by Tracy Higley
There’s only one place in my world where things seem to be put right. It’s in the ancient pieces I restore, displayed in the floors above my workroom for visitors to admire. Tonight, a sudden desire to see one of my whole pieces filled me. To see something, anything, I had done right. Perhaps to stop the frightening wave of hopelessness that threatened to sweep me out to despair.
I locked the workroom behind me and drifted down the dark hallway. I was probably the last person out of here tonight. Somewhere in the building a security guard no doubt wandered, shining his flashlight into dim corners and shadowed alcoves. I tread carefully to the stairs, heading for the third floor’s Roman, Etruscan, and Greek halls. The stairwell door clanged behind me, intruding into the peace of the building. I winced.
Hope the security guard’s unarmed.
The pieces in the rooms above me were priceless, worthy of theft. I lapsed into philosophy as I trudged upward, wondering what makes a person priceless. No one had tried to steal my heart in a long while. Or even win it fairly, for crying out loud.
But if priceless were to be defined, it would look nothing like the irreparable, jagged edges of my life.
I reached the third level, a little breathless, and opened the door into the Mesopotamian hall. The room was dark, with only the exit signs and an occasional forgotten exhibit case light to illuminate the room. I glided around the free-standing glass exhibits to the other side of the hall, through another domed room, to the entrance of the Roman World exhibits.
Here I paused, considering alarming the security guard by turning on the lights in the room, to better see the piece I was most proud of.
I breathed the stale air and thought, perhaps this would be a fitting place to put an end to… things.
Plaster statues lined the walls of the Roman World, and counter-height glass exhibits squatted around the room. To one side was a scale model of a Roman villa, again under glass. In the center of the room stood a seven-foot wall, with fourth- and fifth-century manuscripts displayed on both sides. The wall blocked my view of the exhibits on the far side of the room. The piece I’d come to see was over there.
I moved to step into the room, but a sound on the other side of that wall stopped me. Just a whisper of a footfall against the floor. I waited. The shuffling sound came again. The room suddenly felt even darker, and I wished for the security guard. Or did he stand on the other side of that wall himself? A shadow moved away from the wall. I sucked in my breath and took a step backward. The figure moved slowly. I squinted through the darkness to identify it. The shadow moved toward a glass case. It seemed draped in a flowing fabric, ghost-like. What seemed like an arm passed over the case, hesitated, then drew back, holding something. The figure moved away then, toward the doors that led to the Etruscan hall. I waited until I was alone in the room, then trotted to the glass display.
It was empty.
My heart rate jumped into overdrive. The attached plaque detailed the gladiator’s sword and shield that should have lay there. I slid my fingers around the edges of the glass door. It pulled open in my hands easily. Unlocked. Too late, I wondered if I should have left my fingerprints on the case.
I pushed it closed and glanced at the door where the intruder had disappeared. Had he already escaped the building?
Where was the security guard? Could I find him before the thief disappeared?
You’re thinking of dying for nothing, girl, why not for something worthwhile?
I held my breath and willed heavy feet forward to the door.
It slid open in silence. I could see him again, at the end of the Etruscan hall. The light was a little stronger here, and it was clear that it was a man, dressed in some kind of floor-length robe. Odd outfit for an antiquities thief.
Should I confront him? To what end? Perhaps scare him into leaving his treasures behind and fleeing the museum? Not likely.
Well then, at least get a close enough look at him to help identify him later.
But in that moment he turned.
And I knew that I was lost.
He wore a robe, yes, but it opened in front to reveal a short tunic, white and belted at the waist. On his head he wore the helmet of a Roman soldier, and in his hands he carried the sword and shield missing from its case. The light above a wall-mounted painting fell across his features. Black eyes glittered behind the mask of the helmet, and I shuddered to see the gaze fall upon me. The sword rose to chest-level, its lethal point directed at me. I inhaled deeply and summoned a courage I didn’t own.
“What are you doing here?” I said.
The man threw muscular shoulders back, and the robe fell away from his arms. “I am Antonio.” He waved the sword in a small figure-8, as though warning me to come no farther.
