Serial Saturday: "Priscilla Sum" Part 23

Part 23

I woke up feeling rested and refreshed...

Three seconds later, my cot tossed me out of bed. Jordyn landed on her shoulder beside me.

“Ow!” She snapped. “What—EARTHQUAKE!”

No duh; I guess I might not have known what it was until somebody screamed it in my face.

The ground rolled and rumbled beneath us. “What is the likelihood of the shaking opening a crack in the ground right under our tent?” I stammered, keeping my jaw tense to avoid chomping on my tongue.

“I d-don’t think we’re... on... a... fault line!” Jordyn answered.

Over the crashing of the trees and the roar of falling rocks, I heard people shouting and alarms blaring all over the place outside our tent. Jordyn and I curled up as small as possible under our cots until the shaking stopped.

Jordyn

I peeled my face from between my elbows and looked over at Jordyn. “Are you okay?” I asked.

“I’m still alive,” she muttered from her fetal position. “How about you?”

“I think it’s stopped,” I said, slowly uncurling my body. My nerves felt like quivering even though I could find things like the hanging ties in the tent to confirm that nothing was shaking still.

Professor Silver popped his head through the door of our tent. "Are you ladies okay?" he asked.

"We're fine," I pushed myself up onto my feet. "What a way to start the day!"

The professor smirked. "I'll say! Why don't you both get dressed and we'll all group up in the middle of camp to get a damage update from Stephanie?"

"Will do."

I hauled out my duffel and picked out a tee shirt and shorts for the day's outfit. Jordyn sat on the edge of her cot, but she wasn't moving.

I slid on my clothes before turning to her. "What's wrong?"

She had a look on her face, like she knew a secret she couldn't possibly tell, or the same way Tony would look when he felt horrible but didn't want to have to explain himself.

"I... kinda don't want to be here anymore," Jordyn mumbled under her breath.

Priscilla

I came over to sit next to her. "Did talking to your mom make you homesick?" I asked. "Or..." I saw the way she crossed her arms over her middle. "Do you feel sick-sick?"

Just at that moment, her gut let out a resonant moan. We both giggled a little. Jordyn put a hand to her forehead.

"Maybe I am coming down with something," she mused. "But it's more like..." She searched my face. "Yesterday was weird, right? It can't be just me who thinks that... Everything that happened... and then the phone call just cutting out like it did..."

She broke off as I started nodding. "Derrick has been picking up on stuff too," I said, and filled her in on what he talked about while she was off making her phone call.

"Wow, that's super shady!" Jordyn mused when I finished. "I think this group might be a little too fixated on finding whatever treasure or something, and I've seen enough paranormal TV shows and films to know that never ends well for the people involved!"

I sighed and stood in the middle of the tent. "But we can't just say to the professor Um, actually, we're done being on the field trip now and we'd like to go home. We can't just leave!"

"But we shouldn't stay if there's something that could threaten our lives!" Jordyn countered. "I vote we take a boat to the mainland and try to call home from there."

I tried to picture how that kind of thing would go down. Would it be as dicey as the trip over here? And our grinning native captain wouldn't be able to help us--would we have to get Alexandros involved? "By ourselves?" I pointed out to Jordyn. "Who would drive the boat, if we did manage to steal one from the beach?"

Kayce

"Kayce knows how to drive a motorboat," Jordyn supplied. "He goes surfing and waterskiing all the time." She sighed and pulled her bag up onto her lap. "I just know that for some reason, every time I think about going back out to that dig and discovering something else for these people, I feel like I'm going to puke!"

An idea unfolded in my head, from a story my dad told. I recalled his deep, sonorous voice telling me a hilarious anecdote about some ancient hero who had a detachment of soldiers pretend to be sick to avoid getting captured by enemy forces.

"Maybe that's it!" I snapped my fingers. "We can pretend to be sick--some more than others--to avoid suspicion and to get the professor to let us stay back from the dig today."

"Today?" Jordyn repeated, skepticism written all over her face. "Wait, you want to do this thing today?"

I shrugged. "If not today, then we'll just prep today and leave tomorrow before anyone realizes what we're doing."

Jordyn gulped and started pulling on some Bermuda shorts and a striped tee shirt. "I don't think I could fake it that well--"

"You don't have to," I said. "Just hang out in here, I'll tell Professor Silver you're sick, and after breakfast I'll bring you some and let you know what the others say." That way, if she really is sick, it might add credibility to what we're trying to do! I thought.

Jordyn twisted a lock of hair around her finger, and finally nodded. "Okay... I don't feel like eating much right now, anyway." She sat on her cot and flopped back onto her pillow.

I moved to the front of the tent. "Just rest up; we'll figure this out."

In the main camp area, the damage from the earthquake was more apparent. One of the RV's had its awning torn halfway off, and there was a lot of equipment smashed and scattered over the ground. Most of the eating tables had escaped harm, but the ones closest to the trees had branches and debris scattered all over them. The food service line was in slightly a different configuration, to avoid the piles of broken things.

Derrick whistled as I joined the group to look around in confusion. "For a short quake, it sure did a lot of destruction!"

Stephanie came walking over to join us, with Greg in tow. "Oh good, you're all here," she started, but then she frowned as she did a head count. "Five--where's Jordyn?"

Professor Silver blinked like he only just noticed the absence. He narrowed his gaze on me. "Yeah, where is she? I thought you said you guys were both fine."

"Well, it wasn't the earthquake that did it," I replied, shrugging my shoulders. "Jordyn just woke up with a belly-ache, so I left her to rest and I'm going to take her some breakfast a little later."

Stephanie

Stephanie pursed her lips as she watched me. "Oh, that's too bad," she crooned. "We were hoping to bring you all out to the dig this morning and try some of the translation attempts for the wall into the temple area this morning."

