Pandora(82)

Dora is very still.

‘The pithos.’

‘The very same.’

Finally, Dora’s eyes meet Edward’s across the table. Then, slowly, she pushes her plate aside, lays her hands flat on the starched tablecloth.

‘I would ask, please, that you be frank with me.’

Sir William nods. ‘Very well. Twelve months ago I instigated a dig in Greece. The excavation was difficult. It took six months to finally reach the room I sought. From it, we retrieved a pithos. It was very large, extremely heavy, and took five men to haul it out.’

Hamilton pauses.

‘Go on,’ Dora says. Her face is perfectly straight.

‘We removed the dust and mud. We were meticulous in cleaning it. And we were shocked to discover there wasn’t a mark on it. Perfect condition. I alone knew its worth, suspected its age. But the truth of it is, Dora, that the pithos does not truly belong to me. It never did. I had just been safeguarding it all those years. So I had it packaged, sent to Palermo, where I kept it in a warehouse until it was time to ship it to England.’

In the middle of the table, the candles flicker in their sticks. It seems everyone at the table is holding fast their breath until Dora releases hers.

‘It was found in Greece.’

‘Yes.’

Dora’s fingers curl into her palms. Her voice is quiet, taut, when she says, ‘And where, in Greece?’

For a long moment Sir William watches her. ‘Mount Lykaion. Dora, I reopened your parents’ dig site.’

There is silence. Edward watches her across the table, the play of emotions that switch from pain to comprehension to resignation, and Edward wants to go to her, to hold her in his arms.

Then Dora’s face crumples, and she puts her head in her hands.





CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR





He dreams. He dreams of dank wet earth, a tomb of impenetrable dark, of ancient mud and stone.

He does not know where he is. He does not know who he is. He feels like himself, yet can sense a voice whispering in his skull – a breath, a sigh, a song – that does not belong to him.

Then, there is light.

He feels elation, relief. He laughs, breathes in the sweetness of air. Oh, how he has missed its caress, how he has craved its purity! But then, then …

Water. He has always hated it. First dirt and flotsam, then salt and brine. The endless darkness of fathoms.

He waits, again. Again. Always waiting.

He calls out. Sings his pain across the ocean, gives life to the wind. And then, as inevitable as the stars, they come.

And how easily they found him! How he retched on their greed as they hauled him free.

For days he tosses and floats, for days he feels their disease, their insatiable lust. Why, then, should he make their journey pleasant? Why not whisper fear into their hearts, pour sickness into their wounds and run the tempests wild? They know what they are, they know what they do. They know their time draws near, for he is both their salvation and their purist hell.

Water.

It is merely a passageway to somewhere else. He feels the lull of waves, hears the call of gulls, smells the familiar scent of earth caught helpless in the breeze, and he smiles in the face of the quickening.

‘Hezekiah?’

He wakes to Lottie nudging his shoulder. He groans, rolls onto his back. The basement floor is cold and hard beneath him, and for a long moment he stares up at the ceiling, the rotten beams dusted liberally with grey cobwebs that hang like gauzy garlands.

‘What do you do down here?’ Lottie asks.

He notes the nervous lilt in her voice but he has no patience for it. He sits up, wipes a hand over his face. Despite the chill of the basement, his skin is sticky-hot.

‘What time is it?’

‘Past ten.’

Hezekiah frowns.

He came home at half past six – through a fug of gin he remembers checking the gilt pocketwatch he still carries everywhere with him since purchasing it – and went down to the basement to check on the vase, to see if it was safely delivered, back where it belonged. He sat down in front of it, placed his hands on its sides (warm, he had been surprised to find) and willed it to speak. Of course, he did not expect it to. He did not expect to hear a voice materialise from its earthern bowels. No, he wanted only to know, to understand why it had thwarted him so long, why it was empty, why why why …

‘I must have fallen asleep,’ he mutters pointlessly.

Lottie fidgets her fingers. The action irritates him.

‘Are you hungry?’

‘No.’

A beat.

‘Why is this thing so important to you, Hezekiah? Why do you covet it so?’

He feels his insides coil, his anger begins to rear, and he can hear a loud hum in his head.

‘Because it is mine,’ he snaps.

‘Is it?’

Hezekiah curls his fist. He hears Lottie take a step back toward the stairs.

‘Helen didn’t deserve it. I told you how calculating she was. How deceitful. She used me.’

‘But Helen is dead.’

‘Yes. And now it is mine.’

The humming stops. Hezekiah sighs.

‘Then why don’t you sell it?’

For a long moment Hezekiah is quiet. He considers. How much to tell? To tell at all? But he knows Lottie, knows she is like a bulldog with a chop that will not rest until it has been satiated.