The Lost Way - Chapter 5
Weird gets weirder and the team attempt to get their ducks in a row before notifying the government.
Chapter 5
The lab was a standard space for a seasonal project – as in, it lacked any semblance of importance or permanence. Its thin, plasterboard walls sectioned it off from a repurposed loading dock attached to the side of the museum. The massive bay doors had been closed by cinder blocks that clashed with the original brick. Cheap linoleum covered the floor while mismatched cabinets and storage drawers lined the perimeter. Several chipped lab tables were haphazardly placed throughout the middle of the room. It looked like what it was, an extra space created out of necessity.
Its door opened onto a hallway leading to other research bays and a central storage vault packed with centuries of artifacts. Normally, because of the area’s controlled access, the lab door used by the Saint Demetrios team was left open to let some fresh air into the stuffy space. Given what was currently sitting in one of the drawers, Nikolas had closed and locked it before they’d left.
Nikolas and Ani arrived first. The cool, quiet halls of the museum were a welcome relief after the time in the sun. Their walk had been mostly silent, the longtime academic partners deep in thought as they listened to the noise of the city.
Ani broke the silence, “We’re in some weird territory, Nikolas. And what happened – I can only describe it as a vision. Am I going crazy?”
“No, Ani. This defies all logic and science. But looking at the common denominator, everything we’ve found today is strange. None of it fits into our normal reality. An impossible artifact? Visions? You and I have worked together for years—you know how skeptical I am about this kind of thing. But seeing your face back at the site? I could tell it was real to you. Coming back to regroup was the only logical option.”
They walked in silence for a moment. Eventually, Ani took a deep breath and composed herself. A woman has to keep a cool head regardless of the chaos around her.
“We’ll need to report it now. No hiding burials in Greece,” she said calmly.
“Yes. I hate it. I’m having trouble believing my eyes at this point, but we still need to report it. We’ll wait for Adam and Sara and plan for what to do next. Our next steps are known. We must talk to Menelaos and the ministry. But I’ll admit I may have to take a page from you and Adam and leave out some things in the report.”
They both tried to look casual as they passed the occasional scientist and curator. Eventually, they arrived at the door.
Nikolas checked the door handle, testing that it was still locked, breathing a sigh of relief when it was. Unlocking the door, Nikolas immediately pulled out a whiteboard. Ani sat on a lab table, swinging her legs and looking at the ceiling.
Under normal circumstances, Nikolas would just begin filling out the standard paperwork. In this case, they needed a plan. All four of them should have the same story, framed the same way. The artifact would draw significant scrutiny. Its composition, its provenance, and its strange properties would make it an instant sensation. The fact that it was found adjacent to a tabloid-worthy burial only complicated things further. The local paper would pick up the story, and from there such an interesting finding could be picked up nationally or even internationally. The team needed a tight narrative to keep control of things. No scientist wants to be on the cover of The National Enquirer. That is a quick path to being relegated to dubious History Channel documentaries.
Ani, for her part, was lost in thought. She tried to sort through the feelings of the afternoon. The strange feeling in her arm persisted, but the visceral feelings and vision she’d experienced at the site had spooked her. Her immediate pain and panic at feeling the violent death of an unknown woman had faded. It felt like an old memory, as if her mind had somehow already processed it. It left her distinctly conflicted. She knew Nikolas was probably in a tailspin, as was Sara. Whether she wanted to or not, she’d need to hold steady for them.
Taking a marker, Nikolas wrote ‘Declaration of Location / Discovery of Antiquities form’. He added two bullet points, one for the artifact and one for the skeleton. Underneath that, he wrote in bold letters: Explanation and Timeline.
“I hope you have a bottle of whiteboard erasing solution on hand,” Ani spoke casually, trying to lighten the dark look on Nikolas’s face.
“Or we could burn the whiteboard,” he remarked.
“You sound like Adam.”
