by Mary Eicher
“Alas, you are Greek,” he sighed. “The Romans and the Greeks have a difficult history. I must abandon the hopes I felt upon first seeing you.”
Artemis responded with a sliver of a smile, her eyes penetrating his innocent façade. He was not the friendly local he was pretending to be. There was deviousness in his practiced charm, and she waited for him to betray his real purpose.
Lucy began a conversation about the most important sites to see in Rome. Giovanni gave her a superlative-laden verbal tour and made her promise to visit as many sites as possible. Motioning the waiter for a second glass of wine, he turned his attention to the silent beauty beside her.
“But tell me, what has brought you two ravishing ladies to Rome?”
“I’m a jour…” Lucy started.
“On a journey to see Italy,” Artemis interrupted her. “Rome is our first stop.”
Giovanni observed Artemis as if appreciating a work of art and then turned back to Lucy. “Ah, Americans. You are always in search of roots to lend stability to your troubled country. The American province of California is certainly troubled lately, yes?”
Lucy nodded. “Yes. So, you know about the Harbinger?”
“But of course, we do. It is like a science fiction story from your famous Hollywood.” He kept glancing at Artemis, who held his gaze, equally curious. “No. We have not let this American problem take root in Bella Roma,” he stated casually. “Italy has seen many foolish beliefs come and go. And we have fought and died for them. But we have been spared the wild speculation fomenting in your country. There is no talk of the Harbinger here. We have wisely decided to let this latest one run its course. The Holy Father is about to issue an encyclical to formalize the church’s position. You should accept his guidance.” He finished his wine just as the meal he’d ordered arrived.
“Do you work here?” Lucy asked, meaning Rome.
“He works at the Vatican.” Artemis answered for him. “I’m guessing either the Pretorian Guard or the Vatican police.”
Giovanni gave her a respectful nod. “I am with the police. You are as perceptive as you are lovely.” He rose to leave, his meal barely touched. “I pray you will enjoy your stay. Buona sera.”
Lucy frowned. “Wasn’t he supposed to kiss our hands or something?”
Artemis smiled. “Italian men are more likely to pinch your butt. He was checking us out. Rome is definitely not ignoring the Harbinger. They are bracing for it. I think the government is keeping an eye on tourists coming from the States, particularly California.”
Lucy watched him disappear into the crowded streets. “If the church is keen on keeping its activities underground, that’s not going to help me with my interviews.”
*
It felt like it should be morning to Lucy, but it was merely early evening. The time change was playing havoc with her. She stepped out onto the little balcony of their room and took in the view.
Red roofs, whitewashed walls, and narrow streets stretched out in a mosaic as far as she could see. She watched the impossibly clustered cars swirl around one another through clogged intersections and disappear around oddly angled corners. People strolled past storefronts or hurried to unknown destinations. It was a busy modern city, and yet, it retained an unmistakable air of history. Lucy felt transported to a place where time folded back on itself: where ancient ruins loomed amid modern conveniences. And within the hubbub lurked the spirits of masters long dead, yet undeniably present.
“Everything seems so timeless here.” She turned as Artemis joined her and placed her hand atop hers at the railing. Lucy leaned her head against Artemis’s shoulder. “Thank you for all of this, Temmie.”
Artemis kissed Lucy’s head. “I know you have interviews scheduled with officials tomorrow. But I think you will find out more if you talk to ordinary people. I’m going to visit a few places while you’re working and an old friend from college if he’s available. We have two more days. Let’s learn all we can.”
“If he’s available?” Lucy furled her brow.
Artemis put a finger beneath Lucy’s chin and tilted her head up. “You’re not the jealous type, are you?”
“Everyone is the jealous type. And I thought you were going with me to the interviews.”
Artemis kissed Lucy’s pouty lips. “We should go to sleep at ten to adjust for jetlag. Come on, let’s go to bed.”
