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I followed the young boy to the kitchen, surreptitiously wiping my eyes.Questions filled my mind, near overflowing. I wanted to know what Kareem had thought of Mamá and Papá, if he had spent any time with them and how much. Being in Egypt only reminded me of how much of their lives I had missed. I still didn’t understand why they’d forbidden me from ever joining them.
We reached the kitchen, and I looked around the functional space. On a slim, wooden counter, bowls of eggs and fava beans rested alongside jars of various spices. I’d never seen any of the kind before. Lemons and bottles of olive oil lined a shelf barely wider than two feet.
“I’ll cook the beans,” Kareem said. “You mash them.”
“What are we making?”
“Foul with tahini,” he said, lighting the stove. Then he pulled down a flat pan from one of the hooks. “Beans mixed with cumin and coriander, lemon, and oil. The team loves it with eggs.”
“It sounds delicious. Who taught you to cook?”
Kareem smiled and said, “My older sister.”
“How long have you been a part of my uncle’s crew?”
“A few years. We all have been trained by Abdullah, your uncle’s business partner.” The boy glanced at me, his gaze direct, and for a moment, he looked older than I first thought him to be. “Will you cut the lemon in half?”
“That I can do,” I said. I took the knife he handed me and sliced the fruit. “This is the first time I’ve joined my uncle, and I’m curious about his work. He hasn’t talked much about Abdullah’s latest excavation site. You must have seen so many interesting things.”
Kareem spooned ghee into the pan and then cracked several eggs, which immediately sizzled upon contact. My stomach roared to life. I hadn’t eaten since the day before at Groppi.
“Your uncle doesn’t like us to talk about the site,” Kareem said finally.
“Why?”
“Because, sitti,” Kareem said, “he and Abdullah never trust anyone with what they’ve found.”
Kareem looked down at my burnt flatbread. His lips pinched and I stifled a laugh. I had warned him. He had showed me all the tools in the kitchenthat held on to the magical remnants of some old spell. A bowl that never ran out of salt, a cup that kept clean no matter what was dumped inside of it. Knives that turned food cold, spoons that when stirred, baked whatever was inside the dish. Even so, I’d still managed to mess something up.
“Why don’t you go out onto the deck? We’re about to depart, I think?”
His tone didn’t sound like a suggestion.
I went to the gunwale, careful to keep myself hidden among the barrels of supplies, and away from the observant gaze of Mr. Hayes, who stood on the other end of the dahabeeyah. My uncle was deep in conversation with Reis Hassan and he’d scarcely left the dining room.
I was free to take a last look at Bulaq’s bustling scene. Men dressed in their fine, loose robes haggling over cargo, Egyptian sailors sweating under the blistering sun, carrying large trunks on ships bracketing ours. Tourists swarmed in every direction, chattering in a loud babble that carried across the glittering green surface of the Nile.
Two more people joined our party, one with a barrel-shaped chest, broad shoulders, and thinning blond hair, the other a young woman close to my age. She wore a lavish gown with many trims and silk adornments and a wide-brimmed hat. She held herself regally, but her gaze moved restlessly over the whole of theElephantine.The wind teased wisps of honey-blond hair to flutter across her delicate face. If my parents had mentioned the pair, I didn’t remember.
The girl suddenly turned in my direction and I ducked behind a barrel. For some inexplicable reason, her presence made me uneasy. Perhaps because she was close to my age, clearly expected and welcomed when I had never been.
Curiosity itched under my skin. I wanted to know who she was, what she was doing on board my uncle’s boat.
I stayed hidden until the sails unfurled to capture the north wind and then we were off, leaving behind the pyramids and the city of a thousand minarets. The sharp breeze tore at my hair, loosening my strands from the tight coil stuffed underneath the fez. I clutched the railing, sure that at any moment someone, somewhere would call out my name. But the onlysound came from the crew surrounding me, chattering and singing songs as the current yanked us along. TheElephantinemoved upstream, heading south along with dozens of felucca, small wooden ships with pointed sails in the shape of a large triangle. They peppered the great river, carrying fellow travelers seeking adventure.
I went down to retrieve my sketchbook and then settled back out on the deck, hiding myself among the barrels as I drew the ship from memory.
My burning curiosity regarding the only other female passenger flared again. Her presence remained a mystery—the rest of the crew seemed just as surprised to see her board theElephantineas I was.
My earlier unease returned. She walked around, clearly welcomed and free to do whatever she wished. The girl even made herself useful, unpacking the supplies and carting things into various cabins, while I had to keep myself tucked away, unseen and definitely unwelcomed and useless. While I trusted my disguise, it only worked if I was surrounded with the rest of the crew. People saw what they expected to see, and a teenage girl among the crew would hardly enter their minds—not unless they were specificallylookingfor me.
But my uncle believed me to be on a different ship altogether. As for Mr. Hayes… I only needed to steer clear of him for another day. Tension seeped from my skin, loosening my muscles.
I was safe from discovery.
Slowly, I pulled the trinket box from within my purse. The wood stayed warm against my skin, sometimes vibrating, as if the magic held within its small confines wanted to burst free. It only showed that fragile things could survive. The box spoke of a time long past, a name history remembered. Cleopatra.
A new memory swept forward and I gasped, sinking into a moment that was centuries old. The last Queen of the Nile stood over a table, various ingredients scattered before her in shallow bowls and squat ceramic jars. She pored over a single leaf of parchment filled with curious symbols and drawings; I could just make out the sketch of a snake eating itself and an eight-banded star. Her nimble fingers worked to mix, blend, and chop ingredients. I recognized honey and salt, dried rose petals and herbs, along with animal teeth and grease. She wore a long, nearly transparent gown and from head to foot, lapis, garnet, pearls, gold, turquoise, and amethyst jewels adorned her throat, wrists, ankles, and shoes.
