Hearing her name on his tongue sent a swirl of jealousy and protectiveness roiling through his stomach.
“We’re engaged!” Theo blurted out.
Why? Why did he just do that?
Andreas looked taken aback, startling at Theo’s words. “Oh, I didn’t realize.”
“Yeah, we’ve known each other almost our whole lives,” Theo continued. “She’s my best friend’s sister.”
Andreas chuckled. “I assume he had thoughts on the two of you dating.”
Oh, Eddie would have more than just thoughts, all right.
But Theo only muttered in agreement.
“Anyway,” Theo said, “I just didn’t want you to get the wrong idea, is all.”
“Of course. I’m sorry if I came across too strongly earlier. Natural habit when there’s a pretty woman around, you know, being painfully single and all at this age,” he joked, putting his hands up to show no offense.
“Your yayá is like my mom. Always hounding me to settled down with a Good Greek Girl,” Theo said with a slight chuckle.
“Yet Daniela is not Greek.”
He always wondered what would happen if he told hismother that he wanted to date Dani. It was a toss-up as to whom he’d need to tell first: Eddie or his mom.
“No, she’s not. But if you want to come to America, I’m sure my mom would happily set you up with one of her friends’ daughters.”
Theo and Andreas laughed, clearly sharing similar experiences even though they lived thousands of miles apart.
“So what all is in here?” Theo said, taking a large book out of the box. Theo flipped a few pages, stopping on a picture of a clay vessel, one he hadn’t seen before. Painted on the surface was a man holding up the head of the Minotaur outside a cave. He wore a tunic with a medallion hanging from his neck: the eye with a μ. “Do you know what this is supposed to be a painting of?” Theo asked, pointing at the page in the book.
Andreas craned his neck to see what Theo was looking at. “Ah,” he said, relaxing back in place. “Τα Παιδι? του Μιν?ταυρου.”
Theo furrowed his brow. “The Minotaur’s Children? What is that?”
Andreas reached into the box and pulled out a leather-bound notebook with various papers and clippings sticking out of it. He thumbed through it before stopping on a page and handing it over to Theo.
It was a sketch of the same symbol that was on the medallion and the same symbol on their family’s olive oil bottles and Theo’s pendant. He stared at it for a few moments, trying to make sense of what he was looking at, debating whether to show Andreas the medallion around his neck.
“It’s a secret society,” Andreas said. “A cult that worships the Minotaur. Allegedly, they know the whereabouts of the eye. According to my yayá, they’re the ones responsible for the erasure of our family’s history.”
Theo listened on as he flipped through the book, discovering Andreas’s handwritten theories, maps, and drawings about the Minotaur and the eye.
“You can take that with you, if you’d like, so you can read through my notes this evening,” Andreas said.
“Are you sure?” Theo asked.
Andreas simply nodded.
“I honestly didn’t think people were out there looking for it,” Theo said, tucking the book under his arm and then walking around the room, inspecting the various paintings and books lining the shelves. “I always thought it was just a story my papou told me.”
“Oh, there will always be people looking for it. Like Atlantis and El Dorado. Explorers will search until they have confirmation. Like that lost Moon City in the Amazon.”
“And if there is no confirmation? If those places, those artifacts don’t exist?” Theo asked. He was beginning to sound like his parents.
Andreas laughed. “But that’s not why we become archaeologists, is it? Because we think the unbelievable might not exist? It’s more fun to believe, to wonder, don’t you think?”
Of course it was. Hence why Theo took up writing so he could make up his own stories.
