Author's Note: Hello, everyone! Long time no see! It's been a long time since I've written anything for The Mummy fandom. I'll explain what's going on with this: a few months or so ago I decided to go through this account and see what needed to be cleared off. There were things that were either the first chapters of fics that I'd long since forgotten the ideas for, or were just so old (or just plain bad) that I felt they no longer represented my writing like I wanted. But when I looked at the original "Scarab Locket" I couldn't bring myself to delete it. The original fic was my start, and I finished the sequel just before I left for my freshman year of college, and I always thought it was neat that it showed a progression of my writing. But I'd hate for that fic to be the only thing The Mummy fandom sees of mine, especially since it's so old, and looking at it I started to see different things that I could do with it, things that just hadn't occurred to me when I was younger, or I started to realize that there were a lot of things in the sequel that I just hadn't set up at all in Scarab Locket. Also Sarah in Scarab Locket was a completely different person than Sarah in Scarab Key, and I couldn't quite figure out how she would have gotten from point a to point b. So... I decided to re-write it! (I'm keeping with the spirit of the original and writing this one in first person as well) It might take me a while to finish: I'm starting grad school this fall, but I plan to re-write both this one, and Scarab Key!

I apologize for the massive author's note: this will be the only one like this. If you have any questions, just ask, and I'll either reply individually or address it in the next chapter! Note: In case I haven't made it clear enough: Henderson is "Uncle Mark" and Burns is "Uncle Andrew" as per the original fic.

Chapter word count: 4,577

Chapter 1

The Adventure of a Lifetime

They were going on a dig, a treasure hunt. This wasn't the ordinary business trip to Dallas or even a trip on a ship up to Virginia; this was across the ocean! To Egypt! I had been to Egypt before, a surprising number of times: my mother had been an Egyptologist, taking trips, usually with me, even as young as I was, while my dad and his best friends, known affectionately to me as my uncles, ran the large ranch we lived on. I hadn't been out of the country since my mother had died of the consumption five years ago, when I was five. A pleasure trip to Egypt was almost completely out of character for my dad, who, although he'd done some traveling with mom before I was born, hadn't been out of the country since he'd taken over the large cattle ranch after my grandfather passed, which had been a few months after I was born.

A pleasure trip was out of character for him, but a treasure hunt wasn't. He and my uncles had been into treasure hunting since they were my age, and a treasure hunt in Egypt was the ultimate dream for the three of them. They'd tried to hide it from me, but they had been doing research, making calls, and there had been more trips to Dallas, where communications were easier, than usual. And hiding conversations from me in the house was next to impossible: there were vents to allow air circulation all over the place, and I was only ten: still small enough to hide in a laundry basket or in the cabinet under the bar.

I had first asked him if I could come along earlier that morning. He hadn't asked me how I had found out, I'm sure he knew already, but the response had been an immediate "no."

Normally a "no" from him and I minded and didn't ask again, but this wasn't a puppy in a shop window or a social event (although if there was a social event I wanted to go to he usually let me: I didn't make friends easily and rarely asked to go to anything that wasn't some daytrip on horseback with classmates) this was Egypt and I wanted to go more than anything!

"What're you brooding about, Little Bit?" my "Uncle Mark" asked me. Apparently he could tell that I had long since abandoned my attempt at drawing… which was a fair guess, since I was sitting with my knees to my chest, staring out the window, and my paper and the book I'd been using as a hard surface were by my feet.

"I want to go with y'all to Egypt," I mumbled.

"Can't hear you, kiddo," Uncle Mark said.

"I want to go with y'all to Egypt," I made sure my voice was audible this time.

Dad sighed from where he was sitting on the couch, a glass of bourbon in his hand. But he didn't say "I told you no, Sarah" like I thought he would; instead he set the glass down on the side table and said:

"Come here, Sarah."

I jumped up and trotted over to the couch, crossing my legs and turning my whole body to face him. He had an expression on his face like he was struggling with something, and Uncle Mark left the room, and I could hear him starting to laugh once he was in the kitchen.

"I said no earlier because this trip is going to be dangerous, okay?" Dad told me. "I know that you've been to Egypt before, and you've been on digs with Mom before, but the place we'll be going is different, you understand? The places Mom took you to had been active sites for at least a few weeks. The place we're going could very well be dangerous: almost no one has ever been there, and I don't want you getting hurt."

