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My trowel paused halfway to my bucket. "What?"
Raheem glanced up. "Yeah, I mean, it's a really cool find, but it doesn't look like it's anything too special. I'm not sure why Luca and Blanton decided to be all secretive about it. It's not like it's in great shape for its age or anything."
An image flashed through my mind of the book, smooth cover black against the skin of my hands. I could still remember the texture of the leather, buttery soft and supple. "How old was it?" I asked faintly.
"Oh, that's right, you weren't here. Mass spec put it in the early sixteenth century. Which is what we were expecting from the chapel."
Five hundred years. That was no five-hundred year old book I'd held in my hands. But I couldn't deny a part of me was relieved to hear that there didn't appear to be anything special about it. Just another artifact, I told myself. I tried hard to believe it.
"Hey you two, making progress?" Dr. Blanton's voice cut into my thoughts, and I glanced up to find her tying a bandana over her hair as she knelt beside Raheem at the side of the feature.
"We will be now," Raheem said with a grin. "You joining us in the trenches?"
Dr. Blanton pulled her trowel from her back pocket. "I've got to pull my weight around here, right? Besides, someone has to keep you two in line."
Raheem snorted, scooting over to make room for her by his screen. "River maybe, but you know I never set a foot outside the line."
Dr. Blanton rolled her eyes as she got to work. "Naturally. Though I'm glad to see you're doing well this morning, River," she added, glancing my way with a smile.
My brows lifted. "Should I not be?"
"Oh, I just had a funny dream about you last night," she said with a laugh.
It was like someone had dropped an ice cube down the back of my shirt, turning my skin cold and clammy. "Yeah?" I managed to choke out.
"It was silly," she said dismissively. "I dreamt that you'd come to my house and were looking at that book we found. I caught you in the living room unwrapping it, but then when you turned around, it wasn't you."
"What do you mean, it wasn't me?"
Dr. Blanton shook her head. "It looked like you, but it wasn't you." She laughed. "Just wait, you stay out here a little longer and you'll be dreaming of the dig too."
I forced a laugh and turned back to my work, but her words stayed with me all the rest of the day. I could still hear them as I tucked my boots very deliberately under my bed and wrapped myself in my blankets, burrowing deep into the warmth to ward off the chill that seemed to cling to me.
It looked like you, but it wasn't you.
12
Falling.
I shouted, flailed, my arms and legs pinwheeling as I plunged backwards. Inky blackness enveloped me, and I opened my mouth to scream, but no sound came out. There was nothing but heat, invisible flames lapping at my skin as I fell.
Help me.
Help me.
Help—
"River!"
Theo's voice. Get out of here, I tried to shout, but I remained silent, my words tangling uselessly in my throat.
Hands on my shoulders, pulling at me. I struggled against them. "River," Theo said again, and I realized that my eyes were open.
"Th—Theo?" I croaked.
His face was as white as a sheet, his eyes wide. "I've been trying to wake you up for the past ten minutes," he said.
I looked past him, at the moonlit trees in the distance, the silvery road stretching through the shadows. "Where—"
