Going for Gold (13 page)

Khamsin seemed really down after she heard this. I know I was. We’d both been thinking of Nefertiti’s perfume as a magic potion which would solve Egypt’s problems at one stroke - or one sniff.

Well, it clearly hadn’t solved Nefertiti’s problems, I thought, as we gradually left those depressing ruins behind.

It dawned on me that the girls and I had all been living in a kind of beautiful daydream and pretending it was real. Khamsin and Amisi didn’t have too much life experience, but I was an angel. I had no excuse. How exactly had I imagined that one little bottle of perfume could save Egypt forever?

At that moment, Khamsin turned white and crumpled to the deck. Amisi ran to her with a cry.

Lady Iras held smelling salts under Khamsin’s nose, quickly bringing her out of her faint.

“Everything went so dark,” Khamsin kept saying shakily.

Lady Iras laid her hand on Khamsin’s forehead. “You have a very high fever,” she exclaimed. “You must get out of this hot sun and rest.”

Amisi helped Khamsin back to the cabin. “I will sponge your face,” she said gently. “That will soon bring the fever down.”

Khamsin looked at Amisi as if she didn’t know who she was.

“I wish I hadn’t brought you now,” she burst out in a strange high voice. “You’re always following me around like a stupid little puppy. Sometimes I feel like I can’t breathe.”

Amisi gasped and ran out of the cabin, staying away all the rest of the day.

Next day Khamsin didn’t seem to remember the hurtful things she’d said, but I could see Amisi retreating into herself. Maybe she’d always thought their friendship was too good to be true.

That day we were due to pass Giza. Adjo and Baraka had promised to take the girls to see the pyramids - they’d been talking about it for days. But when it came to it, Khamsin felt too weak to leave the boat. Khamsin and Amisi just sat watching the famous skyline silently slide past, as if they were watching all their fabulous dreams for the future gradually float out of reach.

Next morning, I woke before it was light to hear wild drumming and hundreds of voices singing some kind of joyful song of praise.

I rushed up on deck to find Maia peering through the morning mists, looking distinctly spooked.

People were emerging from their cabins, having grabbed wraps or bed sheets to make themselves decent. Even Khamsin made it up on deck. Everyone wanted to know who was singing in the mist. Whoever they were, they adored Cleopatra! I heard her name being sung over and over, and something about her being a living goddess and ruling Egypt forever.

A gap suddenly opened in the mist as the first rays of light streamed down to Earth. Everyone gasped.

The river was crowded with small papyrus boats, so thickly decorated with flowers they literally looked like little floating gardens!

Each fragile paper boat carried several villagers. One carried three bony old priests and a golden statue of Hapy, the river god.

Baraka called out to them, wanting to know who they were and what they wanted. It turned out these were villagers Cleopatra had helped when their homes were flooded out, soon after she became queen. She had arranged for new houses to be built, set further back from the Nile, and ordered grain to be sent from the royal granaries, enough to feed everyone until next harvest.

Hearing rumours of a mysterious royal barge travelling down their stretch of the Nile, the grateful villagers had brought gifts of food, flowers and precious spices; they even brought handmade toys for Cleopatra’s little boy.

The villagers poured on to the barge, still drumming and singing Cleopatra’s praises. They slung a garland of fresh lotus blossoms around Mardian’s neck (I know!) and threw handfuls of marigolds, jasmine and coloured rice as if they were at a wedding.

Everyone seemed to catch the party spirit! Baraka and Adjo produced musical instruments. The slaves brought extra platters of food and jugs of wine. Even the kitty joined in, chasing after grains of rice, and allowing the village children to pet her.

Kha msin and Amisi seemed as enchanted as everyone else, though Khamsin still had shadows like dark thumbprints under her eyes.

Mardian was smiling and nodding to the beat. Thanks to everyone’s hard work, a growing caravan of carpet-makers, jewellers and whoever was slowly snaking along the edge of the desert towards Alexandria. Mardian was probably thinking it wouldn’t hurt to let their hair down for a few hours.

