Curious Goings-on at Charing Cross Station

 

WE STEPPED OUT OF THE MUSEUM into a howling wind that nearly snatched my heavy winter coat right off my back. The sky was leaden with clouds, which pelted us with a furious, stinging rain. Father herded me into the growler, where we shook the worst of the water off then settled back onto the cushions. He rapped on the carriage ceiling with his cane, and we lurched away from the curb out into traffic.

The streets were a mad snarl of carts, carriages, omnibuses, and motorcars, all vying for the right of way. People with large black umbrellas dashed across the street, trying to get out of the downpour. An omnibus swerved to avoid a pedestrian and nearly plowed into us. Our driver swore as the growler lurched wildly and sent me crashing into the side of the carriage. “Watch where yer goin’ ye muttonhead!” the driver called out.

As I righted myself, I looked up to find Father scowling at me. “Where is your hat?” he asked. “You manage to remember your gloves often enough. Why not your blasted hat?”

Because I don’t touch cursed objects with my head, I wanted to say. But of course I didn’t. “I hate hats. They feel like they’re squishing my head, squeezing and squeezing until my brain feels all mushed up. Like porridge in a too-small bowl.”

Father frowned. “Really, Theodosia. You need to get a hold of that imagination of yours. One of these days you’re going to catch your death.”

Why is it that parents only notice you long enough to scold? If you do something right, say bring them lunch or help them out with a puzzle, they act as if you’re invisible. But let one silly mistake slip by, like a forgotten hat, and they read you the riot act.

I looked out the window and forced myself not to squirm with impatience. Mother had been gone for ages, and I couldn’t wait to see her. It was my fondest hope that she’d been so homesick, she’d swear she’d never go away again. Most mothers don’t leave their homes for months on end, but then most mums weren’t as wonderful as mine. She’s dashing and adventurous and oh-so-clever. And an American. She doesn’t pay too much attention to stuffy old conventions. Grandmother Throckmorton says I take very much after my mother. I don’t think she means that as a compliment.

Hopefully, Mother would want to dash straight home and have one of those warm, happy family evenings that I missed so much. I was getting just a bit tired of sleeping in the sarcophagus—a night or two is an adventure, but four nights in a row is an ordeal. I was running out of clean frocks, I was dying for a proper meal, and there never seemed to be enough blankets at night.

The cab pulled up in front of Charing Cross Station and we stumbled out onto the street. Father managed to catch me just before I landed in a nasty puddle.

We made our way toward the station, jostled this way and that by the crowd. I felt like a billiard ball let loose on the billiard table. Afraid I’d lose Father in the crush, I grabbed the tail of his greatcoat. A path opened up mysteriously in front of him. I couldn’t be sure, but I suspect he was using his cane (gently, of course!) to encourage people to make way for us.

After one particularly bad jostle, I felt a cold, small hand next to mine on Father’s coat. I watched, shocked, as the hand reached into Father’s pocket and pulled out his wallet. Without thinking, I reached out and clamped down on the grimy wrist.

The wallet dropped back into Father’s pocket and the owner of the wrist gave a low squeal. “Blimey! Let me go! Let me go! Don’t call fer the p’lice, miss. I was just gonna look at it, then put it right back.” The squealer had a button nose, and two bright blue eyes peeked out of his soot-covered face.

“You were not,” I hissed, not ready to bring a mob of officials down on him quite yet. After all, he looked to be an Unfortunate Soul. (Mother and Father are quite firm in their teachings that we must be kind to those less fortunate than ourselves. Still, I didn’t think that meant he should be allowed to pick Father’s pocket.)

“Yes I was. Honest.” He wiggled frantically, tugging at his arm to get away.

“I won’t turn you in, but you stay away from our pockets, do you hear me? Swear it.”

“I swears it, I swears it. Now let go already. Them fingernails of yours is right sharp.”

They weren’t really, but I had angled them to their best advantage. It wasn’t very nice, but then neither was picking pockets.

“Swear it on your mother’s grave,” I said solemnly. Through my work at the museum I have learned that swearing on someone’s grave is very serious business.

