Free Outside Eden by Merry Jones Page A

looked up at the stars. ‘Even so. You’re here for a reason. God wanted you to come.’
    Harper folded the map, replaced it in the envelope. Wondered how she’d last ten days with Lynne talking nonstop, connecting every other sentence to God.
    ‘It’s sure beautiful here, isn’t it?’ Lynne said.
    Harper agreed.
    ‘I didn’t imagine it this way. I thought it would be, you know, desert and sandy. But I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that God would put beautiful events in a beautiful place—’
    ‘Hey, Lynne. You coming?’ Peter called from the street.
    ‘On my way!’ Lynne ran off, waving to Harper. ‘See you tomorrow, partner!’
    Harper watched her scurry down the path to Peter. He held his arm out, wrapped it around Lynne and led her away into the night.
    The next morning, Harper dressed in khaki pants and a long-sleeved white cotton shirt, a wide-rimmed hat to shield her from the sun. She rushed through breakfast, dropped Hagit and Chloe at the nursery, and hurried off with a quick goodbye, both relieved and a little hurt that Chloe seemed oblivious to her departure.
    Harper was the first one on the bus that would shuttle them to the site. Dr Ben Haim’s students arrived next, filling the back of the bus. Lynne and her husband took a block of seats with others from their church. As the driver pulled out of the kibbutz, their pastor stood and led them in prayer.
    ‘Lord, guide us today as we attempt to do your work. It is your word that we follow. Your will that we seek to fulfill . . .’
    Harper tried not to listen. Thought of Hank. Missed him. Pictured Chloe, wondered what she was doing. Imagined her listening to a story. In Hebrew.
    Finally, the bus ride ended, and they arrived at Megiddo South. Some structures from the prison were still there – the watchtower loomed over the parking lot as if armed guards were still posted there. Beyond the tower, the dig covered a vast, bare expanse, stripped of topsoil and a few feet of fill, in sharp contrast to the surrounding green hilly fields. The area was divided by string and posts into a grid of five-meter squares, each identified on the map. Paths of wooden scaffolding ran across sections and around the perimeter.
    A line of trailers and supply shacks had been set up at the edge of the parking lot. One trailer served as the site office, and there Harper found Josh Kahn, one of Dr Ben Haim’s student assistants. Josh fitted her with an equipment kit: two pairs of black leather gloves, white suede gloves, a grapefruit knife, graph paper and pencils, brushes, a trowel, a folding shovel, Ziploc bags, a pick, screens, measuring tape, tweezers, clippers, a level, foil, a folded tarp, a dustpan, nails, a hammer, a camera, dust masks, kneepads, a scale, tablespoons, an air puffer, a refillable water bottle. She asked about dirt buckets, learned they’d already been distributed throughout the site.
    Josh guided her to section thirteen, where Lynne was waiting, decked out in hat, sunglasses, kneepads and gloves, her nose covered with zinc oxide.
    ‘Let me show you how to get started,’ Josh offered. He took out a trowel, gently digging into the ground, scratching the top exposed stratum of earth. Removing the dirt, straining it through a screen into a nearby bucket. ‘You strain to examine the fill.’
    Harper watched impatiently. ‘We’ll manage. Really.’
    ‘But be careful,’ Josh said. ‘The earth is in layers, or stratifications. You’ll be able to see them, the different colors and textures. So you want to dig evenly, going only one layer at a time to preserve context – in other words, to be sure of the exact location of the find. Because the deeper the stratum, the older the find. That’s why we remove only one level at a time, to keep things in their own time—’
    ‘She knows all about it, Josh.’ Lynne interrupted. ‘Harper here has a PhD in archeology. She could probably teach you what to do.’
    Josh’s mouth opened. ‘Oh.