1323 BC
"It is not ready! We do not have a tomb fit for a king anywhere in the valley that will be ready on time!"
"Well then we shall have to find one."
A pair spoke in hurried whispers, behind a thin, sheer curtain. Behind the curtain was the body of the king. Only nineteen years old, he was covered with a sheet. His feet were poking out of the edges, the dips and contours of his body accentuated by the white fabric. One of the pair looked towards him cautiously.
"We cannot afford to wait. We have thirty days. After that the mummification will be complete and he will have to be laid to rest."
The other man considered it for a moment, and then, like a lightning bolt to the head, his eyes lit up.
"I have an idea." He said, a glint in his eye.
The tomb of the king was sealed up. The paint had not yet completely dried on the walls, and it was a small, tight space that had ended up becoming Tutankhamun's final resting place. There were only two chambers - and a king should have had a lot more - and the artefacts they had buried with him had taken up nearly all the available space.
When the tomb was closed up, the pair of priests had remained to make sure the walls were properly sealed.
"Relax." One said to the other. "In a hundred years no one will know. All will be forgotten." He said nonchalantly.
"No one will know." Repeated the other, nodding. "All will be forgotten".
2016
'Baby, you got more guts than sense.'
'Yes, well your job is to make sure they stay inside of me.'
"Still reading those trashy novels?" Emma asked, approaching her friend on the deck of the ship. Evie was twenty-three years old, and as she reclined on the deck watching Egypt go by, she was more than content to read the trashiest novel of them all. The Mummy had always been her favourite film - indeed, she had thanked her mother most ardently as a child when she discovered the heroine of the movie shared her name - and only recently had found the novelised version of the film when flicking through the boxes in a used book shop. It was trashy - dated and in a typical damsel-in-distress style where the woman is always in need of a man to save the day.
"Yes." Evie answered indignantly. Her friend raised an eyebrow.
"The film was one thing." Emma said, sitting herself down on a sun lounger. She leaned back and flicked her sunglasses down from her head and onto her eyes. "The book just sets feminism back decades."
Evie rolled her eyes.
"Yes, it's problematically sexist. I get it." She said with a shrug. "But it's not all bad."
"Jesus," Emma said with a laugh. "Of all people, I thought you would've hated that the most, little miss Suffragette."
Evie rolled her eyes, scrabbling to get the book back as Emma plucked it from her hands.
"My stance on feminism has nothing to do with this. Give it back!" She said, reaching across to grab it. Emma held it from her reach, dangling it by the edge of the spine.
"Look, all I'm saying is there's a wealth of literature out there. This isn't it." She said, handing the book back to her friend. Evie glared, but after a moment burst into laughter.
"I don't see you reading Pride and Prejudice. Or anything else for that matter." Evie pointed out. Emma didn't read - movies were a more efficient way of telling a story, she swore - and in response shrugged.
"Whatever." She said lightly. "We can sit here arguing over books and sexism, or we can, y'know, get off this boat." She said, pointing to the dock approaching. The cruise liner was slowing down, and Evie noted that there was scuffling on the floor below as a queue of tourists formed by the doors, waiting to disembark.
"We need to find the others." Emma added. Evie wasn't listening; she'd risen from the sun lounger and moved to stand at the edge of the railings. She felt her heart sing; her whole life she had waited to see this. "Vee?" Emma asked. "Earth to Evelyn." She said with a laugh. Evie was pulled from her thoughts and turned absently.
"Hm?"
"I said we'd better go and find those two before we get off." She said. Evie nodded.
"Yes. They'll be in the bar." She said matter-of-factly. Emma nodded.
"They're always in the bloody bar." She said with a shrug.
"Are you two coming or do you plan on staying here all day?" Evie asked, entering the bar. It was a small but comfortable room, with a modestly stocked wooden bar at one end and red velvet upholstered seats scattered in groups of three and four. The colour of the velvet was faded, most of the seats having suspicious stains from decades of spilled drinks. There was a small fan in the middle of the low ceiling, but it did little to combat the intense heat. Instead, blinds were pulled down over open windows allowing a small breeze to pass through.
"Can we not?" Emery asked. He shook his dark hair away from his face. "I rather fancy the look of the barman." He said with a wink. Evie rolled her eyes, pulling at the fabric of his shirt. Emery was a notorious flirt, and was likely to set his sights on anything that had lungs. He had rings on each finger and a long golden necklace hanging loosely around his neck. He nodded his head to the young man behind the bar cleaning the glasses, who skirted his gaze and turned back to replace the empty vodka bottle on the shelf.
"No, you can't. We didn't spend all this money on this bloody cruise for you to sit enjoying the open bar all day!"
"Boo, hiss." Carter replied, lifting another bottle to his lips. "Look, I get enough of Egypt at home with my father. The only reason I came here was because of the open bar." He said with a shake of the head. Emery raised an eyebrow; it wasn't true and they all knew it. Carter was the product of a man that had been to Egypt in his late twenties and attempted to make his fortune, and a woman that spent all her time at the Petrie museum in London. When they discovered they were due to have a son, they could name him only after the most significant archaeologist of the twentieth century.
"It's a filthy lie and you know it." Evie said, taking the bottle from his hands and finishing the liquid inside it herself. Emma watched from the doorway, leaning casually on its side.
"We can spend all night in the bar. If we don't get off now and see this bloody temple, I think Evie's going to have an aneurysm."
Emery slid out from behind the table, whilst Carter made a show of reluctantly pulling on a pale blue shirt over his white tank top. Emery put an arm around his shoulders and walked him out.
