by Dakota Chase
Good one, Grant, I thought, shooting him a quick smile.
Tut nodded, as if what Grant had said was very wise. “Your presi... presi... king does not wear an amulet?”
We shook our heads. “No, but I think he’d be very impressed by yours.”
Tut ran his fingers over the golden amulet that hung around his neck, tracing the Eye of Ra at its center. “I have worn this since I was a small boy,” he said. “It has protected me all of my life.” Then he lifted it over his head, and held it up so that everyone could see it. “But today I bestow it upon Grant and Ass in honor of our great friendship.” He slipped the amulet over my head.
It was solid gold and felt heavy against my chest. I didn’t take the time to admire it, though. Instead, I reached across the table and grabbed Grant’s hand, afraid the amulet would take me forward in time without him if we weren’t touching.
It didn’t.
In fact, it didn’t do anything.
Had something gone wrong with Merlin’s spell? Were Grant and I stuck in ancient Egypt forever?
Chapter Twenty One
Panic soured my stomach and clawed at my nerves. Why were we still in Egypt? We’d done what Merlin had told us to do—we’d gotten the amulet. Why wasn’t his spell jerking us forward in time?
I could see Grant was thinking the same thing from the puzzled, scared look on his face. Had Merlin lied to us? Was this his revenge for causing the fire that destroyed his office and all his treasures?
No! No, I would not live out the rest of my days in ancient Egypt. I wanted to go home, even if “home” was the Stanton School for Boys. I wanted to sleep in my own bed. I wanted running water and porcelain toilets. I wanted potato chips and burgers. I wanted a freaking Coke.
“Is something wrong?” Tut asked, arching an eyebrow at me. I realized I was still holding Grant’s hand across the table, and was practically hyperventilating. I dropped his hand and jumped to my feet. The room spun; I was still dizzy from the loss of blood. I know that my expression must’ve been terrified, judging from the concerned look on Tut’s face. “What is it, Ass? Are you ill?”
“I... I... yes. Yeah, I’m sick. I need to go lie down. Grant? Come with me, okay?” I mumbled. Fear whipped my thoughts into a tornado, crashing around inside my skull until I was sure it would explode.
“Sure, sure,” Grant said. He didn’t look any better than I felt. “I feel a little nauseous myself.”
:”Go, of course. Seek your rest. Shall I send my physician to you?” Tut asked.
“No, that’s okay. We’ll be fine,” I said as we stood up. “We just...” I couldn’t think to finish my sentence. A single question kept rolling through my head, obliterating every other rational thought I might’ve had. Why were we still in ancient Egypt?
“He just needs to rest,” Grant finished for me. He jerked his head toward the door, and I followed him out of the Great Hall. Once we were safely in the hallway and away from listening ears, I pulled him to a stop.
“What went wrong? Why are we still here?” I could hear the panic in my voice, making it rise in pitch until it squeaked.
“I don’t know!” Grant said. He looked around, but we were alone. “Merlin must’ve screwed up! What if we’re stuck here forever?”
Oh, God... no! I couldn’t even think about staying here forever! I opened my mouth to say as much, when suddenly the hallway tilted sharply.
My first thought was “Earthquake!” I grabbed for Grant and started to run, thinking only to get out of the palace before it came crashing down on our heads.
Then I felt a familiar tug at my gut, and a sense of seasickness that made my stomach do flip flops. Hot wind buffeted my face, and I glanced at Grant, excitement rising as I realized he was becoming transparent. I knew what was happening, and it curved my lips into a wide grin. Merlin’s spell! We were going home!
I was so relieved and happy that I grabbed Grant’s face, even though I could practically see through it, and pulled him to me, kissing him hard. He kissed me back, and I forgot the queasiness in my stomach and the way the hallway was spinning.
Chapter Twenty Two
When I woke up, the only thing I was kissing was the floor of Merlin’s classroom.
My head hurt, my stomach still felt sick, but I didn’t care. We were home! I pushed up off the floor and sat, immediately looking for Grant.
He was lying next to me, curled on his side. I reached over and gently shook his shoulder. “Wake up, Sleeping Beauty. We’re home!”
Grant blinked awake, and I could tell by the slowly widening grin on his face as he realized we were back in our time that he was as happy as I was. I glanced at the big, round clock on the wall above the classroom door, and then at the calendar pinned to the pegboard next to the door. The date was the same as it had been before we’d been thrown back into the past. Holy cow... we’d been in ancient Egypt for days, but only fifteen minutes had passed here!
“Eh-hem.”
I looked up as Merlin cleared his throat. He was perched with one hip on the edge of his desk. His smile was smug, and I was suddenly furious with him.
“You!” I snarled. “Do you have any idea what you put us through? We had to go to war, and I got shot by an arrow!” I raised my arm to show him, but to my surprise, both the bandage and the wounds it covered were gone. My skin was smooth and unmarked. There wasn’t even a trace of a scar! “What? How?”
