On Etruscan Time

by Tracy Barrett

  When the man jerked to throw the pouch, the cloth hanging around his face fell back. Hector saw tears glittering in his dark eyes that were so like Arath’s and saw that his mouth was pressed into a grim line. He had never seen an expression so bleak, a face that so clearly spoke of despair and sorrow and loss.

  The man yanked the cloth forward again, hiding his tragedy from the crowd, and cried out, “Flerchva ratum tur!” He pressed one knee into Arath’s back between his shoulders, then grabbed the long hair and pulled the boy’s head toward himself, making his neck stretch like a bow. For one long second he hesitated, glancing at the wailing woman. Then his knife flashed downward.

  15

  Hector lurched with shock, and the eye rolled off his palm. He stared wildly around. For an instant he was confused to find himself in a small, white room, instead of in that bright, hot square.

  “Oh, no!” he cried as the realization hit him. Somehow he’d been thrust brutally back to his own time. He scrabbled for the eye on the floor, desperate to go back to Arath, but when he turned it face up, it lay like a dead thing in his hand.

  “Oh, no!” he cried again, feeling a stab in his heart. Why was the eye so lifeless? Did it mean that Arath had been killed and that it was too late to change anything now?

  No. It couldn’t be. The eye was supposed to protect Arath, and he, Hector, had been chosen as the means of that protection. He was not going to give up. He stared frantically into its center, picturing Arath, picturing the village, the people, Cai, Arath’s father, his mother. Come on, come ON, he thought. Take me there, take me back, let me do my job—

  He felt a tugging, and this time he welcomed it and allowed it to pull him back into that timeless gray space as the world around him grew soft and translucent. Then everything solidified again. His heart thumped as vague shapes took form. Would he be in his room in Sporfieri, or in Arath’s village?

  He was sitting in the dust in the square. The sun was beating down hard, and heat shimmered from the road. No one was in sight. Was he too late? Had he arrived after Arath’s father had killed his own son as harsh punishment for some crime and then had his body tossed into the garbage heap in disgrace?

  No. Hector couldn’t believe it. Even as his mind reeled at the horror of what he had seen—or had almost seen—he forced himself to think logically. The eye would not have brought him here unless he would still be able to help. That was what the eye was for—to protect Arath. It had failed once and was trying to make up for it. And Hector was the one who was going to have to do its work. The eye-stone must have brought him back to this time to fix whatever it was that had caused Arath’s father to sacrifice him to the gods.

  It had to be some kind of sacrilege. Arath had insisted that this was what mattered most to his father. It was hard to imagine that he would go so far as to knife his own son—Hector swallowed hard at the memory of that glittering blade—for anything less.

  He stood and dropped the staring blue eye back in his pocket. He’d better keep a tight hold on it. What if he lost it? Would he be stuck here forever? The eye was supposed to protect Arath, not him. Would it return him to his own time if he failed? Arath had said he’d always be returned home, but he had seemed uncertain about some of the details of time travel. Was he wrong about this one?

  Panic clenched him. Well, he told himself, trying to keep calm, there’s nothing I can do about that now. I’m here, and if I don’t get swept back to my own time, I’ll just find Arath and have him teach me how he got me to the present before. Or I can read it in those books. He tried to silence the little voice that said, “What if you’re too late and Arath’s dead? Can you read Etruscan?”

  He looked around the square, trying to quiet his fear. The longer he stood there, the calmer he felt. His pounding heart slowed, and the image of himself wandering alone through time dissolved. He had a job to do. No one could do it for him; no one could even give him advice.

  But his confidence faltered as he realized that he had no idea what to do next. He took a step toward Arath’s house, then stopped. He shuddered as he remembered the weird feeling of shoving through the closed door. He would wait until someone opened it and then go in with them.

  He sat back down. Absentmindedly, he tried to trace a pattern in the dirt, but his fingers passed over the fine red dust without making a mark. He slapped his hand down as hard as he could, but when he lifted it, the ground was as smooth as before.

  Where was everybody? Maybe they were like the modern Italians and slept in the heat of the day. It was uncomfortable in the blazing sun, even though he was pretty sure he wasn’t feeling the heat as strongly as if he were completely there. The hour of Pan. Maybe people from cold northern countries had superstitions about midnight because of their long, dark nights, but it made sense for people from hot places to dislike the middle of the day instead.

  Something moved down in the square. Hector froze before remembering that he didn’t have to worry about being seen. He got to his feet and walked down the hill, cautiously approaching the temple. As he stepped into its shadow he nearly ran into a tall figure moving stealthily down the alley between the buildings. Hector gasped and flattened against the wall. But he needn’t have worried; the man obviously didn’t see him. It was Cai. Hector could tell by the silence of his progress and the way he was looking around that he was very anxious not to be noticed.

  What could that jerk be up to? Hector drew a deep breath and followed. Cai opened the door of the temple just wide enough to squeeze in, then pulled it shut softly behind him. Hector hesitated. He thought of the sick feeling of forcing his body through the wood. Cai’s probably just doing some priest thing in there, he told himself. I’ll wait till he comes out.

