by M. G. Harris
“Do you miss Africa?” Madison asks her. There’s a tone to his voice that I don’t recognize at all. This is him being charming. No trace of the bullying, threatening voice he used with me. He sounds quite believable, in fact. But I know what he really is – a violent thug.
“Wonderful place. D’you know it at all?”
“I’m afraid not,” Madison says politely.
“Now, my uncle taught your father, have I remembered that right?”
“My father accompanied him on one excavation, I think,” says Madison.
“D’you mind – could I ask you to take off the mask? It’s just . . . you look kind of intimidating!”
Madison laughs. “Sure!”
There’s a rubbery squidging sound.
“There ya go,” the niece says. “Much better!”
That rubber mask . . . Madison is Batman Suit!
“Now d’you know, it’s funny you should ask about these papers, because only a few months ago some other people came by, asking exactly the same. Well, I wasn’t around. My husband – he hasn’t a clue where we keep them. We had to turn those people away empty-handed.”
Madison might suspect that one of those “visitors” was my dad. If he does, he makes a good job of covering it up with a casual, “Oh, really? I wonder who that could have been.”
“One of your father’s lot, I imagine.”
“From the Peabody Museum?”
“I don’t think so. But they did say they were Mayanists.” She pauses and then exclaims with satisfaction. “Now then! Here it is. I’m sorry it isn’t much.”
I can’t see what the niece is doing, but they are both standing over by the shelves.
“Can I look?”
“Of course. Need some more light? I can turn on the desk lamp.”
Hearing her step towards the desk makes me freeze. I stare at Tyler, helpless.
“It’s fine,” Madison says. “I can see here.”
I release my breath slowly.
From the squeaking leather, I can hear that they’ve sat on the sofa.
“Now see,” she says. “It’s just a few pages. I found them in his diary from 1965.”
“Could I see the diary entry?”
“Yes . . . there should be a copy of it here.”
“Would it be possible for me to borrow these documents, to make photocopies?”
Her voice becomes smooth, almost patronizing. “D’you mind if I say no? The photocopying process can be pretty damaging to the manuscript. But I have a really nice digital camera somewhere. Terrific resolution. Just wait here.”
We remain scrunched up under the desk, not daring to move a muscle. Tyler, I can tell, is doing a circular breathing capoeira technique to keep calm. His eyes are closed.
The niece returns a few minutes later; we hear her take a few photos and then she comes over to the desk. We tuck our legs in even tighter, so that our whole bodies are in shadow. Luckily she doesn’t sit down, just plugs the camera in to a laptop, punches the keyboard. We hear the printer on the shelf nearby whirr into action.
“I did them at top resolution, so it’ll take a while to print, I’m afraid. Let’s go and find you some food while you wait.”
We breathe a sigh of relief as they leave the room. I swing my legs out and wince at a sharp stab of muscle cramp.
“Come on, now’s our chance!” Tyler says.
Over by the sofa, they’ve left a document wallet. “This is what they were looking at!” Tyler whispers. He grabs it and makes for the door.
“Wait!”
Tyler stops.
“I know that guy,” I say. “I recognize the voice. It’s Blue Nissan – the one who chased me, the one who tried to drown me.”
“What? You’re joking!”
“No. It’s him all right. And he said his father’s name was Martineau. That’s one of the names he uses. And also ‘Simon Madison’.”
Tyler blows air softly through pursed lips. “Mate! We’d better get out of here fast.”
“Yeah, except. . .”
I look at the printer and the camera.
“We have to take the printouts. We have to get rid of what’s on that camera. Otherwise – whatever this stuff is, Madison will have it too.”
I pick up the camera, fiddle around for a few seconds until I work out how to erase its memory chip. We wait impatiently at the printer and grab each page as glossy paper feeds out. It’s agonizingly slow. I grab every page and stash each one in the document wallet with the originals.
There are footsteps on the creaky stairs.
“The window!” Tyler whispers.
I open the window, throw the document wallet clear of the house. We launch ourselves through the window, one by one. Tyler goes first, clinging to the timbers and ivy.
“Budge up!” I say, landing practically on top of him.
“Ow!” he hisses. I slide over him, grab the next timber and then a fistful of creeping ivy. It’s not the most stylish stunt ever but we make it to the ground in seconds. Meanwhile back in the room, we can hear the door opening, and exclamations of surprise from the niece. By the time they’ve spotted the open window, I’ve picked up the document wallet from the gravel path and we’re scooting around the back of the house. As I dip behind the corner, I turn and poke my head out just in time to see Madison leaning out of the window, his eyes hunting us out.
