Journey to the Lost Tomb (Rowan and Ella Book 2)

by Kiernan-Lewis, Susan

  “What in the world?”

  “It’s called the Book of the Dead. Have you ever heard of anything like that?”

  Maddie stared at her like she’d lost her mind.

  “Yeah, I know it’s kind of creepy. Personally, I was thinking more along the lines of a refrigerator magnet but when I saw this thing it just kind of called to me, you know?”

  Maddie shook her head as she watched the doorman put all their bags in her taxi.

  “Look, Maddie,” Ella said, shaking her friend’s arm to try to ground her, “if it looks like I’m going to cut it close, just go ahead and board the airplane, okay?”

  “Do you expect to be that late?” Maddie looked panicked but there was a grim determination in her voice. Ella could see Maddie’s eagerness to leave Cairo was warring with her insecurity about being separated from Ella for an hour.

  “No, not at all,” Ella said. “I’m just saying don’t worry if you don’t see me at first. I promise I’ll be there.”

  Nine hours later when Maddie landed in Atlanta, she thought she had sufficiently recovered her nerves until she saw the look on Ella’s fiancé’s face as he approached her in the receiving line at the international terminal. Watching him look at her, and then look quickly behind her, knowing who he was hoping to see, knowing who he would not see…was enough to make anyone start weeping again.

  Chapter Six

  Cairo 2013

  Ella asked the taxi to park at the end of the alley. There was no room anywhere to park on the street and she feared keeping him circling the block would prove longer than just sitting here obstructing traffic and risking a ticket. The driver demanded to be paid first and then, not surprisingly, took off in a screech of tires as soon as Ella closed the door.

  It didn’t matter. Even with the aftereffects of the revolution, the area had more tourists than downtown. She judged she had a good three hours before her plane took off and, even in the typically abominable Cairo traffic, she couldn’t be an hour’s ride from the airport.

  The heat in late June made her feel like she was walking through a blast furnace. The buildings were built so close together that they stopped any relieving breeze that might have reached the area from the river. Ella hadn’t taken two steps down the street before her blouse was sticking to her and her jeans were chafing. She stopped to twist her long hair up into a ponytail but felt no real relief from the heat. Best to just find the damn book and get into the nearest air conditioned taxi. She hurried down the street, clutching her handbag to her side against any possible opportunistic pickpocket who might see her as a vulnerable victim.

  She saw Yeena’s shop on the corner. It was shuttered and closed, which put an end to any internal struggle she had been waging about whether or not to get more answers from her. It did seem odd for the teashop to be closed in the middle of a bustling, active day of selling for the other shops.

  When she came to the end of the street Ella noticed that although she had started out pushing through the dense crowd, there had been nobody on the sidewalk for the last several minutes. Straight ahead was obviously what Yeena had referred to as the bakery. While it had little resemblance to the cheery and bright boulangeries that Ella had visited in Paris, a hanging wooden sign depicted an illustration of a loaf of bread.

  She stood out front, hesitating to go in. Yeena had said behind the bakery. Ella walked to both sides of the shop and could not see a way to get to the back. She went to the front again and stood by the grimy window featuring an empty showcase. She wondered if she needed to go inside to find a back door? Before she touched the doorknob, she knew the bakery was closed. In frustration, she turned and looked down the street from where she had come.

  Should I just go? she thought. A quick look at her watch confirmed that she still had plenty of time. She took a breath to try to relax and walked back to the east side of the little shop once more.

  And there it was. She could see how she had missed it at first. The darkened conduit was obviously not used as a thoroughfare.

  Could this really be what Yeena meant? Ella approached the fissure and realized that it was indeed wide enough for her to slip through and when she poked her head in, she could see light at the end of the stone corridor. Amazed that people might actually be able to use this crack in the wall as a way to get to their favorite hidden coffee shop, Ella scooted sideways into the entrance and kept her eyes focused on the light that promised to be an opening of some kind not five yards ahead of her.

