when Arrosa was around. She did nothing to provoke them. Her clothes were simple and she wore no makeup or jewelry. None of their words or leering glances seemed to affect her, but I was uncomfortable with it and so was Ray.
The weather held across the mid-Atlantic and even though I was already missing Opari and the others, it felt good to be at sea again. The three of us spent much of our time on deck, walking or sitting in deck chairs. The passengers generally left us alone, and for the few who inquired, Ray and I were posing as brothers and Arrosa was our aunt. We never quite explained the reason for our trip and kept every conversation confined to the trivial. On the night before we reached the Canary Islands, Ray and I found ourselves alone, leaning on the railing near the stern, staring up at the great sweep of stars from horizon to horizon. My eyes drifted up and across, then focused on the constellation Pleiades, the Seven Sisters. The more I stared, the more they seemed to be whispering, sharing their secrets with each other at the very top of the sky.
I turned to Ray. “When are you going to show me the ‘something else’ concerning the Meq girl?”
“Tomorrow, Z. I got it hid away in a special place in my suitcase. I’ll get it out when we dock. It’s kind of fragile.”
The next morning we made port in the beautiful deepwater harbor of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, a place Captain Woodget and I had visited several times for several reasons as smugglers. The Canary Islands were a haven and an oasis for us, as they had been for sailors and merchants for centuries. I learned later the Meq have known and passed through the islands for millennia. Unai himself told many tales involving the Guanche, a mysterious, tall, blond, bearded tribe who inhabited the islands two thousand years before Columbus sailed anywhere.
The harbor was busy with merchant ships and container ships of all sizes, most filled with bananas or tomatoes. There were some passenger ships and private vessels, but not many. The
Arrosa smiled. “Are we going ashore? I have never been to this place.”
“Of course,” I said. “But, Arrosa, there is something I must ask you and I hope you aren’t offended.”
“I will not be offended. What do you ask, Zianno?”
“Only that you wait ashore for Ray and me. He has…he has something to show me in private.”
She laughed slightly. “That is not a problem, senor.” She turned and pointed toward an area on the dock that was a hundred yards from the
“We won’t be long, Arrosa. I promise.”
“It shouldn’t take but a few minutes,” Ray said.
She laughed again. “It is not a problem, believe me. I will be waiting.”
She turned to leave and Ray and I watched her until she was walking down the gangway, then we went directly to his cabin. He pulled out his battered suitcase and opened it on top of the small bed. There was a false bottom in the suitcase and Ray dismantled it carefully. Underneath, hidden in a padded compartment, lay a papyrus scroll, weighted at both ends with long pieces of carved ivory and rolled into a coil. Ray lifted the scroll gently and spread it across the bed. Once he had it completely secured, he shook his head and looked over at me.
“Can’t make heads or tails out of what it says, Z, but I thought you ought to see it. Especially when I found out who had it and who it was for!”
I stared down at the stained, ancient paper. At first, I saw nothing on it except a group of red dots in the upper left section, possibly made with ocher. Then, below a fold and crack in the center of the papyrus, I saw a few blurry, faint scratches in black. I leaned over, looked closer, and was astounded.
“Who had this, Ray? Where did you get it?”
“In the ‘special place’ the Baroness Matilde talked about. It was a room, Z, a huge room in the oldest part of the castle, right up against the mountain. It used to be the entrance to a salt mine. One of the first von Steichens sealed it off, then converted it into an enormous space attached directly to the castle. Susheela the Ninth used it as her home for a thousand years. The papyrus was hers, Z. When she left without a word, she left this behind.”
A few seconds passed in silence. I was dumbfounded. “How old was, or is, Susheela the Ninth?”
“I don’t know, but the Baroness said the girl always referred to herself as ‘the last of her kind.’”
“You said you thought I ought to see this because you found out who had it and who it was for. What did you mean?”
“I mean there was another piece of paper with the papyrus. It was written by Susheela the Ninth and gave instructions, in German, as to exactly who was supposed to see the papyrus. The Baroness had to translate the instructions for me, but not the name.”
“What was the name?”
Ray grinned and picked up his bowler, spinning and twirling it on his finger. He opened his mouth to answer and just before he spoke, I stopped him. “Wait! Hush! Do you hear that?”
Ray was startled at first, then understood immediately that I was using my “ability.” “I can’t hear nothin’, Z,” he said.
I listened again to make sure the sound was what I thought. Then it came again, this time in panic, and I realized who it was. “No! No!” the voice shouted. “Get off me, you pig!”
“Come on,” I said to Ray and took off running for the gangway, dodging several people and pushing others to the side. Ray had no difficulty keeping pace. He was right on my heels and once we were down the gangway, I could hear the shouts and curses behind us of the people who had been knocked out of the way. I paid no attention and was in a full running stride.
“Where are we going?” Ray asked casually.
“Arrosa is in trouble!” I shouted back.
Ray caught up with me. “Did you ever get that Stone back?” he asked with a wink.
“Sure did,” I said, tapping my pocket and slowing down to a trot. We were getting close. Even Ray could hear the struggle now. Ahead of us a jumble of crates filled with bananas were stacked one on top of the other in front of an open warehouse. On the opposite side of the crates Arrosa was being dragged into the warehouse. She was screaming in Spanish and fighting back.
Ray grabbed my sleeve. “Let me go first,” he said. “If there’s more than one, then they’ll all go for me, and you can do your little trick with the rock. What do you say?”
“Go,” I said without hesitation, then reached in my pocket and found the Stone.
Ray ran around the stacks of bananas, which were piled twenty feet high. Within seconds there were shouts and loud curses in Greek. There seemed to be at least three men attacking Arrosa. They were screaming back and forth and Ray was shouting in English to let the girl go. Arrosa was shouting, too, asking Ray in Spanish if I was with him.
I came around the last stack of bananas and as I reached my arm out to use the Stone, two thick, bare arms encircled me from behind and held me in a viselike grip. The man who grabbed me was heavyset and stank of sweat and stale rum. He held me in the air like a doll. My arms went numb and the Stone dropped out of my hand and rolled on the ground.
“Damn,” Ray said. Someone even bigger was holding him in the same manner. I thought I had seen the man on board the
“Are you all right?” I shouted to Arrosa. She had quit struggling and was almost out of sight, being dragged inside the warehouse by a third man. The man had a knife pressed against her throat. His undershirt had been torn to shreds by her teeth and fingernails.
“Not for long,” she shouted back, trying to sound brave. The man laughed and ran one hand through her hair, grabbing a fistful and holding it. Then, in a weak and terrified voice, Arrosa said, “I am scared, Zianno.” The man laughed again in the shadows, telling her in Greek and Spanish, “You will love it, my flower.”
Suddenly, in the blink of an eye, something happened that did not make sense, as if everything had stopped, or slowed down, or changed dimensions. The man dragging Arrosa fell silent and let go of her. Arrosa’s bare legs rose off the ground slightly and her sandals floated off her feet and then moved in a flash, by themselves, into the shadows of the warehouse. There was a slapping sound from inside, then a yelp and a scream. The man in the
