In the shaded space between the tall bookshelves, Eleanor looked into Mallory’s eyes and found she hadn’t far to look at all. He was too close. His eyes, intense and flecked with gold, held the look of a man who would not be deterred. One who needed her help and who somehow believed in the very thing she did. It was a look she knew too well; the look of someone who was hunting for a thing he would have no matter what stood in his way. She had seen the same look on her own face countless times.
“I think she stepped into that portal, Eleanor,” he said, her name soft on his tongue. It rested like a secret between the two of them, in this dim, hushed place. “And I think you believe that too.”
The riders trampled Eleanor into the sand as Dalila fled with the Lady’s arm. Eleanor’s hands dripped blood, but it was more the loss of her mother she felt, as brilliant gold light stabbed rays through the dust, as that black hand beckoned and swept her mother away.
“I need your help, Eleanor,” Mallory said, “but there’s something I can do for you also.”
“What do you mean?”
“I can arrange for you to see the Lady.”
“What?” She tensed in his hold. “She’s— They buried her, Agent Mallory, and took the arm. They left her in the desert.” It was something almost as painful as her mother’s disappearance, the idea that a body would be abandoned to the desert waste.
“Mistral unearthed her and brought her to Cairo,” Mallory said, his voice still low. “Part of what Sirocco—our sister organization—does in Egypt is preserve artifacts. Almost like you.”
The idea of seeing the Lady again sent a chill through Eleanor. What would it be like, to look upon the woman she had found with her mother in the Egyptian sands? All proof of the Lady’s existence had been denied, yet Mallory was telling her the Lady had been unearthed. Had it been Mistral that had attacked? Mistral had rescued them, yes, but had they also been the assailants? The idea nauseated Eleanor.
Or had Mistral intervened for its own purposes? Had they learned of the assault and provided aid only in order to return and excavate the Lady? There was no doubt they would want her. She was too strange not to take.
“What do you want from me? Exactly.” Eleanor didn’t move away from Mallory, for fear she would discover the rest of the Galerie waking up, her father arriving. This pleasant fiction that she and Mallory could solve the riddle of what happened to her mother might evaporate if she moved.
Mallory squeezed her arm, as if he feared she would run when he spoke the truth. “I want you to help me stop this person—even if it’s not Hubert. I believe your mother stepped through that portal and that she was trapped without the ring. Whatever Hubert means to do—and I do think it’s him, even if you may not—we can’t allow it. Mistral can’t. The entire world could be changed.”
“That’s impossible.”
Mallory laughed, low and unconvinced. “I don’t pretend to know how temporal mechanics work, but think of it.” He gave her arm a slight shake. “A single person could be killed and that might be enough to change the entire course of history.”
“It can’t happen,” she said.
“It can.”
Eleanor reached into the neck of her blouse. She fumbled with the fine gold chain around her neck and drew it out to show Mallory the small gold ring.
Mallory stared at it for a long time, saying nothing. He finally grasped it with his free hand and squinted as he took a closer look at the scarab.
“I don’t know how much you know about the Lady,” Eleanor said. Mallory’s reply was silence, apparently too taken with the ring. She watched as he studied the gold, taking small delight in the way his eyes appreciated every line.
“There isn’t only one ring,” Eleanor said. “There are four rings.”
Mallory’s eyes snapped to Eleanor’s. “Four rings?”
Eleanor couldn’t tell if he was more surprised or angry or horrified. “When my mother and I unearthed the Lady, there were four rings. The story says: she wore four rings to mark her stations, for she was respected and honored among her people.” Eleanor remembered the countless times her mother had told her the tale. “The arm was broken by a horse stepping badly.”
She could still hear the snap of the ancient bone and could still feel a man’s mouth as it closed around her arm. Biting. Tearing. And the memory of that hand from her dream, closing around to draw her toward . . . what?
“Three of the rings were lost in the struggle,” Eleanor continued, “but the carnelian remained. It’s the only ring the museum had.”
