Grayson Johns stumbled across the desert clutching his stomach. He could feel the blood running down his body now that his spells were wearing off, and the incredible agony of stomach acid eating away his internal organs was nearly sending him insane. After all his hopes, this was how he was to die, he thought, his eyes starting to lose their ability to see where the sun was blinding him. He didn't know how far he had come, although a day and a night had passed and he could no longer see Hamunaptra, so he knew it must be a great distance. He also knew that his body was giving out. He fell to his knees and clutched at his abdomen, swallowing and making his dry tongue stick to the roof of his mouth. Death couldn't come to him like this, he thought, not like this, not when he was so powerful...not when his destiny had been so close.…
He slumped down onto his front and lay there in the sand, his last dying breaths puffing the small granules up in front of him, the tiny clouds of sand getting smaller and smaller as his life left him. Finally his heart stopped, and then the sand was left to deal with his remains.
And as his death took him, so his spells were dispersed and were no more, and all those he had previously misled with illusion suddenly knew what had really happened, and were left with their own guilt and anguish over how they had treated someone so undeserving of such treatment.
Two weeks later.
Jonathan paced around the enormous sitting room, wishing he had a good bottle of whisky to keep him company. He had brought Charlotte back from Egypt over a week ago now and she was still in the same almost comatose state as she had been in. The only sign of life she had shown was when he had taken her to Cairo, and only then because she had apparently been in pain. She hadn't spoken, but the further they went away from Hamunaptra so the worse her symptoms became. Jonathan had no way of knowing about the binding spell, and he couldn't help her, could do nothing but take her to Cairo and book passage back to England that day.
On the boat she had been little better, until a day into the trip when she had suddenly just lapsed into unconsciousness and hadn't woken up until she had been back in her home. Now the doctor was here checking her over, and Jonathan worried that perhaps he had called him too late. But he had been hoping that Charlotte would snap out of it on her own, and she hadn't. She lay in her bed, unmoving and unspeaking, not eating. Her housekeeper had managed to get her to drink a small amount of water, but that was all, and she didn't seem to be able to hear any of them.
He hadn't even been back home yet, so he didn't know if Evy and Rick had returned. If they had, then they would have Billy with them, but they hadn't brought him back to his own home. It didn't matter much at the moment. Charlotte probably wouldn't recognise him anyway.
He looked up as the door opened and went forwards when the doctor entered the room, shaking his hand and waiting.
"Where to start?" the elderly man said, shaking his head. "She appears to be in shock and she is malnourished and dehydrated. Now, all of these can be treated, although the mind is a delicate matter at best. I have several colleagues in the field of Psychology and I can contact one of them for you. They'll be able to help her without a doubt. As for the rest," the doctor said, raising his eyebrows, "she must be fed. And it really doesn't matter at the moment how that happens, even if you have to force her. If she doesn't eat, she'll die. The same goes for drinking, as I'm sure you know."
"I know," Jonathan said. "I just don't want to hurt her."
"There are methods I can show you that will help. But there is something else," the doctor said, sounding almost reluctant.
"Something else? What?"
"The young lady is with child. Some of the symptoms the maid told me about would have alerted me to the fact, but an examination has made me more certain."
"She's...she's pregnant?" Jonathan asked in shock, knowing who was responsible for that.
"I'm afraid so, and her condition will further deplete her health, although she's not far along at all. As for her mental health, I will send Dr Mays to you tomorrow, she is a psychologist and she will be able to help you."
"Thank you so much," Jonathan said absently, shaking the man's hand again and then leaving him for the maid to show out.
Charlotte was pregnant. He couldn't quite believe it, but he would damn well make sure he was there for her all along the way. He wouldn't leave her to face this alone.
*******
Evy sat staring out of the window while Libby and Billy played with some toys on the carpet. Her eyes filled with tears as they had so many times over the last week when she thought of what had happened. Today she and Rick would be going to Charlotte's house in person, because the housekeeper had relentlessly put the phone down on them each and every time she called. She had to tell Charlotte what had happened, why they had all believed what they had. She hadn't known that Grayson Johns had magic powers, and he had used illusion as a weapon to make them believe they had seen Charlotte betraying them all. She now believed that he had also made them angrier than they should have been, because it wasn't like her to just believe something like that so easily. She looked up as Rick entered the room and he gave her a small smile, having been fighting his own guilt over this matter.
Evy held her hand out to him and he took it instantly, pulling her to her feet and dropping a light kiss on her head. "What do you think will happen today?" he asked, his voice low and soft.
Evy shook her head. "I don't know, but I hope it will all turn out alright. Poor Charlie, to go through all that and then have no-one..." she broke off and pressed her face into his shirt, trying to stop herself from getting too emotional. She calmed down while he stroked her back. "And then there's Ardeth...what if he doesn't pull through?"
Rick sighed deeply, his eyes clouded. "He has to pull through, he can't die. Someone like him doesn't just die."
"But darling, that's exactly what happens to people like him. They get hurt once too often, and then that's it."
"I know," Rick said, shrugging and looking grim. "But we can't think like that. Well, are you ready?"
