I sat down on my bed in a huff, exhausted by spending the last of the daylight hours studying, listening, and compiling information with Chase. He’d called it quits around six and left me to work for a few more hours. I returned to my room and decided to watch the interview again to look for any physiological anomalies in Dr. Mora’s interview that would point to him lying. I wasn’t going to find anything. He might be sleazy, but he seemed to take his job seriously.
I reached into my laptop bag to grab my computer but my hand found something else—Savannah’s sketchbook. I’d forgotten that I’d taken it in the cafeteria. She must have forgotten too.
The thick book’s brown cover was soft and worn, the corners tattered and dirty, brimming over with secrets about the girl that I wasn’t brave enough to ask.
I’ll just look at the sketches of the carving she did today, that’s all.
Yeah, right.
That was the stupidest thing I’d ever told myself. The all-consuming need to see what her hands had created overwhelmed my poor conscience, which really wasn’t putting up much of a struggle.
The inside cover had what looked like a very long list of cities handwritten in pencil, marker, and multi-colored pens. The title of the list was scrawled in untidy, juvenile handwriting and read Property of Savannah Mason, Athens, Ohio. But then under the first city was a long list of other cities and towns:
Coffee Springs, Alabama
McComb, Mississippi
Cookeville, Tennessee
Cambridge, Ohio
Kewanee, Illinois
Council Bluffs, Iowa
Cottonwood Falls, Kansas
Moorhead, Minnesota
Pierre, South Dakota
Cheyenne, Wyoming
The farther down I read, the more refined the penmanship became. The list spanned almost the entire breadth of the United States. My eyes finally came to rest on the last city on the list: Twin Falls, Idaho
She had told me that she was from Twin Falls when I had first met her. If this were a list of cities she had lived in, why would it be last on her list? Obviously, she hadn’t told me the truth. I wasn’t put out about it, because if she had asked where I was from, I would have lied to her too.
The first parchment page was covered in charcoal pencil and smudged around the edges from wear. It was a woman’s face. And though I had never seen this woman before, the way she smiled warmly back from the page at me was strikingly familiar. On closer inspection, I realized that she looked a little like Savannah, but older. A portrait of her older sister? Her mother, maybe? A relative for sure.
The next pages were scenes from what I guessed were Middle America. Decrepit barns, glassy lakes, cornfields, pastoral expanses … I skimmed through these until I came to another portrait of a woman. This face possibly belonged to the same woman as the first, but she looked more aged, thinner. But she still wore the same sweet smile that Savannah must have inherited from her.
I couldn’t be sure that the next three portraits I came to were of the same person at all. Each picture was of a woman, each one older, more weary and gaunt than the one that preceded it.
The last portrait I found mixed in with a few more landscapes was done in blue pen and seemed rushed compared to the others. The woman had her eyes closed, a peaceful expression on her tired, drooping face. It was haunting, though I couldn’t figure out why. I quickly turned the page, feeling like a sick voyeur looking into Savannah’s private life, a place she hadn’t invited me.
That really should have stopped me, but it didn’t. I was completely disgusted with myself, but not quite enough to stop me from turning pages.
The next sketches were of European countrysides interspersed with famous cathedrals that were familiar to me from my own travels through Europe. Those led into drawings I recognized right away. Israel’s Dome of the Rock, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the Western Wall, the Dead Sea at midday, the Garden of Gethsemane at sunset. Savannah had drawn them so faithfully, all in beautiful detail. I didn’t feel as guilty looking at these—they felt more like postcards of where she had been.
But my hand stopped cold as I turned to the next set of drawings. I looked closer to make sure I was really seeing what I thought I was.
It couldn’t be … me?
There I was, staring back at myself from the page. She had drawn me, over and over again. In each sketch, I looked frustrated, my eyes far away, searching. Looking at my face set in these expressions reminded me of the way I had been feeling as I wandered through the dusty streets of the Holy City.
