Chapter 2

 July 12, Monday.

 Seven years ago.

Jamie Poole, age twelve, nervously, frantically placed a call to her father whom she had never met.  Her parents had been divorced since she was six months old.  In her mind she reviewed the chain of events that led to this moment. 

Yesterday had started like any other day.  The county fair was in town.   With her thirteen year old cousin Margarite Anderson--Margie for short--she wanted to pass the afternoon eating too much junk food, riding all the wild rides she could afford like the Viking log ride, and trying not to throw up when she did the two together.

Jamie had been happy for the diversion the fair offered in the middle of a mundane summer.  She lived in Alexandria, Indiana.  “Small Town USA” announced the sign coming into town.   It was a small Midwestern farming community where everyone knew everyone.  Pretty much everyone was related in some way or other, too.  That was pretty cool, she thought, because a community like this was like having extended family, but there wasn’t much to do if you were a kid.  Alexandria did have a park with some playground equipment designed for younger kids, and the property doubled as the fairgrounds. Jamie always looked forward to the fair as the highlight of her summer. 

Jamie had wondered why they—whoever “they” was—would name the town Alexandria.  Had there once been hopes of grandeur?  Or had it been one man’s unfulfilled dream to visit a faraway place?  Or, had they hoped to bring a little flavor of a romantic, mysterious city to a spot in the middle of nowhere?  The locals referred to it as “Alek.”  The town was ordinary in every way including the way they referred to it.  There was no hope of grandeur amongst the current natives; they had accepted—embraced—their way of life where yesterday, today, and tomorrow were all the same.  And that is the way they preferred it. 

Not Jamie.  She daydreamed of seeing faraway places.  And she didn’t mean Indianapolis or Cincinnati or Louisville, which to her mom was far enough away.  One day she hoped to see the real Alexandria.  One day she wanted to be an archaeologist and discover things.  Like her dad… 

She waited as she counted the rings, three, four, five… 

It wasn’t the fair itself that was prompting this call to her father.  It was what she found at the fair.  

Jamie’s father was an archaeologist.  Until today that was all she knew about him.  She hadn’t known where his home was.  The only connection she’d ever had with him was the packages.  Dusty, dirty, torn, and bound in odd heavy paper and twine, they looked like they’d traveled across the desert on the back of a camel.  That was entirely possible.  The gifts were books or artifacts related to archaeology.  Occasionally he’d include a card or a photograph.  He looked like Indiana Jones, she thought, with a ponytail.  She treasured the gifts as her most prized possessions.  His absence had never been felt in her life until now.  Consequently, she’d never thought to check the return addresses.  A lot of the packages had been so battered she was surprised the mailman knew where to deliver them.  Then again, it was Alek and the mailman knew all about Jamie’s family and probably her dad, too.  It was from a card that she’d tracked down a permanent address for him, or at least as close to permanent as she could find. 

The phone continued to ring.  A moment later, a woman answered the phone.  “This is Mary Sutherland.  May I help you?” 

Speech was sucked from Jamie’s throat.  She’d rehearsed what she wanted say, but she’d expected her father to answer the phone.  She wanted desperately to sound grown up, to sound convincing as she presented her news.  She fell flat on her face and, even to herself, she sounded like she was six years old.  “H-hello,” she blurted, “isn’t this Brett Poole’s number?” 

Mary Sutherland replied.  Jamie recognized her Scottish brogue.  “Is there something I can help you with?” 

“I-I need to talk to Brett Poole.  Is he there?  Do you know my dad?”  Silently she cursed herself for sounding so childish. 

“No, honey, he isn’t.  And, yes, I know him.”  

Now Mary Sutherland was pacifying her, Jamie knew.  She probably thinks she’s talking to a little kid.  Jamie racked a hand through her disheveled hair.  “My name is Jamie Poole.  Brett is my father.”  She got it out breathlessly before she lost her nerve.  “I need to talk to him.  It’s important.” 

