Theodosia and the Last Pharaoh (The Theodosia Series)

  When no one came to check on me, I relaxed and resumed petting Isis. I bet she knew what Habiba did all day. Too bad she couldn't talk. My hand stilled as a great big shocking idea came to me. Would Major Grindle's Babel stone work on animals?

  Eager to try, I fumbled in my pockets for the thin sliver of stone. I grasped it tightly in my left hand while I continued petting Isis with my right. Now to get her to talk.

  I took my hand away. After a second, she lifted her head and stared at me, wanting me to get on with it. I withheld my hand, waiting for her to give a meow of complaint. Instead, she just watched me steadily with her brilliant green eyes. After a long moment, she uncurled herself from my side and stretched out her neck to sniff the stone in my hand. With one last reproachful glance at me, she jumped down from the bed and hopped up onto the windowsill, then disappeared into the growing dusk. Bother. That experiment had failed on all counts.

  Before I could decide what to do next, I heard the clatter of hooves in the courtyard. Mother was home! I cast all thoughts of ancient bloodlines and centuries-old secrets aside and went to hear how the day's excavation had progressed.

  I met Mother just as she was coming in the door. "Hello, darling!" she said, stripping off her gloves. "How are you feeling?"

  Oh. Right. "Better," I said. "Much better, actually. Spending the entire day in a cool room seems to have taken care of it. I'm sure I'll be able to go with you tomorrow."

  "Excellent!" She reached out and kissed my cheek. When she pulled away, Habiba was standing in the doorway, watching us. "Oh, Habiba," Mother said. "I'm famished. Let me just wash up and then I think we'll have dinner."

  Habiba nodded, then disappeared back down the hallway. Even though I had already washed, I was not anxious to be alone with Habiba in case she tried to ask me any questions. "I'll go wash up, too, then meet you in the dining room," I told Mother.

  Ten minutes later, Mother and I sat down to a dinner of spicy lamb stew. "So?" I asked. "Did you find any more columns? Anything to indicate it's not just an outbuilding belonging to Hatshepsut's temple?"

  "We did! We found at least twelve more columns, and probably more than that. It appears as if the temple is in very good shape; it's just completely buried under piles of dirt and rubble. The cliffs overhead must have collapsed long ago and buried it. Being buried in rubble might well have helped to aid preservation."

  "Excellent!" I said, trying to scrounge up some excitement. Surely it would feel different when I was back on the dig with them, I assured myself. "So what's on the schedule for tomorrow?"

  "More digging. We think we can clear out the first terrace by the end of the week if we keep at it. We'll know much more then about what we've truly discovered."

  "Wonderful!" I said. "I can't wait to get started." Which reminded me. "Mother?"

  "Yes, dear."

  "Since we have so very much digging to do, what do you think about having Gadji, the donkey boy, come work with us? There aren't any donkeys for him to tend to during the day, and it would teach him a skill he could use to better himself." And that way I could keep an eye on his safety.

  "That is an excellent idea, Theo. The more people we have digging, the sooner we'll learn what we have found."

  Habiba came in just then, her dark, heavy presence causing my mouth to snap shut. I avoided looking at her as she moved around the table, setting new dishes down and clearing the old ones. I wondered if she knew I had left the house today. Unable to help myself, I slowly looked up, not surprised when I found her eyes above her veil watching me. She gave the faintest of nods, then glanced briefly at Mother. When Habiba saw that Mother was not watching us, she held her finger to her lips, so briefly that I almost missed it. I nearly dropped my fork in surprise. Before I could respond, she left to carry the dishes back to the kitchen, pausing once in the doorway to look over her shoulder. Honestly! What did she mean by that? That I should keep her secrets? Or that she would keep mine?

  I loathe hand signals. They are harder to decipher than hieroglyphs.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Facing the Goddess

  THE NEXT MORNING I felt a tad nervous about seeing Gadji. It felt wrong to have the last pharaoh saddling my donkey. But as it turned out, he was nowhere to be seen. Before I could worry over much I saw Sefu hiding up in the rafters, which meant Gadji was somewhere nearby. And while I was sorry not to be able to tell him that I'd found him a new job, I refused to let it ruin my day—the first day of nothing but pure archaeology with no beastly intrigue.

