“Maybe you are right,” Hakan said. “Maybe there is nothing to fear. But if there is, you are putting every one of us in danger by not giving us a choice if we want to stay or go.”
The talking started again, the worrying, the doubt.
Son of a bitch, Meryam thought. His resentment at having to answer to a woman had been simmering for weeks, and now it had surfaced.
“You want to go?” she said, glaring at Hakan. “Then fucking go!”
Feyiz reached his uncle then, tried to grab his arms, to move him away. Hakan shoved him. Feyiz reeled, arms pinwheeling, and crashed into one of the plastic tables, cracking it in half.
All fell silent again. Meryam had said all she intended to say.
She glanced around, wondering why Adam hadn’t intervened. She didn’t need her man to stand up for her, to speak for her, but she wouldn’t have minded some backup.
Then she spotted him, standing far off to her left, near the outside of the cave with his camera in his hands, filming the whole thing. Off to her right and at the back, just beyond Hakan, she saw Calliope, also getting the whole ugly business on camera. The disloyalty and the violence, the disdain for her gender and her leadership, the ignorance and fear. If they used this in the documentary, it would make her look like a fool with a bad temper and even worse leadership skills.
What the hell are you thinking? She stared at Adam.
Only his camera stared back.
Hours after dark, Kim moved quietly through the frigid space of the ark’s topmost level. Her jacket and thick garments provided as much warmth as she could have hoped for, but still she felt colder than she had ever imagined possible. She walked quietly, as though only she and the ark itself were still awake, and she did not want to disturb the others who had taken up temporary residence within. Though she knew very well there were others awake, working late or standing guard or, like herself, unable to drift off after the events of the day, exhaustion notwithstanding.
Madness notwithstanding.
Her teeth chattered a bit and she sipped at the plastic mug of tea she had been given in the kitchen area. The cook, a Kurdish man whom she gathered was related to the site manager, Hakan, had taken pity on her. Too late for coffee, he’d managed to tell her in English, but he could heat water for tea. Kim had been—still was—so grateful. The tea had an earthy flavor and rich, herbal aromas, but it warmed her a little, and tonight a little would be enough.
Despite the lighting and the generators, there were long stretches of profound darkness on her way back to what they were calling their quarters. She didn’t like those shadows, the way they seemed to grow deeper as she approached and closed in behind her when she passed. They made her think of the tented enclosure on the bottom level, of the black sarcophagus down there and the withered husk that lay inside it. She didn’t want to think about the cadaver, or the way her mind had just slipped away and her heart had started its raucous tantrum in her chest. Liquid pools of black and red had coalesced at the edges of her eyes—of her mind—and then she’d felt as if she were drowning in shadows, and those shadows were full of slithering things that were reaching out for her, and if they managed to touch her…
The screams had come then. And she’d run.
What am I doing here? she wondered, not for the first time.
The wind slid along the floor, turning once in a lazy circle that swept up a skittering of grit and carried it away. Kim passed the stall Walker and Father Cornelius shared, and spotted Walker standing just outside their tent, knocking a couple of pills back with a chug from a reusable water bottle. When he noticed her, he shot her a guilty glance, as if she’d caught him doing something he feared she’d frown upon.
“Headache?” she asked.
“Long day,” he replied, which wasn’t an answer. His expression implied a certain gratitude for the out she’d provided. To Kim, it was as good as an admission that the pills he had just taken were not for a headache at all.
She wondered, of course, but she felt reluctant to inquire further. If Walker seemed to be distracted from his work by a reliance on some prescription medication or another, then it would become her business. If that never happened, she would not bring it up again.
Yet he seemed on edge, now, even a bit twitchy, and having seen what could not now be unseen, she could not help feeling a flicker of doubt about him. She had been assigned only to observe—what Walker did by way of research was not her concern. Still, she wondered.
And she wondered about herself, too.
She had to.
“You all right?” he asked, when the silence between them had become awkward.
“Couldn’t sleep,” she said, raising her travel cup. “The cook made me some special Kurdish tea.”
Walker cocked his head, smiling almost in spite of himself, as if the hour had grown too late and the night too cold for him to remember the tension between them.
“You know tea has caffeine, right? If you’re having trouble sleeping—”
“It soothes me,” Kim said. “And I wanted something warm.”
“That much I definitely understand.”
They stood there a few seconds more, until it grew awkward again, and then she smiled and said good night.
“Sleep well,” Walker said, but he showed no interest in returning to his tent.
Kim slipped back into hers and sat on her backpack, sipping her tea and listening to the wind moving through the ancient structure. It sounded as if the ark had fallen asleep and was breathing, in and out, a whispering of enormous lungs. Inhale. Exhale.
Inhale. Exhale.
She sipped her tea.
In her mind, she saw the cadaver’s face again, heard the echo of her own lunatic screams, and she knew she would not be getting any sleep at all tonight.
She had never felt so far from home.
Arjen had drawn second watch tonight, standing sentry from two a.m. until dawn broke over the ridge of the earth. At twenty years of age, Arjen still loved his sleep, and so every time his turn in the guard duty rotation came around, he would spend those dark, frigid hours full of resentment toward his uncle Hakan. Life on the mountain had changed so much in the time since the landslide and Arjen’s fondest wish was that it all go back to the way it had been before. But as he stood just a few feet from the windswept edge of the cave, with the treacherous snow-laden rockfall stretching out below him and the blanket of blustery night all around, he knew the past would remain the past. When he had been living that life—up hours before dawn, helping foreigners trek to Ararat’s peak, making camp and breaking camp, teaching most of them what ought to have been rudimentary climbing skills—Arjen had wished for a different life.
Now he cursed that wish.
There had been funerals after the landslide. Cousins, mostly. In the aftermath, Uncle Hakan and his cousin, Baris, had vied for control over the business. Their extended family had been guiding tourists on the mountain for generations and now a new generation had to take the reins. Being a part of the team that discovered the ark—and being able to hire many of his family members as workers on the project—had solidified Hakan’s position as head of the family, and the business. Arjen needed to stay in his good graces, but with every day that had passed his own resentment grew. He knew himself well enough to realize this was due in part to his natural laziness, but his indolence did not prevent him from forming an opinion of his uncle Hakan. The man had always been arrogant and cruel, even brutal at times, and this recent elevation had only exacerbated those traits. Fortunately, Arjen had Feyiz. Their mothers were sisters and Arjen had admired his older cousin growing up. Feyiz indulged him. Tolerated his laziness. Defended him to Hakan, as long as Arjen put in some effort.