All was quiet and gloomy in the shared suite upon my return. The room service feast was long over, leftovers piled upon the delivery cart and exiled outside. Lori and Minh must’ve already been in bed, but I found Dad waiting for me in front of a silent TV. There was a movie on. An old one, from the look of it. A scraggly white man, desperate-eyed and worse for wear, was sitting in a shallow puddle in what looked like a room filled with sand. There were well-defined dunes inside that room, and it was dark but the sand was glowing—or maybe it was just the glare from the TV screen. The man was looking across this long, wide industrial room filled with sand dunes at two other people at a distance. They were staring back at him. The subtitles on the screen revealed the man’s words, something about immortality and god. I couldn’t place the movie, but the sand dunes felt real to me, prophetic even. I looked away in alarm, searching for any of that mist I thought I’d seen earlier, but the room was normal.
The couch was made up with fresh bedsheets, a lacy pillow waiting for me. Upon seeing me, Dad stood up awkwardly. He turned off the TV, cutting short the miserable man’s perilous travel across the room of sand. I was never going to learn whether he made it safely to the other side.
“I got your phone, Alif,” Dad said in a low voice. I accepted it, the plastic of it cold, unpleasant to the touch. “Try to get some sleep,” Dad added. “I’ve arranged for a wake-up call for all of us at eight and in-room breakfast for eight thirty. You and the girls need to be ready to check out by nine thirty.”
I nodded, searching for anything to say to him. This was my dad, someone I adored. But I felt empty, my insides scooped out.
“It’s going to be okay,” I said, more to myself than to Dad. He reached for a hug. Our contact was brief but very real. Too real. I was relieved when he let go of me, irrationally concerned he was going to tease my secrets out of me via touch. I knew my thoughts weren’t logical, that Dad had no reason to suspect anything bad of me. But I was also acutely aware of the tablet in my bag and how it was meant to be mine and mine alone.
After Dad left, I got ready for sleep and stretched out on the couch, the bag containing the tablet squished under my pillow. I played with my phone a little, though its bright light was hurting my eyes. There were dozens of missed calls and hundreds of social media notifications across my accounts, but I just couldn’t bring myself to care. But I did check my email. There was a lot in there. From Mom and Dad, from strangers requesting interviews, and from random school acquaintances I had barely spoken to in months—or ever.
And then there was an email from the University of Southern Melbourne. Its date stamp was fairly recent. But with timelines all muddled in my head, it took me a long moment to place the email’s delivery to the day of the desert sandstorm. I then just stared at the subject line: “Notification of your application’s outcome.” But they’d already notified me. They’d already rejected me. I’d deleted that email permanently. Was this some sick joke? Or an administrative oversight?
Despite my better judgment, I clicked on the email, preparing myself to feel the sting of rejection once more. But something was different now, this particular moment in time laying over my memory of the very same moment months ago. This email started off with “Due to an administrative error…” and then instead of “unsuccessful on this occasion” as a similar message had informed me in the past, this one said “we are pleased to inform.”
I got in! I got in! I got in! I wanted to get off the couch, to scream and shout and dance. To shake Minh and Lori awake! To celebrate! And I wanted to come clean to Dad—I didn’t want to follow in his footsteps; I wanted to pave my own path. It was all very new and scary, but that’s what I wanted for myself. I had a luxury of choice, after all, and it felt nice to be in the position to choose.
But my body was heavy, and growing heavier with each breath my shuddering lungs took. I didn’t jump up, didn’t scream, didn’t do any of the things I wanted to do, but instead I read and reread the email, each time checking that it was still there. And it was.
I must’ve fallen asleep with my phone in my hand. I woke to the glow from the TV. That weird movie was on again, still silent and subtitled. The man was once more sitting in his miserable puddle, and the sand dunes were very still around him. The man was saying strange things about god and immortality like it was all totally normal, like that’s what you did in a room full of sand.
Someone was sitting on the far side of the couch, where my feet were. I didn’t feel any weight on my legs. This was a dream, I realized. My hands were frantically searching for the tablet, relaxing only when they scraped against its shape under the pillow. Even in my sleep, the tablet was drawing me in.
The longer I stared in the direction of the weightless phantom, the more its features came together.
