Well, that's because I'm a dumbass..... here it is, really. I've changed quite a bit at the end and added some.
Part 16, really
Part 16
Willow closed the bedroom door after herself and slowly made her way to the corner of the worn desk and sat on it. She took a long, deep breath and let her eyes wonder to Tara who had been pouring over what she had gotten from Housaud’s room. Willow smiled a weak smile as she watched an errant lock of Tara’s hair slip out from behind her ear. She automatically tucked it back just to have it fall again. She could do this a hundred times and not even notice it. Willow did.
“Tara, I meant what I said. It’s ludicrous for them to think I’m going to sacrifice myself for this two thousand year old curse. We’ll find a way to stop it.” Tara didn’t look up, only nodded, causing the hair behind her ear to fall yet again. She was very engrossed in what she was reading so that had Willow off of the desk and next to Tara. She waited patiently until Tara looked up at her.
“I think we should try and ‘call’ up Ishtar. She’s shown herself, maybe we can ask her to come back.” Tara looked at Willow with a childlike hopefulness. Willow bit her bottom lip in thought. “I forgot to show you this, but Ishtar had a thing for wronged women. She would appear and save them if they called on her.” Tara handed over the notes to Willow and let her read it. “I guess we could try. Seeing her once scared the pee out of me, but perhaps if I was expecting her…” Willow gave a wry little smile that Tara returned.
Her face then turned very serious. “This whole thing scares me. I don’t trust Housaud not to do something, or try to. I have no idea what he’s capable of. The things he said…” Tara let her thoughts trail off. “I know baby.” Willow said as she put her arm on Tara’s thigh and caressed it up and down gently.
They sat there for a couple of minutes until Tara turned to Willow pointedly and said, “Didn’t Ishtar say something to you?” Willow remembered she wrote it down. She went to her bag to get it. “Una- eh, ak um ra sete. That’s what Ishtar said.” Tara looked at the phonetic spelling. “Is that Arabic?” She asked as she watched Willow going through a pile of books by the closet. “No, I don’t recognize it. It could be an ancient language of all I know.”
“What are you looking for?” asked Tara.
“I’m looking for pictures of Ishtar. I know I saw one in one of these books here.”
“This one,” Tara said as she picked up a book off of the bed. She flipped through the pages and found a picture of a wall relief bearing Ishtar’s image. Willow studied it for a few minutes, seemingly trying to peer into the goddesses mind. Seemingly mesmerized by the goddess, Willow spoke to the image and to Tara. “This is going to end tomorrow night, one way or another.” Tara looked at her quizzically. Willow gave her an unsettling little smile, one that meant Tara wasn’t going to like what she was about to say. “I’ve got an idea.”
….
After the women had left Zane’s room, Housaud called him outside. “What are we going to do about this?” Housaud asked around a lit cigarette. Zane looked at Housaud as if he were seeing him for the first time. His trusted foreman was no longer standing in front of him. He had been replaced by an embittered, angry man. Zane wondered to himself when this had happened, this change. More importantly, why hadn’t he seen it.
“Don’t you understand what this curse can do? What it has done? Your niece is dead, my friend, dead. We know how to rid the curse. Americans are such cowards…” Housaud looked at Zane for a response. Zane took a deep breath before speaking. He looked at Housaud hard. “I’m not going to ask someone to kill themselves. There have been enough deaths. Ask one of your ‘dealers’ to find a way to take care of this. Hell, let’s just destroy the damn thing.”
Zane turned to leave but Housaud grabbed his arm roughly and spun him back around. “You foolish old man! Read the papers I left you. This is the only way!” Zane jerked out of his grasp and raised a finger to emphasize what he was about to say next. “Pack your things and get out of here. You will have a severance check mailed to you. I don’t know what has happened to you, Housaud, but I can’t have this…behavior at my dig. You have until tomorrow night to leave. If you don’t, I’ll find someone who will escort you.”
Housaud went back to his room, teeming with black anger. ‘That spineless excuse of an archaeologist brought her here. He WILL help me get rid of her AND the curse.’ He punched in a familiar number and started speaking in Arabic with the man on the other end of the phone. After a few moments he hung up and stepped outside. He looked up towards the sky and wondered if it looked the same thousands of years ago when his ancestors would look up at it. “Allah, help me, this ends tomorrow night, one way or another.”
….
Tara hated Willow’s idea. She knew she would. “I know you hate my idea, honey. You have to admit, it’s better than me killing myself.” Willow got a well-deserved glare from her girlfriend. They had been up about an hour just talking in bed. They really had no desire to get out of bed just yet and face an awkward situation that would surely arise as soon as they saw Dr. Zane or Housaud. ‘Housaud’, thought Tara.
“Willow, do you think it could have been Housaud involved in… the deaths?” Tara didn’t want to bring Casey’s name up again. She had to ask though, ever since last night she’d had these thoughts that Housaud was just trying to get back at Zane.
