Now what?
Well, if the man in the square could walk through him, maybe he could walk through the door. But that was just a dream, wasn’t it? And this time he was really here, really back in Etruscan time. Or was he? He was getting confused about what was a dream and what was reality—if time travel could be called reality.
Still, it was worth a try. He didn’t want to be stuck here in the dusty street. He laid his hands flat on the door and pushed. It felt lighter than wood should feel. He pushed harder, and suddenly he popped through it to the other side.
Wow. It felt like going through a wall of Jell-O. Solid, but not really. It gave Hector a sick feeling, and he stood still for a minute to let everything settle. The room was dim, but enough light came through the small windows that his eyes soon adjusted.
Several mats were scattered on the dirt floor, and a stool stood by the fire. The walls were white but also stained with dark streaks from the smoke of the cooking fire, he supposed. There was very little decoration, just a kind of alcove by the door where a couple of figures like dolls were standing. He went closer and peered at them. The two crude wooden figures stared back blankly. Worn paint faintly indicated their eyes, mouths, and clothing. A strange kind of thing to have in your wall, he thought.
A small woman who had a dark braid down her back and was wearing a loose brown robe came in through another door on the opposite wall. Hector froze, but she gave no sign of seeing him. She spoke to Arath and then stooped over the fire, ladling something into a wooden bowl. From her tone, it appeared that she was scolding him. She didn’t really sound angry, though. She handed the bowl and a spoon to Arath, who was squatting on a small rug, and passed her hand over his black hair. He looked up and smiled at her as he began eating what must be his breakfast.
Two other women, older than the first, appeared. They wore long robes with stripes down the sides, and one looked cranky. She held her hand to her cheek as the first woman soaked a piece of cloth in hot water that was steaming over the fire. She held it against the older woman’s face, speaking soothingly.
Hector stood awkwardly in the middle of the room. Arath either couldn’t see him anymore or was pretending not to, and the women gave no sign that they were aware there was a fifth person in the room. Hector cleared his throat. Arath’s eyebrows shot up and Hector saw a little smile on his lips.
“So I can say anything I want,” Hector said. Arath, still eating, gave an almost imperceptible nod.
“I can go wherever I want,” Hector said. Arath nodded again.
“And no one can see me or hear me or anything.” This time a little shake of the head.
“What’s the matter with that woman?”
Arath opened his mouth as though yawning and pointed a finger at one of his back teeth.
“Toothache?” Hector guessed. Again a little nod and a smile.
At that moment Arath’s mother straightened.
It was the same woman who had been wailing in the square in that terrible dream, and she was staring him right in the face.
12
Hector yelped and stumbled backward. But Arath’s mother must have just happened to be looking in his direction, because she paid no attention to him.
Arath let out a snort of laughter. His mother said something that must have meant “What’s so funny?”
Arath bowed his head over his bowl and scraped out the last of whatever he was eating. His mother took the empty bowl and said something else as she passed food to the other women. The one with the toothache groaned as she opened her mouth a tiny bit.
Arath nodded to his mother and went back out the door. Hector didn’t want to repeat the creepy experience of pushing through wood, so he slipped out behind the other boy before it had a chance to close.
In those few minutes the town had come alive. It looked more like what Hector had seen on his first visit. Several women were carrying jugs on their heads. Four little children, naked except for strings of beads around their waists and leather pouches like Arath’s dangling from their necks, followed, laughing and playing as they went. Two men were working on the wall again, and Hector could see that some time had passed since he had last been there, because they had almost finished the repairs.
“Where are we going?” Hector asked, but Arath just frowned and kept walking. Oh, right. He couldn’t answer in front of all those people.
After only a few steps, Arath turned and ducked into the temple, Hector close at his heels. Its cool darkness was pleasant after those few minutes in the glaring sun. “Can you talk now?” Hector asked. As an answer, Arath made a slight motion with his hand.
Two large shapes were in front of them. Hector peered more closely and realized that he was looking at two men, both standing with their backs to him, hands raised to the ceiling, long black hair falling down their backs. On one, a gold armband glinted. The other man was shorter and more muscular. Neither paid any attention to the boys—or rather, to Arath, since they couldn’t be expected to notice Hector.
They started talking rapidly and rhythmically, first one, and then the other. They must be praying, Hector realized. As his eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, he saw that the walls were painted with pictures of people. He walked hesitantly to one of the pictures, feeling that he probably shouldn’t touch it and feeling uncertain about being there, even though no one but Arath could see him.
The painting showed some kind of party. In the middle a man was dancing, arms and legs thrown out at odd angles, feet flexed and long hands bent way back. Another man blew on a flute, and a woman was holding something that looked like a rattle.
Men and women were lying on couches, tables covered with food all around them. One woman’s hand was stretched out in front of her toward a smiling man, and in her long, elegant fingers she delicately held an egg. Little naked children with flowers in their hair held jugs that looked just like the ones the women had been carrying outside. Something dark was flowing out of one of them. The colors were so bright that even in the semidarkness they were easy to see. Everything in them seemed to be moving and swirling, so that it was hard to believe that they were paintings and not living people.
