The Secret of the Scarab Beetle

by William Meyer

  Stunned, Horace stared at the empty spot where Eke had been.

  He hesitantly walked over to pick up the beetle and the Benben Stone. “Thanks, Shadow,” he said. “You’re a lifesaver.”

  The bird chirped in response and hopped into the air.

  Suddenly a bright light flashed from the tree and sent Horace to his knees, bracing for another attack.

  But it wasn’t Eke returning through the portal. It was Herman walking out of the tree. He was carrying a burlap bag over his shoulder.

  “Herman!” Horace shouted.

  “Horace, you’re safe.” The two embraced in a warm hug.

  “Am I glad to see you.”

  Herman looked equally relieved. “I was worried I was too late.”

  “You almost were,” answered Horace in frustration. “Where have you been? Eke was waiting for us here.”

  “I can’t believe you held your own against both Smenk and Eke. And retrieved the Benben Stone,” Herman said in amazement. “I was with the Order looking for a safe place for the stone.”

  Anna was hobbling across the yard. Seth was also up and moving, and he ran over to help her. “Are you okay?” Seth looked down at her injured leg.

  “Don’t worry. He just nicked me.” She covered the gash Eke’s blast had left.

  Horace spotted Milton quietly grasping his side, breathing heavily. He rushed over.

  “Who was that? That guy nearly killed me.”

  “Eke,” answered Horace. “He was Smenk’s henchman.” Horace still couldn’t figure out how Eke had been using the portal as well.

  “You better not sell him this farm.” Milton paused, picking himself up with Horace’s help. “He’s totally nuts!”

  Tut was lying in a ball on the ground. Meri was standing next to him. Herman walked over and felt his wrist. He hesitated for a moment, searching for a pulse, and then looked up. Herman reached into his pocket and poured a small bottle of green liquid between Tut’s open lips. Tut’s fingers twitched, and then in the next second he opened his eyes.

  “He’ll be okay,” Herman said. “You kids probably have many questions, but you’ll have to wait a little while to have them answered. We need to get your friends back to Egypt. They can’t stay on this side of the portal any longer.”

  “You know Tut and Meri too?” Horace asked.

  “Of course.”

  “But you can’t send them back to Amarna where Eke is. He’ll try to kill them again!” protested Milton.

  “Don’t worry. Eke’s not in Egypt,” Herman answered.

  “What do you mean?” asked Horace.

  “Shadow sent him to a place where he can’t get to Tut.”

  “But what about Smenk? He’s still in Amarna,” Anna said.

  “There is no more Amarna. And it will be centuries before Smenk’s body is discovered beneath the sands of the city he destroyed.”

  “And the priests? Ay?” Horace wondered aloud.

  “They’re on their way to Thebes, where they must help heal a fractured country.” Herman paused. “And Tut and Meri need to join them there as king and queen.”

  At that moment, Shadow circled high overhead, a glittering silhouette in the moonlight, then descended onto Horace’s shoulder.

  Seth flinched. “The falcon?”

  “Take care of her while I’m gone, Horace. She’s a good friend and a great messenger. If you need anything, Shadow knows where to find me.” Then his voice hardened. “But you mustn’t ignore my orders again. Traveling through the portal is unsafe. And the knowledge of your scarab beetle must be kept secret.” Herman reached out his arms. “Now, Horace, I must also take the Benben Stone.”

  “But my grandfather had the stone. Why can’t we keep it here?” Horace was confused. He had fought so hard to bring it back to Niles. He had risked his life to save the stone. And now Herman was just going to take it. “Haven’t I proved I can guard the stone?”

  “You have, Horace.” Herman nodded. “You’ve shown courage and strength beyond your years and beyond what the Order ever expected. It’s not you I’m worried about.” Herman walked over and opened the brown burlap bag. “This is bigger than you know, Horace. There are other forces at work, even greater and more dangerous than Eke and Smenk. To keep the stone here would only draw them to Niles.”