Merlin snorted. “The ‘what’ and ‘how’ are mine to know and not to share,” he said. “And now, I believe you have something that belongs to me.” He held out a gnarled, age-spotted hand toward me.
Of course! I’d nearly forgotten about the amulet that hung around my neck. I took it off and handed it to him, although what I really wanted to do was stuff it down his throat until he choked on it.
Merlin smiled as he examined the amulet. He slipped it into a pocket in his jacket, patting it with his hand. “Well done, my boys. Well done.”
“Why didn’t the amulet take us right back here when we got it?” Grant asked as he sat up next to me. “We thought something went wrong and we’d be stuck back there forever!”
Merlin barked a short, gruff laugh. “Don’t be foolish, boy. I never make mistakes. It couldn’t bring you back here until you were alone. Did you want archeologists to find hieroglyphics depicting you two disappearing in front of witnesses?”
Oh. We hadn’t thought of that. It made sense, though. Neither of us wanted to ask how Merlin knew we were at a feast when we received the amulet from Tut. He wouldn’t tell us anyway. “Yeah, well, you could’ve warned us,” I grumbled. A thought occurred to me, the one worry that I’d obsessed over ever since meeting Tut. “What about Tut? What happened to him? Was he murdered?” I held my breath, waiting for Merlin’s answer.
“No, he was not murdered,” Merlin said.
“We did it, then! We saved his life! How old was he when he died? Did he have children?”
A sad look crept into Merlin’s eyes and he held up his hand, cutting off my happy shout. “Didn’t I warn you that you can’t change the past? That Fate will find a way to achieve her own ends despite your interference? Tut died at the age of nineteen from an infection that set in when he broke his leg. Some think he broke it in battle, others think he was injured during a hunting accident. He left no heirs, and his Grand Vizier took the throne as pharaoh soon after Tut’s death.”
Anger roiled in my gut. “So it was all for nothing? Aye got his way in the end anyway?”
“No, Fate got her way,” Merlin corrected. He sighed deeply. “Think of it this way... the past is like a wide, still pond. Throw in even the tiniest pebble, and the ripples it will create will change the face of the water. No one knows how far-reaching those waves might be. Perhaps, had you saved Tut and he lived to a ripe old age, you would not have been born.” He paused, and then gave us a rare smile. “You did well. You accomplished what you set out to do and returned the amulet to me.”
I nodded, b
ut I still felt badly for Tut. In the short time we’d been in Egypt, I’d grown fond of him. We were friends, and even though I knew when I left that I’d never see him again, I felt bad that his life had been cut so short.
Merlin’s eyes glittered with sympathy, something I didn’t he was capable of feeling until then. “I know it is difficult, but then, I never said it would be easy.”
“Gee, thanks. That helps a heap,” I said sarcastically.
Merlin cocked one bushy brow. “Mind your tongue or you may find it missing,” he snapped.
Now, that was more like the Merlin I remembered.
I wasn’t done asking questions, though, threat to my tongue or not. “What about Nefertiti? She went missing while we were there. Did Tut ever find her?”
“She is still somewhat of a mystery. Her tomb was found with her body in it, but it is unknown when she died. Perhaps she did return to the palace after you left, perhaps not. There are some things we may never know,” Merlin said. “All we know is that the pharaoh, be it Tutankhamen or Aye, had her mummified and buried as a queen of Egypt.”
I opened my mouth to tell Merlin exactly what I thought of his answer, but Grant cut me off.
“Are we done now, Mr. Ambrosius?” Grant asked, shooting me a glare that told me to leave Merlin alone before he zapped us into a pool of quicksand somewhere, or to the top of Mt. Everest without so much as a blanket between us.
“Done? Why, my boys, you’ve only just begun,” Merlin answered with a laugh. He went to the shelves built into the classroom wall and pulled out another book. He placed it on his desk and pushed it toward Grant and me. “Attend to the rest of your classes this afternoon, eat dinner, do your homework, and sleep well, because tomorrow is Saturday and I have a full day planned for you two.”
I glanced at the title of the book, Gladiator: We Who Are about to Die Salute You, and felt my heart speed up. I opened my mouth to protest, but Grant grabbed my elbow and pulled me away. “See you tomorrow, Mr. Ambrosius,” he said, forcing me out of the classroom and into the hallway.
The classroom door slowly swung closed behind us all by itself.
“Did you see the title...?” I asked him.
“Yeah, I saw.”
“Is he crazy? He can’t send us there!”
“Oh, I think he can. Can, and will,” Grant replied.
With another backward glance at the closed door to Ambrosius’ history room, I nodded resignedly and followed Grant down the hallway toward our next class, Physics.
I could swear I heard Merlin’s laughter following us all the way there.
[1] The Papyrus of Ani (Egyptian Book of the Dead). “A Hymn of Praise to Ra When He Riseth in the Eastern Part of Heaven. “
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