by RP Halliway
As the family started filtering out, ending the evening, Silas and Evie found an opportunity to talk with Nana and Lara.
“Thanks for the awesome evening,” Evie told Nana. “I know it wasn’t supposed to include us.”
“It was my pleasure,” Nana replied in heavily accented, but strong English. “Having you enjoy yourself was reward enough.”
“Thank you again,” Silas said. “And if it isn’t too much of a bother, could we ask Lara a few questions?”
“Sure,” Lara said.
“We were wondering about your ability,” Silas said, “If you have psychic ability, and what it is.”
“I have had an ability to see good connections between people, since I was a girl.”
“Like see the future?” Evie asked.
“No,” Lara shook her head. “Just the connections—auras. Between two people. I see how well their auras get along.”
“Very interesting,” Silas said. “And what about children?”
“When the auras mix, I can see how the children will turn out,” Lara said. “It appears as like a color.”
“What about us?” Evie asked, both to have Lara explain more, as well as get a glimpse of her children.
“You have strong children in your future. Some of the strongest I have seen in a long time. Back during the war, there were many strong children born, and everyone came to me to find out about their children.”
“Do you know how you do it?” Silas asked.
“Auras are sort of like a colorful haze around a person to me. Not exactly colors, but like that. And when two people combine their auras, they mix, which is very good at indicating what their children will be like. Strong children end up being very light colors, and bad children are very dark colors.”
“And us?” Evie couldn’t help but ask.
“Very bright, my dear,” Lara said, giving Evie a smile. Lara leaned in and whispered directly to Evie. “The brightest.”
Evie felt a wave of relief pass through her, even though she didn’t fully believe in Lara’s ability. Silas smiled at her. And they were going to have strong children. Evie hoped the old woman was right.
“Why are you in Greece?” Lara asked. “It wasn’t just to come to this amazing family gathering.”
“We’re looking for an artifact at the dig site,” Silas said. “Do you know anything about that?”
“Artifact? I don’t see anything about that.” Then she paused for a few seconds and spoke directly to Silas. “Just listen.”
He didn’t know what she meant, but didn’t want to ask. “Thanks for answering all of the questions, and for the amazing evening.”
“You are welcome anytime,” Nana said.
Nico drove the couple back to the hotel.
“We haven’t heard anything about auras yet,” Evie said to Silas, once they were inside the lobby.
“True. I don’t know how they fit into Roger’s model.”
“It’s interesting that she was able to see ours. And make some pretty wild conclusions.” She giggled awkwardly.
“Absolutely,” Silas said, and laughed. “Hey, how about a movie tonight?”
A movie sounded perfect.
“Good plan,” Evie said. “Your room or mine?”
Silas started to give his answer when Evie’s phone rang.
“Hi Chris!” she said. Then she mouthed “sorry” to Silas and disappeared into her room.
***
Late morning Nico drove them back to the dig site. “Any plans for what to watch for today?” he asked.
“Probably just watch Marco again,” Evie said. “I still think Marco is the key.”
“I agree,” Silas said, looking for the man.
“Marco is up on the hill again,” Nico said, pointing to the man driving a wheelbarrow around the curve of the hill.
The trio looped around the dig, and made their way up the hill to where Marco stood. The sun wasn’t as hot as yesterday, and they didn’t feel as tired after the climb.
“Did it rain last night?” Silas asked, looking at the dirt.
“I don’t think so. Why do you ask?”
Silas crouched down and scooped up a handful of dirt. “The dirt feels a bit different than yesterday.”
“Closer?” Evie asked.
“I didn’t really feel the dirt in the dream,” Silas said, “but the consistency looks better, a better ratio.”
Nico ran to get Marco, as Silas and Evie studied the dirt. Marco and another man followed Nico back to the couple.
“The dirt from hole over there,” Marco said. He held his hands wide to show the width of the hole.
“A hole? That sounds like the dream!” Evie whispered to Silas.
“Can we go to the hole?” Silas asked.
Marco led them just beyond another small hill. The hole was more of a pit, dug seemingly many years ago, and off of the main dig. It was only about four feet deep in the ground, but it had a very distinctive circular border around it.
As Silas approached the lip of the pit, he felt a sort of buzzing in his mind—almost like an old radio being tuned in, with static between stations. As he looked into the small depression, the static cleared and he heard a very small but distinct voice in his head. The voice definitely did not belong to Silas, but confidently proclaimed, “THERE!”
“Did you hear that?” Silas asked Evie excitedly.
“Hear what?” Evie shook her head, raising her eyebrows at him.
“I heard a voice say ‘THERE!’ just now!”
“Really?”
“Yes!” Silas said. He pointed at the hole. “We need to dig here!”
Silas’ announcement created a stir among the dig team, and soon a group of four men with some equipment approached the pit.
“There is something in the pit,” Nico tried to explain.
