Do Your Worst(42)
“Good, that’s good,” his father said when he’d finished the summary of his progress. “I’ll admit I was getting a bit worried we’d sent you to those fancy schools for nothing.”
Clark weathered the graze, barely noticing it.
Alfie Edgeware had come up the son of a butcher and a schoolteacher and almost immediately become exceptional. There wasn’t a lot of money in archaeology. His dad had hustled from day one for speaking engagements and later the book deal, had insisted on consulting on the film even though they’d offered him more money to leave the California creatives alone. He’d risen at the same time as the golden age of Indiana Jones, when the world had hungered for a real-life standin to the action hero’s charismatic mythos, minus the cultural appropriation. Was it any wonder Clark’s meager accomplishments seemed like relative failure in comparison?
“You think the symbols are Pictish in origin?” His dad specialized in the broad region of the UK. He’d even done an adjunct stint at St. Andrews on Scotland’s ancient peoples when Clark was a boy.
They tossed a few theories back and forth—it was nice, easy—ground they were both comfortable treading. His dad was eager to come visit so they could go back and look at the cave together.
“Family project,” he announced absently, checking his calendar and tsking at what he found.
Clark closed his eyes. Family project. It’s what he’d said, proudly, when they were little—about everything from doing the dishes to building a tree house in the yard. It’s what he said when he found out Patrick had invited Clark to Spain.
His dad probably didn’t even realize the slip, was already shifting into goodbyes, but Clark couldn’t shake the timing of it. Patrick hovering like a specter in the room with him. His letters sitting undisturbed in the box Riley had pulled out earlier—most of them unanswered.
“Right.” The phone was hot where it pressed against his cheek.
On some level, maybe this was why he’d called. To remind himself about his dad’s expectations and the consequences of not meeting them.
“See you soon.”
A single conversation had ensured he couldn’t turn tail and run, so the next morning, Clark decided to work in the stables.
There were other interior rooms higher up on his list, but when he got like this—gloomy and agitated—he needed to be outside, to feel the sun on his face. To remember that though he was here to study the dead, he hadn’t joined their number and could still change his fate.
Though the frame of the stable was intact—whoever built it had reinforced the wood with stone—its thatched roof had holes that opened to the sky.
Clark used a hand pick and his masonry trowel to break up the soil floor, removing weeds and debris, looking for artifacts that had probably been lost to either looters or the elements long ago. As he worked, he saved organic materials for sampling: seeds, wood chips, bits of charcoal. Occasionally, a sliver of glass or metal. The HES might not even want the stuff, but Clark needed the routine and the carefulness in contrast to how messy and exposed he felt inside.
Maybe if he hadn’t dedicated his every waking hour to work, his lack of progress wouldn’t feel so dire. But growing up a famous father’s overlooked second son had warped his sense of self. Clark grew up defining the relationships in his life by what he could offer people—knowledge or assistance, and on his worst days, borrowed clout.
Especially now, without the halo effect of his father or brother—he knew he had to be the smartest person in any room. Otherwise, no one would want him there.
Another two days passed.
Martin stopped by only long enough to say he was going on holiday to France for a bit over a fortnight. When Clark asked if the investment firm would be sending a replacement to monitor their progress, he laughed.
Apparently oversight of the dilapidated castle was low on their list of management priorities.
It was just as well, since Clark continued to acquire nothing of note from his survey except for a mild sunburn on the back of his neck. He took a small degree of solace in the fact that whatever Riley was trying to do didn’t seem to be working either.
Yesterday, she had constructed this thing—it looked sort of like a wreath, only shaped like a triangle—made of twigs and herbs and wildflowers. She kept hanging it in different places around the castle. First the front entrance. Then the back. Even outside the stable at one point.
She tried making it bigger, then switching the direction the point faced, groaning for some reason every time Clark walked past it on his way in or out. Perhaps she was just groaning at the sight of him. He didn’t ask.
Though it wasn’t her fault, her beauty carried the constant threat of distraction. Both her body, soft and full—as lush as the most indulgent portrait of Venus—and her arrestingly expressive face. Her frustration was so animated—she pumped her arms in the air and stomped away, blowing air through her lips like she was trying to fill a balloon. Clark envied the freedom of her anger. How she trusted herself to show it.
He told himself she was only a woman, like any other. That he could, with a bit of effort, work in parallel to her while remaining calm, cool, and—Dear god did she have to close her eyes as she rubbed sunscreen down her throat?
Needless to say, when she came up to him around noon on Wednesday, a hamper over her arm and a scowl on her face, and said, “I got you a picnic,” Clark was more than a little taken aback.