Mummy Dearest: The XOXO Files, Book 1 (3 page)

I glimpsed my blonde friend from the parking lot. She waved to me in greeting. “Hey there!”

I lifted a hand in hello. A dark-haired girl with a spattering of freckles across her nose approached me. “Can I help you?”

“I was looking for Fraser Fortune.”

She looked doubtful, but went to get him. I followed her path through the crowded, over-bright room. Fraser balanced on a ladder fastening what looked like a giant roll of tinfoil. He listened to her and then glanced over at the doorway where I stood.

His expression changed though I couldn’t read it. He jumped down from the ladder with surprising agility and made his way through the light stands and reflectors, giving orders as he went.

He planted himself in front of me, arms folded. Even though I was arguably taller, he was definitely broader and more solidly built. “Yes?” He was all business, which made what I had to say all the harder.

I cleared my throat. “I’ve rethought your offer, and if it’s still open, I’d like to accept.”

“I see.” He stood there for a moment, studying me, thinking it over. I wondered if maybe I was going to have to do some groveling after all. But then he shrugged. “Okay. It was a good idea an hour ago; it’s still a good idea. Let’s go for it.”

The relief was huge. “Thank you,” I got out.

He gave a quick, surprisingly mischievous grin. “I bet
that
hurt.”

My own smile twisted up. “A little.”

He gave my shoulder a friendly punch. “It takes a big man to be able to accept he’s wrong.”

As I didn’t exactly think I had been in the wrong, I opened my mouth, but he was already off and running. “Okay. Let’s get you ready for your close up, Mr. DeMille.” He yelled for makeup.

“Makeup?” I asked unhappily. “Is that really necessary?”

“Yes. Relax.” Fraser studied my jeans and striped shirt. His brows drew together although he was dressed similarly, except instead of stripes he’d opted for black and white checks that I’d have thought would make any camera nauseous. “Do you have anything more professional looking you could change into?”

“No. I wasn’t dressing for a job interview.”

He pointed at me. “Hey. Good thought. I think we’ll call this segment…
Interview with a Mummy
.”

“Not Curse of the Mummy?” I was being sarcastic.

“I think it’s too obvious,” he said kindly, evidently not wishing to hurt my feelings.

He wandered away, and the blonde skinny girl from earlier appeared.

“Hi, I’m Karen. I’m going to do your makeup.”

“Hi, I’m Drew.”

She was studying me with unnerving intensity. “Oh, you’re a cutie. Do you have to wear your glasses, Drew?”

“Er…no.” I slid them off and tucked them in my pocket.

“Good. You have pretty eyes. Are they green or blue?”

“Sort of green blue.”

“Nice dark eyelashes. I don’t think we’ll have to touch them up.”

“Touch them up?” I repeated uneasily.

She chuckled. “You’d be surprised at the difference a little mascara makes.”

“No I wouldn’t.”

She laughed outright. “Don’t worry. I won’t tamper with your inner macho man.”

Fraser wandered back, watching critically as Karen began dusting loose powder over my face with a brush that looked a lot like the ones we use in the field for cleaning fossils.

“His skin is as clear as a little kid’s,” Karen observed. “
And
he blushes.”

To my abject gratitude, Fraser didn’t take the all-too-easy shot and embarrass me further. “Okay, Dr. Lawson. Describe what you plan to do with the mummy and we’ll work out how to shoot it.”

I hadn’t really thought this far ahead, but clearly they were on a shoestring budget and wasting time was not an option.

“It’s not going to be anything very in-depth. I’m not a forensic archeologist, and I don’t have the equipment here even if I were. Nor has Merneith been preserved under anything close to proper conditions. Dr. Solvani gave me permission to examine the mummy and the sarcophagus, but not to remove her from the case.”

“Because she’d fall apart?”

“Well, yes. That, for sure. She’s falling apart as it is.”

“Now we’ll just apply a little bronzer,” Karen murmured.

“Do we—?”

“Yes,” they said in unison, and I subsided.

“Go on,” Fraser ordered me.

“Basically, I’m going to measure her, superficially examine her wrappings and the emblems and inscriptions on the sarcophagus, and take a bunch of snapshots and notes.”

Fraser rubbed his bearded chin. “Okay. Can you make it visual?”

