The Genesis Plague - Michael Byrnes [129]
With utmost finesse, Brooke curled her fingertips around the lid’s thick rim. She lifted away the plate-like clay disc and gave it to Flaherty. ‘Hold this.’
Hesitant, he said, ‘What if it’s cursed or something?’
She shot him a chastising look. ‘For real? You’re a Catholic, not an occult freak.’
‘Fine.’ He begrudgingly took the lid from her and held it at his side like a discus.
Brooke and Flaherty peered down at the uncovered jar.
‘Looks like one of those jumbo candles from Pottery Barn … without the wick,’ said Flaherty.
‘Kinda does,’ she agreed. Brooke tapped a fingernail on the solid glossy layer that levelled off just below the jar’s rim, and it made the clink-clink sound of glass.
‘I’m not seeing anything inside it,’ Flaherty said. ‘You?’
‘No.’ But her hopes weren’t dashed, because if the ancient Mesopotamians had preserved the jar’s contents employing the same method used on Lilith’s head, then deep inside the jar, something had been trapped inside a viscous substance that over the centuries had hardened like glass. They just couldn’t see it yet.
‘Maybe we can shine a light in there, or something,’ he suggested.
‘I’ve got a better idea.’ Closely studying the cut lines that split the circular rim into two equal arcs, Brooke could see paper-thin slivers of light squeezing through the fine gaps. ‘I don’t think this is glued.’
‘Oh. Well maybe we could …’
Reaching in with both hands, she pinched the top of the rim at the middle of each half and applied gentle outward pressure on the opposing sides.
‘… crack it open, or something.’
It was sticky at first. She bit her lip and put some more push behind her fingers. The pottery yielded with a gritty creak, yawned open along its front side from top to bottom like a giant pistachio. ‘Hah … there we go.’
Flaherty tilted his head sideways for a better look, but refused to get any closer to the relic. With the bulbous core still masked in the jar’s shadows, he couldn’t yet decipher the contents.
Thrilled, Brooke was grinning ear to ear. ‘Oh, this is amazing.’
Flaherty’s eyes twinkled with admiration as he watched how she worked the pieces apart with patient dexterity. There was an endearing childlike innocence lurking beneath Brooke Thompson’s sophisticated exterior; that wide-eyed wonderment that seemed to exist only on Christmas morning. And in this intimate moment, her passion for archaeology and discovery burned like the sun.
Brooke spread the pottery halves so that their crescent-shaped bottom surfaces slid out from under the solidified inner mass. The liberated core clunked down against the bottom of the display case. ‘My God, Tommy … look at this!’ she gasped
Setting aside his irrational superstitions, he stepped up to the case and peered in at what she’d found. He cringed at the frightful sight. ‘Mother Mary.’
‘It’s beautiful,’ she said.
‘Beautiful?’ Flaherty said. What had been inside the jar resembled a solid, honey-coloured crystal ball, much the same as the one containing Lilith’s ghastly head. And coiled up inside the opaque mass was a considerably large snake whose jaws were hinged open and frozen in place, as if it had been drowned. Like its beheaded charmer, the snake’s malevolent eyes were wide open in a threatening glare. Its hooked fangs were easily five centimetres long. The black, ropey body - thick as a beer can - was covered in scales the size of his thumbnail. He guessed that if he could stretch the thing out, it would be nearly two metres. ‘That’s a bizarre choice for a pet.’
‘Sure is,’ she said.
‘Think it was poisonous?’ he asked, fixated on the fangs.
‘Sure looks like it,’ Brooke said, slowly circling the case to see the snake from all angles.
‘Why the hell would she be carrying this thing around?’
‘I don’t know. But think about it, Tommy … a snake is one of the central figures in Creation mythology, just like in the story of Adam, Eve and Lilith.’ Then halfway around the case, she froze. ‘Wow, look here,’ she said, waving him