Timekeeper (Timekeeper #1)(38)
Colton lifted his thin eyebrows. “That’s rather violent.”
“A lot of Greek stories are violent. Best not tell you about Troy, then.”
“No, no—tell me.”
So they spent the afternoon talking about the fall of Troy and Achilles’s wrath, of Theseus’s heroism in the Labyrinth, and how Cupid and Psyche had fallen in love. Colton would have demanded more, but Danny wanted to show him the other things he had brought.
As he handed Colton the figurines, their fingers occasionally brushed. Each time a flash of heat started at Danny’s fingertips and traveled all the way to his stomach, where it sat like a hot coal.
Colton laughed over the drunken German, although Danny told him that not all Germans looked like that; they actually had a very nice German family on their street who did not wear lederhosen. He talked about the colonies in Australia, the American Revolution, and the Irish Question. Scotland was a land of kilts and bagpipes, and Italy of wine and art.
Danny took out the second book he had brought with him. An atlas.
“This shows you the world,” he said, opening it to reveal the maps within. He pointed at Greece. “That’s where all those stories come from. Here’s where Troy would have been, near Turkey.” He turned the page. “That’s Egypt, in Africa. Long ago, they built pyramids to appease their Pharaoh.” Danny drew a pyramid in the dust.
“They have their own gods, too, but not like the Greeks. Some Egyptian gods have animal heads.” He attempted to draw jackal-headed Anubis, but failed utterly. “There are different gods for each religion, for the most part. And then there are the Gaian gods.”
“What are those?”
Danny fiddled with the chain of his timepiece, thinking back to when his father had first told him the story of Aetas’s demise. “The Gaian gods once protected the earth. They were cast-offs from Chronos, the creator of time. One of them, Aetas, inherited the running of time from Chronos.
“But it went wrong. He gave the power to humans, and Chronos wasn’t pleased with that, so he confronted Aetas on earth. They fought in the sea, a storm raging all around them …”
Colton was staring at him so intently that Danny trailed off, mesmerized by the gleam of his amber eyes.
“And?” Colton prompted.
“And …” Danny shook his head. “Aetas lost. Some say that Chronos chopped off his head and fed it to a kraken. Other stories say that Chronos took away Aetas’s powers, turned him mortal, and then burned him alive.”
“But the version I like best,” Christopher would say as Danny sat on his lap, listening raptly, “is the one where Chronos tried to reattach Aetas as a finger on his hand. Aetas resisted. He took out his own beating heart and crushed it into dust, scattering time around the world. That’s why some parts of the world run on different times. Aetas’s blood pooled into the sea—”
“And that’s why it’s so salty!” a younger Danny would finish.
Danny took a deep breath, returning to the present. “So that was the end of the Timekeeper. We’re the Timekeepers, now.”
Danny felt a touch at his jaw and raised his head. Colton, golden and solemn, regarded him as though he was trying to read Danny’s story. As if everything was printed on his skin, his face a picture in substitute of words.
Danny ducked his head and pulled the atlas closer, turning the pages quickly. He stopped at random and pointed.
“This is India.”
Colton watched him a second longer, then leaned closer to take in the map. “It’s big.”
Danny picked up the elephant and handed it to Colton. The spirit tilted it this way and that, making the sunlight spark off the tiny jewels.
“Those beasts are huge up close. People ride them. From what I’ve heard, India is so different from England that it’s like stepping into another world entirely.” Danny turned back to the atlas. “Britain’s taken the place over, though.”
Danny’s schoolbooks had always painted India as a savage place, one in dire need of help, as the people barely knew how to run themselves. He doubted that was true. He wondered, not for the first time, what it was like to suddenly have your entire country snatched away from you, to have foreigners pressing their ideals on you in the hope you could change to be something you weren’t.
His thoughts briefly flitted to Daphne and her exchange program. He wondered what Daphne thought of those schoolbooks, or if her father had drawn distrustful looks. If she thought her pale skin was a blessing or a curse.
“And there are clocks there, too?” Colton asked, setting the jeweled elephant down.
“Of course. I’m sure there must be hundreds of towers controlling Indian time. I’ve always wanted …” It sounded stupid, even in his own head, but Colton’s look urged him on. “I’ve always wanted to travel abroad. To see clock towers elsewhere. I’m fond of London, but I’d like to see other things.”
Danny turned back a few pages and tapped his finger on France. “My family was supposed to go here on holiday. Mum was so excited. She even tried to teach me French, but I’m no good with languages. We would practice with a man she knows from work. Once I tried to say ‘the green chair,’ but it sounded exactly like the word for worm, so I ended up saying ‘the chair worm.’” Colton laughed softly, the sound like chiming glass.