The day passed slower than the day before, and the day before that. Luka was the only one who seemed comfortable with their insane schedule. While Aileen and Nadia were doing their best to keep up, constantly telling themselves the light jogging they did on campus every day had to mean something, Josh was just trying to keep it together and not scream at the top of his lungs that he wanted to go back. Not on foot, but via teleportation, preferably.
They stopped in a wide clearing and set camp. Even Josh had gotten better and faster at setting up his tent. When he was done, he went to help Nadia. Taking advantage of his enthusiasm to show that he was getting really good at perching up tents, the blonde left him to it and said she would take care of dinner. Josh sighed. He was hungry, yes, but he would have also liked to spend more time with Aileen’s hot assistant.
Nadia was clever, too, not only sexy. Her Russian origins were showing in her pale skin, blue eyes, hourglass figure, and long legs, but her mind was as sharp as a knife. She was 25, four years younger than Aileen, and still doing research and writing on her PhD in Greek Mythology. Her dream was to become like her mentor, Aileen Callas, one day.
Beautiful, successful, intelligent, and independent, Aileen was envied by all the women around her. Oh, and it didn’t matter that she was constantly buried in books and didn’t have time to date. Men were falling at her feet like flies. Aileen had to be careful not to indulge too much in the sweet romantic nights they offered her out of the blue, otherwise she wouldn’t have time for her career. Sometimes, she wondered why all men, regardless of age, education, or social status were so attracted to her. She honestly believed Nadia was sexier and more appealing, with her white complexion and doll eyes, but men seemed to come to her like she was this big, delicious magnet, and they were mere specks of metal. Not that she was complaining…
Josh finished setting up Nadia’s tent, then turned to look for the blonde. He sighed when he saw Luka was keeping her company as she was preparing dinner over a small fire he had lit. Aileen was nowhere in sight, though. Josh perked up his ears, trying to listen carefully to the forest. If she had decided to go for a walk, she couldn’t be far. He had never been the heroic type, but it didn’t matter that he was lanky, thin as a ladle, and wore huge, square glasses. He still didn’t like the idea of a woman walking alone through the woods. He went to look for her.
Aileen was sitting on a rock, facing the lake below her. She had wanted to spend some time alone, with her thoughts, and a short walk revealed that they were still close to the edge. If she stood up and took a couple of steps ahead, she would get that sickening feeling that she could fall at any moment. Her heart skipped a beat when she heard footsteps approaching. She jumped up and turned around.
“Oh, fuck you, Josh! You scared me!”
Josh raised his hands, waving awkwardly.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. I saw you were gone, and I got worried.”
Aileen cocked an eyebrow and smiled.
“About me?”
He shrugged.
“Sure. Why not? I would be just as worried about me if I started getting the impulse to walk alone in the wilderness.”
Aileen laughed and sat back down on her rock. She motioned for Josh to sit next to her.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?”
For the thousandth time that day, Josh looked at the lake and the mountains. The sun had set almost completely, and the moon and stars were covering the clear night sky.
“I can’t believe I’m here,” he whispered.
“Me neither, to tell you the truth.”
“Yes, but you wanted this so badly… I, on the other hand,” he chuckled nervously. “Please don’t take this the wrong way, but all I can think about is how much I’d love to sleep in my own bed, back at home.”
Aileen laughed. Josh was such an adorable, gentle soul. He was only 21, and he was attending the Film and Visual Studies at Harvard University, studying to become a film director. Last semester, he had taken one of her courses on ancient mythology as an optional, and that was how they had met. When she decided to go on this journey and try to make a documentary, Josh Parker had been the first person on her mind.
“Can I be honest with you?” she asked. When Josh nodded, she continued: “Every step on this dreaded mountain trail makes me want to stop, give up, and just go back to the US. But I can’t do that now. I’ve made a decision, and I have to go through with it. I wouldn’t forgive myself if I didn’t see this through to the end.”
“Or, they wouldn’t forgive you…”
She smiled, but there was sadness and disappointment in her deep green eyes.
