“What the?…”
In splits of seconds an ordinary book turned for her into the inconceivable Book, the mystery of which they had to solve…
“What ‘what the’?” Alice could hardly remain patient.
“That’s what!” Katy gasped, leveling up the sleeve of her sister’s summery blouse.
Alice had the drawing, left as a remembrance of their mother, standing out vividly on her shoulder; it was exactly like the one on the Book’s cover!
“Katy it’s just exactly the same as the one you and I have!” Alice whispered under breath, bewildered by everything. He was shifting her gaze from her arm to the cover; there weren’t any doubts – the symbols matched perfectly.
Those identical drawings on each sister’s shoulder had been as an inherent part of their bodies as, for instance, a birth mark on Katy’s arm or a freckle on Alice’s nose. Michael had said this was some kind of a talisman, fallen to the girl’s share from their mother. And those words were enough to consider the drawing to be a part of them.
“Yeah,” Katy took the Book carefully, “that’s exactly our symbol, though I had never seen it before, no matter how thoroughly I searched… Why had it been depicted here?”
Katy pulled the cover carefully but it dug in heels.
“It won’t open!” for some reason Alice exclaimed somehow with enthusiasm. She increasingly liked that weird folio: the goings-on were highly queer… She put her hand at the cover, trying to help her sister, but the Book only glowed brighter. “Wow!” Alice let go of their odd discovery, and the glow fainted. But as soon as she touched it again – she symbol started glowing more intensely. “It responds to touch… But how do we open it?”
“Maybe, some secret lock is hidden there somewhere? The kind of that put into girls’ diaries?” Katy suggested.
No matter how did they twirl the Book, they didn’t find any special mechanism that wouldn’t have let them open it. Then the girls tackled on the leather cover again.
“Perhaps, the lock responds to some kind of code words… Maybe, those hieroglyphs are the key… We have to read them.”
“That’s it!” Alice agreed at once. “But how do we do that?”
“We’ll turn up some books on Egyptian writing system. Those symbols ought to be there somewhere.”
“Horse and buggy era,” Alice gave a wave of her hand. “I’ll find everything on the Internet with my smartphone in a blink of an eye!”
“Fine. Then surf for the second one and I’ll be searching for the first one.”
Right up front, Alice rummaged a smartphone out of her bag, and Katy took a couple of books from the table.
Being upright about some curious eyes, the girls settled themselves right onto the soft covering next to the bookcase. It was good that the library had seen only a few other visitors at that time, so the girls weren’t disturbed in their research.
However, it took some time. It was no less than half an hour on, when Alice finally managed to find the symbol on one of the sites. Nearly simultaneously, her sister slammed the book on Egypt closed triumphantly at the page with her hieroglyph.
“Got it! I have a ‘star’,” Katy said. “What do you have?”
“My symbol means ‘angel’ or ‘angelic’,” Alice uttered. “What do we have then? ‘Star Angelic’?”
“Maybe, is it ‘Star of Angels’?” Katy suggested.
As if responding to her words, the Book blazed up so brightly that it seemed several bulbs had exploded inside her at the same time. It blazed and blew out at once. The sisters exchanged looks. Alice pulled the cover again… and…the Book split open.
“It seems we’ve made it…”
She turned pages over carefully. They were all covered with complex hieroglyphs. Apparently those were the same Ancient Egyptian writings. Nothing unusual. Except that Alice didn’t find a single line in any other language. As far as the sisters looked, skimming the Book, they didn’t find any translation. It was absent there as such.
“Holy cripes…” Alice swished. “The Book is in Ancient Egyptian and there’s no translation anywhere. I see that for the first time ever.”
“I suppose the Book has got here by accident…” Katy uttered thoughtfully. “It’s not for students. It should be kept in museum archives either studied by some Ancient Egyptologists. But we are lucky to find it… The report will wait,” she added determinedly. “We’ll ask Mr. Blake to push it off till the next class… And the party is to be cancelled as well, I guess. We need to take this Book home and study it thoroughly. This sign is not a simple coincidence…”
The sisters looked at the Book simultaneously. It showed no more signs of life – being just a book now. Well, perhaps, only a bit odd-looking.
“That’s it! We’ll steal it,” Alice whispered, looking sideways. She wasn’t one bit upset about the party to be cancelled. The mysterious folio appeared to be much more fascinating.
“Why do we steal a book from a library, if we can simply borrow it home with my library ticket?” Katy resented, as she was used to always stick to the rules.
“Would they give it away?” Alice wondered doubtfully.
“Why wouldn’t they? If the book is in the library, it means it’s available. Let’s go!”
The girls headed for the librarian stand.
Halfway through, Katy had recalled the figurine resembling sphinx, guarding the bookish treasures – and she turned around. The black cat… was sitting in an entirely different stance with its yellow eyes narrowed.
Katy felt alarmed. She forced herself to think of that living figurine no more. It had been enough miracles for today. The girl laid the heavy tome on the stand.
“Please, sign this to my library card,” her voice sounded serenely. But in the depth of her soul she worried: the librarian could tumble to the idea the Book didn’t belong here.
“Your student ID and reader’s ticket!” the woman in large horn-rimmed glasses uttered sternly. She looked as a living embodiment of the Knowledge Keeper image: a sort of an electronic age sphinx.
Katy had held out two plastic cards; the librarian drew them through the scanner. The same manipulation was done to the Book, turned it rootlet-up. Then she hobbled her gaze at the cover; the symbols had still been glowing, though negligibly. The sisters bated their breaths…
“Here you go,” the librarian returned Katy the Book and credentials.
“Thank you…”
Katy dashed to the exit so fast, that Alice had to catch up with her.
As soon as the library’s massive door closed behind their backs, both of them breathed a sigh of relief.
“Phew… I was afraid she would suddenly change her mind,” Alice said, taking the folio from her sister’s hands and thrusting it into her own bag. “The Book is quite rare!”
“We have to show it to Michael,” Katy suggested. “I think he would also be interested in that symbol on the cover.”
Meanwhile, the students studying in the library’s reading room were surprised to watch the elegant black cat heading to the exit, having jumped off the book shelf. Unnoticed by the librarian, it slipped through the door crack and vanished into the crowd.
Chapter 4
Surprises Running On
Having hardly returned home and opened the door, Alice dashed to Michael, the Book in her hands:
“Dad, you just take a look at what we’ve found in the library! It’s the Book with Ancient Egyptian symbols! And it has that symbols on the cover – just like mine and Katy’s. Can you imagine that?!