The Cursed Scarab

by Suzanne Weyn

  Taylor wasn’t sure what she should do. If her parents thought she wasn’t well — or was in a state of shock — they might cancel the trip to Egypt. She really, really didn’t want that to happen.

  The buzzing in the shoebox had stopped. That was a good sign. She stood listening a moment longer, just to be sure. Silence.

  The new quiet gave Taylor the nerve to lift the shoebox carefully from the bed. Maybe she could put it in her bike basket and ride the scarab over to the Haunted Museum. They’d be happy to have it back, and she wouldn’t need to be alone in the house with the blue carving for a minute longer than necessary.

  OK, come on over, she texted Sharon.

  SHARON SAT on her bike and pushed back her dark curls as Taylor placed the shoebox, which she’d put into a paper bag, into the basket of her own bike. “What’s in there?” Sharon asked.

  “Somehow a scarab from the Nefertiti collection followed me home,” Taylor replied as she secured the bag with a bungee cord.

  “What?!” Sharon’s eyes widened in alarm. “You stole something from the exhibit?”

  Taylor looked up sharply. “No! No way!” She looked around, panicked. What if someone heard Sharon say that? “I would never!”

  “Then what happened?”

  “I don’t know! It just appeared in my room.”

  Sharon squinted skeptically at Taylor.

  “Really! I don’t know how it got there.”

  Pursing her lips thoughtfully, Sharon considered the question. “Maybe someone slipped the scarab into your pocket, and it fell out when you weren’t looking.”

  “My sundress does have pockets.” Taylor liked this logical explanation. “But who would do that?”

  Sharon shrugged helplessly.

  “And why?” Taylor asked.

  “Maybe that Jason kid you met used you to smuggle it out,” Sharon suggested.

  That didn’t sound right to Taylor. Jason didn’t seem like a thief. “I don’t think so,” she said. “Besides, I put the thing back into the security guard’s box. How could it have gotten out?”

  “Who knows?”

  Taylor got onto her bike. “Let’s just ride over to the Haunted Museum to return it.”

  Sharon began to pedal in the direction of the museum and Taylor followed. After about fifteen minutes, when the Haunted Museum came into view, Taylor began to feel relieved. Soon this weird blue scarab would be back where it belonged.

  “I think it’s closed,” Sharon called over her shoulder as she glided to a stop at the front of the building.

  Taylor pulled up alongside Sharon. There was a padlock on the door and all the signs were gone, except one: CLOSED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE.

  “Oh no!” Taylor wailed.

  “We could take it to the police,” Sharon said.

  “What if they think I stole it?”

  “Maybe they wouldn’t care, as long as you’re returning it.”

  Taylor wasn’t confident it would be that easy.

  Sharon pointed to the front door. “Someone’s moving around inside.”

  Taylor and Sharon got off their bikes right away and banged on the front door. “Hello? Hello?” Taylor called.

  “Can I help you?” Taylor and Sharon both jumped, startled when someone behind them spoke.

  The woman was tall and thin with very pale skin. Short black hair peeked out from under a head wrap of frayed cloth that reminded Taylor of a mummy. Painted-on eyebrows arched over her dark glasses.

  “What do you need?” she asked.

  The woman smelled strongly of something familiar. Sunblock? Maybe that was why she was so pale.

  “Do you work for the museum?” Sharon asked the woman.

  “Yes,” she replied.

  There was something creepy about her, Taylor decided, and it was more than her appearance. Maybe it was her harsh voice, or her quick, jerky movements. But before Taylor could make up her mind, Sharon lifted the shoebox from Taylor’s basket and thrust it toward the woman. “Here! We came to give you this.”

  It happened so fast, Taylor couldn’t be sure — but she was nearly certain that she heard buzzing from the box. And that a spark of red flashed behind the woman’s dark sunglasses.

  “Okay, then,” Sharon said brightly, pushing off on her bike. “You’ll be sure to get that scarab back to where it belongs?”

