Wake up, Caesar

“Wow, such a breathtaking monologue! If I were a spirit, I’d blush for sure.” said Nox. He knew that he was breaking the rules, that only the so-called host could speak during the séance, but as a child he wasn’t taught to keep his mouth shut, and now it was too late to reform.

“Tace atque abi9,” Diana whispered with her lips, doubting that the most restless person among them understood her dissatisfaction.

The slider moved.

It crawled slowly to the first letter.

K.

“I bet it will turn into kill yourselves,” Nox couldn’t control himself, probably because of an inappropriate amount of alcohol inside, but no one was interested in his reasons. Vesper silently pushed the guy away, and Nox fell out of the chalk circle.

“Fuck off, darling” Diana nodded. She liked how Vesper reacted. Nox needed to learn some manners.

“Well, I’m happy to!” Nox got up, looked around as if he wanted to see the spirit. He didn’t really see anything, but he gave the middle finger to all four corners of the room. Nox thought a corner was a great place for “Caesar” to observe the living.

There was a Plato on the table, the book Nox carried with him all the time instead of responsibly reading other philosophers, which Professor Ratliff always asked him to do. Nox took the book, turned the key in the lock and, slightly wobbling, went out into the hall, so light and empty, completely unlike his friend’s room.

They take everything to heart too much, so worried about the attention of their false Caesar that there are no decent words to describe it, Nox thought in anger.

He walked to another room where a cute guy from the Department of Mathematics lived. Of course, he didn’t read Cicero, but he wore nice glasses with thin metal frames and was kind, not like his dear friends. Nox knew this guy wouldn’t kick him out like stinky trash and knocked at the door.

Meanwhile, a word formed on the board in the dark room.

Kelshall.

A small village, a forty-minute drive from Cambridge.

None of the students had ever heard of it before.

Except Mars.

He remembered an article he accidentally saw on the web a few years ago, when he was still in high school and dreamed of getting into King’s College, founded by Henry VI in the middle of the fifteenth century. The best example of late English Gothic architecture had always attracted Mars, and after finding out about the splendor of classical education offered to Cambridge students, he realized that he finally had a real goal.

And as for that article, it was about the successful excavations in a Kelshall field, where a simple Englishman came across a Roman coin of the second century with the image of the Emperor Trajan. The efforts were not in vain. He dug up a Roman’s grave filled with various artifacts, which attracted the attention of many scientists.

The situation their company got into looked pretty curious, but Mars wasn’t satisfied. That Roman from the article was cremated and his ashes were placed in an urn along with some coins which probably served as payment for a mythical creature that accompanied Romans to the afterlife. Roughly speaking, there was only dust left in the grave. And there is no point in talking to dust.

“A grave has already been found there,” Mars told the spirit. “Do you mean there is another one?”

The slider stopped at the yes.

The students exchanged glances.

“Okay, but where exactly? Near the first grave?”

The spirit was silent. It seemed that he had read the same article once and decided to share just a bunch of facts, hoping that no one would reveal his shameful ignorance.

But then the fingers moved again, in a very slow uncertain way, which made the friends doubt the spirit was going to tell the truth. However, they were ready to accept any information. They were begging for it.

A minute later, they had another word.

Stump.

“It seems we have a big village and a small landmark,” said Silvan and thought they would kick him out as well, but everyone turned out to be too enthusiastic about the séance and ignored his remark.

Mars had only one thing to make sure of.

“This Roman… Did you bury his ashes?”

The spirit pointed to certain letters, and Mars read with relief, “A corpse.”

Diana whispered in Mars’ ear, “That’s enough.”

He nodded.

Not much, but it should be enough for them.

“Thank you very much for coming and talking to us. Goodbye!”

They waited until the slider moved to the goodbye and only then turned the triangle over. The séance was finished. And it definitely became easier to breathe.

Diana felt alive first. She praised Mars for leading them through a slippery mystical path and hugged him with her whole love. She whispered something in his ear, and Mars immediately cheered up and looked at his friends with a clear look.

“Everything worked out. And we weren’t even cursed for being drunk and talking too much.”

