Whispers in the Sand

by Barbara Erskine

  She could see a hand stretching out in the candlelight. It hovered over the little bottle and Anna noticed with a shudder that as it passed between the bottle and the candleflame it cast no shadow though it was Serena’s hand.

  When the cabin door flew open, for a moment nothing changed. The light flooding in from the corridor missed the altar and the figure standing before it, and the shadows for a moment grew darker.

  ‘Help me!’ Charley’s voice was unmistakable. ‘Help me! It’s happening again. I don’t know what to do –’ She staggered slightly, then slowly she fell forwards into the cabin.

  With a hiss of rage the figure at the altar turned. ‘Hatsek!’

  Charley scrambled unsteadily to her feet and stood where she was, shaking violently. Anna looked from one to the other, paralysed with fear.

  Whatever happens don’t try and interfere!

  Serena’s words seemed to hang in the air for a moment.

  ‘Hatsek! I curse thee for thy vile betrayal!’ As the words filled the cabin Anna became aware of a second figure in the doorway.

  She dragged her eyes away from Charley and Serena and saw that it was Toby.

  ‘Curse thee for the mothers thou hast caused to weep for their sons! Curse thee for the deceit and slaughter, curse thee for the evil words thou hast uttered!’

  Charley took a step back then she seemed to rally. She drew herself to her full height. ‘Thou wert ever a fool, Anhotep!’ She moved forward and reached out towards the altar where the candles streamed sideways, dripping coloured wax. As her hand moved through the smoke of the incense towards the little bottle Anhotep let out a great cry of rage and lunged at her.

  As the two women collided Charley let out a scream and flung herself back towards the door. Behind her Serena slumped to the floor.

  The two priests were gone.

  ‘Turn on the lights, Anna, for God’s sake!’ Toby had caught Charley by the wrists. She was struggling frantically as he pushed her back into the room and down onto the bed beside Anna.

  Anna leapt to her feet and reaching for the shawl pulled it away from the windows, then she dragged open the shutters. ‘Serena!’ She dropped to her knees beside the lifeless form lying huddled on the floor. ‘Serena, are you all right?’

  On the bed behind her Charley was sobbing hysterically. She grabbed at the bedcover and pulled it up over her head, rocking back and forth.

  ‘Is Serena OK?’ Toby snuffed the candles, then he sat down on the bed beside Charley and put his arm round her.

  ‘She’s breathing. She’s unconscious. Oh God!’

  ‘She’ll be all right. Put a pillow under her head. Here.’ He pulled one off the bed. ‘Fetch some water for her to sip.’

  ‘What’s wrong with her?’

  ‘Don’t you know? You heard her. She’s what they call a trance medium. A channeller. She allowed the priest to talk through her, but without allowing him to possess her. She was just a vehicle and she obviously knows how to protect herself. She must, if she’s done rescue work. You’ve got to wait for her to come back. She’ll be all right.’

  ‘And Charley? What is she?’ Anna looked up.

  ‘The same perhaps. No, it didn’t happen voluntarily. Perhaps she is possessed. Hatsek used her energy and now he’s used her body as well. I shouldn’t have brought her back to the boat.’

  ‘No, you shouldn’t!’ Suddenly she was shaking with fright and anger. ‘Where have you been? What happened to you? Why did you disappear like that? We needed you!’

  He was gathering Charley into his arms, rocking her like a baby. ‘Later, Anna. I’m sorry I had to leave you. I couldn’t help it. I’ll explain it all later. Let’s get this mess sorted out first.’

  There was a groan from Serena and Anna turned back to her. She caught her hand and stroked it gently. ‘Serena? Can you speak to me? Are you all right?’ She climbed to her feet and as Toby had suggested fetched a glass of water. With an effort she helped the other woman sit up and with her arm round her shoulders she held the glass to her lips.

  ‘What happened?’ Serena’s voice was hoarse. She frowned and rubbed her eyes, moving her head from side to side.

  At the sound of her voice Charley moaned and clung to Toby more tightly still.

  ‘Did Anhotep come?’ Serena grabbed the glass from Anna and began to gulp down the water.

  ‘Yes. He came.’

  ‘Did he say what he wanted done?’

  ‘He didn’t get the chance.’