“Tara, I saw him out there when Casey was found, he was scared, really scared. And why would he kill his own friend? No… what I saw wasn’t anything natural. Tara, I’m so scared this curse will strike again. I have to try something tonight.” Tara looked at Willow warily. She knew there was no talking Willow out of something when she had her mind made up.
“Alright. Let’s get dressed and run this by Dr. Zane.” Tara rolled atop Willow smoothing out some errant strands of red-gold hair near her cheek. “I love you so much, you know that?” For her reply Willow brought Tara’s lips to hers and kissed her passionately.
“Uh… what was I saying about getting out of bed?”
About an hour later the women were up and dressed. They went looking for Dr. Zane but could not find him anywhere. “Perhaps he’s out at the site.” Tara offered as she finished making some coffee.
“Yeah, maybe… something’s weird though. He always makes a pot in the morning. Coffee maker was empty.”
Tara looked about the kitchen. “You’re right.”
“I’m gonna go look outside. You try his bedroom, okay?” Willow said as she stepped outside.
She didn’t get far when she saw where Zane had gone. “Tara!” Willow stomach betrayed her just as Tara came rushing out of the front door. “Willow! What is it…. “ Tara looked at the ground near the jeep and put her hand over her mouth in horror. “Oh God! Oh my God!” Tara stumbled-walked to Willow who was just wiping her mouth with her sleeve.
Zane was half buried in the brown Iraqi dirt with his head turned at a most unnatural angle. His eyes had been gauged out and his lips crudely sewn shut. His shirt had been torn away and something had been carved into his chest.
“Tara, could you please go get me a paper and pencil?” Willow choked back her tears for the moment. To see her mentor and friend like this…
“Willow, shouldn’t we call…”
“No. Not yet. I know those symbols on his chest… Just let me write them down. I…I need to.”
Tara recognized what Willow was doing. Instead of dissolving into panic or grief, she let her scientific mind kick in. She would grieve later, now she wanted to know who killed her friend.
After Willow copied down the symbols carefully, they called for the paramedics. Willow in her limited Arabic explained whom Zane was and that they hadn’t touched anything. The paramedics were almost as shaken as the two women had been at the condition of the body.
The police arrived shortly after the paramedics and examined the body and scene before the paramedics took him to the local morgue. The police then questioned the women for hours but Willow left out the sketch she’d taken. This, she had a feeling, was not something the police could help in. At least not right away.
Willow did tell them about Housaud and where he was staying on the site. They wanted to question him as well. When the police returned within 15 minutes they had found Housaud had left. Packed everything up in a big hurry, the police had said.
Apparently this made him a suspect and the police would soon begin searching for his whereabouts. Due to the circumstances, Willow couldn’t help but wonder if Housaud was indeed involved. However, she just couldn’t see Housaud doing this. But he’d left in a big hurry. They wanted to know why. It would have to wait though. Willow had to know what was carved on Dr. Zane’s chest.
After the police had left, leaving the women strict instructions to call them if Housaud showed back up, Willow went to work finding out where she’d seen the symbols carved on Zane’s chest.
She was pouring over a book when suddenly she heard Tara take a sharp breath. She looked up and caught eyes with Tara. “I found the symbols. They are in Hemsnefu’s son’s writings. The originals that were in the storybox.” They both rushed to Zane’s office and hurriedly looked through the translated pages Housaud had left on Zane’s desk.
“Here it is!” Tara shouted as she brought it to Willow. She laid the two papers down side by side and ran her fingers through trying to find the English translation. An increasingly uneasy feeling began in the pit of her stomach.
Willow chastised herself. She should have known these symbols by heart by now. When they were out of context though they were harder to decipher. And she was far from her usual focused self.
Suddenly, she felt an excruciating pain in her head. She leaned over the table on her forearms grabbing her head. She could hear Tara shouting her name but it seemed very distant. She felt her self slowly fading out, and could no longer hear Tara’s voice at all.
She found herself in a dark, musty cave. As she tried to figure out how this cave looked familiar, a shadowy figure appeared a couple of yards in front of her. It stepped toward her and she could see the face. It was Housaud, but much younger than he is now. He looked scared, but moved closer to her hesitantly.
Suddenly, she felt an amazing surge of energy and power. Her mouth moved and she heard herself say, “Una- eh, ak um ra sete!” As the words traveled out of ‘her’ mouth, symbols appeared in the air. She struggled in her semi-concious brain to memorize the symbols as she felt energy pooling in her. It was swirling, beginning to concentrate in the pit of her stomach. She then pointed a finger at the young Housaud. As she did this she noticed the long flowing arm of the robe she was wearing. ‘I’m Ishtar?’
That was Willow’s final thought as she was ripped from this vision-dream and back to reality on the floor staring up at the ceiling of Zane’s office. She repeated the saying as she looked intently at Tara, trying to figure out where she was.