“And this one?” Mallory slid the ring over his index finger, where it lodged against his middle knuckle and went no farther. The gold chain glinted between them. His silver ring looked even more tarnished when compared to the bright gold.
“I recovered it a few years ago.” Stole it straight from Christian’s pocket, if you’d rather. That makes me a thief, doesn’t it? “So you can stop worrying about someone opening the Glass of Anubis tonight. I believe all four rings must be together—”
“The Glass of Anubis?” Mallory whispered. “Better than ‘portal’ at any rate, isn’t it? So—all together, a certain time and place?”
“I don’t know, but all four rings were there when my mother vanished. I don’t know where the other two rings are, but if Christian took the carnelian as you believe, it’s only a matter of time before he comes to me, to reclaim this one.” Mallory gave her a quizzical look and Eleanor forced herself to say, “I took this one from Christian.”
“You said you weren’t a thief.”
Eleanor reached out to take the ring off Mallory’s finger. Her own hands trembled and she was aware of the intense warmth of him when she touched him. She pulled the ring free from his finger and tucked the chain back into her blouse, at last stepping out of his hold. “I don’t rob tombs.”
“That’s a rather fine line, isn’t it?”
Eleanor said nothing. He was right, for she felt like a thief. She stepped back to the bookcase and returned to the work of taking the burned books off the shelf. She was thankful for Mallory’s silence, not knowing what else to say. But at last, he said: “Tell me about the Glass of Anubis?”
“It’s what my mother called it,” she said, telling herself to calm after their talk of fine lines. Mallory’s tone stayed reconciliatory, so Eleanor continued on that path. She handled the books as she considered where to begin. How much did he know? Had he been to Egypt? Seen the temples and their markings? “Do you know who Anubis was to the Egyptians?”
Mallory’s head dipped in a brief nod. “One of their gods.” His fingers rasped over a book as she added it to the table. “Something to do with death?”
“Mummification and afterlife,” Eleanor said, but was pleased Mallory had come as close to the truth as he had. Maybe they could work together after all. “They portrayed Anubis with the head of a jackal, colored black to speak to rotting flesh, the Nile soils.”
“Why a jackal?”
There was a curious weight to Mallory’s voice, but Eleanor appreciated the question. She had asked it of her father as a child. “Jackals are known scavengers—what better place to scavenge than a graveyard?” Mallory grunted, as if he had something to add, but at his continued silence, Eleanor went on.
“When a person died, they came before Anubis so their heart could be weighed against a feather. In this way, he could determine if they were worthy of the afterlife.” This, too, drew a curious look from Mallory; it wasn’t so far removed from Christian traditions, someone barring the way to heaven. “If you led a good life, your heart was no heavier than the feather. If you led a misguided life, your heart was heavy and Anubis gave you to the monster Ammit for eating rather than sending you to eternal life.” She added a book to the stack, and Mallory met her eyes again.
“And the glass?”
“My mother’s theory was that Anubis looked at a person’s life in detail. He used the rings to open windows into other times and places th
e way we might page through a diary. My mother thought of them as looking glasses, reflecting something Anubis couldn’t otherwise see. He did this to better understand a person before sending them to their fate.”
Mallory lifted a book, fingers sliding along the sooty spine. Eleanor wished she could share his thoughts in that moment, so intense was his expression. When he looked at her, she could not read his face. Would he tell her it was nonsense?
“With a window,” he eventually said, plainly choosing each word with care, “much as with a door, one can both enter and exit.”
The suggestion rested between them, an invitation for Eleanor to explain more without worry of being judged. Still, she kept her silence, only nodding, not ready to fully trust.
“This, then, would hold with your belief that your mother stepped back in time, rather than perishing that day in the desert.”
Eleanor’s head came up. “How do you know what I believe?”
Mallory cleared his throat, as if about to confess to a host of sins. “Mistral has watched you, Miss Folley. Because of Hubert, yes, but for your own doings as well.”
