Page 11 of Ra (The Scarab Prophecy #1)

Ra set his plate aside and delicately dabbed his lips with his paper-towel. “Quite good, Azi. And here I thought you couldn’t cook.”

“Scrambled eggs and toast is not cooking. It’s more, warming.”

“I disagree. Delicious,” he said, nodding for emphasis.

The phone started ringing again, and Azi closed her eyes, praying for it to be anyone other than her father. But the moment the answering machine clicked on and made its obligatory outgoing message, she knew the prayer was wasted.

“Azenath, are you there? You should have been up and about by now! Are you avoiding me?”

Azi sighed as she got up and literally dragged her feet across the floor as she moved toward the old dial-style telephone sitting on the console table against the wall where her father’s chair used to sit.

She picked up the telephone, and despite her answering the phone, the answering machine — true to the way they always operated — did not click off.

It recorded and played their entire conversation aloud. “Hello, Father.”

“Azenath! There you are, my girl! Are you well?”

“I am, Father. Just catching up on some much needed rest.”

“Oh, well, I trust you’ve caught up. There is much to be done if we’re to make the first lecture at university! Up and about now!”

“I’ve told the directors at the museum, and the Department of Antiquities, that I’ll be ready in two weeks.”

“Two weeks! You already are ready! You found it! You know every centimeter of the Tomb! All you have to do is describe your discovery, show the photos, answer questions, and boom! You’ve got twenty more students interested in the most honorable profession out there…

archeology! And benefactors and donations for everything we need to continue the digs in the region! ”

“I’m not sure everyone thinks digging up the past can be considered the most honorable profession,” Azi said.

“You are preserving the lives, the beliefs, the very words of a people who no longer exist. They can’t speak for themselves. You insure they’ll live forever, Azenath. You give their existence immortality.”

“Father, they have descendants. I’m fairly certain their descendants can speak on their behalf.”

“True enough, but they can’t actually bring the average person into the past and give them the ability to literally see examples of those lives from thousands of years ago.

We can do that. We can show them their valuables, their final resting places, their foods, their drinks, their cities, their crops, their gods. ”

Azi sensed movement behind her and turned to find Ra standing there with his hands on his hips, his feet planted as he nodded insistently.

“I hope I can do the Tomb of Ra justice.”

“It is the Temple of Ra, not the tomb,” Ra said.

Azi lifted a hand and waved him away, while listening to her father.

“Of course, you can. I’m working on my rehabilitation team here to make sure they release me in time to assist. There will be investors attending this first presentation!

If they’re impressed, and I know well they will be, it will mean more funding for the university.

More funding for the Department of Antiquities.

More funding for the museum! This is the most fascinating find since King Tutankhamen!

You are the new golden child of Egyptology, Azenath.

Your find will provide for the people of Egypt in so many ways, if you just present it properly. ”

“Father, it’s your dig, too. It was with your papers and guidance that I found it. And Abasi! If not for Abasi, I might not have stumbled on it at all!”

“It is your dig, your find, Azenath. It was waiting for you. I’ve always known you were meant for such greatness! It was just a matter of the right time. Abasi knew it as well.”

“I don’t feel right taking all the credit. It wasn’t just me. It was a group effort.”

“Perhaps it was a group effort. Perhaps even the scarabs helped to put you in the position you belong in.”

“Father, about the scarabs… the one you had made into a ring for me, there was a space in the wall, a hole actually that it exactly…”

“Azenath, I haven’t wanted to worry you, but my time is limited.

This could be my last great hoorah. I’m getting a little older, you know, and it’s time for things to move along accordingly,” her father said, interrupting and steering her away from the subject of the scarab ring he’d gifted her when she was barely a teenager.

“I know, Father,” Azi said, thinking of him living out the rest of his days in the rehabilitation facility. “We could put off this tour for a while. I’ll get a nurse to stay with us and bring you home.”

“No, now, that will not happen. If I’m able to be a part of it, I will, if not, I’ll not hold you back by having to nurse an old man. You just plan your tour. Do you hear me?”

“I do, Father.”

“It will do my heart good to know that all is left in your capable hands.”

“You taught me well, Father. There’s no need to worry.”

“Oh, I know. I’ve watched you take the reins as I convalesce.

