The empty feeling in her gullet will disappear and the voices in her head will cease their chatter.
In the end, she will be whole for the first time, or she will be dust.
Either way, this translates to peace.
Chapter 1
The Discovery
“What do you mean you"re not coming, James?”
“Sorry, Ken,” the man on the other end of the phone said.“Cynthia"s having contractions.”
Ken grunted.“Contractions? She"s not due for another month. It"s most likely false. Don"t go.”
“Sorry, bloke, but she wants me home, so our plan"s taken a bit of a diversion.”
“That"s just fantastic.”
“Again, I apologize, Ken.Listen, I"m at the airport right now. Flight"s getting ready to take off. I have to go.”
“Fine.Call me when you land. What"s that, nine hours from now?”
“I think.”
“So I should be done with the inspection by then.”
“You"re going ahead with it anyway?”
“Of course. I’m not going to miss the opportunity of a lifetime.”
“Very well.Be careful. And wish me luck.”
“Why?”
“The only flights to London I could get at such short notice land in Gatwick.” Ken snapped his cell phone shut without laughing, wiped sweat from his forehead, and checked his watch.Nine o"clock in the morning and it had to be close to a hundred degrees already. Steam rose from the adobe buildings lining the dirt road. There were no adults to be found, but a great many children had gathered, playing stickball and eyeing him with suspicion.
He definitely stood out in this impoverished sea of brown flesh, what with his lily-white skin, sandy blonde hair, and sweat-covered khaki shorts. He puffed out his cheeks and checked his watch again. Raul, the guide hired to bring he and James to the excavation site, was ten minutes late. The way people seemed to lack any respect for punctuality and the plans of others annoyed him more than anything, and that included associates who backed out of once-in-a-lifetime opportunities.
An archeologist by trade and cultural anthropologist by passion, Doctor Ken Trudeau funded his travels through the backing of Oxford and London"s Natural History Museum.He"d spent much of the past twenty-five years traversing the globe, hoping to further his understanding of cultures long lost to the rest of the civilized world. He scoured most every corner of Europe and Asia, and even spent a few years residing among the aboriginal tribes of New Guinea; living as one with them, drinking up their wealth of primal knowledge, and treating them not as subjects, but as brothers.
Yet despite all he"d seen, all he"d experienced, what lay ahead of him now was the culmination of a dream.
The ancient Mayans were Ken"s obsession, and had been for the majority of his fifty-one years.The sudden disappearance of their culture became the study that intrigued him most. With their virtually preternatural understanding of astronomy and the passage of time, which far exceeded the erudition of their contemporaries, it seemed unparalleled that they would suddenly up and vanish. What happened? Did famine overtake them? Disease? Did the rivers overrun and flood the land, leaving them no other choice but to scatter and integrate with surrounding cultures? To these queries Ken still found himself in the dark, waiting for someone to shine a beacon and draw him forward.
That beacon now shone with news of the excavation.
In an archetypal flash of irony, an underground fissure had been uncovered while the Honduran government blasted through the rainforest, their effort being to construct a new freeway that would lead to a soon-to-be-completed eastern waterway.After local scientists poked their noses around, it was discovered the chasm led to the interior of an ancient Mayan temple. A priceless piece of history, found during Man"s attempt to wipe the past from the face of the earth in the name of expansion.
The popular theory was that the temple had been swallowed by the earth in the aftermath of some great earthquake, but Ken didn"t care about the reasons for its existence.That it existed at all was all that mattered to him. It served as the possible answer to his dreams. He smiled at the thought.
A tan Jeep tore around the corner, almost striking the stickball-playing children.It careened into a fruit seller"s cart. Mangoes and oranges flew through the air, creating a barrage of juicy, round missiles that splattered upon impact. The man behind the wheel of the Jeep, apparently unconscious of his driving, wore an expression on his face that reeked of youthful ineptitude. He waved at Ken with one hand and spun the wheel with the other. The automobile screeched to a halt at curbside, fifteen feet away.
“Hola, doctor,” the man, Raul, slurred when the vehicle stopped rocking. Ken approached it. Raul"s body odor stunk of liquor. “Where"s the other one?”