The house had stood since the Civil War, a massive, glorious symphony of stone and wood and stained glass. Ulysses Grant had slept there once, they said, high in the third-floor bedroom of its eastern tower. Its cut stone had been imported from a French quarry, carried in the holds of the great sailing ships that once filled New York Harbor with tall, polished masts adorned with billowing linen. Now the house stood quietly, an imposing yet silent structure with a history that had been all but forgotten.
One woman knew of its wondrous past, for such things were her life. She was its sole occupant.
It was a breezy, overcast afternoon, filled with the sound of branches touched by wind. A deep blue car slowly pulled up to the curb, and two men got out and walked toward the house, awed by its very existence. T. G. had always been a bit intimidated by the monstrous structure and had never had a reason to visit before. Now, as he walked up the stone steps he looked down at the antiquity he carried, knowing that the old house was an infant by comparison. Reaching the heavy, carved front door, he paused for a moment to enjoy the light-play of the surrounding cut-glass windows before ringing the bell. He looked at David, who shrugged.
The door creaked open. An elderly woman, bent and grayed by time, peered out with eyes that still shone with the fire of curiosity. T. G. immediately broke into a huge smile at the sight of her, as did she.
“Oh, T. G.… it is you!” she exclaimed, stepping out toward him. Tears of joy filled her eyes. She raised her weakened arms and embraced him. “Oh, I’m so happy to see you … when I got your call I couldn’t believe it.”
“It’s really good to see you again, Doctor,” he smiled, gently returning the hug. He noticed that she still wore the same perfume. “You know David Cernan … he wasn’t a student of yours, but he came up to the lab with me a few times.”
“Yes, of course,” she smiled. “Hello, David.”
“Doctor,” he smiled back.
T. G. went on. “So much has happened … things you won’t believe.” The woman invited them inside, and as he turned to enter she saw the artifact hanging from his shoulder.
“You still have it,” she said, her eyes wide. “I’ll believe, T. G. Whatever you have to tell me. I saw what that thing did to my saw blade, remember?”
“But … there’s so much more. Like, it’s been twenty years, but I haven’t—”
“I can see. You haven’t aged.”
He smiled. She closed the door behind them. All the drapes were drawn, preserving a gloom that suited such a place. T. G. and David followed her into the depths of the house, into a sitting room walled with shelves cluttered with books and curiosities. The house smelled old, like brittle, yellowed pages and hardened leather. It was the scent of the wisdom of the ages.
“Corey Leighton raked Campus Security over the coals after the artifact disappeared from the specimen room,” she said, chuckling. “For weeks he had them search, just for spite, I think. The whole campus, again and again. I tried to call you the morning after you left it with us, as soon as I realized it was missing, but I couldn’t get through. I hoped that somehow you had come back for it.” She indicated the artifact at his shoulder. “I guess you did. How did you sneak it out?”
“I didn’t. It … well, it followed me home. It suddenly appeared in my car as I was driving, not twenty minutes after I’d left.”
“Indeed?” she asked, not nearly as surprised as T. G. might have expected. “And here we are, all together again.”
At Abelwhite’s suggestion, David sat in a large leather chair that was every bit as comfortable as it looked. The woman sat on the sofa and motioned for T. G. to do the same. Even as he sat, words poured from his lips.
“Something tried to get it from me, that same night. Demonic. Horrible. Fangs. Claws. A huge thing. It killed everyone in my apartment building …”
“I remember. It was terrible. I tried to come see you after I couldn’t get you on the phone, but the police had the whole building cordoned off. I lost another former student that day—Bob Holt, a good boy. A talented artist.”
“I remember him. I didn’t really know him other than sometimes running into him at the mailboxes, though.”
“At first, I feared for your life, too.”
“It would have killed me, for sure … but this hole opened up. No, not a hole, a portal or something. In the floor. I fell through it. It saved me.”
“A portal,” she repeated, thinking.
“Yes. And I know this sounds nuts, believe me … but I dropped onto what had to be another planet. With lush vegetation everywhere, and a dark pink sky with the brightest stars you ever saw. And the people … they were huge. Not misshapen or grotesque, just huge, but still normally proportioned. Their skin was a bronzish color, and the whites of their eyes caught the light … like pearl. Hard to describe, really. When I got there, I was hurt. My leg. One of the people there took me to one of their doctors, somewhere in this enormous city. I was healed instantly by some gadget he pulled down from the ceiling.”
