The Society of Imaginary Friends

by Kristen Pham

  Chapter 12

  Back at the hotel, Valerie and Thai munched on some fruit that Chisisi had sent up while Cyrus wandered around the room.

  “Is Tan okay? He seemed scared back there,” Valerie said.

  “I think so. When something is more than he can handle, he kind of retreats inside me for a while. He’ll come out again when he’s ready. But are you okay?” Thai asked.

  “It turned my world around to realize that there will still be someone chasing me when I go to the Globe. What’s waiting for me there is worse than what’s chasing me here.”

  “But there you’ll have your magic to protect you.”

  “And me,” Cyrus added.

  Through the window, she saw that the sun was already setting.

  “Are you ready?” Thai asked.

  “I want to thank Chisisi one more time before I go. I hope he isn’t still upset. We were kind of rude before when he was trying to help us.”

  “Fine, I guess you’re right. I didn’t mean to offend him,” Thai said, picking up the phone. “Hi, Amun, could you send Chisisi to our room? Oh, when? Okay, thanks.” He hung up the phone. “Amun said that Chisisi was heading over to our room twenty minutes ago.”

  “What happened to him?” she asked. It wasn’t right to leave without saying goodbye.

  “Who knows? Whenever we don’t need him, he pops out of nowhere. And now that we do call him, he’s nowhere to be found. But we can’t wait around any longer.”

  “He’s right, Val. Let’s get out of here before something else goes wrong,” Cyrus added.

  “Well, we’re finally going to need these,” Thai said, pulling the night vision goggles out of their backpacks.

  Valerie grinned for the first time all day. It would be pretty cool to go all James Bond and sneak past the security on the Giza Plateau.

  Rather than take the elevators downstairs and leave through the main entrance, she directed Thai and Cyrus to take the stairs, hoping that they would attract less attention. When she opened the door to the stairwell, a sour smell made her cover her nose. As they descended, the smell grew stronger, almost making her gag.

  They were going down the last flight of stairs when she remembered where she had smelled that rancid odor before. “Thai, watch out, Venu’s been here. That smell is his poison, I know it,” she whispered, and fear glued her feet to the ground.

  They both stopped, but it was completely silent in the stairwell. Thai then moved in front of her, murmuring, “Let’s get out of here.”

  “Hurry up. Now is not the time to freeze up,” Cyrus said urgently, and she forced herself to hurry down the last few stairs at top speed and burst out the exit door behind Thai.

  “I can’t believe he was that close,” Thai said.

  Valerie noticed something lying on the ground, covered in yellow slime. She knelt down to examine it, and her entire body quivered with horror. It was a blue cloth with gold embroidery that she had seen before. “It’s that sash that Chisisi always wears,” she said, struggling to keep the panic out of her voice.

  “You’re right. What happened?” Cyrus said. Before she could do more than blink, Cyrus vanished.

  Thai yanked Valerie to her feet. “We have to get you out of here. Now.”

  “We can’t leave without finding him! What if Venu really hurt him? You know what he’s capable of!”

  “We don’t even know where to begin. I swear to you that I will not rest until I find Chisisi, but right now you need to get off this planet.”

  Cyrus popped back into view. “He’s alive, Val. He’s not in good shape, but he’s alive. Amun called an ambulance.”

  “I have to see him, to help him!”

  “There’s nothing you can do for him now. And Venu is not going to stop trying to hurt you and those around you until you get out of here. Once you’re gone, he’ll have no reason to hurt Chisisi or anyone else.”

  “I bring everyone around me nothing but misery,” she said with despair.

  “That’s not true! Please, don’t give up on me now, when you’re so close to making it to the Globe. For everyone’s sake, you have to hold it together,” Cyrus demanded.

  She took several deep, steadying breaths, staring into Cyrus’s blue eyes. “All right. Let’s go.”

  As soon as they had made it off of the hotel grounds, Valerie and Thai put on their night vision goggles.

  “I don’t see anything,” she said.

  Thai pressed a button on the side of her goggles, and the world appeared before her in green and black. “They have a heat sensor, so we’ll be able to see the guards coming from a mile away. Speaking of which, drop to the ground, one’s about to pass us!” he hissed.

  On her right, Valerie saw a glowing red figure walking closer. The guard was humming a tune, clearly not expecting to find anyone trying to sneak onto the Giza Plateau at this time of night. Still, she held her breath as he passed a few yards from where she lay on the ground, hoping that he wouldn’t be able to see her or Thai in the faint moonlight coming through the clouds.

  “Thank goodness it’s a cloudy night, or we’d be caught for sure,” she whispered to Thai after the guard was out of sight.

  Thai scanned the landscape in every direction. “Okay, the coast is clear, so lead the way.”

  Valerie and Thai hurried across the plateau, keeping a sharp eye out for any security guards—or threats like Venu, she remembered with a shudder. The sight of Chisisi’s sash covered in yellow slime flashed through her mind. Would he survive? She didn’t know how she could live with herself if he died because of her.

  “Stay with me, Val,” Cyrus said, seeing her expression.

  “You can do this. I’ll go back for him, and he’ll be okay,” Thai added.

  She nodded and forced herself to focus on their mission. Finally, they reached the Sphinx. The sight took her breath away, and she was temporarily distracted from her worries. When she had seen the Sphinx from a distance earlier that day, it had seemed like a piece of ancient history whose story had already been told. But in the moonlight, the Sphinx came alive, and she was reminded that this was a living monument that still had a role to play, particularly in her own future.

  Valerie took off her night vision goggles as she approached the Sphinx. Up close, she could see that the half lion, half man was wearing an ancient Egyptian headdress. Despite the fact that his face had been battered by time and he was missing his nose, the Sphinx’s wise and regal expression soothed Valerie’s troubled mind.