Derrick leaned forward. "Wait, you guys cracked it?"

Stephanie nodded. "Thanks to your friend here," she gestured to Tony, "We know it talks about Trikymios, the God of Storms, and mentions something about tides and one and four, so we were sort of hoping to use your sleuthing skills down in the main hub room."

Kayce lifted his head like he was going to say something, and I caught his eye. Moving as little as possible, to not attract attention, I gave a tiny shake of my head, and glanced toward the table we were sitting at the night before, when we all agreed there was something shady going on with this group.

"Well, sorry to disappoint," Kayce said. "Honestly, I've been feeling pretty yucky myself, since yesterday afternoon."

Professor Silver raised his eyebrows. A career in the field of Medieval History didn't prepare him for situations like "mass sickness spreading among students. "You too?" he asked Kayce incredulously. "Why didn't you say something sooner?"

Derrick

"Ohhhh--augh!!" Derrick wailed all of a sudden. He bent double, with his arms wrapped around his torso. "It burns! Oh gods, what did I eat?"

Stephanie switched from staring in bewilderment at the two young men rubbing their stomachs with sour faces, to Tony and I, who still stood with blank expressions on our faces. "And... you two are still fine, right?"

I shrugged. "Yeah, as far as I'm concerned; I really want to check on Jordyn."

Stephanie nodded. "Yeah, good idea--in fact, we have a nurse on the team, Trina. She works in the cataloguing segment. I can send her out to the tents to check on your friend. We have medications--"

"Oh, that's all right," I shook my head and picked up the tray of food for Jordyn. "She already had a dose of the anti-nausea medication she brought. Probably all she needs is rest."

Tony stepped forward and looked at Professor Silver. "Is that all right, sir? Can we take the day off of participating in the dig and just relax for today?"

Professor Silver hemmed and hawed for a moment, looking at each of us to see if he could catch us lying, or something. I was almost worried that one of the guys might crack, but at last he said, "Oh, what the heck... I wasn't aware that the work we did yesterday was so strenuous, but I guess one day at camp won't hurt."

Stephanie shot him a look, but she recovered her composure right away and said, "All right, it's your call. I'll radio Drea and let her know you won't be coming."

"Thanks, Steph," Professor Silver called after her as she walked away.

I carried the tray back to our tent. As soon as I approached the door, I heard the cot creak as Jordyn flopped onto it. She even gave a couple loud moans for good measure.

"You don't have to fake it," I said, pushing open the flap. "It's just me."

She sat up right away and grinned. "Oh good!" Her eyes lit up when she saw the tray of pancakes, yogurt and granola, and a juice box. "Far from being actually too sick to stand," she said as she grabbed a pancake and spread yogurt over it, "after you left I got really hungry all of a sudden!"

"Yeah, well," I mused, sitting on my own cot, "Kayce and Derrick caught on, started faking being sick too, so that at least bought us the morning to plan how we're going to do this."

Jordyn licked her fingers and sipped from the juice box. "Do what? I thought we would just get down to the dock, steal a boat, and leave."

I shook my head. "It's not going to be that simple--what about our luggage? What if something happens and we find ourselves in a survival situation? We'll need gear and stuff."

Tony

Jordyn leaned back and drummed her fingers on the side of the juice box. "What about Tony?" she asked. "He's usually pretty good at logistics and stuff. What does he think of all this?"

I glanced over at the dusky-skinned girl. First recommending Kayce to drive the boat, and now pointing out that thing about Tony that I kind of always knew but never fully acknowledged--maybe that was her skill, the ability to notice traits in other people to delegate. "I haven't told him anything yet," I admitted. "He was not around when I had the discussion with Kayce and Derrick, and then I just talked to you about it this morning..."

She rolled her eyes. "You wouldn't just leave him behind with everything going on, would you?"

"No, absolutely not." I tapped my chin. "I just hope I can get him away from Professor Silver long enough to explain things to him."

"Okay, so now we know what we need to do," Jordyn sat up and crossed her legs. "Now how do we get everything we need without anyone noticing?"

I heaved a sigh and brushed my hair out of my face to help me think. "Okay, I think the way it would work is if we pack up and sneak our things out one at a time. They already know you're in your tent, so nobody would miss you if you packed up first. Then you should sneak in and tell Derrick where you hid the stuff, so he and Kayce can get their things. I'll find Tony and explain to him, and then when Kayce is done, he can pass it on to me. By the time Tony and I are packed up, all that's left is to have lunch like normal, and then sneak out."

Jordyn nodded. "Sounds like a plan."

I stood and picked up the tray. "I'll take this back to the canteen area. Remember, pick a place that's hidden enough that no one will find it, and yet close enough to the dock."

"Got it."

"Oh, and," I stopped to catch her gaze. "Don't get caught."

Jordyn smiled. "That's the idea, isn't it?"

I took a minute after leaving the tent to put all thoughts of sneaking off the island out of my head. It would be easiest to pretend that everything was normal if I wasn't self-conscious of the secret plans we'd just made, and the only way to do that was to not think about it until I absolutely had to.

I dropped the tray at the cleaning station, and wandered back to the middle of camp. Everything was weirdly calm, with most of the workers out at the dig.

Tony sat with a group of linguists, and they all had copies of the translated inscription in front of them, with the English translation underneath:

βασιλιάς των τρικυμίων κοιτάξτε τον ήλιο αφήστε την παλίρροια να ρέει και τρέξτε στο δεξί σας χέρι ένα τέντωμα και τέσσερα

Vasiliás ton Trikymíon, koitáxte ton ílio, afíste tin palírroia na réei kai tréxte sto dexí sas chéri éna téntoma kai téssera

"King of Storms, face the sun, let the tide flow and run to your right hand one stretch and four."

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