Pearse heard the disappointment in his voice. “Actually, he-”
Before Pearse had finished, Ivo’s eyes lit up. “Oh!” he whispered. He turned to the glass partition and slid it back.
“Hello, Salko,” he shouted, straining against his mother so as to peer into the back of the van. “I know you’re back there.” He waited. “You thought you were going to get me because I thought I was surprising you.” He looked at Pearse, a big smile on his face. “You’re pretty good at this.” Before Pearse could answer, Ivo was back at the partition, howling away at the unseen Salko. “Hellooooo. I got you. You can come out now.”
Petra brought him back to her lap. “Sweetie, Salko isn’t there. I told you, he stayed in the village.”
Ivo broke free again, his head deep into the opening. “Come on. I know you’re here.” When it slowly sank in, Ivo became very quiet. “Why? Why isn’t he here?” He sat back on Petra’s lap and looked across at Pearse. “You said we’d surprise him. You said he’d be here.” Pearse could hear the first hint of genuine sadness in the little voice. “Why isn’t he here?”
“He had to stay in the village to help his friends,” said Petra, holding him closer.
“But why didn’t he say good-bye?” The words were now choked.
“It all happened very quickly, sweetie,” Petra said. “He didn’t even say good-bye to me. I think he needed to help his friends right away.”
“Why?”
Petra looked over at Pearse. “I don’t know. Sometimes Salko has to help his friends, and sometimes he has to leave without telling us.”
“But he didn’t leave.” He lifted a hand to stem the first tears. “We did.”
“I know, sweet pea. I know.” She cupped his head to hers. “But we’ll see him soon.”
“I didn’t say good-bye.” His words were now muffled in his mother’s neck. “I didn’t say good-bye.”
She began to rock him.
Ten minutes of silence passed before Pearse spoke.
“I didn’t have a choice,” he said.
Petra waited before answering. “Is he asleep?” she whispered.
Pearse glanced over at the little boy. The morning had obviously taken its toll. Pearse kept his voice low, as well. “Close enough.”
“Don’t ever use my son as a threat again,” she said.
The quiet severity of her tone stunned him. It took him a moment to respond. “What?”
“You said if I wanted to see him, I had to get in the car. Don’t ever do that again.”
Another few seconds to understand what she was saying. “No. I didn’t mean-”
“Yes, you did.” She let the words sink in before asking, “Now what’s going on? Why did we leave Salko back there?”
“It’s … complicated.”
“Try me.”
He waited. He had no idea how to make sense of the last twenty minutes; and as much as he wanted to trust Ivo, he had to make sure. “‘
“What?”
“What are you saying? I told you, I’m no good with Latin. Stop it,” she demanded, her anger mounting.
“You have no idea what I’m talking about, do you?”
“No, and now you’re frightening me. Why did we leave Salko back there?”
He kept his eyes on the road. He was having trouble admitting it to himself. “Because he’s involved with this.”
“So are you,” her tone no less pointed then before.
“That’s not what I meant. He’s after the parchment. That’s why he showed up in Kukes.”
“A part of it?” The confusion momentarily softened her tone. “You’re telling me he’s a …” She couldn’t find the word.
“Manichaean,” Pearse said. “Yes.”
“That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Neither does Ivo being able to recite a seventeen-hundred-year-old prayer that very few people have ever even heard of. But he did.”
“Ivo?” Confusion turned to shock.
“‘So do I stretch out my two hands toward You, all to be formed in the orbit of light.’ In the Latin, ‘
Pearse knew exactly what she was feeling at that moment-disbelief, betrayal, an utter sense of helplessness. He knew because he was still feeling them himself.
“I can’t …” She continued to stare. “Ivo doesn’t … He barely knows any of the prayers at church.”
Pearse pointed to his pack by her feet. “Open it.”
“What?”
“Just open it.”
She hesitated, then reached across the sleeping child and picked up the pack.
“The little book with the rope tie,” he said. “It’s about fifteen pages in.”
She did as she was told. She flipped past Ribadeneyra’s brief history until she found the entries.
“There,” he said, quickly glancing over. “Try the fifth line, then the eleventh.”
She read. “I can’t believe Ivo knows this.”
“Then ask him. Wake him up.” Emerging from a series of back roads, they arrived at a deserted intersection, the first promise of paved surface. A sign for the main highway peeked out from behind a tuft of trees. Pearse headed west.
Petra stared at the page, then back at Pearse.
“Ask him,” he repeated.
She continued to stare. When she realized he wasn’t going to relent, she very gently placed a hand on Ivo’s cheek, bending close into his ear.
“Ivi, sweetie,” she whispered. “If you sleep now, you won’t sleep tonight.”
The boy breathed in heavily, a slight turning of his neck.
“Come on, sweetie. You have to get up.”
Another long breath as two tired eyes blinked in Pearse’s direction, a tiny hand to rub them as the boy straightened up.
“Are we going home?” The nap had done little to improve his mood.
Petra looked at Pearse. “I don’t know, sweetie.”
Pearse didn’t have an answer, either.
Holding the book at her side, she did her best with the Latin: “‘
Ivo immediately sat up in her lap, quickly turning to his mother. His look of surprise was almost comical. Just as quickly, he turned to Pearse. “You told her,” he said, disappointment now verging on anger.
“No, she’s reading it.”
Ivo flipped around, only now seeing the book in her hand. “Let me see.”
“Be careful, sweetie. It’s very old.”
“I know, I know. Salko told me.” Ivo waited for his mother to bring the book closer. He then looked back at Pearse. “That’s not the book.”
“Let him see the words,” said Pearse.
Ivo turned. Petra pointed to the lines in the text.
“What are all the other words?” he asked.
“They’re … other songs,” Pearse answered. “They-” Cutting himself short, he quickly glanced over at Ivo. “What book did Salko tell you was old?” he asked.
“The book with the songs,” Ivo answered.
“I thought you weren’t allowed to write them down.”