“Willow? Are you okay? Baby?” Tara had her hand on the back of Willow’s head supporting it. Her brows were creased in concern.
“Yeah… another vision-thingy. I think I was Ishtar this time… It was weird. I was looking at Housaud, but he was much younger. I said… Ishtar said, something to him. He looked scared, but didn’t run or anything.”
Willow shook her head as if to clear it. Then she grabbed Tara’s arms and looked at her, eyes round with revelation. “It was the same thing she said to me the night I went to Housaud’s room!” She said excitedly. Finally, some connections she could work on.
Willow quickly moved to the desk, too quickly as she was still a bit woozy, and wrote down what she had remembered. “I, or Ishtar, was saying this. Symbols appeared in the air…” She gestured to Tara as she traced the symbols with her fingers in the air then bit her lip in furious concentration to get them on paper.
When she was done writing the symbols, she stood back and looked at it in shock. They were the same symbols written on Zane’s chest. “What the hell?” They both said simultaneously.
Willow went back to the English translation she was looking at before her vision.
Her jaw worked as she looked from the symbols over to the English translation. Then she met Tara’s questioning eyes for a long second before she spoke. “It says here,” she pointed to a sentence, “Hemsnefu’s son heard something before his father’s death. He wrote it down.” Willow gave Tara time to see the symbols on the originals and then slid her finger to the English translation of what Willow, Housaud and Hemsnefu’s son had heard. Tara breathed the words out as she read them, “Return to me what is mine.”
“What do you suppose that means?” Tara asked as she traced the symbols with her own finger. Willow tensed her lips together as she whipped around to lean her back on the desk. Her arms were crossed tightly and Tara could literally see the wheels turning in Willow’s mind.
She suddenly went to the standing whiteboard in the corner of the room and grabbed a few of the dry erase markers. She wrote in the top center of the board the word – CURSE. She then looked expectantly at Tara for a beat. “What do we know about it?” Willow finally breathed.
Tara might have been a bit offended by this, but she could tell Willow was getting into what Tara affectionately called “the Zone”. When Willow had something particularly puzzling in front of her and it was driving her crazy, she’d get this look and you knew nothing else was going to happen until it was figured out.
“It was written by the Goddess Ishtar.” Tara helpfully supplied. “Why?” Willow barked more to herself then to Tara. Before Tara replied, Willow was already writing the answer- TO PUNISH SENNACHERIB AND HIS DESCENDANTS FOR DESTROYING HER TEMPLE. “See this is what I don’t get. The actual curse writing says that it is Sennacherib and his DESCENDANTS that will be punished, not just anyone.” Willow went to a piece of paper and scanned through it, finding what she was looking for. Tara remained in front of the whiteboard, thinking.
Tara turned when she heard Willow curse under her breath. “What is it?” Willow walked over to her. “Here, the part that Dr. Ridyah translated for us last week. Supposedly the part of the curse we couldn’t read. It says, ‘Any man who dare disturb what has been done to my temple shall feel my acts of vengence and retribution. I will visit upon them suffering, fear and death. Be warned’. They both looked at each other, puzzled. It was Willow who finally spoke after a few seconds of silence. “So who is she cursing? Sennacherib’s descendants or everyone?” Playing devil’s advocate, Tara asked, “Can’t it be both?” Willow pondered for a moment and then turned to Tara. “Well, I guess, but it doesn’t make much sense, you know? It’s almost like the last part was almost an afterthought… separate.”
Willow crooked her finger, a silent indication for Tara to follow her to their bedroom. She quickly booted up the computer and went to the page that had the complete Ishtar curse that she’d translated. They read it together pointing out the instances that Ishtar only named Sennacherib’s family as being a target of the curse. “In light of what happened with Housaud, do you think… I mean with Dr. Ridyah…” Willow knew what Tara was getting at. It made her pause certainly.
She voiced it in a question to be clear what Tara was implying. “You think Ridyah made up the translation or at least tweaked it? Housaud had him do it?” Tara scrolled down the page a little more then paused to look up at Willow. “With how Housaud has been acting, the stuff we found in his room, I wouldn’t be surprised.” Willow thought it out. “The taped conversations could have been about the last part of the curse. Housaud might have known we couldn’t read it before we told him. That would have given him ample time to phone Ridyah and set it up. Question is why would he do it?”
Suddenly, both heard a door slam in the front of the house. Housaud was at their bedroom door's threshold before either could react.
'What you risk reveals what you value' Jeannette Winterson
by luciddream » Tue May 27, 2003 5:12 pm 
So psyched to see this back again! And I hope you're healing up well!! Great update! I love that Willow and Tara are really working together to solve this. It isn't all Willow, all brain, all the time. 
. Utter chaos would ensue.
) you can even claim the dig site is too dangerous. Blame it on unstable soil or something, just get it marked 'off limits' and LEAVE already.
at: 12/28/03 1:58 am