The Granite Key (Arkana Mysteries) (5 page)

Chapter 10
– Photographic Memories

The grandfather clock in the hall was chiming noon when Faye heard a gentle knock on her front door. She hobbled over to answer it as quickly as her aged feet would carry her. Standing on her porch was a young woman, barely out of her teens.
 
The girl was dressed in blue jeans, a pullover, and light spring jacket. She was about Faye’s height with the slender build of a gymnast. Her shortness and tiny frame gave her the air of a pixie, as if she were a small scale replica of an adult human.

The girl smiled hesitantly. “Are you Faye?” She flipped her head slightly to move her limp, straight hair out of the way. It was parted to the side and seemed to want to cover her face like a curtain. The color was a dark shade of brown. There was nothing remarkable about her features—regular and even. Nothing remarkable but her eyes. They were large and grey, but not a clear grey. They were opaque, like sunlight struggling to burn through fog.

“Please come in,” Faye offered.

“My name is Cassie,” the girl held out her hand.

“I’m very pleased to meet you, my dear.” Faye shook her hand warmly. “It’s such a lovely day for early spring. Almost warm enough for me to remember what summer feels like. Why don’t we go outside and talk in the garden.”

Cassie followed her toward the back of the house.

“Would you like some lemonade?” Faye asked over her shoulder as they passed through the kitchen.

“Yes, thank you. I would,” replied Cassie.

She helped Faye carry a pitcher and two glasses through the screen door to the back yard.

Faye’s garden was a world unto itself. It spanned a full acre. Fruit trees, evergreens and tall shrubs lined the eight-foot privacy fence, muffling sounds of traffic from the street. There were leafy rose bushes just starting to wake up to the season. Stepping stone paths skirted flower beds blooming with crocus and narcissus. At the far end against the fence was a newly cultivated plot of fresh dirt for summer vegetables.

“Wow, this is some yard you’ve got,” Cassie said in amazement. “From the street, you can’t even tell this is here.”

“That’s the idea.” Faye smiled. “Shall we sit over there?” She led the way to a latticework pergola in the middle of the flower garden which contained a wrought iron bistro table and two chairs. The roof of the pergola was covered with wisteria vines. Clusters of purple flowers were just beginning to bloom. They hung down like a canopy over the two women.

Cassie seemed ill at ease. Faye didn’t press her so they sat in silence, sipping lemonade for a little while.

Eventually, the girl set down her glass and reached into her jacket pocket. She pulled out a folded piece of paper. “I don’t suppose there’s any good way to talk about this. Here, read it for yourself.” She pressed the paper into Faye’s hands.

Faye looked questioningly at the girl, set down her own glass and unfolded the paper. It was a letter. She began to read it out loud.

“My Dear Little Sis,

I’m sitting here writing this and hoping that you never have to read it. The only reason you would come across this letter is if I’m gone. Maybe the danger will pass and I can destroy this. Maybe not.

There are times when my work can be risky. This is one of those times. I’ve come across a find that has immense value to the people I work with but it looks like somebody else wants this find too. Somebody who would be willing to kill for it.
 
For the past week, I’ve gotten the feeling I’m being followed. It might be my imagination. In case it isn’t and in case something happens to me, I want you to call the number I wrote on the back of this sheet. Ask to speak to Faye. Give her the packet. She can explain everything.

There’s so much I want to say, but there isn’t enough time, and maybe it only comes down to this. I love you and everything I did, even when you didn’t understand it, was to keep you safe. No matter what you might have thought, I was always looking out for you.

Love,

Sybil”

Faye stopped reading. She glanced up to see Cassie wiping tears from her cheeks. “Oh, my dear, I am so sorry.” She reached out to squeeze Cassie’s hand lightly.

