Rise of the Snake Goddess, page 4
“What is it?” he asked, the warmth of his breath on the back of her neck doing nothing to help her concentration.
“I’m not sure it’s anything,” she murmured. She pulled the reading lamp closer and tilted it toward the picture while holding the glass a few inches above the photograph. “There’s something odd about the tongue, I think. Look, see there? The end of the tongue. It should be forked, but it’s—”
“Not,” Bennett finished, leaning in closer and once again distracting her with his scent of fresh paper and ink and soap. Even after six months of dating, she still reveled in these little stolen moments. She took in a deep breath, which earned her a strange look from Bennett.
Sam flushed, quickly returning her attention to the tongue. “Look, the split in the tongue should be along the front, making it a traditional fork shape. But this one, the splits are on the side, the reverse of a fork tongue. It almost looks like…”
Bennett took in a sharp breath. “An arrow.”
Sam tapped the picture, straightening in her excitement and nearly bashing Bennett on the nose. Luckily, he had plenty of experience with Sam’s breakthrough moments and managed to step out of the way to avoid disaster.
“That is not just a symbol,” Sam said confidently, a buzzing starting in the back of her teeth that made her breath come quick and light and her chest tighten with excitement. “That is a clue. We need to find where that arrow is pointing.”
“You mean Mr. Killeen needs to find where that arrow is pointing,” Bennett said, crossing his arms on a frown.
“Bennett, do you know how long a letter would take to reach Mr. Killeen at this point? When this one has already been collecting dust for the past three weeks on Professor Wallstone’s floor?”
“About as long as it would take a person to travel there as well,” Bennett said dryly. “Sam, I can feel the argument you’re working up to, and the answer is absolutely not.”
“Bennett, look at this!” Sam said, picking up the picture and waving it in his face. “A hidden symbol buried in an ancient cave used by the Minoans as a place of worship? The potential for a discovery of a lifetime, the kind of discovery that could put us on the front page of newspapers and make us star lecturers instead of social pariahs. And you want to send a letter.”
Bennett’s expression did not improve over the course of Sam’s speech. “I’m not interested in archaeology for the front page of the newspaper, and I didn’t think you were either.”
“Of course I’m not,” Sam said, stung more than she was willing to let on by his implication. “But you must admit, a bit of flash and attention brings in the donors. Donors like your father, who make this education possible for the both of us.”
“Sam, what you’re suggesting is madness. We can’t go to Crete. Mr. Killeen wasn’t even writing to us! He was seeking Professor Wallstone’s expertise.”
“And the professor is currently three puddings and a chalkboard deep into his recovery,” Sam countered. “Besides, he’s not the one who spotted the arrow. I am. And if I found that, I could help Mr. Killeen find whatever it is the arrow is hiding. You know I can, Bennett.”
“I know you can, but that doesn’t mean you should.”
“Why not?” Sam reasoned. “Just think of it. What if we discover something? Really discover something great, something that changes what we know about Minoan civilization. Think what it will do for us, for the field of archaeology! Isn’t that what drew us to this course of study in the first place? The promise of a discovery that would change the world?”
“Last time we discovered something, it nearly ended the world,” Bennett pointed out.
“Are you going to let that keep you from ever seeking adventure again?” Sam asked.
Bennett’s brows drew down defensively. “No, of course not. But I will let it teach me to take more than a minute to decide to travel halfway across the world on a whim. And did you miss the part where Mr. Killeen said dangerous men were after the same thing? When you got tangled up with dangerous men previously, it cost my father a bookshop and it cost someone else their life. You might be cavalier with it, but I’m certainly not.”
Sam sucked in a breath, coughing unexpectedly when it felt like something caught in the back of her throat. Something that tasted of ash and carbon, that singed her throat like it had been only yesterday when she felt the hot press of those flames trapping her inside the bookshop. But Sam had survived those dangerous men, and she had stopped the end of the world before. And she would be damned if she let it hold her back like her fear of the world after her father’s death had held her back for so many years. She came to the university to make change, not to cower at the first sign of opposition.
