I'm Not Who You Think I Am

by Felicitas Ivey

  I wasn’t going to tell him Sutekhgen was the one who sent the Beast back and not Uncle Yushua’s spell.

  Uncle Yushua froze. “Who?”

  “Um…. Naked Guy was in my dream,” I confessed. “He…. It’s complicated.”

  It was more than complicated, but I didn’t know how to explain why. The man was an ass, and the kiss thing was beyond icky for me—with both the kiss and the way he thought he had the right to kiss me.

  Uncle Yushua leaned against the wall, all the color drained out of his face. “He told you his name,” he whispered.

  “We introduced ourselves,” I said, wondering why he looked like he was going to pass out. “I said he was being rude not giving me his name.”

  “You did,” Uncle Yushua mumbled, looking impressed and horrified.

  “And I told him my name, but I didn’t tell him yours,” I assured him. “I figured out by then names might have power or something like that.”

  “He didn’t hurt you?” There was raw fear in his voice as he stared at me like I was an unexploded bomb.

  I shuddered. “He french-kissed me, and that killed any lingering sexuality I had.”

  Why the hell had I said that? There was enough trouble without me coming out. But thankfully Uncle Yushua wasn’t really paying attention to what I was saying.

  “This isn’t a joking matter.” Uncle Yushua sighed.

  “He’s like any guy I’ve met, who thinks my boundaries don’t matter because he’s interested in me, even if my ‘go away’ signals can be read by aliens in another universe,” I complained. “He kissed me without really asking, and I’m kicking him in the nonexistences for pulling that crap with me.”

  “You will?” Uncle Yushua was staring at me, looking faintly horrified for some reason.

  “He backed off when I asked him to before, and then he just calls me beloved or some such crap like that and kisses me. He shoved his tongue down my throat and I choked on it. I should have bitten the stupid thing,” I ranted. “After that, he couldn’t get rid of me fast enough. He pushed me away. When he did that, I woke up on the floor.”

  The water was running, so it was safe enough for me to take my own shower now.

  “I want to clean up,” I said. “Can we talk about this later?”

  Uncle Yushua nodded. He looked stunned, and I thought I’d said something wrong because of the expression on his face. I’d apologize later, after I had the hot shower I needed. Thinking about what Sutekhgen had done made me feel slimy. If I ran into him again, I was definitely repeating the boundaries talk with him. Plus, I wanted aspirin because the headache started pounding all of a sudden. It could have been all the not-so-suppressed anger I was feeling right then.

  I found aspirin and swallowed three with plenty of water. I’d worry about my kidneys or stomach or whatever I killed taking too many pills later. I showered and got dressed, with Mafdet dogging my steps like she thought I was going to cause trouble. I tried to ignore her watching me shower, her stare boring through me, like she was trying to see all my secrets. That might be one of the reasons for the no-pet rule with Mother: they got in your business, besides the fur they left behind.

  “I’d think this was creepy, if a) we weren’t both girls or b) you’re a cat,” I told her as I dried off. “It’s better than having Harper or Uncle Yushua, which makes me want to bleach my brain, hovering over me to see if I’m going to explode or something.”

  Uncle Yushua was really upset Sutekhgen knew my name and that we’d talked. Aside from being obnoxious, there hadn’t seemed to be anything wrong with him. I’ve met scarier guys walking across Central Park in broad daylight. But those guys hadn’t kissed me, just left me alone after a few leers and icky suggestions.

  Mafdet sneered. I opened the bathroom door a crack and listened. It sounded like everyone was in the kitchen, so I dashed to the study to get dressed. I pulled on a relaxed purple tunic top and a black crinkle cotton tiered skirt. I combed out my hair and wove it into a loose braid, squeezing more water out of it with a towel after I was done. No, it wasn’t smart to braid my hair wet, but I also didn’t want it in the food either.

  I padded down the stairs, humming so they could hear me coming, in case they were talking about me. I wasn’t being conceited, since Uncle Yushua hadn’t looked happy when I’d told him details of last night’s dream. He’d talk to Harper about it, and then I’d probably get questioned while Rat cooked breakfast.

