Unless God had put it there. Of course, she didn’t believe in any god.
Keep telling yourself that.
There were other theories—something about an ancient tribe dragging the ark up the mountain, or building it up there. History held stories of ships moved across land for purposes of war, but to move a ship this size up the side of Mount Ararat seemed—if not impossible—at least impractical. But Meryam had one advantage over the people with theories about the ark, including those who claimed the whole thing had to be a hoax. She had been living and working inside of it for three weeks. However it had gotten up onto the mountain, there was no doubting the reality of it when you walked its canted floor and breathed in the scent of its aged timbers.
The how and why were the entire point of this project. Perhaps the who would even be addressed at some point. But the what … of that, there could be no doubt. A ship. Buried in the side of a mountain four thousand meters up.
Despite her weariness, and even with the fear and uncertainty the morning had brought, the questions that buzzed around her brain made her smile as she worked her way up the reinforced steps.
Many of the KHAP staff had been bunking on level one, in a kind of camp they had set up, making their sleeping quarters in the stalls, with additional shelter they had shored up with plastic sheeting, heavy blankets, and hastily constructed new walls. She had a feeling that when the first real winter storm arrived—which would be soon—the level-one campers would relocate to the second or third floor, but for the moment they preferred to be near an exit, just in case the mountain decided to start shaking itself apart again.
Level two included additional staff quarters, storage, the infirmary, and the workroom, which was off-limits while the artifacts and remains and samples were being catalogued. That left stalls on level three for Ben Walker and his team. Meryam held onto the walls and picked her steps carefully as she moved down the slanted floor until she reached the two stalls where they had erected their tents.
She passed the stall that would be Kim Seong’s quarters and poked her head inside the next one. The large tent filled about half of the space Walker would be sharing with Father Cornelius.
Meryam rapped on the wall. “Knock knock.”
After a rustle, Walker poked his head out of the tent. She couldn’t tell whether or not he was glad to see her. Considering that she and Adam had resisted the U.S. government’s request to send him in the first place, she wondered why she cared. Walker and Father Cornelius both exuded an air of confidence and competence, so perhaps that was it. As Wyn Douglas would have said, they seemed as if they had “seen some shit.”
Just your way of saying you like them because they’re not afraid.
She thought that was more accurate. Ever since the box had been opened and the first whispers about the cadaver had traveled among the staff, the fear had been building. People didn’t feel well or they had bad dreams and too many of them had succumbed to the temptation to ascribe those things to the presence of the malformed thing inside that ancient coffin. There had been a lot of what she called turbulence over the past week or so, and it was getting worse. Religion was making it worse. Faith, or more precisely, the warring of different faiths, and those who were faithless.
The man himself stood outside one of the stalls. When she approached, the two Americans dropped their conversation and stood a bit straighter.
“How’s Kim?” Walker asked.
Meryam rested against the wall for a moment. “Dr. Dwyer is calling it a panic attack.”
Walker had a pleasant face, but his expression just then was anything but pleasant.
“You were there. She had a total breakdown, complete with delusions or hallucinations. The only thing I’ve ever seen that remotely resembled what happened down there was a psychotic episode from a kid in my high school math class, but he had full-blown schizophrenia.”
Meryam bristled. “I’d have thought this would be good news. Doctor says claustrophobia and general anxiety caused a panic attack. I suspected some altitude sickness, but your team already went through the acclimatization process.”
Walker hesitated, unconvinced. “So she’s all right?”
“It’s all relative, isn’t it? If she were home, she’d be all right. But up here, we can’t be responsible for someone prone to panic attacks. She could hurt herself, damage the faunal remains, or even hurt someone else.”
“You have no reason to think—” Walker began.
“I’m recommending to the Turkish monitors that she be evacuated and the UN send a replacement.”
“You can’t do that.”
Meryam straightened up. “It’s my project, Dr. Walker. You’re a guest here.”
“All I’m asking is that you put off any decision until morning,” Walker said. “If Kim hasn’t had another episode and seems healthy enough, let her stay. I’d really rather not go through the difficulties involved in bringing another UN observer up here.”
Meryam cocked an eyebrow. “That’s the issue you have with me wanting her gone?”
“You thought it was team loyalty?” he replied. “I’m here to do a job. Kim seems competent enough, but I hardly know her. The cadaver down in that coffin is intriguing and more than a little disturbing. I don’t want to have to sit on my hands while the UN finds a replacement. And you said yourself there’s a storm in the forecast and you want to get the cadaver packed for transport before it hits.”
A shout rang out, echoing around inside the ark. Meryam froze, on edge until she heard a shouted reply, followed by a bark of laughter. She exhaled, and saw Walker do the same. He’d only been in the ark for hours and already felt the tension of the place. It wasn’t just the mountain or the creaking of the timber as the weather shifted.
“You all right?” Walker asked. “You jumped a little.”
Meryam smiled. “There’s not been much laughter these past weeks. Just surprised me a bit. There’s a weight to this work that Adam and I haven’t encountered on other projects.”