  His stone eyes held a fascinating secret, and they seemed to follow her as she approached closer and closer. It was like he could see inside of her mind, and her scalp prickled with apprehension.

  “Unbelievable,” Thai said. “You can’t understand the power of these places from pictures.”

  Only Cyrus wasn’t awestruck. “So where’s the entrance to the tunnel, Val?”

  “I think I have to ask—well—him,” she said, unable to drag her gaze away from the searching eyes of the Sphinx.

  Almost as if she was in a trance, Valerie approached the Sphinx. She circled the entire monument without speaking and then stopped at the base, right beneath his head. Hesitantly, she reached out to touch the stone. Beneath her fingers, warm muscle covered in soft fur. Gently, she stroked the fur, and she almost gasped in surprise when she heard a gentle, contented purr. The Sphinx’s eyes were softly glowing blue, just like the face at Stonehenge. Valerie’s eerie trepidation was replaced by curiosity.

  The Sphinx was a guardian, protecting the magic of this place. His eyes saw in her, through her, and a tide of magic rose up inside her. It was so powerful, she could drown in it—it could sweep her away. The Sphinx may have awakened it, but it was up to her to tamp it down inside her before she was killed by the immensity of her own magic, breaking the rules set upon it.

  “Val, are you okay?” Cyrus asked her.

  She didn’t have the space in her mind to answer. Sweat beaded her forehead and trickled down her
temples. She concentrated, imagining that her magic was like a room inside of her. The Sphinx had opened the door, and it was up to her to shut it. She fought against her instinct to embrace this part of herself that had been hidden away for so long, and slammed the door shut.

  A tingle began in the back of her mind, and she knew that she had passed the first part of the Sphinx’s test. The second part, she suddenly understood, was to face the rest of her journey without her friends or her magic to aid her. She had to prove that she was worthy of traveling to the Globe not only because of her magic, but also because she was brave enough to seize her destiny.

  “Valerie?” Thai said, echoing Cyrus. He gripped her shoulder, and her mind snapped back to the present.

  “The entrance is through the top of the back right paw. And I have to go in alone,” she said, turning to Cyrus and Thai for the first time. Thai started to shake his head, but she walked away before he could form any words.

  She walked to the Sphinx’s back right paw, where the lion’s tail curled over the hindquarters. The top of the paw was rough stone that was very different from the finished, exact lines of other parts of the Sphinx. It was the only part of the Sphinx’s paw that hadn’t been repaired over the years by people trying to preserve the landmark.

  “Why wouldn’t they fix the top of the paw, too?” Thai asked.

  “Let’s say that your Egyptian benefactor can do more than get you a room with a view. He made sure that the entrance was never touched,” Cyrus said. Valerie couldn’t help thinking that it was too bad that the benefactor, whoever he was, hadn’t been able to protect Chisisi.

  Cyrus continued, “The top of the paw looks so old because it is—it has never been changed, not since when it was originally built.”

  “Duck!” Thai said suddenly, and he and Valerie crouched behind the paw. She put her night vision goggles back on and saw that another guard was doing his rounds. Minutes later, he was gone, and she breathed a sigh of relief.

  They removed their goggles again to examine the stone. Thai turned on his flashlight and shined it on the rough stone. Then he turned the flashlight on her face. “I’m coming with you.”

  “You can’t. I have to go it alone from here or not leave at all. It’s part of the test.”

  “I thought the test was over at Stonehenge!” he said, a deep chord of protective worry making his mouth tense.

  “I’ll be okay.”

  “She’s right, man. I don’t know what Val learned from the Sphinx, but it can be dangerous to be too close to the launch chamber when she takes off, so you have to stay out there.” Cyrus said. “And I need to be mentally back on the Globe during her journey. It’s up to her now.”

  Thai nodded, but the worry didn’t leave his face. “Ready?” he asked her.

  Valerie nodded, took a deep breath, and pushed on the stone paw with all her strength. Nothing happened. Thai added his muscles to the struggle, and they both turned red from the effort. Just as she thought her muscles would collapse, the ancient stone groaned and then swiveled, turning sideways. It opened to a set of stairs that disappeared into the darkness.

  “That’s my cue. I’ll see you on the other side,” Cyrus said. His voice sounded light, but she knew him well enough to recognize the tension in his smile.

  “Wait!” Valerie said, panicky. “What if this thing accidentally launches me to the wrong place? I don’t want to wind up floating around in space for eternity, all alone.”

  Cyrus laughed. “It doesn’t work like that—it’s not a rocket! From what I’ve heard, it creates a kind of bubble around you that moves super fast. And you steer it with your thoughts. All you have to do is concentrate on me, and you’ll be by my side in no time, standing on the Globe. Don’t worry—it will all make sense when you’re here.”

  “Okay,” she said, somewhat reassured. Then she turned to Thai. “I guess this is goodbye,” she said, and hugged him tightly, memorizing the way his arms felt around her. He pulled back slightly and met her eyes with a focus that made her breath catch. For one crazy second, she thought he was going to kiss her.

  Cyrus cleared his throat loudly. “We don’t have all day.”

  Thai released her. “Be safe, Valerie,” he whispered. Then he turned to Cyrus. “You’ll project back here to tell me she’s safe?”

  “Of course.”

  “I’ll stay right here until I see you take off, and then I’ll find Chisisi,” Thai said. He turned to Cyrus. “I will see her leave, right?”

  “I think so. Look for a blue light that’s moving fast. In less than a second, she’ll seem like a shooting star. And then she’ll be gone.”

  Her heart raced. This was really it. “See you soon,” she said to Cyrus with a smile, and his face lit up. With one last glance at Thai, she put the flashlight in her pocket, then put on her night vision goggles and went down the stairs.