  Serena let the empty glass fall from her hands and allowed her head to hang down for a moment. Her skin was pale and damp, her eyes unfocused and strangely bloodshot. ‘Why not?’

  ‘Hatsek came.’

  ‘How?’ She didn’t seem to have noticed the two other people in the room.

  ‘Charley came in. He appeared to have taken her over. It was terrifying.’

  At last Serena turned her head towards the bed. She registered the sight of Toby with Charley in his arms and frowned. ‘You? You brought Charley back?’

  He nodded. ‘I am sorry. I chose a bad moment.’

  ‘I thought you were supposed to be in prison.’ Serena struggled to her feet. She stood for a moment swaying slightly, then she sat down stiffly on the stool in front of the dressing table.

  Toby grimaced. ‘Not lately, I’m glad to say.’

  ‘Then where were you?’

  ‘I was with a friend. I’ll tell you the whole story, but not now. OK? Let’s get all this sorted out. What do we do with Charley here?’ He pushed her gently into a sitting position.

  Charley raised a tear-stained face. ‘I want to go home.’

  ‘Then that’s what you shall do.’ Toby eased himself away from her and stood up. ‘I’ve got a friend at the consulate in Cairo. I’ve already been on the phone to him once today. I’ll get him to arrange a flight back and ask if there’s someone to travel with her. Poor Charley. You’ll be fine. Do you want to go back to the hotel for the night?’

  Charley nodded. ‘I liked the hotel.’ She was rocking again.

  ‘How in God’s name did you get her in there?’ Serena asked wearily. ‘I thought the Old Cataract was booked up months in advance.’

  Toby grinned. He tapped his nose. ‘You worry about Ancient Egypt. Let me deal with the modern version.’

  They watched as he guided Charley out of the cabin and up the corridor. Anna closed the door behind him and leant against it. In the bright cabin only the slight smell of incense hinted at the scene which had taken place there so short a time before.

  Serena shrugged. ‘So was that a success or another miss?’

  Anna gave a wry shake of the head. ‘I think it was a success. Maybe without Charley there it would have worked. He came. He was actually here in the cabin. He was in –’ She hesitated suddenly. ‘I was going to say inside you, but he wasn’t. He kind of slipped over you like a glove.’ She shuddered. ‘Oh, Serena, are you sure this kind of thing is safe? Yes, he was communicating, but supposing you couldn’t get rid of him?’ She sat down suddenly, overwhelmed with exhaustion.

  ‘I wasn’t possessed, Anna.’ Serena was folding the sistrum into its piece of silk. ‘I was allowing him to use me.’

  ‘Isn’t that possession?’

  ‘No. Possession is like rape. It is uninvited. A violation. A theft.’

  ‘That’s what happened to Charley?’

  Serena bit her lip. ‘I think that’s what has happened to Charley, yes. Hatsek has been using her energy, sucking it like a leech. And he found it easy, when he needed to invade her personality, to walk straight in.’

  ‘And is she free of him now?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Packing the last candle Serena turned away from her bag and went to stand in front of the dressing table mirror. She studied her face for a few moments. ‘I really don’t know. I ought to speak to her before she leaves, but will that make it worse?’

  ‘Surely he won’t go back to England with her?’

  ‘I don’t kno
w that either. I just don’t know anything at the moment.’ The face Anna could see reflected in the mirror looked suddenly old. ‘I feel dreadful about all this. If I hadn’t interfered …’

  ‘If you hadn’t interfered I would probably have been carried off screaming to a mental hospital by now.’

  Serena sat down on the stool. ‘Some of the things Andy said about me are true, you know. I played at all this. It was fun. Romantic. Wild. It felt a bit wicked for me as an old woman – well, oldish.’ She smiled. ‘A widow, respectable, very, daughter of a clergyman for goodness sake.’ She gave a mirthless laugh. ‘Meditation. Prayers to Isis. Rituals by candlelight. Not in the nude or anything, but it was a secret. Something to gloat over. It wasn’t real, but it led on to other things that were: the rescue work, being a trance medium, channelling. But the Egyptian stuff … that started as a game.’

  ‘Until you came to Egypt.’

  ‘Until I came to Egypt.’