There was a pause as the woman on the other end of the phone digested that bit of news.  Maybe she was wondering who she was.  Maybe she had no idea Brett had a daughter.  Jamie didn’t know who Mary Sutherland was.  Maybe she was her dad’s girlfriend or… 

Mary Sutherland finally answered, “Hello Jamie.  Your father has mentioned you.  Does your mother know you’re calling?” 

“I’m twelve years old!  I don’t need my mother’s permission to call.”  Hot tears stung Jamie’s eyes.  It didn’t help that she hadn’t slept last night.  Her nerves were already on edge. 

Mary sighed, “I’m sorry, Jamie.  I sounded harsh and I apologize.  Your father isn’t here.  Do you know where you’ve called?” 

“I know I’ve called a number at Merrimack University.  I-I really don’t know where that is.  But it’s urgent.  I need to talk to my dad.” 

“OK, Jamie.  Let me introduce myself.  I’m Dr. Mary Sutherland, your father’s associate and department head of the archaeological department.  We’re in Ayer, New Hampshire.” 

Jamie didn’t try to digest where New Hampshire was.  It could have been another planet.  On she pushed, “Can you give my dad a message?  It’s really important.” 

“Yes,” Mary chuckled, “you mentioned that.  Can you tell me the nature of the news?  I can pass it on to your dad.” 

Jamie stood at an intersection.  Should she risk it all and trust this woman or try again later?  What were the odds that her father would answer this phone?  She decided to risk it all and confide in Dr. Sutherland.  Quickly she recounted what she found at the fair the day before.

*    *    *    *

She and Margie had bought elephant ears, a sweet flatbread heavily doused in sugar and cinnamon, when she had heard a carnie yell through a megaphone over the boisterous crowd, “…the famous blue eyed queen of the Nile!”  The words cut into Jamie’s thoughts.    She stopped in mid-stride. 

“What?” Margie asked as they collided.  Margarite’s mother was Mexican.  She was tall, slender, and darkly beautiful like her mother.  Jamie was shorter, stocky, with a lighter complexion like her mother’s, Julia Anderson-Poole.  Her light brown hair came to her shoulders; she was not old enough to hate the freckles that dappled her cheeks and nose. 

Jamie looked at her sideways.  Margie knew that look.  “Here we go!  You get all stupid faced and forget you’re hungry.”  She didn’t intend it to sound mean, Jamie knew.  Margie didn’t understand her cousin’s obsession with archaeology, but she respected the connection it meant with her father. 

“Did he say ‘queen of the Nile’?” 

“Yeah, so?”  There was no point prolonging the inevitable; however, Margie had already lost interest.   “We came to ride the rides,” Margie stated to her cousin’s back.  Jamie was pushing past the crowds of people, oblivious to the fact her cousin was not following. 

Jamie’s ears were cued to the man’s voice blaring over the megaphone.  His accent betrayed his Southern roots.  “The gen-u-ine ala-baster statue of an E-gyp-she-an queen.  The fa-mous blue eyed queen of the Nile.   Killed by the hand of her lover.  It’s all written here in hie-ro-glyphics.”  He drew some words out for dramatic effect which increased his drawl.  It seemed to be working, Jamie thought.  There was a large crowd gathered to see this blue eyed queen.  Who ever heard of a blue eyed Egyptian?  Had to be fake, she reasoned.  Margie gave her a dirty look as she followed begrudgingly.  

Jamie stood partially rapt by the story which sounded like a modified version of Romeo and Juliette.  Another part of her knew that there was no such blue eyed queen.   She knew it was a cheap carnival ploy. But, it only cost a dollar to see it.  What was the harm? 

The carnie continued, “And that’s not all you’ll see in the world famous cabinet of curiosities.  The cabinet of curiosities belonging to world renowned soldier of fortune, Doyle Dalton!  You will also see the three headed child from the darkest African jungles.  A horn belonging to a unicorn!  That’s right, folks, sci-en-tific proof that such creatures do indeed exist and right here in the U. S. of A!”  He punctuated his words with taps on his microphone.  “The skeletal remains of an elephant three times the size of modern elephants.  Doyle Dalton was unable to bring back an entire preserved carcass so he stripped it bare with his own hands and dragged it out of the jungle, almost losing his life in the effort.  Also, you’ll see the footprint of the abominable snowman frozen in ice.” 

