Horace pedaled as fast as he could through the neighborhood, with Shadow diving in and out of the trees lining the street. The sidewalks were already teeming with kids in costumes. He rode down Sycamore Street out to the edge of town where Silverbrook Cemetery was located, spotting the outline of the cemetery gate. It was strangely similar to the gate he’d seen in his dream. He put the coincidence aside and looked down at his watch. He was going to be late meeting up with his friends. Pulling up to the gate, he stopped his bike and sent Milton and Anna a quick text.
In the fading light he could make out the silhouettes of several trees and a smattering of grave markers. Horace rested his bike against the cast-iron fencing. He heard a small rustling among the headstones as a squirrel ran past. He watched as Shadow dove down, nearly catching the little creature by its tail.
Then farther in the graveyard, he heard the rumble of an engine and saw a pair of headlights come to life. Horace ducked behind a bush near the gate, and Shadow swooped back up to take a perch on a nearby tree. A car was only a short distance away. The dirt road starting at the gate circled around the cemetery before returning back to the entrance. Horace watched as the car slowly made its way through the cemetery and then back out the entrance gate. As it left the cemetery, he could see that one of the tail-lights was broken.
Horace remained hidden for several more minutes until he was certain the car had disappeared down the street and no one else was in the cemetery. He was just about to reconsider his mission and return another time, preferably during the day, but a strong vibration coming from his pocket stopped him.
At first Horace thought it was his phone and that Milton was returning his text. But as soon as he reached into his pocket, he felt the cool surface of the beetle. Horace pulled it out, and as he did a halo of blue light surrounded him. As he squeezed the scarab, the light grew even stronger, casting the entrance of the cemetery in a strange glow.
He could now see in front of him, running parallel to the main road leading into the cemetery, a small gravel walking path. It led into the wooded part of the cemetery. Horace knew that the beetle was being drawn toward something in the graveyard.
Shadow leaped from her perch and circled overhead. Her presence reassured Horace.
Holding the beetle out in front of him, he followed the gravel path into the cemetery. The rustling of the leaves on the trees and the rhythmic crunching sound of his steps on the gravel were calming. The trees in this part of the cemetery looked older. Their trunks had grown thick and wide, some even partially swallowing several of the tombstones. Horace imagined that they probably had rings in their trunks dating back hundreds of years to the settlement of the town.
One particularly old headstone caught his attention. It was teetering on the edge of a large root. He walked over to examine it. At first it appeared that nothing was on the stone. As Horace ran his hand against the coarse surface, he could hardly feel any indentations from the inscription’s lettering.
He brought the beetle up to the stone like a flashlight. As the light of the beetle hit the surface, he spotted a small symbol on the stone. Horace blinked. He hadn’t seen the mark earlier. It began to glow.
He turned to another gravestone only a few feet away and found the same glowing marker. Could this really be happening? Horace thought. He then ran over and peered at a third stone located farther down the path. It was only when he traced the marking with his fingers that he realized what he was staring at. There, in the actual center of the stone within the inscription, was the glowing eye of Horus.
Horace looked around and wondered if there were even more stones with the secret marking. He stretched out his arm, raising the beetle. As if on cue, another marker glowed behind a tree. And then another across the gravel road, and a third just a few feet behind him. He turned around and around. One by one, like fireflies awakening in the night, the sign of the Keepers began to glow on tombstones all around him. A sea of mystical light filled the cemetery.
Walking through the graveyard, Horace stopped now and then to peer more closely at some of the stones. He didn’t know how or why, but the area looked familiar to him. He recognized some of the names from his school reports about Niles’s history and local citizens. The first was Ring Lardner, the journalist who had exposed the 1919 World Series scandal. And next to him was Frederick Bonine, a famous eye doctor who had once seen over five hundred patients in a single day. Horace turned to the next-closest grave and paused. He crouched down. Unlike the other two tombstones, this one was more recent. And the ground was still relatively bare, the grass just recently beginning to grow. Horace froze when he ran his hands across the cold surface.
