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“Yes, Uncle. I know it to be so old it cannot even be dated. It predates all known history.”

Hezekiah tries to conceal his shock. Then he thinks she is teasing him, makes to laugh instead. But there is no amusement on her face, and that gives him pause.

Dora must be mistaken. How could she know, after all? She, who has no knowledge of antiquities beyond the limitations of the shop, limitations he himself has put in place to prevent her meddling? But, he considers, it seems she knows far more than he realized. Still, the how does not wholly concern him. Predates history...

He knew it was old. Of course he knew—he helped Helen find it, did he not? But he had no notion it was that old. Not even Helen thought it was so great an age. Why, what he seeks might not even matter at all!

This reminds him.

“Did you open it?”

“The pithos?”

“Of course the pithos!”

“Yes, I—”

“It opened?”

The cutting question seems to take Dora off guard. Her brows knit.

“Yes.”

“How?”

“I... lifted the lid.”

“Just like that?” he asks, dubious.

Dora blinks. “I don’t understand.”

Nor does he. Hezekiah tries to swallow, but his paranoia has returned and his breath is trapped painfully in his chest, as if a stone has lodged itself there.

“Was there anything in it?”

“No.”

She hesitated. Hesitated! The look on her face is one of puzzlement, but Hezekiah feels the blood drain from his cheeks, resents her clever play. She almost had him fooled, the little witch.

“No?”

He asks this almost gently, watching.

“As I said,” Dora says, slowly, for she watches him, too.

“Nothing?”

“Nothing at all.”

And there it is. There, on her face, so like her mother’s (just like her mother’s): the look of barefaced deceit.

***

The lid opens easily. Lifts right off, no difficulty at all.

Why? How?

He checks for a mechanism, something that might have prevented him from opening it before.