The Isis Knot (14 page)

“As you were describing the cave,” she began slowly, “I started to remember a little more. That’s how it’s been for me. Something tiny will trigger something bigger, and a memory will come back to me. But like I said, it’s just a small chunk.”

“What about the cave? What do you remember?”

She rubbed her forehead. The images were little hammers, pounding away at her skull.

“The letter from my father told me to go to Cairo, where the cuff he’d left me would be waiting in a museum. I questioned the lawyers and government people why I couldn’t have the piece just sent to me, but it had something to do with making sure I was who I said I was in person and customs or something. And the fact that this guy who’d been in charge of the cuff wanted to meet me. I’d assumed it was because he was going to try to convince me to keep the piece in his museum, and if the price was right, I was willing to consider that. His name was Malik Elsayed.”

Saying the name turned the little hammer into a sledgehammer.

“I remember him being really smooth but also very intense and guarded, until he took me down into the museum basement to show me the piece and something about him changed. He watched me really carefully, and it made me uncomfortable. He took me to a box, undid the lock, and moved back to the doorway. I had to open the box myself.”

“And that was inside.” William nudged his chin at her arm. He, too, wore intensity around him like a second skin, but it was so different from Malik’s. It didn’t make her insides crawl.

“Yes.” She could see the gold sitting on the black cushion so vividly. “Only it was open. I remember thinking it was ugly, and that that was kind of appropriate since my father and I had never known each other. My first thought wasn’t about what the cuff was or what it meant, only that I wished I’d known my father instead of having to take his piece of jewelry.”

William made a sound of understanding, a low rumble in his chest, and she had to concentrate to get back on track.

“Malik was still standing far away, still in the doorway. I was wondering why he didn’t come closer. Then he said, ‘That symbol on the top is called the Isis knot.’”

As William’s eyes dropped to the cuff, she traced the Isis knot with a finger and heard the now-familiar hum within her heart.

“I asked him if I could touch it, and he said, ‘It’s yours now. Why don’t you put it on?’ So I lifted it out of the box and was shocked at how light it was. It was connected by hinges I couldn’t see, like it was made of bendable metal along a really fine line. I turned it over and I saw what was underneath, exactly what you described: the two people fighting. The beast with the tail and the long snout and sharp teeth, and the woman with that hat with the big horns holding the sun. Malik told me they were the goddess Isis and her brother and enemy, Seth.”

William frowned, as though he was working something out in his head. “Isis and Seth,” he murmured.

“Do you know anything about them?”

He shook his head, looking even more troubled, and she couldn’t help but feel disappointed.

“I didn’t really want to put it on, but since I couldn’t find a latch or lock or anything, I thought what harm could it do? I could try it on for a second, then put it back in the box and let them take it away and auction it off for me. I could’ve used the money, you know. I didn’t need the actual gold.” She paused, wondering how much to say next, then decided that there was very little to lose at this point. “So I put my arm into it and…”

Her voice didn’t want to obey. It faded off and she had to swallow to get moisture to her throat.

“And what?” he prompted.

“It, um, closed up on its own. Sealed the edge so I couldn’t see at all where it had been hinged or clasped.” She turned her arm to show him the seamless surface. “But that wasn’t even the weirdest part. I could feel it getting warmer, even though the basement was cool. And I would swear on my life that it changed size to fit perfectly around my arm.”

His eyes widened, but he didn’t look doubtful. Didn’t sneer back at her as though she were crazy.

“Go on,” he said. “Tell me more.”

“I panicked. I must’ve made a sound because Malik was suddenly there, coming up behind me. He was smiling, but not with his mouth. Do you know what I mean?” William nodded. “I said I was so sorry, but I didn’t think I could get it off. And he was very calm, very smooth as always, and he told me that he thought he knew how to get it off. There was an expert near Edfu who’d be able to get it off without ruining it.”

“He wasn’t angry?”

“No.” She frowned, remembering. “Not at all. Which I suppose should’ve made me question everything right then and there, but I was scared that I’d done something wrong and just wanted the thing off and out of my life. He was very consoling, and suggested that since we’d be traveling down to Edfu to see this one guy anyway, why didn’t we first visit the cave where the cuff had been discovered?”

At that, William’s lips parted. It was impossible not to notice how full they were.

She briefly closed her eyes. “It was exactly like you said. I went with Malik to that cave and there was the Isis knot carved at the entrance. The site was secret and closed, but I guess since he was an important man in the museum world he got us access. I remember walking up and seeing the symbol, and him opening the door that had been fitted to the cave entrance. He turned on a few lights and gestured for me to go in first, so I did. I can’t explain it; I was drawn forward. I wasn’t afraid, just curious. Then I saw those shaky hieroglyphics on the walls and the bodies.”

“The skeletons were still there?”

Her gaze turned inward. “Yes, but they were different. One had its arm ripped from its body—where Samuel Oliver took the cuff off, I’m guessing. The other was just a pile of bones.”

“From when I’d fallen into it.”

“I would think, yes. That makes sense.”

“Where was Malik? What happened next?” His voice pitched deeper.

“That’s the strangest part. The last thing I remember was seeing those bodies, realizing they weren’t under glass or anything. I turned around to ask Malik about them, and he wasn’t there. I was alone with two skeletons.”

William chewed on the inside of one cheek. “That’s the last thing you remember? There’s nothing else?”

She involuntarily shivered. “No. That’s not all.” Now her voice sounded strange. Felt strange, too. Darker and heavier. “There’s something else, but it’s nothing I can see.” She waved a hand in front of her face. “It’s a feeling. After I realized Malik had sent me inside alone it all goes fuzzy. There was blackness and terror and…”

Again, her words died.

He edged closer. “And?”