I noticed one of the priests on the edge of the party he’d helped to create. Silent and frowning, he seemed to be watching something the wildly celebrating villagers couldn’t see.

I moved in front of him, wondering what was making him look so disturbed. To my horror, he was looking straight at Maia.

She had her arm around Amisi. I heard her whisper softly. “Pick up the lotus flower, sweetie, that’s it, pick it up and put it in Khamsin’s hair, let her know you’re her friend.”

Maia’s voice was so sweet and lulling, I was suddenly finding it hard to think.

The Universe went into slow motion as she raised her forefinger, sketching a strange symbol in the air.

The flower was no longer a flower. It was black and scuttling with a spiked tail like a cartoon devil. In front of my eyes, Maia had turned a lotus into a scorpion.

Like a sleepwalker, Amisi slowly stretched out her hand. She was maybe two centimetres from picking up the deadly creature, when Khamsin’s cat made an urgent warbling sound in her throat and broke the spell.

Amisi gasped, seeing what she’d been about to do. Snatching off her sandal she flipped the scorpion into the river.

Her face had gone chalky with shock. Amisi had only inherited snake magic from her ancestors, I remembered, not scorpion magic.

“The dark gods wanted to play a trick on your friend,” the priest told her in his thin old man’s voice. “But I knew the little cat would protect you both.”

I was hot with shame. The little cat was not supposed to protect them. That was my job. I’d promised Khamsin’s dad I’d take care of her - and then I’d put her at risk again and again, all because I refused to listen to my own instincts.

I stormed over to Maia. My voice sounded like an angry stranger’s. “You were never at angel school!” I accused her. “You’ve been with the Dark Powers from the start.”

Maia let out her random giggle. “You took your time figuring that one out, babe! Definitely one up to the ‘PODS’, wouldn’t you say!”

I could see the divine lightning burn shimmering on her neck. I knew how she got it now - and why.

“You stole that sacred ankh,” I said clenching my fists.

“Not such a smart move as it turned out!” she admitted. “Your poxy Light gods ripped it off my neck. Said I was disrespecting their culture. Jeez!”

“Leave now,” I told her in my new rough voice, “and I’ll spare your life.”

“You’ll spare my WHAT?” Maia gave an outraged laugh. “Can you just hear yourself!”

“Just go,” I told her.

I had a mental flash of the painting in our dorm: the white robed angel banishing the demon back to its evil domain. Everything seemed so straightforward in the painting. The angel looked like an angel. The demon was a normal warty-faced demon. There’s no way you could have got them mixed up with each other. Maybe life was simpler then?

Without realising, I was copying the old-style angel’s body language, pointing a trembly finger away from Cleopatra’s boat and Khamsin and Amisi, away from this beautiful planet forever.

As avenging angels go, it has to be said I wasn’t that impressive. I’d been wearing the same scuzzy combats since we were time-napped. But I was so absolutely hopping mad, that a real flash of lightning spurted from my fingertip, to our mutual surprise.

“OK, I get it,” Maia said sulkily. “It was boring anyway, making out your disgusting vibes didn’t make me want to puke. Jeez, didn’t you once wonder why I couldn’t take your company for more than ten minutes?”

The second lightning spurt was bigger and brighter, and came a lot closer to Maia’s head, briefly setting fire to her hair.

Well, it’s a waste of energy reasoning with PODS. They’ll just keep on messing with your mind, persuading you right is wrong and day is night, exactly what Maia had been doing to me since we met.

“I told you to go,” I repeated. “Unless you want me to finish you off?”

The last spark of light left her eyes. “You’re not the boss of me,” she spat. “It’s not over till I say!”

“It’s over for me,” I told her.

I pointed my finger a third and final time.

A sizzling lightning bolt shot out like a burning arrow, but before it could hit her, the air gave a muddy ripple and she’d gone.