  “I’m willing to have tea,” I announced as I breezed in. “If Rat had nothing to do with brewing it.”

  I was going for light and breezy. It didn’t kill the tension in the room.

  “You’re not hungover?” Rat asked, trying to sound concerned, but he was grinning too much. He would have known before this, with the run we just did.

  “I feel fine, but it’s a little early to be drinking,” I lied. “Plus the whole underage thing you were ignoring.”

  The aspirin had kicked in for the most part, but there was still the lingering ache nagging me. It’d probably go away once I had food in me.

  He nodded. “But still, you’re on toast duty.”

  “Fair enough,” I said as I moved over to the toaster to start. He shouldn’t get stuck with all the cooking.

  Rat was making bacon and scrambled eggs while Harper and Uncle Yushua watched.

  “I’m giving you and Josh a chance to plan out the day without being distracted,” Rat said. “Then the both of you can deal with the dishes when we’re done.”

  “We’ve gone over everything,” Harper said. “We could check out what’s in Harvard’s collection, but I’m certain anything of importance is at the Shawmut. After all this time, we’ve managed to steal the cream of the collection right from underneath their noses.”

  He sounded really smug at that last sentence.

  “Mykayla might have more information, which will help us in the search,” Uncle Yushua said quietly, gazing into his mug of coffee.

  Harper stared at me, his eyes boring into me like he could pick the information from my brain. “What’s Josh trying to say?”

  His voice was harsh, almost frightening. I stared at him, wondering what had upset him.

  “And this is why we went for a run this morning,” Rat said mildly, glancing at me to see if I was all right. “Don’t get all over her about something she can’t control. It’s not Kay’s fault she’s involved in this mess. We all stepped in it, and then tracked it over to her.”

  That made no sense to me as I buttered a couple of pieces of toast, wondering what I should say. I decided to start with something harmless. I realized Rat had started calling me Kay because the names-being-important thing. It could also explain why Uncle Yushua was also Josh.

  “I don’t know much about Egyptian history,” I said. “All the Latin and Greek I’ve read has been literature.”

  Uncle Yushua frowned and looked up from trying to scry the future in his mug. “And what are they teaching at that place instead?” he demanded. “It’s important to know the past to understand the present and predict the future.”

  Rat looked like he wanted to laugh, and Harper looked annoyed I wasn’t fully versed in the Who’s Who in Ancient History.

  “STEM’s the hot thing, isn’t it?” Rat asked as he plated up bacon and eggs. I brought the toast over, frowning at how crowded the bar was with four people eating there. “So history’s taking a back seat to all those sciences.”

  “Doesn’t this place have a dining room table?” I asked, wanting to talk about something else. STEM was making my life miserable because I wasn’t embracing it like it was the best thing since brownies or something.

  “It’s covered with papers, books, and other stuff,” Rat told me. “It’ll be easier to eat here than deal with cleaning up all that sh… stuff.”

  “Not a Victorian maiden,” I reminded him.

  “Tell Harper what you told me before you showered,” Uncle Yushua prompted gently.

  “It’s not going
to make any sense,” I said, pushing my plate aside. I should have been hungry, but my appetite had just gone away. I should eat something because aspirin on an empty stomach wasn’t a good thing and food always was. “I don’t have any reference for a lot of this.”

  “They’re smart guys. They can fill in the blanks,” Rat grunted.

  He looked cross I wasn’t eating. I sort of shrugged at him, trying to tell him it wasn’t the food, it was me not being hungry. And I could always finish it later, after I heated it up. Lack of food might be the cause of the headache moving in, but this conversation had killed my appetite.

  “I dreamed I was someplace in Egypt,” I started. “There were a lot of big buildings with statues around them. The place was still hot, even though it was in the middle of the night.”

  “How did you know that?” Harper asked.

  I thought about it for a second. The stars. I hadn’t noticed them when I was there, but now I was remembering the star patterns that had been above us, that I’d seen without really noticing them. I didn’t know those patterns, although the names of them were etched in my mind: Sopdet the Dog Star. The Ikhemseku, the decan stars who mark the time, and how did I know all this? I wasn’t into stargazing; there was too much light pollution in New York.

