Chapter 1 Part 2

Author's Note: Thank you for all the views and support. A special thank you goes out to perabethIshipIt and SimbaLuv4323. Just so you guys know, I kept the name Amos the same because, while more commonly used for boys, it is also a girl's name. I didn't want to white wash the name either by replacing it with something like Annie, so it'll stay Amos. Feel free to make any spelling/grammar mistakes, I'll try to correct them ASAP.

Accalia Sage: With regard to switching between present and past tense, I'm using Riordan's text as a basis, and because he switches between present and past tense, I'm going to keep it that way. While it shouldn't be used in professional writing, it can help to induce a more casual feel, which fits when your story is supposed to be teenagers recording. I am aware that this is not technically the right thing to do, so thank you for your comment

"Mom wants us to wait in the cab," I said, even though I knew it was no use. He never listened to me about anything. Samuel was already on the move. Instead of going straight across the street, like I thought he would, he dashed up the sidewalk for half a block, ducking behind parked cars, then crossed to the opposite side and crouched under a low stone wall. What was this? Some crappy stealth level of a video game?! He started sneaking toward our mother, crouching down low like a lion stalking it pray. I didn't have much choice but to follow his example, even though it made me feel kind incredibly stupid.

"Six years in England," I muttered, "and he thinks he's freaking James Bond." Samuel swatted me in the head without looking even back and kept creeping forward. After a couple more steps, we were right behind the big dead tree. I could hear my mother on the other side, saying, "…have to, Amos. You know it's the right thing."

"No," said the other woman, who must've been Amos. Her voice was low for a female and seemed very insistent.

Her accent was American, with a tinge of some other foreign dialect mixed in. "If I don't stop you, Julia, they will. The Per Ankh is shadowing you. You know they have been since the incident"

Samuel turned to me and mouthed the words "Per what?"

I shook my head, just as confused. "Let's get out of here," I whispered back. We'd be sure to be spotted any minute and get in serious trouble if we stayed any longer. Samuel, as per usual, ignored me.

"They don't know my plan," my mother was saying. "And by the time they figure it out—"

"What about the children?" Amos asked. The hairs stood up on the back of my neck. They had to have been talking about Samuel and I. And judging by Amos' tone, what could happen to us was not good.

"I've already made arrangements to protect them," my mom said. "Besides, if I don't do this, we're all going to be in danger. Back off! They are my children and this is my choice. You need to stay out of it."

"I can't, Julia."

"Then it's a duel you want?" Mom's tone turned deadly serious. "You never could beat me, Amos." I hadn't heard my mother threaten violence on anyone since the Great Spatula Incident. Her eyes were like lasers, and she was tensed and reaching towards her bag. Not a good sign.

Samuel seemed to realize this too, and he popped up and shouted, "Mom!"

She looked surprised when he hug-tackled her, nearly knocking her over, but not nearly as surprised as the other woman, Amos. She stumbled back so quickly that she tripped over her own trench coat. She'd taken off her glasses, revealing large, shocked eyes that narrowed slightly at the sight of me. I couldn't help thinking that Samuel was right. She did look familiar—like person from a dream you had years ago.

"I—I must be going," she said. She straightened her fedora and strutted down the road.

Our mom watched her go, a mix of relief and some sadness mixed on her face. She kept one arm protectively around Samuel, clean cut nails gripping his shoulder tightly, with the other inside the work- bag slung over her shoulder. Finally, when Amos disappeared around the corner, Mom relaxed. She took her hand out of the bag and smiled at Samuel.

"Hello, dear." She said, trying to wrap him in a hug.

Samuel pushed away from her and crossed his arms, fixing a fierce glare upon our mother. "Oh, now it's dear, is it? You're late. Visitation Day's nearly over and I've barely seen you! And what was that conversation about? Who's Amos, and what's the Per Ankh?" Mom stiffened at this mention, glancing at me like she was wondering how to smooth over what we had just heard.

"It's nothing," she lied, trying to sound upbeat, though it didn't reach her eyes. "I have a wonderful evening planned. Who'd like a private tour of the British Museum?" With this, she took off towards the taxi and climbing in, giving us no choice but to follow. Samuel slumped in the back of the taxi between Mom and me.

"I can't believe it," he grumbled. "One evening together, and you're more focused on your stupid research than your kids."

