Marion wasn’t home when I called. I filled her machine with a load of apologies and pleas for understanding knowing she was going to be disappointed, probably mad as hell. I’d seen how she was in business. She’d rather lose money than lose a client, and she was not real good at handling rejection. She’d never make it as a writer.
My adrenaline high had flattened into a deep feeling of vulnerability. I shuffled into the cottage, dropped my luggage in the middle of the floor, and tried to melt into the couch. Too hyped with worry to sit for long, I went out to the patio and stared over the water trying to convince myself I’d made the right decision. That night I wrestled with demons, real and imagined, and by sunup, I’d managed only an hour or two of something resembling sleep. I was actually looking forward to hitting the rock pile. Hard labor would do me good and get my mind on something more than the possibility that I’d completely blown it with Marion.
Over the next several weeks, Niki and I fell into a routine. After stuffing us with breakfast, Dora would send us waddling off to the site with the promise of the same treatment for lunch. By sunrise, we’d be whacking, prying, splitting, and heaving our way deeper into the cave. Barnes even ordered a generator and a jackhammer to help with the demolition.
I knew Marion was using her caller ID to avoid me. She wasn’t returning my calls. We were having a wordless argument that was growing more heated by the week.
Niki was the bright spot in my life. She could wield a pick, shovel, wrecking bar, and jackhammer as good as any man her size. Even drenched in sweat, covered head to toe in dirt, she could still look good doing it. Just watching her work helped pass the hours and kept my mind off the possibility that our labor might come to nothing.
Barnes was no help, mainly because he’d just barely survived four heart attacks. Doctors said a fifth would probably finish the job, but he was faithful in showing up to cheer us on. Around ten each morning, he’d be at the site with his, “Hello, girls.” He’d take a seat in a lawn chair in the shade of a blue tarp. Against doctor’s orders, he’d stuff a wad of tobacco in his jaw, snap open the Times (at least a week behind), and begin offering solutions to the world’s problems that might have had some merit if anybody had been around who cared to listen. Just before lunch, he’d step over, examine our progress, and maybe toss a fist-sized stone or two (that always elicited a scolding from Niki). He’d complete the ritual by saying, “Watching you two girls work has just about worn me out. Why don’t we get up to the house and see if Dora will rustle us up a bite to eat?” After lunch, he’d go for his afternoon nap and tend business matters. He wouldn’t emerge again until dinner.
Thursdays became our day of rest. Niki and Dora would usually head over to Anafi to shop. Barnes stayed busy in his office catching up on correspondence and various forms of paperwork. Nicholas and I would go down and wait for the mail boat; we’d pass the time killing a couple of six-packs and fishing offshore for sargo, blackfish, doradoes—whatever happened to be biting.
We’d always save a beer or two for Feodor Kabarnos, the burly-browed old postman with sandy hair and scotch-reddened cheeks. Nicholas introduced me to Feodor and told him that I’d come to Sarnafi to write a book. Feodor had seen too much in life to be impressed, but he did show concern when Nicholas told him of my little encounter with Giacopetti. He lifted a pipe from his pocket, lit it, and drew a couple of puffs without taking his eyes off mine.
“You had better watch yourself. Gustavo Giacopetti, he and I were boys together. We fished in the same sea. We worked the same vineyards. I did not like him then; I do not like him now. He is a skunk. Always, he has been a skunk.”
When Nicholas explained that Feodor had been the first to suggest to Alexios Mikos that Gustavo Giacopetti was the mysterious Raphael, Feodor scoffed. “Mysterious? Ha! Giacopetti is as mysterious as a skunk hiding beneath a wicker basket. Does anyone say, ‘What is that mysterious smell?’ No. Everyone who gets close enough knows. I too work for the government. I know that no one on government salary can possibly afford the luxuries enjoyed by this man. Of course he is this … this Raphael. Alexios, he gathered the evidence. He was about to lift the basket, show the world this skunk.” Feodor spat with contempt and drilled his eyes deeper into mine. “My friend Alexios, he knew what this man Giacopetti was doing. And now you see, Alexios is dead. On my mother’s grave, I swear that Gustavo Giacopetti is responsible.” He pointed the stem of his pipe at my chest. “Listen to what I tell you. If you want to finish this book of yours, you had better watch your back.”
