The Secret of the Scarab Beetle Page 4

  After another few minutes of flipping through the other pages, Horace covered the map and got ready to leave. Maybe there wasn’t a secret door; just a pile of scraps his grandfather never threw out.

  As he started walking out, he saw the antique grandfather clock against the wall. It had been damaged during the break-in. A small panel dangled from the side.

  “Wait a minute,” said Horace out loud, thinking of his dream.

  His heart started beating faster. He scanned the clock, but there wasn’t even the slightest indication of a keyhole. He then tried pulling at the sides of the old clock, but nothing budged. Finally he put his shoulder into the wood paneling and gave it a hard shove. It still wouldn’t move.

  Horace stepped back and bit down on his lower lip, deep in thought. The clock was the perfect cover for a secret door. It was the last place anyone would look.

  He reached over and opened the glass door to the clock’s face. He cradled the hour hand in one palm, the minute hand in the other. Horace could feel the weight of the steel pendulums as he wound the clock backward. Again and again he turned the hands, watching the heavy weights inside the glass rise like three steel balloons. When they reached their highest point, he waited for a sound, a chime—anything, really—wondering if the old antique would finally work and reveal a great secret. But nothing.

  Horace closed the glass door and was getting ready to give up entirely, when he heard something. It didn’t sound like the clock. It sounded more like a rattling of gears, coming from deep within the walls of the farmhouse. As if awoken from a long sleep, the grandfather clock suddenly swung open from the wall. There, where the antique timepiece had been, was a doorway.

  He’d found it! The passage was hidden behind the clock.

  Horace stepped toward the doorway and saw a spiral stone staircase that descended down into darkness. He let his toes dangle over the edge and took a deep breath.

  This was a lot scarier than the basement. He gathered his courage and took a step. Then another, and another. The light from the office faded behind him, and he felt like he was entering an unknown world. His eyes grew in size at the thought of what treasures might await him.

  And then a chilling sound filled the mysterious hole. The clock door slammed with a loud bang. He was locked inside the passage.

  A terrible fear filled his veins. Would he die here? Who would even know to look for him? He hadn’t told anyone where he was going.

  Horace began to get dizzy. His breath came in short gasps as he ran through these possibilities in his mind, none of them hopeful. Not even a deep breath could ease the feeling that he was about to faint. In a final act of desperation, he reached into his pocket and remembered with disappointment that he’d left his phone in his backpack. But then he noticed the beetle again. It didn’t make sense. If the clock was the secret door, it didn’t need a key. Then what was the beetle for?

  As he pulled it out of his pocket, to his amazement, it began to glow in his hand. The beetle was alive. Its soft blue light illuminated the steps in front of him. Its effects were powerful, casting away not only the darkness of the tunnel, but also some of Horace’s fears. Using the light from the beetle, he made a quick dash up the stairs only to confirm his dread. The clock door was locked shut. The only option was forward and into the darkness of the tunnel. He needed to get out of here alive.

  After maybe a dozen more slow breaths, he resumed his descent. At the bottom of the steps he came out on a flat landing. It must be a secret underground passageway, he thought. Gradually, the passage tightened around him, sloping upward. Where was it all leading? He touched the ceiling with his hand to stop himself from bumping his head, and noticed a series of grooves on the cool surface. The light from the beetle was too dim to tell, but there seemed to be some type of markings on the walls.

  He came to what appeared to be the end of the tunnel and a small set of wooden steps. Unlike everything else he’d encountered that afternoon, these looked relatively new. The steps brought Horace to a second door. He pressed with all his might, and the door flew open, bringing with it the smell of moldy grass. Horace recognized the room instantly and let out a huge sigh.

  He wiped the dirt off his pants, then slowly stood up. He was in the shed at the back of the farm. It was just a hundred feet behind the house. This wasn’t magical or special or even unknown.

  Why did his grandfather have a secret passageway leading from his office out to the shed?

  Horace pushed the shed door open and breathed deeply. The blue sky was a welcome sight after the darkness of the tunnel. He’d survived.

  As he walked out into the field, trying to make sense of his thoughts, he saw the unmistakable shape of Shadow circling above. The bird had never left. She dropped from the sky with a graceful arc and landed on one of the branches of the lone sycamore tree. The fall foliage of the tree was just starting to show hints of orange and red.

  “I don’t know, Shadow. None of it makes any sense.”

  The bird stood silent.

  “Why would my grandfather have this tunnel? Maybe Sara and Lilly were right. Maybe it was a part of the Underground Railroad?”

  Everything he had thought was wrong. The beetle wasn’t a key—just a really cool flashlight. And the farm wasn’t special.

  “I guess it’s time to head home.”

  He walked over to the tree to get Shadow’s attention. She was totally preoccupied by a squirrel playing at the end of a branch.

  “Shadow!” Horace shouted upward as he touched the tree for support. The trunk felt strong and weathered, firmly rooted in the ground. An old rope swing dangled from one of the lower limbs. His grandpa had been very protective of the tree, almost as much as he had been of the farm. Neither he nor his sisters had been allowed to play in its thick branches.

