☾ ☽
We've been trapped in Robert Frobisher-Smythe's crypt for ten minutes, and every possible out we find isn't actually an out. It all leads back to the crypt.
"Another dead end," Eddie mutters, coming out of the last door.
"Great," I mumble.
We're in the beginning of a Stephen King novel and I don't know about anyone else here, but I'd prefer reading and watching those rather than living it. Then again, my life for the past three years feels like it's been a really bad Stephen King novel. Just take away the clowns, the creepy twins, and the guy who goes HERE'S JOHNNY! and add in ancient Egyptian gods, creepy crypts, and Victor going IT'S TEN O'CLOCK!
"At least if I'm buried alive," I hear KT say, "I'm in the family tomb, right?"
I look back at the coffin, stepping towards it. Fabian's using the light of his phone to examine it. "So, if Frobisher's in the tank," I say to him quietly, "what do you think is inside this thing?"
"Air, probably," Fabian responds. "It's probably empty."
"You think his body was ever in the thing?"
Before he gets a chance to answer, KT opens the door behind us and out come several bats—as if things weren't freaky enough—and we all let out exclamations of surprise as we duck from them. As the bats fly out of sight, Fabian closes the door back, saying to us, "It's okay. They're just bats."
"Right!" KT exclaims. "Just bats in this just crypt!"
"Well, they got out," Fabian states, eyeing wherever the bats had disappeared to. "Maybe we can."
Patricia almost glares at him. "So we just have to sit here and wait long enough to grow wings."
I sigh, pushing my hair out of my face. My hand touches the charm around my neck, making sure it hasn't fallen off in the crypt of a man who's not just not-entirely-dead but one who is somehow a part of my insanely complicated family tree. And the one who, intentionally or not, got us into this whole thing.
The Cup of Ankh. The Mask of Anubis. And now whatever's going on this year, which feels like a dozen things at once.
"Is anybody there? Ahh!"
I look up when I hear the echoing voice. I would recognize it anywhere. "Alfie?!"
Within seconds, we've all run across the crypt to where his voice came from—a vent close to the ground. Eddie yells that it's us as I just barely see Alfie's face back away, getting smaller.
"You guys alive," he says, "dead or undead?"
I share a relieved, amused look with Fabian as Eddie answers, "We're alive, all right? Ah, here. I'm gonna pass you the key through the grate, all right?" Alfie takes it and Eddie tells him how to get us out, and less than two minutes later, the door that trapped us in here in the first place opens again.
Alfie falls through, shuddering as he brushes off his clothes.
"Dude," Fabian says to him as Eddie holds the door, keeping it from closing on us again, "you faced your fears and saved us!"
"Yeah, well," he says, "my middle name is courage."
"It's Marmaduke," I correct with a smile, hugging him. Eddie holds the door open with a stick that looks like a fork in a road.
"Anyway," Alfie says, pushing me off him, "what's this?"
Fabian nods. "Well, there's some kind of inscription on the tomb, hieroglyphics?"
"Wait, I can read that," Alfie remarks, staring at the part of the tomb with Frobisher's initials and the year he was born—one year off— and the year he—allegedly—died in.
"It's just the date of Frobisher's birth and fake death," Eddie tells him.
"Though it's wrong," KT states. "Born 1881?"
"He was born in 1880," I add, looking at her. "Why would they get the date wrong? Accident or on purpose?"
She shrugs. Eddie says, "I just remembered something from that book. We need to go back to the antechamber."
—
Eddie grabs the book off the couch once we're in the antechamber. I look at the cover, reading the title aloud, "Book of the Dead?"
"I saw it when I came here before," Eddie answers, flipping through the yellowed pages and not sparing me or anyone else a glance.
"For, like, one minute," Patricia says, sounding and looking impressed, "and you got all this?"
"Okay, look at the page number," Eddie says, pointing to it in the corner. 1881.
"The wrong date for Frobisher's birthday," Fabian realizes. "Just like in the crypt."
I look over to look at the page fully, seeing the sepia-tone photo of a tomb that looks eerily like the one we just hung out with for fifteen minutes. There's text underneath. "What does that caption say?"
