“Shit,” I hissed and stuffed the boxes in the garbage.
I called for a new pizza to be delivered and then threw on one of Dad’s old records–The Rolling Stones Greatest Hits–and cranked it so I could hear the music all through the house as I headed to my room to change out of the cold, soggy clothes. But not before swiping the bottle from the counter.
I cracked it open and threw the top onto my messy nest of blankets. My bed was hidden under there somewhere, I swear. The wet clothes didn’t come off willingly, but I soon stood naked in my floor length mirror and stared intently at my form. My slick brown hair was a cold, stark contrast against my pallor skin; colorless from never seeing the light of day.
I leaned in and examined my face. Pulled at the loose skin under my relentlessly tired eyes. Attempted to pinch some color into my pasty cheeks but it drained away as quickly as it came. I was a beautiful girl, that much I knew. But that beauty was now hidden under the ever-growing layer of sleep deprivation and neglect of my health.
Vodka and pizza weren’t exactly the best dietary items and I was the first to admit that the signs were beginning to surface. I knew I had to stop the drinking…someday. I thought about my conversation with Howard then glanced down at the fresh bottle in my hand and took a long swig.
Today was not that day.
After the pizza came, I gave up the record player for my iPod dock and lit some candles while I waited for the old clawfoot bathtub to fill. I tossed the open pizza box down on the white tile floor next to the tub as I balanced a drink in my hand and stepped inside the warm, inviting water. Let the heat seep into my cold bones. I slunk down until the water’s smooth surface ringed my neck and I tipped my head back, eyes closed. My mind replayed my conversation with Howard as The Distillers and candlelight filled the room.
He was right. About everything.
I wasn’t living up to my full potential, that much I already knew. And it ate away at me every single day. But I’d been drowning in my own despair for far too long, it felt like there was no way back. No way to climb out of the pit I’d dug over the last two years. Every day was like the one before it. Just a constant succession of wake, school, home, drink.
But I did it. I finished what I’d set out to do. I completed my course last week with flying colors, mostly because I’d already known everything there was to learn. But I had the degree. My own degree. I was officially an archeologist and had enough to stand on my own two feet next to my Dad without having to stand in his shadow.
But what good was it now?
I was alone. So utterly alone. My stubbornness had gotten me what I wanted but what did it cost? I lost my beloved father and Silas, the man I loved, in one fell swoop. I lost count of how many times I ran through scenarios in my mind. Alternate realities where I never bothered with school and I joined Dad and Silas on that trip. Would I have insisted on the excavators doing their job properly? Would I have let them go down so far by themselves?
Would I have been down there with them?
My obsessing always circled around to that final question and the answer trailed behind it without warning. Yes, I would have been down there with them because I never would have left their sides. Never would have missed an opportunity to discover. My life would have ended right there at the bottom of that tomb alongside my father and Silas and a dark place in the back of my mind was okay with that.
I opened my eyes to glance down at my forearm and traced the jagged, hand-drawn lines of my ankh tattoo with a wet finger. The tattoo I’d gotten with Silas after we returned from Brazil, its match branded into the skin of his same arm. I could recall the memory as if I were living it. It was one of my life’s favorites, after all. The adrenaline rush of the trip and the discoveries we’d made were still fresh in our veins as we hopped off the plane and headed home. Dad immediately retreated to his study while Silas and I snuck off to my room to be alone.
Water spilled onto the floor as I leaned over and tore a few bites off a slice of pizza and finished my drink. Then I threw my head back again and relived the blissful memory, the sound of Silas’s voice filled my mind as if he were sitting right next to the tub.
“We should get tattoos,” he whispered as his long finger caressed the soft skin of my forearm.
I laughed. “Really? What, right now? It’s kinda late.”
“We could do them ourselves,” he replied, giddy. “I know how.”
I had always wanted one, and I just couldn’t stand to say no to such a face. He gazed at me lovingly from where we lay on my bed, his green and gold eyes twinkling with excitement.
“What would we get?” I asked.
