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Excerpt from There it was again. The music seemed to hang in the air. Patricia slid from between the sheets, flinching against the cold. I'm mad, she thought. I'll probably end up with splinters in my feet or worse still, a bite from a Rincon spider. Still, better to be here at the refugio doing some real fieldwork than stuck in that fusty old room back at the university. Thank you, Peter, for inviting me to join the group. Who would have thought that bloody awful earthquake would have given me such a brilliant opportunity? She looked out of the window. The moonlight crept over the mountains and valleys like fingers running over the strings of a harp. The scene was unreal. Dark crevices kept their secrets to themselves. Damn, Patricia thought. Now the music has stopped. She lingered by the window, loath to pull herself away. Finally, shaking with the cold, she went back to bed. "Did you hear anything last night?" she asked tentatively as she squeezed in between two of her colleagues at breakfast. "Only John snoring," Martha laughed. "Come on Patricia, not that music nonsense again. You're letting your imagination get the better of you." Peter, the leader of the archaeologists, spoke irritably. He was beginning to doubt the wisdom of having invited Patricia to join the group. The ten of them had worked together successfully on a number of digs. Some had questioned why he wanted her to join them. "You really didn't hear anything?" Patricia asked incredulously. "Let it go." Peter turned away without trying to hide his impatience. "Okay you guys," he continued, addressing the rest of the team. "I know we've had three fruitless days, and apart from Patricia's music in the night, we don't have a lot to show for it. Let's give it our best shot. Just think what it would mean if we found evidence of that Inca community. We wouldn't have to worry about fighting for grants or project money again. National Geographic, here we come!" The rallying cry signalled the end of breakfast and amidst a general babble, they gathered their notebooks and prepared to depart. |