Much talking amongst the group began, and the dig leader arrived and formulated the plan.
“We should move back and let them work,” Nico suggested to Silas and Evie. “They want to be in charge of this.”
“I’m all for that,” Silas said, and he and Evie backed up to where they could still watch.
The team worked on the pit, setting up a barrier and different tools for large and small scoops of material. A few hours later the hole widened and deepened, without any artifacts being found.
“Are you sure about this?” Nico asked Silas.
“I heard a voice, for sure,” Silas said, trying not to doubt himself. “I have no idea who or what it was from. But your aunt told us to listen today, and I heard something.”
“I believe you,” Nico said. “I don’t know if they do though.” He pointed to the dig team.
“Doesn’t it usually take weeks for digs to show anything?” Silas asked. He couldn’t imagine they would give up already.
“Usually, but that’s after some kind of initial find. This seems a bit of a different tactic. I don’t think anyone likes to dig a hole without reason.”
“I see,” Silas said. “Tell them to please just dig a little deeper.”
Nico relayed the information and everyone waited for more results.
“Would it help if I offered to dig?” Silas asked, uncomfortable with the situation.
“No. Not at all,” Nico shook his head. “These are professionals and know what to look for. Your activities would only probably make things worse.”
“Okay. I just don’t want them to think that I was making things up.”
“They probably already think that,” Nico said. Silas tried to laugh too, but he didn’t feel like there was anything funny.
A sudden fervor of voices around the pit caught their attention. Nico raced to the pit to find out what was happening. He looked around, and pointed back and forth between the pit and Silas and Evie,
then raced back to the couple.
“They found an artifact!” Nico announced excitedly. “Come!”
Evie and Silas ran with Nico to the edge of the dig barrier around the pit. A strap hung down into the pit, where two members of the dig team were gently attaching a harness to an artifact.
“It’s some sort of metallic device,” Nico informed Silas and Evie, translating some of the picked up conversation.
Silas leaned into one of the small dig buckets and scooped a handful of the soil. “This seems to be the exact match for what I saw in the dream,” he quietly told Evie, looking at the composition in his hand.
“Here is something they found,” Nico told Silas, pointing to a small object that looked like a flat stone. Several objects were placed safely out of the way around the team. Silas approached the stone and reached out to touch it.
“Don’t do that,” Nico said, catching Silas before he reached the stone. “You could damage it. But does it look like something you recognize?”
“Sorry,” Silas said, giving it a long look. “It might. But I’m not sure. The dirt does seem very familiar.”
Evie shook with nervous excitement and grabbed onto Silas’ arm. Silas smiled back at her.
The main artifact floated slowly up in a fine net mesh, to carry it without creating any significant pressures points that might cause damage. From the side, the object looked like two circles . . . possibly two cylinders.
“Look!” Evie whispered to Silas, gripping his arm tighter. Silas grabbed Evie’s hand and pulled her back, standing back from the swinging object floating in the air, and the machine lifting it out.
“I know!” Silas whispered back, trying to contain his excitement.
No sooner had the metallic artifact been placed onto a protective shelf, when a cry came from the bottom of the pit.
“What is that?” Evie asked Nico.
“They say there is a third,” Nico said.
Silas and Evie looked at each other, registering disbelief. The dream was coming true.
“Possibly three cylinders, in some sort of arrangement,” Nico translated. “The artifact is very old and corroded, and dirty, and will take a long time to clean up. The material seems to imply that it is very ancient, but nobody has ever found such a thing from a dig.”
“This is a remarkable find,” Yank told Silas and Evie. “I don’t know how you knew where to find it.”
“That is what we came here to find out too,” Silas said.
“This artifact seems to be some sort of mechanical device,” Yank said. “But it will take years to figure out what it does.”
“Do the pieces fit together?” Evie asked.
“It is hard to tell, due to all of the damage and corrosion,” Yank answered. “The hard part with ancient mechanical devices is that the metal corrodes and swells up but also dissolves in other spots, so it is difficult to tell how things fit together properly.”
“But three doesn’t work,” Silas said.
“We found three metal cylinders,” Yank said, not understanding what Silas meant.
Silas shook his head. “If there are three cylinders, and they all touch, nothing can move. One cylinder will always be blocking motion from the other two.”
Yank nodded, understanding Silas’ statement. “I will keep the dig going.”
“What now?” Evie asked Silas.
“Any etchings on the artifact?” Silas asked Nico.
“Let’s go look.” The three walked over to the table with the artifact now on display. A large crowd gathered to observe the strange newly unearthed object.
“What kind of etching?” Nico asked.
“Something like a lizard or reptile,” Silas said.
The three slowly moved through the crowd, sometimes receiving pats on the back of congratulations for finding the object. They reached the artifact and Silas pointed to one of the sides holding the two cylinders.
“Right there. Is that something carved into it?”
