Chapter Seven

They told her all about it.  Connie looked paler than she usually did, and this was quite a feat.  She shook her head in amazement.

"So..."  She frowned, touching her bottom lip, "You... you're saying... that these mummies rose..."

"From the dead, yes," Rick nodded.

"Quite extraordinary, really," Jonathan said.

"Gross too," added Alex.

Constance gave a light, amazed laugh, shaking her head.  "Amazing."  She threw her hands up and sighed.  "Then it must be fate that brought me here!"

Evelyn glanced up, "How's that?"

"Well," Constance shrugged, "If ever you were in need of a spiritual adviser, I think it's now, when you're making a new discovery!"

Evelyn squirmed, "Connie dear, I think you should wait till you're a little more experienced before you go playing around with dead Egyptians... they're quite powerful."

Ardeth nodded, looking to Connie with all seriousness in his eyes.  "She is right, Miss Adams.  The spirits and powers in this land can be unpredictable at best."

"Other times they can be downright deadly," muttered Rick, entwining his arm around Evelyn and holding her close.

Constance felt a pang as the couple in front of her went quiet.  There was a haunted darkness in their eyes, one that Jonathan, Alex and Ardeth shared.  It was deep in Evelyn's eyes, as if it hit her in some way that went right to her core.  Evelyn looked up to Connie, a soft fear in her features, her hands gripping Rick's arms wound around her.

Brown... such endless brown with the shock of kohl around the edges.  Constance gulped, looking away, cold shocking chills fluttering through her, a tightness in her stomach and what could only be described as a deep molecule-rattling pull in her very cells, in her bones, in her shoulders and palms that made her feel like she had a touch of vertigo.  She blinked, looking away, wrapping her arms about herself if not a little shakily.

"All right," Constance breathed, "I'll wait.  Till I'm stronger."

She could feel the peals of relief falling from Evelyn, and there was the warmth of a slender but large hand on Constance's shoulder.

"You've decided wisely," came the velvety voice of the Medjai next to her.  "In your patience you have made the next step on the spiritual path you have begun to follow."

Constance looked back to him, nodding slightly.  "Thank you."

Spiritual path... for some reason it didn't matter.  She felt incredibly let down.  Always in her life she felt lost, unaccustomed to things about her, always trying to find a state of equilibrium.  All she ever found was fleeting enjoyment and brief understanding.   Upon seeing those sand dunes in the subdued and warm dawn light and the yawning sensation of comfort that filled her at the sight of it, she felt as if she'd found something special, something welcoming.   It was almost as if she'd found her home.  At that point the spidery tendrils of her nerves were set tingling, and something very familiar encompassed her.   Slowly, it abated; drawing away like the tide, but a shadow of it was always there, haunting her.  Instinctively she knew that whatever she needed to discover with her new found mysticism, it was here in Egypt.  Forbidding herself from stretching her spiritual legs seemed a crime to her in some way, as if she were losing an important opportunity of some sort, and that Egypt was the key to her new life path.

Path or no, she'd said she'd wait.  And that she would.

~~*~~

Evelyn took station at the prow of the dirigible, gazing out at the terrain below her with a crease of worry in her brow.   A distinct sense of deja-vu was washing over her, and she found herself wondering why - why was she doing this again?   She was being careful this time, she told herself.  She was going to read things before she opened them, and if she opened them (things that were dark looking books at least) then she'd mentally read them, and not out aloud.  She wished she could have left Alex at home, but he really wouldn't stand for it.  The boy was as stubborn as his mother and father put together.  Warm hands enclosed the rounds of her shoulders, and when the soft touch of a kiss landed on her cheek, Evelyn leant back, sighing softly.

"Alex is asleep," Rick said softly.

"What about Connie?"

"Ehhh," Rick looked back, "She's talking to Ardeth and valiantly trying not to sleep I think."

"Why?"

"Said something about the floor being dirty."

"It's probably her fear of heights," nodded Evy.

"She's scared of heights?  She's in a dirigible, honey," Rick said, "Shouldn't she be terrified?"

"Well no," Evelyn said.  "She's fine in planes and on platforms she just doesn't like there being gaps in the things she's standing on, like grating on walkways and plank staircases and so forth."

"Right..."  Rick wrapped his arms around Evelyn, leaning his lips against her ear.  "So how are you anyway?"

Evelyn sighed.  "Feeling a bit nervous, actually."

