The Reincarnationist Read Online Free PDF Page A

describe certain details, each of which we see here. Although this tomb does not conform to the barren type of pressed-dirt enclosure most often used when Vestals were put to death, this woman was buried alive—the punishment reserved for those nuns who broke their vows—not to starve to death but to suffocate. That’s the reason for those jugs. One for water, the other for milk—” He pointed to the roughhewn earthenware. “The very presence of the bed confirms it. You don’t bury a dead man or woman with a bed. Or an oil lamp, for that matter.”
    â€œWhy do you think she was over there in the corner, though? Not sleeping on the cot? As the oxygen ran out it would have made her tired. Wouldn’t she have gone to sleep where it was comfortable?”
    â€œVery good, that’s one of our questions, too. It’s also very confusing why sacred objects were buried with her, because ancient Romans weren’t like the Egyptians. Their dead were not outfitted for the afterlife. Other than the lamp and the water and the milk, we didn’t expect to find anything else here.”
    Josh’s head pounded again. “What kind of objects did you find?”
    The professor pointed to a wooden box in the mummy’s hands. “She has been holding on to that for sixteen hundred years. Exciting, no?”
    Josh instantly recognized it. No, that was impossible. He must have seen a photograph of a similar box in a museum. Even more confusing, despite its familiarity, he had no idea what it was. “Have you opened it yet?”
    The professor nodded. “To come across a fine carvedfruitwood box like that and not open it? I don’t know many archaeologists who could resist. It’s much older than Bella. Gabby and I think it dates back to before 2000 B.C., maybe as far back as 3000 B.C., and it doesn’t appear to be Roman at all, but Indian. We need to wait for the carbon dating.”
    â€œAnd inside? What is inside?” Pinpricks of excitement ran up and down Josh’s arms.
    â€œWe can’t be certain until we do more work and take many tests, but we think they are the Memory Stones of the legendary Lost Memory Tools that your own Trevor Talmage wrote about.”
    â€œWhat are you basing that on?”
    â€œThe words carved here and here.” He pointed to the border running around the perimeter of the box. “We believe these are the same lines found on an ancient Egyptian papyrus currently in the British Museum. The same lines Trevor Talmage translated in 1884. Do you know about that?”
    Josh nodded. Talmage was the founder of the Phoenix Club—what was now the Phoenix Foundation. And Josh had read the entire “Lost Memory Tools” folder of original notes and translations that had been found behind a row of books in the library during the 1999 renovation at the Foundation.
    He was given the gift of a great bird who rose from fire to show him the way to the stones so he could pray upon them with song and lo! All of his past would be shown unto him.
    As Josh recited the words, a voice inside his head spoke them in another language that sounded alien and archaic.
    â€œThat’s the same translation that Wallace Neely used,” Rudolfo said.
    â€œWho?” The name tickled Josh’s consciousness.
    â€œWallace Neely was an archeologist who worked here in Rome in the late 1800s. Several of his digs were financed by your Phoenix Club. He found the original text that Talmage was in the process of translating at the time of his death….”
    He continued talking as Josh recalled a flashback he’d had six months ago, on the first day he’d walked into the Phoenix Foundation.
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    Percy Talmage, home for the summer break from Yale, was in the dining room, listening to his uncle Davenport talk about protecting the club’s archeological investments in Rome. His uncle mentioned the archeologist they’d been