He had an inkling of what those other words might be, but only when he had approached Kim and carefully laid a hand on her shoulder, only when he had knelt beside her and gathered her against him for a moment, only when she had reached out with her left hand and continued digging into the wood and finally whispered those words to him in English, could he finally be certain.
“Please,” she whispered, gazing at him with that bottomless sorrow.
“Please let me out.”
SEVEN
Meryam climbed the reinforced stairs that led up to the ark’s third level. As much as she had fancied herself a knowledgeable woman prior to this discovery, she had learned a great deal in the three weeks since she and Adam had made the climb, and she was still learning. The timbers were an array of different woods, from oak to pine to juniper that would have had to be imported if the ark had been built anywhere in this region.
What most fascinated her about the ship’s construction was that it had been stitched or lashed together with woven cords, the seams filled with reeds and grass and then painted over with a hardening resin and patched with bitumen. They’d snatched Helen Marshall away from teaching classes at Oxford and Meryam milked her for information every couple of days. Same with Wynyfred Douglas, the American who was essentially second-in-command to Helen, the two of them overseeing the motley crew of graduate students from three countries.
The trio—Meryam, Helen, and Wyn—would gather and discuss any new findings on camera, with Meryam seeming much better informed than she was thanks to having been prepped in advance. She had never seen herself as a TV presenter, but in some ways, that was what she had become.
As exhausted as she felt, the thrill of their discovery had not abated. Word had already gotten out, and there was no question that the world understood the importance of this project. People were fighting about it across the globe, debating, arguing, and in more than one case actually coming to blows over the truth of the ancient ship that formed the cave around them.
The word impossible seemed popular. Even if one accepted that the entire region had once endured a flood event that lasted long enough and was pervasive enough to sweep across hundreds of miles, or even thousands, there was one fact that only the very religious seemed ready to embrace. Unless someone had picked up an ocean and temporarily relocated it, no flood could have brought waters so high that the ark would have been lifted four thousand meters up the mountainside.
Unless God had put it there. Of course, she didn’t believe in any god.
Keep telling yourself that.
There were other theories—something about an ancient tribe dragging the ark up the mountain, or building it up there. History held stories of ships moved across land for purposes of war, but to move a ship this size up the side of Mount Ararat seemed—if not impossible—at least impractical. But Meryam had one advantage over the people with theories about the ark, including those who claimed the whole thing had to be a hoax. She had been living and working inside of it for three weeks. However it had gotten up onto the mountain, there was no doubting the reality of it when you walked its canted floor and breathed in the scent of its aged timbers.
The how and why were the entire point of this project. Perhaps the who would even be addressed at some point. But the what… of that, there could be no doubt. A ship. Buried in the side of a mountain four thousand meters up.
Despite her weariness, and even with the fear and uncertainty the morning had brought, the questions that buzzed around her brain made her smile as she worked her way up the reinforced steps.
Many of the KHAP staff had been bunking on level one, in a kind of camp they had set up, making their sleeping quarters in the stalls, with additional shelter they had shored up with plastic sheeting, heavy blankets, and hastily constructed new walls. She had a feeling that when the first real winter storm arrived—which would be soon—the level-one campers would relocate to the second or third floor, but for the moment they preferred to be near an exit, just in case the mountain decided to start shaking itself apart again.
Level two included additional staff quarters, storage, the infirmary, and the workroom, which was off-limits while the artifacts and remains and samples were being catalogued. That left stalls on level three for Ben Walker and his team. Meryam held onto the walls and picked her steps carefully as she moved down the slanted floor until she reached the two stalls where they had erected their tents.
She passed the stall that would be Kim Seong’s quarters and poked her head inside the next one. The large tent filled about half of the space Walker would be sharing with Father Cornelius.
Meryam rapped on the wall. “Knock knock.”
After a rustle, Walker poked his head out of the tent. She couldn’t tell whether or not he was glad to see her. Considering that she and Adam had resisted the U.S. government’s request to send him in the first place, she wondered why she cared. Walker and Father Cornelius both exuded an air of confidence and competence, so perhaps that was it. As Wyn Douglas would have said, they seemed as if they had “seen some shit.”
Just your way of saying you like them because they’re not afraid.
She thought that was more accurate. Ever since the box had been opened and the first whispers about the cadaver had traveled among the staff, the fear had been building. People didn’t feel well or they had bad dreams and too many of them had succumbed to the temptation to ascribe those things to the presence of the malformed thing inside that ancient coffin. There had been a lot of what she called turbulence over the past week or so, and it was getting worse. Religion was making it worse. Faith, or more precisely, the warring of different faiths, and those who were faithless.
The man himself stood outside one of the stalls. When she approached, the two Americans dropped their conversation and stood a bit straighter.
“How’s Kim?” Walker asked.
Meryam rested against the wall for a moment. “Dr. Dwyer is calling it a panic attack.”
Walker had a pleasant face, but his expression just then was anything but pleasant.
“You were there. She had a total breakdown, complete with delusions or hallucinations. The only thing I’ve ever seen that remotely resembled what happened down there was a psychotic episode from a kid in my high school math class, but he had full-blown schizophrenia.”
Meryam bristled. “I’d have thought this would be good news. Doctor says claustrophobia and general anxiety caused a panic attack. I suspected some altitude sickness, but your team already went through the acclimatization process.”
Walker hesitated, unconvinced. “So she’s all right?”
“It’s all relative, isn’t it? If she were home, she’d be all right. But up here, we can’t be responsible for someone prone to panic attacks. She could hurt herself, damage the faunal remains, or even hurt someone else.”
“You have no reason to think—” Walker began.
“I’m recommending to the Turkish monitors that she be evacuated and the UN send a replacement.”
“You can’t do that.”
Meryam straightened up. “It’s my project, Dr. Walker. You’re a guest here.”
“All I’m asking is that you put off any decision until morning,” Walker said. “If Kim hasn’t had another episode and seems healthy enough, let her stay. I’d really rather not go through the difficulties involved in bringing another UN observer up here.”