I nodded; "I know you're heading for Hamunaptra, Dad."

He sighed, the sound itself saying "I knew it" and I grinned, and then he smiled.

My smile faded a little when I told him: "I just want to go back to Egypt, Dad."

This time his sigh sounded sad. He held open his arms and I crawled into his lap for a hug, wrapping my arms around his neck.

"Go play upstairs," he told me when we let go of each other. "I need to talk to Mark and Andrew."

I hopped off the couch and grabbed my drawing paper and pencil from the window seat, before running upstairs.

There were vents literally all over the house, I could open the window in the living room and feel the temperature drop in several of the rooms upstairs, and so the house could be kept cool or heated without much effort, and so we were a pretty popular host for town gatherings (even though Dad wasn't the most sociable person, Uncle Mark certainly was, and Uncle Andrew was at least easy to get along with, according to the town librarian.) All the vents had the added bonus of making it easy to eavesdrop, even though they also made it hard to sleep if Dad or Uncle Mark or Uncle Andrew had anyone over for drinks late at night.

I walked lightly, my stockings didn't make any noise on the floor, and knelt down once I got close, before sliding on my stomach to the vent over the kitchen.

"After this glass, I'm cutting you off, David," I could hear Uncle Andrew speaking.

"Quit hovering, Burns, I'm not an invalid," Dad grumbled at him.

"He's right, Daniels, you-"

"Oh don't you two gang up on me!" Dad snapped at Uncle Mark.

I couldn't help but flinch. Dad always got snappish whenever anyone tried to take his drink away or cut him off and I didn't like it when he was mad.

They were silent for a few moments, but eventually I heard the clink of Dad setting the glass down.

"What should I do?"

"Take her with us," Uncle Mark told him.

"I don't want her getting hurt."

"You let her ride out on Alice's big old horse whenever she wants. She could just as easily get hurt doing that. She has gotten hurt doing that." Uncle Mark was referring to when I'd broken my arm when I was seven, riding out on Mom's old horse, Cecil. Someone had been hunting in the area, and he had panicked at the sound of a gun.

"That's different, I know what the risks are, and she knows the whole area. She's never more than a mile or two from someone's house."

"I think it would be sort of cathartic for her," Uncle Andrew spoke up. I didn't know what cathartic meant but I was assuming it was a good thing. "She's changed a lot since Alice died, David. You've changed a lot since Alice died. I think it would be good for both of you."

I heard Dad sigh. But if he was sighing rather than shooting the idea down, then that was a good thing.

"As far as her getting hurt goes," Uncle Mark's tone was light again, "we've got that Egyptologist coming along with us; we'll get him to help us figure out some part of the city where she can stay in by herself, she's ten, that's plenty old enough for us to not have to watch her all the time, and she can dig around in there. She's not some brat kid, Daniels, she's pretty mature for her age. She'll be fine. Heck, she'll probably end up pulling Burns out of some scrape!"

"Oh, ha, ha," Uncle Andrew said sarcastically, but he wasn't mad.

They were going to convince him. I knew they were. I prayed silently, clasping my hands together. They just had to convince him!

Dad sighed again, and it was his "oh fine" sigh. I grinned, but waited to leave the vent until I heard:

"Oh, alright."

I slid backwards away from the grate, and then jumped up, scampering to my room, grinning like an idiot. I closed the door softly, and then jumped up onto my bed, laying down on my stomach with my book in front of me, drawing paper on the hard cover like I'd been there the whole time. I tried to make my breathing as normal as possible, and keep my expression neutral, like I hadn't heard anything.

It was long enough before I heard his footsteps that I actually had started drawing again, looking at a small stack of books that I had put on the bed to practice where my light and shadows were (Uncle Andrew painted and sketched as a hobby, and he gave me art lessons sometimes.) He knocked twice, and then opened the door. I sat up and back on my legs, waiting for what he was going to say.

"You can come with us," he said, and I jumped up and off the bed to give him a hug.

"Thank you, Dad."

"But," he said, and he squatted so that he was eye level with me, "you have to mind me. I can't have you running off and getting hurt or worse, okay?"

"I will, I promise," I said, and gave him another hug, this time around his neck.

When I let go, he smiled, "now go hug your uncles, they talked me into it."

