She let a tired sigh rush out of her mouth as she tipped her hat back slightly, wiping off the sweat that had collected on her forehead with the back of her left forearm. Her right hand - the one holding the machete - dangled limply against her side, a comfortable ache emanating from the muscles there because of all the hard work she had been doing since early that morning.
It must be noon by now, she thought as she glanced at her feet, checking the shadows that were cast on the jungle floor by the leaves overhead. Judging from the shadows, her estimate was more or less correct. That meant it was time for a well-deserved rest.
She looked around for a convenient seat, and noted a log nearby. After checking it thoroughly for poisonous things such as snakes, insects and frogs, and after convincing herself that no anacondas were in the vicinity, she sat down on it, glad to get her weight off her feet for the time being.
Sticking her machete blade-first into the soft earth in front of her, she slid off her backpack, and reached into it. After a bit of rummaging, she brought out first a small package of dried meat and fruits; a second time brought up some paper; the third yielded a pencil.
Setting the dried foods onto the log beside her, she settled the paper on her lap and poised her pencil over the blank page. After searching the air above her head for words, she grinned, and started writing:
Somewhere in the jungles of Mexico
Dearest Evie,
As I write this letter to you I am sitting on a log in the middle of the jungles of Mexico, so I do hope that you will forgive the lack of smoothness in my penmanship. For want of a proper desk I have had to make use of my lap as a writing table, and you know how difficult it is to write in such a manner.
I hope that you forgive me for not sending you a letter immediately after I received yours. I have not forgotten about you, it is simply that this expedition has taken up so much of my time and energy lately, and it is only now, on the latter end of it, that I have found the time to write back to you.
She paused for a moment, tapping the end of her pencil against her lip. After a while, she started writing again:
I read about your latest mishap at that Ahm Shere place in your last letter, and I am so very thankful that all of you made it out alive. I do not want to think how Rick and Alex would have taken it if they had lost you. Alex is such a clever boy, and brave as well. Even Jonathan, for once, managed to show some mettle in the face of danger. I hope that, in spite of all of that, you have not lost your love for adventure and archeology.
She paused again, nibbling on a piece of dried meat as she tried to recall Evie's last letter to her. It was a longer wait before she put pencil to paper and started writing again:
I have had no end of adventures since your last letter. This jungle is dangerous, true, but strangely beautiful at the same time. The heat and humidity can be suffocating sometimes, but all the same, I am glad to be here, and not in foggy England.
As I said before, everything here is dangerous. Right during the first week of our journey, a giant snake that the locals call an anaconda attacked us as we were crossing a steam in the jungle. Our progress was slow because of our pack mules, which simply refused to cross the river and we were forced to drag them across by their reins. Apparently, they had good reason not to cross, because the moment we had gotten to the middle of the stream an immense snake reared up out of the water and headed straight towards us. We managed to fend it off before it got any of us, fortunately, and Pepito – our guide – assured us that the anaconda is not a poisonous snake. Perhaps I should spare you some of the details for some other time, but I wish to have you know that I now have a rather large scar on my shoulder from where the anaconda bit me.
She stopped writing then, her hand unconsciously drifting to her shoulder and rubbing it slightly. The bite was no longer painful, and it had healed already, but the memory lingered at the back of her mind at what had nearly happened.
Catching herself then, she quickly went back to writing:
The ruins here are incredible, Evie. How I wish you were here with me - you would have loved it, I'm certain! Did you know that there are pyramids here as well? Yes, in the middle of the jungle, of all places! And we have found mummies too, though they are not buried in the pyramids, and I am certain that they are very different from the mummies in Egypt.
We have also found many artifacts, and we also found what we think is a royal tomb, judging from the amount of gold and other precious goods that we found with the mummy. We are at the final stages of collecting and packing the artifacts, though it will probably be a month before I am able to make arrangements for a visit to Egypt.
