On Etruscan Time by Tracy Barrett

Author:Tracy Barrett
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781627796736
Publisher: Henry Holt and Co. (BYR)

10

Hector didn’t jump at the sound of that soft voice. He had been expecting it. He sat down heavily, leaning against the boulder. He looked up at the boy with the large eyes and white shirt that gleamed in the moonlight.

“So what’s going on?” Hector asked. “Really. Who are you, and why do I keep dreaming about you?”

“I didn’t do it,” the boy—Arath—said. “You were the one who came to my dream. You said, ‘Where are you? I’m trying to find you! I want to help!’” Hector shuddered as he heard his own words, the ones he had shouted in his dream. How could the boy know?

Was this still a dream? That would explain why things had felt so funny on the way down, why the solid rock wall seemed almost to melt under his fingers. All his senses were numb. The few sounds—Arath’s voice, an owl, a dog barking in the distance—were fuzzy, like he was wearing headphones. He touched a branch. It didn’t move, and although he could tell there was something between his fingers, it felt like he was wearing gloves.

Everything looked strange, too, like when he put on his father’s glasses. When he stamped his foot, the ground felt different, like rubber instead of hard-packed earth. Was he sleepwalking? But he felt wide awake.

“It woke me up,” Arath went on. “I was having a bad dream about someone beating me in the temple. Nobody would do that—you can’t do something like that in the temple, especially to the son of the priest.”

“Your father’s a priest?” Arath nodded. “But I thought priests couldn’t get married!”

“What?” Arath said. “Of course they can. They can have as many wives as they want. How else can you ensure that the priestly line will go on?”

“More than one wife?” Hector asked, bewildered.

“My father has three wives,” Arath said, lifting his chin proudly. “My mother’s the youngest, but she’s the most important one. The other two never had any babies, and they’re too old now. The elders said that since my father didn’t have any sons, Cai—he’s my father’s cousin—would be the priest after him. They said there was a curse on my father. But then I was born, so Cai hates me. He knows that the only way he’ll ever get to be priest is if I die.

“But my parents are worried because I’m their only child. My little sister died, and then three more times my mother thought she was going to have another one, but none of the babies got born alive. So the curse talk is starting again.”

Arath’s face puckered, and he paused.

“My father’s scared,” he went on after a minute. “I can tell. He says that the gods still tell him they love him and that he is their chosen one, but I don’t know how long he’ll keep believing that. And if something happens to me, then they’ll know that the curse is true. And then Cai—” He stopped and shook his head, biting his lip as though trying not to cry.

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