  Nabir grumbled a bit about Gadji's absence, but the donkeys had already been saddled so it wasn't too much of an inconvenience. We mounted the beasts and rode out into the morning. "I have a wonderful feeling about what today might hold," I told Mother.

  She smiled at me. "If you could pull something else out of your hat, that would be absolutely brilliant!"

  I frowned slightly. I had meant only that I was looking forward to being back on the dig with her and the others, but now it appeared that she expected me to find something else, something even more remarkable. I'd been working so hard at keeping my spirits high that morning, but with one careless remark, Mother had taken all the wind from my sails.

  We spent a hot, dusty morning up to our elbows in dirt and rubble. It was hard work, horribly hot and painstakingly tedious. Even so, it was the true work of an archaeologist, with no intrigue or power-hungry secret societies in sight. I should have been happier. Even Jadwiga, for all his depressing bluster, seemed to have moved up a notch in mood from desolate to merely dispirited.

  I did begin to wonder, though, just how happy Gadji would be when he learned what I'd signed him up for. Mucking around in dust and rubble couldn't hold a candle to being a pharaoh.

  Was that where Gadji was? I stopped digging. Had he decided to return to the wedjadeen? No, Sefu had still been there and Gadji would never have gone anywhere without that monkey.

  Of course, thinking of Gadji quickly had me wondering about the wedjadeen and their plans, but I pushed those thoughts away. They were no longer my concern; my obligations had been met, I reminded myself. Although really, what one is supposed to think about while sifting through desert sand is a bit of a mystery. I never realized that archaeology required so little actual thinking and so very much digging.

  Jadwiga and Rumpf hovered nearby all day. Every time I turned around, I nearly tripped over one of them. "Honestly!" I finally said in exasperation. "There is nothing left for me to find!"

  I could not have been more wrong.

  I had decided to dig in the most boring, least promising spot, hoping that Mother's two assistants would leave me in peace. Which worked. However, it did not turn out to be a boring spot.

  As I cleared away a patch of rubble, I saw a small hole behind it. Curious—and excited—I began working faster until I had uncovered a small, narrow shaft. The rubble had covered only the mouth—the shaft itself appeared to be intact.

  The mysterious dark passageway beckoned. I got on my knees and poked my head in far enough that I could shine my torch light inside. There were solid walls on either side and a closed ceiling up above. Even better, the ceiling didn't appear to have any ominous cracks or gaps.

  I felt something move against my arm, nearly shouting in alarm as visions of scorpions danced in my head, but it was only Isis. "Do not do that," I told her. "You about gave me apoplexy."

  She peered into the tunnel. "What do you think?" I asked. In answer, she twitched her tail and entered the shaft, her black shape quickly melding into the shadows. "Is it safe?" I called out.

  She padded back to where I waited and touched her nose to mine, then turned around and disappeared down the shaft. "I'm thinking that was a yes," I mumbled. I glanced over my shoulder. Mother, Jadwiga, and Rumpf all had their heads close together discussing something. Perfect. I made sure my pith helmet was secure, gripped my torch, and crawled inside. I could stand as soon as I crossed the threshold.

  Within seconds, I was en
veloped in darkness, the opening behind me nothing more than a little square of light, none of which penetrated very deeply into the shadows. I paused a moment and shined my torch on the walls. Elaborate carvings decorated the passageway, the colors surprisingly bright for being thousands of years old.

  It showed an offering ritual, I realized, with carvings of the pharaoh (and it was Thutmose III!) walking alternately with the gods Amun and Mantu, preparing offerings to both. Amun was leading Thutmose in one, and in the next carving, Mantu embraced him.

  I was so intent on learning what the walls had to tell me that I wasn't paying enough attention to my feet and cracked my toe on a large piece of rock.

  "Ow!" I hissed, hopping up and down, making enough racket that Isis came back to see what was going on. She waited patiently for me to stop howling, looking a trifle smug about her ability to see in the dark.