“What’s a cabinet of curiosities?” Margie asked.  Jamie’s inquisitiveness was contagious after all. 

Jamie recited an answer while listening as the carnie continued to describe the wonders that a dollar’s admittance price would reveal.  “It’s not really a cabinet like in your house.  It’s a room or group of rooms.  A cabinet of curiosities is a collection of objects like archaeological things, religious relics, and biology things.  Stuff like that.  They’ve been around since the 1500s, I think.  A lot of time the stuff is faked.  Like that three headed child.  In olden times, they would stitch extra heads onto dead bodies and display them.  Or, how easy is it to make a frozen cast of a big foot?  People have always been fascinated by gruesome stuff.” 

“Not me!”  Margie took a step back.  “It sounds like a bunch of dusty junk to me.” 

“Let’s see it,” she hissed to Margie as she pulled her sleeve.   

“It’s probably plastic junk!” Margie moaned and rolled her eyes.  She looked over at the Viking log ride which had started up again.  Delighted screams vied to drown out the carnie who continued to hock his cabinet. 

Jamie insisted, “I don’t care about the other stuff.  You’re probably right that it’s junk.  But it’s only a dollar.  I’ll buy.” 

“You always did like weird things,” glowered Margie.  “I don’t get you sometimes.”  She followed Jamie who got in line.  The cabinet of curiosities was housed in a long narrow red tent.  Its entrance was guarded by the man with the microphone and another man who collected the money.  They both wore cheap suits.  A third man stood at the exit holding up the flap and saying “thank you, come again” to everyone who left.  The line moved painfully slow.  Jamie was eager to see what sort of “alabaster statue” they had.  What a bunch of dupes standing here paying their dollar.  She snickered inside.  But, like her, part of them longed for the exotic which was suffocated in Alek. 

At last it was Jamie’s turn to pay.  She handed her money to the second man who seemed aloof.   He barely made eye contact with anyone, especially two kids.  After he’d taken their money, he wordlessly unhooked the stanchion to allow them to pass.  Something about his demeanor reminded Jamie of a hawk. 

She stepped inside the tent.  It was dim and crowded with people shuffling through.  It reeked of sweat.  Once inside she saw that the tent had been sectioned off into small rooms.  A white cord roped off the exhibits to keep people from getting too close.  A narrow path led people from display to display.  The first room had a nautical theme.  Huge jaws of some aquatic beast hovered above spectators’ heads.  Strangely colorful fish floated in artificial oceans within huge glass aquariums.  Sightless eyes glared back.  Larger specimens were stuffed and mounted behind them.  Jamie couldn’t identify any of the species.  Had she not felt pressed to see the statue, she might have stopped to take a closer look. 

The second room looked to contain medieval relics.  A sliver of wood snuggled protectively behind thick glass was labeled as part of the true cross of Christ.  In other glass cases were dried remains of people: hands, fingers, feet.  The unicorn’s horn was lovingly suspended in a case.  “Narwhal,” Jamie muttered to herself as she entered the third room, this one with African artifacts.  Garish statues with sightless eyes towered over her.  She and Margie passed through too quickly to glance at the three-headed child.  Margie was relieved.  All this was too ghoulish for her.  Despite the heat, she felt a chill brush up her arms.  She really wanted to go outside and forget this.  The air pressed against her and she regretted eating that last hot dog. 

A fourth room revealed a geology display which rivaled the display Jamie had seen in a museum in Indianapolis.  Part of her wanted to stop and look.  Not even the allure of dried ice swirling about her feet impressed her.  It must be the abominable snowman display, the thought passed through her mind as the unseen princess beckoned her deeper into the cabinet of curiosities.  