Good, he thought. I’m at least fooling her. Maybe I can fool myself as well. If he was being honest, the banter about the situation did make him feel better. He continued, “With this particular situation, I think we all need to be thinking more like the American private sector than academics following antiquities law. I want to be able to adjust and erase what we come up with before we make it final.”
“I agree,” responded Ani.
“Let’s start with the basics,” Nikolas said, “Stratigraphy. Let’s review our layers.”
“Ok,” began Ani, “We can confirm with Adam if he has anything additional, but we have four strata: Modern, Late Medieval, Early Medieval, and Late Classical. The feature itself is Late Classical. Separating that stratum from the Early Medieval is a layer of rubble, likely from the collapse of the original building on the site. No artifacts of note in the first three layers.”
Nikolas listed the soil horizons on the whiteboard. Under Late Antiquity, he wrote ‘Burial’ and then paused.
Ani wrote ‘Unknown Metal Object’ underneath. She waited, watching Nikolas stare at her with concern before she continued, “It is, in fact, an unknown metal object.”
The door opened and shut behind them.
“And that’s what we’ll write on the report – unknown metal object,” stated Adam, walking in with Sara, “If I recall correctly, I unearthed it today and finished uncovering it, thinking it to be a bronze amphora lid. As I finished, Ani discovered the burial. Then we were cursed with doom for digging in a churchyard, and we all committed ritual sacrifices to clean ourselves.”
Ani laughed. She did appreciate Adam breaking the tension, even if she found his flippancy annoying half the time. “What? Doom?” she asked.
“Oh, you missed it. A Yia Yia told us we were doomed for digging in a churchyard. I’ve been yelled at by protestors all over the US, but Yia Yias are much scarier,” Adam replied. “Either way, let’s go with simultaneous discovery. We can leave out the old lady and ritual cleaning.”
Sara looked at Adam with a worried expression. “Will that fly with the antiquities police or whoever we have to deal with now?”
“It will,” replied Ani. “Remember, Sara, these are archaeologists like us. They’ll be as interested as anyone in understanding what’s going on here. Plus, everyone knows this little dig wasn’t supposed to yield anything but remote sensing verification. No one will be surprised if we were chasing a second magnetometer finding.”
Nikolas put a hand on her shoulder. “I’ve known George for years. Menelaos was my dissertation advisor. If we don’t advertise the less believable aspects of this excavation, they’ll take our word for it.”
“Nikolas the bad boy,” Ani poked at him.
“Nikolas the pragmatist, more like,” responded Adam. “He may be particular, but he’s still Greek.”
“Yes, to catch you up,” Nikolas began, reminded they hadn’t had a chance to tell Adam and Sara about the archive find. “Ani and I found an interesting manuscript in the archives. It mentions ‘The Lost Way’. Amazing, really; I’ve never seen it written down anywhere, just local legend. How this source was never connected to the site before is beyond me. The letter was written by a local bishop. He advocated for the erasure of the sect. This is strictly qualitative, but I believe, given Sara’s new scans, that there may be something to this. Possibly the murder of a sect leader. There was no mention of the object, though.”
As he was talking, Sara plugged her laptop into one of the large monitors and showed her experimental scan of the burial. Adam stepped in behind her to take a look. He’d seen Sara kick off the data processing before they left the site. The hope was that it would tell more of the story.
What he saw defied all expectations. On the screen was practically science fiction – stacked shades of gray defining the individual layers of soil. Various objects floated in the 3D model. They’d even been tagged and colored based on the most probable material the object was made of. In the medieval layers, chunks of ceramic and bits of animal bone dotted the matrix of the unexcavated area. The walls defining the edges of the room were clear. Chillingly, the brick that blocked up the door of the room stood in stark contrast to the stone walls around it.
More importantly, the unexcavated grave was plainly visible in incredible detail. To Adam, the look of the burial gave him new world vibes, more like something out of a Mayan sacrifice than something he’d expect in a late Roman-era storeroom in Greece. The arms were clearly bound behind the back and legs folded underneath, almost as if the body was a staged hostage or forced to kneel and worship in that position. If the grave were found in a cenote or high alpine cave, he wouldn’t think twice about it. Ritual sacrifice and move along. The jaw was open and the area a bit fuzzy. Could she really be gagged? Is that what we’re seeing here?