The last picture she had drawn of me was completely different. For one, I didn’t look homeless anymore. My face was shaved and my hair was washed, which meant that she had drawn this here in Mexico. My whole countenance was different. Happier, more open, without a trace of the frustration I had worn in Jerusalem.
That’s when it happened.
The change.
The quick and silent slip from simple crush to something far more powerful. The strange, confusing surge and swell of emotion that followed was a bizarre blend of euphoria and bewilderment. I was falling—too hard, too fast, too much.
And it was extraordinary.
Maybe this was evidence that she could have some sort of deeper feelings for me too.
That thought should have brought me some measure of elation, but it had quite the opposite effect. I could want her from a distance; I wasn’t hurting anyone besides myself. But to hurt her when I left? That was unacceptable.
My one hope was that the drawings meant nothing to her. Maybe she just found my face interesting from an artist’s standpoint.
As I reached the end of the pages from a book I was never meant to see, the guilt arrived, right on schedule, and I realized what I had done.
I had let the other shoe drop. And I couldn’t shake the faces of the women, all seeming to judge my actions.
I had to give her the book back. Now. I shoved it back in my bag and walked quickly out of my room without thinking through what I was going to say to atone for my sins. Would she be upset? Would she be hurt? A fresh gush of shame gutted me.
I reached her and Claire’s room, still not sure what I was doing. I half hoped they were already asleep. I leaned my ear to the door and heard Claire’s high chirpy voice, babbling away. I knocked quietly. Frantic rustling came from the other side of the door, then Claire yelled, “Come in, Savannah!”
Come in, Savannah?
I walked into the room only to find Claire blushing tomato red as she sat awkwardly on the edge of her bed and Chase leaning on the far wall, looking terribly uncomfortable.
“What’s going on? Where’s Savannah?” I asked.
“She and I got home from shopping, if you can call it that, and Chase came over to say goodnight. She all of a sudden decided that she wanted to go swimming,” Claire said nervously.
“And you didn’t go with her?”
“She said she wanted to go by herself. She’s a big girl, Ryen—” Claire started.
“How long ago did she leave?” I demanded.
“Uh, I don’t know. Chase?”
“I came over around eight, so an hour ago. Mateo crashed early. I was just checking in on the girls before I went to bed, to make sure they’d gotten home safely. Savannah left a few minutes after I showed up, so I figured I would just stay for a while,” Chase overexplained.
“Are you two … What is this?” I asked, my eyes narrowing. They glanced at each other awkwardly and then back at me. Claire gave me a desperate look while Chase didn’t seem able to make eye contact with me anymore.
So Savannah was right about the two of them! And it looked like it was so early in the “relationship” that maybe they hadn’t even defined what they were yet. Since Savannah had asked me not to say anything about it, I begrudgingly let them off the hook.
“Never mind. I’m going to go make sure she’s okay.” They both relaxed as I walked out of the room.
When I got to the hotel’s small pool, it was empty, with no puddles or wet footprints on the cement. No one had been swimming recently. A twinge of alarm skittered up my spine. I called Claire.
“She’s not at the pool. Did she say anything else?” I asked nervously.
“No. She took a towel from the bathroom and had her swimming suit on under her clothes. Do you want us to come and help you look?”
“Take the restaurant and the hotel grounds. I’ll go farther out. Call if you find her.” She hung up as soon as I was done barking instructions.
I should have given Savannah a cell phone or something. I never thought she would go off without at least Claire with her. We were in the middle of the jungle. There was danger everywhere. What was she thinking?
In answer to that, Claire’s words echoed through my head.
She’s a big girl, Ryen.
She was free to do what she wanted. Maybe I shouldn’t go running off after her. She didn’t owe me a call or explanation whatsoever. She wasn’t mine.
But even if she wasn’t mine, my job was to keep her safe, which was the whole reason I’d let her come with us in the first place. I couldn’t let anything happen to her out here.