  When the pain in my toe finally dulled to a mere throb, I began walking again, using my torch on the floors. Isis deigned to assist me by always staying just within my sights.

  The tunnel went on forever, growing smaller and smaller as the ceiling slanted downward and the floor sloped up, until it became so small that I had to get down on my hands and knees. Just when I feared I would have to give up and scoot out backwards, a dark opening loomed ahead. Isis paused and waited for me to catch up. When I had, she flicked her tail and leaped through the opening. I hesitated. The others might have missed me by now, I thought, then gave a short grunt. Whom was I fooling? No one ever missed me. Every time I hurried back, terrified they'd noticed my absence, they'd never even known I'd been gone.

  Angered by that realization, I gripped the torch more firmly and crawled over the pile of rubble into the chamber, then blinked.

  Long pale fingers of sunlight drifted down from cracks in the ceiling, illuminating a small inner shrine. Images of Hathor decorated the north and south walls, while images of Isis decorated the east and west walls. The inner shrine of the goddess, then.

  Dust motes danced in the sunlight. Wait! I peered more closely. Those were no ordinary dust motes but pale floating symbols of power and ancient hieroglyphs swirling lazily through the air.

  As I stepped more fully into the room, it felt like wading into a warm tub of faintly moving water, only the water was soft and dry rather than wet. I held my hand away from my body and felt the warm currents push lazily against it. Not probing, like the power from a curse, but soft, like a gentle, playful breeze.

  The quiet of the chamber stole over me, quieter and more peaceful than any other place I'd ever been in. I felt completely and utterly safe. And in that quiet safety, I was finally able to face how heartsick I was. How hungry for comfort. I carried anger and a sense of betrayal deep inside me like a heavy, ugly rock. Not to mention the huge gaping hole in my life where I now realized my grandfather should have been.

  All the days of nerve-racking travel and sneaking around, trying to take care of everyone: Gadji, Mother, Awi Bubu, even Jadwiga's dour self. Without any warning a sob hiccupped in my throat, and before I had a chance to tamp it back down, I began to cry.

  I cried for Gadji, who missed his sister so badly that he'd attached himself to me and passed up a chance to live as a king. I cried for Awi Bubu, who'd wanted nothing more than to be forgiven for his crimes by the unforgiving wedjadeen. I cried for Major Grindle, who I was afraid had sacrificed some vital part of himself in his unrestrained use of magic. I cried for my grandmother, who had had to watch the man she loved grow mad, and my father, who was so traumatized by it that he closed his heart and mind to the wonders right in front of his nose. I even cried for Jadwiga, just because he was so wretchedly sad all the time.

  But mostly I cried for myself. I was tired of living a double life, tired of always having to be pleasing or brilliant for fear my parents would leave me behind. I cried for want of a grandfather who could have assured me I wasn't a freak and I did indeed belong to this family.

  Eventually, I ran out of tears. Even so, I kept my head down on my knees, savoring the feeling of being absolutely empty. And as I savored that feeling, a sense of peace washed over me, as warm and real as if someone had just run a loving hand over my head. I gasped and lifted my cheek from my knees, but there was no one there. No one but my cat.

  And the mysterious dust motes. The angle of the sun had shifted as I'd sat there blubbering like a baby, and it now fell across the left side of my body. Along that entire side I could see the ethereal symbols gliding and shimmying in the air about me.

  As I wiped my eyes and fumbled for a handkerchief. I tried to remember the last time I had cried. It had been years, I suspected. But it felt safe in here. I could cry without risk of anyone seeing me or thinking me a silly child. I took a deep breath, as if I could drink in that sense of safety and carry it with me. In here, I could be peculiar or brilliant or nothing at all. I could be brilliantly peculiar, if I wanted.

  Suddenly, I found myself on my feet, arms thrown out at my sides. Closing my eyes, I raised my face so that I could feel the rays of the sun upon it. "I am peculiar," I said out loud.

  Nothing happened. The ground didn't shake, nor the shaft crumble. "I am peculiar!" I said again, only this time I shouted it.

  I grew warm, and when I opened my eyes to look, I saw the magical dust motes dancing against my skin like a swarm of giddy butterflies.

