Mariens (Part 1)

"Hey, I’ve got something! Zora! Laura! Over here!" Maria’s heart raced with excitement and she kept digging as quickly as she could. Perspiration dripped off of her white skin.

"What is it, Mom?" Zora, her seventeen-year-old, dropped the golden bee pendant and came running over to Maria.

"I need for you girls to grab shovels and help! I think I’ve finally found it!" Fortunately, there was nobody else around. Maria knew that she would get into a lot of trouble with the Greek government if she was caught, but she knew in her gut she had found it.

Air rushed out of the hole, and it wasn’t foul as she thought it would have been. It was twilight and the sky was turning an eerie but stunningly beautiful shade of pale violet. Maria, Zora, and Laura shoveled as hard as they could until there was a large enough opening for them to fit through.

"Bring your shovels and grab those lanterns. Let’s go see if we can take a look around down there." Maria took her two teenage daughters down the cinnamon-colored stone stairs that they had uncovered.

In the soft light of the lanterns, they could see drawings along the walls of the tunnel; drawings of young acrobats, dancers, griffins, and what must be the Minotaur. The Minotaur looked much like a bull, but it was half man, with the upper half patched in brown and white patterns. They saw paintings of snakes, and women holding snakes with hats and cats on their heads.

Maria knew what they were; she had studied them for so many years; the priestesses of the so-called Snake Goddess. She had worked on excavations in different islands in the Cyclades, and they were always the same. Ever since she was six, Maria had been inextricably drawn to mythology and ancient Greece.

After hours of walking in the light of their lanterns, Maria, Zora, and Laura found the center of the circle labyrinth, where the Minotaur should have been. They were all three nearly blinded by a bright, bluish-white light. Before Maria could catch herself, she began to walk into the room and her foot slipped.

"Aaaaaaugh! Aaaaaaaugh!" Maria could only scream as she kept falling, the ethereal light still surrounding her. Her eyes had widened and her heart felt like it had flipped into her stomach and she was frozen with terror.

Her body landed with a thud on her derriere and Maria had the wind knocked out of her. She sat blinking, dumbfounded, trying to figure out what had happened.

"Mom! Mom! Mom, where are you? Help! Somebody help us!" Zora and Laura called out, tears streaming down there pretty faces, hoping that somebody, somewhere, would hear them. They were terrified that their mother was dead.

"Come on! We have to go for help!" Laura tried to get Zora to leave, but her feet wouldn’t move as if they had rooted to the stone floor.

"Zora! Come on! We’ve got to get help!" Laura pleaded with Zora, but all Zora would do was stand there screaming and crying, afraid to leave her mother.

Suddenly, Zora grabbed Laura’s hand and jumped through the doorway, into the bright light. Their breath was taken away and they couldn’t even scream anymore. Their only thoughts were that they were about to die.

They landed with a thud, on their backs, beside of Maria.

"Zora! Laura! Are you alright? Zora!" I crouched on my knees beside of my babies, shaking first Zora, then Laura.