CHAPTER 1
The lotus flower was wrong. Its loop bent down where it should bend up. No matter how she translated it, the phrase didn’t make sense with the lotus that way.
Sorry, Dad, M thought. I know you wanted it to mean the Nefertum temple, but it’s not. The flower just isn’t right.
“Memphis? Are we boring you?”
M’s attention snapped back to her teacher, who wore the same slightly exasperated expression she had every time they interacted. Ms. O’Malley was cool enough, and pretty smart. But she didn’t know history like M knew history—and that was the one thing they both knew.
“Nope. Rome is my second-favorite empire,” M replied.
Ms. O’Malley narrowed her eyes, trying to figure out if this was scolding-worthy behavior. M held her gaze.
“Just make sure you’re listening while you doodle,” Ms. O’Malley finally said.
“Always.”
She went back to her lecture and M went back to her hieroglyphs. Her doodles. They had helped win her father the R. R. Hawkins Award a few years ago, and they would be the subject of the first scholarly article M published once she got her doctorate. But there were only two people left in the world who could read them. To everyone else, they were just doodles.
Maybe the lotus flower wasn’t actually a lotus flower and the phrase didn’t mean the little shrine to the god Nefertum. It had been a long shot anyway. She and Mike had only taken up this part of the translation because M’s father had started it already, so they had something to go on. If only she could sit in a room with Dad like always, puzzling over the tiny pictograms together with a bowl of M&Ms nearby. But that part of her life was over. She would have to finish translating the map without him.
M shook her head. Wallowing didn’t get work done, that’s what Mom always said. Or at least what Dad had told her Mom said. The memories of Mom weren’t as strong as they once were. Now she was mostly someone M remembered through Dad’s stories. Who knew where the line was between truth and memory? Mike said it didn’t matter—that love was the only part of the story that mattered.
“That’s ludicrous,” Nick Washington’s voice broke into her thoughts. “You’re assuming the Church didn’t know exactly what they were doing.”
“They were missionaries. Their whole job—” Brianna Lin started.
“They were conquerors!” Nick’s face was smug. His voice was smug. M was pretty sure his soul was smug too. It was his defining characteristic. “The Church didn’t take over the world by being tolerant. They wanted everyone to think like them, so they made everyone pray like them. You can’t keep your local god unless you start calling it your local saint.”
“The Church isn’t an empire. Rome was an empire,” Brianna argued, sounding more on edge. Nick had that effect on people.
“In fact, there is little evidence the Church appropriated pagan gods,” Ms. O’Malley pointed out.
“Oh everyone knows it. Even the holidays used to be pagan holidays,” Nick said. “Like Christmas, or Easter. They were pagan festivals before the Church took them over. You want to talk imperialism? That’s imperialism. The Roman Empire let people keep their own gods. They were tolerant.”
Brianna didn’t answer. She looked ready to cry. M sighed. Nick’s debating style was basically to be a bully. M didn’t like bullies.
“They weren’t tolerant. You’re just ignorant of their worldview,” she said calmly.
All eyes in the room went to her. Nick’s face lit up. He loved a new victim. Or a new sparring partner. He only cared about fighting. He didn’t have to believe what he was fighting for.
“I don’t think I’ve ever been called ignorant before,” he drawled. He was going to Yale in the fall and worked it into conversation at least once a day.
“Not to your face, maybe,” M replied, earning an “oooh” from her classmates. “The Romans didn’t give a crap about the gods of their conquered territories. They were polytheistic. They simply did not have the concept of ‘my god is the only god, so all other gods are false.’ To them, it didn’t matter if their conquests worshipped other gods. All that mattered was that they paid taxes. Meanwhile, the Catholic Church held a monotheistic worldview, so they rejected other gods. They didn’t view it as imperialism, they viewed it as doing God’s work.”
“It doesn’t matter why they did it, they still stamped out native religions,” Nick argued.