  I felt a bump against my ankle and looked down to see Isis rubbing against me. "You don't mind if I'm odd, do you?" I murmured. In answer, she began to purr.

  And that's when I realized something else. All my friends, my true friends—such as Sticky Will, Stilton, and Gadji—all liked me precisely because I was peculiar. Even Henry had come to cautiously admire that part of me.

  The thing was, the part of myself that everyone else found so peculiar was the very part I liked the best.

  "Theodosia?" From far away I heard someone calling my name. "Theo, dear, where are you?"

  Bother. They were looking for me. I turned and looked at that magical place, reluctant to leave its four walls. With a shock, I realized I didn't even want to tell Mother about it. I didn't want to take a place of living magic and turn it into an empty husk, like the other monuments I'd visited. For that was the difference, I realized. They were empty of their true magic, while this place was still alive with it.

  And I was not going to jeopardize that simply for a pat on the head from Mother.

  ***

  I scrambled back along the narrow shaft, relieved when it finally grew big enough for me to stand. I was able to move along much more quickly then, reaching the opening in a matter of minutes. Determined that the others not find this secret passageway, I knelt down and peered out, waiting to be certain no one was around.

  "Theodosia?" I heard once again, but it was coming from over to the left, from Hatshepsut's temple. I quickly scrambled out, then ran around to the opposite side of the rubble. "Mother? Is that you? Are you calling me?"

  "Theodosia!" Mother poked her head out from behind one of the colonnades in Hatshepsut's temple. "Where have you been?" she asked, hurrying toward me. She was frowning, I saw, but whether in annoyance or concern, I couldn't tell.

  "I fell asleep, back over there in the shade beside the donkeys."

  I waited for her to ask if I felt all right or was getting ill again. At the very least to put her hand on my forehead and see if I was getting sick. But all she did was cluck her tongue at me and call out to the others that she had found me.

  ***

  My tired spirits rose when our house came into view, but when I halted the donkey just outside the stable, no Gadji appeared to take the reins while I dismounted. With a sigh of exasperation, I managed to dismount on my own (thank heavens donkeys are so close to the ground!). By this time, Mother and Nabir had drawn up behind me.

  "Where is that no good donkey boy?" Nabir muttered, striding over to the stable. "Boy!" he hollered inside. "Get out here." There was a long moment of silence, and still Gadji didn't
appear.

  Muttering in Arabic, Nabir unsaddled Mother's donkey. Worried now, I went into the stable to peek into the stall that Gadji used. All his things were still there, but there was no sign of him. Or Sefu.

  "Excuse me, miss," Nabir said, and I had to leap out of the way as he strode past carrying a saddle.

  "Here, I'll help," I told the dragoman. "It was my suggestion to hire Gadji in the first place." But mostly I wanted an excuse to hang around the stable longer. Gadji's absence was beginning to worry me. Had he taken the wedjadeen up on their offer, then?

  "No, no!" Nabir was scandalized. "Missy not help. Missy go in house with Mother."

  "Nonsense," I said firmly, then went to remove the saddle from my own donkey. Only I hadn't realized how beastly heavy saddles were! With a grunt, I tried to lift it from the donkey but only succeeded in getting it halfway off. The donkey, no doubt tired and hungry and hot, had no patience for my fumbling and started to trot into the stable with me hanging on to the partially removed saddle.

  Before I could so much as squeak out a "Help!" Nabir was at my side, grabbing hold of the runaway donkey and taking the saddle from me.

  "I'm sorry," I said in a small, defeated voice. "I was only trying to help."

  "I know. Missy has kind heart, but Nabir will do it. It is easier that way."

  Frustrated in my attempt to be able to wait until Nabir was finished with the donkeys, I vowed to come back after dinner and see if I could find any hint of where Gadji had gone.

  The house was cool and dark, a welcome relief after the blinding heat of the day. I walked into my room, then froze. There was a note on my bed.

  On my pillow, to be exact.

  A chill of foreboding ran through me, as well as a sense of violation. I was getting heartily sick of people tramping through my room without permission.

  With trembling hands I plucked the note from my pillow, cracked the black wax seal, and began to read.