Love, Artifacts, and You by Sarah Ready

9

Emma

The Romeo HistoricalSociety is in a three-story rectangular building with large arched windows and tall columns. It sits just off the town square. It’s built from the local sandstone, beige with hints of pink when the sun hits it just right. It’s one of the original buildings and has a cornerstone with the date 1804 carved in it. According to the bronze plaque at the front, the building has a long history and has been the town hall, the court house, a library, a church, a movie theatre, and for the past fifty years, the home of the Historical Society.

Andrew and I were at the front door at eight-thirty on the dot. Just like the old days, Andrew can’t stay in bed past five in the morning. He always said life was too exciting to sleep it away.

When I woke up at six-thirty, he was already dressed in jeans and a long shirt.

He was on the bed next to me with his laptop open. When he saw me awake he smiled, kissed me more awake and then fed me the breakfast he’d made.

At eight thirty, a small, curvy woman with short blonde hair ran up to the front door and let us in. She’d gotten Andrew’s email and would love to show us the Romeo runestone. Her name was Charlotte and she was the archivist at the Historical Society.

So here we are. It’s not yet nine, and we have the runestone to ourselves. Charlotte left us after a few minutes to open up the rooms and check her email. Andrew and I are in the basement—from what I can tell it acts as a storage room of sorts. There are boxes, books, mannequins in clothing from the last two centuries, and enough documents to make any history buff drool. The fluorescent lights flicker and buzz and the air smells like old parchment. The Romeo runestone is in the center of the room. It’s made of sandstone, it’s about three foot high and two foot wide, and it has runic writing carved in the surface.

I look down at the weathered sandstone and try to decipher the runes. But it’s nearly impossible to concentrate. Every time I start to translate, Andrew leans in and brushes his hand over the back of my neck. It’s a featherlight touch, barely there. But his fingers on my neck remind me of the fourth time we made love last night. We went down to the kitchen for a midnight snack. Before eating, he bent me over the kitchen table, held me down with his hand clutching the back of my neck and entered me from behind. So now, every time he brushes his fingers over my neck, my body goes all tingly and my mind goes blank.

The back of his fingers drift over my neck and I shiver.

“What do you think?” he asks. He looks at the stone while his fingers play over my sensitive skin.

Concentrate.

“It’s pretty incredible. There’s so little evidence of Viking settlements in North America. I’m surprised this hasn’t made its way through the archaeology circuit.”

It’s only in recent years that archeologists have found settlements using satellite imagery to scan for houses and farms covered by a thousand years of soil. Romeo, New York is farther south and west than anything they’ve found yet.

“In my experience, a lot of important findings are buried in museum basements and people’s attics. They can stay hidden for hundreds of years until someone comes along and uncovers them. My guess is they don’t realize what a treasure they have.”

I think about the Ming vase I heard that recently sold at auction for more than twenty million dollars. It was found by a collector at a bed and breakfast. The owners were using it as a door stop.

Then I look over my shoulder at Andrew. He’s studying the runestone with lowered brows. When he worked with my dad he had a better grasp of ancient writing systems than any of us. He’d rather read hieroglyphics than any high school textbook I shared with him. He used to make me laugh so hard when he read ancient graffiti carved into temples, tombs and monuments. No matter the era, people love to write I was here, or Publius is stupid, or Philomena has big tits on the walls. Now we do it on bathroom stalls, back then, they did it on pyramids and standing stones. But Andrew could always read it all.

I smile. “Do you remember when we visited the barrow?”

It was an old Stone Age burial mound that my dad discovered.

“The one with the obscene graffiti?”

I grin. “Mhmm.”

I was fourteen and the graffitied sexual exploits of Thorni Longaxe fascinated me. The mound had been discovered by Vikings, and they weren’t shy about carving into the walls. They liked buxom widows, having sex, their weapons, treasure, and their dogs. Andrew and I went in late one night with a lantern and he whispered the phrases to me. It was the beginning of my awareness of him as someone more than a friend.

When one man claimed in runic graffiti that his dog was the most beautiful woman on earth we both ended up laughing until we cried.

Andrew raises an eyebrow. “Why do you ask? Are you thinking of trying one of Longaxe’s positions?”

“No. Well…maybe later.” I cover my mouth and hold back a snort at the surprise in his eyes, then the flood of heat in them.

“Is that so?”

I shake my head and pull my hand away from my mouth. “I just meant, you used to know futhark. Can you still read it?”

