Susan Sipal
Writer

Excerpt from The Artemis Key:

Prologue

Dogwood Holler Missionary Baptist Church

outside Hazard, Kentucky; December 31, 1973

“The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.”

The minister’s voice rose in a shaky crescendo, competing with the blizzard howling through the cracks of the door and the chinks of the windows.  The congregation watched anxiously as the intruding wind pressed against their one stained-glass pane--the church’s pride and joy.  Only one set of small, wet eyes noticed as it rustled the ivy and running cedar, left over from Christmas a few days past, which decorated the old upright piano and draped over the open coffin.  As if the body had breathed.

The young boy stared, unblinking, waiting for more signs of life, only half listening as the minister continued.

     “Sophia Caroline Beaufort Frank was a good Christian, a loving wife to Alphonse, charitable to those who deserved it, but perhaps a bit too indulgent toward those who needed a firmer hand.”  His robe swayed with theatrical ministerial effect as he raised his arm toward the coffin, resting in the place the manger had graced just a few days before.  “With her lenient works squandered on those whom God had cast aside, she brought down upon herself the Father’s judgment, and with that an illness which could not be healed.”

     As if in protest, the wind gusted in a fierce roar, rattling the loose shutters, whizzing snow horizontally by the windows, bumping against the rickety clapboard siding, and flickering the candles that lit the church in the absence of electricity, which the storm had stripped from them.

     The minister gripped the pulpit and leaned down toward his congregation, his flock, his steel-gray eyes intense, settling on the long, saddened faces of the dead woman’s family in the front pew.  “But she’s been called home, now.  A home to which we’ll return one day.  For such is the sinful nature of man, that in the end we all must die.”  His ominous warning hovered with the chill through the sanctuary.  The mourners shivered.

     Candlelight cast the pastor’s face in shadows and hollows, his black starched collar stark against the soft snow white of the old cleric’s hair.  He nodded to the bereaved family.  They arose as one, the stoic husband, the sobbing sister, and the scrawny, hollow-eyed son, who clutched a branch of holly, impervious to its prickles.  One by one they stepped toward the open coffin and surrounding flowers, whose sweet fragrance belied their sorrowful purpose.  The choir softly sang Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.

     The husband placed a bouquet of pink-tipped Christmas roses across his wife’s chest, his face a mask, his grief buried, his heart gouged.  The sister carried a tear-drenched greenhouse lily, tripping over the step to the altar, then aided by her brother-in-law.  Last came the seven-year-old boy, his icy blue eyes red-rimmed with the effort to hold back his tears, his pallid face stark in contrast to his coal black hair hanging in a long, unruly mess--as if no one had noticed recently that he needed a haircut.

The boy dropped his handmade wreath of holly, thorny green leaves and blood-red berries, on the white cotton blanket covering his mother, then fled, stumbling back to the threadbare pew.

     “A band of angels comin’ after me,

     Comin’ for to carry me home.

     Swing low, sweet chariot...”

     As the choir sang, the parishioners filed by solemnly, quietly, tip-toeing past the coffin.  One and all paid their last respects to the dead woman, their sister in faith, lying on white velvet, her lifeless black hair soft against her cold, bloodless face.  The family sank back on the hard bench, the sister hauling her nephew up under the crook of her arm, hugging him close, whispering softly in his ear.

     “Don’t cry, Sweet Pea.  Jesus called your mama home.  She’s in heaven now, freed from pain.”  The little boy listened to his aunt's low assurance that his mother was in a much better place.

     But his gaze bored into the face of Jesus, straight ahead, above the altar and beside the old, rugged cross.  That kindly face of a long-haired man, painted on black velvet, kneeling beside a boulder, his palms calmly folded in prayer, brown eyes lifted to heaven, on the night before he was to die.

     Little Joe knew the story, all right.  He hadn’t missed a Sunday of church since he was born.  His mother played the pipe-organ, after all.  His gaze slid to the frozen face of the woman in the coffin, framed by freshly cut cedar branches stuffed around her body to lend their clean aroma of life until her spring burial, when the ground thawed and the Easter lilies bloomed.  His chest crushed under pain, and biting his lip until he tasted blood, he stared again at that other face, painted against black velvet.

