Theodosia & the Eyes of Horus (19 page)

205

I tried to make sense of the layout, but the only sort of identification were signs with numbers on them.

I didn't know what I'd been expecting. Something more helpful, perhaps. Like signs saying BOOKS ON THE EMERALD TABLET, THIS WAY!

Many of the small offices were occupied, although a few were empty. As I sneaked down the hallway, trying to remain as inconspicuous as possible, one of the nameplates caught my eye: THELONIUS MUNK.

Munk. Could that be any relation to Augustus Munk, founder of the Museum of Legends and Antiquities? The very gentleman who'd bought an abandoned warehouse full of very intriguing artifacts that had ended up in our museum's basement? It was too great a coincidence not to explore a little further.

I poked my head into the office, disappointed when I saw it was empty. Wondering what I should do next, I stepped back out into the hallway and nearly plowed into an old man tottering my way carrying a stack of scrolls and books.

"Oh, I'm so sorry," I said awkwardly as I reached out to keep him from toppling over. He was bent with age, and his skin was the color of old parchment. His frock coat was at least fifty years out of date, and he had a few tufts of hair sprouting from his ears.

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He blinked twice. "Did you fall down a rabbit hole? Or come through a looking glass? I wonder."

I smiled at him. "Neither. Are you late for a very important appointment?"

The old man barked out a papery laugh. "Hardly. I think everyone's forgotten I even exist down here. Except you, so why don't you quit hovering at my door and come in so I can put these books down."

Unwilling to turn away an opportunity when it landed in my lap, I followed Thelonius Munk into the tiny, crammed office. It was full of papers and books and dust. Quite a lot of dust, actually. I sneezed.

"Bless you," the old man said, then creaked his way over to his desk and lowered himself into his chair. "Did you tell Mother I'd be late for tea?"

"I beg your pardon?"

He blinked again. "I'm sorry." He took his glasses off and cleaned them with a corner of his vest, then replaced them on the end of his nose. "What can I do for you, Alice?"

"No, no!" I almost laughed before I realized he was serious. "I'm Theodosia ..." I'd been about to say
Throckmorton,
then realized it was probably best if I kept my last name out of this.

"You want information on the Emperor Theodosius?" He perked up, as if this pleased him greatly.

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"No, no. My
name
is Theodosia."

He held up a hand to stop me, then opened a desk drawer and rooted around. When he drew his hand back out, he was holding a large, crooked brass trumpet. He lifted one end to his ear and thrust the wide end toward me. "Speak up now," he instructed.

"I said, My. Name. Is. Theodosia."

"Oh." His face fell. "So you don't want any information on the Emperor Theodosius?"

"I'm afraid not."

He looked quite disappointed. "No one pays enough attention to him. Very important figure in history, you know."

"I'm sure he is," I said, not wanting to hurt his feelings. "What I was actually looking for was any ancient texts that connect the Emerald Tablet with the Egyptian god Thoth."

His unfocused gaze sharpened on me.

"It's for a, er, school report I'm doing."

He nodded his head in approval. "Good. I've never held with the notion that girls shouldn't be as well educated as boys." He pursed his lips and stared into space for a moment. I had no idea if he was mentally reviewing the collections to see if they had what I needed or if he was taking a short nap. Just when I was sure he'd forgotten I was there, he spoke. "Is there anything else, while I'm back there?"

I swallowed. In for a penny, in for a pound. "Well, yes,

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actually. I am also looking for any information on something I came across handwritten in the margins of a research book. I wanted to see if there was a more official accounting of it."

"Well, what is it, Alice?" he asked, a bit testily. "I can't look it up if you don't tell me."

"The
wedjadeen."
When I said that, the air in the room seemed to ripple slightly, as if the word itself had disturbed something. Not good. I dearly hoped he'd heard it the first time and didn't need me to repeat it.

His eyes became glazed as he stared at the wall some more and stroked his knobby chin.
"Wedja, wedja ...
"I held my breath, terrified he'd repeat it. Instead, he blurted out, "The Eyes of Horus. That does sound familiar."

"Is that what it means?" I asked. "Many
wedjat
eyes
?"

"No," he said, "not exactly. The use of the suffix -een indicates a group of men. And I have heard that before, but where?" He creaked to a standing position and shuffled out from behind his desk. "I'll be back in a jiffy," he said.

I could only wonder how long he thought a jiffy was since it took him two whole minutes to get from his desk to his office door. Still, he did think he had information for me. I sat down and vowed to wait patiently no matter how long it took.

I think I may have even napped a bit, for I found myself startled as if from sleep when I heard, "Here you go, Alice."

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I began to correct him, then changed my mind. It was probably best to remain as anonymous as possible.

He held a scroll in one hand and an old journal bound with leather straps in the other. It was all I could do to keep from snatching them away as he shuffled over to his desk.

He set the book down, then began to unroll the parchment, his gnarled, liver-spotted hands trembling slightly.

I scooted forward in my chair.

His eyes scanned the parchment until he finally said, "Aha!"

"Did you find it?" I asked, unable to keep silent a moment longer.

He planted his finger on the parchment so hard I was afraid he'd poke a hole in it. Then he began to read. '"The Emerald Tablet, fashioned by Thoth, whom the Greeks call Hermes Trismegistus ..."' He continued to read from the scroll, but there was nothing to add to what I'd learned in my own research. My shoulders slumped in disappointment.