  And then he saw it, just by chance, a small indent in the bark, no bigger than a thumbprint, at shoulder height.

  Horace hesitated for a second and leaned in closer to be certain. Had someone tried to carve a name in it? No, it wasn’t a name. He traced the outline with his fingers, and a rush of excitement passed through his body. Should he try? What was there to lose?

  Slowly, he placed the beetle into the hole. The fit was uncanny. His memories of the next few moments felt like a dream. As he slipped the stone beetle into the smooth indent, the grooves in the tree’s bark began to come to life. The small hole grew wider and wider, the bark moving like curtains opening onto a stage. Soon it was the size of a doorway.

  The beetle was the key. And he’d discovered the door. Now only one question remained: Where did it lead?

  Chapter Seven

  Without a moment’s hesitation, Horace stepped through the magical door. Instantly he dropped into an endless ocean of spiraling blue and white shimmering waves of color that grew in intensity until nothing remained but a blinding light. It was like diving into the deep end of a pool, then being sucked through the drain, and then pulled into another pool, and another drain, and another pool. This went on for what seemed like hours, but what must have only been seconds, before Horace abruptly hit solid ground.

  “Watch yourself, young man.” Someone collided with Horace’s arm, hard, knocking him back to reality. “This is a busy street.”

  Horace blinked, and the blue lights were gone. In their place was a blinding yellow sun, much stronger than any he had ever known.

  “What?” A panicky feeling started to rise in his chest.

  The man stared at Horace. “Do your parents know where you are?”

  His parents? Horace didn’t even know where he was. “Where am I?” he asked, confused. Somehow he was both understanding and speaking the man’s strange language.

  “This is Amarna, the City of the Sun. You must come from far away if you don’t know that.” The man gave him a piercing look. He tilted his head to the side, as if to say something more, then changed his mind.

  Horace started scanning the landscape for anything familiar. What ha
d happened to the farm, to the fields, to Shadow? The sounds and shapes were totally unknown. In front of Horace rose a sprawling metropolis of stone and sand, a secret city hidden deep within the roots of his grandparents’ farmhouse tree.

  He hadn’t noticed it at first, but apparently when the landscape had changed, so had his clothes. He was wearing a small white robe with a golden threaded belt. On his feet were a pair of leather sandals, and a gold band was clasped around his wrist.

  Yet the glowing blue beetle remained in his hand. He quickly slipped it into the pocket of his robe. He was about to ask the man another question, but when he looked up, the man had vanished.

  This strange city was brimming with life as more and more people began to fill the streets. A small covered carriage pulled by two men passed, and Horace slipped behind it and into the safety of a nearby alley. He just needed a moment to collect his thoughts.

  Horace bent down on his knees, hiding in the darkness of the alley, desperate to regain his senses. This place wasn’t just foreign. It was old—really old. Almost like something out of his history textbook.

  He began to run his fingertips through the sand. The small grains had a calming effect. He took another deep breath and traced several shapes. First he drew the farm, then the tree, the beetle, and then finally a question mark. So if the beetle was the key and the tree was the secret door, why here? And even more important, where was here?

  Horace looked out at the busy street. If he was going to get any answers, he’d have to find them himself.

  He ran his palm across the sand, brushed his hands together, and stepped out into the street.

  Now he found himself in a swarm of men and women walking between the stone buildings. One woman was covered head to toe in a beaded dress. Each bead shimmered a different color, creating a rainbow of light that fell across her entire body. Even her long thick dark hair glistened with oil.

  No sooner had the woman passed than another shoulder bumped his.

  “Hurry up. You’re late!”

  To his surprise, it was a boy his own age.

  The boy carried a clay tablet under his arm. “Come on. Let’s go!” he shouted, and kept walking. Behind him, there was a group of more kids also dressed in white robes. This was probably his best chance to get some answers.

  “Did you study your numbers tables?” Horace overheard one student ask another.

  “Yes, I’m not taking any chances. Ay was so mad when I forgot last time.”

  “No kidding. Did you see how he yelled at us yesterday for not having our homework? You would have thought it was the end of the Epoch or something.”

  Apparently, it didn’t matter where you were—homework always stunk.

  The structures around the boys weren’t just big and spacious; they were detailed and intricate. The walls were painted in beautiful hues of red and yellow. Against the sky, the tall, colorful columns resembled the tail feathers of a peacock. Even the capitals of the columns were decorated with floral motifs.

  Horace felt something else pulsating around him, a strange energy that permeated the city. The sea of color, sound, and smell that surrounded him was only part of the magic. There was something special about this place, something different.

  The group of boys continued to weave in and out of the streets, through the vendors, between the crowds, and into alleyways before finally emerging out into what appeared to be the heart of the city, a vast courtyard framed by two stone pillars.

  Horace turned to the boy walking alongside him. “What is this?” he asked with growing courage.

  “School, of course.” The boy paused. “And the temple, too.”

  In the gleaming white light, the walls of a lofty rectangular structure stood out against the indigo sky. There were two tapering towers, each capped by a cornice and joined together by an entrance half their height.