“What did you have in mind?”

“Don’t look so nervous. We’ll roll the cameras and follow you, just make sure you narrate everything you do. And don’t block the camera with your body. You see what I mean?”

“I think so.”

“It’s not complicated. Mostly we’ll be filming the mummy itself. We’ll only use a fraction of the frames we shoot, anyway.”

“Then why—?”

“Because we don’t know what will work and what won’t till we’ve got it all. We don’t have time to script this. We’ll have to fix it all in post.” He said to Karen, “He’s very shiny.”

“I know.” She reached for the big brush and dusted my nose once more. “You’re scaring him.”

“Nothing to be scared of.” Fraser delivered another of those light, bracing punches to my arm. “This is going to be
great
. We’ll get you examining the mummy and then afterwards I’ll interview you.”

“What are you going to ask?” I closed my eyes as Karen held up a weird bent tool that looked like it would be good for extracting an eyeball.

“Relax, Dr. Hackenbacker. I won’t question you about anything that will embarrass you at your faculty tea party. It’ll just be some general questions about what first interested you in the princess, maybe some stuff about Egypt in the Sixth Dynasty.”

I was surprised he knew Merneith was Sixth Dynasty, but maybe that wasn’t fair. Fraser’s show might be stupid, but he was far from it. I scrutinized him with new interest. He was stocky but not fat. Not a hard body, but not soft either. A lived-in body. I hadn’t taken him seriously earlier, but seeing him in his own milieu, definitely in charge and clearly capable, gave me a different perspective. He had an air of authority. Despite the joking around, his crew respected him.

He was saying, “Frankly, we don’t really have a lot for this segment, so you coming along when you did is serendipity.”

“So happy to oblige.”

He tilted his head to one side and contemplated me. “No offense, but you’re wound about as tight as anyone I’ve ever met.”

“None taken. I come from a long line of Slinkys.”

He laughed. Reluctantly, I laughed too.

I finished with makeup and stood to the side watching as
The
Mysterious
team finished setting up their set.

“Quick and dirty,” Karen informed me.

“Who?”

She laughed. “Us. The crew. The shoot. We’re squeezing this one in. The show, I mean. Fraser got a letter from the museum curator, and he was so excited he drummed up financing for one more show this season. He’s a genius.”

“I bet.”

She nodded. “He’s got a real instinct for this kind of thing. A special sense.”

Oh brother. “Like a sixth sense?”

“That’s probably it, yeah.”

“Okay, Dr. Lawson,” Fraser suddenly yelled from across the room. “Show time.”

My stomach began to gurgle in alarm. Or maybe it was the fact I hadn’t eaten all day. Which was probably a good thing, come to think of it. I picked my way through the stands and lines and oddball exhibits. The mummy case was bathed in surprisingly hot, blinding light.

“We can still see you with your eyes closed,” Fraser remarked.

“You should do comedy,” I told him, opening my eyes a fraction against the irradiation.

“I do, depending on which critic you ask. Here. Look at the birdie.”

I risked a look. Fraser was grinning at me. He pointed.

“That thing over your head is a boom microphone. Phil is our audio guy. Say hi to Doctor Lawson, Phil.”

“Hi.”

“Hi,” I returned in a voice I didn’t recognize.

Fraser said, “We’re not going to try to mic you because I can foresee the problems already. So don’t worry about that. Just talk. Describe what you’re doing in a normal, clear voice like you’re giving a lecture in your classroom. Phil will take care of the rest.”

“I got it,” Phil agreed.

Fraser said, “We’re only using two cameras for this. Okay? Here’s the main camera. It’s stationary. Then Arturo, to your left, is using a handheld. He’s going to be moving around. Just ignore him. Don’t talk to the camera, but don’t freak out if you happen to look directly at it or something. It’s not a big deal.”

I nodded. My mouth was so dry I wasn’t sure I could unstick my tongue to make words. So this was what stage fright felt like. Like your first day at school. Attending or teaching.

I must have looked as petrified as I felt because Fraser’s tone changed. He said kindly, “Just do what you would normally do, only talk to yourself as you’re doing it.”

I nodded.

“Try and forget we’re here.”

I nodded again.

“You already got the part, Drew, so relax.”