I stopped walking in the middle of the hotel’s large courtyard and put my fingers to my temples, trying to concentrate. She must have said something to me in the course of the last day or so that would lead me to her.
Then it dawned on me. I knew exactly where she was.
I ran toward Chichen Itza, less than a mile down a dirt road from the hotel, ducking through the dense jungle to the side of the entrance gates to bypass security. I slowed up at open fields around the ancient temples, hoping to find her sitting on the grass. No luck. I picked up my pace and ran toward El Castillo, the temple she had been so disappointed that she wasn’t allowed to climb.
She wasn’t in sight, but if I were her, I would have climbed up the eastern side facing away from the entrance so I’d be less likely to be spotted. I rounded the corner, eyes straining into the darkness.
“Savannah!” I called as loud as I dared.
“Ryen? What are you doing here?” I heard her call in utter astonishment from high up in the darkness.
“I’m looking for you!” I called out in relief.
I flipped my phone open, dialed, and waited for Claire’s hello. “Found her,” was all that I said before hanging up. I pushed the power button so she couldn’t call incessantly for more details.
“What are you doing here?” I called.
“Making bad decisions. This all went so much better in my head!”
“Did Dr. Mora bring you out here?” I asked, trying to make out his shape next to hers.
“Of course not! That guy is a creep,” she said. I took a second to laugh.
“Are you okay?”
“Well, I got about halfway up and a stair gave way. I cut my leg in a few places. This is probably why no one’s supposed to climb up here, huh?” she said in a nonchalant voice, which made it more comical.
My eyes were adjusting to the darkness more each passing minute. I could see her now against the nearly full moon. She was wearing a tank top with minuscule jean shorts and sandals and had the hotel towel wrapped around her leg. The stairs below her were spattered with a good amount of blood. I scanned the steps to find the safest pathway to the top.
“Stay where you are, I’m coming up,” I said.
“I’m not going anywhere,” she called back.
When I reached her, she threw her hands around my neck, pressing her forehead to mine. She must have been either more scared or more hurt than she let on. I let my hands rest on her shoulders, but that was all I allowed myself. Even that was almost too much to handle.
“This was a stupid decision,” she said.
“If we keep to the right, the stairs are less weathered. Can you make it to the top?” I asked, pulling away from her, trying hard to ignore the nearness of her lips, the scent of her skin.
“You’re not mad?”
“You’re allowed to make stupid decisions. So, can you make it?”
“Wouldn’t it be better if we just went back down?”
“If you’re ready to call it quits because of a little blood, you are not the girl I thought you were,” I challenged. “Besides, I want to see the view from the top.”
“So do I,” she admitted.
I led the way slowly toward the safest part of the stairs.
“Did you know,” I said, trying to distract her from the precarious climb, “that this pyramid has ninety-one steps on each side?”
“I wasn’t exactly counting,” she said sarcastically.
“At ninety-one stairs per side, that would make three hundred sixty-four stairs all together. If you count the very top platform step, which the Mayans did, you get three hundred sixty-five stairs. The exact number of days in a year,” I said.
“So this isn’t just a temple,” she guessed.
“It’s also a calendar. It traces the vernal and autumnal equinoxes too. For the Mayans, this is where art, math, and religion met. Fascinating, don’t you think?” I asked, helping her up the last stair to the temple platform at the top.
“Yes. I can now appreciate it as I am currently not about to fall to my death.” I helped her sit carefully on the top step. I sat down next to her and unwrapped the towel to examine her leg. She laid it gingerly on my lap and leaned back to give me room.
“Hmm, all the cuts look superficial,” I lied coolly. The blood was still spilling freely out of the worst of the wounds.
“Really? One of the cuts looked pretty deep.”
A human doctor would have definitely given her stitches. But we were pretty far from any reputable medical center, and she needed help immediately. Luckily, I always carried a few emergency medical supplies from home with me.