Mom tried for a smile, but I could see the hurt in her eyes. "Honey, it'll be fun. The curator of the Egyptian collection has personally invited—"

"Oh! Bloody huge surprise." Samuel flipped his head back, sending the red tipped strands flying off of his forehead and out of his eyes. "Christmas Eve, and we're going to see some moldy old relics from Egypt. Do you ever think about anything else?"

Mom didn't get mad. She never gets mad at Samuel or I, no matter what we do. It sounds stereotypical, but she would only look disappointed or sad, but never outright mad at us. She just stared out the window at the darkening sky and the quickly falling rain that streaked down the class, each drop racing the other.

"Yes," she said quietly. "I do."

Whenever Mom got quiet like that and stared off into nowhere, I knew that she was thinking about our dad. Over the last few months, it had been happening a lot. I'd walk into our hotel room and find her with her wallet in his hands, Dad's picture smiling up at her from the top picture in the album—his hair nearly hidden under a protective hat, his blue eyes shockingly bright against the backdrop of the desert. Or we'd be at some dig site. I'd see Mom staring out at the horizon, and I'd know he was remembering the time that they first met. It was a truly romantic story. Two young scientists in the Valley of the Kings, on a dig to discover a lost tomb, fall in love at first sight. Mom was an Egyptologist, there in the hopes of discovering unseen hieroglyphs. Dad was an anthropologist looking for ancient DNA. She'd told me the story a thousand times, though I never got sick of it. I had so few memories of my dad any inside into his relationship with Mom was like finding gold.

Our taxi snaked its way along the banks of the Thames. As we were just passing Waterloo Bridge, my mom tensed again. "Driver," she said. "Stop here a moment." The cabbie pulled over on to a memorial along the Victoria Embankment.

"What is it, Mom?" I asked.

She climbed out of the cab as if she hadn't even heard me. By the time Samuel and I joined her on the rain-splattered sidewalk, she was staring up at Cleopatra's Needle.

Just in case you've never seen it, the Needle is a beautifully simple monument, but nothing most people would stop to gawk at. It's shaped like an obelisk, not a needle, and, despite the name, it doesn't have anything to do with Cleopatra. I guess the British just thought the name sounded cool when they brought it to London, and no one bothered to stop them. It's about seventy feet tall, which was incredibly impressive in Ancient Egyptian times, when most building were small houses made of mud and straw. But on the Thames, surrounded by tall, shiny buildings, it looks small and sad. You could drive right by it and not even realize you'd just passed something that was a thousand years older than the city of London.

"God." Samuel cursed, walking around in a frustrated circle. "Do we really have to stop for every monument? Or are you just trying to stall for time?"

My mom continued staring at the top of the obelisk. She kept her expression neutral, but her eyes looked equal parts tired and sad, with none of their usual luster. "I had to see it again," she murmured. "Where it all happened..."

A freezing wind blew off the river, the icy breeze cutting through my coat, making all of my arm hairs raise. I wanted desperately to get back in the cab, but my mom was beginning to seriously worry me. I'd never seen her so distracted.

"What, Mom?" I asked, shaking her arm frantically. "What happened here?"

"The last time I saw him."

Samuel stopped in his tracts, turning towards Mom and I, shooting us a confused look. "Hang on. Do you mean Dad?"

Mom ruffled Samuel's hair, and he was so surprised, he didn't even push her away. I felt like the rain had frozen me solid, trapping me in a situation I had no idea how to handle. Dad's death had always been a forbidden subject. I knew that he'd died in an accident in London. I knew my grandparents blamed my mother. But no one would ever tell us the details as far as how or exactly where it happened. I'd given up asking my mom, partly because it made her so sad, but mostly because she absolutely refused to tell me anything. "When you're older" was the only thing she would say, which was one of the most frustrating responses ever. Parents usually say it to their children in an effort to protect them, but most of the time it just makes them imagine the worst possible situation.

"Are you telling us he died here?" I asked. "At Cleopatra's Needle? What happened?"

She lowered her head.

"Mum!" Samuel protested. "I walk past this every day, and you mean to say—all this time—and I didn't

even know?!"

"Do you still have your cat?" Mom asked her, seemingly out of nowhere. Samuel's confusion showed on his face, as did his mounting annoyance.

"Of course I've still got the cat!" he said. "What the hell does the cat have to do with anything?"

"And your amulet?"

