R. LaFevers - Theodosia and the Serpents of Chaos

“You’re arguing over where the artifacts came from?” Nigel asked, incredulous. He looked down his nose at Fagenbush. “I don’t think the museum’s paying you to get into shouting matches with little girls, Clive. Now move along.”

Fagenbush muttered something under his breath before quickly leaving. I would need to be on my toes from now on. Now that I knew about the traitor, I couldn’t let him wreak any more havoc.

No sooner had Nigel gone back downstairs (after raising an eyebrow at me) than Henry appeared at my side. “Did you give it to them?” he asked. “What did they say?”

I grabbed him by the arm and pulled him into a dark corner of the foyer.

“Ow!” he said. “That hurts.”

“Sorry, but you’re talking too loud. You’re going to get us both in trouble.” I was stalling. What should I tell him? That Wigmere had ordered me to return the Heart of Egypt? But then Henry would fuss and whine and moan and insist on going with us to Cairo, which would almost certainly ruin all of our chances. “Yes, I gave it to them,” I finally said, which wasn’t exactly a lie.

Henry’s face lit up. “Was he impressed? Did he congratulate us? Did you tell him of the part I played?”

He looked so hopeful, it broke my heart that Wigmere hadn’t said anything nice. “Yes! Very impressed. I told him of the part both you and Will played and he said your distraction was sheer genius.”

Henry folded his arms over his chest and rocked back on his heels. “I should say.”

Having appeased Henry, I scuttled off to my closet to try and think of a plan to get Mother back to Egypt in a hurry. This was not going to be easy. And if Henry ever found out about my deception, he’d never trust me again.

I lifted my chin. That’s all right. He’d only just begun to trust me. So it only meant we’d go back to being the way we were. I just wish it didn’t feel so awful…

That night at dinner I kept glancing up at Mum, trying to see if I could sense any whiff of corrosion. Trouble was, it had been ages since she’d been home and of course she’d changed, but I didn’t know if it had anything to do with becoming a traitor or not.

“Theodosia! Why do you keep staring at your mother like that?” Dad snapped.

Startled, I dropped my fork onto my plate, launching a small volley of peas onto the white tablecloth. Father had been in a horrid mood ever since we’d lost the Heart of Egypt. Which made all these secrets that much more painful. But the truth wouldn’t make him any happier.

Father stabbed at his mutton so hard it nearly cracked the plate.

“Are you all right, Theodosia dear? You look a bit pale,” Mother said.

If she shouldered the same burdens I did, she’d be pale, too. Pale! That was it! She’d just given me my first opening. “Well, I do feel a bit pale,” I said. “I feel like I need a rest somewhere warm and dry.” There. I’d dropped my first hint.

“I’ll get you some chamomile tea before bed,” Mum offered. “That will help you rest.”

I hate chamomile tea.

I turned my attention back to my plate and cut my mutton up into tiny pieces, hoping I would fool Mum into thinking I’d eaten some. My worries rather squelched my appetite. Even though I had worked out that Clive Fagenbush was the mole, I couldn’t help but wonder how to convince Wigmere of Mother’s innocence. What would it take to prove it to him? What if I couldn’t? Would Mum go to jail? Be found guilty of treason? Would anyone even care that it wasn’t her, but the corrosive power of the black magic she came into contact with every day?

Except, I reminded myself, it wasn’t her. Wigmere had got it all wrong.

After what seemed like hours, Father finally pushed his plate away and sighed in contentment.

Now it was time for my next move. “Mum, when do you think you’ll be going back to Egypt?”

“Good heavens, Theodosia!” Father said. “She’s only just got back.”

I shrugged. “I’m just curious. Trying to plan out my year, you know, that sort of thing.”

“Plan out your year? Good grief.” Father didn’t seem to think my year needed planning out. Henry just looked at me, clearly puzzled.

“Not for a while, surely,” Mother said gently.

“But aren’t you eager to get back? See what else was in Amenemhab’s tomb? I mean, who knows what other marvelous finds might be hiding there? Doesn’t that sort of thing get under your skin? Make you itch to get back to it?”

Father stared at me with his mouth open, and Mother frowned slightly. “I’m not sure what you mean, Theodosia. Of course, any sort of intellectual discovery is invigorating, but you make it sound like more of an… obsession or something.”

Maybe I’d poured it on a bit thick, but I was trying to see if I could detect any hint of the traitorous behavior Wig-mere had been talking about. “But aren’t the winter months the best time of year to go to Egypt? Isn’t the weather milder then?” I asked.

My parents exchanged glances. “Yes,” Mum said. “Now is probably the best time to be there. But it’s the time when Henry is out of school, and the museum board has its annual meeting. There are many commitments here in London right now.”

Convincing them was going to be harder than I thought.

WHEN I AWOKE THE NEXT MORNING, I felt wretched. Not only had I not talked my parents into returning to Egypt, but I’d dreamed of those revolting little shabtis again. Only this time, one of them was chewing on my ankle. Terrifyingly enough, when I opened my eyes, the sensation didn’t go away.

Had the shabtis come to life? I sat bolt upright, only to find that it was just Isis. And she wasn’t gnawing on my ankle, but curled up in a warm furry ball, knitting at my feet with her claws. Gently. Which meant… the Demon Isis was gone!

I reached down and rubbed her tummy, then scratched behind her ears. And then, I heard my favorite sound in the world.

Isis purred.

And purred and purred. It was like a motor that wouldn’t turn off.

The mud bath had worked! oh how I wanted to stay there all day snuggling with my cat, but I had far too much work to do. Beginning with those filthy shabtis.

I gave Isis one last belly rub, and she gave me one last affectionate swipe with her paw.

Before I tackled the shabtis, I wanted to be sure I was adequately protected. First on my list of things to do was to make more amulets. I’d given one to Stokes and another to Danver. I was running low. Of course, I hadn’t realized that both men had their own specially ingrained protection. Although, come to think of it, fat lot of good that had done Stokes. Or Danver. Can’t use a tattoo as a tourniquet.

When I reached my study, I dragged the old carpetbag out of the cupboard and pulled Eggbert Archimedes’ The Power of Amulets: A Lost Art off the shelf and got to work.

The trick with amulets is figuring out exactly which ingredients are needed to protect you against which types of curses. Providing you know what type of curse it is. If you don’t, then you must resort to general protection, which isn’t quite as powerful. So, while it might seem like an excess to have seven amulets, it’s not. All you have to do is remember Danver and his unfortunate experience to know that.

I decided to regenerate the heart amulet I’d used on Stokes. It worked very well on physical injuries and the way things were going, I had an uneasy feeling there might be more of those.

I carefully scraped all the old wax and linen off the heart-shaped pebble, then rinsed it with purifying water. I cut a new piece of white linen and, using a special ink I’d made out of myrrh, I drew a wedjat eye in the center, then drew a snake around that. The viciousness of the snake would repel danger, and the eye would invoke wholeness and health.