  “The stars,” I murmured, closing my eyes. “They were so clear, it was amazing.”

  “Where in Egypt were you?”

  I shook my head, keeping my eyes closed. It helped me concentrate. I seemed to be searching for the words, English as odd as Latin or Mandarin right now. “He told me we were in Abydos.” I frowned. “He wanted to know when it was, how much time had passed.”

  “He did?” Harper sounded a little surprised when I said that.

  “I told him I couldn’t tell him, because I didn’t know when we were supposed to be,” I said slowly, picking my words carefully, not opening my eyes. Keeping them closed helped me picture the words I searched for.

  The name Abydos sounded familiar, but I couldn’t tell them why. It could have been a town or a country or even an ice cream flavor for all I knew.

  “Was there any way of telling when you were in Egyptian history?” Harper demanded.

  I thought for a second. The dream was really clear, so I wasn’t having trouble remembering what had happened, just explaining it seemed difficult. It was like I had the vocabulary I needed but couldn’t get the words out without sounding foolish.

  “Sutekhgen mentioned the pharaoh was Peribsen.”

  “Second Dynasty,” Uncle Yushua said, after thinking about it. “Almost Third. That would put it roughly between 2900 and 2600 BCE.”

  “Sutekhgen mentioned the lands being united,” I said in the silence following Uncle Yushua’s statement. “About someone named Horus cheating.”

  “Peribsen might be the alternative names of another pharaoh, since it’s only found on the King Lists, not in Manetho or on the Palermo stone. There isn’t a lot of documentation for the earlier dynasties. Horus and Set are gods,” Harper said thoughtfully. He jerked and faced me, his voice loud and piercing. “Wait. Who’s Sutekhgen?”

  “Naked Guy gave me his name,” I admitted, wincing at his tone, since it caused a spike of pain in the back of my eyes. Indoor voice was my friend right now. Or it could be because I’d opened my eyes at his tone. “And I told him mine. But I didn’t tell him Uncle Yushua’s name. Or any of yours. I remembered too late something Xiu has told me about the fairies knowing your name. Though I think the fairies might be an improvement over this guy.”

  The silence was suffocating, and I gave up even thinking about breakfast I was so nervous. How badly did I mess up by telling him my name? Xiu had spent some time in seventh grade obsessing over Irish folklore and I had learned a lot about faeries. I just should have remembered it faster.

  Uncle Yushua left abruptly, almost knocking his stool over in his haste. We heard him rummaging in another room, the sound of papers and books being moved around almost deafening in the awkward silence. Mafdet was perched on the back of one of the couches and staring at all of us like we were a fascinating play just for her.

  “What else did you talk about?” Harper asked, pushing his dish aside.

  “Um… about not standing too close to me. Or feeding me cheesy romance lines and expecting me to believe them because I’m a girl. We just really talked and walked around and looked at the buildings. I felt like a tourist,” I said. “Except for what happened at the end. I thought I was getting through to him that he shouldn’t be a jerk, and that we weren’t meant for each other just because he thought we should be. He never explained why he thought we were destined for each other or whatever he thinks is going on.”

  Rat was looking at me in fascination, while Harper’s expression was kind of hard to read.

  “And how were you telling him this?” Rat asked finally, sounding amused. “Since I really don’t think you were speaking English. Or if he was, he’s more gifted than a lot of them.”

  I thought about it for a second. “Greek. He spoke it, sort of. His accent was a lot rougher then I was used to.”

  What did Rat mean by talented? Or them? Or even knowing English? And now that I thought about it, why had I been able to speak Greek like a native? There had been no hesitation, but that could have been because I had been dreaming. Things were always so much easier in a dream.

  “You speak Greek?” Harper asked.

