揟his looks like the coastline on the map back at your place,?I said breathlessly. Suddenly our dead end had turned into an open road.
Down the hall a loud crack, like a dish breaking, drew my attention to the door. Tendrils of an overgrown philodendron pulled their way into the room and wrapped around the legs of the table.
揙h my god!?Phillip must have regained consciousness and was now freaking out in the front room. 揚lease! The plants are going to kill me. What is happening??
揚ipe down!?Marie shouted in his general direction before returning her attention to the phone. 揂lec, what is this piece showing??
揂side from some scant rocky formations close to the coast, there are no islands in the Black Sea,?said Alec. 揂nd this artwork clearly shows an island. This梩his can抰 be right.?He seemed at a loss. 揗ove the camera a little closer.?
Marie did as he asked.
揟he man with the staff is probably Hermes, but it抯 hard to tell with the amount of damage. The ship is the Argo. No doubt about that. And the man with the lyre is Orpheus.?
Circe suddenly gripped Marie抯 arm as her gaze darted from the art on the pottery shard to someplace in the middle distance, her own thoughts probably. She chewed at her bottom lip.
揥hat抯 wrong??I asked.
The philodendron sprouted another length and went to her, coiling around her leg. She waved it away. 揂eaea, the sorceress Circe抯 island, is beyond the Sirenum scopuli.?She gently touched the mermaid figures. 揟he Sirens?Rocks.?
CHAPTER 5
Even in the middle of grief and hopelessness and the impossible tasks piled up in front of me, hope bloomed anew. We had a solid lead. Circe抯 excitement was palpable, and the philodendron sprouted a dozen offshoots and braided itself between us, latching onto our arms and hands.
揑抳e been combing the Aegean for years,?Circe said. 揑 went to Greece and stayed there for years, searching, basing all my research on the consensus that Aeaea had to be somewhere in those waters.?She looked completely defeated. 揝o much time wasted.?
I touched her arm. 揥e don抰 have to waste any more.?
She straightened up. 揧ou don抰 think Phillip happens to have Orpheus抯 lyre lying around here somewhere, do you, Marie??
Marie looked around. 揚robably not, but if you want to feel worse about it, it抯 probably in the collection of some rich asshole who抎 rather hoard it than share it with anybody else.?
揟hanks,?Circe said.
揑t抯 a long shot,?Alec said. He抎 moved his face closer to the camera again, and we were now gazing up his left nostril. 揂 very long shot.?
揃ye,?Marie said, hanging up before he could say anything else.
Circe gently wrapped the pottery shard in a sweater she found draped over the back of a chair. 揌e抯 right, but this is all we have. It might be a long shot, but it抯 also our best one.?
We left the room and headed for the car, but as I walked into the front room, I once again had to keep myself from laughing. Phillip was caught up in a tangle of Rhaphidophora cryptantha, commonly known as a shingle plant. He lay by the front door, wrapped in the shingling growth of juniper-colored leaves with veins the color of bone. The only parts of him that were visible were his bare feet and his balding head. He must have been trying to escape, and the greenery had decided that wasn抰 gonna happen.
揑抣l be back,?Marie said as we headed out the door. 揂nd you better be here. We抮e gonna have a little chat about your activities.?
揑抣l make it up to you! I swear!?he said as he struggled to free himself.
Circe waved her hand and the plant loosened its grip.
Marie nudged him with her foot and he slid across the floor and collided with the couch. He scowled at Marie and she just smiled. 揝ee you later,?she said.
As we piled into the car and headed back toward Rhinebeck, there was something I couldn抰 get out of my head.
揥ho else would want this??I asked as I cradled the pottery in my lap. 揥e have a very specific reason for needing it, but who were the people Phillip sold his forgery to? And why can抰 he remember exactly what happened when he met with them??
揌e抯 so busy lying all the time he probably got his stories mixed up,?Marie said. 揚robably dealers who are gonna resell it for a profit.?
Circe eyed us in the rearview mirror. 揙r somebody else is on the same track as us and got the shard, even if it was a fake version, before us.?
All I could think of was Karter, and the respite of the little side trip to Albany evaporated. Anger poured back in. Phillip hadn抰 mentioned that any of his three mysterious visitors had been teenagers, but one of them might have been Karter. There was no way to know for sure.
Marie interlaced her fingers with mine. 揥hat else do we need? Are we traveling??