by Jude Watson
Dan took out Grace's card and read it again. "We're missing something."
Amy hung over his shoulder. Then she put her finger on a sentence. "Look at this,
Dan."
[proofreader's note: it says If only I'd been half
the grandmother I should have been.]
"The word half is underlined. And the 'g' in grandmother is darker than the rest of the word."
"One half gram," Dan said with a groan. "It was there all the time. We didn't have to come here at all. But we're still left with the most important question. Half gram of what?"
"This is so frustrating! We're just one step behind her."
"As usual." Dan frowned. "If we shouldn't have come to Aswan, I say we go back to
Cairo."
"Let's pack," Amy agreed.
They began to throw things into their duffels and backpacks. Dan held up the gold-painted base from the Sakhet. "Trash or save?"
"Trash," Amy said. "It's worthless."
Dan tossed it in the wastebasket. It flipped over and landed bottom up. "Hey, Amy. C'mere."
Amy sighed and went over. "Trash in a trash can. Color me stunned."
"Look at the label. Treasures of Egypt. This came from a shop in Cairo. Here's the name
and address. It's in the Citadel, whatever that is."
"So? Grace bought it there."
"Why did Grace buy a base for the Sakhet? To conceal it, Hilary said. But it's been in a safety deposit box for what, thirty years?"
"Grace's message!" Amy exclaimed. "End with the basics” she said. Could she have meant this?" "It's our only lead," Dan said. "We've got to follow in her footsteps -- back in Cairo."
CHAPTER 23
"The Citadel was first used for defense,'" Amy said, reading aloud from the new guidebook. '"Now it has many holy sites. It offers some of the best views of the city'" "It also has a bunch of streets with no signs," Dan said, looking around. "How are we going to find this shop?"
"With great difficulty, obviously," Amy answered, consulting the map. They walked through the twisting streets and alleys of the Citadel for twenty minutes. Finally, they found themselves in an unmarked alley. Most of the signs were in Arabic. There were no numbered addresses.
"Never mind how we're going to find it, how did Grace find it?" Dan wondered.
Amy stopped in front of a narrow doorway that appeared like all the others. The window was dark. It looked closed. "This is it."
"You sure?"
"I'm sure. Look."
[proofreader's note: the sign says Treasures of Egypt. All are welcome.]
Dan's photographic memory clicked in. "It's just like Grace's card. Treasures, Egypt, and
welcome were all in a line going down."
Amy clutched his arm. "She led us here, Dan. This is it!"
Amy pushed open the door, and a bell tinkled. The shop was long and narrow, its shelves crowded with pottery and metalwork. Rugs covered the floor. In the very back, she could see a man sitting at a counter reading a book. He looked up at her for a moment.
"You are welcome to look around." He looked back down at his book.
That was weird. She'd never been anywhere in Egypt where someone wasn't eager to
sell her something, pressing close, offering her bargains and cups of tea.
"Excuse me?" Dan walked forward. "Did you sell this item?" He placed the base on the
desk.
The man picked it up. He was a handsome young Egyptian dressed in a snowy white shirt and a striped scarf that he'd wrapped around his neck despite the heat. He gave the base a quick glance. "Hard to say," he said. "It looks like something we would use to showcase a souvenir. I can show you some just like it."
"We don't want another one," Amy said. "We want to know if you remember this one." "I am sorry." He looked at her for the first time, and he must have caught her frustration. "I am not sure what you are asking." "Do you remember meeting a woman called Grace Cahill?"
The man shook his head. "I know no one by that name."
Amy and Dan exchanged a glance. Now or never.
Grace had led them here for a reason. Dan slipped the Sakhet out of his backpack. Amy had given it to him to carry. "Have you ever seen this?"
Dan saw recognition in his eyes, but he quickly shook his head. "No." "We're Grace Cahill's grandchildren," Dan said. "We believe she sent us here." He looked at them for a long moment. His gaze was searching and somehow honest. Then he leaned forward. "That is a beautiful necklace, miss."
"Thank you."
"Thirty years ago, the clasp broke. May I?" His fingers reached out and touched the clasp gently.
"My father repaired it. I'm glad to see it is still intact." "So you do know her."
"Forgive me for my hesitation. One must be careful. My name is Sami Kamel. Please call me Sami."
"I'm Amy, and this is Dan."
"So you've come at last." He left his chair at the counter and went to the door. He flipped the sign to CLOSED.
"Please. If you would come with me." He bowed slightly, then moved a curtain and disappeared.
Amy and Dan followed him into a small, cozy room. He directed them to sit and then poured them mint tea in fragile porcelain cups.
"Your grandmother knew my father," he said. "And my father's father. My father's father was a famous ... how can I say this ... crook." Amy and Dan laughed a little, startled.
"But a good man," Sami went on with a smile. "A forger of antiquities. He did a favor for your grandmother in the late forties, he would never say what. When my father took over the business in 1952, he convinced my grandfather to retire the, uh, illegitimate part of his business. We sell some good items, some high-quality, some cheap, but our customers always know what they are getting. Your grandmother came to the shop on every visit to Egypt. She was great friends with my grandfather and my father." Amy took a sip of tea. "You said, 'you've come at last.'"
