Read The Sword of Ruth: The Story of Jesus' Little Sister Page 19
The next afternoon the helicopter zoomed over ragged, barren mountains. Jessie was seated beside the pilot. Feeling as insignificant as a pigeon in a whirlwind, I glanced at Zak. He was watching the landscape.
We came to what had once been an inlet of an inland sea, edging a dead valley. The copter landed near the bottom of a ridge. Climbing out, we unloaded our luggage, and the copter departed. Zak headed for a wall of rock and pressed a remote unit. The wall of rock slid away. Behind it were two heavy doors. They opened. Jessie and I followed Zak into a large cavern, its arms shooting off in various directions.
An old woman appeared and hugged Zak.
"Raven, " Zak said, "I'd like you to meet Maya. She's one of the Ancients. Her people discovered this place centuries ago. She is the keeper."
Maya's face was pleated with wrinkles, her eyes milky from age. She took my hands and examined them, then my face, every inch of it, and finally my eyes.
"You are the one," she said.
An old man riding a golf cart putted up to us and stopped.
"This is Simeon, Maya's husband," Zak said. "Whatever needs doing, he does."
"And right now," Simeon said in a scratchy voice, "I need to relieve you of your luggage."
He loaded it onto the cart and drove off.
"Supper should be ready soon," Zak said. "The dining room is down this tunnel on the right. Felipe has prepared his specialty, roasted chicken seasoned with soy and Worcestershire sauces."
I started after Jessie and Zak.
Maya pulled me aside. "You are with me."
She led me along a tunnel in another direction and into a library. It was furnished with elegant 1930s style furniture, the kind seen in old movies. Laid out on a huge table in the center of the room was a scroll.
"This is one of them," she said. "It's up to you to tell us what it means."
"Me? Gees, I'm sorry, but I don't read Aramaic or Greek or any of the ancient languages. It never occurred to me that I might need to know something like that."
"You know more than you think," she said. "The Ancients never lie."