     A parishioner--Joe didn’t see who because he refused to look away--clasped his shoulder as he returned to the pew.  Someone else buzzed his hair.  Offering comfort.

     Filthy rotten liars.  They’d been wrong.  They’d lied to him all along.  Jesus wasn’t good.  Jesus had his own mother; why did he need his?

     Joe wanted his mama back.  Now.

     “Sometimes I’m up an’ sometimes I’m down

     Comin’ for to carry me home

     But still my soul is a glory-bound

     Comin’ for to carry me home.”

     Against the hard oak pew, hidden beneath his father’s patched, scratchy wool coat, Joe’s hand fisted, his nails biting into his palm.  The anger, the hatred, coiled deep in his gut.  He choked back puke, ignoring his whispering aunt as his father ignored him.

     So Jesus thought his mother was better off in heaven, did he?  Well, he’d show him.  He’d tear that painting from the wall, never come to church again, he’d...he’d...

     A spasm tore his face, tremors shaking his shoulders, until the sob ripped from his throat, uncontrollable...his aunt’s soft gasp, her “I-knew-it” wink to a passing friend, as she wrapped him roughly in her arms, her store-bought pearl necklace poking holes in his cheek, smothering him against her breast like his mother used to do.  She kissed his head, her smell so like Mama’s...he choked, he coughed, he sobbed into the side of her big boob, just as Mama’d held him days ago, while his father’d hovered in the background, blubbering like a baby, as Mama’d told him she’d leave him soon, and Joe’d yelled at her over and over not to go, to stay, that he hated her, that he loved her...that he needed her.

Mama’s eyes had filled with tears, her body withered and twisted with her sickness, but she’d reached out a frail, claw-like hand, stronger than lately, as she’d thrust her well-worn Bible into his clenched fists.  “You keep this, Sugar.  And someday, you pass it on to your own son, and tell him about his grandma.”

Mama looked at him firm, but her chin quivered as she said, “Little Joe, I’m proud of you.  You’re a good boy, and you’ll grow to be a fine young man.  Now listen to your Pa, and don’t ever forget that I’ll be watching you from heaven.  And I expect you to do me proud.  One day, I’ll see you again, but for now, my maker is calling.  Sweet Jesus.”  Her grasp had weakened and her eyes had closed, but she’d whispered, “I love you, Son.  I always will.  Don’t ever forget that.”

     And he wouldn’t.  He’d never forget Mama.  He’d love her always.

Through blurry, tear-filled vision, he looked back to that awful painted face.  But he’d never forgive the one who’d taken her away.  They’d all been wrong about Jesus.  He was a mean man to take his mother from him.  It wasn’t right.  It wasn’t fair.  Jesus was wrong.

     Beside him, Little Joe felt his father slump deeper into his corner of the pew, pulling his coat tighter around himself, crossing his arms over his chest, inching further away.

     A rumble of thunder made Joe’s eyes flicker open, his gaze flashing toward the window.  A large bird, an eagle, perched on a knotted oak limb outside.  It stared right at him, its beady eyes piercing, like it read his shameful thoughts.  With a jerk of its sharp beak and a hop of predatory talons, it spread its wings and flew off, leaving a lone dark feather floating to the ground amid the falling snow.

The sneering face above the altar drew Joe’s attention once more, the candles casting Jesus in demonic shadows; he seemed to dance in the flickering candlelight, laughing.  While outside the wind moaned, sounding eerily like a woman’s mournful cry...a mother calling for her lost son.

     As he vowed revenge.

Chapter 1

August 1, present day

     “Professor, I think we’ve found something.”

     At Steve’s excited words, Liz Saint-Clair poked her head above the ground’s surface to peer across the narrow trench she worked a couple of rows away from his.  “What is it, another ox horn?”

     “No.”  His muffled voice floated across their precisely laid-out grid.  He remained bent low in his trench over whatever it was he’d unearthed.

     “An Artemis votive?” her own voice rose with anticipation.

     “Nooo,” he drawled with a hint of laughter.

     Liz sighed.  Her body burned with the suffocating heat of working within the confines of the partially collapsed cave.  Her arms ached from weeks of endless physical work, with only a handful of artifacts to show for it.  And her brain seethed with frustration since her department had just today upped the date of her tenure evaluation.  She didn’t have time for teasing.  “You’re still within the first century strata, right?”