“Well, we’ll find out it tomorrow when we wake up blind or dumb, or mentally ill, who gets what,” Silvan went to the table. “I’ll take your notes until morning, thank you.”

Diana lit two extinguished candles, because she didn’t want to turn on the light, and said, “Take it in the morning.”

“Why?”

“We’re going to Kelshall now.”

“What?” Vesper jumped up and immediately hit his shoulder against an impressive dresser. “You want to go to some village tonight, at night, when we can barely stand on our feet, and pull out a corpse there?”

“A skeleton,” Mars said. He didn’t seem surprised, and the others suddenly realized that everything had been planned that way.

They find out where to go, and they go there. Simple. No postponements, delays, excuses.

Aurora straightened her black skirt, in which she looked more like a harmless schoolgirl, and asked an interesting question, licking drops of spilled whiskey from her hand, “Let’s say we go. But how exactly will we do it?”

“Coniunctis viribus10,” Mars shrugged his shoulders.

“A vague answer,” Vesper snorted and thought that Mars’ self-confidence had already crossed all acceptable boundaries.

“Well, if you have a good plan, props, the ability to drive a car and to look for tree stumps—” Silvan sat down on the table, right on the desired notes, and began to count his fingers.

“Are you going or not?” Mars cut off Silvan’s speech and looked at everyone except Diana with his stern gaze, confident this would make them succumb to his influence. He knew his trump cards and often allowed himself to use them.

Aurora nodded first. It seemed to her that a trip to nature would help relieve tension and give her a little strength to continue studying. She needed to reburn now more than ever before.

Then Silvan raised his hand. He knew it’s not typical of Mars to throw words to the wind, and if he decided to organize a conversation with a Roman with the help of a miracle, then it’s a crime to refuse the offer. They needed to come into literal contact with antiquity.

Vesper was the last to agree. The idea still seemed unrealizable to him, but Diana would go anyway, so it was better to go with her and take advantage of the opportunity to dig the ground under the moon and accidentally touch each other. He needed to be around her as much as possible.

“That’s nice,” Mars smiled. “Go to the car while I’ll get my things.”

“And Nox?” said Aurora. “Errare humanun est11, don’t forget it, please.”

“If he’s standing outside, ready to apologize for his unreasonable behavior, then let him join,” Mars went to the dresser to take the most important ingredient. The rest of the things he and Diana packed a long time ago and put them under the bed.

Aurora, with all her drunken naivety, went to the door and opened it.

Nox wasn’t there.

“I’ll go get him.”

“As you wish. We’re leaving in fifteen minutes.”

Without any more questions, as if everything started to look normal, Silvan and Vesper left the room after Aurora.

“Only fifteen minutes?” Diana was dancing again and slowly sneaking up on Mars. He was scattering her underwear in all possible directions and startled when Diana stood on tiptoe to kiss his hot neck.

“I would like to have eternity, but you know that otherwise they will just fall asleep in their cold beds. We need to leave as soon as possible.”

“I hate a cold bed, it makes me feel lonely.” Diana made a sad face.

Mars finally took out six small plastic packages and put them in the prepared bag. Then he turned to Diana and saw her bra again, black as the soul itself.

“I’ll take care of you,” he took off his jacket and threw it on the floor.

Fifteen minutes, and then they will go to Ancient Rome.

– 4 —

The students chose completely wrong clothes for hard work with a shovel in the mud because sticking to a certain aesthetic was more valuable to them. The whole squad went on a trip in their favorite long black coats and leather shoes. Only Aurora was wearing a beige coat, and she didn’t miss the opportunity to sigh with disappointment when her friends gathered in the parking lot.

“And that’s how we lose individuality.”

“I would like to find it at first,” replied Vesper and got in at the back to Silvan who kept the most important bag with two bottles of red wine and some mysterious white pills.

Since the car belonged to Mars and he turned out to be the most sober and ambitious, which reduced the risk of accidentally driving into a swamp or crashing into another car, he settled into the driver’s seat. They decided that Nox would sit next to him, and one of the girls would comfort herself in someone’s arms.