  “I’ve had three years of Ancient Greek and we just did Homeric this year. That is what he was speaking. I’m taking Biblical Greek next year,” I explained. “I like languages. With the dates Uncle Yushua mentioned, Latin wasn’t even a language then, so it had to be Greek. No Latin, so no Spanish. And he wouldn’t even know Mandarin or English. That he poked in my mind to find out we needed Greek to talk makes me want to give him a piece of it for being a jerk. Poking about in there without asking me, because that’s just beyond rude and going into rape territory. Who does he think he is, doing that? Was the person he thinks I am that much of a pushover?”

  Just thinking about it made me want to punch him or something, and I wasn’t a violent person.

  “You speak Homeric Greek,” Harper repeated.

  “As I said, kind of,” I explained, as the question derailed me from my internal rant. “As much as anyone can, since no one knows what it sounds like, just like no one knows what Latin or even Old English sounded like. Sutekhgen was annoyed I didn’t know Egyptian. Who even speaks that?”

  Annoyed wasn’t the word, now that I thought of it. He’d been sad.

  “Egyptologists,” Harper pointed out, failing not to sound sarcastic.

  “He was annoyed?” Rat asked, concern oozing all over his voice. “He didn’t hurt you?”

  I rolled my eyes. “He kissed me.” Disgust dripped from my voice. “French-kissed, with tongue and everything. It was icky.”

  Did the jerk think I was easy? Or because he was a guy he could kiss me, even if I wasn’t interested, and Blam! magically I wanted him. There was a romance phrase for jerks like him—alphahole. And it fit him to a T!

  “Icky?” Harper repeated.

  He seemed to have a hard time understanding why I was upset. Rat just had this tight look on his face, like he wanted to beat up Sutekhgen himself. That was sweet in an odd way.

  “I don’t want someone to check to see if I have my tonsils with their tongue. It’s unhygienic! And he didn’t ask me if I wanted to be kissed, he shoved me against the wall and kissed me. And I had a hard time breathing when he was doing it. I fail to see the attraction of kissing, really.”

  Now I had both men looking at me like I was insane. Uncle Yushua wandered back into the room carrying an oversized leather-bound volume. It was bigger than a gaming laptop and looked like it weighed more than a small dog. Harper moved plates to the counter because no one seemed interested in eating anymore.

  “What did I miss?” Uncle Yushua asked.

  Rat shook his head. “You really don’t want to know.�
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  I made a face at him and walked over to see what Uncle Yushua wanted to show us. “About not kissing people who aren’t interested in kissing them and why guys never understand that.”

  “Somehow that isn’t a conversation I was expecting you to have about that… man.”

  I frowned at the slight hesitation about saying his name, before leaning over to look at the book. If he wasn’t a man, then what was he?

  The book was old, almost crumbling apart, and I wondered why it wasn’t better protected. It also smelled funny, not like your usual old book. It almost smelled… flowery, like everything had last night. It was strange. My headache flared, and I closed my eyes, trying not to lose what little I’d eaten. I was seriously thinking about taking more aspirin, since I didn’t care what else it did to my body if the pain would simply go away.

  I opened my eyes to see Rat staring at me worriedly. I smiled, trying to reassure him, but I don’t think it worked.

  Uncle Yushua spread out the book on one of the barstools, ignoring the counter, and started flipping pages carefully. “I know roughly where it’s supposed to be,” he muttered.

  He looked up at us. “Mykayla, most pharaohs chose a Horus name and not a Seth one when they came to power. Horus, the falcon god and son of Osiris and Isis. He’s considered to be a ‘good’ god. Seth, or Set as he’s most widely known, is one of the gods of the desert and wild places. Over the centuries he’s has many roles, but most of the surviving myths we have consider him to be evil.”

  “Someone who chops up his brother usually is,” Harper muttered.

  Uncle Yushua ignored him, continuing his explanation. “But he is most well known for his battles with his nephew Horus over control of Kemet, or Egypt. Those stories are thought to be a metaphor for the battles to unite Egypt into the empire it became. Set usually has the role of the villain in most myths.

  “We’re dealing with over three thousand years of history here,” Uncle Yushua continued. “Most of it cobbled together in the last hundred years or so of archeological digging.”

  “Tomb raiding,” Rat coughed, grinning at the annoyed look Uncle Yushua shot him.