The girl stared off into the distance. She began to speak more to herself than to Faye. “It’s funny the way she ended the letter. She must have thought that I hated her. I suppose I did a little. I blamed her for everything. All the moves. Every year it was a new school in a new town. She never explained why. She just parked me with housekeepers most of the time while she was off doing whatever it was she did when she wasn’t around. After we came to
Chicago
, I told her that I was going to finish college at the same school where I started no matter what. She swore this would be the end of the line.” Cassie laughed bitterly. “That was one promise she sure kept.”

She impatiently brushed away another tear. “I resented her but I loved her too. I hope she knew that. Maybe she didn’t because we were always more like strangers than sisters. But I did love her. She was the only family I had after our parents died.” The girl shifted in her chair to stare directly at Faye. “Sybil said you could explain everything. Can you explain how somebody could walk into my world and wreck it without even blinking?” Cassie’s eyes welled up once again with tears. “Do you know who killed my sister?”

Faye hesitated. She measured her words carefully. “We have an idea who was responsible and we’re conducting our own investigation. We should have some information to share with you soon.”

The girl nodded and straightened up. Reaching into her jacket pocket once more, she pulled out a thick envelope. She pushed it across the table toward the old woman. “My sister said to give you this packet.”

Faye removed the contents. A series of photographs and a page of numbers.

Cassie leaned over to point at the first picture. “That’s what he took. The man in my dream
—
” She stopped short, catching herself before she blurted out more.

“The man in your dream?” Faye enunciated the words distinctly. She gave Cassie a searching look.

The girl shied away. As she lowered her head, her hair swung down over her face. “No. That isn’t what I meant. Dumb thing to say. I mean the man who broke into Sybil’s apartment. He took that ruler.”

Faye returned her attention to the packet. “How extraordinary.” She flipped through the snapshots.

“I think each one shows a side of the ruler. It had five sides,” Cassie added helpfully.

“I see.” Faye remained lost in thought as she studied the photos. Each side of the ruler contained one line of markings. The left half consisted of pictograms, the right half was a script in some language she couldn’t identify. The bottom edge was etched with indecipherable hash marks and loops.

“And then in the note with all the numbers, I think she’s giving the measurements. The length and width of the thing. At least they seem to match the size I guessed it to be. Why do you suppose she would want you to have that?”

Faye paused a moment to consider. “I believe she thought the people who wanted this item would try to steal it. If they were successful, the information you’ve provided would allow us to make a replica. But that puzzles me too.”

“You mean you don’t know why?” Cassie sounded concerned.

“All the artifacts Sybil recovered are originals. Their value lies in their antiquity. From that standpoint, a replica is worthless. Like paste jewels.” She hesitated. “I’ll need to discuss this with my associates.”

“Your associates?” Cassie asked cautiously. “How many are there? And by the way, who are you people anyway?”

Faye smiled and sighed. “Where to begin…”

Chapter 11
– Bowled Over

Cassie adjusted her chair to face Faye directly.

The old woman took a few minutes to gather her thoughts. “As you already know, your sister was in the antique business. Aside from her store, Sybil was part of an organization that collects rare objects. Objects that have a particular significance to our group.”

Cassie pounced on the word. “Your group? Does your group have a name?”

“Yes,” Faye said gently but offered nothing further on that point. She continued. “We are involved in a large scale recovery project. Its scope is immense. It reaches back far before recorded history and spans cultures across the entire globe.”

“No wonder Sybil wasn’t around much,” muttered Cassie. “Sounds like you kept her pretty busy.”

“Not just her, dear,” Faye took a sip of lemonade. “There are hundreds of people all over the world involved in this effort.”

“What could be that big?”

“Nothing less than the true story of the human race,” Faye replied cryptically. She stood up. “I think we need something to go with this lemonade. Don’t you?” Without waiting for a reply she trundled into the house and emerged a few minutes later carrying a plate of oatmeal cookies.

“Help yourself, dear.” She set the plate on the table.

Cassie reached over to take one. Picking up right where they’d left off, she asked, “What exactly do you mean by the true story of the human race?”