  Taylor was still staring at the woman’s sunglasses, hoping they’d flash again so she could be sure she’d really seen it. They were so black that Taylor couldn’t find the woman’s eyes behind them at all.

  “It’s as good as done,” the woman said quietly.

  “Come on, Taylor!”

  With a nod to the woman, Taylor joined her friend. “At least that’s taken care of,” Sharon said as they cycled off together away from the museum. “See? No police, no getting in trouble.”

  “Yeah,” Taylor said, glancing back over her shoulder for one last look at the strange woman. But she was too late. The woman was gone.

  LATER THAT afternoon, Dr. Seabridge looked at Taylor from across her large desk. She had just finished giving Taylor a physical. “I see no sign of concussion,” she said. “But the fact that you’re being followed by strange bugs concerns me.”

  Taylor noticed her parents, who sat beside her, exchange a quick, worried glance. Obviously they’d spoken to the doctor about the odd things that had happened. “I haven’t seen them for a long time,” she replied quickly, which was true. Ever since she’d returned the scarab to the museum that morning, nothing odd had occurred.

  “And no more vivid daydreams of ancient Egypt?” Dr. Seabridge checked.

  “Not like the kind I had right after going to the museum, no. I mean, I’ve been thinking a lot about going to Egypt because I’m excited and all, but that’s different.”

  “Yes, of course, it is.”

  Mrs. Mason turned toward Taylor. “You’d tell us if you were experiencing any other strange events, wouldn’t you?”

  “I totally would!” Taylor replied. “Nothing has happened. It’s been boring, even.”

  Professor Mason sat back in the chair, seeming relieved. “Boring is good.”

  “Well, that’s me,” Taylor said cheerfully. “Bored as can be.”

  Dr. Seabridge laughed lightly. “Okay, then. I’d say you’re good to go to Egypt.”

  Taylor wanted to stand up and cheer, pump her fists, and dance around the room. She’d been so worried that the doctor would say she wasn’t up to the trip. But she stayed in her seat and smiled calmly, not daring to do anything that might be considered odd behavior.

  “But keep an eye on Taylor, just in case,” Dr. Seabridge added as the family was about to leave.

  “I’m so glad we’re all going on this trip,” Taylor’s mother said a week later as the Masons pulled out of their driveway and headed to the airport for their 10:00 a.m. flight to Cairo.

  Professor Mason turned the car onto the street. “It was so lucky for us that a family canceled at the last minute and we were able to take their spots.”

  “I can’t believe this is really happening,” Mrs. Mason added.

  “Neither can I,” Taylor said. During the week that had just passed, Taylor felt like a goldfish in a bowl, constantly being watched by her parents. “I’m fine!” she’d wanted to shout more than once, but didn’t want to seem moody or irritable.

  Finally, the waiting was over.

  She was on her way to Egypt, and there had been no more buzzing or bugs or visions. The most exciting thing that had happened was finding the place that fixed cell phones and having her screen replaced.

  Everything was just great!

  At the airport, Taylor checked her big suitcase but kept her backpack for the flight.

  “Hey, Taylor,” her father said as they stood in the security line. He nodded at someone behind them in line. “Isn’t that the young man we met at the Haunted Museum?”

  Following the direction of his glance, Taylor saw Jason standing with a b
lond woman, who, based on the resemblance, appeared to be his mother.

  He hadn’t told her he was going on this trip. She crossed over to him. “Surprise!” she said with a grin when he noticed her.

  Taylor hadn’t seen Jason since the day of the near-robbery, but they’d texted back and forth. Taylor had told him about the strange scarab, and all of a sudden she wondered if maybe she’d freaked him out with all the strange things that had been happening. “You’re on this trip?” Taylor asked. “Why didn’t you say anything when I mentioned that I was going?”

  Jason shrugged. “I thought it would be funny to just appear out of nowhere. Mom runs these trips for the university,” he said, nodding toward the blond woman in front of him. “We go just about every year.”

  “That’s so cool!” Taylor said. “So how does it work? Does the group split up and send people into different cities, or is it one big happy family?”

  Jason nodded. “The whole group stays together.”