“The why is the only thing that matters. If you don’t understand how people thought at the time, then you don’t understand history,” M told him. “The Romans weren’t being nice. If they saw a local god as a threat to their power, they stamped out that god just the way the Church did. But they did it for financial reasons, for security reasons, not for theological reasons. But that doesn’t fit your narrative, I guess.”
Nick’s eyebrows drew together, and for a moment he seemed at a loss. Ms. O’Malley pounced.
“Okay, enough debate. We were talking about the expansion of the Roman Empire, not the implications of their religion.” She shot Nick a frown, while Brianna smiled at M.
Nick gave an unconcerned shrug, but M knew he hated when he didn’t get the last word. Almost as much as she hated when clueless people tried to show off.
* * *
“You should’ve seen Miss Memphis here get into it with Nick last period,” Brianna said, squeezing in between M and Inez at their usual spot in the cafeteria. “She shut him down with her crazy ancient cultures voodoo.”
“He’s an ass. He’s lucky he’s hot,” their friend Ayana commented, waving her spork in Nick’s direction.
M shrugged. “I wouldn’t try to debate him in Physics. I just know more about Rome than he does.”
“What about AP Chem? Would you debate him in that?” Inez asked in a fake-serious voice. “Would you debate him in German class?”
“She’d debate him in German, in German,” Brianna joked. “And if he tried to fight back, she’d switch to Greek.”
M threw a French fry at her. “I can’t help it. I grew up speaking different languages.”
“And learning about pharaohs. And becoming well versed in the history of the Etruscan people,” Ayana said, putting on a fake accent that was probably supposed to be British. “Oh, and setting broken bones in the bush.”
“That only happened once,” M muttered. Her friends laughed.
“Anyway, it was epic. Thanks,” Brianna said. “I can’t stand fighting with people, and Nick always goes after me.”
“He knows you hate it,” M pointed out. “That’s why he does it.”
“An ass, like I said.” Ayana shrugged.
“You think he’s coming to the party tonight?” Brianna asked.
“Probably. Everyone else is,” Inez replied. “Even Memphis.”
M made a face. “Anything to get out of the house. Bob and Liza would expect me to play board games with them otherwise.” Her friends exchanged a glance. M winced. “No offense.”
“Oh, were you offending someone?” Nick piped up from behind her. “Good girl.”
Immediately Bri looked down, while Ayana rolled her eyes. Inez just smirked, glancing back and forth between M and Nick.
“I was not offending anyone. I only meant I don’t like parties,” M said. She didn’t bother to turn toward him. It didn’t matter; he inserted himself onto the bench next to her anyway. A little tingle ran up her spine as the scent of his cologne hit her nostrils, spicy and warm.
“Mmm, they’re boring. Everyone talking about the prom or the senior trip or whatever. I’m over it,” Nick said.
Me too, thought M, wishing she didn’t agree with him. She loved her friends, but even they were all about high school. M just didn’t care. High school was nothing more than what she had to get through before she could leave. After the crash, after the shock of Bob and Liza becoming her guardians, she’d asked if she could go off to college early, either Boston University or the University of Sheffield in England. Both had the kind of archeology program she wanted and would’ve let her in with no questions. They knew her father. They knew high school was a waste of time for someone like her.
But her guardians said no. They said she needed stability and normalcy after losing her dad. Never mind that traveling the world and taking care of herself was normal for her. While she and Dad technically lived in Boston, she’d never spent more than a few months there during the school year. They traveled. Half the year spent on digs. She missed it.
“What’s with this thing, anyway? Is it to fight off bad guys?” Nick teased, finding an excuse to touch her. He reached for M’s collapsible bo staff, tucked in the inside pocket of her jacket like always. But before he touched it, before his flirty smile registered in her mind, M had already grabbed his hand, twisted it back to the breaking point, and used the pain to push him off the cafeteria bench and onto the floor. With her other hand, she whipped out the stick and shoved it up against his throat.
M froze. He’s just hitting on you. Her friends were aghast, and everyone nearby watched, openmouthed. Nick’s eyes were wide with panic.
