Page 74 of Never Tear Us Apart
Sal looks up at me.
‘My very long life,’ I tell him with a bravado that I don’t feel just in this moment.
‘Maia, are you sure? You would be safer if you . . .’
‘I wasn’t safe, Sal,’ I tell him. ‘Back there, I put myself in harm’s way all the time, not because I was brave, but because I wasafraid– afraid to be alive in a world that didn’t feel like mine. I don’t feel like that here.’
‘This could simply be love talking,’ Sal says. ‘I see the look in your eyes after a day with Flight Lieutenant Beauchamp. It’s easy for the young to get swept away. But for you, it’s a matter of life and death.’
‘I won’t pretend that doesn’t come into it,’ I say. ‘But so what if it does? Isn’t love the best – no, theonlyreason to cross universes? Love and one incredible chance to save someone who truly deserves to be saved?’
‘Stella,’ Sal says.
‘My grandmother,’ I agree. ‘But before that, before I build a life here, I need to find a way to go back to 2025 on my terms,’ I tell Sal, and the room, the sky at large, as if I might have the ear of the universe. ‘I want to explain, to say goodbye to the people I’m leaving behind, but I also need more information. I won’t be able to save Stella without it.’
‘If wishing was enough to ride time as if it were a bus, I would have been gone a long time ago.’
‘I know,’ I say. ‘But I was thinking about one of the stories that Kathryn told me. And I have an idea. Will you take me to theHal Saflieni Hypogeum?’
Chapter Fifty-One
Sal and I leave the half-house in silence, each of us feeling the weight of a possible goodbye and all the uncertainty that comes with it. Of course, it might not work; it probably won’t. All I have to go on are Kathryn’s stories and not one shred of evidence. But this is the only way I can think of to try to take some control over what is happening to me, because I have found a home here. I have found a family. I have found something I never really believed was true: I have found love. And I will be damned if some mindless cosmic force gets to show me all of that and then rip me away from it any time it wants.
At the 10 p.m. curfew, the streets are quiet and completely dark, save for when a door cracks open on the Gut to reveal a brief slash of light accompanied by the sound of raucous laughter and the scent of perfume and sweat. A warm night air, hoping we can tame the impossible, that we can bring the universe to heel.
‘There,’ Sal whispers as we stop across the street from a place cloaked in slanted shadows. We are in the heart of the small town, Paola. Light from inside the buildings is blotted out, but somewhere nearby, I hear a radio playing and a family talking. There are no soldiers posted outside the entrance gate to the site as I had expected. Sal and I look at each other.
‘It can’t be this easy,’ I say.
‘I hear the local people use the lower levels as a shelter,’ Sal says. ‘The army has nothing to fear from islanders, remember. Wait here.’
Very slowly, with his hands clasped behind his back, Sal saunters over to the gate. I watch as he looks up and down the street and then tries it. The creak it makes sounds deafening in the still night, but the gate opens. Sal looks towards me and beckons.
The night seems to lean in, and I hesitate for a moment, afraid that this time the universe will not let me go, that I’ll never see Danny again.
Chapter Fifty-Two
Sal leads me down through a circular entrance to where a ladder descends into the gloom below. It’s impossible to make out any detail of what might be down there – just the tips of the ladder reaching upwards. This raw and somehow still wild temple feels dangerously alive, and alert to our intrusion. It seems to prowl, searching for something or someone to sate its hunger.
As we feel our way carefully down each rung of the ladder, absolute dark waits for us below. I hear Sal’s feet on stone, and a moment later, I realise I am also at the bottom, my feet meeting the ground. All traces of light are lost, and there is no way to tell what lies in any direction. There is something very old and primal that is not quite in this world or outside it but somewhere in between. There’s a sensation that I am in the mouth of a living creature who is just about to swallow me whole.
‘I’m afraid,’ I confess, whispering out loud, desperate to prove to myself that I am still here and attached to a body. My light voice falls dead into the air, a separate, alien thing.
‘Don’t worry,’ Sal’s voice comes back, comfortingly normal. ‘I feel it, too, but people have been using this part of the temple recently. There will be lanterns. Stay where you are while I find one. It will just be a moment.’
His cautious movements sound around me in the dark: a footstep here and there, the sound of a pebble falling. ThenI hear the worldly clank of metal and glass, followed by the drag of a match across stone. There’s a brief flare of light.
At once, I focus on the steady flame of the match illuminating Sal’s hands, which are working to light the wick of the lantern. Finally, an orb of amber reveals his face, serious and full of intent. The globe radiates outwards, revealing a series of handcarved passages and chambers. Slowly, I look around, gradually getting my bearings.
‘And here’s another.’ Sal locates and lights a second lantern, holding it out towards me.
There is a pile of neatly folded blankets on one vacant shelf that must once have been occupied by the dead; some chairs stand around, as if they’ve just been caught doing something they shouldn’t. There are buckets and candle stumps: nothing you wouldn’t expect to see in any other shelter, but they feel intrusive here, almost obscene.
‘This layer is the oldest part of the temple,’ I tell Sal. ‘Kathryn told me it’s perhaps even eight thousand years old. But I think the part we need to visit is at the lower level . . .’
I take a moment to superimpose this room on the descriptions of the temple that Kathryn gave me.
‘This way.’ Taking the lantern from Sal, I lead the way. The tunnels were made for smaller people and we bow our heads as we make our way deeper into the temple.
