The Ankh of Isis: The Library of Athena, Book 2

by Christine Norris

  “How did you figure that out?” Rachel said. “I put them back exactly where I found them.”

  “Yes, my dear, but they were all in the wrong order.”

  Rachel grimaced. “Oh.” She gave Megan a sheepish, deeply apologetic look, and Megan returned it with one that said it was okay. Everyone makes mistakes, right? Look at the huge, stupid one I just made.

  “I was alarmed you had discovered the true purpose for my trip to this house. I was also puzzled at your curiosity—after all, what could children know of what it is I seek?—but I decided it would be prudent to keep watch.”

  He took a step toward the girls, and Megan saw why her friends hadn’t warned her about Mr. Hemmlich’s presence earlier. In one hand he held a small pistol. He pointed it at them. “Now, if you please, give me that book.”

  Megan backed away from him, the book clutched to her chest. “You can’t have it. You don’t know what—”

  “Do not presume to tell me anything about the Ankh of Isis, girl,” Hemmlich said. His upper lip curled into a snarl. “I have spent half my life searching for it. And that book will tell me where it is.

  “I have long known Sir Gregory Archibald knew the location of the ankh. I have searched through every single thing he donated to the British Museum, every scrap he ever published.”

  Hemmlich paced in front of them, the gun trained on the girls. “I realized he wouldn’t put information so precious out in the open. I deduced that his notes regarding the ankh, including its location, must be here, in his house. But for years, it was inaccessible. Gate locked, the house guarded by the staff, especially that wretchedly watchful butler.”

  “Mr. Hemmlich, you don’t understand,” Megan pleaded. “This book, well, it’s not what you think.” There was no way she could let him have the book, and she prayed he was reasonable enough not to use the gun in his hand. It made her very nervous, the way he waved it around.

  He stopped in mid-pace. “I will tell you again, child. Do not think to tell me anything.” He ran his free hand through his thick black hair, making it stand up on end at wild angles. “I’ve waited for years to have access to Sir Gregory’s private library.” He touched the books on the shelf next to him, caressed the leather bindings. “I had thought the book I sought was upstairs, hidden among the mundane texts. I thought everything else was just wild tales. I never truly believed…”

  “Why do you want the ankh anyway?” Claire asked. She shot a nervous glance at Megan. From the corner of her mouth came the silent words buying some time. “What is it?”

  Josef gave a maniacal laugh. He reminded Megan less of the calm scholar and more like the one she had seen in the library the other night. He went on. “My reasons are none of your business. It is something more powerful than you could ever understand. It is…life.”

  “So all that crap about searching for a missing pharaoh was just bull?” Megan said.

  Josef scowled. “Not entirely. The myth of The Everlasting One is real enough. Whether or not I’m looking for his tomb or another depends on what I find inside that book.”

  “You can’t have it,” Megan said. “I won’t give it to you.”

  “What are you doing?” Rachel muttered. “Give him the bloody thing. Let him open it.”

  “Quiet.” Mr. Hemmlich emphasized his point by extending the hand that held the gun. He pointed it at Megan. “You can’t get away, so don’t bother trying. I will have that book.”

  Before Megan knew what had happened, he reached out and grabbed Rachel by the arm, pulled her toward him and pushed the gun into her side.

  “Let her go!” Claire said.

  “Or what? What will you do? The book, if you please, Miss Montgomery. Now.”

  Megan looked from Mr. Hemmlich’s face to Rachel’s. She saw her friend give the slightest nod of her head. She knew what Rachel meant—she wanted Hemmlich to open the book. He would become trapped in its pages. It wasn’t a perfect solution, but it would do for now, before he could hurt Rachel. Megan wanted some answers before she gave it to him.

  She tapped the book’s cover. “What do you expect to find in here, Mr. Hemmlich?”

  “None of your business.”

  “You think the location of the ankh is in there, don’t you,” Claire said. “What makes you think he didn’t already dig it up?”

  Mr. Hemmlich snorted a laugh. “If he had, I would be having this conversation with Sir Gregory himself instead of you. And if, for some reason, he chose not to use the ankh, it would be in a museum, or somewhere else in this room. Either way, it would already be in my possession. No, he did not recover it. Now give me that book!”