Samuel's hand flew to his neck. When we were little, right before Samuel was taken to live with our grandparents, Mom had given us both Egyptian amulets. Mine was an Eye of Horus, which was a popular protection symbol in Ancient Egypt. In fact, the modern pharmacist's symbol is a simplified version of the Eye of Horus, because medicine is supposed to protect you. My amulet was the only piece of jewelry I wore daily, but I figured Samuel would've lost his or thrown it away after a few years.

To my surprise, he nodded. "'Course I have it, Mum, but don't change the subject. Gramp's always going on and on about how you caused Dad's death. That's not true, is it?"

We waited, staring at our mother expectantly. For once, Sadie and I weren't fighting: We wanted exactly the same thing—the truth.

"The night your father died," my mother started, "here at the Needle—"

Suddenly a flash illuminated the embankment. I turned, half blind, my ears ringing, and just for a moment I glimpsed two figures: a tall pale woman with long hair, wearing cream-colored robes, and a coppery-skinned boy in dark blue robes and a headband. They were the types of clothes I always saw in Egypt. They were just standing there side by side, barely twenty feet away, watching us. Then the light faded. The figures melted into a fuzzy afterimage, like the silhouette you see of a firework after it explodes. Once my eyes readjusted to the darkness, they were gone.

"Um..." Samuel said nervously. "Did either of you just see that?"

"Get in the cab," my mom ordered, pushing us toward the curb. Her entire demeanor changed, and suddenly she was back to the confident leader I knew.

"We're out of time. This isn't the place to talk," she said, glancing behind us. She'd promised the cabbie an extra 15 pounds if he got us to the museum in under five minutes, and the cabbie was doing his best, swerving through lanes and almost certainly causing traffic accidents behind us.

"Mom," I tried, "those people at the river—"

"And the other lady, Amos," Samuel said. "Are they Egyptian police or something?"

"Look, both of you," Mom said, "I'm going to need your help tonight. I know it's hard, but you have to be patient. I'll explain everything, I promise, after we get to the museum. I'm going to make everything right again. We'll all be a family again and everything will be back to how it should be."

"What do you mean?" Samuel insisted. "Make what right?"

Mom's expression was more than sad. She looked irreconcilable and almost guilty. With a chill, I thought about what Samuel had said: about our grandparents blaming her for Dad's death. What if it was true? I had spent my whole life with my mom, and I don't know if I could handle learning that everything I knew about her had been a lie. Most of me knew that there was no way my mom would have killed my dad, she loved him just as much as she loves Samuel and I. But that 1% of doubt was beginning to eat me alive.

The cabbie swerved onto Great Russell Street and screeched to a halt in front of the museum's main gates.

"Just follow my lead," Mom told us. "When we meet the curator, act normal." I was thinking that Samuel never acted normal, but I decided not to say anything. We must have been in an extreme situation if we were being told to 'act normal', as if nothing strange were happening. Maybe Samuel's theory about the Egyptian police has some merit.

We climbed out of the cab. I got our luggage while Mom paid the driver with a big wad of cash. Then she did something even more strange. She threw a handful of small objects into the backseat—they looked like stones or buttons, but it was too dark for me to be sure. "Keep driving," she told the cabbie. "Take us to Chelsea."

That direction made no sense since we were already out of the cab, but the driver seemed to understand, speeding off. I glanced at Mom, then back at the cab before it turned the corner and disappeared in the dark. Through the darkness, I caught a weird glimpse of three passengers in the backseat: a woman and two kids.

I blinked. There was no way the cab could've picked up another fare so fast. "Mom—"

"London cabs don't stay empty very long," she said matter-of-factly. "Come along, children."

She marched off through the wrought iron gates, walking at such as pace it could have been confused for running. For a second, Samuel and I hesitated.

"Carla, what is going on?"

I shook my head. "I'm not sure I want to know."

"Well, stay out here in the cold if you want, but I'm not leaving without an explanation." He turned and chased after our mom. Looking back on it, I should've run. I should've dragged Samuel out of there and gotten as far away as possible. In doing so I would have saved my brother and I tons of grievances and strife. Instead, I followed him through the gates.

Thank you so much for all of your reviews. I know that my grammar is not the best, and while I'm trying to work on it, uploading at a fast pace combined with being incredibly busy at school means I don't have much time. Let me know if you would rather me focus on really good quality or continue with a fast turn out rate of every day or every other day. Feel free to review or PM me with any comments/questions.

Thank you again, and I hope you enjoyed it!

Cat