Walk a Mile

by Sarah Madison

  Jerry broke the silence that had fallen between them. “The original box in question was thought to have come from Egypt.”

  Nancy made an inelegant snorting sound, which made Jerry like her even more. “This piece might have been purchased in the gift shops of Cairo, but it is not Egyptian. Though that’s why it probably ended up here.”

  “Nancy is an expert on Ancient Egypt.” Flynn sounded somewhat proud of that fact. Jerry eyed him narrowly with a slight sense of dismay, quickly squashed.

  “The New Kingdom period, to be exact.” Nancy sounded like this was a correction she’d made before. She gave Flynn a fond look.

  Nettled, Jerry responded automatically. “Ah, the 18th through the 20th dynasties? Tutankhamen. Nefertiti. Hatshepsut, the woman who ruled as Pharaoh, to the point of taking male dress and putting on the ceremonial beard at court. And let’s not forget the heretic Pharaoh, Akhenaten. Denounced all other gods except Aten, only to die in disgrace, his name obliterated from monuments everywhere. Pretty spectacular period in Egyptian history.”

  Nancy perked up as though she’d caught an obscure reference to one of her favorite movies. “You’re a historian?”

  “No. I read.” Jerry didn’t mean for it to sound as repressive as it came out. Or maybe he did. His reaction to Nancy Glover was pretty complicated right now.

  “Jerry reads a lot.” Flynn made it sound like it was some esoteric and yet oddly endearing hobby.

  He flushed at Flynn’s oblique praise, and somehow felt the need to soften his previous response. “Oh, come on. Anyone who’s even slightly familiar with Egyptology is going to have heard of these names. They’re among the most famous in Egyptian history.”

  Nancy pursed her lips slightly. “And Akhenaten moved the capital from Thebes to…?”

  “El-Amarna.” It was only after he spoke that Jerry realized he’d used his “everyone knows that” voice.

  “Uh-huh.” Nancy narrowed her eyes briefly and then sighed. “Fine. Don’t tell me why you’re really here. Lord knows, I’m used to John keeping his secrets. Richmond isn’t what I would call close to DC, you know.”

  For a split second, Jerry was tempted to invite her for coffee so they could talk about John Flynn and his many secrets.

  “I’m telling you, mild curiosity, that’s all.” Flynn crossed his heart and mimed holding up a hand in a version of scout’s honor.

  You sonofabitch. I had no idea you could lie so easily.

  Flynn’s ear tips reddened. Nancy, however, seemed to take his statement with the lack of belief it deserved, curling her upper lip ever so slightly.

  “The Carter-O’Neill Museum started with an endowment from a couple who’d spent a lot of time excavating and touring in Egypt in the early 1920s. They in turn inherited a collection created by Carter’s father dating back to his travels in the late 1800s. The laws about removing antiquities from native countries were more lenient then. We still get some Egyptian and Greek artifacts from that time period. One of my jobs is to sort through and value them for insurance purposes, offer up for trade or exchange anything that is duplicated in the collection, and make sure we have permission from the correct authorities to display them.” She stopped in front of an open door, waving the two of them into her office.

  They came to a halt in front of her desk, a massive claw-footed affair that served as a workbench at one end and a place to conduct business at the other. The space in front of the computer was relatively clear, a few papers and documents stacked neatly to one side. The work area was also well organized, with several pieces and accompanying photographs detailing the meticulous work of authentication and cataloging for the museum.

  Jerry approved, just one more thing about Nancy that made him feel weird. He cleared his throat. “Have you ever seen anything like this artifact before?”

  Nancy shook her head. “To be honest, once I realized it wasn’t Egyptian, I lost most of my interest in it. Now, I’m curious.” She gave Jerry a very engaging smile. He was tempted to tell her that her charm and attractiveness were wasted on him. Well, not entirely wasted. Jerry could appreciate an object of beauty when he saw one. And he liked that she was intelligent and self-contained. Damn it, he liked Nancy, period. Which felt… weird.

  He glanced at Flynn and caught him staring with a look unlike anything Jerry had ever seen on his face before. A look of uncertainty.

