Sudi had no idea what Abdel wanted with her, but she no longer believed this was a practical joke, or a new reality show. She eased backward, afraid, and bumped into a table, knocking over a glass. Water trickled onto the floor near her feet.
Still clutching the scroll, she spun around and tried to run. Her feet slipped on the ice cubes and water. She almost fell, then regained her balance and dashed into the hallway. She grabbed her backpack, kicked out of her shoes, and sprinted down the carpet.
A gun fired as she ran for the elevator.
“Come on. Come on.” She furiously hit the call button.
Abdel stepped out of the restaurant and ran toward Sudi as the metal doors opened. She rushed inside and pushed LOBBY, then DOOR CLOSE.
She fell back against the wall, gasping for air.
An arm shot between the closing doors, and Abdel slipped inside. The doors shut behind him, and the elevator started down.
Sudi tried to punch the alarm button, but Abdel grabbed her hand and kissed the tips of her fingers.
“Please,” Sudi said. “Don’t touch me.”
“Don’t be afraid,” he whispered and clasped her head in his hands, pulling her toward him.
Sudi whimpered.
Abdel rested his lips against her forehead, his breath warm on her face, and spoke the same strange language he had spoken to Meri.
“Heb menekh hekau,” he whispered. “Uab ab-ek. Hu en na ek nifu er fet-ef.”
And then, unexpectedly, Sudi understood the words. Or was it that he was speaking English again? She wasn’t sure. Her nerves were raw, and her heartbeat thundered in her ears.
“Sublime of magic,” Abdel continued. “Your heart is pure. To you I send the power of the ages.”
In spite of being in a closed elevator, wind blew into Sudi’s nostrils and filled her lungs. Her chest heaved, trying to catch a breath not tainted with the smell of tombs.
Abdel forced her head down, and then his lips moved against her hair, over her birthmark.
“Divine one,” he whispered. “Come into being. I awaken the soul of ancient Egypt, lying dormant in your soul.”
He released her.
Her knees buckled, and he caught her before she fell.
When the elevator doors opened, Sudi grabbed her backpack and scrambled out into the reception area. She collided with Meri’s bodyguards, who had run down the stairs.
As the elevator closed, the two men forced the doors open and looked inside.
The elevator was empty.
“Where did he go?” the taller one shouted at Sudi.
Sudi shook her head. “I didn’t see.”
“Wait here,” he commanded.
But pure instinct was driving Sudi now. She needed to go someplace safe, and that meant home.
When the men ran off, Sudi hurried outside.
Sirens filled the night. Secret Service agents climbed from black sedans and charged inside.
Still in a daze, Sudi ran across Fifteenth Street and headed north, crossing into Lafayette Park in front of the White House. She slouched on a bench in the darkness, her knees shaking too violently to continue.
Her scalp itched, and her birthmark burned. She opened her backpack, searching for her mirror. The tattered scroll was resting on top even though she couldn’t remember putting it there. She started to throw it away, then thought better of it, crushed it under her books, and found her mirror. She studied herself, wondering what Abdel had done to her. Wisps of hair stood in a halo around her head as though she had walked through a cloud of static electricity.
“Sudi?” Someone called her name.
She jumped up, ready to run, her bare feet stinging with blisters and cuts.
Scott walked toward her in a slow, even stride. He still wore his school uniform: gray slacks, blue blazer, and white shirt. He had loosened his red tie. His curly brown hair brushed against his collar, and in the dim light he looked more handsome than her memory of him. He still had his California tan even though he lived in D.C. with his grandmother now. Rumor had it that he had gotten into trouble with drugs back in Los Angeles.
“What’s wrong?” he asked with true concern in his voice.
“Just a bad case of the frizzies,” she answered, trying to sound lighthearted when all she wanted was to fall into his arms and cry. Her day could not possibly get worse—and then she saw Michelle.