Dr. Abelwhite looked away at nothing, sightlessly staring as her mind worked. Her expression became one of deep concentration, of one working to solve a puzzle. Quiet filled the heavy air of the room.
T. G. paused. “Doctor?”
“Yes, T. G. I was just thinking. Bright stars, you said? Like … jewels, maybe?”
“Yeah, that’s a good description for them. They weren’t just white, but red and blue and orange and yellow. Brilliant color. A hundred colors. And so bright. I’ve never seen anything like it … like sparkling jewels set in the sky.”
“And the people … huge people, you said? With eyes like pearl?”
“Seven feet, easy. Eight, maybe even nine sometimes. Even the women.”
She stood and started to walk slowly around the room. “What was this world called, T. G.?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t speak their language. If Pretzel ever told me, I didn’t realize it.”
“Pretzel?”
“He’s the one who carried me to the doctor. Some kind of police, I think, were waiting in his apartment. We were arrested. They knocked us out with this little hand-held gadget, and we woke up in a dungeonlike cell.”
The woman was utterly open to his story. She drank in every word, no matter how incredible. He told her of the crime in the streets, of the advanced technology. Of the walking ghosts that had reacted so violently to his presence.
“And suddenly, I was back here. I was there only a day, but when I got back here it was twenty years later.”
She looked upon him with a rare and gentle wisdom. “Come with me,” she said, walking toward a downward-leading flight of stairs. “I need to show you something. David, will you excuse us for a moment?”
“Yes ma’am,” the middle-aged man nodded, respecting her wish. “I’ll be right here.”
“Feel free to look through any of the books on these shelves. This shouldn’t take too long.”
T. G. followed her down the stairs and through a heavy, reinforced door at its bottom. Beyond lay an impressive basement laboratory and archive that would have made many a museum envious. The center of the room was dominated by a large and well-lit worktable, covered with small and obviously ancient pieces of jewelry, pottery, and statuary all carefully numbered and undergoing study. Next to the table on a rolling stand was a dream selection of analysis tools. Shelves of unearthed and painstakingly catalogued artifacts lined one wall, mostly clay figurines, tablets, and reassembled pottery shards. There were thousands of items from past civilizations, most awaiting future homes in museums. A floor-to-ceiling rack of long, plastic storage tubes was mounted nearby.
“Wow,” T. G. said. “This is incredible. I could spend the rest of my life in here.”
“I likely will.”
She smiled, drew one tube from the rack and brought it over to the table. “I found this in 1953,” she began, “during my third Valley of the Kings excavation. It was sealed in an alabaster jar among the burial treasures of a tomb I found near the site of the 1898 Royal Cache. They were completely undisturbed … the existence of the chamber had eluded robbers.”
“You found another tomb? I never heard about that.”
“Yes. Not adjacent, but nearby. At first I assumed it belonged to a member of Amenhotep’s family, just as the others had. I thought so for months. Until I began to decipher this.” She unscrewed the lid of the short, wide storage cylinder and gently withdrew a set of photographs. “These aren’t the originals, of course … those have been hermetically preserved. The papyri they were written on were in relatively good shape, but I wanted to make sure they stayed that way.”
He watched as she placed a series of old, large black-and-white photos onto the table before him and pointed to a line of hieroglyphics on one of them. “Read this.”
T. G. cocked his head slightly, studying the symbols as she watched his face. “ ‘The … court … of …’ ”—momentarily stumped, he shook his head and renewed his concentration—“ ‘he of the gods … who is … no, walks … among us.’ I know that’s the cartouche of Amenhotep, there … but this other name, though … I don’t recognize it.”
“Very good,” she smiled. “That name is ‘Astanapha.’ You and I are the only ones to look upon these words since they were written by him around 1400 B.C. I doubt he ever let anyone else read them. And he probably ordered them to be buried with him so no one ever would. In a moment, you’ll understand why. I never disclosed their discovery.”
“You didn’t? Why not?”
“T. G.,” she began, “this is the diary of Astanapha, chief sorcerer of the Pharaoh’s court during the reign of Amenhotep II. It took me three years of diligent effort to decipher it in its entirety. There are symbols here that I’ve never seen anywhere else, but eventually I was able to unlock them by cross-comparing different parts of the diary. Once I did, well …”
“What does it say?”