  Jerry gave him a weak smile, feeling uncertain himself. It must be odd for Flynn, standing in the same room with both his ex and current lover. Especially since they were of different sexes.

  When Jerry turned his gaze to Nancy once more, he caught that look of sharp assessment aimed at the two of them again.

  “Right.” Nancy moved briskly around to her side of the desk, a captain in command of her bridge. “I put it back in the shipping container after I looked at it. Frankly, I don’t think it belongs in this museum. I was thinking about sending it to an art museum. Perhaps one with an art deco collection.” She began shifting boxes on the end of her desk, frowning as she picked up the first one and set it aside.

  “It’s not art deco.”

  Her glance at Jerry was slightly cooler this time. “No, but it isn’t the sort of thing you display at a natural history museum either. Not if I can’t identify a culture or prove its provenance.” She gave another unladylike snort. “Hell, I thought of fobbing it off on the Poe Museum just to get rid of it.”

  “There’s a Poe Museum?” Flynn cocked his head, lifting one eyebrow. Jerry could picture him wandering the macabre exhibits in such a place and relishing it. With his hair in spiky disarray and his innocent expression, Flynn looked like a small boy who’d been promised a trip to a fake haunted house at Halloween.

  Jerry always loved it when he did that sort of thing, only now he didn’t want Flynn being all charming in front of his ex-girlfriend. And because he realized he hadn’t been attempting to shield his thoughts, he decided to go for broke.

  Stop using your super powers on her. It’s not fair. Mere mortals cannot resist the Flynn Charm.

  Flynn aimed a decidedly sour look in his direction before returning his attention to Nancy.

  “Yes, there’s a Poe Museum. Figures that would appeal to you.”

  Crap, she really does know you well.

  Nancy continued, oblivious to the secret conversation going on without her. “It’s not that far from here. If you’re interested in taking in more casual sights, that is. How long are you going to be in Richmond, anyway?” She rested her hands on a cardboard shipping box, the one they were interested in. She obviously wasn’t going to open it until Flynn answered.

  Jerry wondered if he should be taking notes on the management of Flynn.

  Flynn gave his expressive shrug. There was a hint of an apology in it somewhere.

  “I’ll make a deal with you.” Nancy’s smile curved into one of feline proportions. “I won’t press you on your real reasons for wanting to see this artifact if you promise you’ll meet up with the rest of us for drinks this weekend. No,”—she pulled the box back as he reached for it—“you have to promise.”

  “The rest of us?” Jerry had to ask. Flynn obviously wasn’t going to.

  “A bunch of us from our old high school are going to the reunion this weekend. We’re meeting for drinks Saturday night. It’s a shame you aren’t planning to go to the reunion. There are people who would like to see you, you know.” Her tone to John was reproving, like a librarian who’d caught her favorite student returning a book after its due date. “Did you even read the letter?”

  “Not really.”

  The smile Nancy gave Jerry was a little tight around the edges this time. She focused on Flynn again. “Well, then you don’t know. Mr. Higgins has cancer. He’s retiring early, and the school wanted to give him a big send-off.” Her glance flicked back to Jerry as she directed her explanation to him. “Mr. Higgins was our class mentor. He was one of the school’s best teachers. There’s speculation his prognosis is
even more serious than he’s let on. So no one wanted to wait until our twentieth reunion to meet as a class.”

  Jerry had watched Flynn’s reaction during her speech, noting the way his face had briefly shown his dismay before freezing into blank immobility again even before Nancy had gotten the words out. He wanted to reach out and touch Flynn on the shoulder, to let him know Jerry was there for him, for whatever potential loss he was facing. The only thing he could do was send an image of himself doing that.

  Telepathy wasn’t all bad, right?

  He knew he’d made the right call when he saw the quick cut of Flynn’s eyes in his direction and the hint of a smile lifting one corner of his mouth before it became grim again. “No, I hadn’t heard. That’s a damn shame. Mr. Higgins saved more than one of us from making a complete mess of our lives back then.”

  Nancy nodded. “You should think about coming to the reunion. But regardless, if you want to see what’s in the box, you need to promise to meet up with the gang for drinks. Killian’s. Six p.m.”

