His Lotus Bloom: The Return

Chapter 12: Traveling and Oasis's

      Even though Aunt Jean was still depressed, there were plenty of opportunities to cheer her up in their travels from all the ancient Egyptian sights. From Alex forcing the henchmen to set up picnics for her and Meela, to making Imhotep do sand sculptures of where they were staying at temporarily. 

Meela did her fair share too. She constantly dressed up Jean in elaborate silks and fabrics covered in bangles and jewels. She even did Jean's makeup like in Ancient times. And of course, knowing her best friend, she even captured a wild camel and tamed it before giving it to her. Her smile was so big she thought her friend's face would split in half before running towards the smelly beast and wrapping her arms around its neck, the camel immediately groaned and returned Jean' s embrace by leaning his head on her shoulder. After she was done cooing at it she watered and fed it before squeezing Meela in a bear tight hug. Meela let out a choked laugh before stating how bad Jean smelled from hugging the camel and should wash off. 

Imhotep of course, lived and breathed for his love. He spoiled her with lavished perfumes from her past, lotus flowers on her pillow each night, kissing her forehead anytime he saw the grief slip into her eyes, having his men fix her an array of foods to share with Alex and Meela, gowns of silks and beading with velvet meshed in, and anytime she wished for something he hunted it down and presented it to her. And, of course, bought her an entire library's worth of historical books and legends to keep her occupied when they traveled. 

Everything seemed to be reaching a high note, until everyone noticed how the bracelet was becoming more and more erratic on Alex. They were running out of time to reach Am-Shere. Imhotep and Jean knew this wasn't good at all. The bracelet was a natural creation made by Anubis himself. It collected souls and ensnared them to be bound within the bracelet for all eternity. The same would happen to Alex if they didn't reach the pyramid in time. So while they sped up the process to get there, Jean researched books for a way to break the cursed bracelet while Imhotep looked in his spell books to see how he could reverse the curse on Jean. Even though she was happy, he could tell how much weaker she was getting. Her spells were becoming more frequent and intense, so much it was causing her to faint and mimic seizure-like activity. And her heart, was starting to crack like a fine piece of china trying to resist the curse. While all this was happening Evelyn was figuring out her past while Rick tried to navigate the course to reach Alex and Jean in time. Evelyn was still guilt stricken with her past, but was wondrous about these "alleged" gifts she had along with her sister. It seemed like complete flim flam to her but then again she thought mummies couldn't come to life either from reading from a book. Maybe there WAS some way to stop that eternal curse she placed on her sister and Imhotep.