Further along, passing a couple other rooms with the bizarre and fascinating, they finally came to the Egyptian room which was larger than the other rooms they had been in so far.  The statue was situated in the center.  Despite its small size, it commanded the room with its stare.  A white rope surrounded the platform upon which it rested.  Jamie paid a cursory glance to the objects against the walls.  The usual Egyptian stuff:  vases, heads of pharaohs long dead, burial artifacts.  Their glamour dimmed in the shadow of this “blue eyed queen of the Nile.”  A fourth man stood with the statue.  He wore a muddy brown security guard’s uniform.  It also looked as if he’d never seen an iron in his life.  A patch stitched with the words “Doyle Dalton’s Cabinet of Curiosities” was sewn on one sleeve.  The pants were too long and bunched over top of dirty tennis shoes.   He struggled to look dignified, but he had a hungry look to his eyes.  In between recounts of the same Romeo and Juliet story they had heard before, he kept telling people not to take photographs.   He had an odd accent unlike any Jamie had heard before. 

The crowd parted bringing Jamie face to face with the blue eyed queen of the Nile.  The statue sat on a plain wooden platform painted gold in an attempt to make it look regal.  She noticed that a chunk of wood had been knocked out of the corner of the platform laying bare the wood beneath.  A single light hung suspended from the ceiling casting full light on the alabaster face.  It burned with a cool warmth typical of alabaster.  Jamie drew in her breath, forgetting for the moment that this was a cheap replica.  

Or was it?  Doubt niggled at her brain as she reminded herself to breathe. 

In contrast to the platform the gold painted on the statue gleamed with an inner light.  The statue itself stood a mere foot in height.  The figure was posed like a queen might have lain in her sarcophagus.  Her chin was tilted upwards, her shoulders squared, her back straight.  Regal, Jamie thought. 

The woman’s alabaster face seemed lifelike in its complexion; a slight flush kissed each cheek.  And her eyes.  They did not look painted.  They were too alive beneath thin arched eyebrows.  More than alive.  Deep blue pools slightly slanted at the corners were a blue bluer than any color she had ever seen.  A blue so pure it penetrated her soul.  The statue knew.  It was alive.  It sounded stupid, even to her as she thought it.  But Jamie couldn’t think of any other way to describe the intense gaze of this smaller than life statue.  

Jamie briefly glanced at her cousin.  She wondered if the statue had the same effect on her.  Margie’s naturally tan face seemed to be a couple shades paler than normal.  For the moment, she stood transfixed. 

Full red lips on the statue turned upwards in not quite a smile.  They mocked Jamie.  Like the artist of the Mona Lisa, the craftsman who made this statue had captured an enigmatic expression.  What was she thinking as she stripped bare her viewers who thought they had come to examine her?  

Her hair was blue black, parted in the middle and swept behind her in a long braid reaching to her buttocks.  A gold headband encrusted with gems:  lapis lazuli, garnet, jade, held her hair in place.  Gold earrings hung from each lobe and a torc of the same material encircled her throat.  Her clothing, including a tunic and cloak, was left alabaster white as were her boots.  Her fists were tightly clenched below her chin clutching the hilt of a sword that reached down to her toes.  Etched along the silvery sword was a line of glyphs.  Jamie forgot to breathe.  The pommel of the sword encased a sapphire as blue as the queen’s eyes.  It glowed from within with a life of its own. 

Jamie tried to memorize each detail.  In her ear the man’s voice, buzzing like a fly, recited the canned story of the queen.  “Hey,” Jamie blurted before she realized it, “How come she’s holding a sword?  Egyptians don’t hold swords like that.” 

“Jamie!” Margie hissed. 

 “Hey,” her cousin repeated with more insistence, “why’s she holding a sword?”

The man glared at her.  “Beat it kid!  What do you know?” 

Jamie’s mouth flew open.  Margie, knowing her cousin, grabbed her by the arms and shoved.  “Shut up!” she whispered. 

