Finally, they ended their day at a gin bar in Soho near the hotel. Without the comfort of using Vulcan’s enchantment, the conversation felt stilted. “What was your favorite thing you saw today?” Aida asked her friend as she fumbled to keep the conversation going.
Yumi thought for a moment, then launched into a list of things that had excited her during their first foray into London. Aida was about to ask her to narrow down her list when a blanket of calm enveloped her, muting the sounds of the restaurant around her and focusing her attention. There was a god nearby.
She didn’t look around the room. She didn’t kick Yumi under the table. Instead, she smiled and pointed out that Yumi needed to pick one favorite thing, not twenty.
“Yes, sir, Ms. Vacation Police.” Yumi saluted her. Aida registered some relief that Yumi didn’t notice anything strange about her or her response.
“The cast room at the V&A,” she said, and ignoring Aida’s instruction of only one thing, she began to list all the statues in the massive room that had caught her attention.
The calm grew heavier. Aida went through the motions, rolling her eyes at Yumi at one point, teasing her at another, and giving her facts about Michelangelo’s sculpture of David when her friend began to talk about the museum’s copy. Aida didn’t dare seek out the source of the calm, and she burned inside to turn her head and see which one was spying on them. She didn’t think it was Mo—he didn’t seem like someone who could contain his commentary on their conversation—which meant it was Apate or Discordia. But why? Did they suspect something? Had she slipped up and forgotten to set Vulcan’s charm on one of their conversations?
Eventually, Yumi realized that something wasn’t right with Aida. “You’re off your game, Aida. I feel like you are barely listening to me.”
“I’ve been responding,” she said.
“Yes, but you lack enthusiasm. I must have tired you out dragging you all over London today.”
Aida nodded. At least that was true. “I am exhausted.”
The calm now seemed like a lead weight. Wherever the god was, they were very close. “Very exhausted. Maybe we should turn in early tonight.”
“Party pooper,” Yumi said, but she didn’t argue for one more drink, which she often did on nights when Aida was half-hearted about being out. She pulled her jacket off the back of the chair and put it on.
The heavy calm followed them on their walk all the way back to the hotel. Aida resisted turning to see who it might be for fear of catching their attention. The calmness gave her a sense of reason as well, and she knew that if they were to throw MODAoff their trail, she needed to truly act as though they were just on vacation, unaware of any supernatural gods that might be fluttering around them.
When they crossed the threshold into the hotel, the calm feeling abruptly winked out, and the panic it had pushed downward came roaring back into her consciousness. Only then did she turn to see who might be behind her, but no one was there.
Back in the suite, they collapsed on the circular couch in the sitting room. Yumi flipped on the television and Aida immediately began texting her friend, waving at her to look at her phone. She explained what happened at dinner and on the walk to the hotel.
I wondered why you were being so strange.
We need a code word, so I can tell you, Aida texted.
Yumi stared off at a distance for a moment then typed,Ifyou can touch me, tap me three times. Or ask me “do you remember the time when...” and make something up. I’ll know.
They saw neither hide nor hair of any gods in the following days. To be safe, they peppered in the other places Mo mentioned, and while they were interesting, as expected, none yielded a meander, whereas Yumi’s instinct to target locations with connections to antiquities proved useful. Finding a meander at the British Museum in the floor of the Elgin Marbles room was a given, seeing as how the ancient temple pieces had been plundered from the Parthenon in Greece. In Room 32 of the National Gallery, Aida spied an elaborate meander in the cornice. At the interior entrance to the National Portrait Gallery, another meander decorated the cornice around the room.
They were stymied about the fifth meander until they heard about the Sir John Soane’s Museum and the nineteenth-century architect’s collection of ancient Roman and Greek items. It was off-season and a weekday, so they had the museum mostly tothemselves, which was good because the rooms were small and cramped. The museum was a meander in itself, a discombobulated maze of rooms full of statues and paintings. Everywhere they turned, there was something amazing to look at. And sure enough, they found a meander in the cornice encircling the domed skylight in the No. 13 Breakfast Room.
“Thank the gods,” Yumi said as she lifted the lens toward the ceiling.
Aida nudged her friend. “Maybe don’t invoke them while we are doing this,” she whispered.
“Ahh, right,” she said, pocketing the lens and pulling out her phone for photos.
After snapping pictures, they wandered through the museum a bit more, partly to play the guise of sightseers and partly because the house was so fascinating. But when they reached the Sepulchral Chamber and stood viewing the 3,300-year-old sarcophagus of Egyptian Pharaoh Seti I, Aida couldn’t take it anymore. She motioned for Yumi to mask their phones.
“What do we do now?” she asked.
Yumi’s normal level of exuberance was missing. “Fuck. I really don’t know. Finding the meanders was an adventure. I’m confident I can figure out the key, but having a vague IP address isn’t necessarily enough to track down Pandora. And then, what will we do when we get there? I mean, come on, Aida, we’re meddling in something much bigger than us. We could die.”
She said these last few words in a whisper. Aida was surprised to see tears gathering in her friend’s eyes. Yumi was always positive, energetic, and ready to tackle anything that was headed her way. Aida had always admired her bright way of looking at the world. She didn’t know what else to do but to enfold her friend in her arms.
Yumi cried into Aida’s shoulder for a minute or so, then finally let go, wiping away her tears with her thumbs. She looked at the sarcophagus and cracked a grin. “I think we could use a change of atmosphere.”
Aida put a hand on her friend’s shoulder. “No kidding, Yumi. The atmosphere down here is so heavy, even the mummies are going to start shedding tears.”
Yumi laughed. “Well, let’s hope they don’t demand tissues. I don’t think the museum staff is ready for that!”