“It doesn’t matter what I do and what I discover,” she said. “If there’s nothing there, no Guardian and no Golden Fleece, they won’t forgive me for coming up with such a wild theory. If I do prove my version of the myth is the correct one, they won’t forgive me because I succeeded in turning years and years of history upside down on a whim. That’s the academic world for you.”
Josh shook his head slowly. He knew exactly what she was saying.
“You know… when I took your course, I found your theories fascinating, but I still stuck to the books. I mean, what you were saying was interesting and all, like a good story, but I thought it was just that: a story. I never expected anyone to take you seriously.”
The moment those words left his lips, Josh mentally slapped himself. He couldn’t believe he’d just been so rude to her.
“Sorry, that’s not what I meant…”
Aileen laughed.
“It’s okay. In my first years of teaching, I didn’t believe anyone would take me seriously either. That’s why I started to voice my thoughts much later.”
“Do you regret it now? Seeing where we are and what we’re doing?”
“Oh no, not in a million years. I wanted to do this since I was a kid. Come here, visit the country once known as Colchis, see the place where the Golden Fleece was supposedly held with my own eyes. What happened last semester was the impulse I needed to gather my courage and actually do it.”
“It was still unpleasant.”
“It was.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. You had nothing to do with it.”
She placed a hand on his shoulder and squeezed lightly. Josh was one of the good students. He didn’t believe her, but he didn’t go complaining to other professors that she was teaching them bullshit. That had been what a group of chirpy cheerleaders had done: went to Professor Ian Franklin’s office and told him Miss Callas was preaching how the myth of Jason and the Argonauts was wrong, how Medea tricked Jason and brought him a fake instead of the Golden Fleece, and how the Guardian and its treasure were still there, waiting, in the heart of the Egrisi Mountains, in a country so small that they didn’t even know what language people spoke there. Aileen appreciated the fact that Professor Franklin had at least had the presence of mind to tell them the Georgian language was spoken in Georgia, and the country even had its own alphabet, but she still didn’t appreciate how he had burst into the professors’ common room and made a joke out of her and her theories. She had felt so humiliated that day, that she had barely found the strength to keep her tears at bay. Angry at his reaction and at her other colleagues’ refusal to at least listen to what she had to say, she promised all of them that she would go to Georgia that very summer and prove her theory to be correct. Then, they would all be busy fixing the history and mythology they had studied and taught their students for years.
Aileen’s hand resting on his shoulder had started making Josh feel uncomfortable. Her presence was intoxicating, and he was afraid he might get a hard-on if he lingered there much longer. He stood up abruptly.
“I don’t know about you, but I’m hungry.”
Aileen snapped out of her trance and looked up at him.
“Right. I’ll be there in a few minutes.”
“You sure you’re okay? I don’t like leaving you out here alone.”
“I’m fine, don’t worry about me.”
Josh nodded and headed back to the camp. After a couple of steps, he could smell Nadia’s stew.
Aileen waited for him to disappear behind the trees, then dug into her black leather hip bag. She took out a small bottle and held it in the moonlight to admire its elegant shape. The bottle looked like a glass tear, just big enough to be held in her palm.
“If I could just tell everyone… my students, my colleagues, the whole world… why I truly believe my version of the myth is the right one… But I can’t.”
She shook the bottle a bit, and the clear, transparent liquid on its bottom swirled and sparkled faintly. It had been full once, many, many years ago, when Aileen hadn’t even learned how to talk. But that was another story. It was a story about how her mother had taken a huge risk, and how the bottle Aileen was holding now was the reason why she was strong, and healthy, and successful. The reason why she had a life.
She sighed and slipped the tear-shaped bottle back into her hip bag. In the inside pocket, she was keeping a small scroll of paper which she often took out to read and re-read when no one was around. However, she didn’t feel like doing that now. Her stomach rumbled in protest. She should have had dinner hours ago.
“I’ll just go through with my plan,” she whispered to herself as she stood up. “Do the documentary to the best of my abilities, gather as much evidence and material as I can, then go back and write a book that will blow everyone’s mind. Yeah. That’s exactly what I’m going to do.”
Aileen started walking back towards the camp.