Journey to the Lost Tomb (Rowan and Ella Book 2) (7 page)

           
Ella
rubbed her face and realized her hand was shaking. She couldn’t believe she was
talking with someone who knew about her and Rowan and Heidelberg.

           
“Do
you know who Greta is?” Ella asked suddenly.

           
“Of
course.”

           
“Do
you know…do you know what happened to her?”

           
Yeena
reached for Ella’s empty coffee cup and set it on a tray along with her own. “It
is not something people usually want to know,” she said gently.

           
“Right.”
Ella looked down at her hands. “She’s dead, of course.”

           
“The
item you must retrieve is a copy of an old papyrus. You will find it at the end
of this street, behind the baker. It is easy to find.”

           
“This
paper is at the baker’s?”

           
“
Behind
the baker’s, yes. Go around to
the back. There is a very small coffee shop there. Inside will be a man named Abed.
Tell him Yeena has sent you for the book.”

           
“I
thought you said it was a paper. Does Abed speak English?”

           
“No,
but he will be watching for you.”

           
“And
how do I know Abed won’t bop me on the head and relieve me of my credit cards
and passport?”

           
“You
must trust me, Ella.”

           
“This
book have a name?”

           
“It
does, my brave one. It is called the Book of the Dead.”

           
It
was difficult to sleep that night. Ella had gone straight back to the hotel
without attempting to acquire the book Yeena wanted so badly for her to have. She
knew she had been gone too long as it was and Maddie would be worried. Besides,
the woman scared her. She needed to think about everything the seer said before
she did anything rash—like creep around the back end of a deserted
alleyway in post-revolution Cairo.
At
night.

           
The
next morning, her head was so full of questions that she decided to skip the
whole life-and-death papyrus thing and go straight back to Yeena to find out
how
the seer knew what she did. It never
occurred to Ella that she might find someone who knew about the time traveling.
It meant she knew how it happened!
Perhaps Ella could return and see Greta again.
She could return with a backpack full of antibiotics and penicillin and
the special coffee that Greta liked…

           
The
seer could tell her if she and Rowan had just been wildly lucky to go and come
back or if there was a way to control it.

           
Rowan!
Wait until he heard this!

           
Maddie
interrupted Ella’s thoughts by clicking her fingers. “Earth to Ella,” she said.
“You about ready?”

           
Ella
snapped out of her daze to find Maddie fully dressed and standing by the door
with Ella’s carry-on bag beside her. Ella noticed that Maddie had a small bag,
too.

           
“Where’d
you get that? she asked.

           
“Now,
don’t get mad, but I asked Gagan to bring me my purse last night and a few of
my clothes,
and
my passport. He’ll
send the rest on to me.”

           
“Are
you totally shitting me?” Ella’s mouth fell open. She looked around the hotel
room. “He was
here
?”

           
“No,”
Maddie admitted. “I met him downstairs in the lobby. The very
public
lobby.”

           
“Where
he could just drag you off and stuff you in the trunk of his car!”

           
“Which
is why I didn’t tell you, Ella,” Maddie said, looking very tired and
world-weary. “Because as you can see nobody dragged anybody. He has accepted
that the wedding’s off. He was very decent about it.” She gave a deliberate
pause. “As I knew he would be.”

           
“Yeah,
he’s a real prince.”

           
“In
any case, if you don’t mind, I’m very eager to get this part of my Egyptian experience
over with and behind me. Come on, Ella, let’s
go, please
.”

           
“It’s
a little early for our flight,” Ella said frowning at the clock on the bedside
table. “Did you pack for me too?”

           
“I
did. There wasn’t much. I really want to go early. The sooner I’m at the
airport, the sooner I’m on the airplane and the sooner I’m out of this
godforsaken country.”

           
“Sure,
Maddie. No problem. Let’s go.”

           
In
the elevator on the way to the lobby, Maddie took Ella’s hand. “I hope you know
how grateful I am to you, Ella,” she said. “I’m not sure I’ve acted like it,
but you saved my life and I know it. Some day, when there’s a little more
distance between me and Cairo, I want to tell you all about it. Okay?”

           
Ella
squeezed her hand. “You’re gonna be fine, Maddie,” she said. “You’re tough.
You’ll look back one day and this will all just be a fleabite.”

           
Maddie
took a long withering sigh and tried to smile. “I’m not sure it’ll ever be
that,” she said. “But I’ll weather it.”

           
After
they paid their bill and stood out in front of the hotel, Ella asked the
doorman to hail two taxis for them.

           
Maddie
frowned. “What’s going on?”

           
“There’s
just something I need to do,” Ella said. “You’ll be fine. I will be right
behind you, probably no more than thirty minutes and we’ve got plenty of time.”

           
“Where
are you going?”

           
Ella
could see Maddie was becoming agitated and she worried that all her brave talk
was about to crumble and they would be pushing the flight back yet another day.

           
“I
saw this thing yesterday at the bazaar that I want to get Rowan, you know, a
souvenir.”

           
“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.