He rolled his eyes and heaved a great, irritated sigh. “All right already. I swear it on me mother’s grave.”

“Very well then.” I let go of his wrist. He gave a quick nod of thanks, then, before I could blink, he melted back into the crowd.

Just then Father glanced over his shoulder at me. “Theodosia, what are you doing back there? Stop gawking and hurry up.”

Inside the station we hustled along to the platform where Mum was waiting for us. She was one of the few passengers still there, and she sat perched atop one of her larger trunks. There was another pile of trunks and crates next to her that looked as if it would topple over at the next strong gust of wind.

I was so happy to see her that I wanted to run and throw my arms around her, but it had been so long since I’d seen her, I felt shy. Then she reached out and wrapped her arms around me in a wonderful hug that chased any doubts away. The soft fabric of her traveling suit under my cheek and the familiar scent of lilacs made me horribly aware of just how much I’d missed her. I opened my eyes wide and blinked rapidly to keep from embarrassing myself.

When Mum pulled back, her eyes were a bit damp, too, and she took a minute to adjust her hat. Father had already begun surveying the luggage.

“Good heavens, Henrietta. Just how many new frocks did you acquire in Cairo, anyway?”

Mother laid a gloved hand on his arm. “These aren’t my clothes, you ninny. There was some severe competition over there.” She glanced meaningfully at me, which meant she didn’t want to discuss this in front of me. “I thought it best to keep some of the artifacts close by as opposed to shipping them.”

Father beamed at her. “That’s my girl.”

Mother got a warm look in her eye and I had to look away so I wouldn’t have to see them go all mushy.

And it was a very good thing I did.

The platform was mostly empty by this time. If it had been full, I’m sure I never would have noticed the man. Actually, he was trying very hard not to be noticed, which of course made him all the more noticeable. More important, the moment I laid eyes on him it felt as if an icy-footed beetle were scuttling down my back. It was the same sensation I got whenever I discovered a cursed object in the museum. The man lurking in the shadows stared at Mother like a hungry vulture.

No. Not Mother; her trunks.

I looked away before he realized he’d been spotted and sidled up to Mum, tugging on her skirt to get her attention. “Mother, who is that man over there? The one skulking in the shadows,” I asked, careful to keep my voice low.

“Skulking in the shadows!” Father said in a rather too loud voice. “Really, where do you come up with these things, Theodosia?”

I glared at him, wishing for a moment that I had let that urchin pinch his wallet. Mother put her hand on my shoulder and gave the fellow a quick glance. The moment she turned in his direction, he looked away and began studying the train schedule posted on the wall in front of him.

“Him? I don’t know, dear. He was on the boat when we left Alexandria.”

“Another one of your admirers, Henrietta?” Father teased.

“Nonsense!” Mum said, flapping her hand.

Must they carry on so?

The cab driver was not happy when he saw all Mum’s trunks and crates. I kept a lookout for the little pickpocket, half convinced he’d try to make off with an entire trunk if given the opportunity. Finally, the driver (with Father’s help) managed to get every piece of luggage tied on and tucked in. It was a bit of a squash, but we didn’t have far to go.

I sat right next to Mother, pressed up close due to all the luggage, which I didn’t mind. I had six long months to catch up on, after all. I let my mind focus on how wonderful it was to have her home again and actually go home for a bit. I was getting tired of dinners out of a tin. I wanted a proper bath and a cream tea, and steak and kidney pie for dinner with a scrumptious pudding afterward.

After six long months away, surely Mother felt the same.

For the moment, I was happy to snuggle up against her and let the two of them talk their boring political talk.

“So, how were things over there, Henrietta?” Father asked.

Mum settled more firmly into the cushions. “Well, the French have calmed down some. The Americans are like puppies bounding all over the place in their enthusiasm, not minding who or what they step on. And the place was absolutely crawling with Germans.”

“Any sign of von Braggenschnott?”

“Well, yes, actually. He’s risen to a surprising level of influence considering that he’s up to his elbows in smuggling antiquities out of the country. But I can’t complain; he came to my assistance in convincing the local officials to let me take my discoveries out of the country and bring them home to England.”

“I don’t know, Henrietta. I don’t like having you anywhere near von Braggenschnott or men of his character.”

