It was nearly eleven when they reached Aunt Bett’s house, and the windows were all dark. Bethany took the key from under the back porch and fitted it as quietly as she could. “Stay here,” she said, and was gone.
It was hard to do it all silently, feeling for the carton, and rummaging through the toys, but Marylou was a sound sleeper and soon Bethany was on the porch again, clutching the box. She couldn’t wait, she sat down on the step, and Reid held the light. She opened the lid, dumped the contents in her sweater, and stared into the empty interior; then she took a long breath, put her hand in, and pressed against the bottom panel. Her hand looked so like Ninea’s pressing on that other box that she shuddered. The panel slid back, and Reid caught his breath, for under the harsh light lay a two-headed golden eagle. “Oh,” she said, staring. “Oh—”
They heard the scraping of an inner door. Reid switched off the light. She grabbed up her sweater, and they ran. Later she said, “Why did we run?” And neither of them could say. But what could they have told Aunt Bett, sitting there on the porch in the middle of the night?
Chapter 10
“Yes,” she said, facing Justin, “I did do it, and I’m sorry. You don’t know how sorry, not just because you told me not to, though that’s bad enough, but because—because I was terrified.” She stopped and stared at Justin, wanting to make her understand all that she was feeling; because in spite of the fear and the repugnance of that spinning black lostness, a thrill was growing in her, a thrill of almost knowing, of almost having the answer, and the need to know was terrible.
“You’re safe,” Justin said quietly. “I know you had a reason for what you did.” She put her arms around her. “And,” she said, yawning against her, then holding her away, “you’re all fizzy with something that you’ve learned. Can you tell me?” She studied Bethany, then shook her head slightly. “It’s a secret still,” she said at last, hesitantly. “It’s something—all right, I won’t ask you.” She glanced at Reid.
“Let him stay, please Justin. I promise— I want to sort it out in my mind before I tell you— I don’t know anything, I just—it’s just all in bits and pieces. I want to look up something in Zebulon’s books. Could we? I’m not sleepy.”
Justin looked uncertain, studied the two of them, and yawned. “All right. If you make a fire, drown it before you come to bed, and lock the door.” She laid a hand on Reid’s arm. “If it were anyone but Reid—” Then she kissed Bethany lightly. “I’m very glad you’re all right. We’ll talk about the disobedience part tomorrow.” She gave Bethany a searching look, then turned back to her own room.
Zebulon’s room, paneled and raftered, washed by shadows from the fire Reid built, was like a medieval chamber; shadows hovered tall across the bookshelves, and the sound of the sea beat a rhythm that hushed and spoke to Bethany of timelessness. It was into the centuries they dipped as Bethany crouched before the fire with books strewn before her, and Reid prowled in the shadows along the opposite wall, taking down books and perusing them, bringing one occasionally to her. Across the Kirman rug lay books open and stacked, one atop the other, and dozens of golden objects from Egypt and India shone up from the pages. But nothing they had found so far looked anything like the eagle. “And we have to look for a country,” Bethany said. “I can’t even think how to begin.
“I know I heard names, if only I could remember. Cherokee, was that it? Yes. Cherokee Indian?” she asked with confusion. “And Al-Almeranty or something.” But the words meant nothing to either of them. “They’re places, though,” Bethany said. “Someone said—oh, I wish I’d paid more attention. Someone said, ‘Up in Almeranty.’ And, ‘When we go to Cherokee.’ “
There seemed to be no atlas in the bookshelves. She could not remember unpacking one.
“Listen,” Reid said. “Listen to this: ‘There was a garden where the earth was of gold, and sewn with golden stalks bearing gold corn, and twenty golden sheep with their lambs stood about, and shepherds of gold, and huge vessels of gold and silver and emerald, and there was a great image of the sun, and golden fountains whose water flowed into golden bowls where there were birds of different kinds and men drawing water, all of gold, even spiders and small lizards and insects, and there were flowers of gold. It was one of the richest temples in the world.’”
“Oh, where?” Bethany breathed, enchanted. “It sounds like a fairy tale.”
“No, it was real. In the Inca Empire, in Peru. The Spanish destroyed nearly all of it.”
“Are there pictures?”
“Not of any eagle. Only human figures, and a gold llama. And a clay cat.”
“Let me see.” And, looking, “But they’re like it. I mean, they’re made like it, a kind of boldness like it. Peru,” she said. “Does Almeranty sound Spanish? And —and Boketie!” She remembered suddenly.
At last they found the atlas, a huge tome hidden beneath a stack of oversized books. They had some trouble because they didn’t know the spellings, but finally they were able to match names to country, locating them on the map. And at last Bethany sat back with what should have been satisfaction, but felt a good deal more like fear quivering in her middle. “It seems as if I knew that it was Panama,” she said slowly. “It’s as if I know something but don’t know I know it until something prods me. Could things be buried in my mind, things Ninea knows? Things Ninea knows! Oh Reid, she’s real! She’s a real person!” They stared at each other. “Isn’t she?” Bethany said. “What else could she be? Oh, she’s alive, Reid, I know she is. She’s too— She feels too alive! She wouldn’t have dreamed of me, she wouldn’t have reached out to the seances, if she weren’t—” She stopped, staring at him, confusion engulfing her. “But the other thing, the power I felt, that wasn’t Ninea. That was—” She grew silent and uncertain.
He put his arm around her, it steadied her. It was safe in this room with Reid so close to her. It was all right, she knew it would be all right. It was almost as if, in the dark attic of the truth that she could not yet comprehend, everything was waiting, poised, waiting for her to see.
And then at last they found pictures of golden eagles; not the two-headed one, but single-headed eagles so like it that Bethany’s pulse raced. Province of Veragas, the book said. Eagle pendant, Panama. 1000 to 1530 a.d. And here the towns they had located were repeated, Almirante and Boquetie, and Colon and Chiriqui. “Now that I know this much,” Bethany said, “I feel—I don’t know how exactly, but strange. Should I wake Justin? No, not yet. But who is she, Reid? Who is Ninea?”
“You’re white as a sheet. I’m going to make some coffee. Will I wake Justin?”
“I don’t think so. Maybe I should wake her, but— Oh, I do feel all fizzy!”
He made coffee, and cheese and onion sandwiches, and Bethany found she was ravenous. But, gulping it down, there was such a fluttering inside her that she wondered if she would be sick afterward. “We were together once,” she said at last. “We must have been. Before we can remember. When we were babies, because it must have been then we were given the boxes and the eagles. By our parents, do you think? Then are we sisters, Reid? But Ninea—” And the thought struck her so suddenly: “Nina knows who her father was! Ruiz. Her grandmother was Senora Ruiz.”
“You didn’t say that before,” he said accusingly, stifling a yawn.
“Someone called her that. I remember it now. It’s as if there are clouds, and something just jumps out. Senora Ruiz said Ninea was her son’s child, so Ninea’s name would have to be Ruiz, wouldn’t it? Ninea Ruiz! Could—could—”