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She was standing there, where just a moment ago nobody had been. Her skin had a blueish glisten in the rays of the setting sun. Aime had raised her eyes from the excavation site, as she had sensed the surrounding change around her. A tall woman with a high-up hairdo that stretched her face longer was wearing strange flowing clothes that the sun rays made it easy to see through. She did not seem to belong at an archaeological digging site, whatsoever. But she was there – at the same time somehow distant yet showing interest towards Aime. The latter raised her head which was slightly dizzy from being bent over for hours. She shook away the light blonde hair falling on her face and expected the woman to disappear. She had to be just a mirage caused by the long day in the blazing sun. Blood pressure disorder. Vertigo. It was more than certain that she would vanish into thin air immediately or melt into the sunlight that was glowing behind her. The sunset was getting redder by the minute. Here in Malta, the sun sets relatively fast, any second now the ball of light would disappear behind the fence surrounding the ancient monolith monuments of Tarxien. Aime shook her head one last time, pulled off her work gloves covered in sand dust and rubbed her eyes, while still holding the small hand shovel. The woman was standing in the same place, and it appeared, she was smiling. Sunrays behind her were getting dim, and Aime was not able to distinguish her face. Yet it seemed as if the woman had almond-shaped eyes in the colour of violets.
The woman beckoned her and turned around. Aime stood up. She wiped the yellowish sand dust off her jeans and placed the shovel on the edge of the excavation site, next to the brush she had already left there while removing the glove. The woman looked briefly over her shoulder at Aime, and now she saw clearly that she indeed had violet almond-shaped eyes. Suddenly there was no room in Aime’s head for the thoughts the woman’s odd behaviour and looks should have evoked. She followed the women who appeared from nowhere like it was the most natural thing to do in the whole world. The woman walked towards the nearest gigantic upright megalith and… stepped through it as it were merely a curtain made up of smoke. The stone between them seemed to ripple strangely, and Aime saw the woman on the other side of the rock-like she was looking through a veil. She beckoned once again. At that exact moment, the last ray of sunshine disappeared behind the fence, and Aime who was just making the determinate step towards the woman melted into the stone.
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Aime was like struck by lightning. She knew from childhood that her hearing was more sensitive. For example, a plane’s take-off created excruciating pain in her auditory meatus, even though, thanks to travelling with her mother, Aime flew frequently and actually really liked travelling. She thought of her sensitivity as one of her many peculiarities and did not discuss it often, instead tried to adjust. The sound heard in this temple, however, made her feel as if something in her brain had really been switched on or off. The group moved forward from the Oracle room, led by doctor Medin.
“This room is called the unfinished hall,” Aime explained to her third group of the day. Since female voice did not resonate in the opening of the oracle room, and she lacked Medin’s juicy baritone, she had just been able to show the other groups, how a sound from a hole made those who had gone into the smaller chambers next to the big room feel as if they could hear heartbeats through the walls, over every loud word. “The 110 Hz frequency has been called the heartbeat of the Earth,” she then repeated sentences heard from doctor Medin. “And since there have been figurines found of the Mother Goddess here, the purpose of this sound was probably to take people into a trance-like state during the rituals held for the goddess.” For some incomprehensible reason that part of the sentence felt wrong for her from the start, but she repeated it anyways – in lack of a better one.
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