"You've got your letter from the university!"
Mother must have been waiting for me by the door because I had barely stepped inside when she was already waving the letter in front of my face. I'm sure she would have opened it for me if it hadn't been an official letter. As it was, I took it from Mom and pressed my finger on the little square that read the fingerprints of the recipient. The little screen recognized me, lit up and the letter came into view.
"We are pleased to announce you have been accepted as a student in the faculty of Egyptology at the University of Ancient Cultures," the first sentence read.
A month had passed since my visit to the University Plate and the weirdest thing was that life had been going on as if nothing strange had ever happened to me. I had not heard a peep from Miro or Sara. I was certain they were not going to contact me ever again. I'd been wary of talking to strangers or touching them, and had not even been to the mall with my friends. I had searched the net for "dark souls" and "cursed souls" but there didn't seem to be factual sites anywhere. Just fantasy books, music, and blogs but nothing about real body snatching and soul switching.
"Eeek! You got into university! We have to celebrate this!" Mother took a few hurried steps this way and that, not knowing which direction she should go to first. "Now Muriel will have to eat all those snide remarks about our family being mediocre!"
Aunt Muriel, an accountant in a big law firm, was one of those people who enjoyed belittling others. Anyone earning less than she did, was beneath her respect. And mother was now clearly thinking she had something to stuff down Aunt Muriel's throat. All those worries about me not being able to make a decent living as an Egyptologist were put to one side as she enjoyed herself thinking about getting one over on my well-to-do, superior aunt.
The letter continued, stating a date two weeks off when accepted applicants were to arrive at the University Plate and sign in as a student – in person. And the study year would start in two months' time from now. During this time, the students were to arrange their accommodation at the university. A long list of contact persons for different dormitories followed.
I stared at the letter. Never in my wildest dreams had I expected to make it to a university, nor had I intended to. And of course, when I came to think of it – I couldn't even take the credit. It was the cursed soul who had done the job for me.
So how could I ever succeed in a university when I didn't know the foggiest about ancient Egyptian culture?
I rushed to my room, past gawking Tina whose face openly reflected my own emotions.
"I can't believe it... you, of all people! But you hated school! You only did your homework to get to the next level," she blurted out. "And you wanted to be a stewardess..."
"Well, that's what you thought," I said, slamming the door shut behind me before she could begin arguing with me again. For she was right – I had never been overly enthusiastic about school and had never done any extra work if I could avoid it.
From downstairs I could hear mother already on the phone, arranging for a party to celebrate my admittance to the university.
I sat by my desk. It had been a while since I had written to my dead friends.
"OK, are you there?" I asked and took my screen and the screen pen I used to write onto it. "Anyone?"
"Yes," the answer was in Mia's handwriting, "use paper."
Now that was odd. But I took the paper pad I had bought. The paper was not made of wood fiber but of stone dust. It was expensive to buy, and I didn't want to use it up.
As soon as I had the pad and pen in my hands, I felt Mia touching my hands and the writing began to flow.
"They are watching you."
"But how? I did not think the Black Lady followed me," I whispered for I thought I heard someone moving behind my door.
"She didn't. But it seems the dark souls are observing anything written on the net. Anyone who is searching the keywords dark soul or cursed soul is on their list. You've done that search many times, so they are routinely observing you now."
"How do you know this? Are you connected to the net somehow?"
"A geek arrived at the Halfway House a few days ago. When he told us about his life, it turned out he had been working in one of the Black Lady's companies. That isn't unusual - their net spreads widely and incorporates lots of business links. It seems he overheard something about their secret organization and as a result a convenient car accident brought his life to an end. The brakes were tampered with and he hit a wall at full speed. He liked speeding, as he'd just bought a new and expensive car, and everyone in the company was aware of this. Looked plausible, right? He told us that one of his jobs was to run spyware on the net and collect data about people using certain keywords. Dark souls and cursed souls were two of those. He said he wondered what religious mumbo jumbo that was, but after having been murdered he understood there was much more to it than he suspected."
"Wow..."
I had never thought about anyone tracing me through the keywords I used to find things on the net. Sure the advertisers followed everyone, but I was using a blocking program that found those spies and alerted me so I could cut them off. There seemed to be much more efficient spies on the net, though, than I had realised, as my computer had never warned me of anyone following me other than advertisers.
"And now when they find out I have been accepted to study Egyptology... if the lady in black learns about me looking for dark souls, and sees my picture... she will recognize me right away. Agh!"
My mugshot would be there, along with the photos of every other student attending the University Plate. This database was also shared with the shuttle station to make sure no outsiders could get to the Plate uninvited. So much for tight security. Judging by her efficiency, it seemed likely that the university database had already been hacked by the Black Lady or one of her associates.
I felt pressure on my hand and picked up the pen again.
"We're going now, to tell Miro and Sara about this," Mia wrote.
"But how can you do that?" I asked.
"We've been in their limousine, remember? It was not any old rental car, not with all that decor n books n stuff," Mia wrote. "We'll just use the revolving door. Should take us to where they live."
"Aha, ok, I get it."
The pressure in my hand ceased and I knew they were gone.
How could I have been so stupid? Searching for dark souls and cursed souls on the computer? I literally face-palmed myself. I needed to do something, but as I came up with nothing tangible, I drew the curtains of my room, as if somehow that would stop the Black Lady from finding me.
