The Lost Sisterhood

  “Welcome, welcome!” A petite elderly woman greeted me with smiling enthusiasm before the door was even fully open. “Come in! I am making pfefferkuchen!” Wiping her hands on her brown corduroy trousers, she closed the door behind me and ran back to the kitchen as if something was on fire. “Keep your shoes on. The floor is cold.”

  Until that moment I had been mindful of Mr. Telemakhos’s assertion that the woman I was about to meet “knew more than she let on.” As a consequence, I had half-imagined Dr. Jäger to be a closet Amazon and had even managed to worry myself with visions of a six-foot battle-ax determined to stop me at last. Now I felt like laughing at my own fears. Although trim and seemingly energetic, Dr. Jäger did not strike me as someone who would round up the likes of Alex Reznik in her spare time.

  After hanging my soaking jacket on a coatrack made out of deer antlers, I stepped into the living room and looked around. It really was a very old house, with uneven stone walls and a sagging whitewashed ceiling held up by wooden beams. Every available surface was dominated by some part of an animal; the walls were covered in hunting trophies—heads of stags, wild boars, and even bears were staring at me with alert glass eyes—and every chair was lined with skins and pelts. One of the armchairs facing the open fireplace had a deep-brown bearskin draped over it, with the paws and claws still attached.

  “Who’s the hunter?” I asked, when Dr. Jäger returned with a coffee tray.

  She laughed delightedly and put down the tray on the stone edge of the fireplace. “Hunting runs in the family. At least, it used to. There aren’t bears here anymore.” She straightened and looked up at the wall. “Some of those are ancient. I should probably throw them out. But”—she shrugged and poured the coffee—”they keep me company.”

  Grateful for the open fire, I followed her example and sat down in one of the armchairs facing the burning logs, my feet up on the brick.

  “Try one of my pfefferkuchen,” insisted Dr. Jäger, offering me a bowl with cookies. “They are a traditional Christmas treat, and I am baking them now so they can ripen to perfection before the holidays.” She smiled conspiratorially, a pair of girlish dimples emerging. “To tell you the truth, I bake them all year round. But don’t say that to anyone.”

  We talked a bit more about the pepper cookies before my hostess finally clasped her hands and said, “So, you have come to Kalkriese because of the bracelet. Tell me, where did you hear about it?”

  I wrestled briefly with the truth, which would have involved mentioning Mr. Telemakhos, who—by his own admission—was persona non grata in the German museum world … and ended up merely saying, “I can’t remember. Apparently, two similar bracelets were found in Turkey. And as it happens, I have one, too.” I showed her the jackal on my wrist.

  Dr. Jäger leaned closer, clearly intrigued. “That looks like bronze. How interesting. The bracelet we had here was made of iron.” Seeing my surprise, she nodded cryptically and sat back in the chair, draping a shawl over her legs. “It was worn by a woman who fell into the great bog two thousand years ago. When we found her at the site, we suspected she had fought in the Battle of Teutoburger Wald, but no one believed us. Women didn’t take part in the war, my fellow scholars said. Women are victims, not warriors. But it was clear to me her skull had been broken by a sharp blade. Also, her compressed spine and bent tailbone showed signs of a life on horseback, and seven arrowheads were clustered beneath her lower back”—Dr. Jäger demonstrated with her hands—”which to me suggested she had been carrying a quiver with arrows. Furthermore, she had stress fractures on her bones, which had healed up while she was still alive—fractures from fighting and strenuous physical training. Of course, everyone agreed with us about everything right until the moment we told them it was not a man, but a woman. Archaeologists always assume—or at least, they used to assume—that skeletons found with weapons were male. It would never even occur to them to ask the question, and admittedly, sometimes it can be hard to tell the difference.”

  “Well, how do you know it was a woman?” I asked.

  Dr. Jäger leaned forward to stir the fire with a long poker. “Her pelvis. She had clear signs of what we call ‘diastasis symphysis pubis.’ She must have been in a lot of pain. It was a unique find. The only problem was, she disappeared. We sent her off to a forensic lab for further analysis, but she never arrived. It was quite a scandal at the time. All we had left was the bracelet. And two weeks after we put it on display at the museum, that disappeared, too.”

