The Lost Sisterhood (15 page)

The survivors were gathered in the women’s dormitory, crouching on the floor in small, cowed clusters. As far as Myrina could see, Lilli was not among them. “Dearest!” Kyme came rushing forward, her graying hair hanging loose and her kind face torn with grief. “We thought you were dead! Oh, what a horrible wound!”

Suddenly, there were hands everywhere, trying to make her lie down, but Myrina pushed them away. “Where is Lilli?” she demanded, feeling the sandy funnel sucking her in deeper and deeper.

“Be calm,” urged Kyme, holding an icy hand to her forehead. “Rest.”

As she lay down on a cot, Myrina felt herself sliding into darkness, but just as she thought she could hold on no longer, Animone came. Myrina did not recognize her friend right away, for the oval form that appeared in the haze beside her was so broken and discolored it resembled, not a face, but a melon that had fallen off a cart and been left to rot by the roadside. “Look at us,” muttered the form, leaning over to press a trembling kiss to Myrina’s cheek, “we are the lucky ones.”

Myrina tried to speak, but her tongue was too heavy.

“You will die a holy death,” Animone went on, “and I”—her voice broke, but she forced herself to continue—”I would rather be raped once by a nameless thug than every day for the rest of my life by someone who calls himself my master. And the Moon Goddess—”

With whatever strength she had left, Myrina grabbed Animone by the arm, just above the jackal bracelet. “Where is she?”

Her friend made a sound of disgust. “The Goddess? Let them have her! What did she do to protect us? We have served her all our lives—been chaste for her. And how did she reward us? By running off with a band of rapists!”

Myrina yanked at Animone’s arm and stared at her with feverish impatience. “I speak of Lilli! Where is she? I left her on the roof—”

“Hush now.” Pitana appeared, her tall form hunched with anxiety. “You should rest.” She stroked Myrina’s burning face with trembling fingers. “In truth, you are very ill—”

“Tell me!” Myrina demanded, staring at her two friends. “Where is she?”

Animone closed her eyes and bent her broken head. “She is gone, too. And so is Kara. For all her conniving, I do pity her—”

“They took her?” Myrina tried to sit up, but could not. “Where? Where did they take her? Who were those beasts? Animone, your grandfather was a sailor … you must have an idea. Come, help me up. Where is my bow?”

“Bows are for hunters,” muttered someone.

“And what are we?” countered Myrina. “Prey?” She managed to sit up at last. “Prey is afraid. Prey squirms. Prey is eaten.” She stared at them all in turn, those broken, bewildered faces. “Why such frightened looks? Did not the full moon ever favor the hunter?”

Myrina intended to say more, much more, but her strength had long since burned to the socket. With a groan of exhaustion, she collapsed once more on the cot, and there she lay, still as death, for two days, leaving her sisters wondering what unnatural power kept her alive, and why.

I thence arrived to where the Gorgon dwelt. Along the way, infields and by the roads, I saw on all sides men and animals—like statues—turned to flinty stone at sight of dread Medusa’s visage.

—O
VID,
Metamorphoses

ALGERIA

I
T TOOK ME FOUR DAYS TO WORK THROUGH THE INSCRIPTION IN THE
inner sanctum. Even with my knowledge of the asterisk dividers, and despite spending several yawning hours every night alphabetizing Granny’s dictionary, it was still an enormous challenge making sense of the narrative on the wall.

My work was not helped by the fact that the plaster had innumerable cracks and chips, probably brought on by changes in humidity or shifts in the surrounding structure. In some places, large patches had crumbled off the wall entirely, in jagged, irregular patterns, and as a result about a third of the inscription was missing.

What remained was a broken record of apocalyptic events and nauseating violence. Destruction, rape, and murder had marked the end of this ancient, unknown civilization, and even though Granny’s list did not contain every single word used by the narrator—far from it—I understood enough to connect the dots.

When I finally reached the bottom of the last wall I lay back on my straw mat for a while, contemplating where this all fit into the ancient
world I thought I knew so well. There was no doubt in my mind the temple was at least three thousand years old, and that I was looking at the legacy of a Bronze Age civilization that had left no trace except within the realm of myths. The question was: which myths?

Mr. Ludwig had explicitly told me the Skolsky Foundation had found Amazon remains, and yet the inscription made no mention of female warriors; quite the contrary. Seeing the Skolsky Foundation had turned out to be complete bollocks, should I assume the Amazon connection was, too? Had it all merely been a cunning way of ensnaring me?

If so, why had someone in the higher echelons of the Aqrab Foundation decided to send
me
to Algeria rather than the archaeologist Nick has asked for? Because I didn’t have my phone, I hadn’t been able to look Mr. al-Aqrab up on the Internet yet. But I remembered James telling me he was one of those typical nouveau riche bastards who had a golf course on the roof and who would happily rent an entire cruise ship for his wife’s birthday party. Why would such a man, I had to wonder, give a jot about this patchy wall narrative, let alone undertake such a gargantuan excavation?