  “Nice.” Jason had seemed so stiff at the museum. She hadn’t even been sure she liked him all that much. But Taylor felt like they’d sort of become friends after the robbery and texting. It might be fun to have him there, especially since he knew his way around Cairo and shared her enthusiasm for it.

  Taylor’s parents moved back in line to join them. Professor Mason introduced Jason’s mother, Helen, to his wife, and the adults were soon talking eagerly about going to the Egyptian temples near ancient Luxor.

  The line inched forward and soon Taylor was ready to pass through the scanner booth. This part always made her nervous even though she wasn’t wearing any jewelry and had emptied the coins from her pockets into the bin that held her backpack.

  With a deep breath, Taylor stepped into the booth when the security guard on the other side waved her forward.

  The moment she was inside, a piercing alarm blared, and Taylor cringed.

  “Step forward, young lady,” a stern-faced female agent commanded her from the far side of the scanner booth. Only then did Taylor realize that she was the cause of the commotion.

  Taylor’s mom stepped toward the booth, but a security guard detained her.

  The agent waved a detection wand along Taylor’s arms. “Anything in your pockets?” she asked.

  “I don’t think so,” Taylor replied. She patted the front pockets of her jeans, then the back. “Wait!”

  Taylor’s eyes widened as she pulled the blue scarab from her back pocket.

  The guard’s wand buzzed excitedly. She took the scarab from Taylor. “Here’s our problem,” she said. “It looks like stone, but there must be some kind of metal inside it. Otherwise, it wouldn’t have set off the alarm.”

  The guard handed the scarab to Taylor. “No, you can keep it,” Taylor said, stepping back.

  “No, here,” the guard insisted, pressing it into Taylor’s hand. “It’s yours.”

  The scarab buzzed in Taylor’s hand, just as it had before. The tingling ran up her arm and along the back of her neck. Her whole body felt numb as she stumbled forward to lift her backpack off the security conveyor belt.

  Someone came to stand at her shoulder, and Taylor turned her face toward the setting red sun. The desert sands before her shone with pinkish light.

  “Are you all right?”

  “I am more truly myself than ever, my pharaoh.”

  “What did you just say?” Jason asked.

  Taylor blinked. The busy airport was once more all around her, the garbled announcements and rattling of suitcase wheels and the chatter of people in the duty-free shop nearby. She was still clenching the scarab in her palm. Quickly, she slipped it into her back pocket and in the next second, Taylor’s parents were at her side.

  “What set off the alarm?” Professor Mason asked.

  What would he think if she showed him the scarab in her pocket? He would have to believe that she stole it. What other possible explanation could there be? She couldn’t explain what it was doing there. Sharon had definitely handed the shoebox to that creepy woman back at the Haunted Museum. Then how had it gotten into her pocket?

  “You look a little blank there, kiddo,” her father said. “Sure you’re okay?”

  “Maybe this isn’t a good idea,” her mother added. “We can still go home.”

  “No! No way!” Taylor said, panicking. “I just had some coins in my pocket that set off the alarm. I’m fine.”

  “Are you sure?” Taylor’s mother asked, smoothing her daughter’s hair behind her ear.

  “Totally,” Taylor answered. “I just got a little scared is all. It’s embarrassing to be pulled out of line in front of everybody.”

  Mrs. Mason rubbed her back. “It happens to everybody sometimes. It’s nothing to worry about.”

  “I’ll just have some water,” Taylor said, pointing to a nearby drinking fountain.

  At the fountain she sipped the water and wondered what she should do. The scarab was a priceless treasure.

  She wanted to tell someone, but who would believe her?

  The world had lived without it for thousands of years. What would a few more centuries matter?

  Lifting her head, she spied an airport trash bin to her right. Taylor veered toward it on her way back to her mother and the others, and — with a quick motion she hoped no one saw — she dropped the scarab into the can.

  TAYLOR GAZED out the cab window at the busy, crowded streets of Cairo. Even though it would have been ten at night if they were home, it was only five thirty in the afternoon there in Cairo because of the time zone change.

