Most of the Egyptian workers have followed us back to the boat, some of them bringing musical instruments. Marwa and Noha pull together a last-minute feast, and the eating, singing and dancing go on for hours.
And so it should. Finding an intact artefact is not as common as you might imagine, and this one is a particularly fine specimen. I only wish Sadie had found it before her father had visited. What a joy it would’ve been to see his face then.
By the time the workers have all wandered back to their camp, Garret and the Cambridge boys are passed out on the back deck, and there’s no sign of Riley, who disappeared shortly after we arrived back, disinterested in celebrating Sadie’s find. There’s only one lone figure sitting on a cushion at the front of the boat, gazing out over the almost full moon reflected off the dark, glassy surface of the Nile. You’d be hard-pressed to find a more romantic setting.
“You did well today. You should be very proud of yourself.” I drop to the deck next to Sadie and hand her a fresh bottle of beer, lifting mine for a toast. This is the first moment we’ve had to talk about what happened today.
She taps the mouth of her bottle against mine and takes a long gulp.
“I can’t believe it. I came here to experience Egypt. I never thought I’d find anything. I mean, maybe a bit of broken pottery or a couple of beads. But a whole pot? And it’s so divine,” she whispers, her voice full of awe.
I remember the feeling of my first find. It’s euphoric. Sadie’s pot being so beautiful and unbroken makes it all the sweeter.
“I found absolutely nothing on my first dig.” I laugh, remembering my disappointment. “Very few people do. Even fewer find anything as remarkable as that vessel.”
“I don’t want to go to Asyut tomorrow. I want to stay here and keep digging.” Sadie turns to me, eyes shining with excitement. “If one pot survived, there could be more.”
Jesus. She reminds me so much of myself. Before.
Before I lost that passion. Before it was buried in the guilt and the grief and the anger. I hadn’t realised it, but to a large extent, even here in Egypt, I’ve been going through the motions for the past few years. Until this dig. Until I was seeing it all through Sadie’s fresh eyes. Sadie’s passion. Sadie’s thirst for knowledge and experience and life.
I don’t want to go to Asyut either. I want to stay and dig. Beside Sadie. But I can’t let the rest of the students go off unsupervised. And I can’t stay here alone with Sadie.
“I get it. But it needs to be a group decision. We’ll talk to the others in the morning. See how everyone feels.”
Sadie sighs. “I can tell you how Riley will feel, and it won’t be good. You saw how she reacted when we got back and she found out about my pot.”
“Let’s not think about her right now. You should be basking in the glory of your find.”
Leaning back on my elbows, I stretch my legs out and cross my ankles.
“What was the first hint you had that you’d found something?” It’s all I need to say to open the floodgates.
Hearing Sadie talk about it takes me right back to the first thing I ever found on a dig, although it was nowhere near as extraordinary as the pot she found today. She talks and talks. Until she finally runs out of superlatives. Then she hesitates.
“You’re going to think this is weird …”
“Try me.” I’ve experienced some pretty weird and profound stuff in Egypt. I saw the way the Pyramids affected her. The way the tiny hairs were standing up on her arms as she uncovered that pot today. I doubt I’ll be surprised.
“When we arrived in Bangalay, and you went into the barn to see Will and Freyja, Diana said something to me.” She pauses, picking at the fraying label of her beer bottle. “I didn’t understand it at the time. But now I think I do.”
“Will says Diana is a psychic, so I’m not surprised. What did she say?”
“She said I’d know when I found it. That it would call to me.”
“And did it?”
“Yes. At first, it was like at the Pyramids. A kind of buzzing feeling and white noise in my head. Then, all of a sudden, I could hear a voice. It was faint, and distant, and in a language I didn’t understand. But it was calling. To me. That much I knew.”
We’re lying side by side, facing one another on the deck in the light of the setting moon, our voices no more than whispers.
Maybe she expects me to scoff, but I know better than to imagine I have the answers to the mysteries of the universe. If she says she heard a voice, I believe her.
“I don’t think it’s weird. I think that pot was waiting for you. Finding it was fate.”
Sadie’s eyes are glowing, her hair falling across her cheek, raining down the forearm her cheek is propped on. Her breathing is light and fast. She smells of dust and the shampoo I made use of only a few nights ago. The warmth of her body reaches out to me across the narrow space between us.
I’m only human. There’s only so much temptation I can resist. And this is too much.