“You shouldn’t be here, Zorro,” I said. The sarcasm flowed as habit, in spite of fear.
He lowered the sword only slightly. “I belong here as much as you do.”
I tried a bluff. I looked back over my shoulder and called out, “Guard!”
Antonio waited, watching me. The silence of the Etruscan Hall continued, with no rescuer swooping in to tackle him.
I licked dry lips.
“You are afraid,” Antonio said.
“You are stealing priceless artifacts.”
Antonio looked at the sword in his hand, twisted it back and forth as though examining an old friend.
“Am I? This sword has served me well over many years.”
“Served you well?” The guy was beginning to creep me out.
He tapped the shield he held. “As has this piece.” His black eyes bore into mine, and his voice lowered to a whisper. “Come closer.”
I swallowed, but moved forward, drawn by his eyes.
When I stood only a few feet from him, he lifted a hand and traced a finger across a scar on his leather-covered chest. “This shield saved my life in the deadliest combat I faced.” His eyes returned to mine. “Do you want to feel the leather? Feel how my opponents blade nearly sliced through to my flesh?”
“That breastplate has been in this museum for years.”
“And strapped to my body for more years than that.”
“Who are you?”
“I am Antonio.”
Right. “Are you saying that these things belonged to you…”
“In the eleventh year of Emperor Nero Claudius Drusus Germanicus.”
A nervous laugh escaped my lips. “You’re from the first century?” I wished I could see more than the eyes behind the helmet. As if in answer, Antonio pulled the helmet from his head.
I never expected the white hair and deeply lined features. Though his body was muscular, the face showed the passing of years, and I guessed his age to be at least sixty.
Antonio smiled. “You expected a younger warrior?”
I shook my head, unable to respond.
“I am not surprised. Gladiators do not often live to old age.” He flourished the sword again, a smile forming. “But my weapons served me well, and I was able to buy my freedom.”
He was insane, obviously. Senile. Or perhaps both. A white-haired man dressed as a Roman, brandishing weapons and claiming to be two thousand years old.
I should just leave. Find the security guard and let him deal with the loony guy. I turned away, watching behind me to keep track of that sword.
“Don’t leave, Natalee.”
I stopped. Turned back to him.
“How do you know my name?”
He motioned to a set of steps leading to the Greek display room. “Sit with me. You are alone, and it is not a night to be alone.”
He moved to the steps then, sat down, and laid the sword and helmet on the step beside him. Those eyes, still so mesmerizing even in the lined face, turned on me and urged me to sit.
I lowered myself to the steps. What am I doing?
“Who are you?” I said again.
Antonio smiled and inclined his head toward the room of Greek pottery. “A person not unlike these pieces. Broken. Yet
restored.” He rubbed at a scar on his hand. “I suppose we are all broken in some way, aren’t we?”
“Some of us are shattered beyond repair.”
“There is no one beyond repair.” Again the smile. I watched it soften the eyes, bring kindness to them.
“You need to go home,” I said. “You don’t belong here.”
Antonio sighed. “No, no I do not. And yet here is where I find myself. Perhaps because there are words that you must hear.”
“Me?” I felt another sliver of doubt about my safety, and considered a grab for the sword.
“I am here for a reason, Natalee. Will you hear the words that are meant for you?”
I studied a display of spearpoints in a case across the room. He was clearly insane. Clearly.
“Yes,” I whispered.
“You are loved, Natalee.”
I nearly stood then, almost fled from the creepy words and the murky light and the strange man who whispered straight into my soul the words I most longed to hear.
But I stayed. Rooted to the black marble steps as though I were mounted there, my wounds on display for all to see.
“You are loved,” he said again, and I fought against the tears that threatened.
“I was broken, too, Natalee.” He looked away, as though he studied a past too distant for memory. “Every day in the arena, facing a new foe. I fought and I killed, desperate for my own survival, yet hating my very existence.” He nudged the sword that lay on the step between us. “I found myself in that arena as a consequence for violence, but the punishment only continued the violence, strengthened and hardened it until it was more a part of me than my heart or my lungs. Until it flowed through my veins and I breathed it like air.” He turned his eyes on me, and I felt the strange weakness return. “There was no one more broken than I, Natalee. Not even you.”