Futhark is the runic writing system used from about the third century to the sixteenth century by the peoples of northern Europe, Scandinavia and Iceland. There are sixteen letters in the alphabet, they’re angular and written from right to left.

“Some. I’m rusty. I worked with a team in Denmark a few years back.” He gestures at the runestone. “It reminds me of the Jelling stones.”

The Jelling stones are massive runestones in Denmark from the tenth century. The oldest stone was raised by King Grom as a memorial for his beloved wife.

I nod. “Me too.”

But then I turn back and look up at him. He just casually mentioned working with a team in Denmark and it gives me a hint to the years I missed. He hasn’t said anything since yesterday about the five years that he was free but didn’t come back to me. I wonder if he’ll tell me about them or if it’s too painful.

I set my hand on his forearm. “Is that what you did? Find artifacts? Did you work with archeologists the last few years?”

He tilts his head to the side like he’s considering how to answer.

Maybe he won’t answer. He’s holding a lot back. My chest pinches when I remember him not saying I love you back.

He does. I know he does.

But.

The Andrew I remember never held back. Not in conversation, not in the way he moved or the way he lived. Everything was done with gusto. This new Andrew, he’s more careful.

“It’s okay. You don’t have to answer. We have plenty of time.” I smile at him.

He lets out a sigh, maybe one of relief.

“I was in Denmark too. Two years ago. Imagine, we might’ve run into each other.”

He shakes his head no. That’s right. He wasn’t in a good place then. He wasn’t ready.

I take my hand off his arm.

He lifts one side of his mouth in a half-smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. “I can answer your question. I did still work in the field. I found out that you were right. I have an uncanny talent for finding artifacts and lost treasure. Honestly, I don’t think I have the skill to do anything else. This is it for me.” He holds out his hands and shrugs.

I smile at him, but for some reason what he’s saying makes my chest ache.

“Maybe this is the beginning, then, of the partnership we talked about all those years ago. Once I get back on my feet and find the capital, I’m going to start a business again…”

I trail off because he has a strange look in his eyes.

“What? You don’t have to go into business with me. I wasn’t…”

He doesn’t let me finish. He leans down and places a kiss on my mouth. I sink into him and wrap my hands around his neck. Suddenly, he pulls away and sets me back. I blink at the speed that he pulled away.

He turns away from me, toward the stone.

“Andrew?”

He shakes his head. “I’m trying not to take you on the floor next to a runestone.”

“Oh. Ohhh.”

I stay quiet while the fluorescent lights buzz and Andrew’s breathing slows. There’s a small smile on my face that I can’t contain. When Andrew turns back to me his eyes are needy and heated but he doesn’t look like he’s about to strip me naked.

“So…futhark?”

He looks at me and shakes his head in obvious amusement. Then, “Right. I’m paraphrasing a rough translation here.”

“Got it.”

He steps forward and leans over the stone. He runs his fingers over the runes from right to left. “The stone says, ‘Eric the Old, King of Vinland…there’s some more titles there…ordered this monument made in honor of Vinland’s Adornment, beloved wife, Thelgi. That she who won for herself his heart may find his treasure. It lies at Sol’s…”

“Sol, the Norse sun goddess?”

“That’s right. It says, at Sol’s barrow.”

“Another burial mound?”

“No. That’s not right.” He frowns. “Let me think.”

I stare at the rune. I’m not able to decipher it. Then I remember the book Mrs. Charles gave me. “There’s an old book I have on the Lost Treasure. The author seemed to think the treasure is in a cave.”

Andrew starts to nod. “Right. You’re right. It says cavern.”

A thrill of excitement runs through me. “Okay. Sol’s cavern. What’s next?”

“That’s about it. There’s just one more line. It says…”

He stops and his shoulders stiffen. I step closer. His fingers hover over the last line.

“What is it?”

He shakes his head and visibly relaxes. “Nothing. It’s not a clue. It says, ‘Come back to me, my sun.’”

On the last line his voice comes out lower, rougher, and I shiver. I think of the moment he landed on top of me in the woods, when he looked down at me and said, “The sun.”

I look at his expression, but he seems to have shrugged off whatever came over him.

“Should we go?” I ask. I’ve taken pictures of the stone and we now have more to go on. “We can plan our next move.”

Andrew’s eyes light up and he motions for me to precede him up the stairs. I wait for his hand to touch my back or linger on my neck, but he doesn’t reach out for me again.