God Bones

Chapter 18: The Lovers

Luce

I had time to spend.

After a slightly awkward lunch at which nobody spoke, I found myself at the library one again.

I didn't know who would be guarding the gardens tonight, but it was better than sneaking about the gardens in pure daylight. I'll go when Arion is guarding, so nobody would notice I was missing from the room and if he did catch me, I could always say I was just looking for him.

I decided to spend my time in with the books, maybe I would take a look at the skeleton Gabriel wanted me to find, and hopefully I wouldn't bump into that lovely bundle of sunshine and daisies named Rhys.

The pile of papers and files were exactly where Rhys had left them and as usual, there was nobody in sight. I sat down at the desk and tied my hair back, securing the it with a pencil.

There were so many papers, I had no idea where to start. I picked a few up at random.

They were photocopies of the lab certificates, certifying the skeleton was authentic. The lab had attempted to carbon date the skeleton and also found the chemical composition of the salt and crystal inclusions. Sure enough, they checked out as Gabriel told me. Some soil inclusions matched the profile of a particular area island near Crete, called Dia.

Interesting.

Dia.

It's an uninhabited island off the coast of Crete of almost no importance.

In 1976, however, ruins of an ancient port was found under the sea, likely belonging to the Minoan civilization and that's the only reason I don't have to look up that island on the internet, that information is ingrained in my brain.

The skeleton was at least three thousand years old, from the carbon dating, and was found in Crete. Or at least very close to it.

Gabriel had also ordered DNA tests.

They damaged one of the teeth to see if any DNA could be extracted but despite the enamel being in decently good condition, there was no luck.

The enamel is the hardest and most durable substance in the human body. Even if other bones and cells had weathered down over time, the enamel was capable of preserving the soft tissue inside the tooth for millenia.

The soft tissue was what we used for extracting DNA and using it we could tell where the person was from, what kind of diseases he had and find any descendents. It was a powerful tool, but the report said they were unable to find any DNA to test. It was far too fragmented to sequence. Oh well.

Still, the other evidence was convincing enough that I believed the provenance Gabriel had established.

Beyond the carbon dating reports, the mineral inclusions and the failed DNA test, there was no other scientific data. Why would there be? Gabriel sees it as an art piece, a collectible, not a pool of information.

I organized the papers first, sorting them chronologically. The few pages of lab reports were the easiest to follow. The history of the skeleton was not.

At least three people had the skeleton before it reached Gabriel, the names came up again and again.

I took a pencil and wrote down them on the back of the lab reports.

1. Ionas Matthew
2. Tyr Matthew
3. Oberon Hart

Here's what I understand if the story, from the pages of Ionas's diary from 1942.

Ionas and Tyr were brothers, explorers who moonlighted as grave robbers. They were hunted down by the police on Crete for stealing a few historic artifacts that belonged to the country and fled to the island of Dia. On Dia, they found two skeletons hidden away in a cove, sparkling in the sunlight, as if they were made from diamonds.