“It just looks bad because of the blood. Some antiseptic, ointment, and a few bandages should do the trick.”
I ripped a packet of ordinary antiseptic open with my teeth and started cleaning the worst of the cuts. She cringed as the alcohol hit her skin.
“It would have been a lot safer to wear pants if you were planning to go climbing. Some sturdier shoes would have been smart too,” I teased.
“This wasn’t planned,” she said tartly. “Chase showed up at our hotel room with the look,” she said, raising one eyebrow.
“The look?”
“Yes, the look. The hungry look, the ‘I want Claire now’ look. I’d know that look anywhere.”
“Would you?” I asked fervently.
Did she see it in my eyes every time I looked at her? Could she see it written plainly across my face at this very moment as she held my gaze? Could she see me burning from the inside out because of her nearness?
I looked away from her searching eyes. I was being stupid. She wasn’t mine, and she never would be. Showing her the way I felt would only complicate matters. I busied my hands with cleaning the cuts on her leg. She winced in pain.
“Uh, so I volunteered to go to the pool to get out of their way. That guy has a one-track mind,” she said with a nervous laugh.
“All guys have a one-track mind. It is one of the great universal truths,” I said sardonically.
She was still watching me intently, probably trying to decipher the meaning behind my pointed words. I fished the canister of sealing salve from my bag, a Zhimeyan concoction that instantly sealed most cuts closed.
“Keep watch for security,” I said, trying to distract her. She did as she was told and studied the fields below.
I pulled the largest laceration closed and used just a dab of the salve. I could have used more and spared her a scar completely, but that would have raised her suspicion.
“So, you went to the pool …” I prodded.
“Oh, right. I went to the pool but then decided what I really wanted to do was come here. It would have been too awkward to knock on the door again to ask for my jeans. I didn’t know what they were up to, and I doubt she had a necktie in there to hang on the doorknob to warn me,” she said with a tentative laugh, trying to lighten the mood.
I didn’t know what she meant, but I laughed with her so as to not give me away. She must be referring to some American custom that I wasn’t familiar with. I placed the last of the butterfly bandages and she took her leg back.
“You never told me how you knew where I was,” she said quietly.
“You seemed so disappointed when you found out the temple was closed to the public. And Dr. Mora did say he wanted to show you around. I thought maybe you took him up on his offer,” I joked.
“Oh yes, a date with him would be impossible to turn down,” she laughed. “You shouldn’t have to worry about me, but in this case, I’m glad you did.”
“Glad to be of service,” I said, glancing up at the sky.
“I’ve never seen so many stars,” she said in awe, looking upward with me. I wondered how much more beautiful she would find the stars from space, as I had seen them.
“So, did you decide to come up here because you crave danger, or are you trying to get away from something?” I meant it as a glib remark, but her face fell slightly.
“I kind of wanted to just get away from everything for a little while.”
“I can understand that. This world can be a little rough. I’d like to escape from it sometimes too.”
“A little rough,” she whispered mostly to herself. “Sometimes when I get homesick, I feel a little better looking at the stars. They are quiet, peaceful, unchanging.”
“I know what you mean.” How often had I stared up into the sky, missing my home? I always felt closer to everything I’d left behind by just looking up. As I turned over my thoughts, she took her hair down from the band that held it back. A few tendrils of it were swept up with the light breeze toward me, washing me with her clean scent. I breathed her in.
“Savannah, do you believe in God?” I asked abruptly, startling myself.
She looked at me seriously, maybe to make sure I wasn’t kidding.
“Yes. I have to,” she answered earnestly.
“You have to?”
“I have to believe that there is a higher purpose, a reason for this existence,” she said. “If this is it, if this life is all we get and then we just … cease to exist, it would be beyond useless for me to go on.” She cut off quickly, unwilling or unable to finish her sentence. After a quiet moment, she looked away from me, returning her gaze back to the sky.