     “Yep,” came his clipped reply, but one that maintained that hint of excited discovery.

     After brushing her hands off on her cut-off denim shorts, Liz levered herself out of the meter deep dugout and caught an immediate glimpse of what had captured Steve’s interest.  He was hunched over a rough stone slab, about sixty centimeters long and half that high, stuck into the side wall of the narrow trench.  He’d already brushed away enough dirt to reveal incised, slanted ancient script.  Now with his trowel he worked the edges of the stone emerging from the earth...like a box...like an...ossuary.  Impossible.

     Her heart lurched.  “Let me get there a sec.”

     Steve glanced at her over his shoulder, a wide grin splitting his sun-burnt face, before pulling himself up to sit on the edge, leaving her room below.

     Her mind buzzing, Liz squeezed into the narrow opening in front of the large stone box buried deep in the soil.  Her fingers, once again minus gloves, dug rapidly around its rough edges.  Limestone, probably.  She drew in a shaky breath, her pulse racing, her fingers surging with that familiar electrical awareness of an artifact’s connection to people and lives of the past.

Squinting against the blinding mid-afternoon sun, she studied the partially revealed script carved on the side he’d just unearthed.  She blinked to clear her eyes of the dust which surely marred her vision, then brushed away more dirt until she hit a clog.  Her fingers, tracing lightly over the rough surface, detected a thin spray of mortar.

“Mortar?  Covering the inscription?”  She glanced up at Steve, then reached over to stop his swinging leg.

“Sorry.  Guess I’m keyed up.  Unusual, isn’t it?”

“A bit.”  Had someone deliberately plastered over and obscured the first half of the script?

     “What does it say?”  Anticipation made his voice squeak.

     “I can only make out this last word.  Give me a minute.”

     “Last?  The mortar’s covering the left part.”

     “Near Eastern.  Hebrew, maybe.  Written right to left.”

She tried to discern each letter of the faintly carved word.  How to explain such an oddly located burial relic?

     This was just not possible.  An ossuary, here on the western Aegean coast of Turkey.  At least a thousand kilometers from where the bone box surely originated.

     “Justin, Cengiz,” Steve called to some of the finds staff hanging about, leaning on shovels as they watched curiously, “start the diagrams of this artifact in situ.”  Cupping his palms over his mouth, he yelled toward a nearby tent, “Oya, we need you over here.”

     “Just keep things low-key for the time being, all right?” Liz whispered to Steve.

He nodded.  “What else should I do?”  He beat the dust off his dirty khaki shorts.

     She tore her gaze from the box, straightened, and stared outside the cave, forcing herself to think logically.  What to do first?

At the work-camp below, sunlight glinted off dark sunglasses as a tall man emerged from the office tent, attracting her attention, quickening her already throbbing pulse.  She turned back to Steve.  “Get someone to distract Ersan Bey, keep him from coming up here.”

     As Steve scrambled down the hill, Liz whipped off her bandana and swiped at the moisture beading her forehead and stinging her eyes.  But she ignored the dirty rivulets trickling down her neck and between her breasts, sweat caused by her own mounting excitement and the relentless sun boring through the long-collapsed roof of the cave.

     Her excavation staff rushed to procure cameras and tools.  Ignoring their excited chatter, Liz took a soft bristled brush and carefully swept away the loam embedded in the lettering carved on the red-painted stone.  Shadowing her eyes, she searched the script’s patina and style for any clue of medieval forgery.

Damn.  She’d studied ancient mid-eastern languages, of course, but was no expert on the variances in style of script which distinguished the different eras.  This box...this ossuary didn’t figure into her quest.

     Leaning closer, she ran her fingers across the rough carving.  She recognized most of the letters, could guess at the era...was almost sure it was authentic.  She squinted, trying to make out the last couple of faint characters.  Was that last a vav or a yod?

Absently, she fingered the silver eight-pointed star dangling from her necklace, analyzing her options.  She’d have to call in an expert epigrapher, no doubt.  Plus a geologist.  Analyzing a find of this magnitude would require a whole damn team.