  Horace bit down on his lip. Herman was probably right. He had witnessed through the Benben Stone what had happened to his grandfather. It wasn’t hard to imagine what other wicked people might come looking for it, even in Niles.

  Reluctantly, he set the stone inside the bag.

  Then Herman took Tut and Meri by the hand. “Now, Horace, after we’ve walked through, place the beetle in the light. Turn it to the right, clockwise, and its magic will seal the portal until it is ready to be opened again by either you or another Keeper.”

  “There’s more than one portal?”

  Herman laughed. “Of course, Horace! And when you’re ready, we’ll explore a whole other world.” He turned to Tut and Meri. “Ready?”

  They both nodded.

  “Good luck, Meri,” said Anna.

  “And be careful, Tut,” Milton added. They all knew what Milton meant. They’d read the history books, and they knew Tut died young.

  Horace walked over and gave Tut a big hug good-bye. “Thanks for everything,” he said with a smile. “You’re already a great king.”

  Tut grinned. “You’re not a bad Time Keeper, either. Keep an eye on that beetle. I might need your help again someday.”

  Herman turned to the remaining group. “You have to understand that none of us can stop what will happen to Tut—or to anyone. But you protected the beetle and you saved the Benben Stone.” He turned toward Horace. “Your grandfather would be proud.”

  With that, Tut gave one final wave, and Herman led him and Meri into the light. Horace placed the beetle against the tree and sealed the portal.

  He felt Shadow leap off his shoulder, then looked down at the beetle in his hand. It was still glowing bright blue. Horace knew his dad was right: his grandfather was with him. He’d always been there. In the depths of his heart, his grandfather’s voice echoed, and his memory glowed.

  Horace nodded as he looked over at Anna, Seth, and Milton still standing around the tree.

  The plan had actually worked.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The next day it felt strange to Horace to know Tut was in Egypt, struggling to bring the people together after his coronation, while Horace was safe in Niles. From his reading, he now knew Tut would soon turn from his father’s god and return to the old gods, in the hopes of healing the scarred kingdom.

  Horace also knew the threat of the farm being sold was real. Soon his uncle would clean up the mess in the yard and bring by more buyers to look at the property.

  In the morning his dad took his sisters to soccer, and his mom offered to take Horace to the nursing home to visit Grandma. It would be the first time he’d seen her since his grandfather’s death, and he was happy to have the opportunity to be with her again.

  As they walked down the hall of the nursing home, the pungent smell of cleaning supplies and bleach filled Horace’s nostrils. They passed several rooms. Each one was small and had a bed, a desk, and in some cases, a TV. He saw a nurse helping a woman into a wheelchair, and in another room an older man slumped forward, staring at a television with a fuzzy screen.

  Horace recognized his grandma’s room by the family pictures hanging outside the door. His heart skipped a beat when he saw one particularly weathered photograph of his grandparents standing in front of the farm. Just a few months ago they had sat on their porch, laughing with each other. And now one was here, and the other . . . Horace felt a twinge of shame. If his uncle sold the farm, his grandma would be stuck in this place forever.

  His mom led him inside, where his grandma and a nurse sat on the bed. Horace noticed a change in her appearance already. Her gray hair was thinner, and her eyes had lost the mischievous glin
t that had always made her appear younger than she was. Grandpa used to tease Grandma about her eyes, saying when he saw them twinkle, he knew he was in for trouble.

  The nurse looked over at Horace. “You must be Amelia’s grandson. She has been asking for you since she first arrived. See, Amelia, your grandson has come to visit you. Isn’t that nice?”

  Grandma’s face was expressionless.

  “I’m just putting Amelia’s shoes on, and then she’ll be ready. Would you like to walk her to the cafeteria for breakfast?” she asked Horace.

  “Okay,” he answered hesitantly.

  His mom gave him a nudge. “Don’t be afraid.”

  He had never been afraid of his grandma before, but this place was different, with all its strange sounds and smells.

  He carefully walked over to the bed and held out his arm.

  His mom smiled. “I’m going to help clean up her room.”

  “Okay,” he said again.