Arath stood in silence behind the two men, as though waiting. After a few minutes, the shorter man lowered his hands and spoke to Arath in a normal tone, no longer the singsong of a prayer. Hector had no trouble catching the man’s meaning. It was as though the longer he stayed in the past, the more he understood. He could tell that the man was asking Arath why he was late. Arath mumbled something like “I’m sorry.” The other man turned around and glared at him, and even in the dim light, what Hector saw made his heart stop for a second and then start thumping rapidly.
This was the man who had dragged Arath away and had been with him when those sickening screams came from the temple. Looking at his cruel face, Hector had no doubt that he was the one who had been beating the boy.
The man turned away, raised his hands, and started chanting again. It went on and on.
Hector took a hesitant step forward. Arath rolled his eyes, evidently exasperated at Hector’s timidity.
Hector gathered together all his courage and said, “It’s easy for you. You’re used to people not seeing you.” He flinched at the sound of his voice, but the men obviously didn’t hear him, although Arath rolled his eyes again.
It was weird. He could go anyplace, do anything, and no one would ever know. He took another step. Still no reaction from the men. So he walked firmly forward and looked at the objects on the table in front of the men. Three small statues, only a few inches tall, stood stiffly in a row. They glittered so richly that Hector knew that they had to be made of gold. The figures were human, one male and two female, but unnaturally long and thin. The man and one of the women wore strange helmets with wing-like things sticking out on both sides and the top. The woman clutched a spear, and the man held a crooked stick. The other woman wore a long skirt and no top. All of their bodies were strangely flat, and their clo
thes were covered with tiny gold balls in beautiful patterns. Despite their size, the details were perfect.
Hector knew who they were from the book on the Etruscans that his mother had made him read. And even if he hadn’t read the book, he would have recognized them. The man was Tinia, the sky god, Uni was the earth goddess, and Menrva was their daughter, a wise warrior and leader. And their statues were the most beautiful things Hector had ever seen. He reached out a hand to touch them, forgetting that he wouldn’t be able to feel them. Arath cleared his throat sharply and Hector dropped his hand.
The cruel-looking man turned when Arath cleared his throat. Arath looked at him innocently. The man glared at him and then grunted something at the other man, who must be the priest, Arath’s father. The priest said something that sounded like he was telling the man to forget it and handed Arath a small bowl with a kind of bump in the middle. Arath took it carefully, holding the edge with his thumb, and putting his middle and ring fingers into the depression on the back, as if he were holding a CD.
Hector’s eyes were used to the dim light by now, and he saw that the wooden box the large man picked up next was beautifully carved and had gold on its corners. The man said some words quickly, in that singsong, and Arath and the other man repeated his words in unison. The priest opened the box and Arath scooped something out of it with the bowl. Hector stood on tiptoe to see over his shoulder. It was some kind of seeds or grain.
The priest closed the box and placed it carefully on the low table behind him. Next, he picked up a bright white cloth from the table and draped it over his head, hiding his face from view from the sides. Then the three of them turned and walked slowly to the door. First Arath’s father went out, then Arath, then the taller man. Hector broke into a trot and slid out just before the door closed.
As Hector stumbled onto the portico, Arath flinched away from him and spilled some grain. The man cried out angrily and the priest spun around. When he saw what had happened, he barked something at Arath. The boy stood with his head bowed, looking like he was going to cry as the two men scolded him. The cruel-looking man lifted his arm threateningly, but the other one said something and he lowered his arm again, although he stood with his hands on his hips, scowling.
What’s the big deal? Hector wondered. They could easily pick up the few grains that had fallen, and it looked like there was plenty more in that box, anyway.
The man grabbed the dish away from Arath and roughly spun him around by the shoulder so that the boy was facing the temple. He shoved Arath back into the building so hard that the boy tripped over the stone step and fell heavily to his knees.
“Hey!” protested Hector, forgetting that only Arath could hear him.
“Shut up,” Arath said, and then clapped his hand over his mouth.
The man shouted something to the priest, pointing at Arath accusingly. Hector caught the word hinthial a few times, and another word, aisna or eisna or something, over and over again. Arath’s father caught the man’s arm and spoke sharply to him. He turned to Arath and said something that must have meant that he had to leave, for Arath ran out the door.
He raced back the way they had come, his head down, Hector hurrying after him.
“Hey, Arath,” he said. At least he could still talk, even if Arath couldn’t answer in public. “That guy is a real jerk—I mean, yelling at you just because you spilled a little of that stuff—”
Arath slowed to a fast walk and shot Hector a glare from beneath his dark brows that said “shut up” even more clearly than his earlier words. Hector stopped talking and followed him into the house. It was empty. Arath flung himself down on a mat and stared into the cold fireplace.
Hector waited until he couldn’t stand it anymore. “So you want to tell me what that was all about?” he asked.
“I spoiled the sacrifice,” Arath said, his voice jerking with the strain of not crying. “For my father, that is a terrible thing. His religion is the most important thing to him—more important than me, more important than my mother, more important than his own life. Then Cai heard what I said to you and told my father I was talking to evil spirits in their own language.”