"'The Book of the Dead' was etched into the side of tombs,'" Eddie reads for us.
"Yeah, still not liking all this tomb talk," Alfie comments.
"Someone circled a section of it," KT notices, pointing to the drawn circles on the photo, "but why? Why these symbols? Unless... guys, what are the words that we're looking for?"
"The words for the ceremony?" Eddie says.
"Yeah," KT confirms.
Oh. Oh! Oh, no way. The words needed for the ceremony are inscribed onto Robert Frobisher-Smythe's likely-empty tomb? Geez.
"Well, we need to get back to Frobisher's tomb," Fabian says excitedly. "If there's only certain symbols we're looking at, I should be able to decode them. Ash, you in?"
"Obviously," I say.
KT looks between us and grins. "Great, I'll come with you two."
Eddie claps his hands together. "Okay, back to Plan A. Get Harriet, stop evil, save the world, and—never have porridge for breakfast again."
"Yes," Alfie cheers, "no porridge."
—
The actual school part of the school day is uneventful. But our symbol decoding? The complete opposite. Fabian, KT, and I spend breaks between classes in the lounge, each having taken our own portion of the symbols to translate. Mine ends up being just one word—hotep, which means peace. Pretty much the exact opposite of what the trio of evils want to bring to the world. I mean, resurrection never ends well. I've seen zombie movies. And by the end of the day, Fabian and KT have translated theirs as well, which means we have our full translation—cue a Sibuna meeting.
The Book of the Dead is in Fabian's clutches when we pile into our Sibuna room after school. Eddie's the last one in, and when he shuts the door behind him, he unwittingly says the same thing that Fabian, KT, and I were planning to say, "We got news—"
Alfie and Patricia just look at us. He says, "Okay, I have no news. I didn't know we had to bring news."
Eddie comes right out with his news first. "Team Evil's planning to do the ceremony tonight."
"Wha—they aren't!" I say, despite knowing that Eddie wouldn't lie about this. He must've overheard one of them talking to another and got the date that way.
"They are," Eddie confirms.
Our news is wildly different from Eddie's. Fabian tells it for us, "Well, we solved Frobisher's symbols."
"Yay," Alfie remarks.
"Three words," KT says. "Chessie em hotep."
"Rise in peace," I translate. "Not rest. Rise. Which, I guess, makes some sort of twisted sense if this is really the incantation for the ceremony."
"It's gotta be it!" Eddie states. "Okay, now we show Harriet we mean business. Come on, let's go break her out!"
—
The thing is—we've been basically quarantined. We're on lockdown inside the house, and the only way for us to get past Victor the guard dog is a distraction, and thank God for Alfie's book of distractions. He's not subtle at all in trying to open the door, therefore grabbing hold of Victor's attention in his office and causing him to come racing down the stairs to stop him, holding Corbierre the stuffed raven.
"You are on lockdown, Lewis," he states. "Go to bed."
"Well, Victor," Alfie says with something between a scoff and a laugh, "come now, it's only 7:30." As he walks down the hallway to gesture to the clock, Patricia, stationed in the living room, motions across to us on the other side of the corridor when Victor steps toward Alfie, therefore giving the four of us left a way to get out of the house without being noticed.
Safely outside the house, we don't risk taking even a moment to stop. And so, we go to Lakehouse Clinic once again, sneaking passed various orderlies and into Harriet's room. It's dark in there, like it was the last time, so I reach around for a light switch as Eddie speaks to her.
"Harriet," he says, "we've come to get you like we promised."
"Got the light," I say, switching on the bedside lamp. But what we're met with, instead of Harriet, is an empty bed. It's bare of sheets, and nothing that was here last time is here now. Including the real Harriet Denby.
"She's gone," KT says gravely. "Harriet—she's not here."
"Don't panic," Eddie tells us quickly, running to check under the bed for her. I run a hand through my hair, close to pulling it out. This can't be happening!
KT checks the wardrobe, finding nothing. "But we need her to perform the ceremony! Without her, they'll unleash evil!"