  I hope you appreciate this, Rowan, she found herself thinking. She heard scratching sounds and quickened her steps at the thought of a couple of disturbed rodents falling on her head. There was no effing way anybody came to a coffee shop this way! It was absurd! She began to feel panicked and claustrophobic. At the very moment when she decided she would just reverse her steps and forget this whole mad caper, her foot hit a slanting stone that pitched her forward. Struggling to stay upright, she clawed at the sides of the stone opening but her feet continued to slide as if the floor of the space was physically giving way. As she felt herself falling, she was overcome by an all-encompassing dizziness that robbed her of her sight and catapulted her other senses into overdrive. The smell of rotting garbage assailed her nostrils as panic drilled into her chest. She flailed her arms out to clutch at the walls but they were slippery now and she could do nothing to prevent her fall. As she fell into the darkness below, the slanting floor steepening sharply as she slid, her mind shut down and accepted the all-encompassing darkness.

  Rowan patted Maddie’s back as she wept and tried to speak.

  “Are you sure she hasn’t called you?” Maddie asked, trying to compose herself.

  Rowan shook his head. He had answered this question at least twice. But he knew it was an important one. The wrong answer to has she called? meant something had happened to her. Maddie knew that. Rowan knew that.

  “She told you she had to pick up a souvenir for me?”

  “Yes. She said it was something she saw last night when she was at the bazaar.”

  “Why didn’t she just get it then?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe she saw it in a window and the shop wasn’t open last night.”

  “It doesn’t make sense,” he said, still stunned that Ella had not gotten off the airplane.

  Letting Maddie come home alone? He shook his head. Wasn’t that the whole point of the trip? To bring Maddie back? Had she been in an accident? He checked his cellphone again. He knew he was listed as her emergency contact. Her passport was in her purse. She had been carrying her purse. If she was in a hospital somewhere, they should have contacted him by now.

  “I’m so sorry, Rowan,” Maddie said, still sniffing.

  “Don’t be,” he said tersely. “It’s not your fault. We’ll find out what happened. Probably sometime today. Her cellphone’s dead. It’ll take her awhile to figure out how to use the Egyptian public phones.”

  “Oh! You’re probably right.”

  “I’m sure I am.”

  “You have a long drive back to Dothan,” Maddie said. She was making an obvious effort to pull herself together. “My folks will come get me.”

  “Not at all,” he said. “I’ll take you home.” He leaned down to collect Ella’s carryon although a stab of worry reignited when he saw it. There is no way Ella would have voluntarily missed that plane. He glanced at Maddie and was glad to see she looked so relieved. He wished he could feel the same.

  The first thing Ella did was put her hand to her face. The left side of her cheek was burning as if she were was too close to a really hot fire. When her vision cleared, she saw that she was lying on her side on a wet stone surface. Afraid to move for fear she had damaged herself, she lay frozen on the ground and tried to get her bearings. She heard voices but not nearby. The ground was wet because it was raining. She moved slowly to try to sit up and found that she was unhurt. She was no longer wedged in a gap between two buildings but was lying on the side of a fairly wide alley. It
took a moment of blinking before she realized it was nightfall.

  She jerked her wrist up close to her face to see the time. It was past eight o’clock.

  She had missed the flight.

  Even though she knew it was too late, she frantically pulled herself to her feet. Would Maddie have left? Ella had told her to get on the airplane. Yes, she would be gone by now. Not trusting her legs to hold her, she leaned against the brick wall lining the alley and studied her surroundings.

  She still heard voices—nothing distinct so she couldn’t tell what language they were in—but she saw no people. Her clothes were wet all the way through and she had already started to shiver. In spite of how hot it had been earlier in the day, she felt a chill straight through to her bones. The shops down this street were closed and dark. She wondered if it was Friday already? How long had she been out? Was everyone at prayer? She noticed a movement at the end of the alley and instinctively moved in that direction.