Eleanor turned to take another book from the shelf before she channeled the resurgence of her anger in another way. “I told you, I’m not a—”
“I know,” he interrupted, and Eleanor let him. “Miss Folley, I need your help. You and Hubert know the most about this Glass of Anubis. Of the two, you are my one hope. Even if he needs a host of other rings, we can’t allow him to keep the one.”
Eleanor stared at him across the stack of burned books. “And you’re offering the Lady in exchange?”
“I think for a thorough and successful investigation, we need to consider all evidence available to us. These are her rings, after all, and she may lead us to the others.”
Eleanor leaned against the table. The sun had risen enough to slide through the windows of the far end of the building, beginning to turn every machine inside to gold.
“Cairo,” Eleanor said.
“Cairo,” Mallory echoed.
Only one word between them, but an accord nonetheless.
CHAPTER FIVE
Dublin, Ireland ~ September 1880
“Eleanor?”
Eleanor folded another jacket into her leather case and looked at the doorway where her father stood. She couldn’t bear the look on his weathered face. She turned back to her wardrobe, grabbing trousers and blouses, then stockings from an open drawer.
“Ellie, I have asked you not to do this. Please.”
Her father stepped into the room, a place that normally thrived on order, but this afternoon it lay in shambles. Bureau drawers hung open, discarded clothing haphazardly tossed on bed and floor; books and traveling cases yawned equally wide, the latter soon to be filled by the former. Eleanor hated the sight of her room; not simply its unusual disorder, but the room itself. She could still imagine traces of her drawing pencils on the walls, though they were longsince worn away. Too many years, time to go.
“I did as you asked.” Eleanor grabbed her favorite boots and set them near her bureau; she would wear them tomorrow and all the days to follow. They held the good luck of prior journeys to Egypt, dust rubbed deeply in. “I finished my schooling—”
“But Ellie—you wanted more, said you wanted to be an archaeologist—”
There was a hopelessness in his voice, and Eleanor couldn’t hold back her laughter. She pushed another blouse into her pack. “I’ve studied it for years with you. Where else do you think I might study? It’s a foolish dream. I’m a woman, and you—”
When Eleanor didn’t continue, he prompted her. “I what?”
Eleanor stopped fussing with her clothes to look at her father. “You know what I mean to study.”
His mouth thinned. “Your mother’s death.”
“Her disappearance. How can you not want me to understand what happened that day?” Her leaving would be good for both of them, she reasoned. If she stayed, she would only make him unhappier. Would only make herself unhappier, too.
“She didn’t die. It was something else—I don’t know what.” The men and the dust, the panicked horses, and the light, ah God that light and the hand, so dark and warm, like the desert as soon as the sun had gone down. “I mean to find out.”
“Eleanor, I ask you again to leave this be. Please.”
“I can’t. As much as you want me to, I need to know. You believe she died, but I don’t believe that. I can’t.” Not after what I felt.
Her father had no answer, and Eleanor didn’t expect he would. Their arguments had only grown more circular in the many years since her mother’s disappearance, bettered in no way when Renshaw admitted Dalila had left Eleanor the very thing that would enable her to travel where she would, find what answers she may. Eleanor would have gone even without the inheritance, even if it had come to stealing from her unyielding father. She needed to leave, regardless of how.
She continued packing, essentials only. She would begin in Egypt, at the dig site if she could find it. The very idea caused a shiver to claw up the length of her spine. What would it be like to return?
“It isn’t forever,” Eleanor said, though if she meant to reassure herself or her father, she didn’t know. “I’ll be back and I will write. You could come with me, you know.” She wanted to share this journey with him, wanted his experience alongside her, but she knew he would refuse.
Her father laughed, a sound she hardly recognized. She watched as he removed a stack of blankets and sank into the much-patched chair in the corner of her room.
“I said the same to my family, but once Egypt was in me, there was no staying in touch with anyone but her.”
