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“Quite a collector’s item,” I said.
“We have a few like it,” Tío Ricardo said. “Your mother packed whatever she could find in Buenos Aires. She found all sorts of things most people would have thrown away. The campsite is littered with them, some of it helpful, some of it not.”
“Do you remember when she shrank your spectacles?” Whit asked, laughing. “She placed them on your notebook, and you thought they were a spider?”
“Oh no,” I said, smiling despite the ache in my heart. “What happened?”
“What normally happens to spiders around Ricardo,” Whit said. “He screams at them for existing and then they are subject to the heel of his boot.”
“That damn handkerchief,” Tío Ricardo muttered. “That was my favorite pair.”
I waited, hoping they’d say more about her. I had many memories I wanted to live again, too. Every crumb felt like a feast to me.
“Still nothing?” Whit asked.
He leaned against the wall, his arms folded tight across the flat of his stomach, his ankles crossed. They both waited for me to tell them if I felt any magical energy.
I thought about lying. I wanted to be useful. If my uncle didn’t think so, I wondered how quickly he’d suggest I return to Argentina. But telling a fib wasn’t an option. They’d find out the truth regardless. Instead, I peered at the walls, the reliefs carved into the stone. In here, it was hard to make out the detail of the hieroglyphs.
“Who is this temple dedicated to?”
Whit opened his mouth, but my uncle beat him to it. “We believe Isis. Though, Hathor is also represented. Do you see the woman with a cow’s head? That’s her, sometimes known as the goddess of love and music.”
My shoulders slumped. “I feel nothing. But there are other places to explore.”
My uncle put his hands on his hips, and glared at the toes of his boots. His shoulders were tense and rigid. Then he jerked his chin up, hazel eyes meeting mine. “I need you to do better, Inez. You’re here for a reason. Don’t forget it.”
“Tío,” I began, half-confused, half-alarmed by the quiet anger controlling his voice.
“She’s been here for half an hour,” Whit said. “Give it time.”
“We don’thavetime. Youknowwhy!” Tío Ricardo exclaimed. Sweat beaded at his hairline as he tugged at the sleeves of his cotton shirt. Rough, frantic movements. “I would never have agreed to you being here if I knew you wouldn’t come through, Inez.”
A shiver scored down my back.
“Why not?” I asked. “What aren’t you telling me?”
My uncle ignored me, and glanced at Whit, raising a brow. Another one of their silent conversations. Mr. Hayes nodded once. Almost instinctively, his hands reached for his pockets, and then he seemed to rememberthey were empty. His jaw clenched, as if fighting off an invisible demon. He noticed me staring and his expression cleared.
My uncle stormed out of the enclosed space. I waited for Whit to explain what had just passed between them. But he merely gestured toward the entrance. We left the temple of Isis or Hathor, worry sticking to me like sap.
My uncle’s desperation unsettled me. His rebuke had felt like a slap to the face.
It made me think of Mamá and how she worried for him. For herself.
Desperation made people dangerous.
CAPÍTULO DIECINUEVE
We stepped out into the sunlit courtyard, Whit walking ahead. Usually, he matched his pace to mine. Not today, evidently. He had a strong curve to his back, a proud line to his shoulders. I remembered the moment when he’d breathed into my mouth, saving my life in the deep of the Nile River. My stomach flipped as my mind revisited the kiss in Cairo, the slight brush of his lips against my skin. How he’d lingered for one long beat, hovering close, his warm scent enveloping me, faintly smelling like our library back home, old books and whiskey and leather.
Sometimes, I caught him staring when he thought I wasn’t looking.
I couldn’t help wondering if he was as confused as I was. Attracted and fighting it. Charmed, but trying not to be. I wondered if he was as inconvenienced as I was. Maybe that was the reason for his determined aloofness? A question was out of my mouth before I thought it through. “Suppose my uncle succeeded. Would you have been sorry to see me go?”
“Desolated,” he said cheerily, without turning around. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
“Can you take nothing seriously?”
