“You know he has a point there,” Uncle Yushua said. “Most of the early work was barely adequate. It wasn’t until most sites were reexamined in the 1980s and ’90s that decent scholarship was done, and not just digging until you find the shiny stuff.”
He sounded a little wistful when he said that, and I knew there was a story there.
“We’ll leave Troy out of this,” Rat said.
It sounded like an old argument between them. It could be amusing, but this wasn’t giving me the information I needed. I had to cut this short.
“Troy was found because someone paid attention to Homer and was a little nuts,” I said. “We talked about that this year when we read The Iliad.”
“The damage Schliemann did,” Rat muttered. “How much did he destroy?” I hadn’t thought Rat was into history that much.
In his search for Troy, Schliemann was a good example of using clues in literature to figure out where a historical site was located. But his mythic city had layers and layers of history below and above the Troy he sought. He had discovered many Troys. He just hadn’t known it at the time and dug merrily through all of it to get to what he wanted. The man had been a menace.
“Since that has nothing to do with the challenge at hand, we’ll discuss it later,” Uncle Yushua said firmly, still flipping pages in the tome.
“I found it,” he exclaimed, pointing at a page. “I’m going to have to translate it, since the book is just source material. It’s pictures of the incantations found on the walls of Peribsen’s tomb. Here’s what I was looking for.”
He placed a finger underneath a picture of some wall, covered with hieroglyphs. I looked down at what he was pointing to. The picture was in black and white, on a heavy matte paper, all done up to read easily. I moved over to his side for a better view.
My headache flared when I did, and I wanted to pass out. Not puke, thankfully, or it would have landed on the book. I closed my eyes to get some sort of balance, putting my hand on the counter to steady and center myself.
The scent of flowers flared in my mind, overpowering and sickening sweet. And I swore I heard a click, like a key was turned or a block landed in place.
“I am Yesterday. I know Tomorrow. Eternity it is and Everlastingness. Who then is he?” I intoned, knowing what was on the page, although I’d only gotten a glimpse. “He is the Night. The Defender. He slays the Monster nightly. Husband of Nephthys. The Lord of Wild Lands. Wearer of the Red Crown. Beloved of Nekhebt….”
My stomach churned. I could read Egyptian hieroglyphs now as easily as I did English. I’d studied Latin and Greek, and both of the languages had come easily to me. It had been the same with Spanish and Mandarin. But I always knew they weren’t my native language, no matter how well I spoke or read them.
It sounds weird, but I had to think about those languages, the grammar especially, whenever I used them. It’s hard to explain, but Latin has all those weird endings that tell you if the word is a verb or a noun. Greek’s the same, so no matter how easily I could look at a word like Aqhnvh and know it means Athens, there was always a beat or two as my mind translated that into English.
When you learn a foreign language, there are all the weird non-English verb forms, like aorist, the weird past-tense verb in Greek, and having to figure out the verb’s tense, or if it’s active or passive, or a bunch of other things you don’t worry about when you grow up speaking the language. It’s never instinctive like your native language is.
Hieroglyphs were as easy to read as if they were English. The grammar made sense to me, and I didn’t deconstruct it by labeling words as nouns or verbs or whatever as I translated them to English and quickly back to Egyptian.
I was having a hard time not losing my mind over it, because Sutekhgen had to have shoved that information in my brain without asking me. That was the only explanation I had for knowing them now.
Without telling me what he was going to do.
That’s probably why he had kissed me. Well, probably one of the reasons he’d kissed me. I think Sutekhgen thought I was a frog he could turn into his princess with a kiss too. He was in for a surprise if I saw him again. I was going to remain a frog and tell his prince-or-not butt to take a hike and get out of my mind and my life.
I felt violated no matter why he’d kissed me.
Sutekhgen thought just because he had known me in the past, maybe he had the right to shove things into my brain. Would he think shoving other things into my body was his right also? The mere thought of that had me dashing to the bathroom and throwing up anything I had ever eaten.