…

We left not more than a few days after, a large number of suitcases packed into the trailer of our neighbor's, Mr. Schnider, car, and his wife waving goodbye to us from our own front porch. We were going to be gone for some time, and Dad had asked them to manage the ranch. All of our essentials, and a few nonessentials, were packed into those suitcases; nearly every stich of clothing we owned, and a few things besides. Mr. Schnider talked happily (his accent still thick, even after having lived in Texas for some time, but we had long learned how to understand him and his wife) the whole ride to the train station: everything from discussions about the cattle being bred, needless assurances to Dad that the ranch hands would mind him (Dad already knew that) to complimenting me on my dress, which was, along with the hat I wore, new.

"Such a soft blue, so pretty on you, Sarah."

We made it to the station without incident, and the train ride itself was fairly pretty, but boring. It was a few days long, from the middle of Texas to the docks in Georgia, and there wasn't much to do. Reading passed the time for the most part, and Dad helped me with words that I hadn't seen before, but the ride was far too bumpy to draw, which frustrated me.

The voyage across the Atlantic was amazing, as was the trip from Great Britain down the coast of the European continent into the Mediterranean. I wasn't physically sick on either ship, even though I did have problems with dizziness at first, but once I got my "sea legs" I could walk around just fine. There were other children on the ship as well, but I didn't really want to play with them. At home I wasn't a particularly social person, although I did have friends, but on a ship there was no common ground between any of us besides age, and I had no idea what to expect. As a result, I ended up hiding behind Dad or my uncles, and unless one of the other children approached me directly and asked (I was shy, I wasn't mean, I couldn't say no to them directly) I didn't budge. There were a few times that I ended up holding one end of someone's jump rope, or playing catch with someone else, but for the most part I stayed glued to my family.

Cairo was possibly the busiest city I had ever seen. I couldn't remember being in the city before, though of course I had been as a baby, and it was almost overwhelming. We rented a furnished apartment, since it was impossible to tell how long we'd really be here, and it was surprisingly nice, the furniture wasn't sparse, and it wasn't bad quality, either.

Once we were in Cairo, there was a lot for my dad and uncles to do. They needed to meet the people that they'd been contacting all this time, and so I ended up spending my days in the museum. I wasn't about to complain, it was all fascinating! I'd never been able to see relics like these before; the Ancient Egyptian collection that the museum in Dallas had was only a handful of objects, and nothing as fine or as well-preserved as what was in the museum in Cairo. After I spent half the evening gushing about the collections when my dad picked me up the first time, he continued to drop me off there every time they had a business meeting, sometimes with my sketchbook and a pencil, and sometimes not. I knew that once upon a time I might have pouted at being left behind so much, if I thought I could get away with it, but I was so excited about getting to visit the museum every day that for once I was happy to be left behind under the eye of the museum staff, who were first watchful of me (I wasn't kidding myself, I knew why, I was a ten year old kid in a building full of precious artifacts) and then, as I showed up again and again, happy to see me.

The librarian, a woman named Evelyn, was practically a library herself. She knew, to my mind anyway, absolutely everything. She was up to date on all the latest archaeological journals, and could tell me something about literally everything in the museum. I knew that for a fact, one afternoon when dad had told me I would probably be there for a while, Evelyn had taken me on a tour of the museum. I had seen all the objects before, and read what my vocabulary would let me, but with her it was much more fun. She could tell me little things about how the object had probably been used in ancient times, or sometimes about the archaeologist who had found it, though she always reminded me that her stories of the happenings on dig sites were secondhand, since she had yet to have a lot of good experience in the field. I didn't care if they were secondhand or not, they were absolutely fascinating.

And at night I told dad about the different objects in the museum, the stories that Evelyn had told me, and the sketches I had made of the objects. He smiled a lot when I started getting excited about anything I was telling him about, and sometimes he was listening so much that he didn't stop me until past my bedtime. When I was still trying to fall asleep I could hear dad and my uncles talking in the living room. Dad always said something about Cairo being good for me, but I thought it was good for him, too. He didn't drink as much, and he smiled a lot more.