“A great portion of the text is comprised of his account of Moses’ dealings with Amenhotep II. This is the first direct, extrabiblical confirmation of the book of Exodus ever discovered.”
“Ever?”
“Well, there was once a tablet unearthed in the Nile delta region that consisted of orders to the Egyptian soldiers in the area. They were instructed to allow the departing Hebrews to pass through unharassed, but this …” She looked down at the photographs. “This is a personal account of the entire event. Moses’ flight from Egypt. The plagues. The departure of the Hebrews. Everything … everything.”
T. G. was stunned by the import of what the diary represented. “Incredible,” he managed to whisper.
She continued. “Archaeologists the world over have used the Bible as an excavation guide for as long as they’ve been digging. In all of recorded history, it alone told of the Hittites and of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah long before evidence for them was actually discovered. You know that, I’m sure.”
“Sure,” he nodded.
“Astanapha was the most powerful sorcerer of Pharaoh’s court. He was the teacher of Jannes and Jambres, the magicians who turned their wooden staffs into snakes after Aaron had done the same, during Moses’ first confrontation with Amenhotep. That wasn’t fiction; he lays it all out in here. The Nile turning to blood. Real blood, T. G., not just some reddish sediment in the water like some have suggested. The Egyptians knew blood when they saw it. He talks of the stench. Even in sealed water jars … blood. And the frogs. The hail. All ten plagues, in biblical order. This was his personal record of it all.”
“It really happened? All of it?”
“Yes. All of it. Astanapha even lost his own firstborn son in the tenth plague! The pain of that event changed him, made him question everything. He goes on to express his doubt in the ‘godhood’ of the Pharaoh, and that is absolutely unheard of. Such doubts, if discovered, constituted a treason worthy of death. A horrible death … often by being buried alive.”
“So why did you hide this?”
“Because of what comes later.” She took a deep breath. “This entire account is obviously historical, not fictional. From the first word. And once I got beyond the destruction of Pharaoh’s army, I realized that Astanapha was trying to convince himself, despite all evidence to the contrary, that the entire religious system of Egypt was true. He began recounting evidences he had seen with his own eyes. He and Amenhotep had both had face-to-face encounters with the ‘gods,’ well before the events of Exodus. Not spiritually, but physically. These ‘gods’ had appeared to the Pharaohs from time to time down through the centuries, it says, claiming to enter our world only when absolutely necessary. On one occasion, they came to give Amenhotep and Astanapha great power with which to defeat the Hebrews and their ‘false god.’ ”
“I guess it didn’t work.”
“Apparently not, despite repeated ‘visitations.’ ” Her eyes sparkled with fascination, and she held nothing back, pointing to another row of symbols. “T. G.… he says here that the gods were ‘like men, but of great stature, with skin of bronze and eyes of pearl.’ And the afterlife domain from which they came was ‘a place of wondrous music and jewel-studded skies.’ How could it be mere coincidence?”
He was speechless. As he stared at the photos before him, she went on.
“Only the chief sorcerer and the Pharaoh were instructed how to summon the gods when necessary. The two of them had on occasion caught glimpses of another world through an open portal, but mere men were forbidden from passing through it and into the realm of the gods. That privilege, they were told, was reserved exclusively for the dead. It’s just possible that, at one rime, the false doors built into the walls of many Egyptian tombs, well, weren’t.”
“But they’re solid rock.”
“So was your cliff face.”
He looked blankly at the floor, remembering flashes of images recorded in a fleeting span of seconds. Lightning, rain, then swinging against the sheer wall—then, nothing. Looking back into her eyes, he considered her words.
“Maybe those ‘gods’ were just lying … maybe they didn’t want anyone going through for some other reason. Maybe they were hiding something and didn’t want to be found out. I mean, if this ‘afterlife’ was the place I was, those weren’t gods. That place was physical. It was solid.”
She nodded. “Perhaps. But Astanapha and his king were warned repeatedly of a curse … that if it ever happened, if any living man ever went through the gateway, it would mean the fall of utter devastation upon our world.”
“How?”
“I don’t know. He’s unclear. But he’s emphatic that the gods of the afterlife would unleash a terrible wrath upon Earth that would leave it desolate. I’m no theologian, but I’d say we may be talking about Armageddon here.”
“But I was there already.”
“Not by way of this gateway,” she insisted. “Perhaps you snuck in somehow, through an accidental tear in space-time. What if activating Astanapha’s gateway sounds an alarm on the other side?”
