Lucidity

Chapter 27 - Strangers in the Night

The thought of Lukas with Kat propelled Grace down the corridor. The storm raging outside made the lights flicker just as she passed the nurses’ station and turned toward the treatment rooms.

Nothing. They were dark and empty. Beyond them lay a linen closet, Eve Warden’s office and the rec room. The door to the recreation room stood closed, but she heard the murmur of voices beyond.

Grace hesitated, looked around for any possible weapon. Nothing. She glanced back over her shoulder to the nurses’ station but before she could make a move in that direction, the door behind her flew open and a pair of hands pulled her inside, another pair fastening around her face, closing over her nose and mouth.

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“Do you remember Tambora?” Jimmy asked Alex.

“Sure, the big volcano that blew up when I was a baby.”

“It was only five years ago, lad. Don’t go making me feel older than I am.”

Alex just looked at him with a quizzical expression. Jimmy sighed. He was an old man compared to this lad. Compared to everyone, he guessed. “That was the second time that volcano exploded. The first time, in eighteen sixteen, it caused the year without a summer. Thousands around the world starved.”

“Did a lot of people die when it blew up again?” Alex asked and Jimmy realized that a five year old trapped inside a hospital, critically ill, probably wasn’t hooked into CNN.

Jimmy nodded. “Yes. But a lot more were saved.”

“Because Grace figured out how Maeve saved her people when that other volcano exploded. When she found the treasure.”

Jimmy grinned and ran his fingers through Alex’s hair. “Smart lad. You see, Maeve left a map, a clue to where the treasure was hidden in case future generations needed it.”

“But she was buried by all that water. Did you get her back?”

“I wish. That’s what I wanted to try, but it proved too dangerous.” Too expensive as well, but the boy didn’t need to know that. “We tried to rescue Maeve’s grave, but in the end we had to content ourselves with the photos and few pieces we were able to retrieve. The rest we had to sacrifice, bury with fill so that we could save the other tombs. Otherwise, the entire island threatened to collapse back into the water.”

“Poor Maeve. Now she has to stay down there, all alone.”

“I’m thinking she’s not minding the peace and quiet. And she still did her part, even from beyond the grave. You see, after Tambora blew again, I knew that whatever Maeve had done could be done even better now with modern technology, maybe save millions from starvation. Guess you could say I became obsessed, searching out every ancient record with a scrap of Maeve’s story, trying to find the facts hidden among the fiction.” He smiled.

After Tambora, Grace had spent several weeks on a disaster relief mission. When she returned, she became as obsessed as he was with finding Maeve’s treasure. Working side by side, she’d ferret out obscure references, following arcane snippets of information with a mind as nimble and agile as her body. Those had been some of the best days of his life, but he now regretted them. Wasting all that time when they could have been exploring each other instead of mysteries three millennia old.

Of course, back then, they’d thought they had forever, thought what they were doing would save the world.

Jimmy shifted his position, stretched his legs out, hugging Alex to his chest so hard the boy squirmed for breathing room. He wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice, wouldn’t let anything distract him from what was important this time. “Turns out, Grace had the answer all along.”