“It is precisely because of those dangerous men that I believe Mr. Killeen needs our help,” Sam said finally, when she had regained her breath. “If he were to have figured out the mystery of the symbol, he would have done so long before sending this letter off to Professor Wallstone. He might be the greatest authority of Minoan artifacts in the world, but he’s not a code breaker. What if there are other symbols that require deciphering? What if there are greater obstacles within the cave? What if those dangerous men discover it first? I thought you got into archaeology to preserve and learn from the past, to protect it from robbers just like these men.”
“You know I did,” Bennett says begrudgingly. “That doesn’t mean I agree with this ludicrous plan. I think this has far more to do with Professor Atchinson’s summer field school at Knossos, and showing him up as revenge for not including you on the trip.”
“It does not!” Sam said, a little too sharply. Bennett’s only response was a slight crease in his forehead as he raised his eyebrows, but he had the good sense not to press it further. “Would it bring me a great deal of satisfaction to see the look on the man’s face when we announce the discovery of whatever is hidden in that cave? Well, I would have to be a stone-cold statue to say it wouldn’t. But that’s not why I’m suggesting we go. I’m suggesting we go because this is exactly why we’re here, isn’t it?”
Bennett leaned back against a bookshelf, pressing his fingers to the bridge of his nose. “Even if I…considered such a ludicrous idea as going to Crete, there are more practical matters to consider. Securing passage across the Atlantic, for one. Accommodations once we get there. Visas to secure. Planning a trip like this can take months, Sam. You can’t just gallivant off at the drop of a hat. There are costs.”
“Costs that your sister has assured me your father would be pleased as punch to cover,” Sam reasoned.
Bennett cocked his head, giving her a sardonic look. “If you tell my father about this, he’ll book passage for himself first.”
That was…a valid point. “Well, then we just won’t mention the photograph bit. We’ll tell him…we’ll tell him Mr. Killeen invited us, personally. As students of Professor Wallstone. If anyone can make a rush order of tickets and papers, it’s your father.”
“I don’t know, Sam,” Bennett said, shaking his head. “This feels like Dublin all over again, heading off pell-mell into unknown dangers against my logical protests of caution. Mr. Killeen won’t be expecting us, and we only know the man by reputation besides. And who are these men after the same thing? I can’t in good conscience send you and my sister into such a situation with so many unknowns.”
Sam had to admit, when he put it like that, it did sound a bit…impetuous. But then she remembered the sneer on Theodore Chapin’s face when Professor Atchinson told her there was no budget to include her on the summer field school. And she remembered the hot slide of shame that sat in her stomach like a lead weight when the professor told her that people like her didn’t belong in the field.
She would show them. She would make a discovery so great, they would be begging her to join their study groups and field schools.
“Bennett, this could lead to something extraordinary,” Sam said, her voice soft and inexorable. “Something we could actually tell the world about, unlike Dublin. Don’t you want to be part of that?”
Bennett’s nostrils flared on a deep inhale, but he didn’t protest. “I just don’t want to see you or Jo get hurt again. I almost lost you both once, Sam. I can’t let that happen again.”
“I know, Bennett, and I understand,” Sam said. “But this won’t be like the last time. I promise.”
It wasn’t a promise she could make or keep, but that hardly mattered now. She was so close, she could feel it in the soft bend of his head toward hers.
“This is a bad idea,” he said. “I shouldn’t let you go, much less agree to go myself.”
“But?” Sam said hopefully.
“I know I can’t keep you from going, short of locking you up,” Bennett said. “And considering your history, even that isn’t a guarantee that you’ll stay put. And lord knows Joana won’t keep you safe. They don’t even have Prohibition there. Someone has to keep the two of you from disaster.”