  “Killian’s.” Flynn smiled for real this time. “I haven’t thought of that place in years. Is Mick still running a tight ship? I remember the first time I was old enough to go in there. I felt like a grown-up at last.”

  Nancy’s face shadowed. “No, Mick died of a heart attack some time ago. In fact, Rick dropped out of school to come home and run the bar.”

  “Did he now? That’s too bad.” Flynn looked shocked for a split second before The Great Wall of Flynn stabilized, revealing only mild interest once more. “Who else is coming—Jimmy? Paul?”

  “Jimmy is going to try and come, or so he said. I’ll believe it when I see it. He’s a newly minted lawyer looking for a partnership, so I doubt he can get away. Paul is definitely coming. He asked about you, too, though no one had heard anything, so we figured you weren’t going to make it.”

  “I only recently got the letter. It was sent to my old address.”

  Nancy nodded at the explanation of Flynn’s nonexistent RSVP. “Becky is living in South Carolina now. She’s supposedly coming to town with her husband and two kids, but she says she’ll leave them at the hotel and meet us for drinks.” Nancy smiled as though recalling a conversation. Flynn smiled with her, though Jerry doubted he was aware he was doing so.

  “Tom is joining us. I don’t know if Carlene is coming, though. She and Tom got divorced, so that might be awkward. She’s still in Richmond, but he’s relocated to Baltimore. Most of us haven’t gone all that far from home, really, though Frank is in Houston. He’s working IT for some big company, I think. I haven’t really kept up with anyone. That’s more Carlene’s thing, and to be honest, she’s quite bitter about the divorce, so I don’t correspond with her as much as I used to.”

  Wow, and a fun time will be had by all.

  The look Flynn shot him would definitely have hurt if it had had physical force behind it. “I’ll come. I promise. May we see the artifact now?”

  Jerry tensed as Nancy lifted the object out of the box and set it on the table.

  Seeing it sitting innocuously in front of them after anticipating it for so long was a bit anticlimactic. It was even smaller than what it had looked like in the online photograph, no larger than a deck of cards. Jerry let out a sigh of relief, slowly, quietly, so as not to call attention to himself. He leaned in to take a closer look at it before glancing up at Flynn’s face.

  Flynn stood staring at it as thought it might be the Holy Grail and he was Indiana Jones.

  Be careful. Remember what happened the last time you touched one of these. You don’t really want to pick this thing up in front of Nancy, do you?

  Again, Flynn acted as though he hadn’t heard Jerry. Though he knew the reasons for it, Jerry couldn’t help but feel a little bit hurt. No, not hurt. Invisible.

  The only sign of the stress he was under was that Flynn briefly caught his lower lip in his teeth. “So what do you think it is?” His question was directed at Nancy, though he didn’t take his eyes off the box.

  Jerry sucked in his breath when Nancy picked it up again, but thankfully, nothing unexpected happened. She turned the box over appraisingly in elegant hands, tipping it one way and then the other.

  “I don’t know,” she said at last. “Since you’ve seen one just like it, I’d guess it was created by an original designer. Possibly part of a set. Perhaps something the artist was known for—kind of like Fabergé eggs.”

  “What do you think it’s worth?”

  Flynn shot Jerry a killing look at his question.

  “What?” Jerry asked. “It’s a fair question. They must have some intrinsic value if the other one was stolen.”

  Nancy frowned. “Like I said, I stopped looking at it when I realized it wasn’t Egyptian. It was late, and I wanted to go home to my dinner. It is interesting, though. The metal appears to be pewter, which would be in keeping with the time period. Pewter is a Bronze Age metal and its use in Egypt dates back to the 14th century BC. These markings aren’t Egyptian, though. However, there is something almost familiar about them.” She continued to frown as she stared at the object in her hand, as though willing herself to recognize its origins. She took the box over to a magnifying lens mounted on a stand and switched on the light at its base. Holding the box on its side under the lens, she murmured, “It appears to have a lid. This looks like an opening, though I don’t see a mechanism for opening it.”

  “A puzzle box, perhaps?” Flynn suggested. Jerry marveled at his seeming ease.