I threw him a deadly look and everyone, including Fraser, laughed. “
That’s
the spirit. Okay, ready? Jeannie has the clapperboard, so don’t jump…”

I did jump, but after that it all seemed to run pretty smoothly. In fact, my fifteen minutes of fame turned out to be a lot easier than I thought.

After all, I did know how to talk, and there was nothing I liked to talk about more than history and Egypt and archeology.

“Her approximate measurements are…height through nose…eight times width of shoulders…so twenty times length…sixty-two inches. I’ve never actually seen a mummy taller than about five and a half feet. Generally when a body is excavated, the archeologist will record all the important details. The condition, the measurements, the other items found in the grave or tomb. But things were less systematic back when Merneith was discovered. In fact, archeology was sometimes not much more than a free-for-all treasure hunt. So, unfortunately, we don’t have anything but legend as far as her mummy’s provenan
ce.”

I moved around the display case, aware of Fraser a few feet across from me and of Arturo hovering to my left with his camera which seemed to be unnervingly directed at my profile. I tried to think only of the fragile wrappings in the large glass case. Merneith’s teeth were actually in remarkably good shape, all things considered. Her hair, not so much.

“Now days everything gets x-rayed, which means we don’t have to damage the mummy to study it. Back in the nineteenth century, mummies were literally torn to pieces in order to examine them. In fact, unwrapping a mummy was often turned into a social event, and pieces were sometimes given as souvenirs. There were lots of weird theories. Some people believed the mummies had magical powers or that crushed mummy powder could be used in medicine. Mummies have been used for making paint and paper and for railway fuel, though some scholars argue over whether that last is true or whether we got that fr
om Mark Twain exaggerating in
The Innocents Abroad
.”

I turned my attention to the sarcophagus, which was in suspiciously beautiful shape. It seemed likely to me that some restoration had probably taken place. I knelt for a better look.

“Cut!”

I looked up over the edge of the case, surprised.

“Where’d you go?” Fraser asked.

I gestured. “I was just…”

He shook his head, but he was laughing. “You can get on your hands and knees and crawl around the case to your heart’s content later, okay? For now, stay topside so we can follow you.”

“Right. Sorry.”

He seemed inordinately amused as we resumed shooting.

I bent over the case again. There was an inscription in ink-black hieratic. Hieratic was a cursive style of writing, predating the more elaborate and better-known hieroglyphics or the hieroglyphic script which it closely resembled. In movies it’s almost always hieroglyphics used as they’re more visually striking. That’s because the symbols in hieratic were simplified for speed and clarity. By the Sixth Dynasty, hieratic was used almost exclusively in religious texts such as the
Book of the Dead
.

It happened to be my area of expertise. I silently began to read.

For who shall defile the temples of the ancient gods, a cruel and violent death shall be his fate, and never shall his soul find rest unto eternity. Such is the curse of Amon-Ra, king of all the gods.

“Can you tell us what you’re looking at, Dr. Lawson?” prompted Fraser.

I raised my head and blinked. He was invisible behind the blazing, hot lights.

“What?”

“That inscription seems to have caught your attention. Can you translate it?”

“No.”

“
No
?”

I stared at the inscription again.

Before the Twelfth Dynasty, hieratic, like hieroglyphic script, could be written in columns or horizontal lines. After the Twelfth Dynasty, it was exclusively horizontal. What did not change—ever—was that whether written in columns or horizontally, hieratic was always read right-to-left.

The text in front of me was written left-to-right as is English. Right there, that indicated to me the sarcophagus was a phony. But in case I had any doubt, the inscription itself sealed it.

I happened to recognize it. It was a quote from the 1940 film,
The Mummy’s Hand.

Chapter Three

When I finished my examination, the production crew started lugging lights and equipment again. Fraser wanted to conduct our interview in front of a more visually exciting background, so I moved to the side and let them get to work while I considered what to do about the bogus mummy case.

Should I speak up or not? My instinct was to keep quiet—and around a film crew that was probably a good instinct. The best thing would be to talk to Noah about it. But they had me on film authenticating the thing. Or as good as.

Babe dragged out a large wooden chair, legs scraping hideously as she hauled it through the exhibit room, banging against tables and shelves.