Jamie surrendered to the human tide.   She couldn’t argue with the man.  Not yet.  Outside, the temperature seemed cool compared to the inside of the tent.  She exploded, “Did you see that?  She was holding a sword!”  

“Yeah, I know,” Margie said, without enthusiasm.  “So what!  Maybe that’s the dagger she stabbed her lover with.” 

“So what?  So what!   That’s so dumb.  No queen looked like that.  Haven’t you looked at Egyptian paintings?” 

“Well, yeah,” Margie shrugged.  “So?”  She was trying very hard to sound bored, but her cousin wasn’t noticing. 

“Well, they don’t hold swords like that one!”  Her eyes glowed recalling the sapphire that gleamed with the promise of beauty had it been real. 

“I heard you already.” 

Jamie stepped out of the walkway, behind the tents, careful not to trip over the tangled web of cables.  “This is weird.  I mean, I know it’s a fake.  If it was real it would be in a museum.  But, why make a fake and not make it right?” 

Margie shrugged.  “You said these things are full of fake junk.” 

Jamie wasn’t listening again.  “It doesn’t make sense.  I mean, the fake things are normally stuff like three headed people or fictitious monsters.  Real stuff made to look different.  Not a statue like that.  And the hieroglyphs.  It’s wrong.” 

What do you mean, it’s wrong?” 

“I wish my dad were here…” she said and her voice died. 

Margie blinked at her.  She knew better than to respond to anything having to do with Jamie Poole’s father.  She had vague memories of the man.  He had vanished when she had been small.  But she knew the legend.  The whole Anderson family knew the legend.    

Jamie was exasperated.  “The hieroglyphs didn’t look right.  You know, like…well, you wouldn’t know.  And, they didn’t pose them with swords…”  She stopped. She’d joked about telling her dad, but now she wished he could get his expert opinion on this.  “Why didn’t they make the fake statue look more real?  Why didn’t they copy one of the statues they have in museums?” 

“’Cause they’re dumb?” offered Margie sarcastically.  “That one guy in the dirty uniform didn’t look too smart.”  

“I gotta see it again,” Jamie said, and off she went without waiting to see if Margie would follow.  She wished she’d worked harder at memorizing hieroglyphics so she could read these. 

Twenty minutes later Jamie was back.  “You sure you don’t need a coke or something?”  Margie was starting to get worried.  Her cousin looked a little pale.  Jamie needed to lighten up most of the time.  But they were cousins and they’d been buddies since they were babies and that meant something.   Right now Jamie looked so tense Margie thought her head was going to pop off. 

Ignoring her cousin’s question, Jamie said, “Her hairstyle.  It’s not Egyptian at all.  I don’t get it.”  She scowled to herself trying to reason through the puzzle. 

 Jamie was in her own world asking no one in particular.  Margie knew it and waited as patiently as she could.  Still her cousin looked bad.  “You don’t look right.  You need something to drink.  I think you got too hot.”

*    *    *    *

Mary’s interest was piqued, or at least Jamie hoped she was reading the inflections in Mary’s voice correctly.  “Honey, that’s interesting that you found an Egyptian statue.  Your cousin is probably right though.  A lot of carnival shows include phony mummies or fake statues.   There are chemical treatments they can use to age things.” 

“Yeah, I know that.” 

“You’ve obviously worked hard to find your dad’s phone number.  What makes you think this statue is real?”  On Mary’s end of the phone she was also taking a gamble.  Any ordinary twelve year old might be easily fooled by a carnival side show.  But if this was Brett Poole’s daughter, she had to hear the explanation.  Did she have her father’s genes? she wondered. 

“That’s just it.  There’s more.”  And Jamie continued with her narrative.

*    *    *    *

In the distance the phone rang.  Her sleep fogged brain had difficulties distinguishing between reality and a dream world.  It wasn’t normal for the phone to ring late at night, so Jamie rolled over and drifted back to sleep. 

Ring.  Like a bolt of electricity, she sat up in bed in the next instant.   The phone was ringing in her room.  She didn’t have a phone in her room. 

