Chapter 13 #3
“Did I hear yelling out here?” Cec pokes his head out of the helm. “Is anyone hurt? Who do I have to kill?” He swishes his cane through the air like he’s wielding a sword. “Have at thee, fascist scum!”
Shaking my head, I let Bes’s hand go and chuckle. Without Cec cutting the tension between us, Bes and I might’ve killed each other by now.
Approaching him, I grasp his cane. “Easy there, soldier. You’re going to poke your eye out if you keep swinging that thing around.”
He yanks his cane away. “Yes, because losing an eye would be so much different than being blind.”
“Only mostly blind,” Bes and I recite in unison.
“Ah, using my own words against me.” Cec tips his cane at us, and some of his wild hair falls across his face. “Cheers.”
A giggle rises up my throat and I don’t do anything to stop it.
I laugh the hardest I’ve laughed in a long time.
Not because Cec did or said anything particularly funny, but because I’m exhausted.
Because I killed another person and watched someone else get shot in cold blood today.
Because, as much as I wish I could trust Bes after that childhood anecdote, he’s still withholding information.
My head lightens as if I’ve downed three glasses of prosecco, the bubbles going straight to my brain and scrambling it.
Cec joins in, and I find I enjoy the sound of his laugh too, though not as much as Bes’s—Bes, who’s once again scoring his features to be purposefully indecipherable.
I swallow the last of my frantic merriment. “Unfortunately, I wasn’t quite bluffing before; I do in fact need to take a dip in the sea.”
Bes stares at me with great incredulity, his mouth dropping open as if to demand what the hell all that was for then. Poor Bes, he must think me an unsolvable enigma. Welcome to my world, Belzoni.
“I haven’t taken a bath since leaving the States,” I explain before he can argue. I refuse to count my time in the stagnant, corpse-filled water of the Osireion. If anything, it made things worse. “And though neither of you have said anything, I know I smell something awful.”
Bes glances at Cec, who peeks back in his cousin’s vicinity.
“That’s what I thought. I’ll grab the bar of soap from my pack and get to it.” I point my finger between them. “You two—scram.”
Bes holds up a hand. “Before we do: as you know, Cec and I need to go into town tomorrow evening. I was wondering if you’d like to join us?”
I think on it for a moment. I haven’t gotten to see much of Italy. I’ve been to South America, South Africa, parts of Asia, and the rest of North America plenty of times, but I actually haven’t been to Europe. And Italy, particularly, holds a special place in my heart.
“I thought we wanted to get to the Dolomites as quickly as possible,” I say finally. “How exactly will this little detour help us? Does this have anything to do with the Amulet of Amun?”
He pauses, considering. “Not directly, no, but it does have to do with the God Men and information on how much they’re involved with the Third Reich.”
I nod. “And who plans to use this information you seek?”
Bes grimaces. “Uncle Arturo.” He doesn’t elaborate.
I fold my arms across my chest. “Can you guarantee our safety there? Considering the God Men already found us once, what’s to stop them from finding us again?”
“We’ll be as careful as we can,” Bes explains, “but we do run the risk of it by venturing out.”
I consider this. If Bes thinks it’s safe enough for me to leave this boat without running into the God Men or Mussolini’s soldiers, then I’m not going to pass up the opportunity to find out more about these fascists.
Yes, it’ll be a relief to get off this damned vessel, but, more than anything, this is a chance for me to get some answers.
Even if doing so endangers me.
Besides, what the hell else am I supposed to do while they’re gone? I could stay on the boat, even steal it if I wanted to, though I don’t think that would accomplish much. Not when I know I won’t get far without being caught by the God Men.
I’m not running anymore.
I weigh his offer only for a moment. “Sounds dangerous; I’m in.”
The left side of his lips pulls up in an almost-smile and his next words are soft. “I’m glad of it. Sleep well, Miss Hawkins.”
Warmth floods my cheeks. “I still wish you’d call me Mel.”
His dark gaze sparks in the moonlight. He reaches for my arm, gently brushing his calloused fingertips against my exposed skin. It nearly sets my entire body aflame. “Someday, perhaps. Only when I feel I truly know you will I allow myself to call you that.”
I suck in a breath at the confession, but Bes won’t look me in the eye. Instead, he walks over to his cousin and grabs his arm, drawing him away.
Still trying to catch my breath, I wait to move until the two of them disappear behind the helm and into the galley.
I don’t go down into the cabin to undress, though. Instead, I walk back toward the railing. Focusing on my breathing instead of Bes’s words, his gentle touch, my pulse eventually slows.