“And what about you? A man who scours the world for priceless religious artifacts, do you believe in God?”
I shrugged my shoulders. “Anthropologically speaking, almost every culture from the beginning of history claims the existence of a higher power. Billions of people can’t be wrong, can they?”
Or could they? Could two whole worlds teeming with life all have faith in a power that didn’t exist?
“Is that a ‘yes’?” she questioned.
“It seems that the universe is too full of amazing things for it all to have happened by chance.” I glanced at her face, pale white in moonlight, an example of exactly what I was talking about. “I just wish there was more evidence, you know? Proof enough so that faith wouldn’t be necessary.”
“Evidence? More than nature, the ordered universe, you and me? Isn’t that evidence?” she asked.
“I’m looking for something unassailable. Can you imagine how the world would unite around undeniable proof that God exists?” I asked.
She thought about it for a minute.
“Yes, it would make things easier. But I kind of think God lets us go without concrete proof so that we can choose which path to take. If we all had proof, there would be no choice. God gave us our lives to do what we want with it,” she said simply.
Zhimeya was split over this exact difference of opinion Savannah and I were discussing. Many of my people believed that God wouldn’t have left undeniable proof for us to find, on this planet or ours. Some even believed that our pursuit to prove the existence of God or The Light or a savior, whatever you wanted to call Him, would evoke his judgment upon us, not unlike what God had done to those who had built the biblical Tower of Babel to reach Heaven.
That Savannah would disagree with my mission objective, were she to ever find out, was frustrating. She, in so many words, didn’t think I would find the evidence I was looking for. All the more reason for me to do whatever I could to stop Gideon from disturbing her world, from taking innocent lives over evidence that didn’t exist.
We had been quiet for some time, both wrapped up in our own thoughts. She yawned, reminding me of the late hour.
“So, have you had your fill of danger for one night?” I asked.
“Definitely. I think I’ve sacrificed more than enough blood to appease the Mayan gods for now.” She picked herself up slowly, so as not to disturb the bandages. “Huh, you must have done a good job. I can barely feel the cuts anymore.” Pain relief was a side effect of the sealing salve, but she didn’t need to know that.
On the walk back to the hotel, I regaled her with tales of Claire’s more embarrassing exploits since Claire had no qualms about doing the same to me. It was petty to pick on Claire, but making Savannah laugh, even at Claire’s expense, was just too much fun to resist.
The walk passed too quickly, and the bag hanging on my shoulder got heavier and heavier as we approached her door. I had to give her back her book.
She stopped at the door, with her hand on the knob, and turned back toward me to say something. She was startled silent by my suddenly nervous expression.
“Savannah … I was coming to bring your sketchbook back to you. That’s when I realized you were gone.” I handed it to her. She took it out of my hands and clutched it to her chest as the smile slowly drained from her face.
“Did you look through it?” she asked pointedly.
“Yes,” I said quickly before I could lie to her.
“All of it?” she asked. Her beautiful green eyes burned, belying her blank expression.
“Yes,” I said quietly.
“Wow, that’s … disappointing,” she muttered, looking straight through me with her devastating stare. “I was hoping you would be different. You seemed different, better. But you are just the same as all the others. It was my mistake to have trusted you.”
“No, I—I just wanted to see what you had created. You have an amazing talent …” I sputtered out stupidly.
She laughed a hard laugh once. “So you like what you saw, then?” she said with an acidic edge. “You have a beautiful face. You are well aware of how attractive you are. So I sketched you.” It wasn’t a compliment at all. I should have known the sketches of me meant nothing more to her than that.
“I’m sorry,” I mumbled.
“Ryen, I am damaged, probably beyond repair.” Her tone was cold, clinical, as if she were discussing a medical diagnosis. “I have a lot of issues, trust being the biggest one. So tell me this. How am I supposed to learn to trust when no one I meet deserves it?” Without another word, she turned away from me and shut the door resoundingly behind her.