She looked at her clock.  The luminous dial glowed 3 a.m.  That meant her mom was home.  Julia worked two jobs to keep food on the table.  Her second job kept her gone until one in the morning. She hadn’t heard her mother come in.  Normally, she didn’t.  Closing her eyes she listened attentively.  When she did this, she could imagine herself in her mother’s room.  She could hear Julia’s even breathing.  See her curled up in a ball sleeping.  Asleep, Julia looked like a child.  The signs of premature aging were erased in peaceful slumber.  At thirty-three, Julia worked too hard.  Her nails were chipped and her hands prematurely wrinkled.  Somewhere along the line she’d stopped trying to make them look nice.  Stopped gluing on fake nails.  Stopped trying to make herself look pretty.  Her flaxen hair was always carelessly pulled back from her face in a haphazard ponytail.  Jamie never heard her mother complain about her lot in life.  Never.  In sleep her hair, loosened from its ponytail would be coiled about her head on the pillow.  She thought her mother looked beautiful when she slept. 

She relaxed.  The phone had to be a dream.  No one called this late.  Well, one time they had.  But that was five years ago when Grandpa John died.  It hadn’t really come as a surprise.  He’d been sick with cancer for a long time.  He was in the hospital plugged in to lots of tubes with a machine to help him breathe.  She remembered her mother waking up to answer the phone.  The next thing she’d remembered they were in the car driving to the hospital in Anderson.  The whole family had assembled:  Uncle Johnny, Aunt Amy, Uncle Bill and Aunt Liz, as well as some of the older cousins.  Now Grandpa John slept directly across the street from Jamie’s apartment in the cemetery which, ironically was beside the fairgrounds.  She tried to imagine him riding the Viking log ride, so she could go back to sleep.  Woo-hoo! he’d be yelling as he swung up in the air. 

Ring.  There it was again.  She opened one eye and looked around her room.  Everything looked normal.  She held her breath waiting for the phone to ring again.  It didn’t. 

Now she was awake.  With wakefulness her mind began to work, to process what she had seen yesterday.  The fake security guard.  His dirty tennis shoes.  The queen.  The statue.  The stupid made-up story.  The sword with the glyphs.   The images ran across her mind over and over.  Security guard.  Tennis shoes.  Queen.  Statue.  Hieroglyphs.   Sword.  Security guard.  Tennis shoes.  Queen.  Statue.  Hieroglyphs.  Sword.  

Around and around the images danced in her head. 

She’d managed to banish the images from her mind last night but they were back.  They refused to leave no matter how much effort Jamie put into clearing her mind.  She tried to imagine her grandfather’s ghost riding the Ferris wheel.  No such luck. 

She rolled over on her other side and hugged her teddy bear and stared at her room.  Glowing pinkly in her window was a carpet store sign.  She hardly noticed it any more.  It was a nice room, despite the light cast by the sign, with white furniture, and a mirror upon the dresser.  She could see her pale reflection looking back at her.  Upon her bed was a red, white, and blue quilt her grandmother had made her long ago.  With the images a weight descended upon her.  It was almost a physical presence pressing heavier against her than the day’s humidity.  It was trying to tell her something…or so she thought.  

But what? 

Security guard.  Tennis shoes.  Queen.  Sword.  Hieroglyphs.  Fake gold platform spray painted…All of it fake.  Go to sleep, she admonished herself. 

Her mind would have none of it.  Something beyond her reach loomed.  Begged her to recall it.  What?  What was she trying to remember?  When Jamie would later recount this part of the narrative, she would hesitate to describe what happened next.   

Already used to the tricks her ears were playing on her, it was not much of a stretch to imagine the clink she heard come from the kitchen.  Having seen her mother asleep in bed, she knew it was not she who made the noise.  She decided to investigate.  Silently she padded on bare feet into the kitchen. 