And again, my mind returned to Granny. Had she known of this forgotten civilization? It seemed impossible. And yet here I was, holding her notebook in my hand….

My speculations ended when Craig entered the inner sanctum with a smile and a headshake. “I thought I’d find you here. Come on, Doc! It’s Friday night and we’re killing the fatted calf.”

As it turned out, the fatted calf came in the form of yet another mystery stew from the cantina, but it helped that Craig invited me to join him and his mates around a bonfire in the tent village. Above and around us, a myriad of twinkling stars made the infinite blackness of the universe a tad less daunting, and after hours upon hours spent either underground or within the claustrophobic box of my trailer, I was more than ready to savor the desert night, not to mention a bit of human company.

“Now, Doc,” said Craig, draping his company fleece around my shoulders, “tell us what you are finding down there. Who’s the headless charmer in the coffin?”

Judging by the bemused grunts around me, only a few of the men had known about the skeleton until this moment.

“It’s not a man,” I told them. “It’s a woman. She was beheaded. There was an attack. A small fleet of foreign ships—” Looking around, I saw the men staring back at me with unabashed fascination. “It is always the same, isn’t it?” I went on. “Marauding and pillaging. Men bent on destruction, and women—” Even as I spoke, it occurred to me that there I was, a single woman in a camp full of men, unharmed and sharing their dinner. My great-great-grandmothers would have thought it impossible. Truly, in the long history of women stretching between the miserable events described on the wall and the here and now,
I
was the anomaly.

“Most of the priestesses were killed,” I continued, drawing the fleece tightly around me. “Some were taken as slaves—the pretty ones, I assume. I’m not entirely sure what happened to the other people living here, but the inscription seems to suggest the raiders set fire to the town before they left.” Seeing the expression on the faces around me, I shook my head. “I’m sorry. That was not a very happy tale, was it?”

“And the lass in the coffin?” Craig insisted. “Why was she special?”

“As far as I can tell, she was the High Priestess.” I pulled the laptop out of my bag and scrolled through my photos from the inner sanctum. “The earthly representative of the Moon Goddess. Whom they also stole, by the way. The statue, I mean. Apparently, the High Priestess had a headpiece with poisonous snakes.” I paused to zoom in on a wall painting depicting an intimidating female figure with coiling serpents sprouting from her hair. “Here.” I held up the laptop for everyone to see. “Rather striking, isn’t she?”

The men stretched to see the figure on the screen, and I let them pass the laptop around. When it arrived at Craig, he let out a yelp. “She looks like my mother-in-law!”

I waited for the laughter to die down, then said, “In Greek myth, Perseus travels to faraway lands to kill the snaky-haired monster, Medusa. But he doesn’t
just
kill her; he cuts off her head and takes it with him, to use as a weapon. Apparently, Medusa was so terrifyingly ugly, the mere sight of her face would turn a man into stone.”

“It
is
my mother-in-law!” exclaimed Craig.

Ignoring the ensuing chuckle, I went on, “Medusa was supposed to have lived right here in North Africa. According to Greek literature, these regions were home to many different … well, monsters mostly.”

“So, where did Perseus take it?” Craig wanted to know. “The head?”

“He carried it around for a bit,” I said. “Quite a useful thing, actually. Who wouldn’t like to be able to occasionally turn other people into stone? But what is really interesting is that this snaky-haired head ended up as a scary decoration on Athena’s shield. You know, the Olympian goddess Athena? She helped Odysseus on his long journey back from Troy.”

To this, Craig and a few others nodded in recognition.

“Furthermore,” I continued, emboldened by their apparent interest, “the Greek philosopher Plato claimed that the goddess Athena was, in fact, a North African import. Suppose”—I clasped my forehead, trying to hang on to this thread of sudden, euphoric clarity—”this is what happened to the stolen Moon Goddess? What if she was taken to ancient Greece and renamed Athena? That would explain why she carries Medusa’s head around on her shield, and why Homer and Hesiod called her ‘Tritogeneia.’ Don’t you see? They arrived in Greece at the same time: the goddess Athena and her secret monster weapon—the only two survivors of a magnificent lost civilization around Lake Tritonis. It makes perfect sense!”

“Were there no other survivors?”

I jolted at the sound of Nick’s voice. He hadn’t been around for a few days, and I had assumed he was out hunting for an archaeologist to replace me. Yet here he stood, looking at me through the shimmering firelight.

“Well,” I said, “those who were taken as slaves were as good as dead. Black women forced into a white world—” I shook my head.

“How do you know they were black?”

I hesitated, taken aback by his combative tone. “As you know, the women depicted on the temple walls are tinted brown, and the inscription refers to the invaders as having pale skin—”

“What about those who were not taken as slaves? There must have been other survivors. Who put the eyewitness account on the wall?”

“Unfortunately,” I said, irritated with him for challenging me in front of everyone, “there is a lacuna in the text—”

“What’s a lacuna?”

I glared at him. Nick’s sniffy manner told me he bloody well knew what a lacuna was. A lacuna was a gap. Something missing. Such as him telling me he was working for the Aqrab Foundation. Or apologizing for his rudeness. Or giving me back my phone.