There was something different in his voice then, and Eleanor knew he understood. He didn’t want to admit it was the same for his daughter. “Egypt has been in me since my first visit to Cairo—do you remember?”
She could see he did; his eyes grew damp and distant and he sank a little deeper into the chair, holding the blankets close. Eleanor recalled the huge camels, their long legs and precise feet, and the sight of Giza at sunset, thrown into shadow as the sun vomited gold into the sky. There was nothing quite like it, her first glimpse of the place that would consume her life.
“I stood you on the ground,” her father said.
“And rubbed Egypt into me.” Eleanor closed her eyes and felt her father’s hands pass over her cheeks that day, rough with Egypt’s dust.
When she looked at him again, he looked stricken. She tossed aside the blouse she held and crossed to her father, where she knelt and took hold of his hands.
“As much as you don’t want me to go, that’s how much I must go. I will make us both miserable if I stay.” The sight of tears slipping down her father’s face gave her pause. “I only want you to understand.”
“And I you,” he said with more venom than she had ever known from him. “Your mother is dead, Eleanor. She died six years ago. She would—” His voice hitched. “She would be ashamed to know you’re carrying on like this.”
Eleanor jerked her hands out of her father’s. “There is no shame in dedication.”
“Dedication to a futile hope.” He stood and grabbed Eleanor’s case. He began to empty it, throwing clothes, notebooks, and pencils to the floor. “You are throwing your life away!”
“Stop it.” Eleanor grabbed at his hands, but he wrenched free and continued to upset what she had packed. “Da! It’s my life to throw. Mine!”
Her father dropped the empty leather case on the floor and stared at Eleanor without saying a word. She saw the deepening lines around his eyes and mouth, the hard-carved line between his eyes. None of them could be wiped away, nor would she want that; they stood as testament to his own experiences. Eleanor wanted to take his hand, wanted to make him understand, but the days when she could work such magic were gone. Instead, she picked up her case to begin packing again.
“The ship leaves early,” Eleanor said. “I should finish this.”
> But when she looked up to ask if he would see her off, even though she knew he would not, he was already gone.
Come morning, Eleanor left the rooms above Folley’s Nicknackatarium alone and, in the light fog, made her way to the station. She boarded the passenger airship with countless others, lighthearted and eager to be on their journeys, whereas she felt only a creeping doubt. She had never gone against her father’s wishes before. This was a new landscape entirely.
She took a window seat and stared down at the platform; she looked forward to Egypt and the answers it might provide, but a piece of her was still anchored here, and it tugged her attention to the people in the fog.
She imagined her father there, his scarf fluttering in the wind, desperate eyes searching the crowd. Eleanor pressed her hand to the window and the thickening fog erased the figure, if he’d ever been there at all.
Paris, France ~ October 1889
Long hempen lines tethered the airship Nuit in the public shipyards near the Exposition Universelle, the ship unlike any Eleanor had seen before. Its size and lines impressed others in the shipyard as well; small groups clustered about its berth, marveling at the construct.
The Nuit was larger than most of the ships there, at least two hundred feet in length if Eleanor had to guess, and made chiefly of metal. Its patina-bronze balloon gleamed under the cold morning light, not the fabric Eleanor had known from Christian’s Remous, but metal, with loops of more metal ringing it from top to bottom to stabilize the craft. Gleaming metal had been shaped into cloth-like ripples around a blue female figurehead, the cuts and whorls within the metal strands seeming to move under unseen winds. As Eleanor drew closer, she could see silver stars sprinkling the blue body. She was delighted to recognize it as Nut, the Egyptian goddess of the sky.
Eleanor had flown a great deal in her life, but never on a ship such as this, and she wished her father and Juliana had come, if only to see this marvel. But Juliana could not be swayed any more easily than her father; she would stay with Renshaw and the library, allowing Eleanor to give the Sphinx her regards.
Rings of Anubis: A Folley & Mallory Adventure Page 9