His face is silhouetted by the light in the room behind, but I can plainly see the shadow of a Batman mask pushed behind his head.
And for a split second we stare at each other, Batman to Batman.
I turn to Tyler. “The fields. Let’s move!”
Between puffs for breath, Tyler asks, “Reckon he saw us?”
“Yep. No doubt.”
The only question is – did he recognize me? A sinking feeling tells me that even if he didn’t, he’s smart enough to put two and two together.
We easily clear the low hedge at the back of the garden, and land in a soft, boggy field beyond. It’s so dark we can’t see more than about thirty metres ahead. Beyond that, the light from the Thompson house peters out.
We run flat out for five minutes, putting at least three fields between us and the house. Finally we collapse in a heap, totally spent. But the document wallet is safely clutched in my fist.
When I look back, I see and hear nothing. The darkness may have saved us – that’s if Madison chased us at all. But a sneaking suspicion tells me that he didn’t – for one really good reason.
Why bother – when he already knows where I live?
After running over those fields the costumes are muddy, so we peel them off, bag them and leave them in front of the shop, with a ten-quid note for the dry-cleaning. After the cost of the return bus tickets, that’s our last cash too. So we ride the bus home, wishing we’d had time to eat at the party.
We don’t care. We have Thompson’s document wallet, and Madison doesn’t. It contains three sheets of paper on which someone has copied a bunch of Mayan hieroglyphs and two more pages as well – where I can see some writing in English. In the dim lights of the bus, we pore over the pages.
The first page, I kind of recognize. The second two are packed more densely with glyphs. The fourth page is handwritten in English – a copy of a diary entry. The final page in the wallet contains both English writing and Mayan glyphs. It looks as though someone has tried to translate a bunch of them.
Here’s what the diary entry says:
12 May, 1965
Met this morning by appointment with a certain Señor Aureliano Garcia of the Yucatan, Mexico. Not a gentleman with whom I have any previous acquaintance; nonetheless, he supplied impeccable references from the National Institute of Anthropology in Mexico.
Our correspondence over the past few weeks concerned an object which came into my possession many years ago. The artefact in question was part of a consignment purchased at auction from the contents of a house in Vienna in 1951. There was an unfortunate incident involv
ing its opening, and I have been reluctant to have any further dealings with the item.
Accordingly, I arranged for its safe storage. I tried to forget about the matter.
Now, almost fifteen years later, I find myself dredging up memories of an abominable nature. Señor Aureliano Garcia, most astonishingly, appeared to know about my possession of the artefact. Indeed, he wrote requesting that I agree to his purchase of same.
Naturally, I agreed. Anything to spare my heirs from having to deal with it.
It was therefore with considerable anxiety that I watched Señor Garcia remove the artefact from its place of storage. Unwilling to risk myself further, I hesitated even to watch. I was, however, assured that a gas mask would provide adequate protection. How I wish I had known this years ago when we first opened the artefact! Señor Garcia himself appeared oblivious to the perilous character of the relic.
He asked if I had read any part of the object. Wishing to be swiftly rid of Señor Garcia, I’m afraid I dissembled, replying in the negative.
In point of fact I did, years ago, attempt a transcription. Not touching the artefact presented a challenge. I turned a few pages with tweezers. What I read convinced me of the uselessness of proceeding further. I declined to share my findings with the world of fellow Mayan scholars. The artefact, I believe, has more in common with either an elaborate hoax, or perhaps more sinisterly, a supernatural nature of the most wicked kind. As such, it would hold no interest for me. I am an archaeologist, not a practitioner of the occult.
Señor Garcia, however, could scarce contain his delight. He claimed that before long the item would be displayed in Mexico City’s spectacular new National Museum of Anthropology.
I await his findings with bated breath.
The language is a bit old-fashioned. We have to read it through a couple of times to get the gist. Tyler and I agree that basically, what is says is this:
Thompson got hold of a Mayan relic, which did something horrible to someone who touched it. When Aureliano Garcia (my grandfather) came asking for it in 1965, Thompson was only too happy to hand it over. Just like the brujo in Catemaco, he believed that the object was cursed.
I pretend to Tyler that I’m not sure what this “artefact” is, but even he guesses that it’s the Ix Codex.
“So these must be copies of the first three pages!” he says in delight.
“I guess so.”
“If that Madison bloke is bothering with them, that means he probably hasn’t got the actual codex.”
“Yep. Definitely.”
“And now you’ve got these pages!”
“Uh huh.”
