“So now we’ve got Greek mythology added to the mix.”
He shrugged. “If this Alvaro received a Classical education, he might have known about the Graeae, but I’m sure he only meant it as comparison. It doesn’t mean there’s a connection, In any case, the Shew Stone is real. It’s part of the collection at the British Museum. And that manuscript was probably written in Enochian script, a language Dee claimed was the language used by angels, and which only he and his initiates could interpret. Maybe the crystal ball polarized the light and revealed something written in invisible ink.”
Jade frowned as if he had overlooked the most obvious explanation, which in fact he had, and not by accident. “Somehow, Dee knew about Teotihuacan, about the stone spheres and what they could do. And this explains how Perez came to be in that cavern. He followed the clues Dee had left in that manuscript and ended up down there.”
“What clues?”
Jade wrinkled her nose in irritation, then looked back at the journal. “It says here that the angel told Dee that these stone orbs could be found in the Navel of the Moon.”
“Lunar belly button lint?”
“Orphaniel is the angelic ruler of the moon and stars,” Jade continued. “And more importantly, in the Nahuatl language, the word for ‘moon’ is mētztli and ‘navel’ is xīctli, which combine to form the word Mēxihco — Mexico literally means ‘navel of the moon.’”
“I’m impressed,” he said, and actually meant it.
“You’re not the only one here who’s ready to play Final Jeopardy,” she retorted.
“Still, that doesn’t exactly narrow it down to Teotihuacan.”
Jade scanned the journal again. “Perez just seemed to know where to go. He and Alvaro traveled to the New World and somehow knew exactly where to look to find the entrance.” She snapped her fingers. “The entrance was in the Plaza of the Moon. And which stone was missing from the map of the solar system? The Moon stone! It all fits.”
Professor wasn’t quite as enthusiastic about the web she had spun to connect the disparate facts, but he couldn’t deny that it was a near-perfect fit.
“Listen to this,” Jade continued. “‘In the bosom of the earth, we found the orbs just as described in the vision. Blinded by pride and ignorance, we believed that we had discovered a great prize and decided that we would bring one of the orbs with us, so that our King might at last have an advantage in the war with Heretic Queen. We chose to bring along the smallest of the orbs, that which circled another just as the moon circles round the earth.’
“That’s why there wasn’t a Moon stone,” she said, looking up. “They took it. Or rather, Alvaro took it. Perez was stranded.”
“How were they able to move the stone?” asked Dorion. “We weren’t able to budge the Earth stone out of the dark matter field.”
“It explains that here. ‘When first we laid hands upon the orb, a dark sleep came upon us. Alvaro awoke first and roused me with the story of a dream in which he presented the orb to the King. I had dreamed as well, but my dream was strange, as if I had dreamed the dream of another man. We feared to touch the orb again, but Alvaro proposed that we place it in a casket in order to convey it away without having to touch it. This we did, though the orb was heavier than lead shot and when we began to move it, the earth began to shake. The earthquake caused the tunnel to collapse. Alvaro escaped with the orb, but I was trapped.’”
“The dark matter field would have added mass to the Moon stone,” Dorion conceded, “but I don’t know why it would have caused an earthquake.”
“Maybe it was a coincidence,” replied Jade. “The point is that Alvaro escaped with the Moon stone. It’s out there somewhere.”
“Where?” asked Professor. “Did Alvaro’s vision come true? Is the Moon stone in Spain? If so, don’t you think we would have heard about it?”
For a moment, the only sound was the low hum of the boat’s engines and the wind blowing across the water. Then Jade resumed reading. “‘Pride is a deadly sin, and this is my punishment. Yet, I have gazed upon the life that might have been, as one might gaze through a window. It is there, so close yet just out of reach. If only I could open the window and step through, I would.’” She raised her eyes. “That’s it. Nothing more but his signature.”
Professor nodded slowly. “I guess just knowing the future isn’t always enough to save you from it.”
Dorion said nothing.
The mood of the group improved somewhat when the skipper of their boat pointed out a pod of bottlenose dolphins splashing along beside them, riding the boat’s bow wave like surfers shooting the curl at Pipeline. Jade briefly forgot about Gil Perez, trapped forever beneath the Pyramid of the Sun, and found herself laughing at the antics of the highly intelligent cetacean mammals.
“Costa Rica is the dolphin capital of the world,” the skipper announced proudly. “More dolphins here than anywhere else.”
Jade sensed that Professor was about to contradict the man and quickly laid a restraining hand on his forearm. Before she could say anything though, she caught her first glimpse of the island, and forgot completely about the dolphins.
It looked exactly as she…remembered? Was that the right word? It seemed as familiar to her as Diamond Head in Hawaii or the Pueblo ruins at Chaco Canyon where she had done field research for her graduate studies. The memories became even more distinct as they drew closer.
The skipper brought the boat in close to the beach then deftly came about, so that the bow pointed back out to sea for a quick exit. He reversed the outboard, nudging the craft closer to the island, then raised it out of the water so that it wouldn’t drag in the sand. A moment later, there was a crunch as the keel rode up onto the shore and the he jumped out to hold the boat steady.
Jade recalled that this was as close to dry land as the boat would go, and without further prompting, she hopped over the gunwale and splashed up out of the surf. Dorian was right behind her, and Professor, with less assuredness, brought up the rear. The boat’s skipper gave the craft a push and then leaped back aboard. He would return, or so he had promised, just before sunset to pick them up. Jade was barely aware of his departure.
“This way,” she said, pointing to a rock fall that formed a natural staircase leading up into the verdant wall of the forest.
The jungle was almost preternaturally quiet. From time to time, Jade could hear the croaking of tree frogs, but these sounds would vanish at the sound of a foot snapping a fallen twig or the rustle of their passage through the undergrowth. Despite her memories of this journey, there were few distinguishing landmarks to help her recall exactly where they had found…what exactly, she didn’t recall, but there was something here, something that had not yet been uncovered. When they abruptly emerged onto one of the designated trails, Jade felt not only a sense of profound relief, but also a return of her certitude.
The trail soon brought them to the two stone spheres that had been discovered on the island — small orbs of igneous rock, pitted and weathered by years of exposure to the weather. The smaller sphere had been completely exposed and sat on the surface, while the other was still partially buried. Nearby, other stones had been stacked and deliberately placed to form what looked almost like a primitive shrine. The brochure Jade had been given at Finca 6 indicated that the island was believed to have been a sacred burial ground for the pre-Columbian inhabitants of Diquis Delta. Yet her instincts — or was it something she was about to discover? — told her that those ancient indigenous people had merely repurposed the stone spheres as grave markers, without any knowledge of their origin or original purpose.