“You could lie in the trunk,” Mars didn’t even look at his friend because he didn’t want to forgive him too quickly for his stupid antics.

The question was if Nox needed that forgiveness at all. The guy leaned his forehead against the glass and closed his eyes. He hoped the head would stop spinning and save him from the prospect of throwing up in the car.

“Who will be lucky enough to sit on uncomfortable knees and pray not to get out of the car with bruises?” Diana grinned and blew warm breath on her hands.

Late in the evening, the temperature dropped a lot, and she didn’t think of taking gloves, but at least she didn’t forget to put on a medallion in the shape of the moon, so symbolic for a full moon that night.

Naturally, Vesper wanted Diana to sit on him, but he was afraid to admit it. He knew that Mars wouldn’t be jealous because Mars had enough confidence that no one could take his girlfriend away from him. But Vesper wasn’t ready to make such serious allegations and invite Diana to spend an hour together.

Aurora looked into the car and immediately faced Silvan’s wide and slightly frightening smile. Everything on that freckled face betrayed his nefarious plan to feel Aurora up on the way to Kelshall. Perhaps Nox and Silvan should have stayed together, so neither of them would bother the rest with unwelcome attention.

“I’ll sit between the boys,” Aurora made a decision.

“Why you?”

“Because I said it first.”

Diana pursed her lips but then resigned to the situation.

“Well, Silvan has our bag, Vesper has an existential crisis, it seems the choice is obvious.”

Vesper’s wish was fulfilled by a wave of a magic wand, and he didn’t even have time to believe in the miracle that had happened. The girl of his dreams fell on his knees so easily and simply, as if she did it every day.

“Have you figured it out?” Mars looked in the car mirror.

“Eamus!12” Diana replied.

Friday night’s adventure moved on to the next infernal circle.

Kelshall was located between Cambridge and London, and the car drove fast and straight and almost always smoothly. At first Mars turned on the radio to make their journey not to seem long and boring, but the music disappeared amid conversations and laughter, so he turned it off soon and tried to concentrate on the plan.

He found some photos of the grave and was going to see it with his own eyes. Then they would disperse to the sides from the old grave in search of a new one which he hoped they wouldn’t have to spend the whole night on.

“Shouldn’t we go straight to the forest?” Nox asked after he found out the details. He had to speak loudly because there was “Guess the Song” in the back seats. At least it’s not “Truth or Dare”.

“That’s right,” the driver agreed after a minute and tightened his grip on the steering wheel. “People cut down trees in the forest,” Mars said it with such an instructive intonation, as if he was the first to learn the truth and decided to share his knowledge with others.

“What about garden plots? When an apple tree, for example, no longer bears fruit, it gets its execution,” Aurora noticed this.

She had been pushing Silvan’s hand off her knee all the way and couldn’t wait for them to finally arrive and get out of the car.

Vesper, on the contrary, was afraid to touch Diana, he felt that if he hugged the girl for her own safety, he would never let her go, and then Mars would have a real reason to cut off his hands.

“We’ll sort it out on the spot, there’s no point in guessing now,” Diana seemed confident that the necessary stump would come out on them by itself. She didn’t even admit the possibility that the mission might fail.

However, when the students arrived and barely managed to step on the road, they heard a clap of thunder, although nothing had foretold bad weather before. Everyone suddenly realized that it was time to stop hoping for luck. Perhaps they would be deeply disappointed. Perhaps they would wander through the forest in the rain in search of someone whose existence hadn’t even been proven.

Aurora pulled a snow-white scarf higher on her face and started to regret that she was so eager to get out into the fresh air. No one had warned that this air would be as cold as a dead body.

“Why are you standing? Take shovels, bags, a good spirit and go to the forest,” Mars opened the trunk and gave everyone a personal archaeological set.

He pretended that he didn’t feel the cold, trying to show an example of fearlessness in the face of bad weather, but he still lifted the collar of his coat to make the wind touch him a little less.

Silvan looked at the dark trees ahead with some distrust.