Liz stood, shaking out the tingling numbness in her legs from squatting so long.  A westerly breeze brought a touch of cooling Aegean air, but, unfortunately, also a whiff of herself.  Rank, as usual.  She thrust her fingers through hair caked with dirt and sweat.  It probably looked more brown than red.  She’d like a shower.  Right now, however, she needed a strong plan.

This artifact was not what she’d expected, nor what she’d been searching for.  Her stomach churned in mounting excitement...and clenched in dread.

     Whatever this box contained, its highly unusual location marked it an object of strong archeological interest.  She scanned her memory of meticulous research notes from graduate days.  How many ossuaries had been located outside Israel?  Surely not more than half a dozen.  And not a single one of those in western Turkey.

     Someone snapped a picture from behind her shoulder.  Tamara, no doubt.

“Dr. Liz, could you lean back so I can get a better shot?”

Liz was too engrossed in studying the artifact to turn, but she leaned as requested.

“--the box appears to be painted red, and decorated with a star motif in the upper left and candles in the upper right--”

The low, husky voice of Oya talking into a microphone as she verbally recorded the find, a tremor of excitement marring her normally perfect English, disturbed Liz’s concentration.

     The others didn’t know yet exactly what they'd unearthed.  What she suspected they'd unearthed, that is.  And yet, it was obvious the find was the largest, most complete artifact they’d excavated to date.

     A camera clicked directly above her head.

     “Tamara, please go to the supply tent and bring a box of molding compound.”  Liz glanced up at the young undergrad, her pink spiked hair cropped even shorter today against the heat.  “We’ll need to plaster an image of these characters before we move the artifact.”  And then she’d need to dig out her paleography text.  With a find like this, she must be extra careful to make no mistakes.

Scholars would scoff at an ancient Hebrew bone box found high on Bulbul Mountain overlooking the Greco-Roman ruins of Ephesus.  Then they’d jostle to dissect every detail.  She slapped at a mosquito buzzing in her ear.  But they’d scoffed at Heinrich Schliemann searching for the mythical Troy.  And he’d unearthed it just a century before a couple of hundred kilometers north.

Just like Schliemann, she'd set out in her own Trojan horse to disprove her doubting colleagues.  She'd chosen this location, however, to explore Anatolian goddess worship--not peculiar first century burial customs.  Unfortunately, this ossuary would refocus scholarly interest two seas and a religion away.

She drew a ragged breath, her own excitement warring with inner frustration.  Still, if the artifact appeared all it seemed to be, it was a major find.  Her team's major find.

     Steve hurried back, out of breath, and dropped to his knees on the ground above the box.  “Done.”

“Thanks.”  She waved to the spray bottle.  “Squirt some more water.”  She squatted back on her moccasin boots, covered now in the hot sand she’d excavated, while he sprayed away the clinging earth--Gaia reluctant to relinquish the secret she’d sheltered for 2,000 years.

     “Should we break the seal?” he asked, a timbre of urgency running through his voice.

     “It’s sealed?”  How could she not have noticed?  Too focused on those tantalizing letters, undoubtedly.

     “Yeah, look.  Along here.”  He dropped the water bottle, leaned down, and ran his fingers along a sloppily mortared joint between the box and lid.

     Liz’s finger followed his, feeling the roughness of the concrete.  These things were usually left unsealed.  What was the purpose?  What could they have possibly wanted to keep out, or in?

     “Should we open it?” Steve asked again.

     “I think not.”

     The corners of his blue eyes drooped with obvious disappointment.

She bit back a grin.  “Not yet anyway.”  Her assistant still had much to learn, but well she knew how easy it was to allow the thrill of discovery to overwhelm your discipline and derail your protocol.

     He sprayed the red stone some more, and she touched the back of his hand, drawing his attention.  “There are several tests that must be run before a box like this is opened.  Plus, we’ll need more protection.  From the elements...” she lowered her voice “...and the eavesdroppers.”

     Steve continued to work, but glanced at her from the corner of his eyes, his eagerness reflected in the red splotches marking his light, freckled cheeks.  “You think you can keep this quiet?” he asked, his low voice matching hers.

     On pretext of reaching for a trowel, Liz straightened above the trench and surveyed her worksite.  Her students, all fifteen of them, from the US, Germany, and Turkey, worked nearby, some watching with intent interest, their words drifting toward her in a motley jumble of languages.  Then there were the eight local Turks she’d hired to help with the excavations, and beyond the barrier tape hovered a few tourists who’d drifted over from the nearby restored ruin.  Archeologists at work fascinated people, especially if they sensed excitement about a find.