Not wanting to dredge up what could be traumatic for Ani, he instead complimented Sara. “This is incredible,” he said. “We’re gonna write so many papers.”
Ani had also come over to watch. “We’ll turn this scan over to the authorities as well. The fact that we used new tech to scan instead of digging more to verify that the bone was human will score us some points if there’s an investigation,” she stated.
Adam looked at her, but he couldn’t read her usually open face.
“What about the scans we did of the object itself?” asked Sara.
“We say the bottom is assumed to be polished iron. Since we found it today and never had it in the lab, we wouldn’t know the bottom is a modern material,” Nikolas stated seriously to Sara.
“Understood,” she said.
The three experienced team members in the room breathed a collective sigh of relief that Sara was on board with the plan.
Meanwhile, Adam had walked over to the drawer and opened it. “Huh, that’s not weird at all,” he said, looking at the contents of the drawer.
Nikolas groaned, “What’s not weird at all?”
The team walked over to the drawer. Instead of a jumble of objects, every object in the drawer was aligned in one direction, just diagonal to the orientation of the drawer. The pens had shifted together. Even the points were aligned. Pins and thumb tacks had done the same, the pointy ends pointing the same direction as the pens. A few of the tacks rolled slightly as Adam fully pulled the drawer open.
At the center was the bell, a full half-inch of space cleared in a circle around it.
Silence hung in the air.
Finally, Adam broke the silence. “I might live to regret this, but Sara, take a picture of that. We can check a map and compass if you want, but I’d bet my left nipple that everything in that drawer is all pointed directly back to the site.”
“Nope!” Sara interjected. “I draw the line right here, Mr. Folksy Southerner. No feelings. No… nipples. We deal in the physical world. The only answer is electromagnetic residue. That object clearly has some kind of magnetic charge that’s affecting the world around it. It needs to be studied somehow without all of us getting laughed out of a job.”
“Sara, the fucking pens are all pointed the same way,” Adam retorted.
“I don’t care! That thing isn’t trying to tell us shit. Objects don’t send messages. This is the real world, Adam. I thought you of all people would be on my side, but you’re out here playing Indiana Jones!” Her voice echoed off the thin plaster walls.
Everyone had heard her escalating tone. They were also keenly aware of how thin the walls were, and no one, least of all Sara, wanted the conversation to be overheard.
Sara tried to calm herself before continuing, “Really, Nikolas? Mr. Black-and-White himself? Adam, the guy who always says ‘If it’s not in the dirt it doesn’t exist’? I’d expect this from Ani, no offense, but you guys? I feel like we’ve gone off the deep end.”
Both men stood quietly, shifting uncomfortably.
“None taken,” Ani said softly.
Nikolas spoke, his voice quavering as if he could barely hold it together, “Sara, nobody is turning into a crackpot conspiracy theorist. I hate it as much as you do, but logic and facts left the room the minute we found out what that artifact was made of. I hear you. This is impossible, but if we lose our heads, we lose control of the narrative. As far as the ministry is concerned, we excavated, we cataloged per protocol. Nothing left the site.”
Sara couldn’t help herself. She was mad. She knew it was childish, but she spit it out anyway. “Except that we brought that thing back here and threw it in the junk drawer overnight.”
She finished and crossed her arms, suddenly uncomfortable. She’d noticed Nikolas looking intently at Ani. She looked at Adam, who was doing the same. It was suddenly there, that familiar, cold drop in her stomach, the feeling of being completely left out. She pushed down the feeling as best she could.
“What? Why do I feel like I’ve completely missed the boat here?”
Ani shifted uncomfortably. She began, “You didn’t miss anything. I’ve told Nikolas already, and I’m guessing Adam picked up that something was wrong. Ever since I hit the bell, I’ve –” She cut off, unable to keep her composure.
