❝you know, you're pretty cute, considering you're 4,000 years old.❞
❝thank you?❞
luna clair loves museums. she loves history, mythology, all that old shit. so when her best friend's dad gets a new job as the night guard of the new york national hist...
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CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
❝Go slowly, my lovely moon, go slowly.❞
Khaled Hosseini
✦✧✦
It turns out, Larry and Luna might share a brain. The next day, they meet for coffee at the island and suggest exactly the same thing: they need to do more research on the tablet. Nicky wants to come to, but Larry's still deciding on the right punishment, so Luna gives him a kiss on the cheek, promises to tell him everything, and they head out into the bitter cold, toward the museum once again.
The archives are on the lowest level, many feet below the museum, and it gets increasingly chillier as they take the elevator down to the basement. Luna pulls her coat tighter around herself, regretting not wearing more layers.
When the elevator doors open, they're met with an older woman with short gray hair and glasses, who's aggressively playing a game on her computer. Larry gives Luna an oh-dear look and then turns to the woman. "Uh, hi."
The woman looks up at them, crosses her arms, and leans back in her seat, looking severely judgmental.
"I'm Larry Daley," Larry says, untying his scarf, "and I'm head of the Night Program."
"I know who you are," the woman replies, unimpressed. "You're the security guard."
"Yeah, also head of the Night Program." Larry shrugs. "This is my assistant, Luna Clair."
"Hi!" Luna waves half-heartedly, hoping to someday get to the point of their trip down to the freezing basement. "We're hoping to do some research, um, and maybe you could help us out?"
"Mm, night guard and teenager doing research!" The woman raises her eyebrows. "Ooh-la-la."
"Yeah." Larry nods awkwardly. "Uh, I'm just looking for anything that you might have on the tablet of Ahkmenrah."
"Center aisle. Halfway down, stack's on your left."
"Great." Larry smiles, pats Luna on the arm, and heads down the hall toward the aforementioned aisle.
"Thank you so much," Luna says, leaning down to eye-level with the woman at the desk. "I was wondering if there's a chance you might be able to turn the heat up in here? It's freezing!"
The woman chortles, turning back to the Candy Crush game on her PC. "Oh, no, dear. I get the worst hot flashes down here. You'll have to keep your coat on."
Oh, this is gonna be great. So Luna wraps her coat tighter around her shoulders and follows Larry down to the center aisle.
For the next few hours, all Luna sees are old photographs, fragments of letters, and articles on the tablet and its trip to New York. It was in 1938 when the tablet was originally found in Egypt, by American and British archaeologists, and subsequently was taken to Cambridge until the late 1950s, when it was sent to the Museum of Natural History. All of this fits with what Ahkmenrah's told her, but there's no record anywhere of it ever corroding like this before.