“You believe that?”
“I don’t know. Let’s just say I think it prudent not to risk it. When the blade of Armageddon falls, I’d prefer not to be the person responsible.”
“You’re telling me that you think the gods of Egypt were real?”
“Real, yes. ‘Gods,’ no. But something … someone … that Amenhotep and Astanapha spoke with had the power to pass from world to world. Whether these worlds are exclusively physical or spiritual as well, I don’t know. Your experience certainly suggests the former. But these beings represent an immense power in any case.”
“But what about science? I mean, how can a rational mind like yours think that a curse could—?”
“I’m talking about rationality. You’re confusing it with the natural. This universe is not bound exclusively to the natural realm, T. G. If I’ve learned anything over my lifetime, I’ve learned that there is more out there than that which we can touch or measure or study. Logic … order … it’s an integral part of everything. Chaos is an illusion. But the truth is that we simply cannot comprehend the incredible level at which that logic operates. It is utterly perfect and infinitely intelligent. Logos, T. G.”
T. G. swallowed hard. “You’re talking about God.”
“Yes.”
“The God of the Bible.”
She paused a moment, removing her glasses. “Yes. This diary confirms the story of Exodus almost word for word, which confirms the miracles of Exodus, which confirms the God Who performed them. A flawless chain of progressive logic, T. G.… one that, based upon the proven veracity of the Bible, could ultimately be carried all the way to the Cross.”
He thought about that. After a prolonged silence, she turned back to the subject of the diary. “The rest of Astanapha’s account is absolutely factual, an eyewitness report of his personal experiences with these beings. He obviously felt an enormous responsibility to record everything he knew, leaving out nothing, regardless of the possible consequences. At first, I wanted to take the whole thing as mere imagination, or as part of some religious allegory, but I couldn’t. The context just won’t allow it. He reports clearly and deliberately that he met and conversed with beings from another existence … and he tells everything he knew.”
“I still don’t see. What’s the harm in anyone knowing about all this?”
“Because, my dear,” she stated slowly and deliberately, in an ominous tone T. G. had never heard from her before, “he then tells how to open the gateway.”
T. G. sat down on a nearby stool, letting it all soak in. He looked up into her eyes and saw the woman trembling with the deadly seriousness of her words. He began slowly, unsure what words would come. “How … uh … how have you kept this a secret for so long?”
“By keeping my mouth closed,” she said. “I hid these papyri and my work on them from the rest of the archaeological community, and even from my dear, late husband. They have never left this room. At first, it was simply that I didn’t want to show them until I had a complete translation, but once I understood the possible consequences of this becoming known to someone who might actually try to use it, I locked it away and pretended it never existed.”
T. G. stood and paced a few times, thinking aloud, his face brightening as gears turned. “That’s it … that has to be the answer. A gateway … and that thing wanted the artifact …”
“What?”
“The artifact! That thing in my apartment wanted it, and I’m sure that guy on that other world knew what it was! It must have come from there.”
“Both!” T. G. said. “She’s there! It got her. It went back there, and it took her back with it!”
“Got who?”
“Jenni!” Hope filled him for the first time. “I have to go back there. I can save her! If I can open a gateway—”
“Absolutely not! It’s too great a risk.”
“Doctor, listen. On the day I vanished in 1975, Jenni Parklin did too. If some guy just grabbed her off the street, then she’s gone forever, and I can’t accept that. I can’t. The only chance I have of seeing her again is if she’s in that other place. She’s got to be there. She’s just got to. And if she is, I’m her only chance of getting home.”
“No,” the woman said, but T. G. thought he saw a sign of weakening in her eyes.
“Please, I’m the only one who can bring her back. But I can’t do it by myself. I need your help.”
“There’s an old Roman saying, T. G. ‘The only thing more dangerous than a locked room full of ravenous tigers is an unwitting child with the key.’ ”
He considered her words but was undaunted. “Please.”
The woman looked at him long and hard, then turned and walked away. She stopped, her mind in conflict with itself, considering the proper action to take. “T. G.,” she began, facing away from him and running her hand through her hair, “this artifact of yours bounced you there once already; it may do it again. Perhaps you should just wait and—”
“I can’t just sit here,” he insisted. “I have to get control of my life back. I have to go back there on my terms and find her. What if time’s running out? What if she needs me now?”
