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"Does the heat or arid conditions bother you?" Yasmin broke Kami's reverie. "Most foreigners complain about the environment as though they had no idea what it was like before coming here."
"I'm used to the sun, but the heat here is different. More intense," she answered.
Yasmin smiled.
"I would love to visit California someday," she said a bit wistfully.
Kami imagined giving her cousin a grand tour of their trailer. It would take all of two minutes, if that. She wondered what her cousin would think of their living conditions when she had grown up in such luxury. Her face warmed. Fortunately, her cousin changed the subject.
Haji turned onto a desert road. Hot, gritty expanses of sand stretched in every direction, its smooth surface shimmering in the heat making it appear wet. But it was only an illusion. The wasteland was unforgiving. There was barely any life here. Very few shrubs and plants grew along the way, and most of them looked half dead.
"About fifteen years ago, a donkey stumbled in a hole in the sand at the Bahariya Oasis, a little over 300 kilometers south of Alexandria," Yasmin said. "When they investigated further, they found over 250 mummies, many of them plated with gold. They named it the Valley of the Golden Mummies. It is estimated there are up to 10,000 mummies buried there."
"The Valley of the Golden Mummies? Very dramatic! Like something out of Hollywood," Kami said.
"It sounds more exciting than The Valley of the Old Decaying Wrapped People anyway," Liam quipped.
"I don't know. Indiana Jones and the Old Decaying Wrapped People has a certain ring to it," Kami joked back.
"Listen to this," Yasmin said, drawing them back to her story a little impatiently. "There is a temple nearby, the oldest building on the site. It is the only known temple in the Western Desert to be built in the name of Alexander the Great. A painting on the wall depicts Amun-Ra and Alexander. Some believe that Alexander passed through this oasis on his return from Siwa."
Haji slowed as he passed an old man driving a cart. The cart was the sawed off back half of a Toyota pickup truck which was being pulled by a mangy donkey. Kami smiled. That type of ingenuity wasn't something you'd see back home. The others didn't even seem to notice. She wondered if this was a fairly common sight.
"So Alexander's body could have been moved there?" Haji asked.
"It is possible," Yasmin said. "That is what Gedo was trying to find out. He was leading a group of students who were helping excavate mummies in Bahariya. On the drive, he saw a strange rock poking out of the sand. He stopped to examine it and cleared the earth away to discover a separate structure. He and his students got permission from the authorities to work on this site instead. He hoped to find more of the same as what had been found in the Valley of the Golden Mummies, like mummies, pottery shards, coins, and things of that nature.
"Instead, he found the greatest discovery of his life—artifacts that linked the site to Alexander the Great. He found a badly damaged map, a dagger of Greek origin that dates back to when he was alive, and a fragment of papyri with Alexander's name written on it. That's why he thinks he might find Alexander's body."
"Just because it has his name on it doesn't mean anything," Liam protested.
"It does when the fragment is a portion of the Secret of Secrets, written in Greek."
Liam whistled.
"Why didn't they report it on the news?"
"It was all hushed up until they could prove authenticity," Yasmin said.
They pulled off of the paved road and began jostling down a dirt path that Haji confirmed was, in reality, a well-maintained "road."
"What's the Secret of Secrets?" Kami asked.
"It's a series of letters supposedly written by Aristotle to Alexander while he was on his military campaigns in Persia," Haji said. "It has advice on everything from ethical questions that faced a ruler, to astrology, to the magical and medical properties of plants, gems, and numbers. It was possibly the most read book in the Middle Ages. But we only have copies in Arabic. Could this be an original manuscript?"
"Or a copy. They won't know for sure until they test it. And whether Aristotle wrote it, or Alexander did, or someone made a copy, it's an incredible find. It may prove that it was translated into Arabic from an original Greek source," Yasmin said.
"We're here," Haji said, pressing the brakes on the SUV.
Kami glanced down at her cell phone and noted the time, a couple of hours past noon. She peered out the window as they pulled up in front of the dig site. It consisted of a few rectangular structures surrounded by an occasional patch of parched grass. The entire dig site was about half the size of a basketball court. The rough walls and entryway were made of yellowing limestone blocks.
The site reminded her of treasure hunting movies, but there was something ominous about the place. Other than a few scattered tools, empty water bottles, and torn fabric, there was no sign of human life.
"I don't like this," Yasmin said. The others murmured in agreement.
They climbed out of the car, and Kami wilted under the blistering heat. The sun was directly overhead now, like a giant spotlight watching their every move and offering no protection from its fiery gaze. She shifted her feet to avoid either one getting too hot from the sand. They could see the excavation site better now.
