Excavation

Sam fingered the blade of the dagger, pondering the mystery of its mechanism. How had yesterday’s transformation occurred? He couldn’t even fathom the trigger that unfolded the dagger into a jagged lightning bolt. It had done so with such smoothness and lack of mechanical friction, appearing to melt into the new form. The trick was too damned convincing. How intricate was the technology developed here? Friar de Almagro’s warning of the Serpent of Eden suggested a source of forbidden knowledge, a font of wisdom that could corrupt mankind. Was this an example of it?

A cough drew his attention. Barefoot, Maggie sidled toward him. Even disheveled, she was striking. Covered only by a thin blouse, buttoned loosely, her breasts moved under the fabric. Sam’s mouth grew dry. He dropped his eyes before he embarrassed himself, but his gaze only discovered the soft curves of waist and leg.

“You must quit fondling that thing, Sam,” she said quietly. “People are goin’ to start talking.”

“What?” Sam asked, shocked, glancing up at her.

Maggie offered him a tired smile and nodded toward the dagger.

“Oh…” He tucked it away. “So… so you couldn’t sleep?”

She shrugged, sitting beside him. “Rock doesn’t make such a great mattress.”

Sam nodded, allowing her this tiny falsehood. He suspected her restlessness was the same as his: bone-deep worries and the omnipresent press of the darkness around them. “We’re going to get out of here,” he said plainly.

“By trusting in good ol’ Philip Sykes?” she said, rolling her eyes.

“He’s an ass, but he’ll pull us through.”

She stared up at a neighboring pillar and was silent. After a time, she spoke, “Sam, I wanted to thank you again for coming out on the tiles when I had that last… that last seizure.”

He began to protest that no such thanks were needed.

She stopped him with a touch to his hand. “But I need you to know something… I think I owe you that.”

He turned to face her more fully. “What?”

“I am not truly epileptic,” she said softly.

Sam scrunched his face. “What do you mean?”

“The psychologists diagnosed it as post-traumatic stress syndrome, a severe form of panic attack. When tension reaches a certain level” – Maggie waved a hand in the air – “my body rebels. It sends my mind spinning away.”

“I don’t understand. Isn’t that a war-trauma thing?”

“Not always… besides there are many forms of war.”

Sam didn’t want to press her any further, but his heart would not let him stay silent. “What happened?”

She studied Sam for a long breath, her eyes judging him, weighing his sincerity. Finally, she glanced away, her voice dull. “When I was twelve years old, I saw a schoolyard friend, Patrick Dugan, shot by a stray bullet from an IRA sniper. He collapsed in my arms as I hid in a roadside ditch.”

“God, how awful…”

“Bullets kept flying. Men and women were screamin’, cryin’. I didn’t know what to do. So I hid under Patrick’s body.” Maggie began to tremble as she continued the story. “His… his blood soaked over me. It was hot, like warm syrup. The smell of a slaughterhouse…”

Sam slid closer to Maggie, pulling her to him. “You don’t have to do this…”

She did not withdraw from him but neither did she respond to his touch. She gazed without blinking toward the darkness, lost in a familiar nightmare. “But Patrick was still alive. As I hid under him, he moaned, too low for others to hear. He begged me to help him. He cried for his mama. But I just hid there, using his body as a shield, his blood soaking through my clothes.” She turned to Sam, her voice catching. “It was warm, safe. Nothin’ could make me move from my hiding place. God forgive me, I forced my ears not to hear Patrick’s moans for help.” A sob escaped her throat.

“Maggie, you were only a child.”

“I could have done something.”

“And you could’ve been killed just as well. What good would that have done Patrick Dugan?”

“I’ll never know,” she said with the heat of self-loathing tears on her cheek. She struggled away from Sam’s arm and turned angry, hurt eyes toward him. “Will I?”

Sam had no answer. “I’m sorry,” he offered feebly.

She wiped brusquely at her face. “Ever since then, the goddamn attacks occur. Years of pills and therapy did nothing. So I stopped them all.” She swallowed hard. “It’s my problem, something I must live with… alone. It’s my burden.”

And your self-imposed punishment for Patrick’s death, Sam thought, but he kept silent. Who was he to judge? Images of his parents’ crumpled forms being yanked like sides of beef from the smashed car while he sat strapped in the backseat, watching it all, tumbled through his mind. Survivor’s guilt. It was a feeling with which he was well acquainted. He still often woke with his bedsheets clinging to his damp skin, cold sweat soaking his body.

Maggie’s next words drew him back to the black cavern. “In the future, Sam, don’t risk yourself for me. Okay?”

“I… I can’t promise that.”

She stared angrily at him, tears brightening her eyes.

“Maggie -?”