When I was through, I wanted to pound my head into the wall, hoping it would make it all go away.
“Mykayla, what’s wrong?” Uncle Yushua asked as he handed me a glass of water to rinse out my mouth.
“I can read hieroglyphs,” I said flatly.
“I noticed that, and when did you….”
“No, I can read them like I can read English,” I sobbed, breaking down. “He put them in my head and I want them out!”
Uncle Yushua opened his arms and I fell into them, crying helplessly.
I CURLED up on the daybed sometime later, exhausted mentally and physically. Harper was sitting cross-legged on the floor next to me.
“It helps to talk about it,” he said softly.
“Is the next line going to be it wasn’t my fault?” I asked him, not bothering to move. “Or there wasn’t anything I could do? Because I already know that.” I paused, curling up tighter and shivering. “This is something I have to deal with, because it happened to me. That bastard went too far, no matter why he thought he needed to do it.”
Now I wanted to sleep and not dream. Maybe sleep wasn’t the best idea, in case Sutekhgen decided he wanted to show up, but I wanted not to think or move for now. I could process what I felt later. Right now my eyes felt like they were filled with sand and my headache pounded almost as loud as my heart.
“I know. That’s what makes him evil.”
“And it isn’t Uncle Yushua’s fault, no matter what he thinks,” I mumbled. “Can I get a glass of water, please?”
If I moved, I felt I’d fall apart, literally and figuratively. And the headache was back. But it was from crying and not some asshole shoving a language in my brain, without my permission!
“You’re handling this a lot better than I did,” Harper said, standing up gracefully.
“It’s been a crap week so far, what’s one more disaster?” I asked tiredly. I was curious about what had happened to him, but I was too raw to hear it.
That actually got a laugh. “Josh and I are going to work. We’re leaving Rat behind to fuss over you.”
“All right,” I mumbled.
Rat came in and handed me a couple of aspirin and a bottle of water. “If you want something stronger, I can give you it.”
“It’s just a headache,” I said, “and I think sleep will be the best thing for me.”
I didn’t want to know what he wanted to give me or even where he had gotten those pills.
Rat sat down on the floor. “I’ll be here if you need me.” He grinned. “It’s not like the boss doesn’t know what I’m doing.”
“You’re a good guy,” I mumbled. He was. I was getting the impression Harper and Uncle Yushua didn’t know how to comfort someone, which was why they were running away. Rat seemed to be a natural mother hen.
Either the water or the aspirin dulled my headache almost immediately and I yawned.
Rat grinned. “I’ll leave you to get some sleep.”
I nodded and curled up, wiggling until I was comfortable. I almost didn’t hear his whispered “I’ll protect you from the boogeyman.”
Chapter Six
I WOKE up confused by the light flooding the room. I pulled out my phone to check the time, and saw I’d only slept an hour or two. It wasn’t even noon yet. I sat up slowly and called Xiu.
“Hi,” I said when she answered.
“You sound bad. What really
happened last night? Because you sounded like someone was making you say those things. I almost called the Boston police to do a wellness check on you.”
Xiu sounded worried. I heard the faint sounds of her younger brothers arguing in the background, and Nainai scolding them. Not that they would pay attention, because they didn’t understand Mandarin, and Nainai refused to speak English most of the time. She did it to annoy her son, more than anything.
It sounded normal and nice. I wanted to start crying again but fought that impulse. Tears were exhausting and crying would have Xiu teleporting up here to fix what was wrong if I started. Here was someplace I wanted her nowhere near.
“Just something stupid happened,” I fibbed. “A sort of mugging.”
It could have been one. I think if I could have remembered it like that, Uncle Yushua would have been a lot happier. I think he was hoping I would rearrange what had happened into something simple and normal like that. But I couldn’t because Sutekhgen had gotten all pushy and stupid, shoving his language into my brain. Gods, the man was an asshole. No, it should be “God, the man was an asshole.” Not gods, and I wanted to start hyperventilating over that mistake. What else was going to be broken in my brain from the man’s arrogance? I liked my brain, and if he had messed it up, I was messing him up, even if it killed me.