Feodor was our eyes and ears on Santorini, a very willing ally for monitoring Giacopetti’s whereabouts. “I have friends on every island,” Feodor boasted. “Gustavo Giacopetti, he cannot make a move without me knowing. My friends, they call me, I call you.”
We all thought it was a little odd that Giacopetti never came.
Tossing rocks all day gave me time to think and work out a few things. I realized that, in a strange twist of irony, Giacopetti had actually bolstered my faith in the scroll’s authenticity. His expert had raised a good question: Why would a forger waste his time creating such an unlikely fake? The only known specimens of Linear A were on clay tablets, not parchment. The forger would have the dual task of proving the scroll’s authenticity and convincing a buyer of the originality of an unprecedented combination of text and medium.
Forgery or not, everyone who learned of the scroll’s existence wanted it, and they were willing to pay a lot of money, even kill for it. I was beginning to understand that this story was a lot bigger than I had imagined. It was one thing to hear it from a doddering old fart. But to actually feel the fervor of men desperate to get their hands on an artifact this valuable was making a believer out of me. If we found the scroll and I got the story out, there was no doubt in my mind that I was going to be a very rich man.
There was only one problem: I had a nagging feeling that we were wasting our time trying to find the scroll on Sarnafi. Why? Alexios Mikos, who spent much of his professional career researching the problem, believed the scroll was there. Barnes was convinced enough to buy the island. And Niki, a leading expert on Pialigarian culture, had adopted her father’s conviction as her own mantra. I had no right to challenge the theory. All I had was a tiny feeling, a grain of doubt next to a mountain of circumstantial evidence. I couldn’t even argue a viable alternative. The only way to get past the Sarnafi theory was to plunge into that cave and prove it was empty.
Progress was slow and the work hard, even brutal. I did what I could to keep my optimism and stay focused on the goal instead of on my fear that the silent chasm that had opened between Marion and me was becoming unbridgeable.
It was after 10:00 AM when Barnes arrived with his usual, “Hi, girls.” I was hunkered over the jackhammer, attempting to dismantle an unusually obstinate boulder one small chunk at a time. Niki was further breaking down the chunks with a sledge and hauling them off to the ever-growing debris pile.
At around 11:00, we were taking a break when I happened to notice a section of the newspaper that Barnes had laid next to his chair. On the front page was a photograph of Kyropos. The photo was grainy, obviously enlarged. I couldn’t make out their facial features, but I could tell it was a shot of a heavily armed group of men and women standing defiantly on the volcano’s shores, ash cloud billowing ominously in the background. Something in the angle of the photograph got my attention. I snatched up the paper. The article described the group as members of a radical doomsday cult who called themselves the Children of Light. The name meant something.
Niki saw me studying the newspaper and asked what I was reading.
“Kyropos,” I said, still skimming the article. “There’s a group of radicals that think the day of Armageddon has arrived.”
“They stay on that volcano,” Barnes said with a laugh, “and they’ll likely get their wish.”
“They think the eruption is a signal to take up arms,” I explained, “join in the final great battle with the Children of Darkness. They claim they’re descendants of the Essenes.”
“That is unlikely,” Niki said. “The Essenes, they were completely annihilated by the Romans in the first century. It was not …”
I didn’t hear the rest of her explanation. The photograph had triggered something. “I’ve been there,” I said, and even as I heard myself blurt it out, I knew it couldn’t be true. Yet the feeling hit with such an absolute burst of clarity that I couldn’t stop myself from saying it.
Niki studied the picture and then me. “This photograph was taken from the Rock, the tiny island next to the volcano. You have never been there.”
“I know it sounds crazy, but I’ve seen Kyropos from this angle.” In the next instant the image of a bearded man—tall, in his seventies, wearing rough woven clothing—flashed into my mind. “Marcus. This is where I met Marcus.”
“Marcus?” Niki frowned. “Who is Marcus?”
“I … I don’t know who he is … or was. But he and I, we … we stood together … right there … where this photographer must have been standing. Kyropos looked just like this.”
