“Just be careful, will you?” he said. “Last thing we need is for one of us to break an ankle up here.”
“Theo, when have you known me to break anything?”
“Aside from my heart?” he joked.
“Don’t worry, I’m remedying that. Besides, you know what they say?”
“What’s that?”
“The key to mending a broken heart is a magical puss—eeeeeee!” Dani cried as she disappeared into a hole.
“Dani!” Theo yelled, no longer caring about someone seeing or hearing them. He scrambled up the rocks toward the area where she’d disappeared. At the top there was an almost perfectly round hole. He shined the flashlight in, and there, resting about fifteen feet down covered in dirt and dust, was Dani.
“Juicy! Are you okay?!” he called down to her.
She groaned and sat up. “Yeah, I’m okay.”
“Hold on, I’m going to secure the rope, and I’ll come down to you.”
Once he found a solid rock to tie the rope around, he loweredit into the hole before climbing down to her. The moment his boots hit the ground, he dropped to his knees to check on Dani.
“Sure you’re okay? You didn’t break anything, did you?” he asked.
“No, but it knocked the wind out of me,” she said. “What is this place?”
Theo scanned the flashlight around the cavern. It was pitch-dark save for their flashlights. The area was about double the size of his office at the museum, but empty. As he waved the light around the area, though, something caught his eye.
“Look,” he said, pointing his flashlight at a round slab against the rock about twenty feet from them.
Dani grabbed her flashlight and shined it in the same spot, illuminating a semiround stone that didn’t look natural. Without speaking, they stood and walked over to the stone. Upon further inspection, it became clear that it was a doorway of sorts. With all their might, they pushed the rock, rolling it on its side and revealing another entry cut deep into the side of the Acropolis.
Once the stone was out of the way, they shined their lights down the opening into a tunnel that was at least another fifty feet long.
“Here goes nothing,” Theo said, taking her hand.
Slowly, they walked through the rock tunnel, continuing to scan their flashlights in every direction. At the end of the tunnel, they came upon another room.
This one was even larger than the area where Dani had fallen, about the size of a grade school gym. In the middle of the room sat an altar-like stone slab. And atop the altar, a larnax.
“¡Ay, Dios mío!” Dani said at the same time Theo said, “Ho-ly shit.”
“What is that?” Dani asked.
“It’s a larnax, a type of coffin used by the Minoans.”
It wasn’t very large compared to coffins of the present day. It appeared to be ceramic made to look like wood. The box was covered with drawings and pictures.
“It doesn’t look big enough for a Minotaur,” Dani said.
“Have you known many Minotaurs?” Theo asked jokingly.
“Have you?”
“Fair. Shall we take a closer look?”
Dani nodded and they moved toward the chest, stepping up the altar until they were face-to-face with the box. Other than in a museum, Theo hadn’t come across a larnax in real life. The piece was painted with intricate designs. An eye. A squiggly pattern reminiscent of water. And, most interestingly, a man slaughtering a bull. Theseus.
Whatever lay inside, this was a discovery of discoveries.