Lucy hesitated. “It’s not even eight yet. And I’m not really tired. At least I don’t think I am.”
Artemis took her by the hand and drew her back into their room. “We’ll think of something to pass the time,” she promised softly.
They gave themselves to the pursuit of pleasures only the abandonment of self can bestow. Artemis enfolded Lucy, stroking her smooth curves and warm, sensitive skin as Lucy writhed beneath her. Being with Lucy, touching and being touched, was the singular experience that centered her, permitting her to abide being human. It enabled her to occupy her body without reservation and accept the boundaries of mortality. They made love repeatedly, bringing each other to release and then stoking the fires again and again until it was impossible to separate their own pleasure from that of their partner. And Artemis was able at last to slip off the bridge separating the infinite from the physical, escaping the voices as she did.
“Again,” Artemis whispered as her hips surged against Lucy’s thigh, rhythmic and imploring. She ran her hand gently down the length of Lucy’s side. The hunger, never fully satisfied, remained immutable. They were lovers unbound in an eternal city.
*
Benedict Fergamo sat at his desk staring at the figure that had just appeared in the doorway.
“Temmie, you have become even more beautiful. How is that possible?” He rose from his ornate wooden desk and walked to her. “Why did I not marry you when you were a lowly undergraduate in my boring class?”
Artemis smiled. Ben was just as elegant and charming as she remembered him. “We both know the answer to that, Ben.” She accepted a hug and a kiss on each cheek. “It’s good to see you again.”
He took her hands in his and squeezed gently. Then he raised her arms from her sides and inspected her with an approving grin.
“Are you here to chastise me for not replying to your message?” he asked, sounding apologetic.
Artemis shook her head. “I didn’t think you would, but I decided to ask anyway. Only now that I am here, I would like to coax an answer from you. This way you don’t have to put anything in writing.”
He offered her a seat in his spacious office, pulled a series of documents from his file, and shared what he could. The World Health Organization was engaging the issue of the Harbinger on several fronts, all of them highly confidential. They had determined that the phenomenon was genuine. They had established the pattern in which the phenomenon affected physical and psychological reactions. And they had verified the seventy-two-hour duration between onset and death.
Artemis nodded politely. He closed the file and sighed. “But, of course, you already knew all of that. I heard you were with Ichabod when it happened. I’m so sorry about your brother’s passing.”
She ran her tongue along her lip. “I need to know, Ben. I can’t put him to rest until I understand everything.”
That was what he expected. She had been the same as a student: focused, driven, and unendingly curious. He stood and motioned for her to follow him. He led her through the maze of offices to a restaurant on the bottom floor. He requested espressos for each of them and, clearing dishes to one side, claimed a table at the back. He explained that it was not prudent to speak about certain matters in his office. She studied his face and waited for him to tell her what he really knew.
“We cannot find an external cause,” he said after a while. “If I look at all the information, and I have many times, the best I can conclude is that the experience is a normal cerebral function.”
“That’s not possible!” She was stunned.
He took a deep breath. “B
ut it is, Temmie. It is known as precognition. Science has never had an explanation for it, and so it has been largely dismissed, even derided, as paranormal garbage. But precognition does exist.”
Artemis felt disappointed and a little angry. “I don’t believe my brother was some sort of new age psychic, Ben. He never saw anything coming. He was a regular guy with a big heart and dreams for the future. Then suddenly that future was taken away. He didn’t know he was going to die.”
“Because he didn’t know what his brain was telling him. He didn’t understand what it was. But if it happened to him today, he would know.”
Ben wanted her to understand. Humans have a variety of senses that act as early warning systems. The feeling you get when you are being watched, or the sudden impression that you shouldn’t walk in a certain direction or that the phone is about to ring or that someone you love is in trouble. Artemis didn’t need the primer. She had experienced all those things and much more. But the Harbinger had not visited her. It had selected Ichabod.