  Someone must have found her in the alley behind the bakery and moved her. But why just leave her in that case? She rifled through her purse to find her cellphone and wallet. She hadn’t been robbed so had her Good Samaritan just moved her and then left her? She got a sudden dark thought but within seconds definitely rejected the possibility that she had been interfered with in any way.

  She moved slowly to the end of the alley. She hadn’t seen a taxi go by yet and at this time of night there should be plenty. She didn’t think the hotel looked very full. Surely, she would have no trouble getting another room for the night.

  As she reached the main street, Ella gasped and grabbed the wall again for support. Instead of the modern cars of 2013 Cairo, she saw a disorganized traffic of horse drawn carriages and Model T Fords. The street was filled with donkeys and barefoot Egyptian men in turbans wearing full tunics and robes. There was absolutely no comparison to this same street of the night before. Ella watched the scene open-mouthed as a needle of dread and fear wormed its way up her spine.

  Oh, please God, no, she thought. Don’t let this be happening.

  She surveyed the scene in building horror, and then turned and ran back to the alley. She reached the spot where she had lain and tried to backtrack to the place where the split in the wall must be. She ran her hands along the wall, but there was no opening. She stood with her hands flat against the wall while a cold breeze blew through her thin blouse. The rain had stopped.

  She turned and faced the street at the end of the alleyway once more and took a long ragged breath. She couldn’t stay here. She must find help. As she walked again, slowly and with trepidation toward the main promenade, she reminded herself that there were cars so at least she wasn’t in the Middle Ages. Taking heart from that thought, she picked up her pace. Perhaps the telephone had been invented?

  And then the thought that made her stop and sink to her knees in despair hit her like a punch to the stomach. Who would she call? Rowan hadn’t been born yet. In all likelihood her father hadn’t been born yet.

  She was all alone. Whenever she was. She was on her own.

  Chapter Seven

  Cairo 1922

  Pulling her wet blouse tighter against the chill, Ella forced herself to straighten up and walk. Whether she would be able to get back or not, it didn’t appear the alley was the way. Whether she would ever see Rowan again…She stopped and took a good long breath. She needed to be stronger than that. Those sorts of thoughts were not her friends right now. She would get back. She would see him again. Somehow.

  Coming once more to the busy street, Ella watched the swirl of humanity—most of them looking terribly impoverished—rush by and try to engulf her. She stepped back to the alley and watched the dense crowd go by. Even in the evening, the bazaar was in full swing. She touched her bag. She had Egyptian pound notes in her wallet but she had no idea if they were valid currency for this time in Egypt’s history.

  When was this? She fought down the panic that those words caused and began to search the street for a car or something that passed as a taxi. A young Egyptian man materialized in front of her pulling a double-seated rickshaw.

  “Efendim!” he called. “You ride? Fifty piaster to your hotel!”

  Thank you, God. She staggered out into the street to the young man and allowed him to help her into the back of his vehicle.

  “Shepheards?” the young man asked brightly. Ella nodded. One hotel was as good as another. Clearly, this man was taking her to where he thought she belonged. That was a start.

  As she rode, Ella was relieved to see what looked like many men in Western dress. One wore what looked like a British uniform. She noticed that there were still more horse-drawn carriages on the street than automobiles. She tried to remember if she had watched any Masterpiece Theatre dramas set in this time period. She only knew that the British were in charge of Egypt after the first world war. Had the war happened yet? There was no way to tell. It could be 1915 or as late as 1930. While knowing that the Brits were in charge made her feel a little less lonely—surely they would help see a lost American woman was taken care of?—she knew she would have to come up with a convincing story about how she got here.

  By the time her driver deposited her in front of the magnificent forecourt of The Shepheards Hotel, Ella knew her new setting had electricity and cars and so probably telephones, airplanes and basic medical care. When she handed her driver a pound note, he refused the money but kept his hand out. Clearly, whatever the Egyptian pounds look like now is was not what they will look like in 2013. Without thinking, she unbuckled her watch and handed it to him. Nearly crying out with delight, the young driver pulled Ella out of his carriage and drove away through the throng of people milling about in front of the hotel. The three turbaned doormen who then approached her clearly had every intention of removing her forcibly until they saw that she was not Egyptian.