You outshine me! And I’m sure with the help you have at your fingertips, there will be no stopping you.

Which is why I have agreed on your behalf that the first lecture will be at the university on the twenty-second.

I cannot wait to see the excitement buzzing around it! ”

“The twenty-second! As in the day after tomorrow?!” Azi shouted incredulously.

“Yes!” her father said excitedly.

“I can’t do this the day after tomorrow!”

“Of course, you can! And you will! I’ve promised! It’s the opening presentation of a magnificent find that the academic world has been patiently waiting on as you and the Department of Antiquities took stock, cataloged, preserved! People want to know firsthand from the person who found it.”

“It’s not a new find, though. Everyone interested has known about it and seen snippets of the items found for a while now. I just don’t get all the excitement,” Azi said.

“It’s like stepping in an ancient world!

People can’t wait to be taken there by you.

It’s not been officially presented. All that’s been learned about it is that it’s beautiful.

Pictures put out to the media by the Department of Antiquities show that.

There’s not been a formal academic presentation. ”

“They already let tourists traipse through it!” Azi half-shouted.

“Only because they desperately need money. Your tour will bring in an influx of funding. Do it well, my girl.”

“I will, Father,” Azi said, tiredly as she pressed her fingertips to her eyelids and rubbed gently to try to dispel some of the tension.

“I have to go! I have therapists waiting to make me walk the hallways of this facility to prove I can hold my own long enough to be beside you!”

“Show them how it’s done, Father,” she said, smiling gently.

“I always do!” he said happily, then disconnected the call.

Azi gently laid the receiver back in the cradle.

“He is very proud of you,” Ra said.

Azi, with her hand still on the telephone, smiled and nodded without meeting his gaze.

“He’s made sure that you will be at your lecture soon. It’s like pushing a fledgling from the nest,” he said decisively.

“Yes, only I’m not a fledgling. I’ve been giving these lectures for years.”

“Really? I was sure it was your first, what with the way you’re behaving.”

“Behaving?” she asked, looking at him defensively.

Ra nodded enthusiastically. “Behaving. Like someone who is unsure of themselves. Not confident in their abilities.”

“I’m aware of what ‘unsure of themselves’ means. That’s not my issue.”

“Oh? What is the issue?”

“The people,” she confessed. “I hate the people.”

“You hate the people?!” he asked, his reaction shocked.

“Well, not actually hate the people, hate the people. I just hate being on display. I hate having to stand there with all eyes on me, expecting that I speak a certain way, stand a certain way, and answer all their questions in the way we all know they want them answered. I just want to do what I love without having to schmooze those in power to be able to do it.”

“Schmooze?” Ra asked.

“Yes, schmooze. To speak and interact in a friendly, lively, excited way to make people think I’m agreeing with everything they represent, when all I really want is to go home and curl up on my couch.”

“With a blanket over your head,” Ra added.

Azi smiled. “Usually. There’s a reason I usually work with the dead, and things they’ve left behind rather than those still living.”

Ra laughed. “Must you schmooze?” he asked.

“If I want to be able to continue to work in this country and be entrusted with all the history and antiquities they entrust me with — yes. My father used to do the schmoozing, but in the last year-and-a-half, I’ve had to take over that part, too.”

“Then schmooze we must.”

“We?”

“Yes. We. I will assist.”

“Oh, no. No, you will not assist.”

“Of course, I will. Did you not hear your father say that with all the help you had at your fingertips, there would be no stopping you? I am that help.”

“I’m pretty sure you’re not.”

“Who else is at your fingertips?! Me! It is me!”

“I think he meant Abasi.”

“Abasi is not meant to help you. I am.”

“Almost all Abasi does is help me.”

Ra’s head tilted to the side, almost like a wild animal focusing in on a smaller creature, trying to determine if it was prey or not. “Do you like this Abasi?”

“Of course, I do. He’s been working for my father since I was child. He’s like family.”

Ra stood straighter, raised his head. “Hmpf. I suppose he can remain as such, then.”

“You suppose? What gives you the right to suppose anything?”

“Why are you angry? I’m simply trying to determine the best way for you to present my temple to the people you don’t like with the least bit of schmoozing! I’m helping! Here! At your fingertips!”

“Dear god, help me,” she whispered, pressing her fingers gently against her eyelids again.