“We don’t know very much about the human brain, Temmie.” He reached over and took her hand. “We can’t be too surprised when our assumptions are challenged. I believe the Harbinger is just that. A sudden infusion of blood near the auditory region of the brain causes intense pain which is experienced as the sound of bells. And, I believe, it activates a previously dormant precognitive sense.”
Artemis ran her tongue along her lips. “The future isn’t knowable, Ben. It doesn’t exist until we get there.”
Ben stirred his coffee and played with the slice of orange peel in the saucer. “Do you remember the story of Saint Augustine and the seashell? He watched a boy running back and forth on the beach with a seashell. The boy was trying to put the ocean into a small hole he had dug.”
“Saint Augustine told the boy it was not possible to pour the whole ocean into a small hole,” Artemis continued with a frown.
“Then the boy turned into an angel who told him it was no different than trying to put the mystery of the trinity into a human brain.” Ben smiled. “Maybe it’s time to put away our metaphorical seashell, Temmie. Whatever’s happening is beyond our assumptions of ourselves. I cannot tell you why this is happening. I cannot be certain of what is happening. There is a better question we should ask: What should we do about it now?”
“That’s a question for philosophers, Ben.”
He looked out of the window at the spire of Saint Peter’s Basilica. “And for the church.”
*
Lucy said goodbye to Angie and closed the phone. She was waiting for Artemis at the little café where they had had their first meal in Rome.
She wondered how Artemis would react to the news. It was pretty bad. The Harbinger had begun claiming victims in other states, lots of other states, all the way to Florida. But the implication in her mother’s voice was worse.
“It was like it followed the two of you,” Claire had said. The Harbinger had left the confines of California the very same day she and Artemis had left for Rome. And now, three days later, people were dying from it. Or because of it. Or whatever. No one knew which was the cause and which was the effect. Did the Harbinger bring death, or did the approach of death bring forth the Harbinger? Not even the reporter who claimed to be an expert on the Harbinger could answer that.
Spying Artemis emerge from the crowded plaza and walk gracefully toward her, she realized she didn’t need to say a thing. Lucy could tell Artemis already knew the Harbinger was growing in the homeland. Lucy waited for her and wondered what else Artemis knew. How many mysteries did she hold? How many things remained to learn about her? And was it possible to love her even more than she already did?
Artemis suggested they walk. The weather was warm but hinted it would be cooler once the sun went down, and with no wind, the coming evening promised to be pleasant. Streetlights were beginning to come on as they joined the growing groups of people who were emerging from their day of work.
“So, do you see me as some sort of Typhoid Mary?” Artemis asked as they meandered along the Ponte Vittorio Emanuele II bridge.
“Of course not, Temmie. My mother doesn’t either.” Lucy paused and looked down at the Tiber River flowing gently below them. “She puts facts together when they don’t necessarily belong together. But in this case, I think she is simply curious about the coincidences.”
“Did you tell her I had talked to Sacramento a few days before the Harbinger was connected to a death there?”
Lucy pulled back from the sculpted railing and looked wide-eyed at Artemis. “I didn’t know you did.”
Artemis cocked her head. “Yes, you did. I told you some official called me about teaching attorneys my estate processing methodology. I declined the offer, but I did send them information about my process.”
Lucy blinked twice. “Oh, yes, you did.”
Artemis chuckled. “So then, judging from the look on your face, I suggest not telling your mother about that.” The tip of her tongue appeared briefly at the edge of her mouth. She could understand the theory. She had been in Lake Isabella when the Harbinger first appeared. It seemed to have followed her home to Southern California and spread north after the contact with Sacramento. It was not completely irrational to believe it followed her to Europe. Except it hadn’t. No one had experienced the Harbinger beyond America. She remembered the email she had sent to Ben, and it gave her a chill she sought immediately to dispel.
“I am not an infection, Lucy. Even if I was, how exactly did my germs escape the airplane?”