Faye laughed. “That’s a big question to answer.” She settled back in her chair and began to speak. “What if I told you that much of what you’ve been taught about the past is a lie?”

Cassie looked at her noncommittally.

“Have you ever taken an ancient history class?”

Cassie nodded.

“When do your history books say that civilization began?”

The girl considered the question. “I think it was Sumeria,
Babylon
, something like that. Where
Iraq
is now. The Tigris and
Euphrates
rivers were what they called the cradle of civilization. Sometime around 3000 BCE.”

The old woman chuckled. “Yes, that is the prevailing theory. I’m sure they told you about the rise of the Egyptians, Sumerians, and later the Greeks and Romans. Great military conquests, empire building. All of it a straight march from barbarism to civilization.”

“I guess.” Cassie poured more lemonade for the two of them.

“What if I told you that great civilizations thrived before that time? As much as four thousand years before that time. What if I told you that some of those civilizations were sophisticated enough to have written language, running water and sewer systems, and that warfare didn’t exist.”

Cassie stopped sipping her lemonade. She seemed intrigued. “Really? Is this one of those crazy space alien theories?”

Faye laughed. “Not at all, child. There were major civilizations scattered all over the world. We are in the process of proving that. In
India
, the Aegean,
Africa
. Everywhere really. Lost cities that you’ve never heard of and a way of life that you probably never dreamed existed.”

“So why isn’t all that stuff in the history books?” Cassie challenged.

“Because history is the conquerors’ version of what happened. The defeated are written out of the story entirely.”

Cassie impatiently shrugged her hair away from her face. “So why is it a big deal? One country invades another country and the winner gets to tell future generations how great they were. It’s always been that way.”

“Actually it hasn’t,” Faye corrected gently. “Until about six thousand years ago the human race didn’t behave that way at all.”

“That’s pretty hard to swallow,” Cassie said unconvinced.

“It’s hard to swallow because recorded history wants us to believe that it’s always been this way. That violence toward our own species is ingrained in our very being. Dog eat dog. Nature red in tooth and claw.”

“So your group has a theory that we used to be nicer to each other than we are now,” the girl’s voice held a slightly mocking tone.

“Much more than a theory. We’re building quite a compelling body of evidence to prove it.”

 
“So what changed us?” Cassie sounded more intrigued than doubtful now.

“A number of factors: climate shift, agriculture, domesticated animals, settled communities and global warming that makes our current dilemma look small by comparison. The combination of all these things was what you might call a perfect storm. It turned some of us into killers.”

The girl raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Why only some of us and not all of us?”

“Because some of us were lucky enough to settle in hospitable environments. Fertile farmland, a mild climate, and plentiful resources. And these fortunate people continued to worship the deity that all humans had worshipped from the very beginning of time. A benevolent mother goddess who readily supplied all the needs of her children.”

Faye’s face darkened. “But others were not so lucky. Hemmed in by mountains and trapped by floods during the last climate change. They suffered through prolonged droughts and famine. Their landscape became harsh and barren and it yielded them nothing. They grew angry and turned their backs on the goddess. If she would not supply them, they would take what they needed from others by force and pray to a like-minded god. A volatile sky god of thunder with an appetite for gore.
 

These outcasts became something the world had never seen before. Instead of killing animals for food, they slaughtered each other for possessions and dominance. Obsessed with warfare, they made raiding and pillaging a way of life. Raiding progressed to invading. As time went by, these invaders spread like a virus across the face of the earth, rewriting the story of every land they subjugated. The original nature deities of the vanquished were replaced with their own violent sky gods. Even the peaceful lands they attacked became warlike in self-defense. The cosmos was thrown out of balance. Women were no longer honored once aggression replaced cooperation as the supreme survival skill. And now we live in a world that has forgotten the time when humankind wasn’t drowning in its own blood.”

Despite the horror she was describing, Faye’s voice was matter-of-fact.

Cassie was silent, her expression grave.

Faye continued. “Our collective memory has been erased. I, your sister, and the rest of our group are trying to get it back. To remember our true nature.”

