Chapter One
Grace Carnahan was bored out of her mind. She sat on top of an old wooden desk, swinging her legs back and forth watching her older sister, Evy, putting a pile of books back into their rightful place in the library of Cairo's museum of antiquities where she worked. Grace had been helping but after knocking over a large pile of ancient books Evy had sent the fifteen year old to sit down out of the way. "Tuthmosis? ...Now how did you get up there?" Evy muttered to herself, her voice echoing in the silent library.
Grace watched as Evy tried to stretch to the shelves behind her on her ladder to put the book back in the 'T' section. Evy reached closer and closer until the ladder pulled away from the shelf, standing upright. Evy yelped and dropped the book as she clutched the ladder, trying not to fall backwards. Grace would have helped her sister but she was too busy laughing at the sight of her walking on the ladder trying to keep it upright. "Gracie, help me!" Evy yelled, fright evident in her voice.
The younger girl clutched her chest, her laughs coming out almost silent now as she struggled to get some air in. The ladder wobbled some more until inevitably it started falling, and crashed into the bookshelf. "AHHH!" Evy screamed as the bookshelf began falling too, crashing into the next one, and the next one. So it went, each crashing into another making a domino effect. Thousands of books were flung from their place and strewn all over the floor.
Finally, the last bookshelf crashed into the wall and silence was held again, Grace finally having gotten a hold of her laughter. Evy pushed herself up, shoving books off of her, before surveying the damage. "Oops." She said.
"Are you okay?" Grace asked her sister as she slid off of the desk.
Evy turned on her. "I'm fine, no thanks to you. I could have really been hurt!" She cried.
Grace giggled a little, "I'm sorry! But you have to admit that it was funny." Evy didn't have a chance to reply to her comment because they heard hurried footsteps and saw the curator storm in from his office.
He paused and surveyed the mess, his mouth hung open in shock. "Look at this!" He cried. "Sons of the Messiah! Give me frogs, flies, locusts, anything but this! Compared to you the other plagues were a joy!"
Evy faced him, a guilty look across her face. "I'm sorry, it was an accident." She shuffled nervously.
"When Ramesses destroyed Syria, it was an accident. You are a catastrophe! Why do I put up with you?" He raised his index finger and pointed it at her.
Grace was about to defend her sister but Evy elbowed her sharply, warning her to stay quiet. "You put up with me, because I can read and write ancient Egyptian, decipher hieroglyphs and hieratic, and I'm the only person within a thousand miles who knows how to properly code and catalogue this library."
Grace, like her sister, could also read and write ancient Egyptian and decipher hieroglyphs and hieratic. Growing up she shared her sister's love of Egypt, she knew more about the ancient Egyptian society than she did London's, where she was adopted. "Who needs smart women? I put up with you because your mother and father were our finest patrons, Allah rest their souls. Now straighten up this mess!" The curator ordered before storming out.
Evy and Grace were saddened for moment at the mention of their parents death. They had died five years ago in a plane crash, Grace had lived with Evy in Cairo ever since- their older brother, Jonathan, wasn't suitable to raise a young girl. They were brought out of their depressing thoughts by a sound coming from a nearby gallery.
They both spun round where they stood. "Hello?" Evy called. But it was eerily quiet. They heard it again, it sounded like feet, slowly shuffling across the floor. Cautiously, the sisters walked through the doorway and entered the Ramesseum. "Abdul? Mohammed? Bob?" They continued slowly walking through the dark room, Evy kept Grace behind her.
The room was filled with treasures from the middle kingdom, the only light source they had was from flickering torches from either end of the gallery. The noise was heard again, a shuffling sound across the floor. Evy grabbed a torch and the pair looked around the room- a statue of Anubis, another of Horus, they both stared down at the two girls. Grace could see Evy's hands shaking from fear now as she gripped the torch.
Grace herself, could feel adrenalin pumping around her body. Her fight or flight response ready to go into action at any moment. She followed Evy down an aisle, past a closed sarcophagus, past cases of ancient artefacts, past another sarcophagus- only this one was open. They both froze and looked at each other, fear evident in both of their eyes. Evy swallowed hard before slowly leaning forward with the torch and peered inside.
A hideous, rotted mummy sat up and screeched at her. Evy and Grace screamed and backed away, Evy dropped the torch as she did so. And then, just as they were about to run for it they heard a man laughing from inside the sarcophagus. A skinny brown haired man crawled out from behind the mummy, still laughing at them. "You...! You...!" Evy couldn't form a sentence and Grace felt like she was about to have a heart attack, her heart was racing wildly.
"You complete ass, Jonathan!" Grace finally got out as he climbed out of the sarcophagus.