Mother waved her hand in the air. “Nonsense. I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself.”

“Hm, yes, well. The Germans have been busy at home too. Their naval buildup has the entire Ministry uneasy. The Lord Chancellor offered them a treaty again, but Kaiser Wilhelm insists on concessions we refuse to make. Everyone’s getting nervous. They’re pretty sure he’s up to something.”

Thoroughly bored with this conversation, I looked out the window. With a sinking heart, I noticed the growler turn away from Chesterfield Place and head down Marlborough Street toward the museum. I gave Father a questioning look. He reached out and patted my arm. “Don’t worry, Theodosia. It will only be for a bit. We’ve got to drop some of these crates off at the museum, and your mother wants to show us a few of her new discoveries.”

A bit, my bum, I thought. I settled back against the cushions and resigned myself to spending yet another night in the museum. Which was probably just as well, since I was terribly worried about Isis. I had to find a way to reverse that spell.

Besides, it would only be for one more day. Come tomorrow, we’d have to go home. For one, it was only a few days before Christmas and even my distracted parents emerged from their scholarly pursuits long enough to celebrate Christmas. The second reason was my younger brother, Henry. He would be coming home from school tomorrow and he hates the museum. He is so easily bored, and becomes such a dreadful pest, that by mutual consent my parents avoid having him there for any length of time.

Of course, I should be in school as well. I went for one term and it was so horribly dull and boring. Unfortunately, I had the bad luck to get far better marks than the others, an unpardonable sin in their eyes. (If I’d any idea how unpopular that would make me, I would have flubbed the tests on purpose!) So when I came home for the holidays, I just never went back and, luckily, my parents never remembered to send me. Or, more accurately, I never reminded them. Once, when Father managed to remember on his own, I pointed out that my own studies of history, ancient languages, Greek, and hieroglyphics were far more rigorous than anything any school could come up with. He reluctantly agreed, and so we let the matter drop.

Father had the growler pull round the back to the loading dock. Dolge and Sweeney came out to meet us and hauled the crates and some of the trunks into the downstairs workroom and short-term storage area. Then Father instructed Dolge to hop in the growler and take the rest of Mum’s things to our house.

“So,” Mother announced after all the fuss of unloading and seeing Dolge off, “who wants to see some new artifacts?”

Father and I crowded around while Mum pulled a key out of her pocketbook and knelt down in front of the first trunk.

“Oh, Alistair! It was all there, exactly as you said it would be. Your research was simply brilliant,” Mother said. As she fumbled with the lock, I was relieved to see she still had her gloves on. Father, too, I noticed, as he rubbed his hands together in anticipation.

I studied his face to see if there was any sign of bitterness. There didn’t appear to be, but who could have blamed him if there was?

Long ago, when I was only two, Father, after years of painstaking research and study, discovered the likely whereabouts of the tomb of Thutmose III, a powerful pharaoh in Egypt’s Middle Dynastic Period. He and Mother made the trip to the Valley of the Kings (leaving me with my British grandmother, who I’m quite sure dressed me up in lacy frills and forced me to sit still for hours on end). Their expedition was a huge success except for the fact that they were betrayed by a colleague, and a man named Victor Loretti claimed the official discovery.

Even worse, the British Museum, which Father was working for at the time, refused to back him and accepted the discovery as Lorretti’s.

That’s when Father quit that stuffy old museum and came to work for the Museum of Legends and Antiquities.

Anyway, for the last few years Father had been working on a theory about the location of Amenemhab’s tomb. Amenemhab was Thutmose Ill’s Minister of War, and some attributed the pharaoh’s great military conquests to Amenemhab’s brilliance.

After two years of coming up empty-handed, Mother had finally found the adjoining tomb of Amenemhab.

Father couldn’t wait to see what she’d found. Neither could I, for that matter. I stepped closer to her and asked, “Was it scary, Mum, going into ancient sealed tombs like that? Were you the least bit frightened?”

Before she could answer, Bollingsworth wandered in and distracted her. “Hello, Mrs. Throckmorton. Welcome back.”

“Thank you, Mr. Bollingsworth. It’s good to be back.”

