She hadnât come to Egypt for the pyramids. She had come to find the ghost of her great-great-grandfather, Auguste Delacroix, a junior officer in Napoleonâs ill-fated Egyptian campaign of 1798. Family lore painted him as a deserter, a coward who melted into the Sahara rather than face the plague or the British cannons. But Lena had found his journal in a trunk in her grandmotherâs attic in Dijon. The final entry, dated 1801, wasnât about retreat. It was about love. âPour elle, je deviendrai sable.â For her, I will become sand.
âUnless what?â
âThe French brought more than guns,â Tariq said. âThey brought a sickness of linear time. The idea that the past is dead, the future is ahead. We Egyptians⌠we believed the past is not behind. It is beneath . A layer you can step through if you know where to dig.â Francja - Egipt
She turned to Tariq. âWhat happens if I break it?â
The name of âherâ was scratched out. Only a single hieroglyph remained next to the inkblot: the symbol for star . She hadnât come to Egypt for the pyramids
Lenaâs throat tightened. The map in her hand trembled. âThe journal said âbecome sand.ââ
Tariq was gone. The mausoleum was just an abandoned shack. The map in Lenaâs hand was blank parchment. But Lena had found his journal in a
He handed her a smaller hourglass. Inside, the sand was not gold or white, but a deep, arterial red. âAuguste did not fall in love with a woman. He fell in love with a wound. He met a priestess of Sekhmet, the goddess of plague and healing. The British had just bombed a village near Rosetta. The priestess was trying to collect the souls of the deadâto trap them in glass so they wouldnât wander. Auguste helped her.â