As he stared at the marker, he began to cry. FLINDERS J. PEABODY. It was his grandfather’s grave.
He had been here before, and it wasn’t the dream. He’d been out to this part of the cemetery for his grandfather’s funeral. But that morning had been rainy, and Horace had been too upset. He had little memory of this place or the other stones surrounding his grandfather’s resting place in the cemetery.
Even two months after his death, Horace desperately missed his grandfather. He kept the letter from him under his pillow and read it most nights before he went to bed. He so wished he could share these adventures with him. But he knew he’d never see his grandfather again or hear his voice. With his grandfather gone, his grandma in a nursing home, and the farmhouse completely empty, it felt like that chapter of his life was over.
He stood up and tried to regain his composure. Looking around, Horace suddenly realized how deep he had wandered into the cemetery and remembered why he was here.
An icy chill filled his veins. He would have broken out in a sprint, but the beetle in his hand started to vibrate furiously. It was dark now, and he needed to find the Beeson Crypt.
Despite every bone in his body telling him to leave, Horace continued forward, descending the small knoll where he was standing. There, buried partially in the side of the hill with a small brook that gurgled beside it, sat a mausoleum. Set a good twenty feet apart from any of the other graves, this tomb, Horace could sense, had something different about it.
As Horace approached the large tomb, the light from the beetle grew stronger, confirming his intuition. He could now see a pair of angel’s wings above the entrance and the single word BEESON. This was the grave Herman had told him to find.
Horace slowed his pace and squeezed the beetle tightly in his hand.
There was a strong magnetic pull drawing him to the mausoleum. He was only a few feet from the wooden doors and could see a rusted handle. As he moved even closer he was certain that a small symbol glowed on the handle. It looked like the mark of the Keepers. Horace’s heart began to race as he approached the tomb.
He walked up the step and onto the smooth marble surface of the landing. As he neared, the Keeper symbol on the door handle became more prominent.
Horace held out his beetle, and it glowed an almost fluorescent blue light. He knew exactly what to do. He stepped forward and placed the beetle into the lock. Inside he could hear a clicking sound. Horace reached out with his hand and turned the handle, pulling at the door.
It slowly opened. A stale wind blew out of the tomb like a giant exhale. Horace pulled even harder, opening the door more. His jaw dropped open.
Of all the things that Horace might have expected to find in the tomb, none were as breathtaking and brilliant as the object that his eyes now beheld. There were no bodies and no ghosts. A single purple light illuminated the empty tomb. And resting in the center on a small altar was the source of that light, the mystical Benben Stone.
Almost immediately the stone began to pulse, inviting Horace to use his beetle and access its memories. He remembered its power from his last trip to Egypt. Horace was torn. He desperately wanted to learn more about the Order and its history. And maybe he could discover who the members who still existed today were. Herman had asked him to guard the Benben Stone, but he didn’t say anything about Horace using it. But the answers to all of his questions could be found right there in the stone. It was like a living library!
Horace looked down at the small indentation in the surface of the stone’s smooth granite. He slipped the beetle into the stone and immediately felt a deep pulse travel through his whole arm. The room was washed in blue and purple light.
The images began to pour out of the stone, one after another.
These images were from Egypt, more specifically Amarna. But it wasn’t like the Amarna Horace remembered. Everything was different.
There were no armies, no people, no markets.
In one of the images Horace saw the pair of obelisks that he had used as a portal in the past; now both structures were reduced to rubble. The gate, the walls, the temples, the streets—everything was leveled. Even the granite lions that once lined the temple entrance were scattered in pieces across a desert landscape.
In the last image, farther out amid the city’s ruins, Horace saw two figures with shovels in their hands, digging through the rubble. Behind them was a wooden cart filled with various objects. They stopped and reached into the sand. They pulled out what looked like a burlap bag. But before Horace could see anymore, the whole scene was washed out by a bright purple light.