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The rain drenched us all the way back to Anubis House. There was no way we were getting in to save them from whatever the adults were doing right now. I hadn't wanted to leave at first—my boyfriend and my best friend are in there for Anubis' sake!—but Eddie insisted we go back when we tried to get into the gatehouse, but the code had changed.
Entering the kitchen through the door in the laundry, KT tells him pointedly, "Eddie, we can't just leave them there. Ashley, tell him!"
"The keypad's changed," Eddie points out before I get a chance to put my two-cents in. "The cellar door is locked. Okay, what are we going to do, sit out in a rainstorm all night?"
Fabian looks at him aghast. "If Alfie, Patricia, Jerome, and Joy are the descended, that means evil is—"
"The adults can wake Frobisher-Smythe," Eddie interrupts, "and a terrible evil is unleashed. I know."
"Okay. So let's go to Frobisher's office, go through his diaries."
"This is no time for more study," KT retorts. "We're all in danger!"
"Look, my dad's there, okay?" Eddie reminds us. I scoff, crossing my arms. The same dad that literally started a scholarship fund to get me, Jerome, Alfie, Patricia, and Joy into the school and into Anubis House, who stole the bracelet after setting KT and I up as distractions? "He wouldn't let anything bad happen."
"He wouldn't let anything bad happen?!" I repeat sharply. "He's the freakin' Seeker, he's orchestrated this whole plot, Eddie! He's letting bad happen right now!"
"Mr. Sweet is in this up to his neck," KT agrees with me. "We need to get them out of there before the ceremony happens."
"Yeah, how?" Eddie questions. I glance at the others. I don't have a clue of how we get in there to rescue them before the eclipse. "I will think of something, all right?"
"The eclipse is tomorrow," KT reminds him. "Can you please think faster?"
"Look, arguing is getting us nowhere," Fabian interjects as Eddie opens his mouth to retort. "I say we go to the antechamber. Maybe he left us a clue, something that can help us, anything."
"I'm with Fabian," I add. "We can't get them out of the gatehouse right now. Frobisher's left us a lot of clues in the past, so... let's go."
Eddie reluctantly sighs. "Yeah, it's worth a shot." He glances over to KT, whose eyes are on her phone as she quickly types something on it. "Who are you texting?"
KT looks up. "Alfie and Patricia. Someone needs to tell them who they really are."
"Yeah, good call."
—
I slip Nina's locket around my neck as we enter the cellar through the oven door. Fabian puts in the code for the antechamber and it slides open, like it always had.
"What are we looking for?" KT questions.
"We'll know when we find it," Fabian answers as the door slides back. I push my hair behind my ears, kneeling in front of Frobisher's desk. "Just push every button and pull every lever. This place is full of hidden compartments."
"Just avoid the one with the light that blinds you," I add, and Fabian nods. We don't need that right now, without an amulet or a mirror to help us.
Eddie looks over. "Hey, what if we call the cops?"
"'Hey, what if we call the cops?'" I repeat in a mocking voice, rolling my eyes.
"And tell them what?" Fabian retorts to him. "That an ancient Egyptologist is about to be woken up?"
"No," Eddie responds, "that there are four kids being held against their will at the gatehouse."
"Yeah, and then they'll say, 'Why?'" KT says. "And we'll say, 'To work on a school project."
"Yeah, I don't really think they're going to send a S.W.A.T team," Fabian says, "do you, Eddie?"
I jump up from behind the desk. "And that's why we don't go to the cops about stuff that happens at this school. No one would believe us."
"Fine," Eddie mumbles as Fabian stands on a couch to look at the bookshelves attached to the wall. I turn back to the desk. "Haven't you already searched every inch of this room, Fabian?"
"Well, maybe I missed something," Fabian responds.
"You? Dude, you don't miss anything. I mean, if there was something here, don't you think the house would have some sort of way to—" Eddie's interrupted when the desk drawer I've been trying to open comes all the way out and I fall backwards, holding onto it for dear life. "—tell us."
I look at the drawer, finding my balance. There's another part to it, behind where it should've ended at the back of the desk. "Did I just find a hidden drawer?"
"Uh, yeah," Eddie states. I set it on the desk, taking out something that looks old and Egyptian-like. Handing it over to Fabian, my cousin adds, "Pretty good, huh?"
"What is that thing?" I ask Fabian as he examines it.
"Some kind of film canister," Fabian answers. "We need a projector. There's one in the cellar."
Eddie volunteers to go out and get it for us as Fabian figures out the canister. He sets it up on a small table and aims it toward the wall above the desk and we sit down to watch the grainy film inside, hoping something that'll help us is on it.
The first shot is of a desert and a white tent, and people walking. "That's the expedition party," Fabian identifies.
"Oh, my God," I comment as it switches to a shot of the party together, celebrating what they've found. "This is... it's weird seeing them all alive and moving."
"That's Alfie, Patricia, Jerome, Joy, and Ashley's great-grandparents," Fabian says. I look at the faces of Michael and Elizabeth Henry, reminded of the crimes they committed and the prison sentence they served. They abandoned Lily for their own greed.
"What are they doing?" KT asks.
"Celebrating, I think," I comment.