  The door opened again and Cai’s head poked around it. The man warily looked left, then right, and then he slid out the door. He was clutching a cloth-wrapped bundle to his chest. He stepped lightly down the stairs and headed toward Arath’s house. He stayed close to the walls and kept looking over his shoulder. But no one was out. The sun was still scorching, and the little breezes that swirled the dust around weren’t enough to cool the air.

  Cai held his ear against the door to Arath’s house for a long minute. Then he gently pressed against it and went in, letting the door close. Great, Hector thought, but this time he knew he had to follow, so he went through the door itself.

  He emerged into the darkness of Arath’s house feeling as if someone had kicked him in the gut. Where was Cai? Hector could see something bulky on the floor near the fireplace. He leaned over to peer at it and drew back with a start when he realized that it was Arath’s mother. She gave a little snore. The Italian habit of taking an afternoon nap must go back a long, long way, he thought. Then he heard a rustle behind him. He turned and saw another lump on the floor. Arath, he realized. But something hovered over the sleeping boy.

  It was Cai. He was squatting and gently lifting one corner of Arath’s sleeping-mat. Cai reached into the pouch with his free hand and drew out one of the gold statues that belonged on the table in the temple. He slid it carefully and silently under the mat, near the wall. He did the same with the other statues and then straightened. Silently he crossed the room and let himself out the door.

  Hector felt hot with rage as he realized what Cai was doing. The next time people went into the temple, they would notice that the statues were gone, and Cai would find some way to make sure that Arath’s house was searched. When they were found, everyone would think that Arath had stolen them. And if they made such a fuss over a little spilled grain—well, he could just imagine how they would react at the theft of their precious statues. He shuddered at the memory of that knife arcing toward Arath’s throat.

  It was good that Hector had seen the whole thing, or Cai’s scheme would have worked. Now all Hector had to do was wake Arath up and tell him what had happened, and Arath could take the statues back to the temple before anyone knew they were missing. Finally Hector knew what he had to do.
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  “Arath!” he whispered. No good. The boy didn’t stir. “Arath!” he said louder. Still nothing. He turned cold as he thought, Did Cai kill him? But then Arath turned over without waking. He must be a sound sleeper.

  “Arath!” Hector called again. Nothing. Frustrated, he leaned over and shouted right in his ear, “Wake up! Cai is trying to get you in trouble!” He tried to grab Arath’s shoulder and shake him, but his hand closed around nothing solid, nothing flesh and bone.

  “This isn’t funny,” Hector said desperately. “Cai’s framing you. I saw him. You’ve got to—” But he stopped. It was obvious that Arath wasn’t ignoring him. He just plain couldn’t hear him.

  Hector had finally found out what he was supposed to be doing in Etruscan time, but he couldn’t do it.

  16

  It made no sense. If he had been led into the past to save Arath, why couldn’t he do what he was supposed to do?

  Arath groaned and rolled over again. Maybe the next time he moved he would bump into the little statues and wake up. Then maybe he would discover them himself and return them to the temple. Well, if it were that easy, it would have happened like that without all the bother of Hector having to go back in time. No, there was still something that he was supposed to do. There had to be. He just couldn’t figure out what.

  Hector went to the dark corner and squatted by Arath’s sleeping-mat, examining it more carefully. It was just an ordinary brown piece of cloth, not too clean, and rumpled in the middle where Arath was lying. He touched the corner that Cai had lifted. It felt lumpy, with the statues heaped up underneath. He tried lifting it, even though he knew his hand would go through it. Sure enough, his thumb and fingers squeezed together, passing right through the cloth.

  Yuck. He shuddered and wiped his fingers on his shirt. It felt comfortingly solid compared with that mushy cloth on the floor. But—something hadn’t felt mushy. He sat back on his heels and thought. Was it his imagination or had his fingers grazed something hard and cold as they passed through the cloth?

  He didn’t really want to do it again, but he had to try. He pressed down on the mat. For a moment the fabric resisted, but then, as though the fibers had shifted and parted, his hand went through.

  And stopped on a hard little object.

  It had to be one of the statues. What had the three gods said to him in the mist? “We are not of this time, and we are not of that time.” So maybe he could touch them no matter where—or when—he found them. But that had been only a dream. There must be some other explanation.

  And then it came to him. He pulled the eye out of his pocket. Arath could hold it and move it, even in Hector’s time. Maybe this was because Hector had found Arath’s lucky piece in the twenty-first century and it had existed in ancient days. So it was in both places at once, meaning that someone from either time could handle it. That would explain why he could kind of feel the dirt, but not really—a lot of it was probably the same dirt in his time as in Arath’s. But not all of it. He could feel only the parts of it that were just as they had been more than two thousand years ago. That’s why it didn’t feel exactly solid.

  But he could go through the door, because it had been destroyed long before he was born. There was no way that wood left out in the open could last for so many centuries. And the leaves and things—they were gone long ago too. It was just objects that existed in both times that he could feel when he was in the past.

  Hector fought down the excitement that was swelling in his chest. Okay, now he knew why he could feel the statues. They must exist in both his time and in Etruscan time. So they were solid to him, even though he was modern and they were ancient. But how did this help? He could feel them, but that didn’t mean that he could do anything with them. And in any case, they were stuck under the mat. He reached through the cloth again and felt his fingers wrap around the statues. He tried to pull them out.

