Chapter 40

Johnny pulled out Alice’s diary from its leather case and handed it to me.

“You start reading. I’m heading downstairs to the repository. I’ll return the strange book and the shoe box in exchange for Alice’s session notes. I’ll be right back.”

He and Robert disappeared down the stairs as I opened the diary. The pages were written in a clear hand, which meant I would have minimal difficulty deciphering what she wrote, but I doubted I would have time to read it all now. The diary began just after she decided to take up her search for the people and discover a means to combat her recurring nightmares. It ended several weeks before her death. She began:

To those that come after:

If you are reading this, I am dead.

Will I be watching you, reading over your shoulder? Perhaps I will only be a thought kept alive for three generations until the last person who has seen me and spoken with me is gone, at which point I will have vanished completely from living memory, and I will be no more.

Take comfort in knowing that in death, I have the answers.

Today, I have none. I am alive and have only questions and my boundless curiosity to keep me company. A new day and new vistas await me. I tingle with anticipation.

She was horrible with dates. She either didn’t like them or never remembered to write them down. The diary was laid out in a sequence of places and events. I decided to focus on two elements: passages about those who might have interacted with her adversely, such as Lord Bromley, and unusual patterns as I came across them, such as codes or anything out of the ordinary. I noted she often wrote whole sections in hieroglyphics or hieratic without any further translation. At other times, she wrote in the demotic script of the later period. I could not translate these. For now, I would have to assume they were immaterial.

I was halfway through scanning the diary when Johnny and Robert returned.

“Anything?” asked Johnny.

“Too early to tell. You know, she never dated a thing. She just wrote the location, like Karnak Temple Complex, Luxor, followed by her observations. In the Karnak entry, which is a fairly typical example, there is a section that includes pages of hieroglyphs that she copied from the temple’s walls, another in English on the Precinct of Mut, notes on the drunken Sekhmet festival, and then details on the excavation in progress, which are pretty dry and technical.”

“Drunken Sekhmet festival? I like the sound of that.”

“According to this, the goddess Sekhmet was slaughtering humanity until Ra, who was the initiator of the massacre to begin with, felt pity and wanted Sehkmet to stop. She couldn’t, or wouldn’t. The ever-resourceful Ra came up with a bright idea: get the goddess drunk on tons of red beer, which she would mistake for human blood. This he did. She drank and drank. She got so wasted, she gave up any thoughts of carnage by passing out. Problem solved. The deed was commemorated annually in a festival that was attended by the temple’s priestesses and the local population, who reenacted the affair by getting so drunk, they couldn’t walk either.”

“You’ve got to love those ancient Egyptians.”

“The next day must have been hellish. I would be interested in the population figures nine months later, but they’re not mentioned.”

“You would be. Anyway, keep going. We have another hour before we have to make our way downstairs.”

Johnny began to go through the notes from the box while I went back to my reading.

Alice jotted lines about parties in London and research projects at the British Museum.

She reported on the shaman practices of South America and how she was impressed with the use of native plants to open doors to the spirit world.

I have finally come across a means to explore the world of the people. The use of exotic plants will facilitate my interaction with those I seek. It is possible at last.

She described plants, practices, and preparations in detail, noting the effects of each, Brugmansia and its preparation being her preferred method for making contact.

Lord Bromley was mentioned several times.

I saw him in London from a distance. Rumors surround him like a fog. He was engaged, and then he wasn’t…

He has been buying up various copies and originals of Egyptian papyri, including Books of the Dead. Coincidence, or is there a connection?

Stanley had covered most of what she reported regarding Arthur Blaine and leaving him in the jungle.

Malcolm Ault was mentioned several times as attending various parties.

Johnny and I were mentioned as well. She described us as “way too bright for their ages, but oh so cute.” Johnny would love that.

My parents were mentioned, along with the baron, but only in social contexts.

After an hour, Johnny interrupted my reading: “How goes it?”

“Interesting but not exactly enlightening. Excavations are described in great detail. So far nothing really eye-opening, other than Alice refers to M. quite often toward the end. I wager she might be a woman. The first name has not been revealed.”

“The famous recipient of the letter that was never delivered. Did M. have anything to do with her death, I wonder?”

“Unknown for now. Ault seems to be a steady presence in her narrative. Maybe you should ask him what he knows about her?”

“It’s a shot in the dark, but I’ll give it a try.”

“How are your session notes coming?”

“I’ve read a few, but I see what Stanley means. It’s heavy going. In a nutshell, she hoped for answers from the spirit world, but the search proved more frustrating than she’d imagined. Her main difficulty was that she could recall only a small portion of the sessions the next morning, and if the dose was too large, she couldn’t remember a thing. She tried taking notes during them, but they were either illegible or made no sense at all. Occasionally, she succeeded in making a connection. I noted one in particular. Here’s what she wrote:

“‘They, whoever they might be, are not the ones I have met before. They see no reason to answer my questions to my satisfaction. They showed me things: places, people, children mostly, but there is no link that I can grasp between the images and the answers that I seek. The dead, if that is what they are, have obviously different concerns than mine. I can’t make them understand. Perhaps, they cannot make me understand. I am frustrated and perplexed, yet I feel I am close, closer at least than I was before.’”

“Creepy.”

“Yes, I wonder if we’re following a journey into madness, like Stanley said?”

“It’s possible, but there might be moments of clarity buried in one of them.”

“I hope so, but that’s as far as either of us can go for now. It’s time to get dressed for dinner.”

“Right you are.”