“Sort of mugging,” Xiu repeated, not sounding like she believed me. “Is he listening?”
“Is who listening?”
“Your uncle,” Xiu said grimly. “Is he listening to our conversation? You don’t have to tell me yes or no.”
“He isn’t even home right now,” I reassured her. “And before your mind goes to some really bad place, no, he didn’t try anything funny. No, he isn’t holding me hostage for icky and nefarious reasons. No, I’m not… I…. He isn’t the problem, Xiu.”
Okay, that didn’t go well. I could almost feel her vibrating at the other end. I needed to try again to reassure her, before she did something stupid. Contacting the police to “take care” of this would be a nightmare, in more ways than one. Xiu really didn’t understand the issues an Arab or Arab-American could have with the police. I didn’t even know if Uncle Yushua was a citizen or how much trouble this would cause him. Xiu’s issues with the authorities for not being lily-white weren’t the same as mine, and neither one of us would have the same problems as Uncle Yushua.
“Uncle Yushua isn’t the problem,” I repeated. “Just something happened and it’s kind of floored me.”
“Are you sure he’s your uncle?” she asked. “I’ve never met him.”
She had a point, since we’d been friends forever. But her family hadn’t been around for his rare visits. And her home was covered with pictures of her brothers, cousins, and about half the world it seemed when you walked in there. But that was the main difference between us. I had a house, a showcase for my parents to throw parties and network. Xiu had a home filled with life and colorful people.
I snorted. “And now you sound like Rat. He didn’t believe I was his niece.”
“Your mother doesn’t have pictures of him,” Xiu pointed out.
I sighed, shifting to sit cross-legged, glad she was ignoring Rat’s name for now. “Aside from a couple of formal ones, there aren’t a lot of pictures of my family. Uncle Yushua just doesn’t get to New York all that often. Trust me, this is my uncle. We have the same nose.”
Xiu was silent for a second. “I know you don’t like your nose, but it does have character.”
“My entire face, until I hit my growth spurt, was all nose,” I argued, seizing on the topic to derail her from Uncle Yushua.
Xiu had a cute nose, but then she was a cute girl. Mine wasn’t. It had been a beak, unlike my brothers’ noses, which are broad and flat. Now my nose was a strong nose, according to my mother, to go with my strong face. This nose just looked a lot better on a man’s face. Just because I wasn’t interested in dating didn’t mean I didn’t want to be attractive.
“You’re trying to distract me,” Xiu scolded. “Who’s Rat? What kind of name is Rat?”
“Friend of my uncle’s. He’s nice. He cooks. He’s spent a lot of time over here this week. We ran together this morning.”
Too much time, because of what happened, but I wasn’t going to tell Xiu that.
“You’re not telling me something,” Xiu accused.
“I’m not telling you a lot of things,” I said. “But they’re things you can’t fix for me.”
She tried to do that a lot. Not because she thought I needed protecting or couldn’t do it myself, but because other people were so slow to her and it was easier just to fix things herself than wait for them to figure out the problem. Xiu’s brain ran at top speed all the time. I was afraid it was going to burn out some day, but I’d been trying for a decade to have her slow down and it never worked.
“You’re not all right,” Xiu said.
“The twins knew a month ago what our parents planned,” I said. This would distract her and sound like the reason I was upset. “And I only know this because I was trying to be helpful and call them when I got here.”
“Ezra was an ass, wasn’t he?” Xiu sighed. “I’m sorry. You know there’s always room here for you.”
“You,” I intoned, “just want someone to help Nainai.”
Not that her grandmother needed help, but an extra target for her attention was always a good idea. If my parents hadn’t wanted me over there for the summer because they wanted to hide what was happening, they really didn’t know how close I was to Xiu.
