Lisa T. Bergren - Waterfall (River of Time Series)

For Liv and Emma: 1 love you. Yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

-Mama

Taking a new step, uttering a new word, is what people fear most.

-Dostoevsky

We paused on our hike, panting and wiping our upper lips as our guide-the old Italian farmer who owned this land-chopped down a small sapling, clearing the overgrown trail. Ecco, vedi, he said, pointing at the ground. See, here.

See that? my mom cried, pushing the tree branch back farther, squatting beside a slightly sculpted limestone paver. Not really expecting a response, she spoke more to herself-or was it Dads ghost she addressed?-than to us. But the hairs on the back of my neck prickled with echoed excitement.

Here, too, she said, her blue eyes wide, pointing at another. She followed our guide, tossing her Danish blonde braid over her shoulder, ignoring the brambles scratching at her lean, tanned legs. She never noticed much of anything in such situations. I could fall and break my leg, but it would take a fair amount of screaming for her to turn around and tune in.

My sister, Lia, rolled her blue eyes-so much like Moms-as if to say, Oh brother, here we go again.

Wed seen it before. My mother, Dr. Adri Betarrini, was on the trail of more Etruscans, the mysterious people who predated the Romans in this region of Italy. Most considered her and my dad to be the preeminent Etruscan scholars in the world. When he died, archeologists from around the world showed up to pay their respects at the funeral.

Sighing, I followed my mom up the trail. If we didnt stay right behind her, this crazy path was likely to spring closed, and the woods would swallow her and the guide up like fairies in the forest. Finding these ruins had become like an obsession to her, some crazy connection to my dad.

Cmon, Lia, I grumbled over my shoulder. My sister liked these hikes less than I did and tended to fall behind, examining a flower or particular branch, always planning another sketch in her mind. If I let her, shed sit down right where she was and draw, as lost and absorbed as our mother became in a dig.

Wait up, Gabi.

Frowning at her slow pace, I looked back then forward again. I had a moment of panic as the trees closed in around me. In most parts of Tuscany, the trees were farther apart and older; grand old oaks and pines dominated more space. Here the saplings were young, fighting one another and the underbrush for their place in the sun. But then my mom popped into view, climbing a large boulder behind the goatlike farmer.

We paused beneath them and looked up.

The old man looked back at Mom with a mixture of curiosity and triumph in his eyes. It is good, no? he said.

My mother seemed to find her voice. Good, she said with a cough. Very good. I could tell by her voice she was really excited but trying to guard her reaction. She knew better than to let her enthusiasm show in the midst of bargaining for land to excavate.

What is it? I asked, a bit put out to not be in on the discovery.

Whatd they find, Gabi? Lia asked.

I dont know.

Mom wasnt listening to us, so I picked my way through the remaining brush and then climbed the rock.

The old, sturdy farmer reached down to help me, and then my sister, up. My mother was already making her way forward through the bramble. The forest thinned here, and bigger trees dotted a field before us. But I knew that was not what had captured my moms attention-it was the rounded burial mounds, covered in thousands of years of soil and grass, nearly swallowed forever.

As we battled our way forward, I glimpsed the remains of an old medieval castle on the next hill, undoubtedly the domain of a lost lord of Toscana, now barely more than a few standing walls and the slight curve of one tower.

My mother ignored it. She had eyes only for her guide and these ancient curved tumuli-like none wed seen other than a site south of Roma. He led her to the nearest mound and beckoned me and Lia forward. As we got closer, we could see that the top had been opened, like a wax seal on a clay jar.

Hurriedly, my mother shrugged off her day pack, her eyes shining in the sun. I did the same, studying her intense expression as her long, elegant fingers found her flashlight and she moved out, leaving her backpack open. Clearly, she thought wed found the elusive colony.

The one Dad had been looking for when he died.

I fished for a bottle of water as she gingerly moved forward. These old tombs were inexplicably strong, given that most of them were over a couple thousand years old. But that didnt mean they werent just as likely to collapse as stand.