  Getting up, Dr. Jäger went over to a brass cauldron in the corner to fetch more wood for the fire. “So, you see,” she continued, stretching to place the logs where she wanted them, “I know almost as little about it as you do. That is why”—she smiled an apology at me—”I was hoping you could tell me more.”

  We sat for a while in silence, listening to the sap popping in the fresh logs. Then I said, “All I know is that some people claim to have seen quite a few of these bracelets—the bronze variety—scattered all over the ancient world. In fact, I have even heard a theory that they were worn by”—I cleared my throat and tried to sound casual—”the ancient Amazons.”

  I suppose I could not blame Dr. Jäger for laughing out loud. “I am sorry,” she said, “but that is too wonderful! Now I understand. You have been talking to that old spinner in Greece, Yanni Telemakhos.”

  A little embarrassed by her ability to see right through me, I scrambled to come up with an explanation, only to have it waved aside. “Don’t worry,” she said, still chuckling. “I know it is not only crazy people who dream about the Amazons, but also people who love mystery and adventure.” She studied my face with a knowing smile. “Are you one of those people, Diana?”

  Perhaps it was the cozy fire, or perhaps it was her kindness … whatever the reason, I suddenly felt an overwhelming urge to tell Dr. Jäger everything. Right from the disappearance of my grandmother eighteen years earlier to my arrival in Germany the day before. Even if she was not an Amazon, and even if she did not know more than she let on, I still had a feeling it would be worthwhile to tell her about my tribulations and discoveries.

  After talking nonstop for at least an hour, I finally sat back and shook my head. “Sorry to go on like this—”

  “No, no, no,” said my hostess, her face full of sympathy. “You have been through a lot. Made important discoveries. And now you are wondering whether your grandmother was right after all. Whether she really was an Amazon.” Ignoring my halfhearted protests, Dr. Jäger went on, staring off into the fire, “You are thinking to yourself, ‘If I follow the Amazon trail to the end, will I find her again?’ It is only natural that you are thinking like that, Diana, because you loved her very much. But you know, it can be dangerous to live your life waiting for a summons from another world. You begin to see things, hear things … make something out of nothing.” She reached out absentmindedly to take another pepper cookie, only to find the bowl empty. “Tell me, this notebook of hers … does it mention any names? Places? Anything that could explain why all these different people seem to be so interested in it?”

  “That’s the thing,” I said. “I’m not even sure they are interested in it, or why they would be. There’s no message in it—no treasure map, if you will. It’s clear that Reznik is looking for revenge. What al-Aqrab wants with the Amazons I honestly don’t know, but I am quite sure he has been using me to try and find them. As for the Amazons”—I glanced at my hostess, suspecting she still didn’t believe these mythical women were walking among us—”they are doing everything they can to stop me.”

  Dr. Jäger broke into a smile. “But here you are.”

  All around me, the animals were watching intently from their perch on the walls, as if wondering what I would do next. “Yes,” I said, as much to them as to my hostess. “But this is the end of the trail; it runs right into that bog. The Historia Amazonum says a small group of Amazons went north, and maybe it’s true. Maybe they lived on here in Germany for another thousand ye
ars, forged new bracelets out of iron, and fought against the Romans the way they had fought against the Greeks. But how will we ever know?”

  Dr. Jäger reached over and gave my hand a squeeze. “Return to Oxford and try to forget all these terrible things. I am glad you came today. You have done more than any grandmother could hope for. With this journey, I am confident you have finally given her peace, just as you, yourself, will now be at peace. Go home, my dear, go home.”

  The absurdity of her advice left me speechless. It was as if she hadn’t understood what I had told her … as if she thought my fear of being hunted down was completely unfounded. However, it was getting late, and I didn’t feel like reiterating my worries about Reznik and al-Aqrab to someone who clearly didn’t care after all.