Barnes jumped in. “Adams, you sure you haven’t been in the sun a little too long? Maybe it’s time we take a lunch break. Short nap, maybe.”
“I don’t need a nap,” I said. “Niki, there’s something there, something I’ve got to see.” I turned back to the photograph. More images crept into my mind. “There were men. They … they were asking me questions. And caves. The men lived in the caves … in the side of the volcano. Children of Light … these men called themselves Children of Light.”
“But the Essenes were not an island people,” Niki insisted. “They lived in the desert, near the Dead Sea. And how would you—”
“We’ve got to go there,” I said again, convinced that there was something to the vision.
Niki cupped her hands to form a megaphone and spoke in a singsong tease. “Earth to Stuart. Hellooo. Is anybody home? The cave is still full of rocks. Lots and lots of biiiiig rocks.”
Her taunting had the effect of a gnat crawling in my ear. “Damn it, Niki, I’m telling you, we’re digging in the wrong cave.” Suddenly fed up with her little game, I didn’t care if she believed me or not. How could I make up something that had never before crossed my mind?
My sudden anger shocked her. She dropped her hands; her face grew serious.
“You cannot know this. Am I supposed to believe that you can just look at a picture in a newspaper and suddenly know these things? Are we to drop everything to follow some … some quirky fantasy that happens to pop into your head? Besides,” she turned to the photo, “you can see that these people are well armed. It would be too dangerous. We cannot go until—”
“But they’re on Kyropos,” I argued. “We don’t go there. We go to the Rock.” I pointed to the picture again. “There’s nobody shooting at this photographer. You said you wanted to sail to Pialigos. Let’s go see your priestess friend and then head for the Rock. We’ll have a look around. That’s all I’m asking. If we don’t see anything, we come back.”
She crossed her arms, tilted back her head, and looked down her nose at me, her eyes narrow with suspicion. “This cave has beaten you. You want to quit.”
“I want to find the scroll,” I said, but I was talking into a black hole. The full, defiantly stubborn force of the Greek conqueror had kicked in. She was set, and arguing with her would qualify as an obvious demonstration of insanity. I stepped back to the jackhammer, shot a final look at her, and started blasting away.
Niki didn’t move. She just stood there staring at me. I could feel her eyes: angry, frustrated, and curious. Then, after a few long moments, she stepped over and laid a hand on mine. I stopped hammering. “How certain are you of this … this vision of yours?”
“You want proof?” I said, wiping sweat from my brow with the back of a gloved hand. “I don’t have any. All I can tell you is that we’re digging in the wrong place.”
She stared at me, the muscles in her jaw flexing with suspicion. “All right then, we will find Captain Threader.”
The name meant nothing to me, but it brought Barnes slowly to his feet with a face full of doubt. “Blake Threader? Don’t you think you’d better—”
“What is wrong with him?” Niki demanded to know. “Captain Blake Threader sailed for my father. He can sail for us.”
“That was some years ago,” Barnes said. “Nicholas was just saying the other day that he’d seen Threader at the harbor in Santorini. Said things were kind of slipping away from the old captain.” Barnes turned to me. “Threader is an American who finished his stint in the Navy and then landed on Santorini, bought himself a boat, and started up a chartering service. Booze took over, and now he runs a small salvage yard at the docks of Santorini’s capitol of Fira. Used to be the best in the charting business, till he started drinking.”
This didn’t sound good to me. As much as I wanted to check out the Rock, I wasn’t anxious to put my life in the hands of a drunken wreck.
“He is still the best in the business,” Niki insisted. “He knows the sea. He can get us to Kyropos and back in his sleep.”
“Yeah, and he most likely will,” Barnes said. “But darling, if you want Captain Threader, then you go get him. I’ll write the checks, but I won’t be making the trip. I’ve got to keep an eye on the old ticker.”
I could almost hear the wheels of Niki’s mind whirring away. She locked her determined eyes on mine. “We go. Pialigos first … then Kyropos. We will see if this vision of yours is a soul memory or if it is just a silly ploy to spare your aching back.”
J Douglas Bottorff 