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Mesopotamia

So different froh Central Park in the pitch darkness together, Maharet telling Jesse there was not the slightest reason to be afraid And it had seemed entirely normal then, hadn't it? And so beautiful, as if they were following the paths of an enchanted forest, fearing nothing, talking in excited yet hushed voices How divine to feel so safe! Near dawn, Maharet left Jesse at the apart her to visit in California very soon Maharet had a house there, in the Sonoma mountains

But two years were to pass before the invitation ever caree She was scheduled to work on a dig in Lebanon in July

"You must come for teeks," Maharet had written The plane ticket was enclosed Mael, "a dear friend," would fetch her from the airport

Though Jesse hadn't ad from the start

Chapter 12

Mael, for instance, a tall overpoweringwavy blond hair and deep-set blue eyes There had been so almost eerie about the way he moved, the timbre of his voice, the precise way he handled the car as they drove north to Sonoma County He'd worn the rawhide clothes of a rancher it seeator boots, except for a pair of exquisite black kid gloves and a large pair of gold-rilasses

And yet he'd been so cheerful, so glad to see her, and she'd liked him immediately She'd told him the story of her life before they reached Santa Rosa He had the otten positively dizzy looking at him once or twice Why? The compound itself was unbelievable Who could have built such a place? It was at the end of an iin with; and its back roo out of the mountain, as if by enormous machines Then there were the roof timbers Were they priirth And the adobe walls, positively ancient Had there been Europeans in California so long ago that they could havebut what did it nificent, finally She loved the round iron hearths and anie library and the crude observatory with its ancient brass telescope

She had loved the good-hearted servants who ca from Santa Rosa to clean, do laundry, prepare the sumptuous meals It did not even bother her that she was alone soin the forest She went into Santa Rosa for novels and newspapers She studied the tapestried quilts There were ancient artifacts here she could not identify; which she loved exaht television broadcasts from far and wide There was a cellar movie theater complete with projector, screen, and n immense collection of films On warm afternoons she swa the inevitable northern California chill, huge fires blazed in every roorandest discovery for her had been the fa the lineage of all the branches of the Great faraph albums by the hundreds, and trunks full of painted portraits, soe canvases now layered with dust

At once she devoured the history of the Reeveses of South Carolina, her own people-rich before the Civil War, and ruined after Their photographs were almost more than she could bear Here at last were the forebears she truly resembled; she could see her features in their faces They had her pale skin even her expression! And two of the curly red hair To Jesse an adopted child, this had a very special significance

It was only towards the end of her stay that Jesse began to realize the implications of the family records, as she opened scrolls covered with ancient Latin, Greek, and finally Egyptian hieroglyphics Never afterwards was she able to pinpoint the discovery of the clay tablets deep within the cellar room But the recovery of the memory of her conversations with Maharet were never clouded They'd talked for hours about the family chronicles

Jesse had begged to ith the faiven up school for this library She wanted to translate and adapt the old records and feed them into computers Why not publish the story of the Great Fahly unusual, if not absolutely unique! Even the crowned heads of Europe could not trace themselves this far back

Maharet had been patient with Jesses enthusias work After all, it was only the story of one fah the centuries- sometimes there were only lists of names in the record or short descriptions of uneventful lives, tallies of births and deaths, and records of ration

Good ht of the library, the delicious smells of the old leather and parch fire And Maharet by the hearth, the lovely e faintly tinted glasses, cautioning Jesse that the work s It was the Great Family that eneration, and the knowledge and love of one's kin The record merely made this possible

Jesse's longing for this as greater than anything she'd ever known Surely Maharet would let her stay here! She'd have years in this library, discovering finally the very origins of the family!