Mother might not have wanted to impose on Xiu’s parents, but dumping me on her practically estranged brother wasn’t a better idea. What if he had been away at a conference or a dig or something? What would I have done then?
“She’s not my issue this summer,” Xiu said. “And she thinks me meeting a ‘nice boy’ is stupid.”
“That’s good,” I murmured.
“Nainai just thinks an arranged marriage would be better,” Xiu continued. “Since it worked for her and all her cousins.”
“You know she’s just giving your parents a hard time,” I assured her. “And Nainai knows same-sex marriage is legal.”
Xiu sounded a little trapped, and I wondered if her grandmother was actually serious. But it could also be a subtle move to distract Xiu’s parents while appearing to agree with them. Nainai was tricky like that.
“I might have to run away and join the circus,” Xiu said.
“You can hide over at my house if you need to,” I said. “It’s not like there’s anyone there this summer. You have keys to get in.”
I also had keys to her home, just in case.
“I’m going to take you up on that offer if Qiu doesn’t stop being a brat,” Xiu said. Qiu was her youngest brother, at nine. “I have to go, someone just set something in the kitchen on fire. And it wasn’t me for once.”
I ended the call, wondering what had just happened. Xiu would tell me eventually, but trying to guess would keep my mind off my troubles. I went into the bathroom to clean up. I stared at my face in the mirror. Nothing had changed. My eyes didn’t look haunted or anything. But that stupid headache had finally gone, so maybe it was a win? A Pyrrhic win, at least.
I looked down at what I was wearing. Sleeping in my clothes hadn’t wrinkled them too badly, so I went downstairs without changing. Rat was sitting on one of the couches in the living room and reading, with Mafdet by his side. He looked up when I padded downstairs.
“You look a lot better,” he said, giving me the once-over. Mafdet did the same before getting up to rub against me. “You want something to eat?”
I nodded, mainly because I didn’t want to worry him. My stomach was churning, but I did know I needed to eat.
We went into the kitchen, Rat heading over to the fridge while I sat at the bar. Mafdet sat in front of me. I wondered briefly if it was to watch me or nab food off my plate. Mafdet rubbed up against me, and I petted her absentmindedly. There was a pot of t
ea on the counter, and I debated if I wanted to have some or not.
“Josh wants you to head over to the Shawmut as soon as you can,” Rat told me, even as he peered into the fridge.
“Any eggs left over?” I asked. “You can heat them up again with some cheese.”
“Plenty,” he said, talking to the food. “No one bothered to eat.”
And that upset him. I sighed.
“Not your fault.” Rat looked sad and angry. “You are—”
“If you say I’m a victim, I’m going to scream,” I snarled.
Mafdet drew back and looked impressed, before she nudged my hand and I resumed petting her.
“Anger’s better than moping,” Rat said as he turned to face me. “I moped for a while.”
“I can’t see you doing that.”
He turned and got a couple of storage containers out of the fridge before shutting it.
“My shrink called it something else, but….” Rat shook his head. “Cheddar all right?”
“Whatever you want,” I said. Rat frowned. I waved my hands. “I’m just here for the food. You’re doing all the work. Whatever’ll make you happy to cook, I’ll eat.”
“I shouldn’t be saying all this stuff to you,” he said, getting a cutting board from underneath the bar.
He took the cheese out and started slicing it. I noticed Mafdet got a few slivers before he did anything else, and I laughed. The cat gave me a dirty look, as if she knew what had amused me.
“She rules the place and we all know it.” Rat grinned. “Josh’s wrapped around her paw.”
“I didn’t even know he had a cat,” I said. “But… the last time I saw him was Christmas.” I smiled. “He gave me the best present. A pattern book for shawls and the yarn for one of them. Mother was so annoyed.”
“She was?”
“My parents think knitting and craftwork like that is so old-fashioned. I think they have some sort of vision of me becoming antiscience or some sort of weirdo like that.”
“And?” Rat asked, before throwing the eggs back in a pan to heat up.
I'm Not Who You Think I Am Page 9