“Mate, why aren’t you excited?”
“Because,” I reply, “I’m wondering why he didn’t chase us.”
“It was dark! We was out of there like lightning!”
I shake my head. “I know this guy. He wouldn’t give up so easily. He’s coming after me again.”
Tyler gives me a long, curious look. “You know loads more about this than you’re letting on.”
“Yeah. It’s true.”
“But you’re not gonna tell me. . .?”
“I will. One day, I promise. Right now it’s too dangerous. You OK with that?”
He pulls a rueful grin. “Guess I have to be.”
“There’s a lot more to my father’s death.”
“Oh yeah?” he says, laughing. “Tell me something I don’t know. . .”
“Madison and me . . . we’ve got unfinished business.”
By the time we say goodnight and head for our houses, it’s past midnight. The next day I decide I’m going to stay home. In fact, my plan is to stay in my bedroom with the pages until I can figure out what to do. I’ve pretty much decided that destroying the documents is the way to go. But first I scan the pages, set up a brand-new file storage account on a new website which claims to be super-secure, behind a password I’ve never used before.
And then I erase all traces of my activity from the computer’s browser history. So even if Madison breaks in again, he won’t be able to follow what I’ve done.
This is all very absorbing, so when Ollie turns up on my doorstep around lunch time, she takes me by surprise.
“Hey,” she says, her voice all soft. “I was looking for you yesterday. Where did you get to?”
“Me and Tyler went on a trip.”
“Fun?”
“To be honest, scary.”
We go upstairs and I turn off the TV.
“Scary? How?”
I hesitate. But she’s only going to hear the same from Tyler.
“We found something. Another clue to the Ix Codex.”
She’s blown away. “Wow! Amazing! What is it?”
I shake my head. “You know what, Ollie, it was great having you and Ty to help me last time, but this time . . . I dunno. I already got you both into trouble. So I’m going to finish this – destroy everything I have about that codex, forget about it and get on with my life.”
“You really think it’s that dangerous?”
“I know it is.”
“And you’re worried about me?” she says with a hint of a smile.
“What do you think? Of course!”
“That’s really sweet.”
She stares into my eyes then and I really don’t know what to say.
“‘Sweet’ . . . come on, now,” I say with a nervous grin. “No bloke wants to be ‘sweet’.”
She steps a little closer. “OK. You’re not ‘sweet’.”
“Good.”
She takes another step. I can smell her perfume – it’s like flowers after rain.
“I stopped thinking of you as ‘sweet’ back in Mexico.”
My mouth goes dry. “Uh huh. . .”
She takes both my hands in hers. “Yeah. And look . . . you’re taller than me now.”
“Just. It’s only cos, well, you’re quite. . .”
“Petite?”
“Yeah.”
What are we doing? She can’t be thinking what I’m thinking. . .
But she keeps going. “Think you’ll get taller?”
“Hope so.”
She shrugs, smiles. “A little taller couldn’t hurt.”
We’re standing centimetres apart; she’s holding my hands, breathing right against my mouth, and I somehow can’t make myself move.
She’s two years older than you, idiot! Whatever you think this is, you’re wrong. One false move and it’ll be a slap in the face for you.
And right then, she leans closer and kisses me. Right on the lips. I keep thinking she’s going to stop but she doesn’t and she doesn’t push me away. Eventually it’s me who pulls away . . . because I have no clue what to do next.
I hunt for something to say, which is tricky because I can hardly breathe.
She smiles. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”
I cough nervously. “No . . . no . . . it was like . . . wow!”
She leans a wrist on my shoulder and actually runs her fingers through my hair. “You’re not weirded out that I’m older than you?”
I laugh. “Are you kidding. . .?” And emphatically add, “No way!”
“So you’d go out with me. . .?”
“Ollie, course I would!”
“How about right now . . . how about a film and then ice cream at G&D’s?”
I could burble stuff about her making my dreams come true, but thankfully I don’t. . .
My first date with Ollie and I can’t even blog it. . . Mind you, the idea of anyone reading what I’d write about that is just too embarrassing.
Well, in fact, it’s a false start. Ollie gets a text while we’re in the queue for the cinema and she has to go home. Seems that she’s forgotten that she has a big coursework deadline the next day. So I trudge home, a bit deflated.
How can she think of coursework at a time like this?
On Monday before school I manage to remember to grab the document wallet with the copied pages from Ix Codex before I
set off. No way can I leave it around the house while I’m out. I stuff it into my backpack and carry it around all day. I don’t take it out of my backpack again until I’m on the bus home that afternoon.