I don’t know what that old-style angel in the painting did after he’d banished the Dark being. I sat down among the bruised flower petals and dirty rice and cried. I felt SO stupid and ashamed.

I was dimly aware of the villagers leaving the barge, still singing their Cleopatra song as they rowed back to their homes.

The girls had disappeared off to their cabin. Slaves started to sweep up the thick carpet of blossoms.

The little she-cat padded over, sniffed my face, decided I’d live, then got on with the more important business of batting a stray lotus flower around the deck. Now and then she’d glance my way, like, She’s not still crying about that cosmic low life?

“You knew she was a bad apple,” I sobbed. “And Lola knew. She knew from Day One, but I wouldn’t listen. What was I thinking, kitty? I already had the most fabulous friend in the Universe!”

I wiped my eyes. “We should check on the girls.”

Maia had been gone half an hour at most, yet the atmosphere in the cabin was as clear and sweet as a temple bell.

The fact that I noticed now told me just how badly the vibes on this boat had been going downhill. Some angel you are, I told myself miserably.

Amisi was helping Khamsin plait her hair. They were chatting quietly together as if they’d never quarrelled. Afterwards they got out their oils. Khamsin unstoppered Lady Iras’ fancy bottle and they took turns to sniff. They closed their eyes in total rapture and so did I.

“Almost there,” whispered Khamsin. “Mother says in her notes we have to add just one drop of this.”

Amisi held her breath as Khamsin dripped exactly one transparent silvery green drop into their elegant new bottle.

The room went totally hushed. The exquisite hand-coloured glass made it impossible to see the slow journey of that teeny drop of flower oil, or the actual moment when its mysterious essence mingled invisibly with the blend. But I felt it. We all did. Nefertiti’s perfume was finished at last.

“This is going to change Egypt’s destiny,” Khamsin said softly.

Amisi nodded solemnly. “I know. Your parents would be so proud.”

She reverently replaced the stopper, as if she was sealing up an enchanted potion. Despite everything these girls had been through, they were still like wide-eyed five-year-olds who believed in magic. After that first night, they had never once asked - even amongst themselves - why Cleopatra needed them. They had totally gone with the flow, somehow trusting that they had a part to play in this Egyptian fairy tale.

Maia didn’t touch them, I thought. Not inside, where it matters.

Now she’d gone back into the dark where she belonged.

I waited for the blissful feeling of relief that would make me know we were home and dry. But deep down I knew Maia wasn’t going to give up that easily.

Chapter Seventeen

T
here was no sign of Maia for the rest of our journey.

By the time we reached the lake dock at Mareotis, twelve days after we set out, I felt ninety-nine per cent confident we had seen the last of her, yet somehow I couldn’t totally relax my guard.

We sailed into the harbour as dozens of small fishing boats were arriving back from their morning run, their decks heaped with wriggling fish. Big merchant boats rode at anchor, their creaky timbers breathing out the vibes and smells of far-off lands.

Not counting Lady Iras, the only humans we’d seen in Cleopatra’s Egypt were pure Egyptians with straight black hair and nut brown skin. Here in Alexandria, humans of all colours and nationalities yelled at each other in dozens of different languages as they unloaded cargoes from all over the ancient world.

At the quayside, several seriously spangly horse-drawn chariots were waiting to take the travellers to the palace. The girls and Lady Iras shared one chariot. I squeezed myself in invisibly beside Khamsin.

The kitty popped her head out of the basket, sniffing the sea air with interest as the chariot sped along the wide, almost empty roads at a stonking pace.

This was a very different Egypt, a vibey city of dazzling white buildings, fresh sea breezes and sparkling air. Lady Iras eagerly pointed out local landmarks: the Museon where scholars from all over the world came to study astronomy, science and mathematics; Alexandria’s famous library that contained manuscripts dating back to the dawn of human civilisation; the tomb of the legendary warrior, Alexander, who had given his name to this beautiful Mediterranean city.