Walker’s expression softened. “That’s an understatement. No matter what you discover up here, no matter what conclusions are drawn, you’re going to make a lot of people very angry.”
“Better to pretend we were never here? Blow it up like Professor Olivieri wants?”
“I wouldn’t go that far.”
“Glad to hear it,” Meryam said. “Because, honestly, it doesn’t much matter what the UN says or does. Their approval is a condition for you being here, not for our project to continue. So while you’re welcome to participate, my intention is to remove the cadaver from the box this afternoon so Patil can do a full examination and take samples before the body is prepped for transport.”
“So we’ve got hours. This isn’t just about a storm. What’s your hurry?”
Meryam leaned against the wall and thrust her hands into her pockets. The chill she felt inside her and the unpleasant queasiness in her stomach were not new. They had been there all along and had been getting worse.
“You saw it, Dr. Walker—”
“Just—”
“Doctor Walker. You saw it. I waited for your team as a courtesy to your government. Now I just want that thing out of here.”
He seemed about to argue with her, but apparently thought better of it, perhaps remembering that he and his team were guests, after all. This was the Karga-Holzer Ark Project, not something his National Science Foundation had put together.
“Who’s this Patil? Have I met her?” Walker asked.
“Him,” she corrected. “Dev Patil is our paleopathologist, recruited from Cambridge University by Professor Marshall—”
“You’re not going to whip out their diplomas, are you? I have a few degrees of my own.”
Meryam shook her head. “I’m not here to measure your manhood or to check your credentials. I’ve done the latter already or I’d have put my foot down about you even being here.”
Walker nodded slowly. “It’s your show. But I�
��d like to ask one favor. Hold off moving the cadaver long enough for Father Cornelius to study the writings engraved in the casing. Both what you’ve broken away and what’s still there, as well as what’s inscribed on the lid. Enough of it’s already been destroyed. I know you’ve got photographs, but he’d prefer to look at the remainder in situ.”
A suspicion rose in her, almost amusing … except that she wasn’t amused.
“Please don’t tell me you’re worried Kim’s episode was the result of proximity to the box,” she said. “I’ve got enough superstition brewing in some of my own crew—Turks, Kurds, Americans—without you giving them the idea you believe in ancient curses.”
Walker sniffed. “I’m more concerned about ancient diseases than ancient curses.”
Meryam studied his face, searching his eyes.
She wasn’t certain she believed him.
* * *
Adam stood with Calliope at the edge of the cave, looking out over the mountain range. The beauty and silence were breathtaking. It was as if the rest of the world had vanished and all that remained of civilization were the people gathered in the ruins of the ark. He wore his knit cap pulled down tight over his ears and the hood of his jacket snugged down over it. The wind slid in along his neck and slithered down his back, always finding a way in, snaking through flesh and right down to bone.
“God, it’s stunning,” Calliope said, camera in hand.
With her focused only on the view through the camera, he felt free to observe her. Of all the members of the dig, including the team that had arrived with Ben Walker, Calliope alone seemed at ease. Even the cold did not seem to trouble her as much. Her hair fell about her face, framing her even as she framed a shot of the wintry gray horizon with her camera. In his work, and as a young American male in London, he met plenty of attractive women, but pretty as she was, it was the easiness about her that made Calliope beautiful.
He loved Meryam. Intended to marry Meryam. Nothing would change that. But being around Calliope lightened his heart, and he needed that right now.
“You’re awfully quiet,” she said without taking her eye from the camera.
“Just admiring the view.” Shit. He’d meant it innocently enough and hoped she didn’t take it the wrong way.
“A bit scary, though.”
“What is?”
Finally she stopped filming and lowered the camera to glance at him. “Being up here. Storm on the way. Left to our own devices if anything goes wrong.”
“You don’t seem scared.”
Calliope grinned. “I have hidden depths.”
She went back to filming, focusing on the roiling clouds in the distance. The real storm wasn’t meant to blast in for a while yet, but the sky already seemed ominous enough, pregnant with the uncaring threat of nature’s power.
“She’ll be all right, you know,” Calliope said.
“Sorry?”
Perhaps very purposefully now, she kept filming. “Meryam. There’s a lot of pressure on her. I know the project is jointly yours and hers, the books and our film, all of that. But we all know she holds the reins. If something goes wrong, she’s going to feel the weight of it the most. Blame herself.”
Adam could barely breathe. Either Calliope had keen intuition or he and Meryam were just about the most transparent people who’d ever lived.
“True enough,” he agreed. “So what makes you think she’ll be all right?”
A smile, and she lowered the camera again, looking at him in that way women had of letting a man know with a single glance that his idiocy was almost adorable, but only almost.
“You’re a good guy, Adam. If Meryam falls apart, you’ll put her back together again.” Calliope took a deep breath. The wind had scoured her cheeks to a bright red. “She’ll be all right because she’s got you to look after her if anything goes wrong.”
I hope you’re right, he was about to say. Opened his mouth and got the first word out before he heard footsteps scuffing across the rock behind him and someone called his name. He turned to see Feyiz approaching with the younger of the two Turkish government monitors, Mr. Zeybekci.