Michelle strutted toward them. The Entre Nous uniform jacket fit most girls like a box, but Michelle had had hers tailored to accentuate every curve. The top two buttons of her white shirt were undone, offering a view of her lace bra and cleavage.
“Hey, Sudi,” Michelle said and wrapped her hands possessively around Scott’s arm. Sudi and Michelle had been best friends through elementary school, but in junior high Michelle had been accepted into the academy, and the two of them had quickly grown apart.
But instead of responding to Michelle’s challenge, Sudi walked away, her brain too flustered and confused to let her engage in flirtatious combat over Scott.
“Sudi,” Michelle called after her, sounding disappointed.
“Later,” Sudi replied over her shoulder.
“Do you need a ride?” Scott yelled.
She shook her head in response and continued to the street. At the curb, she hailed a cab and eased inside. She waved good-bye and closed her eyes, grateful no one would be home yet. On Monday nights her sisters had dance lessons, and her mom and dad always took them out to eat afterward.
A short ride later, Sudi hurried inside her house and ran upstairs to her parents’ bedroom. She opened the chest at the foot of their bed. The smell of cedarwood filled the air. She pulled out her baby-photo album and fanned through the pages.
In every picture, a bonnet or cap or blanket covered her head. And then she found one. She tore it out, certain now that the eye on Dalila’s scalp had been a tattoo. In the picture, Sudi’s birthmark looked like an ordinary dark mole.
She sat on the edge of her parents’ bed and considered what had happened. Maybe Abdel, Dalila, and Meri had only been part of some strange initiation that Sudi had to go through before she could date a guy at Entre Nous. The students were known for being snooty and sticking together, excluding outsiders. She imagined Abdel telling Scott everything that Sudi had done. Maybe they had even videotaped it and were watching her now, laughing at the fear in her eyes.
Sudi tossed the photo back into the chest and slammed the lid back down. No guy was worth that kind of trouble, not even a hottie like Scott.
Sudi crunched into the dill pickle she was sharing with Sara, then took a sip of Coke and handed both back to her friend. She had thought the class trip to the Smithsonian Institute would be an easy way to avoid Brian and Dominique, but when she stepped onto the school bus that morning, she had found herself face to face with the two of them, embraced in a kiss.
She had tossed them a friendly smile, even though she had wanted to spit. But what she remembered most was the way Dominique had smelled of jasmine and roses. The designer perfume was something Sudi’s mother would never have bought for her.
“How can Dominique look so beautiful at the end of the day?” Sudi complained. Dominique was walking by herself toward the line of school buses parked in front of the Washington Monument.
Sara turned, her rhinestone skull earrings jangling against her necklaces.
“Dominique is wondering the same about you,” Sara said. “I bet she rubs her skin raw trying to get the glow that comes naturally to you. And her curly bun is definitely an add-on.” Sara grabbed a fistful of Sudi’s blond tangles. “No one can compete with this. Your hair is gorgeous, and so are you.”
“You’re the best friend ever,” Sudi said and hugged Sara.
“Aw, quit with the mushy stuff.” Sara tossed the remains of the pickle and Coke into a trash bin. “Where do you want to go next?”
Sudi glanced at her watch. “It’s time to go back to the bus.”
“We can’t leave without
visiting Minister Cox,” Sara said and pulled on Sudi’s arm. They dodged the oncoming joggers and hurried across the treelined lawn to the National Museum of Natural History.
At the security station, Sudi unzipped her backpack. The guard stuck a wooden stick inside and shone the beam of a flashlight around the grinning monkey faces on her Paul Frank pajamas. She was spending the night with Sara so they could finish their class project on space travel.
After Sara passed through the security check, the two of them ran around the African elephant display in the center of the rotunda, took the escalator down to the ground floor, and rode the elevator near the Constitution Avenue entrance up to the Origins of Western Culture exhibit on the second floor.
“I love all the cubbies and alcoves in this exhibit,” Sara said, rushing around the diorama of an early man drawing a bison on a cave wall. “This would be the best place in the world for a game of hide-and-seek.”