  Horace began walking slowly, his grandmother by his side. Other residents were coming out of their rooms now too. Horace gently guided his grandma to the dining hall full of folding tables and up to one of the place settings. She sat down and Horace joined her.

  “Look, Grandma, your favorite.” Horace took a fork and stuck a big piece of toast on the end. “Here, try some.” He started to lift it up to her mouth when suddenly she stopped him.

  “I’m not a vegetable, Horace. I can do it myself.”

  To his surprise, she grabbed the utensil and began eating.

  She ate a few more bites and then looked thoughtfully at Horace. “What’s the matter?” she asked. If her actions hadn’t caught him totally off guard, her question did. She looked so different in the nursing home and she’d been so quiet since he’d first arrived, he honestly hadn’t thought she’d noticed what was going on around her. “Go ahead,” she prodded.

  Horace spoke his next words so quickly, his tongue almost tripped over his sentences. “Grandma, you were right! The beetle was a key to a door in the tree! It led to Ancient Egypt! My friends and I saved King Tut, and we discovered the Benben Stone there!”

  Despite Horace’s excitement, his grandma remained calm. “Shhhhh, Horace,” she said softly. “Listen, take a deep breath. You must quiet down.” She leaned in closer. “This war is far older than either you or I can imagine, and it will not be won in a single battle.” She placed her fork on the plate. “I learned a thing or two watching your grandpa and the Time Keepers over the years.”

  “You know about the Order?” For weeks Horace had longed to know more about this mysterious group Herman kept referring to.

  “Yes, yes. The Order, the highest initiates of the Temple of the Phoenix, the ones in charge of the calendars and, of course, guarding the keystone.”

  “The keystone? The beetle?”

  She laughed as if Horace had said something funny. “There are more sacred stones than I can count. Your beetle is one. But the keystone is the Benben Stone.” Grandma paused to let Horace catch up, and then she continued. “Did you know Akhenaten created your beetle so he could use the Benben Stone as a source of abundance and wealth for the whole country? He wanted to share the secrets of the past with everyone, not just those initiated into the temple. But after Akhenaten’s death, the Keepers realized the power of the Benben Stone would be too dangerous if it fell into the wrong hands, and they gave Grandpa the responsibility of caring for both stones.”

  “But, Grandma, my friends told me Grandpa was caught up in the Michigan Relics, that he made a whole museum exhibit about them. But they turned out to be nothing more than a hoax.”

  She started to laugh again. “My goodness, your friends aren’t wrong, but they can’t see beyond the surface of the matter, like so many others. How else could you cover up the appearance of a five-thousand-year-old stone from Egypt or the arrival of a magic scarab beetle in a small town in Michigan? Grandpa made a fake exhibit to hide the stone. Think about it, Horace. Who would look for a magical stone in a museum in Niles?”

  Horace flashed back to the newspaper clipping he’d found in his book on Egypt.

  She went on, “So he displayed the Benben Stone in the middle of the museum as one of the prized Michigan Relics. Everyone thought he was nuts. And he was! It was just enough to keep the museum open and to keep away anyone who might have a real interest in these things.”

  “But, Grandma, if the stone was safe in the museum, how did Smenk get it back?”

  She was silent.

  A tear started to form in his eye. “Grandma, I know. That’s why Smenk killed Grandpa.” Horace’s mind flashed to the images he’d seen in the stone.

  She gripped his small shoulders with her hands and looked him square in the face. “Horace, your grandpa believed in you, and I believe in you.” She reached into her pocket. “Here, I’ve been holding this. He wanted you to have it. I just don’t think he ever imagined you’d be reading it so young.”

  She slipped a small crumpled envelope into his hand. He slid his finger under the flap and opened the letter.

  To Horace,

  If you are reading this, I imagine you’ve now discovered who I am, and you’ve also learned who you are. You were born with a great gift, a gift that has run through our family for generations. It’s not a gift available to everyone, though. It has skipped through our family like a pebble on water. Your great-grandmother had the gift, I carried it, and, when you were born, it became clear you possessed it as well.