“You don’t know what I’ve done. You can’t say that.”
“You have become a person you cannot approve.”
You’ve got that right.
“And yet, there is healing. There is restoration offered to you.”
I sniffed. “I’ve been to counseling. They don’t erase your past. They only tell you to ignore it, forget it.”
“Learn from it.”
“Yes, learn from it. And I’ve learned. I’ve learned that my mother was right. That I have no taste at all, not for beauty and not for men. And I’ve learned that married men lie, and that when their deceptions tear their lives apart, they run from everything and everyone that was part of their deception. And I’ve learned that when it’s over, you are left alone and empty, and life is hollow and has no purpose!” I sat back against the marble step, wondering at my verbosity. My outburst had left me exhausted.
“Ah, Natalee.” Antonio touched my arm. I resisted the urge to lean against his chest and weep.
Such a strange man.
“You have reached the very bottom, my child.”
The tears did flow, then, and I let them fall unhindered.
“Do you know there is one who has waited all your life for this moment?”
I turned to him. “I don’t understand.”
“I met him, you see. Not face-to-face, but in the eyes and the hearts of those condemned to the arena as I was. Only these went forth without sword, without helmet or shield.” His voice and his face moved to that distant place again. I struggled to catch every quiet word.
“I had to kill them, Natalee. Can you imagine what this is like? To put a sword to someone whom you know is innocent, and to know that you are the guilty one? And then one day, as one young woman lay bleeding into the sand, with the crowd on their feet, roaring for me to end her life, I knelt and found redemption.”
I searched his face, willed him to turn it back to me so I could find the answer there. “Tell me.”
“Jesus. The woman spoke the name of Jesus, as though her life would not end in moments. She spoke the name into my eyes, into my heart, and I knew the truth.”
I waited, hardly daring to breathe. He turned back to me, pleading with his own eyes for me to understand. Trying to pass the truth to the next broken soul.
“She lived for the truth, and she died for it, Natalee. They all did. For one man, who hung on a Roman cross for the sins of us all. Who paid the price to satisfy the judgment of God on our behalf. Who lived and died so that we could be made whole.” Tears came to his own eyes and flowed down cheeks that seemed to age before me.
“I held her in my arms, there in the sand. The crowd chanted for me to put her to the sword again, but instead I bent my head to her lips, and heard her bless me.” His voice caught. “She blessed me with the name of Jesus, the great healer of souls. The one who loved us all enough to die, and who lives again to restore us all to beauty.”
I did fall against him, then. In spite of myself, I buried my face in his chest and cried out the years of guilt, yet still unwilling to believe that this was truth.
“Natalee,” Antonio pushed me away slightly, held my arms and looked in my eyes. “This is the message I came to bring you. There is one who sees all you have ever done, and yet loves you still. Loves you beyond human love, to the place of healing. His pain, his death – it pays the price for your past. Not erased. Not ignored. Redeemed, Natalee! Redeemed!”
My sobs had shortened to occasional sniffles now, and I wiped away the tears, wanting to believe. But it was all too strange, this encounter with Antonio. Too hard to believe a message had been brought to me on a lonely Christmas Eve.
Antonio picked up his sword, retrieved his helmet, as if aware that his time with me must come to an end. And in that moment, the door at the end of the Etruscan hall opened.
I looked up with resentment, unwilling to let go of the peace that had begun to fall over me.
A tall man in his forties stood at the doors, his hands on his hips.
“Antonio? What in the world are you doing?”
Antonio rose beside me, breathing deeply.
The man across the hall seemed to notice me for the first time. “Who are you?”
I stood beside Antonio. “Natalee Whitcombe. I work here. I restore pottery.”
He took several determined steps toward us, and I saw that he wore dark blue uniform pants, and a light blue shirt with “Ted” stitched across the pocket.
“Shouldn’t you have gone home by now?” Ted asked.