“That was Cai? The one who wants to be priest instead of you?” Arath nodded miserably.
“Why was that a mess-up?” Hector asked. “All you did was spill a little of that stuff.”
“That stuff is holy grain,” Arath said. “Didn’t you see how I had to scoop it out?” Hector nodded. “Once it’s been blessed it belongs to the gods and no one can touch it ever again. The bowl is specially made so you can scoop it without your fingers getting in it. And then to spill it on the ground—” He shook his head. “Well, it shows disrespect for the gods. And Cai said it means I’m not a worthy successor to my father. He hates me.”
“You shouldn’t be the priest just because you spilled some grain?” Hector couldn’t believe it.
“There are other things too,” Arath said, sitting up and wrapping his arms around his knees. “I can read even though no one ever taught me, and sometimes I’m in one place and just an instant later I’m in another place because I traveled in time in the meanwhile. And sometimes in my sleep I talk in other languages that I learned when I was time traveling, and people say I’m speaking with hinthials.”
“With what?”
“Hinthials. What you would call ghosts or spirits or angels.”
“Can’t you just tell them about time travel?”
Arath shook his head, looking wretched. “Then they’d know I read the holy books,” he said. “And I’m not the priest, so that’s sacrilege.”
His voice was getting fainter and fainter. Suddenly Hector was tired—more than tired. He felt like when he was a little kid after a day at the beach. He never realized how exhausted he was until he got in the car and found he couldn’t hold his head up.
“Arath—” he said, but his voice was blurry. Arath looked at him sharply.
“Don’t fight it,” he said. “You won’t win.” It sounded like he was speaking from far, far away.
“Fight what?” Hector asked.
“Your own time is pulling you back,” Arath answered.
“What?” Hector tried to say, but he felt himself being tugged harder, and then he was tumbling upside down, backward, every way—and then he was lying on the grass, and it was night. He could tell by the way the grass felt sharp on his skin and how sounds weren’t muffled, and even by the clean, dry smell of the dirt under his face, that he was back in the twenty-first century.
13
Hector sat up, dizzy and muddleheaded. The sky was pale blue and birds were making a racket, so morning must be near. He’d better get back to Susanna’s house and into bed before anyone noticed he was gone. Then he could think about everything that had happened and try to straighten it all out.
His footsteps were painfully loud, even on the dirt. He must have gotten so used to the dullness of sounds in Etruscan time that a real noise was almost deafening by contrast.
By the time he reached the house his calves were sore from the climb up the steep streets. He headed for the stairs, aching for bed.
“Heck?”
Oh, no. Just when he thought he was safe. He hesitated, his hand on the banister, then turned and went into the kitchen. His mother sat there, dressed, holding a cup of coffee.
“Where have you been?” she asked, an edge to her voice. “I woke up an hour ago and saw your door open. You weren’t there. I’ve been going out of my mind with worry. Where have you been?”
He gestured vaguely behind him toward the town, the hill, the dig.
“Outside? At this hour? What were you doing out there?”
What would be the point of telling her? She would never believe him. She’d think he was crazy or was making up some story so he wouldn’t get in trouble for wandering around in the dark.
But she was glaring at him. So he sat down at the table and told her about seeing Arath on top of the arch that day. Told her about Ca
i, the temple, and Arath’s mother and his father, the priest. That he knew that Cai was going to hurt Arath terribly unless someone did something, that he, Hector, seemed to be the only one who could help, and that he appeared to have been chosen by Arath’s protective eye-stone.
His mother kept her eyes fixed on him and once or twice acted as if she was going to say something. But she sat with her lips pressed tight until he finished.
“And then time pulled me back and dumped me in the field,” Hector finished.
Silence. Finally she said, “Heck, now tell me what you’ve really been up to.”
“But Mom,” Hector protested, “I did tell you what I’ve been up to. It’s true. I swear. I met an Etruscan boy named Arath…” His voice trailed off.
She stood up. “Honey,” she said, in a patient tone, “lots of people have nightmares and even walk in their sleep, but it’s not—they usually don’t believe that their dreams are real. If you truly believe that this happened, that means you’re—that something is going on with you and we’re going to need to find someone to make you better.”
“Better? What do you mean, ‘better’?” Hector asked, his voice rising. “I’m not crazy! I never should have told you!”
“Oh Hector, cut it out,” she said, turning to put her coffee cup in the sink. She stood with her back to him. “Lots of people need help with this kind of thing, and there’s nothing to be ashamed of about seeing a psychiatrist or—”
“I don’t need help,” he interrupted. “I thought Arath was crazy at first but it turns out he’s not, he’s really an Etruscan. And you think I’m crazy but I’m not. I really went back to his time.”
“Prove it, then,” his mother said.
“Prove it? How can I?”
“Show me something you found there.”
“I can’t bring you anything,” Hector said. “I’m there but not there. I can feel things, kind of—but I can’t pick them up.”
“Enough,” his mother said. “That makes no sense. Think about what I said. Decide how important this fantasy is to you. If you keep telling me this time-travel stuff we’ll have to find someone who can help you.”
On Etruscan Time Page 8