I miss you so much, Evie. Exploring ruins and looking for artifacts just is not the same without you. I wish I could have a chance to explore a few Egyptian ruins with you when I get there, for old time's sake. Besides, it would give me a chance to get to know your family and friends a little better.
I also realize that I owe you several presents, and I promise to bring them to Egypt when I go and visit. I hope that you will like them, since they are quite unique and I would not part with them if they were to be given to any other person save you and your family.
She heard voices then, calling her name. She rolled her eyes, sighing. Couldn't these people do anything without her? Knowing now that she had to hurry, she scribbled more quickly on the paper now:
I am sorry to cut this so short, but I can hear Andrew and the others calling me, and I have to go back to them. Say hello to Rick for me, and hug Alex for me when you can. Erica sends her love.
Always your friend,
Cathy
Catherine Ashlar re-read her letter, and after finding it to her satisfaction, she folded it, and tucked it back into her pack, along with the other sheets of paper and her pencil. That accomplished, she reached back for the dried foods, and proceeded to eat in earnest, sipping from the canteen of water that she always toted with her on her belt.
The voices that had been calling her name got closer, and in a few moments, she saw Andrew Delaney and their Indian guide Pepito standing at the edge of the clearing.
She grinned as she waved at them. "I'm over here boys!"
Spotting her, Andrew jogged up to her, his green eyes sparkling with barely concealed amusement though the rest of his face was stern. "I thought I told you never to go wandering around by yourself." His Scottish accent, still as prominent as ever, also took the edge away from his words - not that there was any edge in them to begin with.
Catherine shrugged as she flashed him a rather cheeky grin. She popped another piece of dried meat into her mouth, chewed a little, and then spoke while the piece of meat was still in her mouth. "And do you have a problem with that?"
"No, but I do have a problem with you talking with your mouth full," Andrew replied as he sat down next to her - but not before checking if he was going to sit on anything dangerous or painful. After assuring himself that there was nothing on the log, he relaxed, and fixed Catherine with a withering gaze. "Now I know that you have been away from some respectable company for far too long. Imagine, the daughter of a baron talking with her mouth full!"
Catherine rolled her eyes, and swallowed. "Oh shut up." She took a swig from the canteen of water before she spoke again. "Besides, you know that I avoid all 'respectable company,' as you so eloquently put it, because they are not the sort of company I like to keep."
"Ah yes, and you would rather keep the company of dubious gold-diggers who are after your title and your very substantial inheritance?" Here, Andrew wriggled his eyebrows suggestively.
Catherine laughed then. Her father, Baron William Ashlar, had described Andrew in those very same words.
Hard, bitter memories swelled into her mind when she thought of her father, and consequently of England. To her, England had never been bustling, cosmopolitan London, or the wide plain of Salisbury where the ancient ring of stones rose over the flatness of the field. To her, England was the old manor where she had grown up, and her father.
Don't go there Cathy, she told herself, and shifted her mind quickly away. She nodded towards the east, where she had been hacking away at the vines. In the middle of the cleared area there stood a low stone well, the outside covered in beautiful, intricate reliefs. There was a thick layer of duckweed on the surface, but beneath that the water was clean and cool. "You see that?"
Andrew looked up, and followed her gaze. He squinted, as if not believing what he was seeing. "Is that a well?"
"It is." Catherine turned to Pepito. "Pepito, what do you make of that?"
"It is a holy well," Pepito, explained, his voice soft and deferential when speaking to the lady who not only paid him well, but treated him well too. "In our legends, this place was once the center of the old pagan worship that the Spaniards forced our ancestors to abandon. The waters of that well are supposed to have healing properties."
Cathy nodded as she nibbled on a piece of dried fruit. "Do you think there are temples here? Tombs?"
"I believe so. Wells have always been sacred places, and where there is a well, there will always be a temple."
Andrew chuckled, and shook his head. "You just never stop. We are loaded with treasure and artifacts, and still you go looking for more. When will you be satisfied?"