A few canvas tents stood on the far side of the dig site, their once white fabric now splattered in dust and sand. Another tent was half crumpled; its door flap waved lazily in the breeze like a fallen soldier signaling surrender. Two or three crude wooden sheds, more lean-tos than anything, had been thrown together to shield some smaller ruins from the sun, or possibly rain, if this part of the desert ever had any. Ropes snaked through the area, fencing off certain sections.
There was a large pile of sand and rocks around the eastern perimeter, probably hauled there by the workers. The debris was mounded in a heap that reminded Kami of a giant grave. Most of the rocks were the size of skulls and the color of bones—possibly rubble from an old wall. A handful of buckets, picks and wheelbarrows were strewn about. A wooden ladder broken in two had been carelessly tossed aside.
The others entered the largest structure, but Kami lingered on the outside, touching the wall. She wondered if Alexander had buried these things here, possibly on his journey back from Siwa. His hand might have touched this same rock.
A movement caught her eye. There, inches from her hand, a black scorpion waved its stinger menacingly. She jerked her hand back.
"What the?"
She heard the shock in Liam's voice down in the structure. She hurriedly walked through the entryway and stepped down the stairs into the darkened enclosure. She blinked rapidly, her eyes trying to adjust to the dimmer light. At last, she could see it.
There, on the ground, lay a heaping river of insects. The pile was at least three feet wide and several inches deep and twisted throughout the entire length of the structure. She had never seen anything like it. There must be thousands, no millions.
Kami and Yasmin crouched down to look closer.
Earwigs. It was a ton of dead earwigs; their little bodies lay face up, legs contorted, as if their final living moments had been a futile struggle against ... against what? There was something odd about them. Their tiny bodies were clear. She could see through them. It was almost as if they had molted and abandoned their skins, but they hadn't. The earwigs were whole, simply drained, she thought. Drained of color.
"Creepy," Yasmin said, shuddering.
"Beyond creepy," Kami said standing up. "What could have caused this?"
"Any ideas Haj?" Liam asked.
"I don't know. I have never seen anything like it," Haji replied, clearly shaken by the sight.
Yasmin stood up and brushed off her pants, stepping carefully around the insects. She climbed out of the structure and Liam followed.
"Gedo?" she called, then yelled a few more words in Arabic.
Kami shuddered as she looked down at the pile of insects. She used to think it was just a myth that earwigs ever actually entered the ear, until she slept under the stars with her friend one night. What was her name? She couldn't even remember. The girl woke up in the night holding her ear and screaming like someone had plunged a knife into her stomach. Her parents had rushed to her side, and when they checked her with a flashlight, a huge ugly earwig had crawled out of the girl's ear. It hadn't caused any lasting damage, but Kami had hated the bugs ever since.
She nudged a toe against the earwigs. A few spilled over her shoe, which she promptly kicked off, her heart beating hard, her stomach clenching. They were dead. She knew they were dead, but it didn't stop her from imagining them climbing up, up, under her pant legs, up her sleeves, into her ears, into her mouth. Her friend's scream still echoed in her ears.
Kami shuddered. She needed to quit psyching herself out.
"He is nowhere to be found," Yasmin said, clearly upset. "It doesn't make any sense. No one's here, not Gedo, or any of the guards. Bakr's, Nasib, and Abdul and the other students are all gone. Gedo would never have left the site unguarded. It's too valuable to him. Especially after..."
"After what?" Kami asked.
"I'm not supposed to talk about it."
That was strange, Kami thought. What could Yasmin be so secretive about? What had happened here? Did it have anything to do with the dead earwigs? She looked around.
"Where's Liam?" she asked.
"Still out there I guess," Yasmin said.
Kami saw a flicker, a flash of black out of her peripheral. She looked to the left. Nothing. Then she saw it again, another flash of something dark dart by, there, and then gone again. She tried to pinpoint its source, but couldn't in the dim light.
"Did anyone else see that?" she asked. No one answered, and she noticed the others were staring at her with mouths agape.
"What?"
Yasmin pointed at her. Kami looked down.
Her necklace was glowing again.
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I would be thrilled if you would hit that little star ;)
Looking for some spectacular reads? Check out Seize the Day by @Katie Spektor, Nephelem Journies by @SelinaShapland and An Unexpected Love by @nmmorton. I'm enjoying them all tremendously. I will post links in the comment box below.
This dedication goes out to an awesome writer @JessicaBFry! I have been thoroughly enjoying her book Tue-Rah. She writes fabulous description and her villains are deliciously evil. I also appreciate her feedback on my story, including one bit of advice that when implemented made the scene so much better. So if you get a moment, check her out!