  Megan was out of time. She had no choice but to give him what he wanted. If she did not, he would shoot Rachel, then Claire, then her, and still take the book. “If I give it to you, will you let us go?” Her voice shook.

  “Megan, no,” Claire said. “Don’t do it.”

  Josef Hemmlich narrowed his eyes. “Perhaps.” His voice was oiled, slick. “What assurance do I have that you will not run to the authorities?”

  “Who would believe us?” Megan said, hoping his ego was as big as she thought it was. “Three kids with a story about a hidden library and some crazy Egyptian thing? Come on. You’re an upstanding member of the scientific community. Whose word do you think they would take?”

  “You’re right, of course,” Hemmlich said. He chewed the inside of his cheek. “Agreed. Now give me the book.”

  Megan held it out to him.

  “Don’t move,” Hemmlich growled at Rachel. With the gun still in her ribs, he reached out with his other hand and took the book.

  His face lit up in a maniacal grin. “At last.” His gaze caressed the red gold cover. “You will wait here,” he said to the girls. “Count to three hundred before you attempt to leave this room.”

  Now it was time to attack. Megan appealed to his sense of greed. “Don’t you want to open it? See if what you want is really inside? It would be a shame if you went through all this and didn’t get what you want. You wouldn’t be able to come back, you know. I’d see to that.”

  Mr. Hemmlich licked his lips. “Yes. I should. I need to be sure. There is no room for failure.” His voice shook a little, almost tinged with desperation and fear. With the gun still pointed at Rachel, he balanced the book on his other arm and wiggled his fingers between the pages. The book fell open.

  “Rachel, move!” Megan took a step back, then closed her eyes and covered her ears as light and sound erupted from within the book. A cyclone whipped around them. She reached out to Claire, and felt the warmth of her hand as it clasped Megan’s own.

  The cacophony lasted only a few seconds. When all was quiet again, Megan opened her eyes. The library was still in perfect order. Claire, still gripping Megan’s hand tightly, was not in perfect order. Her glasses sat askew on her nose and her hair was windblown.

  “Wow.” Megan touched her own head—most of the curls had escaped their ponytail holder. “So that’s what it’s like from this side.”

  Claire put her glasses on straight. “And I thought it was bad being the one sucked into the book.”

  “Where is the book?” Megan looked for it as she quickly adjusted her hair. It had slid across the polished wooden floor and come to rest a few feet away, against the back wall of the library.

  Megan picked it up. “So now Mr. Hemmlich’s in the book. Think we can keep him in there?”

  “Megan,” Claire said. “We’ve got a problem.”

  Megan turned the book on its side and looked at the gilded edges of the pages. “If we tear one of the pages out, I’ll bet he’d be stuck inside. Problem is, so would the Ankh. What do you think?”

  “Megan!” Claire shouted.

  “What?”

  “Rachel’s gone.”

  Megan looked around. “What do you mean, she’s gone? Where did she go?”

  Claire stared at the book in Megan’s hands and shook her head slowly. “I don’t think she
moved fast enough.”

  Megan’s eyes widened. “Oh no. She’s…

  Claire nodded.

  “What are we going to do?”

  “I don’t think we have a choice—we’re going to have to go and get her.”

  “This is not good,” Megan said. “The last time we went into a book, we nearly got killed. At least twice. I didn’t exactly plan on doing it again.”

  “We have to,” Claire said. “If we don’t, Hemmlich will probably kill her. Or worse, leave her in there. Either way, without help she’s pretty well scr—”

  “I know, I know.” Megan, book in hand, walked toward the reading area. She set the book down on the nearest table and walked into the main part of the library.

  “What are you doing? We need to get going.”

  Megan ignored her and turned left. Halfway down the row, she slowed down, her gaze locked on the books on the shelf next to her shoulder. She mumbled as she read the titles.

  Claire ran to catch up with her. “Megan, stop, please. At least tell me where you’re going.”

  Three-quarters of the way down the aisle, Megan stopped.

