Because Faye had persuaded Cassie to eat something, the girl now sat at the table in front of an array of raw vegetables, dip, potato chips and a tall glass of iced tea. Faye was stirring around the kitchen and putting her baking supplies away.
“You were starting to talk about how the pythia legend applies to me?” Cassie prompted.
“Oh yes, quite right.” Faye stowed a bag of flour in one of the overhead cabinets. “Just as the Pelasgians and the Hellenes relied on the counsel of their pythia, we rely on the advice of ours to help us authenticate our finds.”
“Then what you call a pythia is sort of a psychic bloodhound?”
The old woman moved to the sink to wash out a mixing bowl. She chuckled. “I suppose that’s one way of saying it.”
“I don’t believe in the paranormal,” Cassie said dismissively.
Faye paused in her clean-up operation to study the girl’s face for a few moments. “Then how do you explain your dream about Sybil? Your vision of the oracle?”
Cassie shrugged though she seemed unwilling to meet the old woman’s eyes. “Everyone has bad dreams. Maybe I’ve got an overactive imagination. Maybe I’m just plain crazy.”
Faye smiled briefly. “And it would be easier for you to question your own sanity rather than to believe in the unseen?”
The girl remained silent, so the old woman continued. “The human brain has many functions. Some logical, some intuitive. Unfortunately, the modern world has rejected one half of the brain’s functions in favor of the other. We put our faith in science, and science puts its faith in logic. At least it did until Newtonian physics fell out of favor. We don’t live in a clockwork universe after all.”
“What?” Cassie looked up blankly.
Faye laughed. “I’m sorry, my dear. I didn’t mean to travel so far afield, but I’m trying to explain that your dismissal of intuitive phenomena cuts you off from the untapped potential of your own mind. Why do you think so many ancient cultures relied on shamans, oracles, and faith healers? It wasn’t quaint superstition. These practitioners of the paranormal arts possessed real power. They understood how the mind actually works and were able to maximize its potential for the benefit of their people. Modern science’s contempt for the magical has created an unproductive skepticism in the mind of the average person. Quantum physics is now beginning to explain the connection between spirit and matter. Yesterday’s magic is fast becoming tomorrow’s science. I’m asking you to move past what you’ve been trained to believe and try to keep an open mind. Can you do that?”
Cassie relented slightly. “OK, I suppose I can try. But it seems like you’re putting a lot of faith in what’s going on in somebody else’s head. What if your pythia is having a bad day, and the radio signal to the great beyond is scrambled? They might say something is ancient when it’s not.”
“The pythia is only our starting point.” Faye finished rinsing the bowl and put it in the dish drainer. “We balance intuition with factual evidence. We don’t rely solely on her impressions. We validate everything she tells us.”
“You said ‘she.’ Is it always a she?” Cassie selected a carrot stick from the platter on the table. She bit into it with a loud crunch.
Faye began to wipe down the kitchen counter with a dish cloth. “Not necessarily, though in the past it has tended to be that way. Women’s brains work a little differently than men’s. With regard to the skills required of a pythia, it seems to be an advantage to be female.”
“Interesting.” Cassie moved on to an equally crunchy stick of celery. “Tell me how this works. Does the pythia find the relic herself or do you give her something you think is a relic and let her tell you what it is?”
Faye paused and tilted her head to consider the matter. “A little bit of both actually. Sometimes she’ll feel a strong pull to investigate a site and will unearth the relic herself. More often than not, we acquire things through the private antiquities market and bring them to her for identification.”
Cassie sipped her tea. “How can you be sure she’s right?”
“Once she’s told us some of the basic details of an object, we can validate its age, place of origin, probable context, and come to some conclusion about her accuracy.”
“Is that what you did with me? Validate?” Cassie asked cautiously.
Faye removed her apron and shook the flour from it before hanging it on a wall hook. She caught a glimpse of her flour-streaked face in the hanging mirror and hastily wiped the smudges away before continuing. “Yes, I already knew what the bowl was before I asked you to touch it. When you described it accurately with no help from me, then I was certain.”
Cassie changed the subject. “I pick up objects all day long. Why don’t I go into a trance every time I touch something that belongs to somebody else?”
“We have no explanation for that.” Faye reached across the table to test the temperature of the cooling bread. “It seems to be a function of our pythia that her gift applies only to ancient antiquities.”
Cassie registered relief. “That’s good to know. I don’t think I could explain trances in a grocery store whenever the checkout clerk hands me my change. How many of these antiquities have you gotten so far?”
“Thousands, perhaps millions,” Faye said offhandedly as she began to sweep the kitchen floor.
The girl felt stunned. “Millions?”
“Our organization has been in existence for centuries. My predecessors were very industrious.”
“Then you must have a huge warehouse to store all of it.” Cassie’s voice grew eager. “Can I go there?”
Faye stopped sweeping. She seemed to be struggling to choose the right words. “Cassie, I have an obligation to protect our treasures. If their location became known to people who want to destroy us, it would be a