  As they passed inside, the smells were different: peppermint, lavender, and his favorite, cinnamon. The entryway was at least the size of half a football field, and it too was lined with pillars. In the center was an even more striking sight: the unmistakable towering statue of a man wearing a long cylinder-shaped crown and the beard of an Egyptian pharaoh.

  It suddenly dawned on Horace. The beetle had opened a magical doorway to Ancient Egypt! He was in Egypt! Of all the places he’d imagined the secret door might lead, a connection to Ancient Egypt had been the farthest from his mind.

  Horace racked his brains for what he knew about Egypt. He’d read about the pyramids, the Sphinx, the Nile, and even King Tut. But he’d never come across this place—Amarna.

  It didn’t make sense. Why here? What could be in Amarna?

  But there was no time for his questions now. The boys around him kept walking toward the three doorways that led off the entryway, and Horace felt compelled to follow.

  “Meet at the obelisks for lunch?” someone yelled.

  “Sounds good!” a boy shouted back.

  The group had started to split up, and Horace didn’t know which way to go. He began to walk toward the left entrance. It looked as good as any, but before he could get very far, a firm hand stopped him.

  “Hey, where are you going? The West Wing is only for the priests. You don’t want to go in there.” Horace turned to find another of the young boys next to him. He, too, wore a white robe. His head was shaved save for a single braid. “Class is this way.” He pointed toward the hall on the right.

  Horace hesitated. “Oh yeah, thanks.” He tried to cover his mistake and quickly followed the boy through the right entrance.

  It opened to an even longer corridor, this one lit by a series of torches. Many doors broke off from the main passage, some leading to rooms, others to even darker hallways. Halfway down the hall, the boy turned. Horace reached down and squeezed the beetle in his pocket. They had arrived.

  The room they’d entered was an ancient classroom. Strangely, it had no chairs, no desks, and no books, just a giant carpet on an open floor. The teacher stood in the center. The boy in front of him walked to the side of the room and placed his stone tablet on a pile in the corner. The other students sat on their knees, reeds in their hands, already copying notes onto clay slabs. Most striking was the absence of any girls.

  “Take a seat.” The teacher stared intently at Horace, his eyes seeming to search for an answer to a question Horace didn’t know. “You must be Horemheb’s son. I thought you weren’t coming for another week.” He mumbled something under his breath before he continued. “We’ll make do. My name is Ay.” The name sounded like hay, just without the h.

  Ay’s white robe draped down to the floor. His smooth head glowed in the light; his hair was completely shaved. A single silver band clasped his wrist, and a thick gold ring circled his pinkie finger. His hands, soft and delicate, gripped one of the heavy stone slabs with ease.

  “Where are your supplies?”

  Horace struggled to gather his thoughts. If he were going to find any answers, he had to blend in. This might just be the opening he needed. “I . . . forgot them at home.” Milton would have been able come up with something clever.

  Ay shook his head in frustration. “You’ll have to use mine, then. Here, take these.” He handed Horace a dusty clay slab from the wall, as well as a wooden reed. “Tablets out, boys.”

  Horace glanced around the room. The other students started to copy the writing from a large stone tablet on the opposite wall. Horace had a small problem.

  While the portal had transformed his clothes and allowed him to understand the spoken language, it hadn’t given him any other skills he didn’t already possess. And to make matters worse, the tablet was in hieroglyphics. But he couldn’t blow his disguise. There was clearly some reason the door in the tree had led him to Egypt.

  He sat there cross-legged and began to slowly copy each letter as best he could. To think he had complained so much about learning cursive!

  Ay walked over and watched as Horace fumbled with the reed.

&nb
sp; “You have terrible handwriting. Let’s hope your incantations are better.” Maybe Ay was Mr. Petrie’s great-times-one-hundred-grandfather.

  Horace bent over and began working with renewed fervor. Ay finally left his side and returned to the center of the rug. By the time Horace looked up again, he realized most of the other kids were already done, while he had only completed the first few lines. It was like trying to draw with a stick in the mud. Nothing was easy, and making curved lines was almost impossible.

  Ay handed Horace a second tablet. “Let’s see what you can do with this one.”

  Horace had no idea what it said or what to do. Ay would surely start to get suspicious at any second when Horace failed to decode this second tablet. In truth he was far less concerned about writing hieroglyphics and much more worried about what he was doing here.

  “Do you need some help?” The whisper came from the boy to his right. It was the same one who directed Horace away from the West Wing.

  Horace breathed a quiet sigh of relief. “Uhhhh, sure.” He was hesitant to talk too much with anyone. The more he spoke, the more likely someone would figure out he didn’t belong.

  “Let’s see.” He took the tablet from Horace’s hand and began to read.

  “O’, Atum. You became high on the height.

  You rose up as the Benben Stone in the Temple of the Phoenix.

  You set your arms about them as the arms of a Ka symbol that your power might be in them.”

  Then the boy started to write. “How about this . . .”

  O’, Atum, you were high on the height.

  You rose up as the Benben Stone in the Mansion of the Phoenix.

  You gave birth to the Ennead, you gave birth to the world, and you set your arms about them as the arms of a loving father, that your essence might be in them.