Arching my neck back to view the inky night sky, I think about how the millions of stars above me here aren’t much different from the ones I’d see if I were home.
My heart aches at the realization. Torturing myself like this, wishing Nonna was here or that I was there, has become second nature now.
Nonna blames my Irish ancestry for my masochistic tendencies, although that could just be because she never misses a chance to take a jab at my father.
Can’t say I fault her, considering he was never around.
I don’t blame him either, though; not really.
When I was nine, he returned from one of his treasure hunts to stay with us for a week. I wasn’t old enough to understand the reason behind it, but I didn’t care. My father was home and nothing could keep me from him—not even the man himself.
It should’ve been the best week of my life.
We stayed up late every night. He regaled me with his latest expedition deep in the , and all the ones he hadn’t had a chance to tell me about yet.
Listening to him chatter on about the things he’d found, the people he’d met, the dangers he’d encountered…
he was my hero. In my eyes, he could do no wrong.
The more time he spent with me, though, the more he pulled away. Foolishly, I asked him why.
Thinking back on it now, I wish he would’ve lied to me.
But I think the truth had burdened him long enough: that he couldn’t stand being near me because I reminded him too much of my mother.
I cried nearly every night for the next month.
I’d always wondered if I’d done something wrong.
Why else would he abandon me the way he did?
But knowing it was because of my mother—who I missed too, despite never meeting her—cut deep.
After admitting that to me, he left the next day without so much as a goodbye. I haven’t seen or heard from him since.
Sometimes, I wonder where he is. He used to send postcards—which I found a stack of in the back of the pantry once, hidden inside a large empty tomato can—but I haven’t received one for more than a few years now.
When I’m not hating him for abandoning me, I imagine him climbing Mount Kilimanjaro and gorging on sushi, or hiking across the Grand Canyon and cooking up rattlesnake under the desert sky. Maybe he met someone to help him forget my mother, or a persistent dog befriended him.
I imagine he’s happy, even if being so means he’s not with me. I’m old enough to take care of myself now, and I have Nonna to lean on.
What would my father do, if he were in my shoes? He’s brave to a fault, and despite being a shitty parent, he has a high moral code. The only thing he and Nonna could agree on was returning recovered artifacts to their countries of origin. Does he continue that work?
I think about what Bes said: a great evil in the world chases you because of your association with the amulet, but you must know by now that, at the very least, we’re not that evil.
I don’t know my father well enough to be sure what he would do, but I do know he’s never stood for injustice or evil of any kind.
He would want me to take control; he’d want me to fight.
Now, I need to decide what I want.
I could easily tell Bes that I’ve changed my mind about going tomorrow, take the boat to a port far from here, and try to get home that way.
If what Bes says is true about the God Men, about the Third Reich—and I’ve seen enough to confirm it is—then I have to consider what’s right.
Not for me, but for everyone else. After all I’ve been through, all I’ve seen and done, can I justify fleeing back to the States with my tail between my legs?
Can I leave Bes and Cec to fend for themselves in a fascist country when they must have a similar price on their own heads?
Remembering how Ailsa’s body fell lifeless into the sea, the stars above me blur before my eyes. No, I can’t.
The Nazis and God Men and whatever other fascist entities are chasing us may not be anywhere near my own country, but that doesn’t mean their agenda won’t eventually affect me.
As John Stuart Mill said, ‘bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.’ I can no longer turn a blind eye to what’s happening in Europe.
Especially given my fate and the amulet’s are now tied, I have to keep it out of the hands of the Third Reich, whether it holds any magic or not.
By any means necessary.
And I can’t do that without trusting the two people who’ve saved my life, though that will take more time to come to terms with.
The amulet…
Removing it from my shirt, I hold it gently in my palm.
The bloodstone is nearly black in the darkness, the gold wings dull and lifeless.
Nothing like how it looked when I excavated it in the Temple of Seti I.
The blood remains unchanged beneath the surface, but I continue to wonder if it truly can turn someone invisible.
If I’m not imagining the way it warms against my chest every now and then.
I speak aloud the ancient Egyptian word for wake, though it translates closer to dream. The Egyptians believed that, when you dream, you wake in another world, another dimension.
I don’t expect it to work, but when it doesn’t, I can’t help my disappointment. While I no longer plan to use it to get home, it could’ve come in handy.
A part of me wishes we weren’t wasting an entire day in Civitavecchia, just so we could get to Arturo’s house sooner. If he has any books on the Amulet of Amun, I want to read all of them.
First, I need to wash up.
Dropping my chin, I catch another whiff of myself and grimace, confirming it.