Page 1
Chapter one
A Reckoning
The stars look wrong. It’s a strange thought, but as I sit at my computer watching a live feed of Cairo’s night sky, I can’t shake it. I’ve barely spent time in that city, yet ever since returning from the dig, this feeling won’t leave me. Even when I look up at the sky over New York, half a world away from that dig sight in Egypt, a persistent unease gnaws at me, as if only I can see the stars are wrong. I try to ground myself at my tiny cubicle, willing my mind to ignore it, but each glance at the feed only makes the stars seem more subtly and disturbingly out of place. I know it shouldn’t matter; they’re just stars, untouchable, but the wrongness leaves me with a rising sense of urgency.
I close the window and turn back to my work, clicking through academic papers on Egyptian funeral practices. Still, my mind drifts to the stars. It shouldn’t bother me this much. I’m an archaeologist, not an astronomer, and I have more pressing concerns. But the stars aren’t nothing. They’re another reminder that something is off, another thing echoing the mistakes I made.
"Mary, ready to call it a night?" Carol’s cheerful voice floats over the low cubicle wall. "We’re hitting the bar across the street."
"No, I have plans," I mutter as I scroll down another document, my eyes skipping the small text, instead searching for the next set of glyphs.
"Plans," Terry scoffs from the cubicle beside me. "You know you don't have to go to the museum every night. I figure out more stuff over a beer than over a book."
I flush at how easily Terry sees through my lie. I haven’t exactly hidden what I’ve been doing since we got back from the dig, but having it called out so bluntly rattles me. I panic.
"No, I'm going to see someone."
"Really?!" Carol says with a burst of enthusiasm, her round, caramel-colored face and black, wavy hair pushing over the cubicle wall.
"Really?" Terry adds, his own pale, scraggly features leaning in to join Carol’s.
"Really," I say, hoping I’m not digging myself in deeper.
I check my email one last time, hoping for a message from the NYU professor who’s still reluctant to share the research I helped write—afraid, maybe, of what might happen if my name is attached. I can feel Terry watching me, trying to read the truth, but my inbox is as empty as ever.
"So when the rest of us leave for the Penny Pint, we aren't gonna see you heading south down Amsterdam Ave towards the museum again?" Terry replies with another pinpoint attack.
"No," I shoot back as I lock my university computer.
"Oh, leave her alone," Carol says, before someone stops by her desk to ask her about Hellenic something or other.
I turn and see Terry’s eyes narrow out of the corner of mine. Not a menacing glare; in fact, on Terry’s face I recognize it as more concern than anything. He gets up and steps around to my side of the cubicle before crouching down next to me.
"Hey, for what it's worth, I’m glad you’re spending more time on real work. I don’t know what happened on the dig, but we were all worried; you were getting reckless." His voice is gentle, almost brotherly. That’s why I trust him and Carol, even if their meddling annoys me.
At the same time, the mention of recklessness makes me stiffen, a reminder of why I’m so desperate to find what I’m searching for in these notes on Egyptian funeral practices, as much as I am to decipher the wrongness in the stars.
He notices me flinch, concern flickering across his face. I force a smile. "Everything’s fine, really. I just think I’m onto something."
"I thought you had a date?" Terry shoots back with an amused, knowing smile.
I swallow, my throat dry. "I do, and uh, I met him because of the new work."
Before Terry has another chance to question me, Carol grabs him by the arm and starts dragging him in the direction of some of our other colleagues who are already heading towards the door. She smiles back and gives a reassuring, "I'm sure he's great. Don't stay out too late; we are still teachers, remember?"
"I won't," I say nervously before waiting till they're all properly out the door to slip out the side entrance.
To spite Terry, I avoid Amsterdam Avenue and go down Broadway, past my colleagues’ usual haunts. I walk two dozen blocks through Manhattan’s bustle and turn east onto 81st. Halloween decorations—especially mummies—peer from the window of my favorite Egyptian restaurant, a crude parody of my own persistent fear. Only when the shops and decorations fade do I cross Amsterdam to make my way to the museum.
I pause at the edge of the park, the honking cars and crisp autumn air feeling strangely foreign. Deep down, I know tonight will be another fruitless search, especially without my own dig notes, but it’s as if I’m compelled to keep searching until I understand what happened.
Staring at the massive museum across Central Park, Terry’s well-meaning lectures echo in my mind, not just from today, but from every day since I returned. Each night I make this pilgrimage, clinging to the horror and guilt of what happened, desperate to find a way to make sense of it all. Yet with every new set of glyphs, I only feel further from any answers.
For a moment, I think about those Halloween decorations, not the mummies themselves, but what they represent. Am I wasting my life on something that might not have even happened? Maybe I’m blowing it all out of proportion. I could turn back, join my colleagues, claim my date flaked, and try something different, just for tonight.
But something anchors me, a sense of duty, or maybe obsession, that draws me toward the museum. Before I realize it, I’m striding toward the Met’s service entrance, passing guards who scarcely glance up from their conversations about late-night shadows and irritable patrons. Only Mikey, the rotund night guard, gives me a wave. “That mummy you found is still sleeping like a baby.”
“Good to know, Mikey,” I reply with a weary smile before finding my way to the stacks of photos and field notes from past Egypt expeditions.
