferent, as having a grudge against a nosy girl. Clearly, whatever happened—a pipe bursting, a dam breaking—was not directed at me. I feel my eyes start to cool and, with relief, blink them open.

The giant iPhone is gone, undoubtedly swept away in the storm. In its place, the coin sits there, unscathed, as dry as my hair. I grab it and stuff it into the back pocket of my filthy white pants and then grope in my backpack for my phone. Miraculously, my water-resistant backpack has proven to be waterproof. All my things are safe, dry and functioning.

I immediately feel a little better, good enough to stand up and get my bearings. How did people manage their emotions before smartphones? I mean, I was never one of those kids who lugged around a teddy bear, even after losing my parents. In general, I don‘t have a lot of attachment to objects. It‘s always seemed silly to me the way girls at school horde Slinky bracelets or jerseys, as if those objects actually
do
anything. But a phone is functional. It‘s a connection to civilization, and at a time like this, I‘m grateful to find mine unscathed and powered up. No service, of course, but that‘s probably for the best. Calling my aunt from an off-limits room accessible only via a labyrinth would only get me into more trouble.

Just as I‘m about to head back to the wall, my eyes start watering again.

I see my shadow cast on the freshly cleaned floor. The water has really done a number on this room. It looks almost…new.

I stand there like a tourist, marveling at the clean, polished floor. Maybe I‘m not alone.

Maybe the crew installed temporary lights above that were altering the appearance of the space. I feel a sneeze coming on and turn my head away. But the sneeze dies the moment I see the door.

It is across the room, in the middle of the wall that didn‘t reach the ceiling. I shake my head in automatic denial. That‘s not right. Had there been a doorway, I wouldn‘t have scaled the wall. I would have walked in upright, like a normal person. And the doorway itself is confounding. It isn‘t a jagged-edged hole in the wall—collateral damage from the indoor water park. Its edges are carved and painted. I run my hand along the beam. Someone built this doorway with love.

How had I missed that door? Maybe I had been hungrier than I realized.

I do get kind of light-headed when I don‘t snack.

―!‖

I smile when I hear the Greek word for ―help.‖ Darren must have followed me after all and ended up getting trapped. His attempt at Greek is bad, like CeeCee when she tries to speak French with her au pair on Skype.

And whoever Darren is with, the one who‘s babbling now, well, he isn‘t all that masterful at Greek either.

―Coming, Darren!‖ I shout.

I run through the door toward the voices. Nope. That‘s not Darren and those two men aren‘t archeologists. From the look of the flimsy wooden scaffolding they‘re standing on and the old-school stone hammers in their hands, they must be local stonemasons. They‘re dressed strangely, with a large woolen rectangle draped fashionably around their bodies. But I don‘t bother thinking too much about their weird taste in clothing; all I know is they are definitely not part of my aunt and uncle‘s crew, and I am seething.

It‘s all coming together now, in the worst possible way.

See, there have been whispers about the possibility of the government seizing the site and transforming it into some kind of cheesy tourist attraction where you pick up T-shirts that say i went to ancient greece and all i got was this lousy t-shirt. And like any archeologist, I‘m passionate about historical preservation and I can‘t stand to see humans show so little respect for the humans who came before them and worked so hard.

What I do next is pure instinct. I need the destruction of this temple—

probably sold to the public as ―reconstruction‖—on record. With my iPhone I snap a few discreet shots of the stonemasons, the scaffolding, the horror of the way they‘re just banging at the walls, as if the walls aren‘t precious. No doubt they caused the flood. They probably brought in some high-powered hose meant for putting out fires. Disgusting.

The flash is on silent and the stonemasons are so engrossed in their conversation that they don‘t notice me. I‘ll show these pictures to my aunt and uncle, and together we‘ll put a stop to this mess. And then I won‘t get in trouble for wandering off. I found an ancient obolus, survived a flash flood and captured the corporate raid on camera. Not bad for day one!

My head is buried in my phone, which is why I almost walk into a giant wooden thing. I recognize it immediately as the model of an ancient Greek crane. A
really
accurate model. So accurate, in fact, that a less astute person might mistake it for the real deal. But that‘s impossible, I tell myself, as I shuffle through the great room I‘d been in with Darren just hours ago.

I don‘t want to think what I‘m thinking. I don‘t want to be so keenly aware that something is really off.

The room looks brand-new, as if had been built only days ago. The spot where Darren and I had stood, the spot with layers of earth caked on it—it looks entirely different now. I touch the wall and my hand comes away clean. A chill creeps through my spine and the image of the wooden crane pops into my head. I lean into the wall and swear that I catch that paint smell again, stronger than the scent I‘d picked up on when I‘d first come to. My heart is beginning to race. I hear footsteps. The stonemasons have descended from the scaffolding, the scaffolding that
also
appears alarmingly, inconceivably brand-new and yet ancient. I slip my phone into my pocket and start down a long hallway, trying not to notice the mysteries accosting my senses: the gluey odor of fresh wet mortar in an ancient ruin, the blinding shine of recently buffed walls in a room thousands of years old and something in the air that can only be called
purity
. I don‘t want to admit it to myself, but it doesn‘t feel like a storm passed through this room.

And if the wall of water hadn‘t passed through this enormous space, how had it reached me?

I am holding my phone so tight in my pocket that my knuckles are starting to ache. I have to get out of here as soon as possible. As my stomach rumbles, another theory blazes through my consciousness. There could be some kind of charity gala. That would explain everything. The

―ancient‖ tools are just props. The giant iPhone has been relocated. Maybe Apple is even sponsoring the event. Naturally, what I‘d mistaken for a wall of water was a cleaning crew. I can be pretty good at convincing myself of things when I need to be. By the time I reach the temple doorway, I feel confident that I will pass through it to find a catering truck and a bunch of cranky waiters sneaking cigarettes. I blow my cowlick out of my eye, turn the corner, and exit through the doorway.

A hot wind blows my hair right back over my eyes. This time, I don‘t brush it away. I‘m happy to be blinded. I just caught a glimpse of the world awaiting me, and I am in no rush to see it more clearly.

The sandbanks are gone. The dry dusty hills are gone. Even the dirt pathway is gone.

Now it‘s all grassy hills lush with flora, olive trees and pine trees.

Everything is green and bright, bursting with life. I stare at all this foliage in bloom and feel disoriented and lonely, as if I‘m at a Greeley formal when all the couples sway to Usher‘s ―U Got It Bad‖ while I stand drowning in other people‘s puppy love. I know what it is to feel outcast from my peers, but feeling outcast from my surroundings is a new sensation. The world has flipped upside down. It‘s so lush that I half expect Adam and Eve to pass by, hand in hand, their private parts covered by fig leaves. Everyone knows that Greece doesn‘t look like this, even CeeCee!