❝death is only the beginning.❞
Mara El-Masri's fascination with the long-ago world of ancient Egypt started with the stories her stepfather would tell her when she was a child. Her brother Talib El-Masri is missing, left after their mother's funera...
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THE ANCIENT PHARAOH refused to leave her be. He had not left Sarah's vision since she held that glittering golden ankh in her hands again, but he had not tried to speak, whether it be to her or through her. All he did now was watch her, with a horrible calculating look to his old eyes. He led her through the tomb, first to his burial chamber and then to that wall with the lock in it. He wanted her to go into whatever that room behind it was, and retrieve whatever it was he wanted.
Sarah didn't tell her parents that he was haunting her even more now than he was before. How could she? They were already worrying so much about her and it all still sounded so ridiculous. She was being targeted by a dead pharaoh only she could see. Why did they even believe her? Why wasn't the very idea of it as completely laughable to them as the Hamunaptra stories sounded to her? The thought that all those stories were true, that they'd been through things like these multiple times before, made her feel like she was trapped in a nightmare. What kind of a world did she live in that mummies came back to life and her family was always the one caught in the middle of it?
There hadn't been any doubt from anyone in her family that Khafre and his recent appearance in Sarah's life was the truth—not from Aunt Evy, the first and only person she confided in about it all. Aunt Evy had promised not to tell Mum and Dad. She broke that promise. Sarah thought they would think she had gone mad. But they didn't tell her she was making it all up, and they didn't suggest that it was a side effect of whatever had caused the seizure or the medication the doctors had prescribed to treat it. They knew it was real. They knew it was terrifying. And they were there for her, helping to find answers.
What answers had they found? Not very many, as far as she knew. She heard some talk about the Medjai—wasn't that some sort of group Giddu had been in when he was young?—and she heard them talking about a key. Then she heard them talk about the ankh. It was what did this to her. She should have told them that when she saw it at the museum the other day. It was the only thing she had touched in that secret room when she saw the shadow of Khafre for the first time. It had still been in her hands. She knew it had been it. But it called to her, this odd melody in her ears, and there had been nothing she wanted more than to hold it again.
One lesson Sarah Carnahan was going to take from this experience when it was finally over: no more lying to her parents. No more secrets. No more.
—
There came a point in parenting where one realizes that the child won't stay so small forever and that no matter the strength of a mother's love and protection, she would never be able to protect her child from everything that could cause her harm. There were very few things more difficult for Mara to admit, and if she were honest, she had tried to avoid realizing this hard truth before she found her daughter seizing. The thought of being unable to help her and the fear of losing her forever...she had never felt so frightened, not in a very long time. With each second that passed, there was more of a chance that her nightmares would continue to become reality. She couldn't bear that.