“Can we walk through the streets first? Maybe a fir tree grew near someone’s fence and was shamelessly cut down.”

Mars slammed the trunk shut.

“And when we don’t find anything, it will get even darker, and then no one will want to wander through the forest. That’s why we’ll start with the most unpleasant option.”

“Why unpleasant?” Diana was surprised with genuine sincerity. “The smell of fir trees alone is worth something! And we can also find mushrooms, if they, of course, grow in late autumn.”

“But wolves grow all year round,” Silvan persisted.

In the car, alcohol had worn off a little, and now Silvan looked at things more sensibly and especially at the possibility of dying in a terrible ravine. And all for the sake of a vague dream to communicate in Latin with a native speaker. How can we assume after such sacrifice that it’s easy to be a philologist?

“We’ll get around this tiny forest in an hour and a half. Stop crying, there aren’t even squirrels here” not a single person had a chance to convince Mars to change his mind, it wasn’t worth even trying.

However, no one moved. Sure, they weren’t cowards, but they weren’t superheroes as well, so it was fine to take some time. They needed to get ready to throw themselves into the unknown.

Their wristwatches had been ticking with disapproval for five awkward minutes.

In the end, the silence became ugly. And since the students always treated ugliness with contempt, they couldn’t stay still anymore.

“Satis!13 Just do it,” Nox took on the role of a trailblazer with courage and honor.

He stepped into the woods, onto a narrow, trampled path, and didn’t even turn around to check if his friends had followed him.

But they followed, because deep down everyone wanted to feel fear. It is fear that guides people’s impulses, motivates them to hide or run, and thanks to it you can clearly understand that you are still alive. You’re afraid, so you exist.

“Let’s use some logic,” Mars pretended to be the smartest again, while he was walking behind his friends to control them. “The man, who wanted to cut down and carry away a tree, hardly went too deep, after all, he still had to drag the weight back, but at the same time he hardly decided to swing the saw at the very edge of the forest. I also doubt that he was very far from the main path. In general, he kept to the golden mean.”

“It doesn’t help at all,” Vesper chuckled and stepped over a large branch. Their whole journey resembled a real obstacle course. “There are still a million options where to go. If we don’t split, at least in half, so that one group goes to the right and the other group goes to the left, then we’ll spend here not the promised hour and a half, but a month and a half. And what, by the way, will happen if there are several stumps? In theory, everyone should go their separate ways.”

“No!” Silvan cried out. “I’m not going to split up.”

“Then you will be split up. You’ll get butchered like a helpless goat,” it seemed funny to Nox that Silvan believed in the philosophy of horror films, while one could believe, for example, in the philosophy of porn films.

“Here’s what I say,” Mars stopped.

Others also stopped.

The crunch of fallen leaves, similar to the breaking of bones, died down, too.

“I expect your phones are charged. When you find it, mark the location and send it into the group chat.”

Everyone agreed to the plan with such obedience, as if they were listening to a Christian priest. But the classicists believed in other gods and expected Roman deities to keep them safe and take care of the Internet. The connection was the main thing in the forest. If it disappeared, everything would fall apart.

“I’m taking Vesper and Aurora,” it was important to Nox to “book” the most successful options.

He needed Vesper for an obvious reason, Diana and Mars were not to be separated, and it was better to keep his annoying ex far away. Aurora, the most harmless but boring girl in the world, was left at this point, and Nox added her to his team.

But it wasn’t that simple. Everyone had their own thoughts about who was the best company to wander in the dark among the trees with. A commotion began, and the students tried to defend their vision of the situation but keep in secret their real motives.

“I have an idea!” Diana exclaimed, and no one was surprised at it.

Diana didn’t care who to go with, but the chance to kiss her boyfriend, pressed against a tree, appealed to her a lot. However, she knew they shouldn’t linger because of silly disputes. Besides, the mighty thunder was still making them shudder in surprise, and the icy wind was tangling their hair with greater force.

“Speak out, then,” Mars frowned. He was dreadfully annoyed by his friends’ pathetic attempts to hide their true desires.