  ‘When you found out that it was all real, including your powers as some sort of a priestess.’

  Serena chewed her lip for a moment. ‘A priestess,’ she echoed. ‘It sounds so exotic. So powerful. I revelled in the idea of being a priestess of Isis.’

  ‘Good.’ Anna stood up. ‘Because you are the only ace I’ve got.’

  ‘So, what do you want to do?’

  They looked at each other glumly, then Anna shrugged. ‘Have you the strength to try again? We don’t know for sure if Hatsek will follow Charley back to London. What if he follows you or me? What if the cobra comes too? Somehow my coming here has activated this whole, stupid charade. Do you know, when I was asleep in the car, driving across the desert, I dreamt that this whole thing was part of the holiday, laid on by the travel company to keep us amused on the boat – like a murder weekend at a hotel in the Cotswolds – and that the denouement will happen the night before we reach Luxor or at the Pasha’s party they’re giving for us, or, I don’t know, perhaps it will happen at the airport before we fly home!’

  ‘I wish it was a dream.’ Serena shook her head. ‘But it isn’t and we have to do something. I suppose we should try again tonight. On Philae, as I originally planned. In Isis’s temple.’

  Anna’s mouth dropped open. ‘So soon?’

  ‘Yes.’ Serena nodded. ‘It would be perfect. We’re going to the sound and light show, right? It might be difficult, but we’ll have to try to slip out of the audience into the dark areas while everyone is distracted. I’m sure there will be hundreds of people there, but they’ll all be watching the show. We’ll have to hope that no one notices us.’

  ‘But Philae is like Abu Simbel. It’s not the real place. It’s been moved to higher ground.’

  ‘I know. The sacred soil of Isis is under water now, but I don’t think it matters. After all, the priests came here and they were at Abu Simbel. It would help me to focus if we were near the temple and of course, if they want you to give up your bottle to them, it would be the perfect place. You will part with it, Anna, if they demand it?’

  ‘Of course I will.’ Anna looked down at the little bottle, the only thing remaining on the small table that had served as an altar. She picked it up and turned it over in her hands. ‘I wonder what would happen if it broke?’

  Serena closed her eyes and shook her head. ‘I don’t think we want to know.’ She stood up and picked up her bag. ‘I’m going to go and have a sleep. I’m completely exhausted. I’ll meet you later, OK?’

  Anna nodded.

  She stayed where she was for a long time after Serena had gone, then at last she lay down on the bed and closed her eyes.

  Twenty minutes later she gave up trying to sleep. She reached for the diary and held it for a few minutes, thinking. The marker was nearly at the end now. There were only a few more pages left to read.

  Louisa had dozed off at last. When she awoke she lay still, looking as she had so often at the darkened ceiling of her small cabin. The boat was silent, but she could smell cooking from the crew’s quarters and from far away, somewhere on the shore in the distance she could hear the thin wail of a musical instrument, eerie above the faint rustle of the palms.

  Moving her head slightly she could see her paints and sketchbooks piled on the table where Jane Treece had left them when she removed them from Louisa’s bed. In front of them lay the small silk-wrapped parcel tied with ribbon. Louisa closed her eyes as a tear slid down her cheek.

  The knock on the door was hesitant. For a moment she ignored it, then with a sigh she called out to come in. Augusta peered round it, a candle in her hand.

  ‘Please join us for supper, Louisa. It would make the men so happy. The reis says Mohammed is distraught that you cannot be comforted. You will fall ill if you don’t eat, my dear.’

  Louisa sat up. Her head was swimming. Augusta was right. There was no point in starving herself to death. After all, she had to return to England, to her sons.

  ‘Shall I ask Treece to come and help you dress?’ Augusta stooped and picked up the blue bedrobe which had slipped to the floor.

  Louisa nodded. ‘Yes, I’d like that. Please. I’ll come and join you.’ She managed a watery smile as Augusta set down the candle and disappeared to summon Treece.

  In the still, shadowy cabin Louisa sat motionless, her head in her hands. She could still hear the music, but it seemed further away now.

  The deeply coloured woods of the cabin and the hangings which lined the walls were a rich mixture of colour and shade in the light of the single candleflame and as she looked up at last, the shadowy figure by the table was just that, a shadow, bending over the table, reaching out its hand.