It was Rowen. The second I made that realization, he faced me. He could see me. He was trying to tell me something. No, not tell—yell—he was screaming at the top of his lungs! He was angry, veins and muscles bulging on his neck and face. But no sound was reaching me as I watched in terror. Glued to the couch, I couldn’t move. Rowen was wearing the same clothes as the last time I saw him, his shirt torn and stained with blood. There were gaps in his stomach and chest where the spikes had pierced through him. Invisible flies were buzzing. I focused on Rowen’s mouth. Could I read lips? Murderer, Rowen was screaming over and over. Murderermurderermurderer.
Rowen was gone, but so was the hotel room. Over my head was the sky full of stars. Hanging low, oppressive. Against my back was the harsh ground, and in the wavering night air, I could distinguish the outlines of Minh, Luke, Lori, and Tommy. They were sleeping not far from me.
No, no, no, no, no! Please don’t send me back there, I begged and cajoled, offering the Queen of Giants everyone and everything in exchange for my freedom.
In response, the indifferent stars brightened, heralding the inevitable approach of morning. But the glow wasn’t coming from above. Rather it was coming from the TV, its screen glimmering in the room’s darkness. Creeping shadows danced on the walls. My blanket was on the floor. Shivering, I leaned down to pick it up and saw a few of those unmistakable white-and-gold Al Nassma candy wrappers, scattered on the floor close to where Rowen’s ghost had been sitting.
I slid off the couch and came to crouch on the floor. I picked up one of the wrappers, but it melted away. My fingers were left curling over thin air.
I whimpered, a soundless cry that stirred me awake—for real this time. My heart was beating and my clothes and blankets were soaked with sweat. I was lying faceup on the couch, staring at the white, featureless ceiling.
The days of Western archaeologists and explorers taking their finds out of the countries where they were excavated were long gone now. And the international pressure for the return of ancient treasures to their countries of origin was mounting—a movement that might leave most European and North American museums half empty. Both my father and mother were paragons of ethics when it came to working with ancient sites and negotiating fair agreements with local governments and communities. So where did all of this place me, the archaeologists’ daughter who was about to smuggle a mysterious tablet from Dubai to Australia?
I compartmentalized it all and tried to keep my face calm and not at all suspicious as I walked into the international-departures zone in Dubai’s airport. Still shaken up by my dream from the night before, I tried not to make eye contact with anyone while keeping one hand casually inside my carry-on bag, my skin tingling against the tablet’s jagged side. Mere physical contact used to trap me in visions, making my head spin, but now the effect had ebbed, reduced to a faint buzz. Did it mean the tablet’s power was weakening now that it was broken? Or was I just desensitized to its influence from prolonged exposure? Regardless, I was now asking the tablet for a safe passage, not in specific words but in fears and desires—the language I knew it understood and spoke well. Somehow I knew this was also something Lori was doing with her own piece of the tablet. The rest of our group were flanking us two, but casually so.
Sweat coated the insides of my palms when I got my first glimpse of the security checkpoint, swarmed by uniformed officers. They were going to scan my carry-on, and they were going to see the tablet. They’d take it away. Of course they would. These days, Dubai’s airport workers were trained to be extra vigilant, what with the increasing cases of trafficking of cuneiform tablets and the like looted from Iraq and other countries in the region. Smugglers were profiting off wars and human misery, selling precious artifacts to greedy private collectors. I despised them all for it, and yet I was about to break the law myself. Regardless of the circumstances and my reasons for smuggling the tablet, I felt guilty and probably looked it.
Pulsing, the tablet grew cold against my fingers, so cold I had to let go of it, afraid it would freeze my sensitive fingertips. Having my hand semihidden in my bag would be suspicious at this point, anyway. Carefully, I placed my carry-on bag on the conveyer belt and watched it disappear into the mouth of the scanner. I stiffly walked through the metal detector and waited for the bag to reappear on the other side. I picked an angle from which I could watch the stern officer assigned to the task of inspecting whatever passed through the machine. I watched her frown deepen and then … relax, disappearing completely.
I was getting away with it. The tablet did as it pleased, and for now it was pleased to remain in my keep.
I picked up my bag, muttered my thanks to no one specifically and proceeded to my gate, not daring to stick around to see if Lori was going to replicate my success.