"Come, then. Let's go and see this temple she keeps banging on about."
"Come on!" Evie cried. She was at the bottom of the plank that connected the boat to the land, waiting for her companions to reach the bottom.
"It's been there a couple thousand years. Surely it'll be there a little longer." Emma called, still at the top of the walkway, walking behind Emery and Carter who were only slightly uneasy on their feet - though they swore it was the movement of the water, and most definitely, absolutely, certainly not the alcohol that they'd been drinking since early afternoon.
Evie rolled her eyes. She tied her auburn hair in a bun, and arranged her sunglasses carefully on her head. Even when the sun was going down, the heat was sweltering. She had put on a black kimono to cover her sunburnt shoulders, but was regretting it now. Instead, she pulled it off and tied it around the strap of her bag that hung from one shoulder.
"You'll burn." Emma said bluntly.
"Sorry, mother." Evie replied with raised eyebrows. She laughed and then grabbed her friend by the arm. "Come on!" She repeated. Emma allowed herself to be pulled down the road to the golden columns of the temple.
Evie had wandered off on her own. She ran her fingers over the grooves of a column as she passed it, feeling the rough stone beneath her finger tips and the hollows where once there were letters. She paused to look at one in particular. Her knowledge of hieroglyphs was rudimentary at best, but she managed to discern the cartouche Senusret I.
This part of the temple was devoid of tourists, and she revelled in the peace of finding some time to herself. This had been her dream ever since she was a child, and as she wandered aimlessly through the maze of columns and statues, she almost felt like this were a dream.
"There you are." Carter said, leaning against a column. He was in the shadow, and Evie, for a moment, was startled to see him there.
"Here I am." She replied simply. "Had enough?" She asked, being unable to read the expression on his face. He paused a moment before answering.710Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXPTkb0gzHH
"No."710Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9K9h2C2wZp
He was staring up at the edges of the columns, of the ancient writing that had remained intact up there, out of harms way.
"Can you read it?" He asked.
"A little." She replied. "Can you?"
"Dad tried teaching me when I was a kid. I've forgotten most of it." He said with a shrug. He brought his eyes back down to hers, and studied her a moment.710Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡn1lzi7LByG
"It's nice to see you like this. Here. It suits you."
She looked at him questioningly; their friendship had never been about compliments or a deep understanding. It had been about drunkenness and laughs and never delving beneath the surface. Carter was hard to understand, and Evie was sure it wasn't her place to attempt and extricate the delicate expressions that crossed his features.
"We should go." He said gently. She agreed, following him as he left the temple and joined the other two waiting by the line of sphinxes.
They were the last ones in the bar. It was nearing two in the morning, but the round of twelve shots Emery had just ordered from the bar showed they had no intention of slowing just yet.
Evie's head swayed, and she lifted her hand to her forehead in attempt to steady it.
"Veniet can't handle her alcohol." Emma said with a laugh. She had put her bottle down on the table and lounged back in her chair.
"I can to." She protested. Carter beside her laughed, a sound that came out almost like a high pitched giggle.
Emery returned from the bar carrying a tray with twelve shot glasses filled with a dark liquid. Emma raised one questioning eyebrow, to which he responded simply: "Jaeger."
"After three?" Carter asked, distributing the glasses around the table. After counting up from one to three, all four dutifully downed each shot in succession. Evie grimaced after the third one, whilst Emery coughed and Emma wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.
Emery cleared his throat, pushing away the three empty shotglasses.
"So, Vee, where next?" He asked.
"Did you not check the itinerary?" She asked. Emma scoffed.
"You know he never checks things like that!"
Emery shrugged.
"That's what you lot are for, isn't it?" He said with a flourish and a wave of his hand.710Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfu6TyBV7TC
"When do we go and see Tut?" Carter asked from his spot in the corner before Evie could answer. Emma laughed.
"I thought you weren't interested?" She asked. He shook his head, sticking out his bottom lip casually, as though the matter was of little importance.
"I'm not. But it would be cool to see what my namesake discovered, after all." He said simply. Emery laughed loudly.
"Jesus, man! It's fine to admit you're into this stuff, you know? Evie does, and we accept her, geek and all." He mocked. Evie dug him in the ribs with her elbow. He laughed as he rubbed it, whilst Carter drank deeply from his beer.
"Oh, it's so much deeper than that." He said quietly, pensively. Emma looked curiously over at Evie. Emery raised one perfectly arched eyebrow but decided not to press the issue.
"Tut's tomb will be crawling with tourists. Especially now." Evie said absently.
"Why 'especially now'?" Emma asked, drawing circles on the table in the rings of condensation her cold bottle had left behind. Evie smiled to herself.
"They think..." She hiccuped, and needed a moment to think clearly. Alcohol and hot weather didn't mix well. "They, ah, think... think there's another tomb behind one of the walls."
"And?" Emery asked. "What's the deal?"
"They think Nefertiti might be buried behind there." She explained. Emma started to laugh.
"What is this, Indiana Jones? Surely they'd have found it by now if it was there."
"Maybe not." Carter added.
"Hey, maybe you can discover what's beyond that wall, hey Carter?" Emery joked. "Carter by name, Carter by nature and all?" He laughed. Carter laughed sarcastically before reclining in his chair.
Evie tilted her head to one side, her mind wandering to tombs and temples and stone valleys, and the friends beside her. When she looked across at Carter, she wondered if he were thinking of the same, wondering if when he closed his eyes, he saw temples and sand too.
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