“Sorry.” M stood up, leaving Nick on the floor. “I’m really sorry.”
“Freak,” he muttered, climbing to his feet. He glanced around, noticing the barely concealed laughter from onlookers. “Jeez, I just wanted a fry,” he joked, as if he hadn’t been humiliated, then hurried out of the cafeteria.
“What. The. Hell?” Inez asked. “He was flirting with you and you beat him up!”
“I know.” M groaned, shoving her staff back into her pocket. “I didn’t mean to. It was just reflex.”
Her friends were silent. She’d freaked them out. Should she explain the years of self-defense and martial arts training? That she and Dad ended up in some rough places? Her friends lived in a city, they understood danger. Sort of. In a nice, upscale Boston kind of way.
M sighed. There was no point in trying to explain. Nobody understood her life.
“You kinda push all the guys away,” Brianna pointed out quietly. “Maybe not like that, but still…”
“I don’t do romance,” M replied. She was done with love, period. She’d loved her parents, and they were both gone. Love hurt too much. It was better to steer clear of it.
They all ate in silence for a minute.
“I mean, he is an ass,” Ayana said finally. And everybody laughed.
M: You up?
MIKE: It’s a 12 hr time difference. Of course I’m up.
M: Like you never sleep in on weekends.
MIKE: Fine, your text woke me.
M: I don’t think that glyph is a lotus. It’s bending the wrong way.
MIKE: It has to be a lotus. If it’s not, the whole phrase is wrong.
M: The rest of the phrase never sat well with Nefertum anyway.
MIKE: Your dad said it was a lotus.
MIKE: M?
MIKE:??
MIKE: Sorry.
M: Just cause he’s gone doesn’t mean everything he ever thought is true.
MIKE: I know.
M: If I assume all of his translations were right, I’m closing my mind. He would hate that. If I think he was always perfect then I’m not thinking of him as a real person anymore.
M: Sorry.
MIKE: And he feels too far away. Like he’s really gone.
M: Yeah.
MIKE: We don’t have to finish the map right now. It’s been around for a thousand years. It can wait a little longer.
M: No.
M: It’s the only thing that makes me feel close to him.
MIKE: OK. We’ll do whatever you want.
M: But I can’t work tonight. Just wanted to tell you about the lotus.
MIKE: Friday night plans?
M: Party at Tyler’s. Bob and Liza threatened to send me to a shrink if I didn’t start acting like a “normal teen.”
MIKE: It’ll be fun.
M: Doubt it.
MIKE: Well, try.
M: I wish you were here.
MIKE: Me too. I miss you.
M leaned back in her chair, her hand finding the small glass pendant around her neck. Why did Mike have to live so far away? They hadn’t seen each other since the memorial service, and who knew when they would again. Bob and Liza were determined to keep her trapped in Boston. “No more of this unsettled living” was Liza’s favorite refrain. It was hard to know why her parents had chosen guardians with a worldview so opposite their own. They’d all been friends at the University of Sheffield, but obviously Bob and Liza had changed since then.
If only her parents’ will had been changed too.
“Wallowing doesn’t get work done,” M whispered, turning back to the hieroglyphs she’d painstakingly copied from the parchment map so they’d be easier to work on. As long as she focused on the tiny pictures, she didn’t have to think about Dad. Or Mom. Or Mike being a world away.
If it wasn’t a lotus, what could it be? An axe, maybe? The hieroglyphs had been written in ink, so it was also possible the scribe’s hand had merely slipped.
“Memphis! Pizza’s here,” Liza called from downstairs.
M winced. She hated that they lived in her house. It didn’t make things normal like they thought. Instead it made her home feel less like one. They tried. Liza got pizza every Friday because when she’d moved here from England, she heard Friday night pizza was normal for Americans. But Friday was Thai night for M and her father. And every time she saw Bob sitting in her father’s favorite chair, she felt a wave of misery.
