Hallowed Ground

Maybe that was the trick—keeping the valued things covered, tucked away. It seemed that when we exposed what we treasured to the elements, that’s when things got pretty fucked up.

“Hey, Red,” Luke said, catching up to me, jumping over a broken cobblestone.

“Morning, sleepy,” I answered and took another god-awful sip.

“You moving into the terrace houses today?” he asked, motioning to the newly constructed cover that housed the latest dig site.

“Yep, I get the pleasure of working with Reed.” My voice dripped sarcasm.

“It’s all in the name of discovery!” He lunged forward dramatically, and I laughed. We paused as the library came into view, its tall, massive pillars standing in defiance of the passage of time. “There are moments I realize how lucky we are to be here,” he said quietly.

“Yeah, it’s been surreal. Did you hear Charlotte found an entire antechamber at her site yesterday?”

“No way! I want to be on that team.”

“Finish your doctorate,” I teased him. “Until then, we get the honor of sweeping dirt away with toothbrushes.”

“While supervised,” he joked. He sighed as we reached the fork in the path. “Amazing, isn’t it, that we could reconstruct something that fell so long ago?”

I looked toward the library. “It’s gorgeous.”

“Let’s hope we got it right,” Reed said, coming up from behind us and passing on the left. “Let’s get going, Howard,” he ordered, pulling his cap down over his short blond hair. “Those mosaics aren’t going to uncover themselves.”

“I somehow doubt they’re in danger of going anywhere!” Luke shouted back. “I wonder if he’s right. Maybe we fucked it up.” He tilted his head as he looked back at the ruins.

I shrugged. “It’s better to have tried, right? How can we ever know just how beautiful something was, how important, how epic, if we don’t at least try to put it back together when it breaks? Even if some of the pieces are in the wrong place, at least it’s standing.”

He shot me a little side-eye. “And how exactly is Flyboy?”

My grip tightened on my coffee mug. “Don’t.”

“You could come with me to Izmir tomorrow. Internet’s shitty in places and shittier in others, but you could at least try an email. Or at least upload pictures to your own Facebook instead of having me log in for you.”

“My mom wanted to see them.”

“Then give her some more to see. Reach out to Flyboy. Come on.”

I’d said no the previous four times he’d asked, knowing there was nothing I could say that would erase the way we’d left things—the way he’d left things, since I hadn’t had much to do with it. But just the thought of being able to reach out and connect with him had me tempted. “I’ll think about it.”

He fist-pumped, and I rolled my eyes. “You guys will pull through.”

“Howard!” Reed yelled, the sound echoing down the stone steps.

“Coming,” I answered. “Napoleon needs me.”

“All in the name of conquest,” he joked, and we split at the path, Luke to his dig site, and me to mine. I passed the already unearthed terrace houses and continued to climb, wondering, as always, what women had climbed here before me. Who had they been? What had they wanted for their lives? Which of our assumptions about their way of life were completely wrong?

I opened the door to the enclosed dig site and started the climb over the see-through walkways above the uncovered rooms. “Where do you want me today?” I asked Reed, who was waiting midway.

“This way.” He led me down the next set of steps into a room where a Turkish boy, maybe seventeen, waited with a smile.

“This is Ilyas. He’ll be assisting you. Ilyas, this is Miss Howard.”

I waved. “Hi, Ilyas. And it’s just Ember.”

He grinned. “Hi, just Ember.”

Reed rolled his eyes and pointed to the tools. “We’re uncovering this one. You’ve been trained in all these tools?”

“I’ve been with Dr. Trimble for the last month, so yeah, I’ve got this.”

He blinked. “Of course. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to insult you.”

I smiled, surprised that he’d actually apologized. “No problem.” I waved it off.

His eyes widened. “You’re going to take off that rock, right?”

I glanced at my engagement ring. “Yeah, of course.” I needed to stop taking it off the chain around my neck, but I loved seeing it on my hand when I woke in the morning.

“Good. Okay, it’s almost eight.”

I nodded. Nine-thirty in Kandahar. That half hour in the time difference always got me, like time itself was either trying to lean forward to connect us sooner, or lean farther away to make it harder.

“Well, let’s try to get a few good hours in. Call me if you need me. I’ll be a couple of rooms over.” He climbed out, leaving me in what would be my workspace for the next month. I took off my ring and hung it on the chain around my neck.

A cynical laugh bubbled up. Talk about metaphors for my life. I had to tuck everything I loved about Josh away so I could work, and he had to do the same. So where was the happy compromise? Was there such a thing?

Who had to give more?

I grabbed my tools and got to work. At least this was a mess I could clean up. Everything else would simply have to wait another month.