“What now?” Adam whispered to himself, sure Calliope’s camera would have caught it but not caring.
Zeybekci smoothed his jacket in a way that made him seem even younger, like a high school student about to give a presentation in front of the class. The holstered gun on his hip seemed more like a toy, but Adam knew it was very real. He and Meryam had initially balked at the idea of Zeybekci and his older counterpart being armed, but the government had insisted. If they’d been under any illusions that Zeybekci and Mr. Avci were ordinary government functionaries, the guns—and the pretense that there was nothing strange about these men carrying them—would have erased those illusions. They were monitors, certainly, but though they might report back to the government, they were doubtless Turkish army officers.
Nobody talked about it. Mostly, everyone just pretended the guns weren’t there, and Adam understood why. The whole team understood that they were there on the sufferance of the Turks, and they weren’t in a position to object to the conditions the government exposed.
“Mr. Holzer,” the monitor began, “there are certain concerns among the project participants that I feel I must bring to your attention.”
He’d gone to some kind of private school in Istanbul with British instructors. His elocution and the accent of his English made it clear. But unlike his older counterpart, Mr. Avci, Zeybekci didn’t come off as disdainful. He seemed honestly engaged in doing his job.
“Go on,” Adam said, eyeing Feyiz, wondering what he was doing here. The guides were all Kurdish, and the Kurds did not traditionally pal around with Turkish government functionaries.
“I know you’re well aware that there has been certain rumbling among the workers since word began to spread regarding the contents of the particular box—”
“Such delicate phrasing,” Adam said. “Call it a coffin if you want. Everyone knows there’s a corpse in it.”
Zeybekci swallowed. “There are many corpses in the cave, Mr. Holzer. Many bones. You know this one is different, and that its presence makes your staff anxious. You’ve dismissed their unease as superstition for some time, but you’ll find it hard to dismiss if they abandon the project.”
“Abandon? They’ll walk off the job because of a five-thousand-year-old cadaver?”
“They might,” Feyiz confirmed.
Adam met Zeybekci’s gaze. In his mind, an image flickered to life, dredged up from his childhood memories—the tall pendulum clock that had stood in the parlor in his grandmother’s house throughout his childhood. Even now, a trickle of remembered fear made him shiver.
He understood superstition and the power to terrify that could be imbued within an object. At twenty-nine years old, he could still remember the way he had held his breath when his grandmother told the story of the dybbuk that had possessed her father, and the little ritual her mother had performed when the old man had breathed his last, meant to capture the evil spirit and trap it inside that clock.
If we let the dybbuk escape with my father’s spirit, his grandmother had said, his soul will never have peace.
Adam had seen in her eyes that she had believed it entirely, that the belief had consumed her, and it was that—her faith and fear—that had convinced him as a little boy. Seven years old, that winter.
His grandmother had taught him how to wind the clock. Where to find the key, how often it had to be done. If the clock ever stopped, she’d told him … the dybbuk would be free.
And he’d fucking believed her.
It still pissed him off, that he’d fallen for such bullshit. Her fear had infected him, and he refused to allow that to happen again, no matter how many people in the Ark Project had the same sorts of absurd beliefs. He believed in God, wanted to believe in an afterlife, but even if he went along with the idea that the thing in the box was not human, it was dead. Really most sincerely dead, in th
e parlance of Munchkinland. Did it make him uneasy? Hell, yes. But he wouldn’t be frightened of a dead thing, human or otherwise.
“I understand their concerns,” he said, “but let me play—” He stopped himself before uttering the phrase devil’s advocate. It seemed a bad idea. “The cadaver is so old that until we get a proper study of it, there’s no way to know what caused its deformities. I don’t for a second believe it’s some kind of monster or demon, but for those whose religious or spiritual beliefs suggest otherwise, do they not understand that it’s dead? That it’s been buried in the side of the mountain for—”
“Mr. Holzer, you’re not listening,” Zeybekci said. Normally impossible to ruffle, he was letting his frustration show.
“Adam,” Feyiz began.
“Don’t tell me you believe this shit.”
Feyiz tugged at his beard. “I’ve been doing my best to keep everyone calm. My uncle’s not helping because he half believes it’s a demon himself. Remember, he’s actually seen it. Most of the dig hasn’t. We’re not just talking about Turks or Kurds, either. Don’t make the mistake of thinking we’re a bunch of ignorant savages jumping at shadows—”
“God, Feyiz, when have I ever given you the idea I was the sort of person who’d make assumptions like that?” Adam asked.
“I know that’s not you. But I know enough about Western culture to know there’s some of that hard-wired into all of you. Some of the Americans and British are just as nervous. My point is that I had it mostly under control, but now the whole dig is talking about the woman from the UN taking one look at the cadaver and turning into a lunatic.”
“She’s fine now,” Calliope added from behind the camera.
Adam glanced at her in surprise. She never talked while she was filming. Her piping up like that made him realize just how serious this must really be.
“Now,” Zeybekci echoed. “But many saw her suffering some kind of breakdown, and you can only imagine what that has done to their fears.”
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