The last day I was in the museum, Evelyn took me around again. It was still a few days before we were going to leave, but it was the last time Dad, Uncle Mark, and Uncle Andrew would have to go meet anyone, so it was the last time they were dropping me off at the museum. I knew I would miss going to the museum, but more than that I would miss Evelyn. It wasn't that she had become a mother-figure to me in that month, no one could come close to my mom in my mind, but it had been so long since a mentor figure had shared the same interests and had treated me like I was fully capable of understanding more than just basic concepts. When I heard Dad talking, after he thought I was asleep, about how I was happier in Cairo than I had been in years, I knew, even at ten, that a big part of that had been because of Evelyn. Listening to her tell stories made me remember why I liked Egyptology in the first place. I wondered if I could convince Dad that we needed to stay for a month or two after we got back from Hamunaptra.

The last few days before we left were fun. When Dad was at the bar, which, even though he was drinking less was still a lot, Uncle Andrew took me around Cairo. The three of them had had a lot of time over the month to explore it and get their bearings, so he knew where he was going. I had gotten a glimpse of it on the way two and from the museum, but Dad had never wanted to get out into the city again after we got back to the apartment each night, so I still hadn't seen a lot of it. We went to the market several times, and there were a few vendors who Uncle Andrew had gotten to be familiar with, and he introduced me as his niece. We ate lunch out in the open, by a fountain or at the base of a statue, and it was fun in the same way a picnic was. Sometimes we went down by the docks, bringing along paper and pencils, and just sat and sketched for a while. Uncle Andrew's were always much better than mine, but he said that was to be expected: I was still learning and I'd get there one day. He always ended up giving me another lesson, praising my attempt at shading a picture of a vegetable cart. I assumed that the drawing sessions were why Dad didn't come with us: he didn't have the patience for it, as he, and everyone else, always said.

And then the big day came: our bags were packed as lightly as they could get (which was pretty lightly, really: Dad, Uncle Mark, and Uncle Andrew were used to cattle drives) and were in hand as we waited at the docks. We were waiting on the guide Uncle Mark had found, and Dad was starting to get annoyed. I was happy enough to look around: there was a lot going on around us, with people carrying all kinds of things onto riverboats, or just trying to get different places. A girl, maybe a few years older than me and dressed far nicer than I ever had been made eye contact with me, and I hid my face in Dad's jacket.

"Do you think he'll leave us on our own?" Uncle Andrew asked.

"No; I haven't paid him anything yet," Uncle Mark replied.

A few minutes later, Uncle Mark called out:

"Hey, Beni!" and I looked up to see a weasel-y sort of man heading toward us. Everything about him, from the way he walked, the way he held himself, the set of his head, to even his voice had a rodent-like quality, and not in a good way. Squirrels could be charming (Mrs. Schieder had a bird feeder out on her porch and the squirrels were forever getting into it, so I had watched them a lot) but Beni's rodent-like qualities were all of the bad, but none of the good. I disliked him instantly.

When Beni reached us, Dad patted my shoulders, silently telling me to turn around and not hide in his jacket:

"Beni, this is my daughter Sarah. Sarah, this is our guide, Beni."

"Hello Sarah," Beni, to his credit, did offer his hand.

"Hello." I took it for as short an amount of time as I could get away with.

Beni retreated, and Dad bent down to talk to me:

"Hey; who fed you a lemon?"

He could always tell when I was being shy or being sour.

"Nobody," I mumbled.

"You don't have to like him, but you do have to be nice to him, okay?"

"Okay."

"Now, if nobody fed you a lemon, then why are you pouting?" he teased, and leaned in, under the brim of my hat, to give me a kiss on my cheek that made a silly noise, like the exaggerated kiss sounds actors made in puppet shows. I couldn't help but laugh, and when he leaned back he was smiling: "that's my girl."

The doctor was going to meet us later, according to Uncle Andrew, and so there was nothing left to do but head onboard the riverboat. It was decidedly less high end than the boat we had crossed the Atlantic in had been, but it was a riverboat: it wasn't meant to be lived in for more than a few days. Dad and I had a room together, and Uncle Mark and Uncle Andrew had their own. There were bunk beds, a sink, and the furniture had obviously been relatively nice at some point, but was worn now. It wasn't as bleak as it could be, and there were no bugs as far as we could see, so it was a decent cabin, as far as Dad and I were concerned.

"Sarah, take the top bunk, okay?" Dad said as he tossed his bag onto the couch.