“Remember, how?”

“We are digging up the buried past of the world. Site by site. Bone by bone. Artifact by artifact. We are putting the puzzle back together. We practice an alternative kind of archaeology—the kind that defies the fabrications of history. Which reminds me…” Faye stood up and walked over to a corner of the pergola. She picked up a shallow metal bowl that had been sitting on the ground. Cassie hadn’t noticed it before.

Faye pulled her chair closer to Cassie. “Your sister was very good at authenticating our finds. I wonder if you would give it a try.”

She held the bowl toward Cassie.

The girl made no move to take it. “I’m not a trained archaeologist.”

Faye smiled. “I’m not asking for anything specific. Just hold it in your hands and tell me what you observe.” She nudged the bowl closer.

Cassie reached out with both hands. The second she touched the rim something very strange happened.

She felt dizzy, as if she were falling down a deep, black well. Eventually she landed. She found herself in a cavern. An underground vaulted chamber of some sort. There was a woman perched on a high stool.

No, that was wrong. Cassie had become the woman perched on a high stool. At least that’s where her consciousness was. She felt that she had somehow merged with this person.

She was dressed in a long white linen robe. In her left hand she held a branch with leaves on it and in her right she held a bowl. The same kind Faye had given her. Only now it contained a clear liquid. She was looking into it as if it were a crystal ball. In front of her stool, on the floor of the cavern there was a crack in the ground. Strange-smelling vapors were drifting upward from that spot. The scent made Cassie feel light-headed.

There was also a man wrapped in a toga who was standing in the chamber in front of her. A large man with heavy muscles. He had a stern, almost cruel expression on his face. He seemed to be hanging on every word she said. Cassie didn’t know how she could understand the language much less speak it, but she felt herself telling the man he was about to win a decisive victory over his enemies.

The next thing Cassie knew she was back in the garden, sitting in a wrought iron chair. Faye had lifted the bowl out of her hands.

“I think that’s quite sufficient for one day.” The old woman smiled. “Tell me what you saw.”

Cassie was startled, disoriented. “What the freak was that!” she demanded.

“Just tell me what you saw,” Faye prompted gently.

“It was weird. I fell into another place. Another time. I felt as if I’d actually become someone else. I was a woman sitting in a cave telling the future to some guy who wanted to win a big battle.” Cassie’s heart was hammering. She looked at her glass suspiciously. “You put something in my lemonade!”

“I did no such thing, my dear, and I think you know that. You’ve had unusual experiences like this before, haven’t you.” Faye sounded as if she was stating a fact, not asking a question.

Cassie shook her head violently. “No, never. Or… maybe… but only once. Only the night Sybil died. I dreamed it before it happened. Every detail. It was like I was right there. The man in the cowboy hat was there too. The one who stole the stone ruler. He wanted Sybil to tell him where the key was.”

“You say he was looking for a key of some sort?” Faye sounded surprised.

“Yeah, a stupid key. And my sister is dead because of it. And I was standing right there when it happened.”

“Sometimes the gift first appears when there has been an emotional trauma. Your sister had her first experience right after your parents died.”

“After… after my… What!” Cassie felt as if Faye had just punched her in the stomach.

The old woman reached across the table to touch the girl’s arm. “Forgive me, my dear. It’s a lot to take in at one time but I had to be certain.”

Cassie recoiled. “Be certain of what?”

“That you were meant to take your sister’s place. It is your destiny to be our new Pythia.”

Jumping out of her chair, Cassie cried, “Destiny? I don’t have a destiny! This is crazy! You’re crazy! I don’t care what Sybil did for you or why but leave me out of it!” She backed away from Faye. “I can’t stay here. I have to go. Now!”

She ran from the garden and out of the house. Off in the distance Faye could hear her tires squeal as she pulled out of the driveway and raced away.

The old woman smiled to herself. “We have found our new Pythia,” she murmured.