Rick's brows rose.  "Pre-discovery jitters?"

"No, just jitters," Evy said, gripping Rick's arms.  "I just have to wonder sometimes about my own presumptuousness, barging into temples and catacombs, reading this and taking that as if it never belonged to anybody."

Rick leant his face against hers.  "Well... it's what Egyptologists do isn't it?"

"Yes but," Evy pressed her lips together with a growl, "Is it right?  I mean - I have no doubt in the world now that whenever I dig up something, there's somebody that's dead that bloody knows about it."

"Well... perhaps Connie's right.  Perhaps her arrival is kinda fortuitous."

"Uuhhh," Evelyn groaned, "I'm scared for her Rick.  She's so - so optimistic, so naive.  She has no idea what we went through - I mean she knows but she never felt it and I don't want her having to live with the memories we have."

"See that's the thing dear," Rick said, "You didn't exactly tell her everything, did you?"

She sighed. "No, I didn't."

"Why not?"

Evelyn wound about in Rick's arms, looking up to his warm blue eyes that glinted with something deeper than concern or worry.

"I have a feeling, Rick, that that dream she had - it's something more than her mind finding metaphors for her visit here.  Something about what she said is very familiar and I - I feel like whatever is behind her dream - " Evelyn gulped.  "It's not good, and it's not beneficial.  When I think about her dream - I feel a hell of a lot of pain."

Rick looked over her features, touched with sadness, and he ran a fingertip down her jaw.

"I feel like I did when I remembered what happened to me... to Seti.   I don't like that feeling Rick."

Nodding, Rick pulled her into a tighter embrace.  "Then don't remember."

~~*~~

"You must sleep, Miss Adams."

Constance wrapped her arms about herself, hugging the blanket she wore around her shoulders tighter, gazing out at the twinkling sky about her.  "I shan't."

"You must."

Jonathan, a heap of blankets on the floor, just groaned.  "Will you two please argue a little more quietly?  I'm trying to get some kip."

Ardeth just sighed, and looked to Constance again.  "I can see you are tired."

"Yes, Mr. Bay, I am tired.  I simply cannot sleep."  She shook her head, eyes fluttering shut.  "I cannot."

"Is it the height that frightens you?"

Constance glared at him, shuddering a little.  "How on earth-"

Ardeth shrugged, pointing at the planks beneath their feet.  "You keep looking nervously at the gaps in the floor."

Damn him for being so perceptive.   He was a man; he wasn't supposed to notice things like that.  And what was he doing taking so much notice of the way she behaved anyway?   She glanced to him.  He was fiddling with the black strips of fabric he had wrapped around his hands, covering his palms and the backs of them up to the base of his fingers.  She'd seen him wear them the whole time she'd known him.   Anyway - her brain was drifting off the more important subject - she was tired.  Deadly tired, and fear was shaking any sense of security from her.  It was only as she was about to lie down to rest that she noticed them - the holes in the floor.  It wasn't so bad, but they were as wide as her finger, and looking through it, she could see the space below deck, and the light of the sands reflecting the moon winking at her through more cracks underneath.  Obviously all these holes were the reason why the boat was now a dirigible.  It was enough of a thought to dislodge her faith in the vessel, and to put it simply, she was terrified of it.  Not that she wanted anyone to know.

She sighed, the quiet snoring of Jonathan and the louder of Izzy's creating a strange aural backdrop for the moment.  Ardeth sat there, looking at a loss himself.  His hand sat at the point on his chest where the papoose cradling his new bird should have been.  She swallowed, meeting Ardeth's eyes finally.

"I can't bear to sleep on the floor.  I just can't relax."

Ardeth nodded.  "I am unused to being without Ra.  I doubt sleep will come to me easily tonight."

Connie smiled slightly.  "That's blatantly clear."

The desert warrior returned her smile with a touch of sheepishness, leaning against the inside of the boat.  "Sit up against the side here," he said, "Perhaps you can get some sleep that way."

Connie shifted up a little closer to Ardeth, leaning against the wall of the boat, covering herself in the blanket.

"It doesn't matter," she said softly, settling down, "I hate this stupid boat so much I shan't get any sleep at all."

~~*~~

Dark hands gripped her upper arms, and she glanced down.  Deeply coloured tattoos - those hands again.  With the pointed pronged 'E's on them.   Something about one of the hands was familiar... too familiar.  She went to look up at the man beside her, but her gaze was pulled forward by a firm, weighted voice.

