As a fellow distinguished scientist, Jasper would never understand what was happening to her. How could he, when she was having difficulty explaining it, even to herself? He’d probably tell her she was under too much pressure and volunteer again to come over and be with her.
For now, she’d keep ignoring him, at least until she could come up with a plausible excuse for what was going on.
Instead she pulled up the internet page that described the statue head. “It’s the carved capital of one of the columns in Our Lady crypt of Canterbury Cathedral.”
“That’s what I thought.” Harrison studied the black-and-white drawing. The page had been ripped from one of Dad’s books, Archaeologia Cantiana, Volume 13, written in 1880. Plugging the title into an advanced internet search had easily given her access to the book, which contained a detailed discussion of the architecture of Our Lady, the central chapel beneath Canterbury Cathedral.
She’d learned the stone head was at the top of column F on the north part of the underground chapel. All the other pillars had carvings too, mostly of monsters, dragons, and other mythical creatures. Out of them all, why had Dad chosen the human head?
She retrieved another sheet from the table. “Dad also ripped out the page containing the floor plan of Our Lady.” The yellowed paper was from the same book, and she’d easily located the position of column F on the diagram.
Although she’d once walked through the crypt during a tour, she hadn’t taken much interest in the columns that held up the chapel’s ceiling and lent support to the structure above it. Compared to the more spectacular architectural feats elsewhere in the cathedral, the crypt had paled in comparison. Now she wished she’d paid more attention.
Harrison placed the page with the carved sculpture next to the floor plan. “What message is Arthur communicating through these two pages?”
“What does this particular column in the crypt have to do with his research?”
“That’s the million-pound question, isn’t it?” Harrison began to power his chair around the table toward some of the other papers.
“Dad didn’t need to be quite so mysterious with what he left.” In fact, he could have told her more when they were on the phone the other day.
Even as her frustration mounted, she knew he wasn’t totally at fault for his evasiveness. She’d made it clear in recent years that she was no longer the little girl who worshipped the ground he walked on and believed everything he told her. She’d snubbed his conversations about his research often enough that he’d spoken of it less over time.
Harrison came to a stop at the opposite end of the table. “With Lionel Inc. going after you so aggressively, it’s quite possible they’ve known about Arthur’s Tree of Life theories for some time. Even if not, Arthur wouldn’t want a discovery of this magnitude falling into the wrong hands.”
Did Lionel suspect that the holy water could not only heal but also enable a person to cross over time? And what would they do with the holy water if they accessed it? Maybe that’s why Dad had been so secretive, because he didn’t know the long-term ramifications.
Harrison picked up two other pages from the table. One contained several paragraphs about the Priory of St. Sepulchre, founded in 1100 in Canterbury on St. George’s Street.
The other sheet discussed in more depth how the monks sold the holy water to pilgrims visiting Canterbury Cathedral, water the St. Sepulchre nuns provided from a wellspring somewhere on the nunnery grounds. Harrison read the paragraphs, his eyes narrowing with each word.
When he finished, he placed the two wrinkled papers side by side on the table. “If I had to hazard another guess, I’d say Arthur hoped to see into the past—or cross over there—so he could work out the location of the original spring at St. Sepulchre.”
“That’s what I was thinking. But after a quick online search for the history of St. Sepulchre, I learned Canterbury’s Archeological Trust excavated the old convent about ten years ago. They unearthed a cemetery but found nothing more than the skeletal remains of nuns, along with tokens from a Roman graveyard. There’s no mention of a discovery of a wellspring.”
“Quite right, but archaeologists aren’t looking for wellsprings. Such an excavation would require much deeper digging with specialized equipment.”
Her thoughts ticked in an unending rhythm, just like the ticking of the pendulum in the large longcase clock in the corner. “So do you think Dad’s still living in the past?”
Harrison’s attention shifted to the posy. “As mad as it sounds, I think we have to give him the benefit of the doubt until he proves otherwise.”
She fingered the small flower, the living proof something was different about the holy water, that it had life-giving qualities that defied explanation, that maybe it had indirectly originated from the Tree of Life from the Garden of Eden—or at least from one of the seeds.
Even if she was beginning to grasp the importance of her dad’s discoveries, she still had so many questions. “How can a body be in two places at once?”
“It’s highly unlikely a body and soul could straddle two eras indefinitely. My guess is that he’s at risk for losing his life in one or both places.”
As fascinating as it was to think of her dad stepping back in time as she had, not only was he in a life-threatening coma in the present, but who knew what kind of dangers he might face in the past. “I hate that he’s put his life in jeopardy, Harrison.”
“Don’t worry, love.” Harrison’s voice rose with bravado even though worry creased his forehead. “Knowing Arthur as I do, I’m sure he planned out every move before setting his plan into motion.”
If her dad had indeed traveled back in time, then he’d been in the past for almost five days, likely to some point in the Middle Ages when Canterbury’s St. Sepulchre—the source of the holy water—was still in existence. How would a modern man survive in a place so radically different?
“We need to bring him back.” Her sights shifted from one full bookcase to another around the room, as if they held resources that could help her. “Whatever he’s doing isn’t worth the possibility of him dying.”
Harrison nodded at the piece of paper containing Dad’s scribbled thoughts regarding time crossing. His expression was somber. “Read numbers three and four on his list.”
She’d already read the list numerous times, but she reached for the sheet anyway. “Number three: People seem to recover from their visions or movement into the past at varying levels and lengths of time.”
“Number four: There are no indications full recovery can always be made. I speculate that if a person dies while having the vision or movement into the past, then the body remaining in the present will also die—and vice versa.”
Harrison pressed his lips together and stared at the sheets, tapping his long fingers against the table. “What if we need to track down more holy water and give him another dose?”
She touched the ampulla. “So you think another dose will heal him?”
“If the old tales are true, then the holy water has the capability to heal the sick. Certainly coma falls into that category.”
“Could we try the granules from this ampulla?” She grazed the worn engraving on the flask. “The residue is powerful. Maybe it would be enough to heal him.”