They stopped in front of the outer coffin of Tenet-Khonsu, an ancient Egyptian high priestess.
Sudi had told Sara everything that had happened the night before with Abdel. Now Sara looked at the hieroglyphs. “Tell me what they say.”
Sudi had seen the same pictographs before, but this time she felt she could decipher their meaning. She read out loud, “I have not sullied the world of the Nile.…”
She stopped. How could she know what the symbols meant? Yet she was confident that she had interpreted them correctly.
“Show-off,” Sara teased and playfully elbowed her. “Did Abdel teach you how to read hieroglyphs, too?”
“Lucky guess,” Sudi answered. She couldn’t, of course, read in any language except English. Yet somehow she knew the meaning of the symbols inscribed on the coffin.
“But it’s a cool idea,” Sara said with a scampish grin. “We could bring Abdel and Dalila here, and you could pretend like you can read the hieroglyphs, and you could tell them something dire.” Sara started laughing, her imagination taking hold of her.
Sudi gave her a look. “I don’t want to continue the game with Abdel and Dalila. I just want to forget it ever happened.”
“You will,” Sara said and moved on to the mummy called Minister Cox. She tapped the glass. “Can you imagine having your bones on display in a museum? They should make it against the law.”
Sara talked as she always did about the unfairness of denying Minister Cox a proper burial, but Sudi walked on to the next coffin and concentrated on the hieroglyphs. She understood the text. How was that possible?
Finally, she read the inscription out loud. “As for anyone who might pass, pause and make an offering, that I might be well remembered—”
“Stop,” Sara said and nudged her. “You’re creeping me out now. You made the words sound too real.”
Sudi clenched the strap on her backpack, trying to stop a sudden sense of falling. If she could read the ancient writing, then was it possible that the other things Abdel had told her were also true? She took a quick step back and caught herself.
“What’s wrong?” Sara asked.
Sudi shook her head. “Nothing,” she answered. “Have you ever heard of someone called Horus?”
“The Egyptian god Hor?” Sara asked and didn’t wait for a reply. “The Greeks called him Horus. He battled the god Seth. It was that typical fight between good and evil. Horus stood for order, and Seth wanted to destroy the world. Did Abdel talk about him?”
Sudi couldn’t answer, because a sudden feeling of nausea had overcome her. She rushed to the restroom at the back of the exhibit, hurried inside, and turned on the cold water, splashing it onto her face. She took several deep breaths, her head in the sink, then looked up and stared at her reflection in the mirror.
Sara appeared behind her, watching her.
“Hey, are you okay?” Sara asked.
Sudi nodded, even though her legs felt wobbly. “I think I’m coming down with the flu,” she lied. She had no intention of leaving the museum until she had had a chance to study the hieroglyphs alone and find a rational explanation for what was happening. “Go on without me. I’ll catch a cab.”
“You know you aren’t allowed to do that,” Sara said.
“Do you think Mrs. Grumm wants me puking on the bus?”
“Yeah, I guess you’d start a real vomit fest,” Sara laughed. She stepped closer and rubbed Sudi’s back. “I’ll stay with you.”
“Go on,” Sudi said. “I’ll be okay.”
“Are you sure?” Sara asked, looking doubtful.
“Please,” Sudi answered and rushed into a stall pretending that she was going to be ill. “I don’t want you to watch me.” She slammed the door and made gagging noises until she heard Sara’s retreating footsteps on the tiled floor.
Sudi waited, the leaking faucet counting out the seconds. Then she went back to the glass-enclosed display and stared at the inscriptions. She was definitely reading the hieroglyphs, or at least, in her mind she had been tricked into believing that she could. Abdel must have hypnotized her, given her a posthypnotic instruction to make her believe she could read the ancient writing even though she couldn’t.
She imagined the students at Entre Nous laughing at what Abdel had done to her. Even so, she couldn’t understand why she had been singled out.
A muffled noise made Sudi aware that someone was nearby. She spun around, and, when she didn’t see anyone, she called out, “Hello.”