     Liz trusted her students completely to follow protocol regarding finds.  And the Turks were good people.  Some of them had helped her the previous season on the outskirts of Magnesia.  But the curiosity seekers and the tourists were unprovenanced.

“I’ve already looked over the Cybele-lioness terracotta press release.  I don’t know why Liz Hanım would want me to approve it again...”  The words drifted from a few meters below, where a familiar mustached, dark-haired man strolled out of the mess tent and headed toward the finds tent, shaded by a few tall poplars and pines.  Ingrid accompanied him.

Good.  Ersan Bey, the young professor of archeology from Izmir who’d been assigned by the Ministry of Culture to oversee them, was distracted for the moment.  She breathed a sigh of relief, and squatting back in the trench, dug out now wet dirt toward the back of the ossuary.  They’d have to cut a slab of earth beneath it to cushion the box in transport.

“I’m surprised you don’t trust Ersan Bey.”  Steve, still kneeling above the box, broke through her concentration.

     Trust?  Liz jerked her head up, surprised at the misunderstanding.  At least he’d remembered to use the Bey form of Turkish respect this time.  "It's not that I distrust him,” she murmured.  “I just don’t know if he, being a Muslim, can understand the controversy that might explode around this find."

     He stopped spraying the water as he watched her intently.  "Why?"

     She chose her words cautiously.  "If this is even close to what I think it is--"

“Which is?”

“--and no I still don't want to discuss it out here in public," she added quickly.  "It could bring in loads of tourist money.  You can bet with the Turkish economy struggling like it is, Ersan Bey's priorities most definitely won't be the same as mine."

Of course she’d never take anything out of the country illegally.  On ethics, she'd never pull a Schliemann.  It had taken her years to get permission to dig here.  More importantly, she respected a nation’s right to keep its artifacts within its borders--even if this particular relic had been imported thousands of years before the present republic.  No, she merely wanted time to examine the ossuary, and protect it, without a media circus wreaking havoc.

     "I trust you, Liz," Steve said, bowing low over the box, which was almost clear of its earthly home, "but it would help if I knew what the hell we’re talking about."  He waved a hand.  "Yeah, yeah, I know.  Later.  More privacy."  He drew to his feet, knocking a spray of pebbles into the trench, then clasped his arms overhead and stretched his back as he surveyed the find from a higher vantage point.  A bright gleam sparked his light gaze.

     Liz's gut clenched into a hard nauseated coil, and not just from the heat.  She knew, by instinct and experience, from years of observing both ancient and modern humans--a find like this changed people.  Even her students might talk prematurely.  Bonds of trust and shared dedication could be so easily broken.

No one had shared her belief when she’d originally proposed this dig.  How could a goddess leave physical remains? her sister had asked when Liz had excitedly told her about the upcoming excavation.  Her father had thought her crazy to pursue a low-funded project in such an unusual location.  Even though his remarks reflected more on his bitterness at being forced into early retirement from the Classics Department, she’d begun to agree--especially when the university had threatened to discontinue what little funding she’d obtained.  Her mother, Dean of the Divinity School, had finally offered to help.  But true to her Ariean nature, Liz had locked her horns, stubbornly determined to struggle alone.

A struggle born from the chafing acknowledgement that hers had always seemed a legacy appointment.  A legacy she was determined to live up to...and live down.  She’d prove herself worthy, if only to herself.

She trusted her gut.  And for once, she’d been right.  This find just might save her faltering career.  The temptation to milk it was staggering.

     “Yoohoo, Liz,” a matronly British voice called, distracting her, a quiver of query marking the otherwise serene tone, “I heard you found something.”

     Mother Marta, the head of the Sisters of Charity who’d protected this ancient site for over a century, hurried up the hill.  Her shoes, with their thick black soles, kicked up clouds of dust; her starched-white wimple obscured her heavily lined face.  Just thinking of how stifling that thick habit must be in this heat made Liz sweat.  On a swinging Turkish tea tray, the elderly nun carried glasses of water from the holy spring beside the restored house.  A spring that had long ago bubbled up in the darkest corner of the cave Liz worked.