Adam gave her a moment before asking gently, “Ani, what’s going on with you? You said Nikolas knows. All I know is the Ani I know would have an opinion here. Instead, you’re sitting there quiet as a mouse.”
“Jesus, I feel like a crazy person,” she said, wiping a tear from her eye. “I know I’m more willing to entertain the more mystical aspects of history, but this is far off the deep end even for me.”
She took a deep breath before continuing, “Ever since I rang the bell, I’ve had feelings in my hand and wrist. At first, it was like I hit my funny bone. Then it faded to a deep thrum when we left the bell behind. But when we got back to the site, I could feel it change again the closer I got to the burial, even before we knew it was there.”
Ani stopped for a moment, wrapping her arms around herself. “When I touched that bit of exposed bone—it was like a flood through my body. Her presence. Pain. Exhaustion.”
She squeezed herself hard. Adam walked over and put a hand on her shoulder. She continued, “I felt the pressure of being tied up like that.”
She looked up at them. “I know that you guys find me a little out there, but this is so much more real than anything I’ve felt before. It’s like hitting the object that opened a door that I can’t close. That sounds crazy as it comes out of my mouth.”
Adam looked long and hard at Ani as if trying to see what was behind her eyes. He put his hands on his head and blew out a long breath. “That’s a lot,” he said.
Sara stared at her screen. She felt childish and isolated after making such a stir while Ani sat there having an existential crisis.
Nikolas removed his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. The room was silent for a few moments.
“Thoughts? Ideas? Toss me in the loony bin?” Ani asked quietly.
“I think when we look at the facts, I’m not willing to rule out anything,” Adam responded.
Nikolas thought for a moment before starting carefully, “I don’t think we need to advertise what’s happening with you. It might not be a bad idea to get yourself checked out to check for any nerve damage. For now, we get the artifact back to the site, and we button everything up. Then we turn things over as is to the ministry. Honestly, I’ll be content to have someone other than us continue the excavation.”
Ani sighed with relief, “Ok. Let’s do it. But I’m not touching the bell again. Someone else carries it.”
“I’ll take it,” Adam said, reaching for the heavy bronze object. It made a dull, metallic scrape against the stainless-steel table as he lifted it. He wrapped it carefully in a clean cloth before putting it into his backpack. “If anyone asks, I’m the only one to handle it directly outside of Ani ringing it. Let’s keep it that way.”
Sara stared at him in horror. “Wait, you’re going to tell people she hit it?”
She instantly realized that he was joking and wished she could take it back. Instead, she gave him an exaggerated sigh and half-smile.
He smiled, happy she’d figured it out. “Well yeah, if she dented the damn thing, I’m not taking the blame.”
Adam walked over to Sara and gave her a half-hug. He looked at her with a smile. “Hang in there, kid. We’re off in the Twilight Zone, but we’re in it together.”
Ani came over as well, put her arms around them both and held for a moment before taking Sara’s hand and leading her from the room.
When they’d left, Adam looked at his old friend.
“Weird shit, man. We need to put on a good face, but I hate it. I’d say someone is fucking with us, but Ani? She believes it was real through and through, whether it is or not.”
Nikolas nodded. “We start by making sure the site is picture-perfect. And that this conversation never happened.”
He picked up a felt eraser and, with a few heavy strokes, wiped everything off the whiteboard.
“Adam, go easy on Sara. She’s brilliant, but she’s still young. This project was her chance to shine and now it’s spiraled out of control. She doesn’t have the mileage you and Ani do—you can’t just steamroll her when she’s trying to process. ”
“I know. That was my bad, man. Even I’m just a little lost here. Come on, let’s get this over with.”
Adam reached for the wall switch and flicked it down, plunging the lab into darkness. Nikolas pulled the door shut and turned the key, locking the door behind them for good measure.
—
In the shadows of the lab, a silhouette emerged. The figure looked up to the ceiling with a smile.
“See, I told you he’d figure it out,” he said to the darkness.