"Okay," I nodded, clambering up the ladder. It was a little claustrophobic, but I didn't have to spend much time on the bed anyway. I jumped back down and put my bag on the couch next to Dad's. "Can I go exploring?"

"Wait until the Egyptologist gets here, then you can."

In the grand scheme of things, the Egyptologist didn't take that long to get there, and his crew of diggers began loading supplies and horses onto the boat. I could tell who the doctor was since he was the only American, and he was also the one shouting orders at all of the men. There were so many horses! Almost as many men as there were horses, but it was the animals that caught my eye. There were several different breeds, mostly Barb's, but a few Arabian's as well. All fine boned and bred for the desert: I knew the breeds but had never seen them in person.

"You can go see the horses when they're settled, Sarah," Dad knew what I was wanting without me having to voice it. Uncle Mark laughed.

Dr. Chamberlain was a nice enough man, although there was a bit too much of a conceited tone in his voice; I wasn't sure if he was talking down to me or not. If he was, I wasn't sure if it was because I was a kid or a girl. But I met him and I was nice and so Dad was happy. He sent me off to go exploring with a pat on my head and I heard him mentioning something about a bar on the ship before I was out of earshot. Even if I hadn't heard him I would have known where to look anyway.

Some of Dr. Chamberlain's men were still in the hold with the horses when I made my way down there. The horses sniffed at me to see if I had any treats on me. I didn't, and so after a few seconds each one would go back to eating the hay that had been provided for them. Some tried to nudge me with their noses, but I pushed them away gently: I knew from experience that a strong enough nudge from a large enough horse could send me tumbling back a good few feet at minimum. One or two of them tried to bite me rather than sniff, but after I moved away they seemed content.

The diggers watched me silently, some laughed softly when one of the horses nuzzled at one of my pockets, its lip moving back and forth, which tickled and made me giggle. One of the men approached me, holding out a quarter of an apple.

"Feed him," he encouraged gently.

I took the apple, and held it out to the horse, who took it and ate it happily, tossing his head a bit as he chewed. He sniffed my hands for more, and when he found a bit of juice, licked my hands, making me giggle. I missed my own horse, Cecil, very much.

I stayed down in the hold until it was time for dinner. As usual, I found my father and uncles at the bar. I hated even being in bars, not so much as a product of my father's drinking as much as it was the noise bars created, and so as soon as I was finished eating, I ran off again. I went back to the cabin to get my sketchbook and pencil before heading back up to a quieter seating area on the main deck. I had passed through it while I was trying to find the bar, and the only other person there had been an older gentleman, reading, and that suited me just fine.

But as I rounded the corner, I got a bit of a shock: there, sitting at a table with her nose in a book was:

"Miss Evelyn!"

She looked up, and her eyes widened: "Sarah! What on earth are you doing here?" she exclaimed happily.

I sat down at the table with her, grinning: "this was the boat my uncle booked. We didn't leave for a few days. But I didn't expect to see you until we got back!"

"My brother came back into the city and we met…" she trailed off for a moment, as if trying to find the right word, "a gentleman."

"A gentleman? How does meeting a gentleman cause one to wind up on a boat?" I couldn't help but tease a bit.

"Oh, alright, he's more of a cowboy than a gentleman, but he cleans up nicely," Evelyn sighed. "My brother found a trinket of his that happens to have a map to a potential dig site inside. He's been there before and agreed to take us."

We talked for a long time, mostly just excitement about our upcoming trips, and a few apprehensions. I told her about Dad's plan to find me a safe place and turn me loose, and Evelyn reminded me that as long as I had my sketchpad, and maybe a few tools, I could still do a lot of good work. She was very impressed with the drawings I showed her: she'd seen all the ones of the museum artifacts, but not my newer art lessons.

Eventually, though, I started yawning, and Evelyn sent me off to bed:

"What would I do if you fell asleep on me?" she teased, "that would be a great first impression for your father: a strange woman carrying you on her back fast asleep!"

I made my way to the cabin, yawning still. I kicked off my shoes and clambered back up to the top bunk without bothering to undress. I hadn't packed a nightgown, and while I could undress to my underclothes, there was no need: I was wearing work clothes, and they didn't rumple easily. Besides, I was too tired.

I fell asleep as soon as I hit the mattress.