Chapter 3

Dad's research team was at the archaeological site south of Angkor. It was a part of the city that no cars could go as there were no roads, so our pickup truck drove right through the dense jungle.

At one point, we crossed a stream, and I prayed so hard that the strong current of water wouldn't wash us away. I prayed to the trees since Dad told me there were little gods living in trees too.

Both Dad and I almost looked identical in our outfits. I wore my knee-high boots just like him, but with fitting hiking pants and a long-sleeve shirt with the cuffs rolled up to the elbows. Not that I wanted to be a female version of Indiana Jones, but the clothes were comfortable for the occasion.

Dad was just whistling along with a cheesy love song on the radio when we burst out of the evergreen rainforest and made our way through another vast grassland. The sounds of crickets resonated everywhere.

"Here we are!" Dad announced.

I looked through the windshield and found what looked like a camping site. There were two large open-air tents and a few smaller ones next to a pile of dug-up soil. Some local archaeologists were digging and brushing dirt around like they were playing in a sandbox.

Dad parked the car about a hundred feet away and we got out.

"Dr. Azarov!" a male voice boomed from one of the tents. Then a tall figure emerged.

Dad told me he had an old friend, who was half-human and half-bigfoot. He was right. The man coming toward us was like a walking mountain, and his white curly hair looked as if he just stuck his fingers in an electric socket. There were smiling wrinkles around his eyes and a bright smile stitched across his tan face. The man's clothes were also covered in dust.

"Dr. Ivan, how are you doing?" Dad greeted him with a smile.

"Good, good!" Dr. Ivan said then turned to me. "And this must be my little Nikita, an aspiring artist, right? All grown up and breaking hearts!"

He said as he shook my hand, which he could have dislocated it from my shoulder if he put a little more force into his friendliness. I gave him a half-winced smile.

"So how's the finding going?" Dad asked.

"Oh, right!" The man scratched his white beard. "I almost forgot. Let's get inside so we can talk."

He led us to the tent. Dr. Ivan went over to his desk which was equipped with three flat-screen panel computer monitors. Then he clicked open several photographs on the screens for us to see.

"From the aerial topographic survey of the land, the spiral in question is not linked to the water management system as we had expected."

I had no idea what aerial topographic thingy was, but I didn't interrupt.

"So what is your hypothesis on this man-made feature?" Dad asked, staring at the screens with an intense gaze.

"I don't have one," Dr. Ivan said with a low sigh, "And that is one of the things that we dread as archaeologists —finding things like this that we don't understand."

"It's strange that in the Angkor era, they were very careful of how they patterned the urban space," Dad agreed in a serious tone. "It had to follow a kind of sacred geography where everything was laid out and placed on the landscapes for a reason. But this artificial site has nothing to indicate its purpose."

"Can it be some kind of an ancient grinding stone instead?" I asked for the first time.

"No, dear," Dr. Ivan shook his head. "We found no evidence of ceramic remains or anything that suggests a habitation."

"May I take a look at the spiral?" Dad asked.

"Sure thing! Now, follow me."

Dr. Ivan walked us out of the tent and headed towards the excavation site.

As we reached the mounds of earth that the team had dug up, the mysterious spiral came into view.

"Wow!" I breathed, looking at the biggest stone disc on the planet. It rose about a foot off the ground. Around twenty people were brushing it up with special tools. The spiral was made entirely from stone blocks. Each stone connected with each other in a ring, and there were about seven rings inside this giant spiral. I could see deep outlines and raised carvings all over it.

"Are those snakeheads?" I asked.

"Yes," Dr. Ivan said. "There are seven serpent heads poking out of the surface at odd places. We didn't recognize them at first because some of their features were worn off with time. The carved patterns on the spiral are both depressed and raised, too."

"It looks like the spiral is movable," I said.

"You're a smart kid. That's what I thought, too," Dr. Ivan said, "But every stone seems to be rooted in place, and we can't move a single one of them."

"What about that hole?" I pointed at a hole in the middle of the spiral.

"Well, that leads to another thing," Dr. Ivan said and he turned to my Dad. "I have something to show you, Dr. Azarov. Come with me."

Once we got back to the tent again, Dr. Ivan zipped close the entrance and flicked on a light bulb, hanging from the ceiling. He began to rummage around the tiny place and then pulled out a wooden box.

"We found this inside the hole of the spiral," he said, putting the box on the table and glancing around before he turned back to us. "I have to keep it hidden so that it won't attract thieves."

"What's this, doc?" Dad asked.

"I think you will know when you see it," Dr. Ivan replied and lifted the lid of the chest open. Inside was a milky-white crystal stone the size of a bowling ball. It was in a perfectly spherical shape with faint writing around the clear surface.

"It looks like a fortune teller's crystal ball to me," I said.

"No, Nikita, this is no ordinary stone," Dad said without taking his eyes off it. "This is Chandramoki Moni."

"What is Chandramoki Moni?"

"The Moonstone."