  With this gift, you have the ability to access the true treasure of the past: memory. But not just the memories of stories or everyday events. You can know the memories and histories of civilizations long forgotten, the stories that will help us all truly understand who we are. And the scarab beetle I bequeath to you, while very powerful, is only a tool that magnifies the power you possess. You are the real key, Horace. You are a Time Keeper.

  Remember, though, the past is fragile, like a delicate flower. There are many who seek to manipulate our collective memory and others who will try to destroy it altogether. As a Keeper, it is your job not only to guard the memories from these evil forces, but also to share what you discover with the world. The Benben Stone and its knowledge are not meant to be locked in temples or hoarded by powerful rulers; the stone contains a history that must be told. Use the beetle to discover that history and, with it, open an ancient path connecting all of us back to the stars.

  Forever your grandpa,

  Flinders j. Peabody

  Horace felt a tear run down his face.

  “There’s more,” his grandma said encouragingly.

  Horace turned the paper over but didn’t see anything else. He looked questioningly at Grandma. And then Horace noticed something he’d never noticed before. There between his grandfather’s first and last names was the mysterious j.

  “Grandma, Grandpa also had a j for his middle initial?”

  She smiled. “That’s not a j, Horace. Here.” She pulled a pen out of her pocket and began to draw a series of shapes.

  It was the symbol on the seal of the letter Herman had first brought him; it was the symbol on the back of the beetle; and, he saw now, it was the symbol in his middle initial. “What is it, Grandma?”

  “The symbol of the Time Keepers. It’s the eye of Horus, your namesake. The beetle is part of your destiny. And it’s always been a part of your name.”

  A Note from the Author

  So much of the inspiration for this story is based on historical facts. The characters, the places, the names, and even many of the objects are real. I’ve always been drawn to the mysteries of history, and surprisingly, both Egypt and Michigan are full of them.

  Horace’s name (which is also the name I gave my favorite stuffed animal as a kid) is connected to an Egyptian god and a famous resident in Niles, Michigan. Niles is a real town in the southwest of the state. It has a fascinating past dating to the early frontier first settled by the French. In the nineteenth century it was also an impo
rtant stop on the Underground Railroad. An old museum called the Chapin House sits in the center of Niles, and houses many bizarre artifacts, including a two-headed sheep.

  Although the Michigan Relics never made their way to Niles, they were a real and unexplained collection of objects found in the state in 1890.

  The Egyptian artifacts and history mentioned in the story are real as well. The Benben Stone can be traced to the city of Heliopolis, where it was guarded by an order of priests known as the Keepers of Time. The whereabouts of the stone remain a mystery, as does the location of Akhenaten’s burial site. Akhenaten and his city, Amarna, dramatically transformed three thousand years of Egyptian history before he died mysteriously, disappearing along with his city from the history books. The lost period of Amarna was only rediscovered in 1922, when Howard Carter stumbled upon King Tut’s sealed tomb in the Valley of the Kings. The discoveries inside opened a window into a period of previously forgotten history. One of the discoveries, which left many Egyptologists bewildered by its beauty, was a blue scarab beetle.

  Acknowledgments

  I first shared my ideas for this story with my wife in a New York City taxicab six years ago. Without her support and encouragement, Horace probably would have never made it past Fifty-Seventh Street. But there were many others along the way who have also lent a helping hand. Elizabeth and Abbey, two voracious young readers who constantly badgered me about finishing the story. My sister-in-law, Ashley, who went through an early version of the manuscript chapter by chapter. My friend Jen and in-laws Marie and Len, who provided constant enthusiasm and encouragement. Sophie, a copyreader of sorts, who provided some amazing line-by-line feedback. My agent, Clelia, who worked tirelessly to find a home for Horace. My editor, Catherine, who patiently worked with me to make the narrative clear and strong. Barb, Heather, and everyone at Sleeping Bear who helped bring this story to life. And my parents, who have always supported me unconditionally, no matter the endeavor. Great stories need great families, and I’ve been lucky to have found one in Sleeping Bear.