Born of Shadow - Book 1 (complete)

Chapter 21

So after a long weekend of 4th of July Indepence day celebrating kicking those cheeky Redcoats out of our country (sorry @JayVictor, @TEJJohnson, and all my other English buds, I couldn't resist - hahaha ;), I have a question at the end of this chapter that I need your help answering.

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Yasmin wrinkled her nose and eyed him warily.

"Ma'am?" she asked incredulously. Samuel pulled the toothpick from his mouth and flicked it on the floor. He steepled his fingers in front of his mouth.

"You'll get your answers, some of them anyway. But first we begin with a little history, if you'll indulge the old man. Since I was a boy, I have had an obsession for unraveling mysteries. When I was five, I had a pet ferret named Hot Lips that I adored."

Kami heard an exasperated sigh on one side and an amused chuckle on the other. She could imagine what each was thinking—Yasmin was probably wondering what a ferret had to do with anything and Liam was probably wondering what kind of five-year-old names his pet Hot Lips.

Samuel droned on.

"One day tragedy struck, and I found Hot Lips lying on his side, stiff and cold. Dead as a door nail, as Charlie D would say. My poor little five-year-old heart was broken. I buried him in the back yard in a shoe box. But his death continued to consume me. I couldn't sleep. I couldn't eat. I had to know what had caused his death. So I dug him back out of the ground and performed a necropsy on him, and at last I discovered what had killed him. Any guesses?"

Kami glanced at the others. Chris looked chagrined like he'd heard the story "a million times." Yasmin looked like she was about to strangle Samuel, but Liam seemed strangely fascinated.

"No? It was a cherry Jolly Rancher candy that stuck in his throat and choked off his air supply. What a relief it was to know the cause of his death! I was able to at last make peace with his demise. As far as deaths go, a Jolly Rancher isn't too bad of a way to bid earth life sayonara, a heck of a lot better than genocide or tidal wave anyway.

"So that's when I first realized it. See, unsolved mysteries and me, we don't coexist too well—like oil and water. Like, uh, uh, Simon and Garfunkel. They annoy me, pick at my brain, urging me, egging me on, like slapping wet noodles in my face. I have to know the answers. I'm not one of those people who can sit back and say, we just don't know the answer, let's talk feng shui. Well if you don't have the answer, by thunder, why not?

"Okay, so obviously I've moved beyond ferret deaths, and the Hardy boys, and an embarrassing penchant for MacGyver. Now I'm into the heavy stuff."

He leaned forward and lowered his voice.

"Top, top-secret stuff. The kind of crap the establishment tries to sweep under a cute little throw rug. I'm like the wind that comes along and, whoosh, throws back the rug to reveal the governments dirty little secrets."

He made a dramatic hand gesture to emphasize the "whoosh."

Kami tried to pull her mind back to their problem. It was important, she knew, but there were too many dead ferrets and wet noodles blocking her path. Her original impression of Samuel had been absent-minded scientist, but now she was beginning to think mad scientist hippie might be a more accurate description. Yasmin had had enough.

"Can we get to the point?" she said, teeth gritted.

"Relax," Samuel said. "Take a chill pill. We're getting there. So anyways, rewind to about twenty years ago. I'm working as a stiff on Wall Street living the 'American Dream' and making loads of dough but hating every minute of it, completely denying my soul. My work's draining me and one day I wake up and say 'Enough, Samuel T. Towers! No more! You were born for something different.' So I quit my job that day, and I've never looked back.

"At first I didn't know what to pursue. I was like a kid in a candy store, stumbling over the possibilities that lay before me in a tantalizing heap. Earhart? Bermuda Triangle? Area 51? Stonehenge?"

"Shroud of Turin? The oozing black thumb of Jakarta?" Liam chimed in. Haji elbowed him.

"What?" he whispered. "I can't resist."

"Is that thumb thing even real?" Haji whispered back. 

"Is any of it?"

"Life felt fresh," Samuel went on. "I felt like the rebels who took down Mubarak. I had a purpose."

"Freedom to live a life of dignity. Freedom to hunt down Bigfoot. Both noble goals," Liam whispered loudly enough for everyone to hear. Haji tried to keep from laughing but failed miserably. Samuel didn't even notice. It was like he was in a trance.

"Indeed," Samuel said absently, clearly still lost in his thoughts. "It's so important to get one's life work right. It requires much thought from the outset. So I weighed my options, deliberated. It has to be more than just interesting. And it can't be too easily solvable. It has to grip you by the throat and not let you go. When you look at what history has preserved—Stonehenge, the pyramids—clearly there used to be a superior intelligence that we have been unable to match. It's lamentable when you think of it. What knowledge has been lost?"

"I don't know if I buy that. I've seen some pretty intelligent stuff on YouTube," Liam whispered to Haji again. "Nose tricks involving noodles, dancing fruitcakes, discourses on belly button lint ..."

Haji elbowed him again. The boy was incorrigible and Kami felt herself bite her cheek to keep from grinning. She wished she could be the recipient of his jokes again, like when she had sat next to him on the plane.

"Hush. I'm trying to find out about my grandparents here," Yasmin whispered.

"So that's how I knew, how I chose Atlantis," Samuel finished with a flourish.

They sat in stunned silence.

"But I thought Atlantis wasn't even real," Kami said. "We learned about it in school last semester. Isn't it just a fictional location Plato made up?"

"Ah, I see you've been deceived like so many others. It's easy to deny the things you can't see, or smell, or touch. And yet, when you do, you cut yourself off from a fascinating world of discovery. You will never search for what you don't believe in. Make no mistake. Atlantis is real, and I can prove it. But that's not what we're talking about right now. Three years ago my nephew Christopher joined me on my adventures. We eventually came to Egypt to follow the trail of Thoth, who originally brought the Emerald Tablet from Atlantis.

"We joined up with another group of travelers. We typically do our thing alone, but this group was very friendly. Besides, one of the women served up a fierce koshary."

"Koshary?" Kami whispered to Haji.

"It is a dish made with pasta, rice, black lentils, chick peas, garlic in a spicy tomato chili sauce with fried onions," Haji answered. 

Her stomach grumbled involuntarily and Haji chuckled.

"There were seven of them, a man, his wife, her two sisters and three other men. One night Christopher and I were out doing field work. When we returned, they were gone. The table was set, the food going cold. Clearly it wasn't a planned trip. We scouted around the tents and discovered tracks leading away from the site. We followed them for three days. On the third day, we started to notice these dark flashes, as if something was stalking us." 

Kami leaned forward. Finally he was getting to it.

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Okay, so I LOVE that I have readers from so many different countries. In honor of Independence day, could you share the country you are from, a patriotic holiday you celebrate and what you do to celebrate it. I am very excited to see your answers. 

The dedication today goes out to one of my faithful readers and Wattpad friends, the lovely @FarahOomerbhoy! Farah's wonderful "The Last of the Firedrakes" is great, imaginative fun. This year she published the book in the US and India - woot! Click on the dedication link to follow her and find out where you can buy her book. Trust me, it's that awesome!