He thought for a moment and then smiled. “Ankhs.”
“Ankhs?” I repeated, my brow creasing in thought.
“I know it’s meant to symbolize eternal life, but it’s also been used to depict the union between two people in love.” Silas looked away thoughtfully. “Like Osiris and Isis.”
“In love, huh?” I tempted to tease, expecting him to play along. “That’s a pretty strong declaration so soon. Are you sure we should make such a commitment?”
Silas was suddenly still as he examined my face, the sharp line of his lips twitching at the corner of his mouth. “I know love when I see it.” He reached over and brushed my bottom lip with his thumb. “And when I feel it.”
I remembered the rush of warmth that flooded my body that very night and in that moment I knew. He was right. I felt it, too. “O-Okay,” I said nervously. “What do we need?”
Silas hopped to his feet. “Two needles, some ice, a candle, some black pens, and rubbing alcohol.”
I hastily gathered the supplies and we sat on my bathroom floor. I watched as he carefully drew a tiny ankh on my frozen forearm and then pursed my lips as he traced the outline with the needle. He expertly disassembled one of the pens and covered the fresh lines with ink before wiping it away, leaving behind a beautiful, stinging reminder of the moment.
I repeated the steps to recreate the tattoo on his arm, but the memory suddenly seemed to morph into a weird dream as the old teal wainscoting of my bathroom walls melted away and giant stone walls shot up around us, trapping us in a dark tomb or cave of some kind. I looked around, confused, but my attention snapped back to the man in front of me and his arm in my grasp.
The ankh I’d drawn on his skin sparked with a tiny flame that traced the lines as if they were made of gun powder. We both watched in horror as the symbol went ablaze and Silas’s panicked eyes shot directly to mine before his entire body went up in flames, reducing the man I loved to nothing more than a pile of ash in my hands.
A piercing scream erupted from my gut as I clawed at the air, trying to catch the particles of ash that floated away from me, but the vivid nightmare faded away and I fell backward into an abyss of pitch-black water. I struggled to get to the surface as murky water filled my mouth and seeped down into my lungs. I couldn’t see anything, just total darkness matched by my will to live.
“Just open your eyes,” a voice whispered.
I couldn’t at first, but I fought through the hold the nightmare had on my mind and pried both eyes open to see the blurred shape of my tray ceiling from under the surface of my bathwater. With a desperate gasp, I shot up and spewed the tepid liquid from my body before hanging over the edge of the tub, panting and filling my lungs with gurgled breaths.
The candles were nearing their end and my bathroom sat in an eerie blanket of half-darkness. I took a moment to regain myself, my thoughts. But only one thing repeated in my mind.
I nearly drowned in my own damn bathtub.
I had to get a handle on myself. I had to do…something. With great difficulty, I lifted my head and glanced around the room. Soggy pizza on the floor. A bottle of vodka, now half empty, right next to it. My playlist had ended at some point, and a cold silence filled the room. I crawled out of the tub and snatched my phone from the dock with shaky hands and found Howard’s number in my contacts.
/> “Hello?” he answered after too many rings.
I looked at the clock. It was well past midnight. “S-sorry for calling so late, Howard. It’s Andie.” I heard some ruffling through the receiver, probably the sheets as he got out of bed. I felt bad and paced the bathroom, naked, leaving a trail of water everywhere. “I, um, I was just wondering if your offer still stands?”
“Of course,” Professor Danes replied with relief on the other end. “Andie, is everything alright? You sound–”
“I’m fine, Howard,” I rushed out, still trying to catch my breath as I rubbed a wet hand over my soaked face. “I just wanted to make sure I got the spot before someone else.”
I could hear him smiling through the phone. “There’s always a place for you on my team. I’m thrilled you’ve changed your mind. I’ll have my secretary call you tomorrow with the details.”