Mother managed to arrange a party for me for the following week. I spent that time looking for anything and everything that had nothing to do with souls or ancient Egypt on the computer. It took a lot of effort to dilute my search results by drowning the dangerous search terms into searches about makeup, clothing, vacation and romance novels. No strangers appeared in the neighborhood and I thought I had managed to keep incognito. One evening I felt someone touch my hand and Mia's handwriting announced that Sara and Miro had been informed of my predicament.
"Took a while to find them as the limousine garage was not anywhere near where they lived."
It made me feel better, somehow, knowing that they were up to date with what was happening. And then, with a mixture of pleasure and dread, the day of the party arrived.
As it was still the last month of winter, much to her disappointment mother could not hold the party in a tent outside in the garden. Our house was not that big, but she managed to arrange bowls of munchies and punch decoratively around the lower floor. Expensive floral arrangements dotted the rooms. She had even managed to get a sphinx-shaped cake made. I mean, honestly. She was doing her best to impress the relatives, and Aunt Muriel especially.
My father was on a shuttle mission somewhere on Earth, so he could not attend. He had sent me a gift, though – a new screen with unlimited memory space, a dictation program, and a gilded screen pen. I could use the screen to take pictures of the pages of any ancient texts (real books, that is) so I could read them without having to sit in libraries all day. Tina was green with envy. Her screen was constantly out of memory space with all the music videos and chat blogs she downloaded. She took endless selfies of herself every day – always with the same silly pouting expression she considered sexy. I thought she just looked vacant.
Relatives and friends began to arrive – they didn't all know what the event was for and eyed the sphinx cake with interest. Mother offered them punch and little salty appetizers she had bought from a catering service. When everybody had arrived, she clapped her hands.
"May I have your attention, everyone?"
People stopped chatting and turned to look at her expectantly. Mother stood there looking like the cat who got the cream. She opened her mouth to speak – and the doorbell rang.
"Who could it be?" she asked, "Do excuse me..."
She hurried to the door and opened it.
"Good afternoon – I heard you are celebrating Nina's admittance to the university," a familiar voice revealed mother's secret.
Everyone turned to look at me, Aunt Muriel was looking positively shocked. I probably looked shocked too, but for a different reason– it was the voice of the lady in black.
"Shit!" I mumbled to myself.
I could see her from the neck down – mother had hung a velvet curtain angled across the doorway to the living room (she was going through some sort of Baroque decorating phase) and its curve hid the Black Lady's face. What it did not hide was the necklace hanging low down her front – a very similar looking ankh to the one that Miro had worn. If that was what I thought it was, my dead companions would be visible to her now!
I felt a pair of hot hands grabbing my arms and dragging me upwards towards the stairs. I took the hint.
"Sorry... I forgot... something..." I said, retreating to the steps. "Be right back!"
Aunt Muriel would normally have stopped me in order to satisfy her bottomless curiosity about other people's business, but she was still clearly in a state of shock over my academic success. Because of this I managed to squeeze my way through the space between her ample form and the wall to the stairs.
"Welcome," I heard mother say, "do come in."
I practically ran into my room. Then I thought that no, that would be the first place for Mother to come and find me. So I ran into Mom's bedroom instead. It faced the street. I inched my way to the window, trying not to show my face and peered out.
Three men were lined up outside – muscular young men, standing so still they looked like mannequin dolls. They had to be with the Black Lady. As I peeked over the sill, one of them looked straight up towards me and I sank to the floor.
"What on earth can I do now?" I whispered.
I felt the hot hands still squeezing my arms and they were trembling too.
"Nina! Nina! Where are you? There is someone from the University here to meet you!"
Mother's voice was so loud I knew she was trying to salvage the situation as well as she could now that her great announcement was ruined.
"Upstairs? OK, if you don't mind waiting here a moment, I'll go and get her."
Mom's voice, followed by steps on the stairs... Shit! They would find me in no time!
Right then an odd sound came from outside. It was like an ice cream van times ten. If a tune could have bling-bling, this one did. I got up and peeped out again from between mom's velvet curtains and the wall. I heard a commotion downstairs, it was like everyone was rushing out at the same time.
Which is exactly what was happening. For a vehicle approached that anyone and everyone living on the plates wanted to stop at their door. The Great Lottery Van – one of those big limousines like a bus, similar to that one of Milo and Sara, but this one was decorated with gold and crushed diamonds. The only time it appeared was to deliver the cheque for the lucky jackpot winner. Someone in our neighborhood had hit the big time.
All my relatives swarmed out of the door and into the front garden, not minding the snow one bit. I saw the Black Lady among them, pushed over backwards – she was flailing her hands helplessly, trying to get back in. But there was no stopping Muriel's impressive bulk shoving her forwards in her eagerness to get to the Lottery Van.
It took the young men trying to reach the Black Lady a while to get there – the sheer quantity of people now flooding the street surprised even me. The men grabbed the Black Lady by the arms and dragged her out from between Muriel and her similarly-sized husband. I swear I heard a "plop" and Muriel almost fell onto her ample hiney when her bulk lost balance on her high heels. The Black Lady's escorts pulled her into her black car and drove off. The last I saw was her furious face staring out of the car window.