It was a testament to how afraid Evy had been because usually she would have scolded Grace for her language. "Have you no respect for the dead?" Evy asked their drunken brother.
She moved towards the mummy and plucked a cigarette out of its mouth and lay it back down. "Right now, I only wish to join them." He grinned at her.
Evy punched him hard in the chest. "Well I wish you'd do it sooner rather than later, before you ruin my career the way you've ruined yours." She said bitterly.
"My dear, sweet, baby sister. I'll have you know, that at this moment, my career is on a high note." He then belched before stumbling back slightly and sitting on the edge of a tomb.
Evy grimaced at his lack of manors as Grace approached him. "High note? Ha! For five years you've been scrounging around Egypt, and what have you to show for it? Nothing." She jabbed her index finger into his chest.
Instead of looking put out at her words he started excitedly looking in his jacket for something. "Oh yes I do! I have something right here!" He said digging around.
"Oh no, not another worthless trinket, Jonathan, if I bring one more piece of junk to the curator to try and sell for you..." She trailed off as Jonathan finally produced a small, ancient, golden box.
It made both girls instantly curious and Evy snatched it from Jonathan. "Where did you get this?" Grace asked as Evy rolled the box around in her hands mumbling to herself as she translated the hieratics and hieroglyphs covering it.
Jonathan licked his lips in anticipation and gave them a mischievous smile. "On a dig down in Thebes," Grace knew he was lying instantly. Jonathan was not one for archaeology or going on digs. "My whole life I've never found anything, Evy tell me I've found something." He almost begged.
Grace watched as Evy played around with the various little slats on the box, shifting them in different directions. It was almost like a puzzle box. Then, almost mechanically, it unfolded itself. Sitting inside the open box was a folded piece of golden papyrus. Evy passed the box to Grace who quickly studied it, taking in every detail as she unfolded the papyrus. "Jonathan, I think you found something." Evy said.
It was quickly decided that the curator needed to have a look at what they had found so they raced off to his office and showed it to him. He sat at his desk, staring through a jeweller's eyepiece at the box. Evy and Grace hovered behind him excitedly, "see the cartouche there, it's the official royal seal of Seti the First, I'm sure of it." Evy explained to the curator.
"Perhaps," He answered sceptically.
Jonathan leaned in from across the desk, just as excited as his sisters. "Two questions, who the hell is Seti the First? And was he rich?" He asked greedily.
"He was the last Pharaoh of the Old Kingdom, said to be the wealthiest Pharaoh of them all." Grace answered. She had a particular love of the Old Kingdom compared to the rest of Egyptian history, Evy tended to have a preference for the Middle Kingdom.
"Alright, good, that's good. I like this fellow, I like him very much." Jonathan said, licking his lips. The curator set the box back down and picked up the map to study it.
"I've already dated it; this map is almost four thousand years old. And the hieratics over here..." Evy inhaled deeply, unable to contain her excitement. "It's Hamunaptra."
Both Grace and the curator froze though for different reasons. Grace had loved the legend of Hamunaptra growing up, but never did she think it could be real. The curator on the other hand had developed a nervous sweat before he recovered. "My dear girl, don't be ridiculous, we are scholars, not treasure hunters. Hamunaptra is a myth." He insisted.
"Are we talking about the Hamunaptra?" Jonathan asked.
Even Jonathan, a man with no interest in history, knew the legend of Hamunaptra. "Yes. The City of the Dead. Where the early Pharaohs were said to have hidden the wealth of Egypt." Evy confirmed.
Jonathan's eyes lit up. "Right, right, in a big underground treasure chamber. Everybody knows the story. The entire necropolis was rigged to sink into the sand. On Pharaoh's command, a flick of the switch! And the whole place could disappear beneath the dunes." He said dramatically.
"All we know for certain is that the city mysteriously vanished around 2134 B.C." Grace told him.
The curator moved the map closer to the burning candle-lamp to inspect it better. "As the Americans would say: it's all fairy tales and hokum." He said sceptically. The map then suddenly burst into flame and the curator threw it to the floor.
Jonathan dropped to the floor immediately and patted it out before lifting it up for them to see. A third of the map was missing. "You burned it! You burnt off the part with the lost city!" Jonathan cried in horror.
"It's for the best, I'm sure. Many men have wasted their lives in the foolish pursuit of Hamunaptra, no one has ever found it, most have never returned." The curator warned. "I'm sure it was a fake anyway, I'm surprised at you Miss Carnahan, to be so fooled." He said before reaching for the box.
Evy quickly snatched it away as Grace narrowed her eyes at him in suspicion, a look copied by Evy.