  No good. His hand was of another time and could pass through the mat, but the gold statue was solid and wouldn’t come out, no matter how he tugged. An ancient piece of gold can’t go through something else ancient, like cloth. Reluctantly, he let go of the statue he was grasping and heard the soft thud as it hit the ground. It wasn’t loud enough to wake Arath, though.

  Maybe he could pull one out along the floor. So he slid his hand along the ground, trying to work it under the cloth. He pushed hard, keeping his fingers firm against what he hoped was the dirt floor, moving them forward bit by bit toward the lump of statues. In a few seconds he was rewarded by the feel of something solid. He grasped the statue once again and pulled it along the floor, out from under the cloth, which rippled as the solid object moved under it. The gold figure slid out as easily as the stick from a melting ice-cream bar.

  In his hand was one of the female deities, the one wearing the winged helmet. “Menrva,” he breathed, and set the figurine carefully on the floor. Then he pulled out the other two. There they were, all three of them lined up. He squatted back and looked at them.

  He couldn’t believe his luck. Now he had something solid. He could poke Arath with them and wake him up, and then Arath would take them back to the temple. He picked up the three figurines, surprised at how heavy they were for their size.

  But then Hector became aware of voices outside, people talking, some laughter. What if Arath woke up and sat in confusion before realizing that he had to take the statues back? What if someone came in and saw them in the meantime? Worst of all, what if his mother woke up and saw statues dancing around in Hector’s invisible hands? No, there had to be something else he could do.

  And he had to hurry. Was there somewhere in this little room to stash them? It was pretty bare, and any hiding place—a cooking pot or a pouch—would be instantly obvious to anyone coming in to search. The first thing to do, then, was to get them out of there and later return them to the temple himself, before Cai had a chance to accuse Arath of stealing these most holy objects. He dreaded the thought of going through the closed door, but there was nothing else to do, so he gritted his teeth and forced himself partway into it.

  He stopped with a jolt as the statues knocked into the door, still on the inside of the hut. He gripped them more tightly and just managed to keep from dropping them. His hands holding the little gods were still inside the house. He shoved himself back into the dark hut and stared at them angrily.

  “Damn!” he said, and instantly felt better. No one could hear him anyway, so he said it again. “Damn!” Now what?

  Then he noticed that the back door, the one that Arath’s mother had used the other day, was slightly ajar. The opening was too small for Hector, but it was plenty wide enough for the tiny figures. He set them down on the floor and pushed them, one by one, onto the outside step, praying that nobody was looking in that direction. Then he threw himself through the wood, in his haste hardly noticing the shivery feeling.

  He was in a dark and dirty alley, and some people were there. No one was paying attention to him, or rather, to the three tiny statues on the step. Instead, they were hurrying toward the temple, where loud voices were shouting. They sounded terribly angry. Someone must have noticed that the statues were gone. That terrible Cai must have already told his lies about Arath stealing them. There was no way Hector could put them back now with everyone gathered around the temple like that. What should he do with them? Drop them in a well? But then he could never retrieve them. Maybe he should take them back to his own time for now, until he had a plan.

  The first thing he had to do was get them away, and then he could figure something out. Pretty soon people would be coming to Arath’s house. They would see the statues on the doorstep. He scooped them up and held them close to his belly, hunching over. He didn’t know if that would give them his invisibility, but it was worth a try. And still bent over, he ran blindly away from the crowd, away from the noise and danger.

  He slowed down and caught his breath as he looked around. Where was he? He searched for landmarks. Oh, good, there was the
boulder. He could hide behind it with the figures, moving around it if anyone approached, and wait until nightfall before deciding what to do.

  But suddenly he felt that strange tugging, as though an undertow in the ocean were dragging at him. He stared at his hands in horror as they became translucent. One by one the gold statues fell through his fingers, first Tinia, then Uni, and finally Menrva. They lay in full sight of anyone passing on the road.

  “No!” he shouted. “I’m not ready yet!”

  He made a huge effort to pull himself back. Everything was fading. He put his hand in his pocket, searching for the familiar, hard lump of the blue eye. As he wrapped his fingers around it, the weak feeling subsided slightly, and he saw with relief that his body was becoming more solid.

  Although the tugging wasn’t as strong as before, it was still there. He knew he didn’t have much time. And he knew that he couldn’t take the statues to the present with him. They would just fall from his hands as he drifted away. He had to hide them where no one from this time would find them until he could think what to do. Frantically, he looked around. People walked near this boulder frequently; he could tell by the dusty paths around it. If he just dropped the statues, someone would be sure to find them. Then all sorts of questions would come up, and that sneaky Cai would be sure to think of some way to make everyone believe it was Arath’s fault.

  Maybe Hector should leave the statues on top of the rock. He shoved them into his pocket. He tried to pull himself up the side, but it was too high and steep.

  The dragging started up again, stronger than before. He fought the pull of time the way he’d fought the downward pull of his eyelids when he was first struggling with jet lag.