Fabian shakes his head. "I think they're tomb robbing."
"Seriously?" Eddie says as I glance at Fabian. Tomb robbing, all of them? "Nice relative you guys got."
"Wait," I say slowly, "if they all stole, why were only Michael and Elizabeth convicted of it? Nina found an archive of an article about the trial her first year; it said nothing about the others being suspected, just the Frobisher-Smythes."
"There must've been more evidence against them than anyone else in the party," Fabian suggests. I hadn't realized Frobisher was missing from the frame until he walks into the shot and Fabian points him out.
"Great-grandpa," KT says proudly.
"He's tomb-robbing, KT," I remind her, unaware I'm wrong about his motives.
"So are yours."
"Yeah, fair."
As Frobisher tries to take whatever Alfie's great-granddad had in an act of anger, Eddie remarks, "He does not look happy." Frobisher manages to get it and runs toward the camera's direction, but then he stops and looks up at something, and then he starts ranting, though we have no idea what he's saying because there's no sound. It's a slab with hieroglyphics. "What's that?"
"I think it's a warning," Fabian says. "He's telling people what will happen to them if they steal from the pyramid: a curse."
"What do you mean?" I ask. A curse explains a lot of things. Just... not why my ancestors were the only ones convicted of tomb-robbing.
"I think," Fabian reiterates. "I think it means, um, sleep? Eternity?" A white spot appears on the film and that's the end. Fabian stops the projector, and for a moment, we're enshrouded in darkness as Fabian switches the lamp back on.
"Sleep for eternity," Eddie repeats. "Wait. Frobisher."
KT shakes her head lightly. "Are you kidding me? My great-grandpa gets cursed because they stole from some tomb?"
"And that's why their descendants are needed for the ceremony," he realizes.
"Because Frobisher took the rap for them," Fabian adds.
"What about the Henrys?" I say. I feel like I have more questions than answers about them. "He didn't take the rap for them. They were the only ones convicted. Why aren't they cursed to sleep for eternity?"
Fabian looks at me curiously. "Maybe their curse wasn't that." I raise my eyebrows, rolling my hand in the air for him to go on. "Look—okay, uh, they were found guilty when the rest of the party wasn't. They left behind a daughter, the Bringer of Death, who later found herself unmarried and pregnant when the father of her unborn child died. Your parents died in a car crash when you were the same age Lily was when she lost hers. You're the Bringer of Death."
"Wait, family curse?" I question, catching onto what he's implying. He nods hesitantly. "Are you kidding me? So the curse puts Frobisher to sleep and gives my entire family bad lives full of death for generations to follow? Are you kidding me?!"
"Exactly what I said," KT agrees.
After that, we sit in silence for a few minutes, contemplating what we know now. Family curse—I can't believe it. Again, you have got to be kidding me. Eddie finally says, "All right, so we got a movie. That helps us how?"
"Well," I say, "we know my entire life has sucked because of an ancient Egyptian curse on my family. So... at least I know that."
"Yeah, thanks, Ashley."
KT looks at us. "Well, the Osirian and the Bringer of Death, working together, will find a way. Don't worry. I believe in you guys."
Eddie gives a light smile. "Thanks, but—I mean—" Eddie stands up. "I mean, we can't get to the bracelet. We can't get to the descendants. What else are we gonna steal, the adults themselves?"
I perk up. I like that thought. I look over to Fabian, who has the same idea as me. "Eddie," he says, "that's brilliant."
I nod, agreeing strongly, "I am so in for turning the tables on the evil ones."
—
We go over our plan in our Sibuna room, waiting for a door to open to the house. It's really quiet with four students here missing. Only Mara and Willow are here, in my room, probably working on their project. I popped in to say I was going to work on mine in Jerome and Alfie's room, to take advantage of the quiet it afforded while they were being tutored by Denby for history. They both just accepted it as is.
Nearly ten o'clock now. I straighten my back when I hear a door close. "Someone's home."
Eddie's the first one to the door and out into the hallway. It's Victor who's come home. "Victor, we've been looking for you," Eddie informs.
"You can't drop a pin," KT adds. "Not all of us are here. Don't you think you should investigate that?"
"Are you talking of Lewis, Clarke, Mercer, and Williamson?" Victor states plainly.
Fabian's eyes narrow. "You know we are."
"Yes. I'm not expecting them back. Now, go to your rooms."
I glare at him as Eddie pulls us back. The only adult at this school who actually cares about us and our well-being is Trudy, but she's horribly naïve and believes the study group excuse. "That's it, then," KT says lowly. "They're gonna keep them there until the eclipse."
"Yeah, we've got no choice," Eddie adds as Victor steps to lock the front door. "Extreme action is now required. Agreed?" The three of us agree.
I wish Nina was here to see the mischievous look in Fabian's eye. She'd be so proud. "Fine. We stop the adults from getting to the ceremony."
"We kidnap Denby tomorrow morning," I say, "then Sweet."
"Then best of all—" KT looks over at Victor.
Victor's pocket watch is out of his pocket and he's holding a pin in his hand. "It is ten o'clock! You have five minutes precisely, and then I want to hear a pin... drop."
Eddie smirks as the pin falls onto the tiled floor. "We kidnap Victor."