"As ready as I'll ever be," Evy murmured, bending to kiss the two children before leaving them in the capable hands of the nanny they had hired for a few hours.
The whole drive to Charlotte's house was carried out in silence, neither of them feeling much like making small talk when they were both dreading what they might find. They didn't know how she was, and as far as they were aware she could have come back and killed herself. Evy knew she would have felt like that, had it been her.
Too soon, it seemed, they were driving up the driveway and then pulling up in front of the impressive house. Evy looked out of the window nervously, putting off getting out of the car, but Rick had other ideas and he quickly opened his door and walked around to her side to get her out. He gave her a reassuring smile and then guided her towards the front door.
Jonathan stroked Charlotte's hair back from her face and tried to see any hint of recognition in her eyes, but there was nothing. She stared unseeingly at the ceiling, and nothing he did or said made any difference. He heard someone knocking on the door and sighed, thinking he may as well go and see who it was, just to break the monotony of his day so far. But as he descended the stairs, the last people he had expected to see were his sister and Rick, standing outside the front door trying to persuade the housekeeper to let them in.
"It's alright, Aggie, let them come in," Jonathan said to the old woman as he reached the hall, his eyes hardening as they rested on his brother-in-law. The old woman grumbled but did as he asked, and then she ambled away.
Jonathan stood and stared at the couple, his hands in his pockets. "What do you want?"
Evy winced. "We want to see Charlotte, to make sure she's alright."
"Alright? No, Evelyn, she's far from alright. She's trapped inside her own head somewhere and she can't or won't come out. She won't eat, she won't drink, and the doctor said she'll die if we don't force her to do so." Jonathan was getting angrier as he spoke, and not particularly at the two people staring at him speechlessly. He was frustrated that he couldn't help his cousin. "So, no, I would say she isn't alright."
Evy laid a hand on his arm. "How long has she been like that?"
"Since I got her out of Hamunaptra...before that I think. She doesn't even see me, Evy," Jonathan said, his sadness at Charlotte's predicament obvious. "I just wish I could help her."
"It seems you have been helping her. If it wasn't for you..." Evy broke off and closed her eyes as she thought about it all, and Rick put his arm around her.
"We know you got her out of Egypt, and we know Khalid let you take her. It appears that the Professor used some sort of magic and managed to make us see something that wasn't really happening. He did the same to Charlotte. The Med-jai think that he must have perished in the desert, and when he did everything suddenly came rushing in on us...the truth," Rick said, shrugging. "Charlotte didn't kiss those two men we thought we saw, she thought she was kissing Ardeth. She didn't do a damn thing wrong, and we all treated her like a criminal."
Jonathan looked at him in surprise. "So everyone now knows she was innocent all along?"
Rick nodded. "Yeah. The Med-jai say she is welcome back at any time and they want to apologise to her for what they tried to do. But not as much as I want to apologise. I still find it difficult to believe how angry I was."
"It was what the professor did," Evy said, shaking her head sadly. "Somehow he managed to make us all acutely emotional over it, tweaked our anger or something." She raised her eyes to her brother and saw he was softening. "Can't we see her? We've tried phoning for a week and that woman wouldn't even listen."
"You've phoned? She didn't tell me that, I had no idea you were even back," Jonathan said.
"We've been back a week, and we have Billy with us," Rick supplied helpfully.
"I see. Well, I guess it can't hurt to let you see her, she certainly can't get any worse at this point," Jonathan said, ushering them up the stairs and along the corridor to Charlotte's room.
Evy had thought herself prepared for anything, but the sight of her cousin's deteriorated condition made her start crying. "Oh my God," she said softly, sitting on the edge of the bed and stroking her hair much as Jonathan had done earlier. "Charlie, can you hear me?"
Rick stood grim faced as he watched his wife trying to talk to the young girl who looked more like a corpse right now. He had seen people die, and he didn't think she had much longer to go.
"Oh God, isn't there anything we can do?" Evy asked, wiping her eyes as she stood up, giving up trying to make Charlotte hear her.
"You know, it might help if we brought Billy here," Rick said suddenly, his eyes lighting up at the idea. "He's the only she's been really close to...well, him and Ardeth."
As he said Ardeth's name, Charlotte twitched slightly, but only Jonathan noticed. He walked around the bed and said the name again, seeing the same reaction. Evy watched him and then her eyes shot to her cousin, widening at her response. "If only he was here, maybe that could help her."
"But he's too ill himself to be moved," Rick said.
"I haven't heard any news about him," Jonathan said, looking at the bigger man. "Is he doing alright?"
"From what we hear, about as alright as Charlotte. Khalid said he will get better but...I just don't know," Rick said with a shrug. Then he sighed. "Christ, what the hell did we all do to make this happen?"
"It wasn't any of us though, was it? It was Grayson Johns, and he's dead now," Evy said, chewing her lip.
"Just as well, because if I got my hands on his scrawny neck," Rick said, his eyes flashing angrily.
"You and me both," Jonathan added. "Listen, go and get Billy, see if it helps. You never know."