Sam gave him a brilliant smile, feeling the electric spark of a new adventure all the way down in her sore toes. “I’ll wake Joana and get started. She’ll want an entire new wardrobe for the trip. Thank you, Bennett. You won’t regret this.”
But Bennett could only sigh. “Seeing as I already do, that’s not possible. I hope you know what you’re doing, Sam.”
“Of course I do,” Sam said, filled with the confidence of ignorance. “It’ll be fantastic, you’ll see.”
“Steerage class?” Joana hissed at her brother as they walked up the gangway to the massive steamer waiting at the docks in New York City. “You booked us in steerage class?”
Bennett spread his hands, nodding to the thick smokestacks that belched black plumes into the bright blue sky of a June morning. “It was the best I could do on such short notice, and we were lucky to get those tickets. The Mauretania is a smaller vessel than the Olympic we took to Dublin and has fewer staterooms. Steamers book up months in advance, and as we planned this trip with less than a week to spare…”
“But steerage class,” Joana said, looking up in horror. “Why didn’t you just ask if there were any positions shoveling coal in the boiler room?”
“I would have if I thought you had the discipline.”
“Steerage will be fine!” Sam piped in, anxious to move on from any lingering doubts Bennett harbored. They reached the main deck of the ship, the narrow crush of the gangway opening out to the wooden boards as the crew directed passengers to their decks. “I’m just happy to be on a different ship this go-round. And I hear the portholes on the Mauretania are too small to fit a body through, so that works in my favor as well.”
She said it to be lighthearted and funny, but all their expressions soured at the memory of the last time they took a transatlantic trip together. Sure, the stateroom on the RMS Olympic had been grand, the smoking rooms and dining halls the height of elegance. But Sam had also been forced to escape through the porthole window of that stateroom to avoid intruders and nearly gotten herself dumped in the freezing ocean for it. It was only by falling into a friend’s room that she had been saved from a resting place in Davy Jones’s locker. A friend who…
Sam shook off thoughts of Dublin, determined that they would face no such tribulations this time. “I plan on spending the majority of the trip studying up on Minoan symbology and hieroglyphics, personally. And, Jo, you’ll still have access to all the bars on board, won’t you?”
“I’ll certainly need it,” Joana muttered, glaring at her brother as they reached the stairs leading to the lower decks. “Steerage class, what a brute.”
“Glad you’re handling it well, Jo,” Bennett said dryly.
Sam thought the accommodations on the lower deck were quaint, if a bit tighter than their last trip. There was a common area for taking meals or cigarette breaks, and each door led directly off the main area. Joana found their room number and swung the door open, her expression twisting up in disgust.
“Bunk beds,” she said, like they’d just personally insulted her. “As if we were participating in some kind of sleepaway camp. Bennett, I swear, if we run into anyone we know on this trip, I’m chucking you overboard. Anna Marie Duncan would love nothing more than to have my head on a pike outside her town house, and this would be just the cut direct to hand it to her on a silver platter.”
“I thought you declared Anna Marie to be a puff with all the cream squeezed out and you wanted nothing more to do with her,” Bennett said, stopping at his own room.
“Of course I don’t, she’s a chicken with all the bones stripped out,” Joana replied. “But that doesn’t mean I want to give her any ammunition to spit at me over watered-down lemonade at Mama’s next interminable party.”
“The bunk beds will be fine,” Sam said, laying a hand on Joana’s arm. “They could even be a bit of fun, like when I used to stay over at the Manor during a treasure hunt. I’ll take the top bunk.”
“Obviously,” Joana said, giving her a bewildered look. “I wouldn’t disgrace myself by climbing a tiny ladder to sleep.”
“Let’s just get settled into our rooms, shall we?” Bennett said, already sounding tired. “I’m sure with a few gin cocktails and some decent food in your belly, you’ll be far more amenable to our accommodations.”
“That’s a bet I’ll take and you’ll lose,” Joana muttered.
