Who owns the past, and who should be allowed to go digging it up? He gave himself a primer of every historical era his parents had ever taken interest in.Įventually, he fell down a rabbit hole of ethical treatises.
#Footsteps in the dark how to#
He read about the latest archival techniques and how to protect delicate pieces of history from damp and bugs and sunlight. When he was eight he went on a weeks-long research binge, thinking if he learned enough to be useful his parents might let him come with them the next time they flew away. The thing is, he tried to like archaeology. They spent hours reliving the dig once they got back, savoring the memory of dust and sweat and grumbling about customs and red tape with a heat that made him flinch, even though it was directed at someone several continents away. His parents had been ecstatic to bring it home. Looking at it should probably make him feel something. Without really thinking, he'd ended up here: sitting in the room where his parents stored their favorite artifacts, staring at its most recent addition. He'd settled for wandering around the manor, ghosting through the empty halls with a blanket cape on his shoulders and makeshift cane in one hand. He was a nocturnal idiot, though, and just because he knew better than to go out at night with one out of two legs functioning didn't mean he could convince his brain to sleep during prime bat-watching hours.
Tim thought he might be able to walk it off. He had, however, wrenched his ankle so badly it felt like it was on fire. Flailing, he managed not to plummet to the alley below or smash the camera swinging wildly around his neck. He'd been trying to jump from one fire escape to another to move between buildings and caught his foot on a rusted-out railing. That was two-thirds of the day doing what he was supposed to! It could have been way worse. In his defense, he iced and elevated it after school. Possibly because he didn't want his teachers asking awkward questions, and was therefore walking on his throbbing ankle to the bus station and through school every day while pretending nothing was wrong. He twisted it a few nights back and it was stubbornly refusing to go back to normal. His ankle was throbbing, a reminder of why he wasn't out watching Batman and Robin or doing something useful. Tim sat cross-legged in front of a worn chunk of clay his parents had missed his last birthday to find, and distantly heard the grandfather clock in the hall strike one.
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