  Before leaving, I asked Dr. Jäger if I could use her bathroom, and as I washed my hands I couldn’t help peeking into the medicine cabinet. On the shelves I spied all the usual creams and pills … and then a lineup of phenol, diethyl ether, and morphine … plus two mugs full of surgical instruments.

  It was so surreal, I almost started laughing. What on earth did a sweet, elderly woman need all this doctor’s equipment for? Wounded pets? Hunting accidents? Illegitimate medical procedures? My laughing impulse quickly turned to unease. Diethyl ether was an old-fashioned anesthetic, used to induce unconsciousness. But on whom? Nosy guests? I left the bathroom with my pulse pounding in my ears.

  In my hurry to return to the living room I mistook the doors in the tiny corridor and accidentally entered a crepuscular cubbyhole of an office. A single lamp stood precariously on the edge of a small desk covered in sliding stacks of paper, its green glass shade casting an eerie, supernatural shimmer upon the jam-packed bookcases lining the walls.

  But the most unsettling thing about the room was not the ghostly light, or the fact that there were no windows—no, it was the look of the bookshelves. For there were no books on them, just brochures. Completely identical white brochures piled on top of one another as densely as possible … some even spilling out of open cardboard boxes on the floor.

  I couldn’t help it. I had to take a closer look.

  Stepping over to an open box, I bent down to examine the front cover of the brochure lying on top. It was an auction catalog with a Greek vase on the cover, fresh from the printer. The layout was beyond boring, and yet it stirred a memory. Had I not, quite recently, spotted precisely the same sort of catalog on Katherine Kent’s desk? The only reason why I remembered it so well was that she had whisked it into a drawer with inexplicable urgency.

  In a flash I was back in Mr. Telemakhos’s basement, hearing him saying, with spirited defiance, “Some say they never use telephones or email when they communicate with one another … that they use a medium that can’t be traced—maybe a printed pamphlet of sorts.”

  Unable to resist, I picked up the catalog and started leafing through it, hurriedly scanning the pages for Amazon writing. But all I found were narrow columns with numbered entries and the occasional black-and-white photographs of antique vases, paintings, and other objects for sale. Except …

  Stepping closer to the desk lamp, I scrutinized the picture of an Oriental rug, looking for any sign of writing or code. Was it my imagination, or had an almost microscopic paragraph written in Granny’s Amazon alphabet been transposed onto the photograph, to blend in perfectly with the pattern of the rug? A paragraph so itsy-bitsy you would need a magnifying glass to read it?

  In my excitement, I nearly forgot that I was trespassing. Not until I heard a floorboard creaking did I quickly put down the catalog and spin around to leave the room.

  And found Dr. Jäger standing right behind me, her kind face distorted with fury and suspicion.

  “I’m so sorry!” I exclaimed. “I have a dreadful sense of direction. But what a marvelous collection of journals.” I forced out what I hoped was a disarming smile. “German archaeology, I presume. Are you an editor?”

  “Yes,” she said eventually, her features softening a bit. “I am the editor in chief. A thankless job. But someone has to do it.” Putting a gentle hand on my elbow, she escorted me back into the living room. “Would you like another cup of coffee? Or tea perhaps?”

  “It’s getting late. I really ought to—”

  “I insist!” She practically pushed me back into the chair I had sat in before. “It is a cold evening out; you need something warm.” With a smile that was almost as friendly as before, Dr. Jäger disappeared into the kitchen, and I heard her putting on a kettle.

  Looking down, I saw my ritzy new handbag sitting on the floor right beside the chair. It was precisely where I had left it, but in my heightened state of anxiety it now struck me as being suspiciously erect. Had my hostess done a quick search through its contents, I wondered, and made sure to puff it up again afterward?

  Checking the bag with trembling fingers I confirmed that everything was still there: Granny’s notebook, the Historia Amazonum, and all my remaining money, wound with a tight rubber band.

  I barely knew what to do. Part of me wanted desperately to get up and leave, but as always, my curiosity was so great it temporarily drowned out my better sense. Had I accidentally laid eyes on one of the secret Amazon pamphlets Mr. Telemakhos had talked about?