But before they could squeeze themselves into their shared room, a shadow fell over Sam and Joana. “What in hell are you two doing here?”
Sam did her best to smother the groan in the back of her throat, but some of it leaked out through her pressed lips. “Theo Chapin,” she said, glancing up at his looming bulk.
“Master Chapin, what is the delay?” came Professor Atchinson’s voice down the narrow stairs leading to the common area. “You’re blocking the walkway and holding up the class.”
Theo crossed his arms over his chest, stepping to the side without breaking his glower. “You’re going to want to see this, Professor.”
Sam sighed, looking heavenward for patience but meeting only the plain white ceiling. She knew there was a possibility of being on the same departure as Professor Atchinson’s field school, but she had hoped the ship would be large enough to avoid direct contact with them. Well, best to tear off the bandage clean.
“Hello, Professor Atchinson,” Sam said, trying to muster a tone of nonchalance.
“Miss Knox?” the professor said, shock making his mouth go slack. “What do you think you’re doing here?”
“Isn’t that part obvious, Professor?” said Theo. “The deluded girl thinks she’s going to sneak onto the field school roster.”
“I do not!” Sam protested. “That’s not what we’re doing here at all.”
“Really, Miss Knox, this is beyond the pale,” Professor Atchinson said, frowning severely. “You will explain yourself and your presence this instant, or I will be forced to report you to the university board for this little stunt.”
More students descended the stairs behind him, including Evelyn, crowding the small common area with wide eyes and whispered comments behind their hands. They weren’t the same students who had been there when Professor Atchinson humiliated Sam on the first day of class and forced her to leave his lecture, but she felt the same clench of panic in her gut, the same prickles along the back of her neck as the opinions and rumors swirled. Like a Greek chorus, come to witness her demise.
“I…There was a letter, and we noticed…” Sam swallowed, so loud that several students close by snickered at the sound.
“We were invited,” Joana said brashly, always to her rescue. “By somebody named Killeen, who I gather is a bigwig on Crete.”
“Hector Killeen invited you?” Professor Atchinson scoffed. “I very much doubt that.”
“It’s true, Professor Atchinson,” Bennett said, coming to stand beside his sister. “Well, mostly true. Mr. Killeen wrote to Professor Wallstone about a bit of symbology he couldn’t decipher, but it was Sam who figured it out. And since Professor Wallstone is still convalescing, we’re traveling there now to share our findings.”
The professor had been less “convalescing” and more “accusing his roommate of stealing his stash of cafeteria puddings that he himself had stolen” when they brought him the letter from Hector Killeen. But Sam figured that part was best left out of the current conversation.
Professor Atchinson sniffed. “And where is this letter now, Master Steeling?”
“We left it in Chicago,” Sam said quickly, before Bennett could answer with the truth that he had stored it in his luggage. He gave her a look of mild confusion, but she shook her head once. “So Professor Wallstone could review it and confirm our…er, my findings.”
Professor Atchinson looked at her sharply, making the prickle along the back of her neck turn into a full sweat. He swiveled his gaze to Bennett, still just as piercing.
“Is that true, Master Steeling?” he asked.
Bennett hesitated, glancing once again at Sam, but all she could do was beg him with her eyes. She didn’t want Professor Atchinson swooping in and stealing her chance before she even met Mr. Killeen and made her case for her findings. Bennett took a deep breath, and Sam teetered on the edge of disaster.
“Yes, it’s true, Professor,” Bennett said, the barest hint of disappointment seeping into his tone. Sam breathed a sigh of relief.
“You don’t really believe that claptrap, do you, Professor?” Theo asked, still spoiling for a scene.
“What I believe remains to be seen,” the professor said. He looked to Bennett once more with a sniff. “Master Steeling, I trust that you will keep these girls out of the way of my graduate students? They have worked hard and followed protocol to earn their place here, and I will have nothing derail their studies.”