  “Here it is.” She plucked a book from the shelf and turned back the way she had come.

  Claire jumped out of her way. “Here what is?”

  Back in the reading area, Megan dropped the book on the table, next to the enchanted Ankh of Isis, and plopped into a chair. Claire sat across from her.

  “This is the index of all the magical items.” Megan flipped through the heavy parchment pages. Each one was illuminated in bright colors and elegant calligraphy, like a medieval scroll. She scanned them until she found the one with an illustration of the Ankh. It looked just like the photo of the wall painting in Nefertari’s tomb—a golden cross with a looped top. Her lips moved slightly as she read the passage written beneath it.

  “Uh-oh.”

  “What now?” Claire leaned her elbows on the table and put her hands over her face. “How could this possibly get worse?”

  Megan spun the book around, and Claire read aloud. “The Ankh of Isis. A magical talisman. According to legend, it was given to Queen Nefertari by Isis herself. However it was not among the possessions in her tomb, nor mentioned in any of the ancient texts after her death. Instead, the ankh was discovered among the treasures of the tomb of Amentohep I, the great architect of the New Kingdom, and the first pharaoh of the eighteenth dynasty. The ankh is the mythical symbol of Isis, the great Mother Goddess of Egypt, and the goddess of magic.” She looked up at Megan. “I already knew most of that. So what?”

  Megan pointed to the bottom of the page. “Keep reading.”

  “The power of the Ankh of Isis is that it grants the possessor eternal life.” Claire gave a long whistle and sat back in her chair. “So that’s why he’s so keen to find it. Eternal life, that’s big. Who wouldn’t want to live…?”

  Her gaze drifted from Megan’s face to just over Megan’s left shoulder. Something behind her made a soft sound. Megan spun around. Diedrich stood there, in the space between the shelves.

  “How did you get down here?” Megan said, sharper than she intended.

  Diedrich jumped as if he had been slapped. “I, uh… I went to my father’s room, about an hour ago, to say goodnight. I knocked, but he was gone. I looked upstairs, didn’t find him, so I came down to look for him. I saw him disappear behind that big statue upstairs.”

  “How long have you been lurking down here?” Claire asked.

  “Not long,” he said apologetically. “Just long enough to find you two. It took me quite a while to figure out how to open that little door behind the big statue.”

  He looked around the corners of the bookcases and behind him. “Where is he? Where is my father?”

  Megan looked over her shoulder at Claire. Claire shrugged. “He’s gone,” Megan said.

  “What do you mean, ‘gone’?” Diedrich asked. “Where did he go?”

  Claire picked up the enchanted book from the end of the table. “In here. He’s looking for the Ankh of Isis.”

  “The ankh?” Diedrich looked confused, then cursed under his breath. “I knew that’s why we were here. That story he told you, about The Everlasting One? He made that up, sort of. He was looking for a lost tomb, but only to find the ankh. He didn’t tell anyone, except me, his true purpose in going to Egypt, because he thought his colleagues would laugh at him. The ankh is a myth, just like that crazy Everlasting One he keeps going on about.”

  Megan gave a short, harsh laugh. “Not anymore.”

  Diedrich scratched his head. “You said he was in the book? How could that be?”

  “We don’t have time to explain,” Claire said. “The point is he’s got our friend with him. We have to go and get her.”

  “This time we’re going in prepared.” Megan got up and walked toward the front of the library.

  “Wait, I still don’t understand,” Diedrich said. “Where is she going?”

  Claire grabbed Diedrich’s hand. “Come on.”

  Megan ran back to the section on Ancient Egypt. She picked a single book from the shelf—the wooden-bound Book of the Dead.

  “We’ll take this,” she said to Claire and Diedrich as they approached. “Because I don’t know anything about Egyptian mythology.”

  “How do you know we’ll even be able to take it in with us?” Claire asked. “Our clothes don’t even go through. Last time—”

  “Last time we didn’t try to take anything from this room with us,” Megan interrupted. She raced by the two of them, back toward the tables. “We didn’t know any better.”

  Claire jogged along behind her, and Diedrich followed in their wake.