"Your grandmother told my father that you would be coming. He has been keeping something for her for some time now. She bought it on her last trip to Cairo. And now, I give it to you."
He spun on his chair and reached out to the bookcases behind him. He flipped a lever concealed in the wood molding and the books revolved. He withdrew an old wooden game board and placed it on the tea table. "This." "She left us a game of checkers?" Dan asked.
Sami smiled. "Not checkers. Senet. It's an ancient Egyptian game. A number of sets have been found in tombs, but no rules have survived. This one is not that old, but it is beautiful. Mother-of-pearl inlay and carved wood. We think it once had valuable marking pieces, perhaps made of gold, because there was originally a key to lock this drawer, where the pieces were kept." "A drawer?" Amy reached out but he held up a hand.
"Wait. Your grandmother had my father fashion another lock for the drawer. See the letters? He used what the Chinese would call an alphabet lock. Only a password will open it. You have to click the letters into place." "We don't have a password," Dan said. "If we try some things ... " "You only get one chance," Sami said. "It is the safeguard that you are who you say you are. If you don't get it, the drawer will not open at all. You can smash the game board, but there are two problems. One, it would destroy what was inside. Two, I would not allow you to do it. That is my order." He smiled at them, but they saw resolve behind the smile. Dan and Amy looked at each other, stricken. They had no idea what to try. "My father said that Grace was sure you would know." "Did she... say anything that might give us a clue?" Amy asked. "I am sorry. Just that you would know for certain."
He withdrew a little further away to give them privacy. Amy pressed her fingers against her forehead.
"Well, I don't know," she murmured. "It could be so many things."
"What do people usually use for passwords?" Dan said. "Their middle name? Where they were born? Or Grace's favorite color -- green. Or her favorite ice cream... "
"Pistachio." "Favorite food ... "
"Sushi. Favorite place ... "
They both knew Grace's favorites by heart. Those weren't just words to them, Amy suddenly thought. They were memories.
Amy recognized something then. All this time, memory after memory had filled in the blank shape where Grace had been. Sitting on the steps of a museum, waving hot pretzels. Baking brownies. Getting a giggling fit in a library, listening to Grace spin a tale by a roaring fire. Jumping into the cold ocean. Running down a Boston street in the rain.
"I was wrong," she said, leaning in to Dan. "I was so wrong. I didn't trust my memories. Grace
Did prepare us for this, but not out of some warped power trip. She prepared us out of love.
She knew what was in store. And she knew we couldn't escape it. There's a reason she wanted us in this race for the clues. We don't know it yet. But we have to trust her. I mean,
Really trust her. Stop second-guessing her. We have to let her back in." "It's hard not to be mad at her when I miss her so much," Dan said. "We can be mad that she's gone. Just plain furious. But not at her."
Suddenly, Dan smiled. Something settled inside both of them, fitting like a puzzle piece. Amy felt the satisfying click.
Dan nodded. "Okay. Back to the problem. She'd know that we'd go through everything we could think of. It has to be not a guess,
but an absolutely sure thing." Dan paced the room, trying to think. A large portrait hung over a desk, and its eyes seemed to be following him. It was a painting of an old man with a long white beard and piercing dark eyes. "Friend of yours?" he asked Sami.
"Not really. It's Salah ad-Din. A famous Muslim commander who built the Citadel back in 1176. You Americans would call him -- "
Amy and Dan said the word together in one long aha
exhalation. "Saladin."
"Exactly."
Amy brought the game board closer. She looked up at Dan. He nodded. She moved the letters in the lock one by one. S-A-L-A-D-I-N
They gasped as the lid popped open.
"You see?" Sami smiled. "You know your grandmother better than you think." Amy looked at Dan. "Yes," she said softly. "We do." Sami gave a short bow. "I will leave you to examine what she's left." They waited until the curtain was drawn. Amy slid the drawer open. She took out a small drawing in a linen mat.
[proofreader's note: the drawing is of a leaf, a blossom with several leaves, and a small
fruit]
"It looks like a botanical illustration," she said. "There's something written in pencil," Dan said.
mat 2.11
"Looks like the price of the mat," Amy said.
"All we have to do," Dan said, "is figure out what plant this leaf belongs to, and we have the clue."
"That shouldn't be too hard," Amy said.
CHAPTER 24
"This is all your fault," Dan said to Amy back in the Hotel Excelsior. "Don't you know by now that you can never, ever say that something is going to be easy?"
Amy dropped her head in her hands. "I know."
"Try chervil," Nellie suggested. She leaned over to feed Saladin another blob of hummus. They had ordered room service just for him to thank him for being such an awesome password.
Dan sat hunched over his laptop. He'd found an online dictionary of botanical illustrations, but it proved harder than they'd expected to match a leaf to a species. And it didn't help that Nellie kept throwing out random herbs, as if she were making a stew. "How many entries are there?" Amy asked him.
"Sheesh, I don't know. Thousands."
"And since we've been here, how many entries have you checked?"
Dan looked down at the list he was compiling. "Thirty-seven. No! Thirty-eight. I forgot
chervil."
