Horus and the Curse of Everlasting Regret (13 page)

The waiting. The waiting was torture. Horus wished he could drum his bony fingers, tap his wrapped metatarsals, anything to relieve some of this nervous energy building inside him. He'd been waiting for the sun to set for what seemed like an eternity—and nobody knew an eternity like Horus. Museum visitors came and went, peering and murmuring, laughing and talking, oblivious to the evil that was going on in their own town. Finally the crowds thinned, dwindling to the last few onlookers, and then there was the wonderful silence when the buzzing lights switched off.

Trying to move before the curse fully allowed it was like trying to walk through a giant tank of jam. Horus attempted to sit up again and again, only to feel that invisible drag. Finally he was able to struggle upright.

He clambered over the stone edge of his sarcophagus, bandages rasping. Then he fished around for the drawing he'd made of the kidnapper. He stood still in the echoing exhibit, paper in hand.

“Now what?” Horus said aloud. He'd think better with his sling stone. He ran to the kitchen, grabbed the frying pan, and hurried to smash the glass case. He took out the stone. With its familiar weight in his hand, he considered what to do.

He could try to get the attention of the night watchman, George. The man was Tunie's neighbor, she'd said. If he knew Tunie, he was likely to help. The problem was, Horus had never successfully gotten the man's attention before. The watchman had walked right past Horus as the mummy sat on the floor, directly in George's path, drinking tea, and George never seemed to see or hear a thing. He never responded to the nightly shattering of the sling stone case. Horus had even tried having conversations with the man, on the time or two he'd had cause to come by the exhibit. George never noticed anything.

Well, Horus had to try. He returned to the small kitchen area and found a large serving spoon and a metal bowl. He carried them over to the door near the hallway and started banging on the bowl with the spoon.

Clang! Clang! Cling! Clang!

Horus winced at every earsplitting whack, but after twenty minutes there was no sign of the watchman. Every minute that passed was another minute Tunie was in the hands of that vile man. Horus blinked sepia tears from his eyes, setting the bowl and spoon on the floor and picking up the sketch and his stone.

He peered through the small window in the doorway to the hall. George was up the stairs. Horus need only go down the hall and up the stairs to find him.

Just the thought of opening the door made Horus tremble. He knew what would happen. One never forgot that kind of pain. He had to do it, though, and not just because Tunie had brought him books. He had to do it because he'd been a bad boy when he'd lived, and a bad mummy afterward, and here, finally, was his chance to be good. He had to do it for all the people he'd hurt before. Most especially, he had to do it because he cared about her. He had to do it for Tunie.

His small, bandaged hand reached for the doorknob.

“Kindness travels,” he whispered. Then: “For Tunie!”

Saying it aloud made him feel braver, so he said it again. “For Tunie!”

He shouted it as he flung open the door.

“For Tunie!” He shouldered his way through, and instantly the pain licked up his calves, the soles of his feet searing with each step down the tile hallway. He gripped the carved stone and the drawing.

“FOR TUNIE!” Horus cried as the burning sensation traveled up his spine and down each of his arms. He staggered to the stairwell.

“FOR…TUNIE!” the frail little mummy shouted. As he rose up each step, his entire body shivered with pain.

“FOR! TUNIE!” he shrieked. By the time he reached the top of the stairs, Horus could no longer walk. He fell to his knees and crawled into George's office. Horus's vision was beginning to dim, and dense flocks of black dots obscured his vision. He felt like his whole skeleton was on fire. Through the haze of pain, Horus made out the bulk of the night watchman at his desk, his back to the door through which Horus dragged himself.

“FOR…TUNIE…,” Horus gasped out one last time. He reached up and slammed the drawing onto the watchman's desk. He'd done it! He'd defied the curse! Tunie had a chance! It was Horus's last thought before, at last, the pain of the curse overwhelmed him, and he collapsed to the floor.

George's chair creaked as he turned his head slightly to one side.

“What's this?” he said, reaching for the paper on his desk. “Where did this come from?”

He looked over the pen drawing—a quite good one, really—and a feeling of dread fell over him. He read the accompanying note.

Who could have written this? Was it a joke? He'd heard Tunie come in at the end of his last shift, in the early morning. She hadn't come in this evening, though— she always made a point of calling up to George when she did.

George decided to make sure she wasn't in the museum. He descended the stairs and checked every exhibit.

“Tunie?” he called. His voice sounded hollow in the tiled rooms.

After making certain Tunie was not around, George returned to his office. He reached for the phone and dialed the police.

A gruff man's voice answered. “Harbortown Police Station, Officer Hill speaking. What's your emergency?”

George cleared his throat. “I think I need to report a kidnapping.”

He described the man to Officer Hill, who arranged for an officer to come by the museum right away and pick up the drawing. Speaking to the policeman made George feel more anxious. Tunie could be in real danger.