Nico studied where Silas pointed and then asked one of the curators to brush that area. As some of the dirt fell away Nico could see what Silas pointed at. “It does look like a reptile of some sort.”
“Do you recognize what it could be?” Evie asked, not sure of what the animal could be.
“I thought it looked like a crocodile,” Silas said, shaking his head.
“It looks like many different lizard heads,” Nico said, “Crocodile, gecko, or maybe even a dragon. Could be many different things.”
A loud discussion behind them stopped Silas from answering.
Nico listened then straightened up with a big smile. “One of the dig team recognizes the artifact shape from somewhere.”
“Where?” Silas asked, not believing their luck.
“All he said is that he saw a picture of a similar object somewhere many years ago. It stuck out because it was much more complicated than other items in the book.” The group walked quickly to the man.
“What book?” Evie asked, pointing to Nico to translate.
“He spent many years as a child in the library,” Nico said, translating the rapid speech.
“A library?” Evie asked excitedly. “What library?”
“He thinks it was at the library in Genoa,” Nico said. “He grew up studying in a few cities in Italy. Genoa seems the most likely.”
“Genoa?” Silas echoed, not believing the words. “Italy?”
“Yes,” Nico said. “There was a large collection of works sorted and indexed in the library at Genoa. This artifact seems to have properties that might be cataloged there.”
***
Back at the hotel that night, Evie and Silas relayed the news of the discovery to Postice and also to Roger. Roger was thrilled that the dream had come true. Postice was equally excited that the library provided a next step toward learning the source of a dream.
“I will phone the curator at the library and get a research team on it right away,” Postice said. “You can catch a flight from there to Genoa and meet up with the team. And it’s remarkable. It truly is. I have no idea what it means, but your dream came perfectly true.”
Evie and Silas had no idea what it meant either. But they knew they had to continue on their journey, to Genoa, to find out.
Chapter 21
The short flight from Greece to Italy the next morning didn’t give the couple much time to sleep, but excitement prevented them from sleeping anyway.
Stepping into the baggage area of the airport in Genoa, there was another driver with a sign marked “Postice Party.”
“Hello!” Silas eagerly greeted the stone-faced older man.
“Hello,” he replied. “Postice?”
“Yes,” Evie said, giving a friendly nod and smile. “We are Evie and Silas of the Postice party.”
“Very well,” The man replied, and turned toward the car.
Evie and Silas gave a quick shrug to each other and understood this driver would be less friendly than Nico. He hardly said a word to them on the short drive to the library. Once he’d gotten them to their destination, a courteous clerk greeted them.
“Hello! I’m Olive,” the clerk introduced herself. “And you two must be Evie and Silas.”
“That’s us,” Evie said.
Olive led the couple to a large room with many older books and introduced the team of university researchers seated around the tables.
“We got a team working as soon as Mr. Postice called, and they have been setting up books that might have the artifact in it. Your pictures helped, but it is still unclear as to what we are looking for. From the corrosion, it seems that we don’t have a clear representation of how it would look in the book.”
Evie and Silas spent several minutes summarizing the multiverse theory, how it was a cylinder, and how all the cylinder artifacts seem t
o mesh together.
“And you think this artifact might be some representation of the multiverse theory?”
“We think so,” Evie answered.
“It would make sense,” a gruff researcher said, then fell silent and focused back on the book he was searching.
“That’s Bert,” Olive told Evie and Silas, nodding toward the man. “Bert, please continue your thought.”
Bert sat up, with a small twinkle in his eye. “Ideas don’t just happen, they are usually discovered or thought up by multiple people at nearly the same time. So it would also make sense that ideas recur over and over through time.”
“You think Roger’s theory has been thought of before?” Silas asked.
“Absolutely,” Bert answered immediately. “Discovered and forgotten many times probably, just like everything else. Da Vinci came up with the helicopter 500 years ago, and today we have them, same with submarines, and so on.”
“How old was the artifact?” Olive asked.
“About 2000 to 2400 years old,” Evie said, “based on the estimation from the dig site.”
“If there is a repeated cycle for ideas,” Bert said, “then it would be probably a three to six cycle based on the rarity of the idea. That would mean every 800 years for three cycles, and every 300 to 400 years for six cycles and so on.”
“Does that help us?” Silas asked.
“Most ideas pop up again and again until they are common,” Olive said. “Uncommon ideas sometimes seem to follow a pattern of time. Eccentric people—geniuses or madmen—seem to stumble or focus on ideas that escape most other people, and this happens at some pretty stable intervals.”
“The crackpot interval,” Bert added without looking up from his book.
Evie wondered if Roger would appreciate that or be offended.
“The cylinder theory seems to be a crackpot idea at best,” Bert said, “which means that more than one person probably had it since the beginning of recorded time. Assuming the person who built those artifact cylinders was one of the crackpots, and Roger is the current crackpot, then there would be some repeated interval between times of discovery.”