“If you go back you may lose more time. Suppose you return home to find a century gone? Or two? Or what if time between the two worlds is utterly nonconcurrent, and you wind up back on Earth in the 1920s … or the Middle Ages? What kind of life will that leave you?”
“Suppose I don’t But even if I do, I have to take the chance. It’s taken losing her for me to realize that without Jenni, I have no life at all.”
“You’d risk Armageddon on such a wildly improbable chance of finding one girl again? T. G., you’re only twenty-four years old. You’re not thinking this through.”
“I can’t say how I know this, but I do … I need to go back there. I have to go back there. I’m supposed to go back there.”
She turned and stared into his young, pain-filled eyes.
“Please,” he whispered.
The woman stood for several long moments, unsure. T. G. saw the struggle in her glistening eyes.
“No,” she said, turning away. “I’m sorry.”
The student stood in silence, frustrated, yet understanding her position. Dr. Abelwhite, her face in her hands, walked slowly across the room and away from him, the turmoil within her still evident.
All things happen as they are meant to happen, she believed. If God wants you to go back there, T. G., He will see to it that you go.
“What is this thing?”
She spun to see him holding and unwrapping a softball-sized sphere of polished black stone, which had been covered in soft red cloth and resting on a shelf just behind him. Into its otherwise flawless surface were carved a dozen tiny characters, symbols barely an eighth of an inch high.
“Some sort of talisman,” she replied. “I found it alongside Astanapha’s writings, in fact. Odd that you should notice it among so many other objects on the same shelf.”
“It just kinda stood out. Sure is heavy.”
“It’s solid stone as far as I can tell. According to that,” she indicated the diary, “it serves as the final key to the gateway summons.” Her discomfort was apparent in her voice. “I’ve said too much. Please don’t ask me to tell you any more about the process than I already have.”
He examined it more closely. “What does this say on here?”
“Where?” She walked up to him and took a close look at the mysterious carving. “I … I don’t know,” she said, very puzzled. “I never saw that before.”
“It almost looks …” He stopped, the unfinished statement hanging heavily in the air. Turning away from her, he set the stone sphere on a table and hoisted the artifact a little higher on his shoulder, holding it out. He studied it for a moment, then spun and gazed triumphantly into her eyes.
“Now tell me I’m not meant to go,” he said, holding the artifact up for her to see. She left his gaze and focused once more upon the purplish leather surface, where she found a surprise—several of the tooled symbols there exactly matched those cut into the ebony sphere.
“Whoever made this, made that,” T. G. declared. “It’s the same language!”
Dr. Abelwhite was still shaking her head in astonishment. “I examined that sphere thoroughly, many times, but I never noticed that writing. How could I have missed it?”
He could see a new fear etched into the face of the old woman, a face he had never known to be anything but confident. She was clearly torn by his discovery, and the solid decision she had made only moments before was now supported by legs of yielding clay.
“It’ll be okay,” he reassured her. “Please, help me.”
Several tense moments passed. T. G. remained quiet, watching Dr. Abelwhite as she continued to struggle with the quandary, allowing the weight of the evidence before them to speak to her. Finally, the woman sighed loudly and walked over to a locked filing cabinet. Reluctantly, she dialed a combination and pulled the door open. With some effort, she withdrew a large, red, leather-bound volume, then stood looking upon the ruddy texture of its cover. Coming to a decision, she slowly returned and handed it to him, obviously unsure she was doing the right thing. “The complete translation. I never thought I’d be showing it to another living soul.”
He ran a gentle hand across the tooled hide of the book, aware of the unbridled power of the dark secrets contained within it. He had been given the control he wanted. He hoped he was right in taking it.
“You’ll need the canopic jars I found in Astanapha’s tomb, and a few other things,” Abelwhite said. “The book will tell you how to use them.”
T. G. mentally inventoried the objects as the woman set them on the table before him. With her help, he then placed the varied items carefully into an adventure-worn bag of heavy canvas she had used on her many expeditions.
“That should do it,” he smiled, feeling like a kid leaving for camp. “I guess I’m ready for the bus.”
“I still think this is a bad idea,” Abelwhite said. “I wish you’d reconsider.”
“Don’t worry,” he smiled. “I’ll send you a postcard.”
“Be careful, T. G.,” the woman said, her words heavy. “The world has been here for an awfully long time.”
“I’ll bring these things back to you.”
“No,” she said, placing a warm hand gently on his cheek. “They’re yours now. I guess, perhaps, they always were.”