“I’m going to a party,” she called. She shoved the hieroglyphs into her desk drawer, grabbed her jacket, and trotted downstairs. Even the lamest party was better than another fake-happy fake-family pizza night.
“Whose party?” Liza asked, her eyes bright with curiosity.
“My friend’s.”
“Which friend?” Liza sounded thrilled, as if M were a three-year-old who’d just found her first playmate.
“Max Devilmann,” M told her, straight-faced. It was the joke name Mike always used when making reservations at questionable hotels. “I’ll be out late, don’t bother waiting up.”
“Be home by midnight,” Liza said.
“Liza. I’m eighteen now, remember?” You’re lucky I didn’t skip out entirely the day I stopped being a minor.
Liza pursed her lips and tried to stare M down.
“See you tomorrow.” M forced a smile and headed out, pulling on her jacket to ward off the April chill. Out of habit, she checked for her bo staff as soon as she heard the door click shut behind her. An image of Mom’s long, surgeon’s fingers demonstrating how to properly hold the staff flashed through her mind. They’d been in Nairobi then. M was seven.
She broke into a jog, pushing the memory away. Brianna had offered to drive her, but the party wasn’t far. M liked feeling the air on her cheeks, liked breathing in the city’s scent of early spring blossoms mixed with the smell of the swamp Back Bay was built over.
A shadow flitted past her, and she slowed to a walk. Across the street, two women were walking a yellow Lab. Twenty yards ahead a guy in a suit bounded down the steps of a brownstone and came in her direction, giving a vague smile as he passed her.
Something was wrong.
Another shadow darted between the pools of light under the old streetlamps. The guy in the suit kept walking away.
M pulled out her phone, stopping, as if she needed to check something. A quick glance over her shoulder revealed a young guy dressed in all black from his leather jacket to his motorcycle boots. He had a shock of thick dark hair and wore a bracelet of twisted thread on his right wrist.
He didn’t even glance at M as he passed. She let him get in front of her, then started walking again. After half a block, he headed up the steps to a brownstone with a Valentine’s Day heart wreath still hung on the door.
M kept going, the itchy sensation in her hands growing stronger. The neighborhood seemed normal, but in her gut she knew something was off. Her gut was never wrong. The first thing—the most important thing—her parents had ever taught her was to trust her instincts.
The party was at some lacrosse guy’s house five blocks away. She needed to keep going straight.
She turned right at the next corner.
Somebody was behind her, walking slowly, unthreatening.
The guy dressed in black.
M broke into a jog.
His pace picked up behind her.
She broke into a run. Up ahead was a wrought-iron fence surrounding a small side yard. M reached for one of the bars, swinging herself up and vaulting over. She hit the ground running, her Chucks pounding the cement walkway, then the grass in the yard as it opened up behind the brownstone. A short stone wall separated it from the next yard.
M jumped it and kept going.
His footsteps echoed hers. She could hear his breathing.
Another wall. Another backyard. He kept coming.
Enough. Time to go on offense.
A quick scan of the next yard showed a small deck built onto the back of the house. She ducked under the row of evergreen bushes growing along the wall, before jumping the wall and climbing onto the deck, giving her a five-foot advantage on her pursuer.
The guy in black vaulted over and paused, looking for her.
M pulled the bo staff from her jacket and flicked her wrist, causing the ends of the staff to snap into place so it was three times longer. His head turned at the sound. M jumped, landing in front of him before he could react. She circled the staff above her head and brought it down in front of her into ready position.
“Memphis,” he said.
M moved into horse stance, legs wide, knees bent, preparing to attack.
“I’m not here to hurt you.”
She brought her arms up. Before she could execute the rib strike, he jumped back, scrambling to get away.
“Stop!” he cried. “M, stop!”
Shocked, she paused. Nobody called her M except her family. And Mike.
“Your father sent me,” the guy said.
M adjusted her grip, keeping the bo staff poised over her head. “My father is dead.”
This time he didn’t flinch. “That’s what they want you to think.”
Copyright © 2018 by Laura J. Burns and Melinda Metz