“It looks like you could use some refreshment right now, dearie,” Mother Marta said, passing the tri-pronged tray down into the trench.  “We must keep your work running well.”

“Thanks.”  Liz pressed the cold beading glass up to her hot, wet forehead, soaking in its cooling relief, then passed a glass up to Steve.  Tourists and religious pilgrims from all over the world quenched their thirst from these curative waters and bottled them as well.  Mother Marta insisted Liz and her team drink it hourly, not only for spiritual reasons, of course; the heat was dehydrating.

     The Mother pointed to the limestone ossuary.  “So, what have you found?”

Liz stood swiftly, gulped her water and passed the tray back to the nun before climbing out of the trench.  “Not quite sure yet.  A stone box of some sort.”  She headed to a nearby spoil heap, drawing the older woman with her.

“Is it related to the Mother?” a tremor of excitement vibrated in the sister’s voice as she hurried to keep up with Liz's longer strides.

“Impossible to tell, at this stage.”  Liz picked up a sieve and absentmindedly sifted through the heap.  “We’ll have to conduct tests to determine the time period.  Though, by the strata it was in, I have to admit it’s possible.”

    “Sweet Mother Mary.”  The excited nun’s hands trembled as she clutched at her rosary.  “I never believed you’d actually find anything.”

    Liz jerked her head up at that one.  “What--”

    “Of course, we must always keep faith,” the nun went on, oblivious.  “Do you have the proper equipment to run your tests, dear?”

    Liz jiggled the sieve and bent to study a couple of pottery shards sifting out, as if she found broken bits of ancient oil lamp more fascinating than the bone box being dug out a few meters behind her.  No need getting the sister’s hopes up over nothing.  “For initial analysis only.  To run radiocarbon dating of the patina, I’ll need an equipped lab.”

    The eager nun asked her several more questions, all of which Liz skillfully avoided.

    “I’ll have a talk with Ersan Bey to get you a--”

“Anne Marta, gelinizmi, lűtfen?” a younger nun called from the tourist gift shop near the parking lot, summoning the older woman in Turkish.

“Well, ta ta for now, Liz love.  I’ll check back later.”  The Mother hurried off, gray habit flapping about her ankles.

Liz took a deep breath and returned to the trench.  If only she would be as agile at Mother Marta’s age.

“How’s it going, Steve?”  She nudged her way past the excavation staff, who’d by now all found good reasons to leave their own tasks to better watch the box emerge.

“We’ve completed the initial analysis of the artifact in situ, Tamara’s taken the cast of what we can see of the script, and I’ve cut the slab eight centimeters below the base.”  Steve set aside the saw and wiped sweat from his brow.  “It should be safe to move now.”

“Ahmet, Patrick, Gursan,” she signaled to three of her strongest young men hanging around, “bring the metal sheet then come help Steve lift this out, please.  Carry it very carefully to the finds tent.”  She turned to Steve.  “Please answer any questions Ersan Bey will have and assure him I’ll be with him shortly.”

     She motioned to the rest of her crew.  “Then I want everyone to gather in the staff mess tent in thirty minutes.  Everyone.  And no phone calls beforehand.  That’s an order.”

     Liz watched to make sure the guys slid the metal sheet under the slab with extreme care, then hurried to the site office tent.  The tent flap whooshed a cool breeze of air against her back legs.  Hands shaking and barely able to breath, she reached for her paleography text and flipped through until she reached Semitic languages...Hebrew...almost, but not quite.  She thumbed more carefully until she came to Aramaic...first century...style of script...cursive letters...yod.  Definitely a yod.

Surging blood roared in her ears.  The last word of whatever name had been carved into the ancient burial box was not a name, but a title.  And a possessive one at that.  Almost an endearment.  This man whose burial box--whose sealed ossuary--they’d just uncovered was not just a long-dead rabbi, but a long-dead Rabboni.

She touched the words on the paper with trembling fingers, remembering the rough stone beneath them moments before, feeling anew that sizzling connection to a life now past.  My Rabbi.  My Teacher.

     Someone’s long-dead professor--Liz’s lips quirked at the irreverent thought--beloved and entombed here, resting in secret for two thousand years.

    Until today.

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