“Thanks, Howard.” My hands still shaky from the lingering nightmare, I ended the call before tossing the phone back on the vanity, sealing the deal along with my fate. In a few days I would travel to my father’s last dig site and, if I were lucky, get some answers about what happened to him. But my dormant heart suddenly sprang to life as I realized…maybe I’d find out what happened to Silas, too.
Chapter Five
My near-death experience awakened something in me. Or perhaps it was the vivid nightmare that still lingered on my skin. Either way, I awoke the next morning with vigor. I grabbed a box of garbage bags and went through the house, tossing the trail of self pity I’d left all over the place. Takeout boxes, empty liquor bottles, old mail.
The sun moved across the sky as I slowly reassembled my life and then carefully began storing bits of it away in the suitcase on my bed. It felt good to be packing for an adventure again. Like I used to do with Dad. Half the suitcase was stuffed with supplies and tools, the other half with clothing.
I hauled a black leather backpack out from the bottom of my closet and decided it’d be my carry-on bag. I opened it up and dumped out the old contents that littered the bottom, dozens of tiny bottles of vodka. The kind you get for free around the neck of a larger bottle. I forgot I’d been saving them for a rainy day.
I sighed to myself. “Well, shit.”
I stared at the pile of vices as I chewed at my bottom lip. The logical part of my brain told me to throw them out with the garbage. Just pull the band-aid off. But a tiny voice in the back of my mind whispered what ifs into my ear.
What if you need them?
What if you have withdrawals?
What if you’re not strong enough?
I hadn’t considered what quitting cold turkey would do to me. It was day one. I felt fine. But what would tomorrow bring? And the day after that? I was strong enough now, and I hoped that I could just immerse myself in the work once I got to Egypt, to use it as a welcome distraction.
But I threw a bunch of the bottles into a large Ziploc bag for my carry-on, as many as I could without breaching the limit and leaving room for my soaps and shampoos. I tossed the rest in another plastic bag for my checked baggage. A back up plan in case of an emergency. In case the withdrawal period was too harsh. I tucked the bag of bottles in between a pile of clothes in the suitcase and gnawed at my lip some more.
Would I be strong enough to resist drinking them all?
I grabbed the empty backpack and noticed something else rattling around at the bottom. I reached inside to pull out a thin gold chain and my heart jumped in my chest as my eyes stared at the milky stone that hung from it. Silas’s necklace. The one I swore never to take off. I smiled as my eyes glossed over with tears and then kissed the stone before looping the chain around my neck. I wrapped my fingers tightly around the rock and took it as a sign.
I could do this.
Howard’s secretary called with all the details and my flight itinerary and I went to Dad’s office as I waited for my sixth load of laundry to dry. I wanted to go through his documents more carefully, examine his notes and files that he’d kept about this particular site and familiarize myself with it from his perspective before I flew out.
Box after box of files and notebooks. Rolls of maps and blueprints. I sifted through the obvious stuff like location and time stamps, skipped right to what I wanted. Dad’s personal notes. But after an hour of reading and examining drawings, I stood in front of the spread of documents on the floor confused. It didn’t make sense.
Dad wrote one thing in the official documents, the ones he reported to the university and the media. But then kept a separate, much different set of notes for himself. Notes that almost declared the opposite of his findings. I stood and stared in puzzled contemplation at it all.
“What were you trying to hide, Dad?” I whispered to myself.
I grabbed a pile of pictures of the tomb walls covered in hieroglyphics and noticed that some had certain symbols circled. Half of them made no sense to me, but some sparked recognition in my brain. Carvings of Egyptian beings; Anubis, the gatekeeper of the underworld with the head of a jackal. In one image he stood with his staff pointed upward to the skies filled with wavy lines and Dad had circled his head with the word familiar scrawled next to it.
Another image showed a long stone wall covered in carvings, rows and rows of hieroglyphics. In the center was a circular shape, like a clock but instead of numbers, there were symbols. I brought the picture closer to my face and squinted to make out some of them. An eye of Horus with a line drawn through it, a few I didn’t recognize, and then an ankh with the word key written next to it. None of it made sense and those images were nowhere in the official files. I flipped the picture over in my hand and found Dad’s handwriting once more. The word destination scribbled in red.