  ‘Hassan?’ For a moment she was confused. She didn’t react. It was several seconds before she leapt to her feet, flinging out her arms, but the figure had gone.

  Behind her the door opened and Treece appeared, carrying a basin and a steaming jug of water. It smelt of attar of roses and Louisa could see the thin film of the rose oil floating on its surface.

  Miserably she allowed Treece to sponge her face and hands, then her neck. She let her help her on with her dark-green loose gown and then gather up her hair into a knot on her neck. It was as she was leaving the cabin that she heard the other woman sniff in exasperation. She had pushed open the shutters and tossed the water out into the darkness. ‘Such a fuss!’ The words were deliberately loud enough for her to hear. ‘And all for a native!’

  Her anger carried her out through the saloon onto the deck where the others were waiting for her, sipping their drinks. It was as she took the proffered seat from Sir John that she turned and looked out across the river. It was broad just here, a wide sweep on a bend where the palm trees grew down to the water’s edge on both sides, their fronds waving gracefully against the starlit sky. Against the far bank she could see two boats moored side by side. Even in the dark she recognised them.

  The Fieldings’ boat and that of Lord Carstairs were brightly lit with lamps and the music, she realised suddenly, was coming from a group of musicians on the deck of The Scarab.

  She pushed past Sir John and walked over to the rail, staring out across the water. He followed her. ‘Ignore them, my dear. Come on, have a drink and then we’ll eat together.’

  ‘Are they having a party? A soirée?’ Her hands closed over the rail, her knuckles white.

  ‘Nothing like that, I’m sure. They’ve just asked a band of musicians to play for them. They have every right, Louisa –’

  ‘They are on Roger Carstairs’ boat!’

  ‘Indeed they are.’ He was uncomfortable. She saw him run his finger around the inside of his collar.

  ‘But I thought he had sailed back to Abu Simbel!’

  Sir John shook his head gloomily. ‘Apparently not.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘My dear, I don’t know why he should have wanted to go back there in the first place. His boat has accompanied ours all the way down the cataract and through Aswan. As has the Fieldings’.’

  ‘I told hi
m to go!’ Her voice was deep and angry. ‘I told him and he took no notice.’

  ‘Louisa, he knows he will not be welcome on this boat. He has made no attempt to come on board. But I cannot prevent him from sailing near us!’

  ‘No, but I can!’ She swept round and ran forward towards the crew’s quarters. ‘Mohammed! Call the boy. I want the sandal now. I want to be taken across the river.’

  ‘Louisa, no!’ Sir John hurried after her.

  ‘You cannot stop me!’ She turned on him. ‘Don’t even try. I shall not require you to come with me. I just need the boy to row me over.’

  Behind them the crew had all leapt to their feet from their seats around the brazier where the meal was being prepared. Mohammed stepped forward, his face a picture of concern. ‘If the lady Louisa wishes to go on the river I shall row her myself.’

  ‘Thank you, Mohammed. I should like that. I want to go now.’

  Her face was as white as a sheet as she watched him pull the little dinghy alongside after she had fetched her shawl from her cabin. He held the small boat steady as she climbed in and spinning it expertly with an oar began to paddle across the dark water.

  It was David Fielding who helped her up on deck. Behind him she could see Venetia and Katherine ensconced on huge silken cushions, sleepily watching the entertainment before them as they sipped their Persian tea. Roger Carstairs had been sitting near them. As Louisa appeared he rose to his feet. He was dressed in a white turban and black robe, with around his waist a multicoloured fringed sash from which hung his long curved hunting knife.

  Katherine smiled and held out her arms in sympathetic welcome but Louisa did not see the gesture. Her eyes were on Carstairs’ face. Katherine hesitated. Her smile died and she put her hands anxiously on her stomach.

  ‘Good evening, Mrs Shelley!’ Carstairs bowed. Behind him the musicians had fallen silent.

  ‘Good evening, my lord.’ She was conscious that Mohammed had climbed over the rail after her and was standing close behind her. When she stepped forward he did the same. His presence was comforting.

  Carstairs nodded. ‘You still have a native at your side, I see, Mrs Shelley. He is welcome to join the other servants if you would care to sit down and watch the entertainment.’