Amy groaned. "We've been here for twenty minutes. This could take all night." "And tomorrow," Nellie said. "Try tamarind!" Dan clicked away. "No," he said, disappointed.
Amy sprang up. She paced in back of Dan. "That's an idea, though," she said. "I mean, here we are in Egypt. We should look up Egyptian plants. Katherine wouldn't lead all her descendants here for chervil, would she?" "Try acacia," Nellie suggested.
"Or hummus, or baba ghanoush, or mint, or palm." Dan spun around in the desk chair, waving his arms. "My brain is on overload."
"This place can do that to you," Nellie agreed. "We saw so much in a few days. Temples and tombs and ancient cities. Amazing sunsets, beautiful art -- " "Sure, but you're leaving out the coolest stuff," Dan said. "Crocodiles, pharaoh curses, brain hooks, body parts in canopic jars -- what's not to like?"
"I liked seeing those old photos of Grace," Amy said. "Remember the goofy one of her at Hatshepsut's Temple? Sometimes I forget how funny she was."
"Pretzels and mustard," Dan said. "Remember? She used to say, Pay attention! Everything counts!"
Dan appreciated the little things, just like Grace, Amy thought. She remembered the day they'd first arrived at this suite. How he'd run around the rooms, calling out every object with delight, like he'd never seen it before. Pillows! Bible! Robes! Shampoo!
"People say I look like Grace," Amy said. "But you're the one who's like her."
Dan shrugged and turned back to the computer. Amy saw that the tips of his ears were glowing red, a sure sign that she'd pleased him. She could have said I'm sorry.
She could have said
You were right. I wanted Grace's memory for myself. But she knew she'd said enough.
"Everything counts," Amy murmured. She gazed at the image on Grace's card, the Magi arriving to bring gifts to the Christ child, looking way more fat and regal than any newborn Amy had ever seen.
Suddenly, words and images became a mash-up in her head. Magi. Hatshepsut. Punt.
Even back in the New Kingdom, a queen had to go Christmas shopping.
As if in a trance, Amy slid open the bedside drawer. She took out the Bible Dan had found. She flipped rapidly through the pages to Matthew, chapter two, verse eleven. "Dan?" she asked in a voice that trembled a little. "Look up myrrh. M-y-r-r-h," she spelled out, coming to stand behind him. Nellie hurried over. Dan typed out the word in the search engine. The leaf flashed on screen.
[proofreader's note: the same drawing is next to the word MYRRH]
"That's it!" Dan cried. "Now explain how you did that."
"Don't forget the art.
We thought it was her painting, but we figured out that Grace didn't leave that as a clue. We forgot to think about what she really meant." Amy held up the card. "She was talking about the card itself."
"I still don't get it." "It all has to do with Hatshepsut."
"Hatshepsut?" Nellie looked puzzled. "But she lived thousands of years before Christmas was around."
"Hatshepsut went to the Land of Punt and came back with myrrh trees. Grace posed right in front of that relief. And she made that joke in the guidebook about how a queen has to go
Christmas shopping? She was leading us back to this." Amy held up the card. "The Magi.
They brought -- " "Gifts to the Christ child," Nellie said.
Amy picked up the Bible. "Matthew, chapter two, verse eleven. Mat 2:11 is a notation, not the price of the mat around the drawing. Listen." Amy read the verse out loud. '"And when they had opened their treasures, they presented gifts to him; gold, frankincense, and myrrh.'"
Dan nodded. "And Grace misspelled 'resonates.' Grace was an excellent speller -- we should know. We played Scrabble with her every weekend for years. Myrrh is a resin!
A half gram of myrrh. That's the clue!"
Amy's eyes shone. "And Grace was with us all the way. She didn't abandon us, Dan. She'll help us when we need it. And it will be just like her, too. It won't be when we expect it. It'll be when we leastexpect it. She hasn't gone away. She's still with us."
Dan turned away from her. But Amy knew it was because his eyes had filled. Her eyes were full of tears, too. She felt as though Grace's hand was on her shoulder, squeezing. Saying
good work, Amy.
Grace had come back to them. They would never lose her again. Suddenly, they heard a noise from next door. A muffled thump. "That came from the stronghold," Dan said in a low tone. "Should we look?" Amy asked. "Maybe it's Alistair," Nellie said.
They all crept to the connecting door. They put their ears against it. "I don't hear anything," Amy whispered. "I think we should check it out," Dan said.
He got the umbrella from the closet, unscrewed the handle, and fitted it into the lock. The knob turned.
He opened it in an inch and put his eye to the crack. "What do you see?" Amy whispered.
"Wonderful things," Dan said. "On the floor."
He pushed open the door. The stronghold had been violated. Vitrines were smashed, paintings thrown, panels tossed. They walked through carefully, avoiding the shattered glass.
The Sakhets were gone, the pedestals empty. "Who could have done this?" Amy whispered.
Nellie bent down to pick up something off the floor. A scrap of black cloth, probably torn off by the protruding edge of a shattered vitrine.
Amy looked at the design woven into the cloth. She realized that the pattern was a repeating letter. M.
Fear clutched her heart. "Madrigals," she whispered.