When he'd finished reading, he looked over at me expectantly. "Thank you," I said brightly, not wanting to hurt his feelings.

Without much hope, I watched him struggle to unbuckle the straps on the book. "Now, this is a diary written by one of Napoleon's men during his occupation of Egypt,"

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Thelonius said. He began turning the pages so slowly I wanted to scream.

"Here!" He cackled in glee. "Knew I could find it. This man came upon one of his fellow soldiers who'd gone missing for a fortnight. He was wandering alone in the desert, half dead from exposure and babbling something about the
wedjadeen."

The light flickered. Clearly, that was a word of some power and importance and was not to be uttered lightly.

"I have read about them someplace else," Thelonius said, "but the text isn't on the shelf where it should be. It must have been misplaced. I'll look for it, if you'd like."

"Thank you, you've been an enormous help."

***

Once safely back at our museum, I made straight for the family sitting room. I'd had nothing to eat since that morning, and I was starving. Hopefully there was at least a crust of bread left and a bit of jam, something to hold me over till supper.

I burst into the room and startled Henry, who dropped the spoon he'd held in his hand. He was hunched over the table, the jar of jam in front of him, and he'd been spooning out the very last drop.

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My heart sank all the way down to the bottom of my hollow stomach. "Henry!" Disappointment made my voice quite sharp, I'm afraid.

He picked up the spoon and shifted his gaze to me. "What?"

"That's disgusting, eating the jam straight out of the jar." Never mind that I would have done the same myself at this point, I was
that
hungry.

Henry shrugged. "There was nothing else to eat and I was starving." He returned his attention to the nearly empty jam jar and began scraping out the last little bit at the bottom. He was hunched over his work, as if it were the most important task in the world, and his movements were a bit furtive.

Just as I readied myself to explain about the book, I noticed a faint shadow of some kind hovering close to his shoulder. He finished the last lick of jam, then pushed away from the table. He stood and carried the empty jar over to the dustbin, and the faint shadow of darkness at his shoulder followed him.

My entire body went cold. "Henry, is that a smudge of dirt there on your shoulder?"

Henry looked down at his shoulder and brushed at it. "No. I don't see anything."

When he'd brushed, the dark spot hadn't budged. Which

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meant it
was
a shadow. Which meant Tetley's
mut
had gotten to Henry before
I
had gotten to
it.

I had to lay that poor mummified man to rest. As soon as possible. There was no time to lose in putting my burial plan for Tetley into action. My hunger forgotten, I went to make the necessary preparations. First stop, Stilton's office.

I found him just packing up to leave for the day. I rapped lightly at his open door. He glanced up at me briefly, then returned to neatly stacking the last of his papers. "Hello, Miss Theo." Was he reluctant to meet my eye? Or merely feeling a bit awkward, as I was, from our last conversation?

"Hullo, Stilton. Do you have a moment?"

He stopped what he was doing and focused his full attention on me. "Is everything all right, Miss Theo?"

"Yes. I just need to ask a favor, actually."

"Have a seat," he said, nodding at one of the chairs.

"Thank you." I sat down and took a moment to smooth my skirts and try to decide how best to present my request. "I have a bit of a problem I need help with."

"Of course, Miss Theo. I told you I'd do anything I could to make it up to you." His eyebrows were drawn together in an earnest frown.

"So you did. Well, this is going to sound strange, but I need you to kidnap a coffin."

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His jaw dropped open and one eyebrow began twitching so fiercely I thought it would launch itself clean off his face.

"But only for a little while," I rushed to add. "You can take it right back in a matter of hours."

"Am I to know why you need this coffin, miss?"

"Probably the less you know, the better, don't you think?"

"I suppose that depends. When did you need me to, um, procure this coffin for you? And was there a specific coffin you had in mind, or would any old coffin do?"

"Oh, no. It's a very specific coffin. And I need it by tomorrow night. Here's where you can find it..." And I proceeded to explain.

***

From my earlier research, I had made a small list of items I would need for the ceremony. Luckily, we had most of them here in the museum, although part of me felt I really had to quit treating the Egyptian exhibit as if it were a shop and I was on a shopping expedition. But another part of me simply didn't care.
Someone
had to tend to all the dark magic roaming around.

With the museum closed for the upcoming exhibition and everyone else busy in the foyer, I had the Egyptian room to myself. I was able to collect four small brass chafing dishes

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for incense burners, then I located two of the four vessels I would need for the purification ceremony. I found the other two down in the catacombs. I would also need a small bag of rock chips, red carnelian, to be exact. Hmm. Those would be tough, as I'd used up all my red stones a few weeks ago making Blood of Isis amulets for all the mummies in our museum during the Staff of Osiris crisis.

The only place I could think of to find carnelian chips was the repair table out in Receiving. We usually had a good supply of semiprecious stones and other odds and ends that the curators used to repair things that came in broken or damaged.

I paused at the door to Receiving, remembering my earlier encounter with the
mut
that lurked here. It could have been the one that had now attached itself to Henry, or it could have been a completely different one. Best to be on my guard.

I stepped inside the room, and my eyes searched all the corners of the ceiling. There was nothing there, which meant the shadow was most likely upstairs, attached to Henry like a limpet.

I hurried to the worktable and located a dozen small pieces of carnelian. It would just have to be enough. Shoving those into my pocket, I headed for the reading room.

There were two more vital ingredients to the ceremony. I