I tucked the few photographs into the folder I was creating and hauled myself up from the hard floor, my spine protesting as I did. I gathered everything else up and returned things to their boxes when I noticed something under Dad’s desk as I bent down again. An odd shallow rectangle shape attached to the underside.
I crawled underneath the heavy wooden worktop to take a closer look and discovered that it was a notebook, bound in dark brown leather that had been slipped into a secret niche. I pulled it out and cracked it open with a gasp. It contained drawings, dozens of them, mapping out the very cave system I was about to fly to. Rooms and maps, instructions, labels, and even dimensions. Which would have been expected after a couple of trips there, but the date on one of the entries sent a cold feeling searing through my veins as I stared at it unblinking.
March 1st, 2012.
The year I turned sixteen…long before the tomb was ever found.
My mind raced with all the impossibilities. My Dad couldn’t have been keeping a huge secret all these years. A secret I’d yet to fully figure out. But one thing was clear after discovering this hidden journal. Dad and Silas hadn’t gone to Egypt to uncover a hidden tomb. They already knew exactly what they’d find. Knew exactly what to look for.
And it killed them.
***
It’d been fifty-two hours since my last drink. A thought I constantly repeated in my mind during the twenty-hour flight. The countdown started at hour thirty-two when I first buckled my seatbelt and I watched the clock like a God damn predator awaiting its prey. I sat in the tiny, encroaching seat like a jittering mess the whole flight. Wedged between Howard and the window.
He prammered on about my childhood and clucked his tongue every time I seemed to even look in the direction of the returning refreshment cart. Which I did. Often. The booze filled the entire bottom half and I willed myself to just stare out the window and mindlessly pick at a seam in my seat. The thread had begun to unravel. By the time we landed in Cairo, I had dug a hole with my finger and started on the stuffing.
I needed a drink.
The plane finally came to a complete stop and the stewardesses began kindly ushering the passengers off. Howard and I were near the back, so we waited our turn, but once I stepped foot on floor of the airport, I sucked i
n a deep breath. Desperate to smell anything besides the stale interior of the plane. It wasn’t until we hauled our luggage off the revolving belt that either of us spoke a word.
“Let’s go find the shuttle,” Howard suggested and comfortably took off in direction of the front doors.
I sped after him, hugging my backpack’s straps tight across my chest with one hand and gripping the handle of my roller suitcase with the other. The hot July sun of Cairo smacked me in the face as I followed Prof. Danes outside. It’d been so long since I left the humid climate of Nova Scotia and traveled to drier places.
We found the shuttle within seconds, but my skin had already begun to feel like sandpaper. A blonde-haired older woman sat in the seat in front of us and she turned around, smiling. She was one of those aging-gracefully kinds of women and I immediately liked her.
“So, Danes,” she said to Howard and loosened the red handkerchief tied around her neck. “How long are we here this time?”
“However long it takes,” he replied with a shrug. “Could be weeks. Could be months. I just want to know what Godfrey was looking for.” He cleared his throat and shifted in the seat next to the aisle. “I want to continue his work.”
She rolled her eyes and then smiled as she turned her attention to me. “Is this your first time to the site?”
With a smile, I replied, “Yeah. I didn’t know they were digging it out.”
“Well, you’re in for a real treat,” she replied and stuck her hand over the back of her seat. “Delores Teller.”
“Andie Godfrey,” I said in response and tried to ignore the way my sweaty hand slipped around in her grasp.
Delores’s eyes widened, and she looked back and forth between Howard and I with disbelief. “Andie Godfrey? You mean–”
“Yes,” I said with a sigh, agitated now that we were on land and so close to the promise of secluded hotel rooms. “Alistair’s daughter.”
“Howard,” she said almost scolding, “how is this her first time here?”
Ancient Hearts: A Time Travel Fantasy Romance (Kingdom of Sand & Stars Book 1) Page 5