  Nancy shook her head. “No, puzzle boxes originated in Japan in the 19th century AD. They were mostly made of wood. That’s completely the wrong era.”

  Jerry leaned over her shoulder. “And yet, look at those markings. They’re symmetrical all along the sides except right there. That thing that looks like an upside down V with a bubble on top. Do you see another one of those?”

  Nancy twisted her mouth sideways and raised an eyebrow sharply. “No. I don’t. Are you sure you haven’t seen this before?”

  “Parker’s really good at the game ‘what’s different in these two pictures?’”

  You keep saying that. Jerry couldn’t keep the irritation from lashing out, whip-sharp. Like I’m some sort of carnival act.

  Flynn rested a hip on the end of the table like he had all the time in the world for Jerry and Nancy to play archeologist. “May I?” He held out his hand casually.

  “Don’t break it,” Nancy said as she handed it to him.

  Be careful! Jerry couldn’t help shouting, standing up straight in case the box did something to Flynn. He watched in concern as Flynn accepted the artifact.

  “Oh, ye of little faith,” Flynn murmured. His words could have been taken as reassurance to both of them at the same time. As far as Jerry could tell, nothing happened. No crackling net of blue energy engulfed him. No indication the curse was lifted.

  I’m sorry.

  He meant it. He’d gotten used to Flynn depending on him to run interference, and even though he worried he and Flynn might not be together were it not for the telepathy forcing the issue, all the same, he’d give anything to see Flynn happy and comfortable in his own skin again. Even if that meant giving up Flynn.

  Flynn hid his disappointment well, but Jerry could tell by the little tic of the muscle in his jaw he’d hoped for different results. “There’s a mismatched glyph on the other side too.” His voice was calm as he inspected the artifact.

  “Maybe it is like a puzzle box.” Jerry couldn’t help himself; he reached for the object. “Try twisting the lid or depressing one of the symbols.”

  Flynn pulled the box out of his reach, all the while continuing to mess with the lid/box interface himself. “No luck.” His frustration was only evident in the whitening of his knuckles as he tried forcing the lid to turn.

  “Some of these puzzle boxes use gravity to shift a mechanism inside. You know, something shifts and allows you to slide the piece that wouldn’t go before. Try tipping it from side to side.
” Jerry knew his suggestion was probably futile, but what choice did they have?

  “It’s not likely to be a puzzle box.” Nancy voiced her opinion with authority. “It’s the wrong era.”

  “What makes you so sure?” Jerry countered. “You don’t even know what era it’s from.”

  “Who’s the expert here?” Nancy’s expression was more sardonic than pissed, and it irritated Jerry that he couldn’t outright hate her.

  “She’s right. I got nothing here.” The defeat in Flynn’s voice nearly killed Jerry. There had to be something he could do.

  “Give me that.” Jerry held out his hand imperiously. With a quirked eyebrow and a slight smile, Flynn held out the artifact to him. The moment Jerry’s hand touched the object, a surge of energy connected the two of them—so strong neither one of them could release the artifact. Instead, they had to take the full force of the unseen current as it shuddered down their arms and into their bodies.

  There was no blue energy net crackling around them. Nothing visible to the naked eye. The power surge that emanated from the box, however, held Jerry and Flynn in thrall as it vibrated and hummed through them. Jerry caught Flynn’s anguished expression as the two of them locked eyes, neither of them able to let go.

  When the burst of energy stopped, Jerry was the first to release his grip on the box. The room spun around him crazily, even though he was wasn’t moving at all. He closed his eyes against the vertigo and hoped he wouldn’t disgrace himself by vomiting. It felt like a near thing, though.

  “What the fuck?” His voice sounded weird to him. The strangest thing was he’d somehow moved without realizing it. He was no longer standing beside Nancy.

  He was half-sitting on the end of the desk, and he didn’t recall how he’d gotten there. He looked down at his hand, still feeling the tingling buzz like a ghostly aftershock. He didn’t recognize the strong, lean fingers at the end of his arm, nor the coarse black hair visible where his wrist was peeking out beneath his cuff.