Silence answered her. Something in the quiet made her tense. She sensed someone moving stealthily about.
The exhibit had alcoves, niches, and spaces under the displays where a person could hide, and hide again. But she didn’t go looking for the prowler. Her mother had told her to trust her intuition, especially when she felt unsafe, so, without hesitation, Sudi made her way to the elevator.
When she was halfway there, she noticed splotches of mud on the carpet. She followed the trail to a long mound packed against the bottom of the elevator. More clay had been plastered over the frame and door.
Large oval seals were stamped on the surface, and inside each was her name, written in hieroglyphs. A panicked feeling came over her. She had listened to the short documentaries about Egyptian burial customs that ran continuously on the small screen in the museum theater and knew that seals like these had often been placed on tombs.
Someone was going out of his way to frighten her. Entre Nous students had a reputation for having an eccentric sense of humor, but she didn’t think they would go this far. Maybe it was someone who had a darker side.
The lights went out, and then she knew.
“Brian,” she said angrily. “This is so not funny.”
When no one answered, she headed toward the gem exhibit, where the Hope Diamond was displayed, and stopped, puzzled. A wall stretched in front of the hallway that led back to the rotunda. She hadn’t noticed it there before. Maybe she had just been so busy talking to Sara that she hadn’t seen it.
She hurried toward the exit at the other side of the exhibit, determined not to break into a run and show fear.
But the night lighting shone unsteadily. Darkness waned and pulsed around her. She tried to focus on what was straight ahead, but the mannequins looked more real when half hidden in shadow, and she felt scared. She had an eerie sense that one of them might step from its display and start chasing her.
Finally, she saw the green exit sign and quickened her pace till she got to the bank of elevators. She pressed her finger on the call button, but the light didn’t come on.
Still in near darkness, she tried the emergency exit, across from the men’s restroom. She slammed against the handlebar.
The door wouldn’t open. She stepped back. Locking an emergency exit was definitely against the law. But she wasn’t concerned about the legality; she only wanted out. She hated the gloomy cast of shadows that seemed to move and shift around her. She pulled her cell phone from her backpack, flipped it open, and pressed her thumb on the first key, to speed-dial Sara.
Her bat
tery was dead.
She dropped the phone back into the bag, where it landed on top of her pajamas, and realized then that when she didn’t arrive home that night, no one was going to start looking for her, because her parents thought she was spending the night with Sara.
She hurried to the other end of the hallway to a door marked STAFF ONLY. She knocked and waited, hoping someone would answer and help her.
The Smithsonian museums were huge, she reasoned and, with so many visitors, people were probably locked inside all the time. If she just waited, a security guard would come through, searching for stragglers. Besides, the place was probably equipped with hidden cameras, motion detectors, and other surveillance devices. If she was patient, someone would find her.
She rummaged around in the bottom of her bag and found a half-eaten candy bar. She bit into the chocolate and walked back to the emergency exit, sat on the floor, and leaned against the wall, listening for the sound of footsteps.
Slowly, the smell of wet earth crept into her awareness. She crawled over to the door and ran her hand along the bottom, over a wet, sticky mound. Clay had been plastered around the door to seal her inside.
Reason told her that no one could take over such a public place to play a game, no matter how powerful or rich their parents might be. So what did that leave? Abdel had told her that cult leaders wanted to destroy the bloodline of Horus. Dark thoughts came to her. Maybe she was their first sacrifice. She imagined CNN broadcasting the gruesome details about her murder inside the Smithsonian.
Fear and panic overcame her rational thoughts, and terror took hold. She needed to find a place to hide. She ran back into the exhibit and crawled into the cubby under the display of Greek vases.
But as time passed and nothing happened, she began to relax. She tried to convince herself that she had no reason to be afraid. No one had ever died from being locked inside a museum overnight.
Finally, near midnight, exhausted from being vigilant, she curled up into a ball and, using her backpack for a pillow, drifted off.