"It's not the gold that attracts me," Cathy replied as she wrapped up the remainder of her food, and placed it back into her bag. "It's the knowledge that could potentially be hidden in these ruins. And my thirst for knowledge is something that I can never satisfy."
"I know." Andrew reached over, and patted her on her back before he stood up, brushing off any dirt that had clung to his durable khaki-colored trousers. "Well, looks like we'd better get moving. If we want to find that temple that should be around here somewhere, then we ought to start clearing some more jungle to get to it."
Catherine saw Andrew's point. After taking one last sip of water, she picked up her machete, and strode towards what looked like an impenetrable wall of vines and branches. In a few moments, debris was flying everywhere as she, Andrew and Pepito hacked their way into the forest.
"Ma'am, a few letters have arrived."
Evelyn "Evie" Carnahan-O'Connell blinked at Francine, the housekeeper they had hired to keep house for them while they were in Egypt. "Thank you. Where did you leave them?"
"On your desk in the library ma'am, as usual."
Evie smiled, and nodded her thanks to Francine before sending her off to her rest. It was a late night, and Evie had just gotten home from the Cairo Museum, where she had been busy cataloguing the museum's growing collection of artifacts, as well as using the resources there to identify and catalog the artifacts that she and her husband Richard "Rick" O'Connell had found over the years.
Just like her maid told her, there were two letters resting on her table in the library. She sat down on the chair, and picked them up. One envelope was crisp and clean; the other seemed quite battered and the envelope was stained. Deciding to read the former first, Evie realized that it was a letter from Jonathan, saying that he was leaving London at the end of the week to come to Egypt. He mentioned that he was being sent by the British Museum to oversee a dig at Dendera, which was far to the south of Cairo, on the East Bank of the Nile.
Evie smiled. She knew that Jonathan would want to stay in their house instead of at a hotel, but Rick would not be pleased about that arrangement. Well, it's not as if he can do anything about it, she thought. After all, Jonathan was her brother, and her husband had no right to kick him out simply because he disliked the man.
She then turned her attentions to the second envelope. When she flipped it over and read the name of the person who had sent it, she felt a wave of happy surprise rush through her. She tore open the envelope, and as she read the letter, a grin grew on her face until it could have touched her ears.
Taking the letter with her, she scrambled up to the second floor of the house, where she knew Rick would be. "Rick! Rick! Oh my goodness, this is wonderful!"
Rick poked his head out of Alex' room. He blinked at her in a rather puzzled manner. "Evie? What's with the rush? What're you so excited about?"
Evie bounded towards him, hugging and kissing him for a moment, before she started talking. "You remember my friend Cathy? You know, Catherine Ashlar?"
Rick nodded slowly. "Yeah, you mentioned her to me a couple months ago, I think."
"Well, the last time we saw each other - and that was very, very long ago, mind you - Cathy and I made a promise: that when we found time we would see each other again. We still wrote to each other, but we never did have the chance to go see each other because of our responsibilities. But now, she's promised to come and visit in a month or so! Isn't that exciting!"
Rick grinned. "Yeah, sounds wonderful. Where is she, by the way?"
Evie handed him Catherine's letter. "When she wrote this she was in the middle of some jungle in Mexico, looking for ruins. That's where she's been the last five years or so."
Rick took the letter, and read it quickly. Evie noticed his eyebrow go up slightly in curiosity and interest - obviously he had gotten to the part where Catherine mentioned pyramids and mummies in the jungle. He glanced up at Evie. "She said she's bringing presents."
Evie nodded, images dancing in her head. "I know. I wonder what she will bring?"
"Not anything cursed, I hope. I've had enough Egyptian mummies to deal with without adding those of the Mexican variety to the mix."
Evie slapped her husband on the arm, but she smiled, and embraced him. "I don't think she'll be bringing over anything cursed. And besides, I doubt she'd give us anything cursed as a gift."
"It's a great way to unload something you don't want."
"Oh Rick, stop being so negative! Cathy's not like that, you'll see!"
"You hope."
"Rick!"