  The bus that the university had provided to pick the group up had been overly crowded, so Taylor and her parents were sharing the taxi with Jason and his mother on the way to their hotel. Their driver was dressed in a long, white cotton robe and a brimless, round, white cap, and he sat silent and unsmiling in the barely moving traffic.

  It seemed to Taylor that, in many ways, Cairo was like any other large, modern city. The airport had been slightly chaotic, and Taylor had liked her delicious falafel-and-hummus-in-pita-bread snack. She’d bought a small jade elephant as a souvenir for Sharon, and several postcards featuring the pyramids and the sphinx to send.

  In the city itself, tall apartment buildings were mixed in among skyscrapers, restaurants, and smaller businesses. Many women had their heads covered with scarves and wore long-sleeved dresses, and the people on the streets wore a combination of traditional and modern clothing.

  Taylor suddenly had an odd, but strong, sensation that someone was looking at her. Scanning the crowds on the sidewalk, she searched for the person who might be staring her way.

  She locked eyes with a scruffy young man. His white shirt and dark pants were dirty and he wore sunglasses. Although his messy hair was nearly black, his skin was so pale it was almost white.

  “What’s wrong, Taylor?” Mrs. Mason asked.

  “There’s a man on the street who’s staring at me,” Taylor replied.

  “Where?” Jason asked, leaning toward her to look out the window.

  Before Taylor could answer, the man left the sidewalk and wove his way through the unmoving traffic. “He’s coming toward our cab!” Taylor cried, alarmed.

  With a click, the driver locked the doors.

  From seemingly out of nowhere, other pale, bedraggled men and women walked among the cars, heading toward the cab.

  All of them wore very dark sunglasses.

  “What’s going on?” Professor Mason asked the cabdriver. The man only shrugged his shoulders in response, but beads of sweat had popped out on his forehead.

  The strange people surrounded the car. Some even climbed onto the hood and stared in through the front windshield. Others were on the trunk, peering in through the back.

  The driver leaned on his horn, banging on the front window and shouting at them, “Go away!”

  Terrified, Taylor could only stare, wide-eyed.

  “Get out of here!” Jason yelled at them as he took Taylor’s hand prote
ctively.

  One of the men pushed closer to press his cheek against the glass.

  That was when Taylor saw the tiny, black batlike insect that hung on a cord at his neck. It was the exact size and shape as the ones that had attacked her in the garage.

  “I don’t have it!” Taylor shouted, not knowing exactly why. “I don’t have it!”

  From behind their sunglasses, flashes of red popped.

  “Call the police,” Mrs. Mason said, leaning toward their driver.

  A sudden shrill whistle made Taylor wince.

  In the next instant, she could see only white. It was as if someone had flashed a light right into her eyes, blinding her.

  What was happening?

  In the moments of silence that followed the flash, Taylor waited for something awful to happen. Hunched and tense, she squeezed her eyelids together and clenched Jason’s hand. He gripped it back.

  After a few tense moments of silence, the noise from the street began to filter through again, normal sounds of traffic and people outside.

  Cautiously, Taylor peered out through narrowed eyes. The strange people were gone.

  “What just happened?” Professor Mason asked the driver.

  “It is time for you all to go,” he said in heavily accented English.

  “But we’re not at the hotel yet,” Jason’s mother said.

  “It is very close, down that block. Go now!” the driver insisted. Getting quickly out of the car, he ran to the back and opened the trunk.

  “I think he’s taking our suitcases out,” Mrs. Mason said.

  Professor Mason hurried out of the cab. Taylor heard him arguing with the driver. Her father reappeared at the back window, waving for them all to get out.

  All of their luggage was in the road and the driver had hopped back into the driver’s seat of the cab. With his horn blaring, he pushed his vehicle forward through traffic, forcing other cars and trucks to let him through.

  “Let’s go, then,” Professor Mason said. The traffic barely moved, so it wasn’t too hard to weave between the vehicles with their things. When they’d carried all the suitcases to the sidewalk, they stood looking at one another.