Lucy smiled. “Good point.” Eager to change the subject, she walked over to admire one of the huge angel statues that decorated the sides of the bridge. “Beautiful, aren’t they? Rome is like a giant museum.”
Joining her, Artemis took in the view. The top of Saint Peter’s Basilica rose in the distance. “Rome has a way of making a person real. Some people come here not sure what they believe in and leave steeped in faith. Others bring their superstitions here and leave with a new sense of freedom.”
“That’s not hard to imagine. I was never much of a believer, but when I see things like these beautiful angels, I almost want to believe…in angels and heaven.” Lucy gently squeezed Artemis’s hand. “It’s like when I’m with you, Temmie. You almost make me believe in goddesses.”
Artemis furled her brow. “Hum. Belief is a funny thing, Lucy. It can change in an instant.”
“What do you believe in, Temmie?” Lucy asked as they turned back toward their hotel.
“I believe we are all much more than we seem.” She tightened her grip on Lucy’s hand and quickened their pace. “And I believe it’s time for supper.”
Chapter Eleven
Wolfgang Strang stood leaning on the metal desk and pored over images of the Great Rift he had procured from the Keck. Clad in shorts and a Hawaiian shirt, he looked incongruous to his task. Strands of dirty-blond hair tumbled forward, and he brushed them to the side. He was lost in thought, pondering what might be hidden in the blurry images. He was certain something was there. If he could only detect it amid the impenetrable black.
He was once again searching the dark bands that obscured the Great Rift—the center of the Milky Way. He was not concerned that the dark rift was nine hundred parsecs from Earth. Nor did he particularly care that the dark bands were formed of solar plasma and dust. His was a search beyond facts; Strang was searching for meaning in a cosmos determined to conceal its purpose.
Strang found the ancient Greek explanation for the mysterious formation more charming. The image in the night sky was said to be the remains of Phaeton who once carried the sun in his chariot. When the young god failed at his charge, Zeus had loosed a thunderbolt leaving the distinctive smear amid the stars.
“The problem with science is that it has no poetry in its soul,” Strang muttered, rising for a moment to straighten his aching back.
He adjusted the magnification of his lens and focused on a portion of the rift near Cygnus. There he f
ound the miniscule aberration he was seeking. The object had reappeared in the form of an object too obscure to be defined yet definitely announcing its mercurial presence. He noticed a small crescent shape glowing amid the familiar blurs and streaks. He had first detected it months ago and it filled him with excitement to find it again.
“Phaeton, my boy, has Zeus granted you resurrection?” he asked, studying the aberration. “To what purpose? Now that is the real mystery.”
“What did you say, Wolf?” his wife asked, bringing him a late lunch. She set a cup of coffee on the table beside his desk, careful not to disturb the papers he had arrayed around him.
He put aside his lens and stepped to greet her. She looked frail, ten years beyond her emergent middle age. Her Polynesian features were drawn but retained a memory of the beauty of her youth. A cheery scarf was wrapped around her head where once there had been flowing black hair. He took the plate and helped her to a chair.
“I was talking to Phaeton,” he said, sitting beside her.
She smiled. “I didn’t hear him answer.”
“No, the gods rarely answer, my dear. They just send mysteries for us to solve.”
“You have a talent for solving mysteries, Wolfgang.” She gazed fondly at him, but he could see the pain had returned. Despite the treatments and the medication, she was undeniably slipping away.
Wolfgang set the sandwich aside and gently enfolded his life’s partner in his arms. “You may solve it first, Sarah, if the gods take you from me. Then I will ask you to plead my case.”
“I’ll tell Phaeton and the other gods they should answer you from time to time.” She closed her eyes and let him hold her. He was a good man. She had loved him from the first moment and loved him all the more for his strength during her illness. His was a universe of stars beyond her imagining, and she knew, because he showed her, that she was the brightest star in that universe. She was his north star—the one that always brought him home.