The kitchen was swathed in shadows broken by a light over the sink.  It was a small cozy kitchen which Jamie had always liked.  Standing next to the sink as if she were the woman of the house, stood a plump grandmotherly figure.  She seemed natural to be standing there drinking—was it tea?—from her mother’s favorite mug.  It smelled like tea.  Her mother never drank tea, but Jamie instinctively knew what it was.  It had a pleasant earthy smell which infused the room.  Jamie did not realize at first that the woman was dressed in a floor length sleeveless gown which was totally out of place in somewhere like Alexandria, Indiana.  She would later learn that this kind of gown was called a peplum.  Ornately carved silvery brooches adorned each shoulder.  A brass belt bound her ample waist.  Gray hair was swept off the woman’s face and held in place by wooden combs into a bun.  

The woman turned to face Jamie, fixing her with a bewitching smile beneath brown eyes as she peered over the top of the mug.  Her eyes were darkly warm. 

Jamie opened her mouth to speak.  The woman silenced her with a wave of her hand.  Silver and gold bracelets tinkled on her wrist.  “Now is not the time for questions.  Answers will come.  Later.  Tonight, relax.  What you seek you will find.  Let your mind relax and you will remember.  Now go.  It is closer than you think.”  

Jamie’s mouth popped open like a fish’s and closed just as quickly. 

The woman turned her back to Jamie moving as if to replace the mug in the sink.  Jamie realized that light partially shone through the woman’s body.  Jamie wondered at herself.  Why did she feel so peaceful upon seeing a ghost in her own kitchen?  This woman looked far too friendly and grandmotherly to really be a ghost.  What was going on? 

While Jamie was asking herself this question, the woman melted into the darkness.  Her mother’s mug stood silently in the porcelain sink.  Another soft clink was the only testament that anything out of the ordinary had happened.  The room still smelled richly of tea. 

With a final cursory glance around the kitchen assuring herself that everything was in order, Jamie shuffled back into her bedroom where she flopped onto her bed with a huff.  OK.  She’ll play this game.  Obviously she wasn’t going back to sleep any time soon.   She’d recall whatever insignificant detail her mind wanted her to remember.  She’d satisfy the weight so that maybe—hopefully--it would lift and leave her alone.  Let her sleep.  She never, ever woke up like this.  It bothered her.  It bothered her more that she couldn’t recall whatever it was she was trying to recall.  Relax, she reminded herself.  The grandmother assured her she would remember. 

Pushing her hair from her face, she looked across her room at her mirror again.  Was the answer there?  She strained in the darkness, willing the answer to come.  All that returned her gaze were her own brown eyes that were maybe a little wider than normal.  

Crickets chirped outside.  The air conditioner propped in her mother’s bedroom window whooshed.  Although their doors were open to allow the coolness to circulate between their rooms she felt hot.  She kicked away her sheets.  She heard a car pass on the highway outside.  Saw the arc of its headlights as it crossed her ceiling.  There were no other sounds.  Alek was a small town.  Big city noises like sirens were uncommon.  That should have made sleeping easier, but not tonight. 

The crickets seemed to be shrieking like a high-pitched opera.   Maybe one was inside the house.  Maybe in her room.   Closing her eyes she concentrated.  She imagined she could hear individual voices.  No.  Voices weren’t right.  Crickets made noises by rubbing their legs together.  Legs.  Voices.  That was inconsequential.  They were speaking to her.  They each seemed to chant in a breathy whisper, “Answers will come.  Will come.  Will come.  Come….”  Jamie grabbed her cheeks.  What was happening to her?  This was insane! 

Bang.  Like an audible gunshot, she remembered.  With lightening speed she bolted out of bed and tiptoed to her door.  She closed it then flipped on the lamp beside her bed.  Quickly she pulled a box from underneath.  She didn’t keep any pictures of her father visible in her room.  It was an unspoken agreement between her mother and her.  Somehow, she wasn’t sure why, she knew her mother wouldn’t have approved.  In the box, neatly organized in a photo album, she kept all the pictures of her dad.  Neatly bound with rubber bands she had kept all the cards her father had ever sent.  Envelopes intact with all the mysterious stamps from faraway lands in a rainbow of designs. 

