mumbo-jumbo horseshit’. A look of recognition brought a smirk. It tugged at the edges of her lips, and she fought admirably to keep her smile at bay. If she had given in to our potential ridicule then—as she had in the past—we might never be the wiser about her daddy’s amulet secrets. Forcing her expression to remain stoic, she continued.
“You told me you saw the one in Massachusetts as a kid, Nick. Right?”
“Yeah… that’s true,” I conceded, unable to suppress the dimpled grin she lovingly teases me about. “But it could’ve been put there by anyone. There’s no proof it has anything to do with the sites in England and elsewhere. Hell, carbon dating doesn’t match up that well either, from what I understand.”
“Inconclusive,” she said. “Inconclusive with some estimates not far off from its much bigger brothers across the Atlantic.”
“Forgive me, Marie, but if it the dating is inconclusive, how can you be sure the site is related to any other site elsewhere in the world?” asked Ishi.
“And why in the hell does it matter?” I added, not happy we were wasting time discussing what had begun to sound and feel like a ruse to get us off track. “I thought you were going to lay some big amulet revelation on us. What in the hell does this talk of various Neolithic stone formations around the world have to do with it?”
“Because each one is part of an energy chain—a chain that once empowered five amulets,” she said.
Whoa! Both Ishi and I sat up straight. He was all ears and wore a look of pubescent fascination, as if ready to embrace the second coming of Don Quixote. Meanwhile, the news was forcing me to make a decision as to whether I wanted to become a royal asshole and laugh out loud at this latest bullshit. After all, how in the hell did one sacred and rare amulet suddenly become five? Other than multiplication by desperation on the part of Marie—our damsel in distress doing whatever she could to not finish this mission solo?
“According to Papa, the Ambrosius Amulet was one of five sacred amulets created to join humankind with the higher souls, or deities if you prefer,” Marie continued, for the moment ignoring me. Ishi had become her mark, and I thought back to how she once had marked me in that dingy little bar in Honduras the day I was hired to find her daddy’s jaguar treasure trove. “It didn’t take all five amulets working simultaneously to reach these higher beings. Three amulets were sufficient to pass revitalizing energy among the masses—strong enough to heal the sick and infirm. Four amulets could bring about greater feats, such as healing the dead and transporting dozens of people and several immense objects—like the stones that make up Stonehenge—to new locations hundreds, and in some cases thousands, of miles away.”
“So, what could five amulets get a hallucinogen-loving druid back in the day?”
Believe it or not, I resisted the sarcastic delivery one might picture… barely.
“Hard to say, Nick,” she said evenly, reinforced by a pained expression on Ishi’s face imploring me to go easy on her. “Based on an old Pict legend Papa shared with me at his last museum post in Los Angeles, communion with the true Almighty was said to be possible when all five were brought together in the alignment of a pentagram.”
“Satanic witch shit, huh?”
“No, druid knowledge that obviously surpasses your sheltered Methodist upbringing,” she said. I had struck a deeper nerve, though her trembling from growing anger was barely detectable to the naked eye. “I won’t pander to your ignorance on the subject of pentagrams, Nick, but if you would do some homework, you’ll be surprised to find that they were accepted by the Christian church until the period of inquisitions placed the stamp of Lucifer on them…. But, know this: in its original uses among the Mesopotamians, Hebrews, Greeks, and others, the symbol was a pure one associated with the
“You told me you saw the one in Massachusetts as a kid, Nick. Right?”
“Yeah… that’s true,” I conceded, unable to suppress the dimpled grin she lovingly teases me about. “But it could’ve been put there by anyone. There’s no proof it has anything to do with the sites in England and elsewhere. Hell, carbon dating doesn’t match up that well either, from what I understand.”
“Inconclusive,” she said. “Inconclusive with some estimates not far off from its much bigger brothers across the Atlantic.”
“Forgive me, Marie, but if it the dating is inconclusive, how can you be sure the site is related to any other site elsewhere in the world?” asked Ishi.
“And why in the hell does it matter?” I added, not happy we were wasting time discussing what had begun to sound and feel like a ruse to get us off track. “I thought you were going to lay some big amulet revelation on us. What in the hell does this talk of various Neolithic stone formations around the world have to do with it?”
“Because each one is part of an energy chain—a chain that once empowered five amulets,” she said.
Whoa! Both Ishi and I sat up straight. He was all ears and wore a look of pubescent fascination, as if ready to embrace the second coming of Don Quixote. Meanwhile, the news was forcing me to make a decision as to whether I wanted to become a royal asshole and laugh out loud at this latest bullshit. After all, how in the hell did one sacred and rare amulet suddenly become five? Other than multiplication by desperation on the part of Marie—our damsel in distress doing whatever she could to not finish this mission solo?
“According to Papa, the Ambrosius Amulet was one of five sacred amulets created to join humankind with the higher souls, or deities if you prefer,” Marie continued, for the moment ignoring me. Ishi had become her mark, and I thought back to how she once had marked me in that dingy little bar in Honduras the day I was hired to find her daddy’s jaguar treasure trove. “It didn’t take all five amulets working simultaneously to reach these higher beings. Three amulets were sufficient to pass revitalizing energy among the masses—strong enough to heal the sick and infirm. Four amulets could bring about greater feats, such as healing the dead and transporting dozens of people and several immense objects—like the stones that make up Stonehenge—to new locations hundreds, and in some cases thousands, of miles away.”
“So, what could five amulets get a hallucinogen-loving druid back in the day?”
Believe it or not, I resisted the sarcastic delivery one might picture… barely.
“Hard to say, Nick,” she said evenly, reinforced by a pained expression on Ishi’s face imploring me to go easy on her. “Based on an old Pict legend Papa shared with me at his last museum post in Los Angeles, communion with the true Almighty was said to be possible when all five were brought together in the alignment of a pentagram.”
“Satanic witch shit, huh?”
“No, druid knowledge that obviously surpasses your sheltered Methodist upbringing,” she said. I had struck a deeper nerve, though her trembling from growing anger was barely detectable to the naked eye. “I won’t pander to your ignorance on the subject of pentagrams, Nick, but if you would do some homework, you’ll be surprised to find that they were accepted by the Christian church until the period of inquisitions placed the stamp of Lucifer on them…. But, know this: in its original uses among the Mesopotamians, Hebrews, Greeks, and others, the symbol was a pure one associated with the
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