Free On Etruscan Time by Tracy Barrett Page B

sherd is so important. Anything we can discover with writing on it helps us to figure out a little bit more about them. Almost all their culture has been lost. The Romans weren’t big on preserving other peoples’ ways of life.”
    â€œSo there couldn’t be anyone around today who’s really an Etruscan?”
    â€œWell, some people here say they’re Etruscans. Ettore, for one. But there was so much intermarriage for centuries and centuries that I doubt there’s anyone alive today with only Etruscan blood. Why?”
    â€œOh, nothing,” Hector mumbled, and he got up and went back to the trench. He worked until he could tell by the cooler air that it was getting late. When he hoisted himself out, he saw that everyone else was packing up too, and he joined the line of tired people heading up the hill to dinner.
    Instead of the soup they’d had for lunch, dinner was spaghetti with meat and hardly any tomato sauce, and then thin slices of pale beef and some kind of stringy green vegetable that he didn’t recognize. He saw the others pouring a few drops of vinegar on it, so he did too, and was surprised at how good it was.
    As one of the ladies took his plate away, he suddenly felt as though he had been hit by a truck. All he could think about was crawling into that narrow little bed in Susanna’s house. He looked at his watch. Eight o’clock Italian time, so it was early afternoon at home.
    He realized that his mother and Ettore were watching him and laughing.
    â€œWhat’s so funny?” he asked.
    â€œYou,” his mother said. “You look like you did when you were two years old and missed your nap. Come on. Let’s go back to the house.”
    He stumbled up the uneven stones, dragged himself up the stairs, and pulled off his shoes. “You can skip brushing your teeth tonight,” his mother said, but he heard her distantly, as though she were a TV in another room, and was asleep almost before he lay down.
    *   *   *
    He was in thick, swirling mist in a timeless in-between place. Somehow he could feel that he was not in the present and not in the past. Three figures stood before him, tall and beautiful and strange-looking, with pointy little smiles and huge, dark eyes. The man had broad shoulders and slim legs, and his hair fell in thick ropes down his bare back. The hair of the two women was bound tightly, and their long noses made their pale, thin faces appear very proud. One wore a long dress. The other had on a shorter skirt, and she carried weapons like a warrior.
    â€œWe have chosen you,” their three voices said together, although their mouths didn’t move.
    Hector bowed. He didn’t know what else to do, but this must have been correct, because they bowed back gravely. Then they spoke together again.
    â€œWe are eternal. We are not of this time, and we are not of that time.”
    â€œI am Uni, the earth, the mother,” said the woman in the long dress. “I am life. I am eternal. I am beyond time.”
    â€œI am Tinia, the sky, the father,” said the man. “I am strength. I am eternal. I am beyond time.”
    â€œI am Menrva, the mind, the daughter,” said the woman with the helmet and spear. “I am thought. I am eternal. I am beyond time.”
    They looked at him in silence. Was he supposed to answer them? What could he say? “I am Hector”? But then they faded and the air cleared, and sound and smell and touch returned. Once again he found himself in that first dream-place: the open square, the temple, the crowd. It wasn’t exactly the same, though. This time, the sun was lower in the sky, and the people seemed more puzzled than anxious. Arath was there, kneeling with his head bowed, long dark hair falling forward, and his hands were bound behind him. Even without seeing his face, Hector recognized him this time.
    Arath looked up then, his expression bleak. He caught