“You've got to find her,” George said to the police officer on the line, thinking of the earnest girl who was always looking out for him and his mother, not to mention her own sick father.

“Tunie's a friend,” Officer Hill said through the receiver. “I'd do anything for Tunie.”

For Tunie,
George thought as he hung up the phone. Now why did those words seem to be hovering in the air?

“This is useless,” Tunie said. The tips of her fingers were chafed red from pulling at the rope around Dorothy's wrists. “The knots are just too tight.”

Peter spit out tiny fibers onto the floor. He'd been chewing at his bonds, with discouraging results.

“I'm only making these soggy.”

There wasn't much else to do.

After a long stretch, Perch finally flitted into the attic through the small square window. He dropped his treasures into Tunie's hands: a nail file, a pen, and a scrap of paper.

“Perch,” Tunie said, smiling, with tears in her eyes. “You are a most exceptional bat.”

Dorothy was watching Perch with wonder.

“That's an understatement,” she said.

Peter laughed. “Nice work, Perch.”

Perch landed on a rafter and strutted, upside down, looking quite satisfied. Tunie handed the file to Dorothy.

“You and Peter try to cut through each other's ropes. I'll write a note for Perch to deliver to Officer Hill.”

“Okeydokey.” Dorothy accepted the file and scooted over near Peter. She began sawing away at the ropes binding his hands. Tunie thought that for someone who could have been a delicate, pampered girl, Dorothy was surprisingly tough. If they got out of this mess, they might even be friends.

Tunie did the best she could with her hands bound tightly together. Her fingers cramped from holding the pen at an uncomfortable slant, and lettering was arduous and slow. She was aware of every passing moment as she wrote out their situation.

Dear Officer Hill,

Peter Bartholomew, Dorothy James, and I are being held captive in the attic of Billowing Sails Shipping on Franklin Street, near the harbor.

All at once she heard clumping and indistinguishable voices drawing near. Tunie rushed to jot down as much as she could.

Detective Shade and a man named Curtis R

Before she could finish, the trapdoor flung open with a bang. She stuffed the pen and paper into her sock, and saw Peter do the same with the metal file.

Reid's greasy head appeared first, followed by his lanky frame. He held handkerchiefs in his hands. Detective Shade followed him up the ladder.

Detective Shade eyed them coldly with his close-set eyes, while Reid stuffed a rag in Peter's mouth and secured it with a handkerchief.

Detective Shade spoke sternly. “We're moving you out of here. These gags ought to keep you quiet, but if you get any ideas—if you decide, for example, to make knocking sounds with your knuckles or something of that nature—I will make you quiet, permanently.” He looked over at the open window. “What's that doing open?”

Dorothy answered. “It's hot in here. I just wanted some air.”

Shade strode over and slammed the window shut.

Oh no!
Tunie thought.
Now Perch is stuck in here!
She looked at Peter, but he had his eyes cast down.

Reid gagged Tunie and Dorothy. Then he and Shade hauled Peter away. The ropes around his ankles made descending the ladder impossible, so they slung Peter around like a sack of flour. Tunie prayed they wouldn't notice the half-sawed ropes around his wrists.

While the two men were busy carrying Peter downstairs, Tunie pulled the crumpled note out of her sock, and Perch swooped down and snatched it in his tiny claws, flying rapidly back up to the ceiling and disappearing behind an exposed wooden beam.

The men returned and carried Dorothy away.

Maybe they would leave the attic entrance open, and Perch could fly out that way, Tunie hoped. Alas, when Shade and Reid carried her down, Reid reached up and pulled the trapdoor shut behind them.

Perch was trapped.

Hanging upside down over Reid's shoulder, Tunie spied three large black traveling trunks on the floor: two closed, one ajar. Tunie just had time to read the words stenciled on the open trunk—
LIVE CARGO
—and see the breathing holes punched in its sides before Reid and Shade dropped her inside it roughly.

She could see a little bit of the wall through the breathing hole closest to her face. She tried to pull the gag from her mouth, but it was too tight, and she couldn't reach behind her head in the tight quarters. Suddenly the box lurched up, and Tunie felt she was being carried. She bumped and jostled along for several minutes, feeling cool air that smelled of the ocean coming in through the small holes. Then up, up, up. Finally her trunk landed with a thud. She heard voices and a seagull squawking. She was moving up and down gently. Rocking. She was on a boat.

Poor Perch was locked in the attic, Tunie thought despairingly. Her father and Peter's parents didn't know where they were. Horus was the only one who had a clue what was happening, and he couldn't communicate with anyone! Even if Perch somehow managed to get out and take that note to Officer Hill, they were no longer in the attic where she'd said. She hadn't even signed her name. The police weren't aware Detective Shade was involved in Dorothy's kidnapping.

There was no way anyone would find them.