“It’s a hole in the wall”—I flung out my arms—”this big. But yes”—I nodded obligingly—”there were survivors. A handful, no more. And the inscription claims they went in search of their stolen friends.”

Nick stepped forward, his eyes reflecting the dance of the flames. “Where did they go?”

I hesitated. I had thought he meant merely to tease me with his persistent questioning; now I understood it had nothing to do with me. “I don’t know,” I said. “That part is missing.”

The disappointment in his face was tangible. Without another word he turned and walked away, and I was left to wonder—once again—about the motivations of the Aqrab Foundation and their objective in hiring me.

When Mr. Ludwig had approached me back in Oxford the week before, he and the foundation had had no way of knowing I would be able to make sense of the inscription. They might have paid me thousands of dollars and transported me through several climate zones for nothing. And on top of that, by choosing me, they had, in theory, alerted the entire Oxford community to the excavation.

My confusion only grew when I returned to my trailer compartment later that night to find my cellphone lying on top of the bed with a note saying, “Call away.”

Not surprisingly, my voice mail was jammed with unheard messages. My poor parents were increasingly perplexed at my absence, Rebecca was at a loss to understand why I hadn’t called her back, and James was—perhaps not unreasonably—beginning to fear I had been abducted by a desert sheikh, and that he would be dispensing fish-food confetti for the rest of the academic year. “By the way, your students
have been talking,” he went on, more gravely. “The old hellcat knows you’ve eloped. You should call her.”

The old hellcat was my mentor Katherine Kent, with whom James and I had had dinner the night before my departure. I had hoped to keep my voyage secret from her, since she would most certainly call me a fool for abandoning my Oxford duties in the fray of Michaelmas term, even if it was only for a week.

After a quick glance at the hour, I called her right away. As suspected, she was not in her office, and I left a quick message, saying, “Sorry to dash off like that, but really, I’m onto something spectacular here. Definitely worth it. A whole new writing system—unbelievable stuff. I’m fairly sure I’ve figured out how to decipher it; can’t wait to show you.”

That aside, my mind circled back to James’s comment about the desert sheikh. Was it possible he knew I was in North Africa? Or was he just playing on the fact that the Aqrab Foundation was headquartered in Dubai? Clearly, to James, historian that he was, the fact that I had been practically abducted by a gang of restitution fanatics made the situation particularly precarious; if indeed the armies of Mr. al-Aqrab were laying siege to British museums, then I had, in a manner of speaking, ended up behind enemy lines.

S
ATURDAY WAS MY LAST
day working in the temple. I had more or less finished with the inscription, and after spending the morning polishing the English transcript, I returned to the inner sanctum in the afternoon to take a few more detailed photos of the walls and, I suppose, say goodbye to the place.

I told neither Craig nor Nick I was going back to the temple after lunch. For all they knew I was hard at work packing my suitcase and, as Craig had put it, braiding my Rapunzel hair before my return to the ivory tower.

After riding back and forth so many times, I knew the temple was not actually that far away from the camp—no more than a brisk half-hour walk across sand dunes. And since we were scheduled to leave for
Djerba in just a few hours, I quite relished the idea of the solitary exercise.

The guards at the tent did seem to find it slightly odd that I returned to the excavation site on foot all by myself. But they were not paid to ask questions, and lowered me readily through the tube.

Soon, the rest of the world became irrelevant. I was back in the temple, far away from the bustle of life and once more alone with my thoughts. Dank, dusty, and dark, it was certainly not the most comfortable of places, physically or mentally, but the wonder of the walls in the inner sanctum soon distracted me from the fact that I was underground, with only a dangling rope connecting me to the world above.

I had come to know the women on these walls, and being down here, breathing the air they had breathed, we could somehow bond outside of time. Whatever the events of the past, whatever had yet to come, this quiet place was our shared refuge, and I could not help but feel a pang of regret that I would have to leave it so soon. Nick had sworn to get me back to Oxford by Monday morning, and considering how keen he was to be rid of me, I knew he’d deliver on his promise.

Soon, I thought to myself, wandering around the inner sanctum in silence, the temple would be bustling with archaeologists, and the media would be clamoring to get access to the sensational discovery. Meanwhile, I would be back at Oxford, doing my damnedest to write a scholarly article about the inscription without giving away the secret of how I had been able to translate these mysterious symbols into English.

Breaking out my camera, I took a few more close-ups of the wall paintings as well as the inscription. In my hurry to decipher the writing, I had spent shamefully little time examining the colorful images, which so clearly predated the text. Most were sacrificial scenes, and one particular tableau seemed to suggest those sacrificed had not always been animals. Here was the picture that had made me think of the Medusa myth: The High Priestess, wearing a headpiece made of writhing snakes, was reaching out for a woman in a white dress, seemingly stabbing her with a large knife. Whatever the ritual going on, and
whatever the fate of the victim, I mused, it was perhaps no wonder this snaky-haired lady had gone down in myth as a monster.