“Then I vote for letting her try,” the security coordinator said.
“It certainly can’t hurt if Thea will guide us,” the scrivener suggested.
“Oh, yes,” she concurred. Then sadly, she added, “I hope I am wrong, but I think I am not. You will not find these symbols on Malta.”
***
And so they tried. For days, Thea drove them up and down the island to places with unpronounceable names like Hagar Qim, Xemxija, and Tarxien. At each site, the trio followed Cassie hopefully while she wandered through piles of boulders and standing stones, placing her palms flat against random megaliths, trying to pick up any trace vibration of the Minoans. Each day the radius of their search was limited by the car’s battery and their ever-increasing muscle cramps. Each night they returned to base, so Thea could plug in her vehicle and recharge it.
They ventured farther afield and took the ferry from Malta to Gozo to search Ggantija and several other smaller temples. The result was invariably the same. After each attempt, Cassie shook her head and said, “Sorry, guys. They haven’t been here.”
Once they had searched every ruin on both islands, the dispirited group returned at sunset to Thea’s loft to decide what to do next. By now, they didn’t even blink at the idea of sitting in a circle in the middle of the floor surrounded by a paper fort. At first, no one spoke. They merely stared glumly at one another until Thea broke the silence.
“It may help if I know more about why you are searching for these symbols. That is if you are at liberty to tell me.”
“I suppose it can’t hurt.” Griffin sighed. “We’re actually trying to solve a riddle.” He rattled off the clue to the second artifact from memory: “Let Eurus fill the sails twelve days, then follow Eberos where it climbs to the sky. Set your course four bees from the dragon’s wing to the sea. When the bull turns the season, mark where the goat grazes the spinner’s peak. There lies the second of five you seek.”
His words seemed to have a remarkable effect on Thea. She sat bolt upright, and her eyes grew unfocused. She began murmuring something unintelligible and then sprang to her feet. Without explanation she started pulling apart stacks of books, digging through piles of papers. Maps went flying through the air. Volumes tumbled off of bookshelves to the floor. All the while she was ransacking the room, she continued her unintelligible chant. Then her mumbling became more audible and finally crystallized into a single word which she kept repeating over and over in hypnotic fashion. “Eberos, Eberos, Eberos.”
Her guests ducked out of the way to avoid the airborne debris and to make more room on the floor as she rooted around in the stacks in corners. Finally, at the bottom of a pile of papers by the windows, she found what she was looking for. She sank back on her heels and scanned a loose sheet of paper. Then she whirled toward them in triumph. “You see, it is as I thought!”
She walked over and held the paper out for Griffin to read. He scanned the page quickly and afterward stared up at her open-mouthed.
“As I told you before, you will not find what you seek on Malta.” She tapped the paper for emphasis with her index finger. “But you will find it here.”
Chapter 24 – Motor Mouth
Faye and Hannah were seated in the dining room working at the computer when they were interrupted by the loud blast of a car horn in the driveway.
“What on earth,” Faye murmured.
Hannah’s hand flew to her mouth in terror. “Have they found me?” she quavered.
The old woman smiled gently. “I think if someone were sent here to abduct you, they would hardly announce their presence so noisily. I’ll just go and see who it is.”
Before she could reach the door, it was thrown open by a spiky-haired teenage boy in a faded tee-shirt and ripped jeans.
“Hey Gamma!” The young man strode over to Faye and hugged her.
“Zachary?” Faye registered surprise. “Was it you making that racket outside?”
The boy grinned. “I got my license. C’mon and check out my ride.”
“I have a guest,” the old woman demurred. “This is Hannah. She’s staying with me for a while.”
The girl rose. Clinging warily to the back of a dining room chair, she said, “H... hello.”
Zachary noticed the girl’s presence for the first time. He stared, colored up, and said, “Hey.”
Hannah tipped her head to the side in puzzlement.
Faye intervened. “In the parlance of young people nowadays, I believe my great-grandson just said, ‘Hello, I’m very pleased to make your acquaintance.’”
The boy flushed an even deeper shade of red. “Yeah, um, I mean...how’s it goin’?”
“It?” Hannah repeated, uncertain how to respond.
Faye acted as translator once more. “The appropriate reply would be ‘fine.’”
“It’s...” Hannah faltered, “fine.” Then in disbelief, she asked, “He’s your great-grandson?”
“More accurately, he’s my great-great-something-or-other grandson. We haven’t decided how many greats are involved, so for simplicity’s sake I just refer to him as my great-grandson.”
“Oh,” the girl said. As an aside, she whispered to Faye, “Why is his hair like that?”
Embarrassed, Zach grabbed the top of his head and attempted to flatten the spikes. “Uh, I was going for a look.”
Hannah appeared baffled. “A look?” she echoed cautiously. “Did you find what you were looking for?”
Her question left Zach too nonplussed to speak.
“You were saying something about a driver’s license?” Faye prompted helpfully.
At the change of topic, the boy brightened. “That’s right. It’s official. The minute I turned sixteen, I took the test. My buddy Tivo and me scraped together enough cash to buy an old beater. You gotta come scope it out.” He stopped and transferred his attention to Hannah. “You can come too if you want.”
Hannah appealed mutely to Faye for an explanation.
The old woman smiled.