“And death.”

“Whose death?”

She concentrated but nothing else came back. “Not mine. I don’t know. I just know it was awful. I’m sorry, that’s all I remember.”

That wasn’t entirely true. She remembered what year that had all happened, but she couldn’t bring herself to say it. It was right there, on the tip of her tongue, but it wouldn’t come out. Was it because she didn’t know if she could fully trust him yet? Or because she didn’t know how he fit into this puzzle? Or because it was still too bizarre for her to admit even to herself?

He spoke before she could gather the courage to blurt it out.

“There’s truth in feelings.” He stretched his legs out and leaned back on his hands. The position bowed his torso in a gorgeous arc. “Emotions don’t lie. You feel them or you don’t. They can’t be faked. They speak to you from deep inside.”

She tried to resist the urge to gape at the way his muscles bunched at his neck and shoulders and triceps, and failed miserably. “I suppose you’re right.”

Pursing his lips, he nodded slowly as he assessed her. “So you must feel it then.”

Something warm and deliciously frightening skittered through her chest. “Feel what?”

When he blinked she noticed that even his eyelashes were golden.

“That we know each other somehow,” he said.

“We don’t. That’s impossible.”

He tilted his head. “Are you certain about that?”

“I don’t know you, William.” His name rolled around her tongue like fine wine.

“Maybe
know
is the wrong word. But something inside you acknowledges me. Recognizes me, even. You knew my name, after all.”

The presence and power inside her thrummed, basking in his strange familiarity. She said nothing, because it didn’t feel like there were appropriate words.

He licked his lips again and glanced away. The rhythm of his breathing picked up, the rise and fall of his bare chest more apparent. “I’m going to tell you something, and I’d like you to listen with your heart, not just your ears.”

Before she’d found herself in New South Wales, she wouldn’t have known what he meant. Now, however, she understood exactly. She nodded.

“Three months ago, I saw your face.”

She pinched the bridge of her nose. “Whoever you thought you saw, on the street or wherever, it wasn’t—”

“It was you. Three months ago I was on the deck of the
John Barry
, staring up at the stars, and I saw you. It’s why I tried to go after you when I saw you in that wagon. It’s how I knew why I’d been sent to New South Wales.”

“I don’t understand.” But she did. A little. Her heart was listening, and it was telling her he was truthful.

“Ever since I was rescued from that cave eighteen years ago I’ve had visions. Similar to dreams, only I’m not asleep. They tell me to do things, and I have to obey.”

Now her heart was slamming against her ribs. “The cave did that?”

“I’d always thought so, but since I met you, I believe now it was the bones. The bones of a man, the skeleton I disrupted. Nothing happened to me until after the navy took me back to England. I was in Portsmouth, recovering. I was throwing dice with another man in hospital, in clear daylight, when I had a vision of a woman with a mole on her chin and thinning gray hair that stuck out of a red kerchief. It just appeared to me, giving me a terrible headache. I didn’t think much of it, since I’d taken my share of medicine that affected my head, but the first day I could walk on my own out of hospital I had this unrelenting urge to find that particular woman. I wandered down to the harbor and there she was, selling mussels and clams.

“I didn’t know what to say to her, and she didn’t know me at all. But I bought two clams from her and ate them while another man approached to make his own purchase. He was dressed well and when we got to talking he found out I had been a sailor. He inquired whether I would be interested in a job in his boatyard in Cornwall.”

“And you went with him?”

He nodded. “I worked for him for three years until the next vision came and I was compelled to leave. Because that’s what happens when a vision comes—I can think of nothing else. Everything I do is focused on discovering its meaning. I’m a man obsessed. It’s why I went after you so suddenly. Those months at sea after I saw your face in the stars, with me unable to search, they were the worst form of torture.”

How was that even possible, when Sera had, technically, yet to be born?

“Back in Britain,” he continued, “I followed wherever the visions led me—to Cardiff, to Worchester, even to Edinburgh—until they took me back to London. By that time I’d moved around so much I couldn’t keep a wage and had no trade. I couldn’t rejoin the navy; they thought me ill and insane after what had happened in Egypt, and the ranks were thinning because of the end of the war. I was beginning to think myself mad, too. So I took to fighting for coin.” He flexed and tightened his hands, the scars on his knuckles whitening. “Until I had a vision of a pair of boots. That’s all, just boots. For months I didn’t understand, until I was walking near St. Paul’s Cathedral and saw them sitting there in the window, shiny and new and so expensive. The urge was too strong. I smashed the window and took them.” He shrugged with one shoulder. “And got sent here.”

“You were sent halfway around the world for stealing a pair of shoes?”

“There are people here who’ve done far less, and far worse. My point is, the thing behind the visions—I’ve called it the Spectre—wanted me to be sentenced to Transportation Beyond the Seas. It wanted me to find you here. And it’s all because you and I were both inside that cave. That has to be the reason. Don’t you see?”

She did see. On one level it made a great deal of sense, and on another it only created more layers of confusion. It still didn’t answer how the hell she’d been sent here. Or why.

“What I just told you”—he leaned forward—“it’s the truth. And it’s the lot of it. I’ve never told it to anyone before.”

She’d meant to just hold up a hand, a gesture to reassure, but instead her fingers stretched for him. The power inside her wanted to touch him. Something snapped and sizzled between them. Not visible, but tangible nonetheless. A lick of heat, a pleasurable buzz, a yearning that pushed and pulled with equal strength. She went a little dizzy.

“That.” Those blue eyes flipped up to hers. “Tell me you don’t feel that.”

“I can’t. Because I do.” Her hand hovered inches above where one loop of his suspenders draped down over his thigh. “There’s something else I should tell you. Something about my past.”
Something about the future
.