“Yes, I – I was just checking on something…”
I turned to Antonio, my excuse dying on my lips. He had removed the robe, and now was pulling the white tunic off, revealing an identical blue uniform beneath, complete with Antonio stitched on the shirt in dark blue thread.
“Listen, Antonio,” Ted was saying, “I know you’re a history buff, but I’ve had about enough of your wandering the museum instead of doing your job.”
Antonio nodded mutely besideme.
“He wasn’t bothering you, was he, miss?” Ted asked me.
“Bothering me? No. No, he was – He was fine.” I put a hand out to grasp the brass rail at the edge of the steps where we stood.
“Get the costume back to the Children’s Room, Antonio. And then meet me in the Lower Egypt Hall. We need to get the mopping done before midnight.”
Antonio bundled the robe and tunic in his hands, then picked up the artifacts and moved away without a glance at me. Ted seemed not to notice the treasures in Antonio’s hands, and I assumed the older man would replace them in their glass exhibit before moving out of the Roman hall. He disappeared through the doors, leaving me alone and desolate with Ted.
“I’m really sorry about Antonio, miss. He’s a bit past his prime, obviously, but he does good work around here. I occasionally find him playing dress-up, but he hasn’t caused any real harm yet. I hope he didn’t frighten you.”
“No,” I said. “I’m fine.” The word mocked me, and I wondered if I’d ever be fine again. I felt like one who had jumped from a sinking ship to a lifeboat, only to discover that the lifeboat was i
ll-patched and leaking.
“Let me walk you out, miss,” Ted said, motioning toward the doors. I walked ahead of him, as though in my sleep. In the Roman hall, I gave a glance to the piece I’d come here to see, a symbol of the restoration I’d wished I could find for myself. The display case was too dark to see anything at all.
Through Rome, through Mesopotamia, through the remnants of my own broken life, we walked until we reached the stairs.
“I’ll be fine from here,” I told Ted, anxious to be alone again. “I just need to get something from my office, and then I’ll head out.
Ted nodded. “Merry Christmas, then.”
I smiled. “Merry Christmas.”
Outside my workroom, I fumbled with my key until it slid into the lock. I took one last look at the room, to be sure I’d left it in order. I wouldn’t be coming back.
I lingered along the walk to the street exit, but minutes later the massive door sealed shut behind me and I stood alone in the cold.
“Natalee.”
I turned to the now-familiar voice.
“Antonio.” He wore only his maintenance uniform now, and his hands rested empty at his sides.
I didn’t know what to say. He had deceived me completely, lured me into his dementia and given me false hope, yet I couldn’t be angry at a feeble mind, heavy with kindness.
He took a step toward me, reached out his hand. “Things are not always what they seem.”
I smiled, a tired smile with little left to give. “That’s the truth.”
Antonio stepped beside me, and touched my arm with his hand. It was warm and rough, the callused hand of a janitor. Or a warrior. He pointed across the street, to the plaster nativity scene in the grassy lawn of the New City Church. I looked at the spot-lighted manger.
Antonio whispered beside me. “Sometimes the glorious and the true comes disguised as the plain and humble.”
I looked back to him, and he was gone. Not returned to the building. Not walking down the museum steps. I tell you truly, he was simply gone. A tingle went up my arm from the place where his hand had touched me, a current that seemed to find its way into my very soul. And I knew the truth.
And across the street, the bells of the New City Church began to chime.
Hark! The herald angels sing,
“Glory to the newborn King!
Peace on earth and mercy mild,
God and sinners reconciled…”
About the Author
Tracy L. Higley started her first novel at the age of eight and has been hooked on writing ever since. She has authored ten novels, including Garden of Madness and So Shines the Night. Tracy is currently pursuing a graduate degree in Ancient History and has traveled through Greece, Turkey, Egypt, Israel, Jordan and Italy, researching her novels and falling into adventures. See her travel journals and more at TracyHigley.com
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Other books by Tracy L. Higley
Isle of Shadows
City of the Dead
Guardian of the Flame
Pompeii: City on Fire
Petra: City in Stone
Garden of Madness
So Shines the Night