  Megan put the book down on the table and drew the red gold enchanted volume toward her. “I think this will work. This book is from Ancient Egypt, after all. The Book of the Dead.”

  “I’ve heard of it,” Claire said.

  “Mr. Hemmlich told me that it was a book of spells—funerary spells. And he also said the Ancient Egyptians were obsessed with the afterlife. The book might come in handy, especially since Mr. Hemmlich is an expert in Ancient Egyptian folklore. He’ll have such an advantage over us, and we need all the help we can get.”

  “I guess it can’t hurt to try,” Claire conceded.

  Diedrich stood behind the girls; he looked upset. “Can you please explain to me what’s going on? What has happened to my father?”

  Megan turned around. “It’s a very long story. All you need to know is that your father and Rachel are inside this book.” She tapped the book with her finger. “And if we don’t go after them, Rachel is probably going to end up trapped inside, or worse. I don’t know if the gun he had with him made it into the book. I hope not. But the Ankh of Isis could wind up in his not-so-mentally-stable hands, and that would be bad. Understand?”

  “Uh, I think so.” Diedrich’s face was pale. “You’re all crazy. The Ankh of Isis is a myth, it does not exist, no matter what my father thinks. Where is he?”

  “Ugh, I don’t have time for this,” Megan said. I am so not in the mood for this. I don’t care how cute he is. “Are you coming with us or not?”

  “Meg, are you sure that’s wise?” Claire said with a furtive glance at Diedrich. “We don’t know if he’s working with his father or not.”

  “Look, whatever my father has done, I had no hand in it.” Diedrich’s face was solemn. “I have no idea what’s even going on, but if I can help, please let me.”

  Megan gave a short nod. She remembered the conversation she had overheard in the dining room. It was unlikely Diedrich was in on the scheme, but just in case… “If you give me one reason to suspect…” She closed her eyes and shook her head. Her heart and her head pulled her in two different directions. There was no time to think about it. She picked up the Book of the Dead, tucked it beneath her arm, and grasped Diedrich’s hand.

  “Are we ready?”

  Claire nodded and took Diedrich’s other hand. “Whenever y
ou are, Meg.”

  Diedrich shrugged. “I still think you’re crazy, but…”

  “Good, let’s go. Oh, Diedrich? Don’t let go.” Megan situated the enchanted book directly in front of them on the table. With a deep breath, she reached out and pulled the cover open.

  Once again, the wind howled, and a bright light blazed from the book’s pages. This time, Megan felt the odd sensation of being lifted by her shoulders, her friends beside her. Then she was thrust headfirst straight into the book.

  The noise grew as they fell. It was all around them, through them. It made Megan’s teeth hurt. She opened one eye and saw nothing—no light, no stars and no book pages—just dark. Diedrich had a death grip on her hand; he had pulled himself close to her, and he screamed in her ear. The sound of it, mixed with the rest of the noise pounded like a drum inside Megan’s head.

  Everything stopped. Megan thudded to the ground, landing on her left shoulder with a crunch.

  Diedrich landed next to her. “Oomph.”

  “Ugh.” Claire landed to his right.

  Megan sat up and caught her breath, then pushed herself all the way up; she moved her sore shoulder to make sure nothing was broken.

  She went to Claire and held out her hand. “Are you okay?”

  Claire grasped Megan’s hand and pulled herself up. “Fine, I think.” She moved her arms and legs around. “I hate that part.”

  Diedrich sat on his haunches with a dazed look on his face and a bruise forming on his left cheek. Megan and Claire each took a hand and helped him to his feet.

  “Where are we?” His eyes were wide.

  Megan gave a wry smile. “Welcome to Ancient Egypt.”

  Chapter Nine: Journey Begun

  The three of them stood in a stretch of golden desert. In the distance, barely visible, was a grove of palm trees. The treetops swayed gently in a breeze that Megan did not feel. The sun reflected off the white sand, nearly blinding them; it beat down on them with brutal ferocity. Behind them was more sand, and along the horizon ran a ragged mountain range. The peaks looked blue gray in the hazy heat.