Just like Father, Nigel rubbed his hands together. “Did you bring us lots of treasure?”

“Lots,” Mum said, then threw open the trunk lid with a dramatic flourish.

A chaotic jumble of foul odors slammed into me like a fist: the coppery tang of blood, the smell of rot and decay, wood smoke, and sulfur. I gasped and my knees nearly buckled at the force of the black magic rolling into the room from the trunk.

Father gave me a sharp look. “What, Theodosia?”

“Th-they’re just wonderful. That’s all,” I replied, trying to look as if all was normal. Could no one else feel this?

“But she hasn’t even taken anything out of the trunk yet!”

“Oh, but I know they’ll be smashing. Mum always finds the best things.”

He narrowed his eyes at me, but was quickly diverted when Mum began unwrapping a large, flat package.

Nigel came over to stand next to me. “I say, Theo. Are you all right? You look a bit peaked. Do you need to go lie down or something?”

I shook my head and took small, shallow breaths as Mother lifted the final wrapping away. After the smell, I was half afraid it would be a severed mummy limb or some horrid thing. But it was a plaque carved with intricate symbols and a drawing of a large man wearing the crowns of Upper and Lower Egypt. He held another man by the hair, his raised arm holding a large knife. My stomach bobbed like a cork as I realized he was about to chop the man’s head off. Under his feet were rows and rows of other figures who had met the same fate.

“I say,” said Father, “this is rather bloodthirsty stuff.”

“Oh, this isn’t the half of it,” said Mother. “This fellow makes Kaiser Wilhelm look like a nursemaid!”

She reached into her trunk and pulled out another flattish package and unwrapped it, revealing a long, curved knife with the small figure of Anubis on the handle.

Father whistled. “This is marvelous, Henrietta.”

“Isn’t it?” she beamed. “And there was so much more! All the walls were covered with detailed histories of every war Thutmose fought, his victories and his strategies. It will take years and years to decipher it all.”

I doubted that. I bet if they let me have a go at it, we could have it done in months.

“It contained weapons of every sort imaginable,” Mother continued. “Spears and daggers and long swords, quite a lot of them carved with Apep and Mantu.”

Father frowned. “I’ve never seen the serpent of chaos and the god of war used together like that before.”

“Me neither,” said Mum.

I had a sudden vision of the Mantu hieroglyph I had seen last night. “I have,” I muttered. Both Mum and Father looked at me as if they’d forgotten I was there.

“Where would you have seen such a thing, Theodosia?” Father asked, his eyebrows shooting up in surprise. But of course I wasn’t about to tell him it had been on the Bastet statue. “Er, can’t remember where . . . Sorry,” I said.

By the expression on his face, it was clear he thought I was pulling his leg. “Anyway,” Mother continued after an awkward moment. “Amenemhab’s tomb also contained a small temple dedicated to the god of war, Mantu.”

“Really?” Father exclaimed.

We spent the next few minutes happily examining stele after stele, spears, daggers, and all sorts of things. Then Fagenbush arrived and would have cast a pall over the whole proceeding except Mother got one of her I am so brilliantly clever looks. She pulled her handbag out from under her arm and held it in front of her until she had everyone’s attention.

“Now, I want you to try and guess what I have in here,” she announced, eyes sparkling.

“Oh, Henrietta!” Father said. “We can’t possibly guess. Put us out of our misery.”

Mum smiled, opened her handbag, and slowly drew out a flat package. She laid it on her still-gloved palm and began unwrapping the paper.

Luckily, everyone’s eyes were focused on the artifact so they didn’t see me shiver violently, as if I’d just caught a ghastly chill. The truth of it was, whatever was in that package was cursed with something so powerful and vile it made me feel as if my whole body were covered in stinging ants.

When Mother lifted off the last bit of paper, she held a large scarab carved out of precious stone in her hand. It had gold wings curving out of its side and they were inlaid with thousands and thousands of jewels. A large round carnelian, the size of a cherry, sat at the head, and a smaller green stone decorated the bottom of the beetle.

“The Heart of Egypt,” she announced. “Straight from Amenemhab’s tomb.”