Crawling back into bed, Jamie opened the photo album and flipped through the pages.  There it was.  She looked at a picture her father had sent her for Easter this year.  He stood in the desert on some sort of plateau.  Behind him was nothing but sand.  The sky was dazzling blue.  He wore sunglasses and his hat pulled low over his face.  He looked hot.  She couldn’t read the expression on his face.  Resting in his hand was a sword. 

The sword.  She knew it.  Pulling the picture out of the pocket, she flipped it over to check the date.  It had been taken in December in a remote part of Egypt.  She’d have to check a map to know where.  Setting the picture to the side for a moment, she returned to the box.  She flipped through the cards until she came to the Easter card.  She opened it and scanned the letter inside. 

Hello, I hope your Easter is fun.  I’m in Egypt.  This is me holding a sword we found in a tomb.  Was your dad ever surprised to find this!  It was stored with gold and other treasure in an anteroom.  We haven’t found the mummy yet.  I’ll have to ship the sword back to the university for study.  Unfortunately your dad can’t translate it.  The hieroglyphs are a form we’ve not seen before.  Exciting.  But, I’ll bet you find it boring compared to the chocolate you’ll get today.  I’m thinking of you.  Your dad. 

Jamie sat there for several minutes, not thinking.  She realized she wasn’t breathing either.  When she did begin breathing, she was breathing too fast.  She realized, too, that her hand trembled.  She wanted to cry.  She wanted to laugh.  She wanted to tell her dad that she’d seen a statue with the exact same sword carved on it.  

Looking up, her eye caught a movement in the mirror.  She turned imagining for one brief moment something—no, someone—smiled at her from within her mirror.  The grandmother?  It disappeared.  And so did the weight that had been pressing against her.  In its place was an urgency so great that she felt she would pee her pants.  What is happening? she almost blurted, but remembered it was after three in the morning and she didn’t want to startle her mother.  

This changed everything.   How do you contact a father who had no home?  Surely he had a home somewhere.  The idea of him living somewhere as mundane as an apartment like hers with a kitchen and a living room and bedroom sounded absurd.  He lived in the wilderness with mummies for friends, hugging a sleeping bag and sleeping close to a fire, fending off jackals and all that stuff.  She doubted even her mother would know where his home might be.  Jamie wasn’t going to ask.  She had to figure this out for herself. 

The answer had to be here.  Some force was willing her to know.  So, think.  Where is the clue that would take her the next step?  Relax.  Answers will come… 

Her eyes were drawn back to her father’s card.  I’ll have to ship the sword back to the university for study.  What university?  Was he associated with a university?  She had never thought about him drawing a paycheck from someone.  Maybe a university paid him to go all those faraway places.  

Dumping the cards onto her bed, she tore the rubber bands off.  If it took the rest of the night, she’d read the cards more carefully to see if he ever told her the name of the university.  If she could learn the name of it, maybe she could call there and leave him a message. 

Yeah, right.  She’d just dial them up and say, “May I speak to Brett Poole, please?”  And like that he’d answer the phone and enter her life as if he’d always been a part of it.  Only in fairy tales.  What was she thinking?  Maybe Margie was right and she’d had too much sun.  Maybe she was losing her mind.  Maybe this was all a dream… 

It took Jamie less time than she thought it would.  Definitely not a needle in the haystack experience, she grinned to herself.  A postmark from Christmas two years ago read “Merrimack University, Ayer, New Hampshire.”  New Hampshire might as well have been in the African jungles.  And, she had as much luck of visiting Africa as New Hampshire right now.  However, Brett Poole’s daughter was not to be daunted.  With a little more detective work, she had located the phone number to the archaeology department at Merrimack University and she had dialed the number to reach Mary Sutherland.

*    *    *    *

Mary Sutherland’s interest was definitely piqued.  Jamie could hear it clearly in her voice.  “I’ll call your dad right now for you.  Give me your phone number.”  Jamie did so and hung up the phone to wait for what might happen next.