  A sound from the kitchen pulled me back to the moment. Or perhaps I should say it was the sudden absence of noise that alerted me to a furtive broken mumble betraying a secret phone conversation.

  This time I didn’t even think about it; my body rose from the chair all by itself. Swarmed by worrisome images—Dr. Jäger’s incensed expression, the surgical equipment, the hundreds if not thousands of auction catalogs—I fled across the floor as silently as I could, my panic increasing with every step. My hostess was clearly determined to keep me in her house for a while longer … but why? And why the secret phone call? Whatever lay behind her odd behavior, it boded no good for me, I was sure of it.

  Grabbing my wet jacket on the way, I burst outside without even pausing to close the door behind me. And then I ran, as fast as I could, back down the path toward my car.

  By now the forest was almost completely dark and even foggier than it had been at the time of my arrival, and when I finally heard Dr. Jäger yelling after me from the house, I knew she could not possibly see me anymore. “Diana!” she cried, her voice shrill with anger. “Come back here! I command you!”

  But of course I kept running. Even though I could barely see five feet ahead, I knew all I had to do was follow the path and keep going downhill. And so I continued down, down, down through the misty darkness, splashing right through mud and freezing puddles while trying to steer clear of low-hanging branches.

  I was so sure I remembered the way that it came as a shock to me when the path suddenly split into two. Stumped, I ran back and forth a few times, trying to determine which of the two new paths was the least wrong one. They both appeared to be going upward, back into the forest, albeit in two completely different directions. All I could see of their further course was a gauzy gray film covering pitch-black nothing, and neither felt right to me.

  It was then, as I stood there uncertainly, I heard a sound that sent a gust of dread through my entire body. It was a long howl followed by barking—perhaps not quite the sound a wolf would make, but close enough. And in the silence following the last bark I heard something else—a familiar sound that, under the circumstances, was extremely unsettling.

  It was the heavy, rhythmical thudding of galloping horses.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  While the Romans were struggling against the elements, the barbarians suddenly surrounded them on all sides at once, stealing through the densest thickets, as they were familiar with the paths.

  —CASSIUS DIO, Roman History

  THE FOREST WAS FULL OF DEMONS: HOWLING, HISSING, INVISIBLE DEmons with the legs of horses and a frightening ability to weave in and out of the fabric of reality. It sounded as if now they were here, then over there … and for a few utterl
y confusing minutes, nowhere at all.

  But in that brief quiet, I picked up deep human voices tangled with confusion, bouncing back and forth between the trees in a language I could not just then make out—a language that seemed to dissolve in the fog and reach me only in fragments. Then came gunshots, ten at least, in rapid succession … followed by the most harrowing scream I had ever heard.

  Perhaps because I was so terrified, it took a while for the sounds to make sense. If I were to trust my ears, there were men, dogs, horses, and the chilling death cries of a wild beast I could not name. The only logical explanation, I decided, as I stood there hiding behind a massive tree trunk just off the path, was that it was hunting season, and that all the demonic screeching and hissing were the natural sounds of fleeing prey.

  Desperate to get out of the forest before I was overrun by frightened animals, or even worse, by their pursuers, I dived into the nearest thicket and began clawing my way downward through the undergrowth, in what I hoped was the direction of my car. Perhaps it would have been more logical to head the other way, in order to make myself known to the hunters and maybe even ask for directions, but something about these men’s ferocity—their growling voices and violent manner of riding—told me I was better off if they didn’t realize I was there.

  Crawling through the brambles, I was soon drenched by the rain-soaked foliage. My teeth chattering with cold, I found myself pleading with the forest to forgive my intrusion and let me go … but it kept gripping me with clingy grasses and vicious thorns, doing its best to prevent my escape.

  Because the thicket was so dense and I was preoccupied with avoiding the vengeful brambles, I did not even register the approaching horses until I heard a loud snort right behind me.

  The sound so unnerved me I instinctively dropped to the ground, forcing myself not to move. And then came the voices, not the deep male voices I had heard before, but rather a crisp exchange in German between two women.