“Montario.” Alyssa crossed the distance between them with her hand out for him to grab. “How’re you feeling?”
“Tired,” he told her. “The doctor said I’ll be fine — just a little dehydrated, that’s all. They gave me some saline to pump me up.”
They embraced; then pulled back and measured each other with hangdog looks.
In a tone mired in sadness, Montario said, “I’m sorry, Alyssa. I’m sorry about your dad.”
Her chin began to quiver. “How…” It was all she could manage.
Montario looked painfully awkward. How do you tell someone that her father had become the victim of something much higher on the food chain than he was?
“Montario, what happened to my father?”
For a moment he stood as still as a Grecian statue.
She studied him with keen appraisal, wondering if the hospital garment he wore was too large and made him look small, or if he was simply wasting away as the sharpness of his facial features suggested. Were the points of his shoulders the result of his body becoming thin and emaciated by what happened? Whatever the case, Montario appeared to have shrunk since she’d last seen him, which was only days ago.
He slid back onto the exam table. “Your father,” he began, “found what he believed to be Eden… but discovered it to be so much more.
“It is a place you couldn’t even begin to imagine,” he told her. “It is totally surreal. At first everything was fine. And then we began to hear strange noises and ticks, a metered tapping coming from the shadows. When the tapping stopped and nothing happened, we moved on. It remained that way until the second night. By this time we were deep inside the temple.” He cast his sight to the floor, unable to look her in the eyes. “Because it was late, we all went to sleep with the exception of your father. He was keyed up like always. So he took a lamp and went deeper into the tunnels where he came upon what he called a Central Chamber. Inside he found something incredible.”
“Like what?”
“Depictions of crypts,” he answered. “He said the pictograms answered any and all doubts about the true nature of Eden. He said that it’s a cold, dark place that was nothing like any of the religious texts make it out to be.”
“Eden was written as a metaphor to teach lessons,” she told him. “It wasn’t really considered to be a civilization of historical significance.”
Montario continued. “The night your father went into the Central Chamber, he told me that he didn’t think he was alone. He thought that there was something in there with him, something watching very closely.”
“What are you talking about?”
“There is this… thing. We never knew what it was because we only saw glimpses of it. But within hours, while we slept, it began picking us off one by one. At first it took those farthest from the light, dragging them into shadows. Their screams woke us up so we banded together, keeping our lamps close. But no matter what we did, it just kept coming — just snatching people right out of the circle of light, and then dragging them off to some obscure niche. Even now I can hear their cries.” He looked at her forlornly. “I don’t think I’ll ever get them out of my head.” And then he closed his eyes, making her wonder if he was hearing them at this moment.
And then: “When your father and I were the only two left,” he added, “this thing shadowed us, letting us know it was there by ticking its claws against the floor, telling us it was close, that it was watching. And when your father and I finally saw the way out, when we got close to the exit, it was then that it came out of the shadows and took him.”
As much as she had tried to prepare herself, her eyes glassed over. The sting was too painful, the truth a stab wound to the heart, the sudden weight on her shoulders even too heavy for Atlas to bear. She closed her eyes and fell into Montario, who pulled her close.
“I’m sorry, Alyssa. He was a good man. And be assured that when he left us, he did so only after finding the one thing he had spent his entire life looking for — even when no believed him. He ended up proving everybody wrong.”
She pulled back as tears lined her cheeks, looking lost and proud at the same time.
Montario, however, never mentioned her father’s black book.
Though she did not know of Eden’s exact location, Alyssa had seen her father’s aerial photographs of a geographical anomaly in southeast Turkey. It was a barren area, a harsh terrain of sand and stone, and one of the three locations her father considered to be the actual area of Eden after following the blueprints of religious texts.
“Unless we can prove what he found,” she finally said, “then he died for nothing.”
He looked at her for a long moment, studied the beauty of her face and her pixie-like features. “I’m not going back there, if that’s what you’re alluding to.”
“Montario, you loved my father as much as he loved you. We can’t allow his findings to go without further examination. You know that. None of what you tell me means anything unless we can confirm it. Otherwise, it’s nothing more than tabloid fodder about an old man pursuing a myth. Now you might have been to a place that may or may not have been Eden,” she continued, “but I’m not about to let my father’s rep become front page news for a rag paper. I need you to show me the way.”
“I don’t have to show you anything,” he returned testily. “And don’t use how I feel about your father as a weapon to guilt me into a trip I don’t want to make. I’ve been there, Alyssa. I know how dangerous it can be.”
“My father wasn’t prepared for danger,” she returned. “But we will be.”
“There is no preparation for this,” he told her. “Your father, God bless his soul, would never forgive me for putting you in jeopardy.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” she stated emphatically. “Sometimes in the pursuit of factual evidence, risks have to be taken. He always said that, Montario. You know that.”
“Sometimes,” he emphasized. “You just said it yourself. Sometimes is the keyword here. He didn’t say always. He didn’t say at all times. He said sometimes. All I can tell you is that some places were never meant to be found.” And then after a slight pause: “And Eden is one such place.”
“Montario, please.”
“There’s no way in hell I’m going back there,” he told her. “There’s no way.”
He could see the annoyance in her face, the pulsating Y-vein throbbing against her forehead, which was something that always happened when she got flustered.
“Then tell me the coordinates.”
He refused.
“Montario, please, I'm begging you. Tell me the coordinates.”
“Alyssa, some things were never meant to be found,” he said softly. “Please let it go.”
She made a noise of frustration, which was soon followed by a stomp of her foot.
“Look,” Montario began. “Whether it is or isn’t what your father believes this place to be, it’s not worth risking your life over. OK? I’m not going down that road, Alyssa. Not again. And there’s no way I’m allowing you to do so, either.”
“If I have to, Montario, and you know I will, I’ll do this without you, and you know I will.” She turned to leave.
“Alyssa?” He called after her in imploring manner.
She stopped with her back to him.
“The reason I’m doing this is because if you follow through with this expedition, I don’t want to be responsible should anything bad happen to you. You know I’d be devastated if you were hurt.”
Her shoulders dropped slowly. “Why won’t you ever let me be angry with you?” she asked. And then: “But as angry as I am with you — you know I love you, right?”
The edges of his lips lifted faintly. “Like a brother,” he answered evenly.
She nodded. “Like a brother. But you know I can’t let this go, either. You said so yourself, Montario. He may have died finding what he’d been looking for all his life, proving his colleagues wrong. But until I can verify his finding, then my father has proved nothing.” She looked at him with features that were kinder and softer. “You know I have to do this,” she told him. “You know it’s what my father would want.”