He wanted to go and do the work for which he had been living lately, and let others do whatever they want, just not forget to watch their feet. It would be a shame if they missed the grave because someone decided to cuddle in the inspiring dark.

Diana offered the fairest option. She broke six sticks, three short and three long, which could easily decide for them who would go with whom to the depths of the sinister forest.

“Pull.”

And with frank excitement, everyone experienced luck, if it was still allowed to believe in its existence.

– 5 —

After some thunderclaps, it became known that Nox, Aurora and Mars would go to the right, while Vesper, Silvan and Diana would go to the left. Without any objections, the students finally separated, but before that they looked at each other so intently, as if they felt they might not meet again. Did it seem like a tragedy to them? Perhaps, but it definitely didn’t reach the antique level of tension.

“Maybe we’ll see you again. Maybe not. Who cares!” Silvan waved to his friends who were already moving away. Then he turned to his own group and, rubbing his hands either due to the cold or anticipation, said, “We must win.”

Vesper raised his eyebrows, “What?”

“This grave-searching game.”

A note of anguish sounded in Vesper’s heavy sigh. The one whose dreams seemed to come true one after another looked at the black sky barely visible from behind the branches. He put his hands in the coat pockets, and his shovel, for which Mars had apparently robbed a household shop, was lying on the dirty ground.

Diana looked at both guys with undisguised disappointment, then turned around and, waving her gorgeous hair and letting the pleasant scent of mysterious herbs scatter in all directions, stepped off the trampled ground into the thick grass.

“If we stand still like this, then I doubt we’ll win,” she began to push the spruce branches apart with both her hands and a shovel.

Her movements, as usual, looked perfectly practiced, clear and decisive. Vesper was bending over to make his way through obstacles without the help of numb hands and wondering if she had participated in similar adventures before.

Listening to the wind, Diana was walking in silence, she wasn’t looking back, because she felt that the responsibility for the task lay entirely on her. Silvan would rather jump between trees and scary shadows, and Vesper, as always, would wander in his incomprehensible thoughts and mumble something under his breath. They couldn’t be relied on.

After a couple of minutes, Diana went far ahead. The guys didn’t even notice her disappearance, because at the most convenient time and in the most favorable place they started a very frank conversation.

It took Silvan a moment to assess the situation and realize that since he was unlikely to be lucky that night, he could at least help arrange another alliance. He needed to distract himself from thoughts about wolves and at the same time have fun.

He asked his friend in a barely audible voice, “Do you want to chat with her?”

The question sounded like a whip, and Vesper twitched and got flushed. But then he put on his favorite mask and asked, “What do you mean?”

“Well, she’s alone now, no one is watching, you can find out from each other how you are doing in a calm romantic atmosphere,” Silvan hid a smile.

He didn’t need Vesper to think that he was joking. It’s important to show some support, but in no case to give out even a couple of laughs.

“We’re doing fine, I don’t see why you’re bothering,” with such wonderful abilities for acting, Vesper could play in the Roman comedies of Plautus.

Silvan crossed his arms over his chest, tucking the shovel under his arm, which turned out to be completely unsafe. A thorny branch immediately passed over his face, and then he stumbled over a moss-covered stone and almost fell into the mud, but Vesper managed to pick him up and return to a stable position. Silvan expressed gratitude and continued his simple manipulations.

“Let’s be honest. You don’t know how to lie. All your supposedly secret thoughts are written right here,” Silvan pointed a finger at his friend’s forehead. “And I don’t understand what you are afraid and ashamed of. Esto quod es14. We also admire the moral principles of Ancient Rome, remember? Of course, you don’t have to insert it right now, but you can begin with the talking part.”

Vesper couldn’t speak for a moment after such a delightful monologue. He definitely wasn’t going to insert anything while Diana was dating Mars, and his friend’s reasoning seemed extremely disgusting. Silvan used to be known for great decency, but Nox’s bad influence on him was reflected as noticeably as possible.

“I’m not even going to comment on it,” said Vesper after a while. He didn’t want to stay near Silvan, so he quickened the pace, hoping to take a break from unsolicited advice.