  “We may be of service, aanesa?” The head doorman spoke to her but still barred her from walking into the hotel.

  “I am here to register, if you please,” Ella said in her most formal voice. It was her experience that behaving like one belonged often allowed one admission in places one didn’t in fact belong.

  That obviously didn’t include Shepheards.

  “You are visiting a guest, aanesa?” The head guy gave Ella’s a disapproving up-and-down look. She could imagine he had never seen a woman dressed in tight jeans and a wet see-through blouse. She hesitated, not knowing what to say.

  “Beryl, darling? Is that you?”

  Ella stepped back to see a young woman, no more than twenty, emerge from behind the wall of doormen. Her eyes were a startling blue. Her hair was golden and pulled in a Gibson upsweep. Her dress covered every inch of her from chin to wrists all the way to the ground, where it swept the walkway in front of the luxury hotel.

  “Oh, yes, I can see that it is,” the girl said. Reaching out, she took Ella by the elbow and tucked it under her arm. She was easily two inches taller than Ella. “Naughty, Beryl,” she said, patting Ella’s arm with a closed fan and maneuvering her adroitly between the two men and up the hotel steps. “We missed you at dinner but I told them you were probably riding again.”

  “Yep, er, yes,” Ella said. “That’s me. Off riding.”

  “Well, come on, darling. Let’s get you upstairs and into a bath before they all come back. Wouldn’t do for them to see us out on the street like this, would it? Can you imagine what Edward would say?”

  Ella allowed herself to be escorted into the magnificent Shepheards Hotel lobby. A tiered crystal chandelier the size of a small minibus hung from the center of the ceiling. Directly beneath it was a palm tree surrounded by three blood red velvet settees. The entire floor of the lobby was covered by a huge ivory Isfahan with a delicate pattern woven in peach and aqua. On the hundred foot ceiling was a dramatic mural depicting Egyptian pharaohs and the pyramids. Forty-foot windows with velvet drapes were sandwiched between giant mirrors surrounded by ornate gold decorative frames. Ella’s new frie
nd was chattering happily as they climbed the massive staircase. It was all Ella could do not to gasp as she found herself thinking, It’s like the palace of Versailles.

  When the young woman had ushered Ella into her hotel room and shut the door, she dropped her silly banter. “Who are you? Are you American?”

  Ella nodded, not sure which way to jump with this one in order to keep a comfortable place to sleep for the night. But whatever she wanted Ella to say is what Ella was prepared to say.

  “I thought so. I heard your accent. Please excuse my shanghaiing you at the door, but it looked like you were having some trouble.”

  “Er, yes. There was a misunderstanding in progress with the doorman. I appreciate your intervention.” Ella could tell by the way this girl—obviously British—spoke and carried herself that a certain amount of staged formality wouldn’t go amiss. Especially considering how Ella was dressed.

  “I am Lady Julia Haversham.” She stopped and corrected herself. “I am Julia Digby, wife of Viscount Edward Digby,” she amended. “I am recently wed and I fear unaccustomed to my new title.”

  “Pleased to meet you and congratulations.”

  “Do you know Viscount Digby?”

  Ella always believed that when you had no hint of which way to go, the truth was usually the most sustainable course. She hoped she was doing the right thing. “No,” she said.

  The girl looked at her as if trying to read her face. “Are you a guest at the hotel?”

  Ella took a deep breath and began the story she had prepared on the rickshaw ride to the hotel.

  “My name is Ella Stevens. I traveled here with my fiancé from the States as a sort of pre-honeymoon.”

  The girl frowned and Ella decided in future to omit that piece of the story.

  “We had a fight and he left me.”

  “What do you mean left you? Is he still in the country?”