"Ramla..."

Ramla?  What did that mean?  Was it some Egyptian word?   He spoke further in the Egyptian tongue, and she only barely understood him.  Something about her dreaming, about her plotting.  Plotting?  When did she ever plot?  She was the kind of person that never plotted.  She drifted aimlessly.   There was a strong-featured man with a strange crown - the King, and the young woman on the other side of him - his daughter?

Evy.... It was Evelyn.  Perhaps Evy wanted something special for her...  She heard a word that made her head snap back to the man.  It wasn't a word - it was a name.

Seti.  This was Seti... he said Seti.    There was a shockingly beautiful woman on the other side of Seti, slender and dark with eyes of liquid obsidian, and a bald, astonishingly handsome man flanked her, hairless bronzed chest gleaming.  This was all so very confusing.

Evelyn was crying now.  One of the hands on her own arms keeping her still - it was trembling badly.   She tried to look at the person that owned it, but of a sudden her head was thrust down by the other guard's hand, shoving her to the floor.

A voice breathed another Egyptian word, but she knew what it meant, there was no confusion here.  "Nei..."

The king seemed to say something about it being necessary.   She heard the run of metal against its wood-lined sheath, and in the shadow of the men behind her on the floor she could see it ... one of the men had raised his sword high.

Then that word was spoken again.  "Ramla..."

The voice was painfully familiar.  She knew that voice.   The very tone wept of remorse, of pain, of a well of tenderness untouched.  The shadow of the sword came down, she heard some gasping...

Then she felt nothing.

"Nyeaaah!" She bolted upright, clutching her chest, a great heaving gasping cry falling from her.  She gulped down air, trying to control the trembling in her body, the tears in her eyes.  Her fingers shook and shuddered, unable to keep them still, sweat breaking on her forehead and chest.   Breath, she tried to breathe, not deeply, not fast - slow... slow...

Death.

That's all that could fill her mind.   That damnable blackness engulfed her, the terrible ring of the blade filled her ears, and a sob crept up her throat, confusion and heartbreak seizing her.  There was only one feeling she could get a hold of, one thought, one transient moment of existence that defined the entire scene that had played in her mind...  'What did I do wrong?'

She let a sob take her, letting the gripping fear within her flow from her chest, embracing herself in the darkness of night.  For some awful reason, the image of Rick embracing Evelyn flashed through her mind, as if to taunt her somehow.  She could hear her own voice in her mind say, "It's so lonely being what I am, Evelyn."  It didn't matter what she was or whether she was lonely or not.  Not now.  The terror of her dream was all the same, and her innocent vision had turned dark.   She had no idea what to make of it.   Would Egypt kill her?  Did it want her to leave?   Was Evelyn right about her playing with the spirits?

A deep feeling of despair welled up inside of her as she felt the enthusiasm for her new life path slowly crumble before her.  There would be no wild mystical Egypt for her, no séances with the forerunners of Spiritism and the greatest mediums in the world.  Just a haunting vision of a land that denied her.

Warmth was at her back, and without thought she leaned into it, tears spilling down her cheeks.  The warmth changed - back... arm...  She turned and saw - her breath caught.   In the dark of the night she saw his usually warm coffee tones in a subdued grey, but the keen glint of his eyes was still there, the curve of his lip that somehow meant he was worried.  His head was bare of his turban, and his dark midnight hair tumbled down the majestic cheekbones and jaw that set him apart from those around him with some regal bearing.  Some longing within her was stronger than thought, stronger than feeling.   Like a collapsing house of cards she fell against him, burying her face into his shoulder, sobbing endlessly.

He paused, uncertain of what to do, and his hand hovered over her soft blonde hair with some hesitation before curling around the curve of her head, running down the silky tresses lightly.

"Connie..."

She glanced up to him, clutching the front of his robes.  The... the way he said it - his voice.  She felt her throat tighten, and she searched his features in the bluish tinge of moonlight.  His voice... it called to something, something within her.  His eyes searched hers in return, just for a clue as to what could have scared her so.

She said nothing, laying her head against his shoulder again, his hand stroking her hair once more.   In the softness of his robes and his deep scent of fine oils, she found comfort and she held onto that comfort.   The comfort gave her the tiniest morsel of security, and with that she felt safe enough to drift off back to sleep.

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Hello From Sunny Hamunaptra – Chapter 8