The 39 Clues 04 - Beyond The Grave by Jude Watson

Author:Jude Watson [Watson, Jude]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
Published: 2009-06-08T19:13:27+00:00

CHAPTER 13

Irina held on to the railing. She couldn't risk stumbling on these steep stairs. She'd seen the Cahill kids leave the tomb, and she knew something must be here. A small explosive blew the lock, and she was in. Good thing she wasn't seen. Egyptians could get so touchy about their precious sites.

Irina came to a small antechamber. Those flat Egyptian figures – all the same, they were – surrounded her, some with a bird's head, some with crowns, some holding staffs curved like snakes. She poked her head into the side room. More of the same.

But the colors ...

She wrenched her attention back to the task. More stairs. She descended carefully, glad she was wearing her Nikes. Those Americans knew how to make athletic shoes. She'd give them that. Irina kept her brain on sneakers because she was feeling a bit dizzy. It was a trick she used while on a job if she was tired or exasperated, any time her emotions threatened to overtake her. Concentrate on the trivial.

But why was she feeling overwhelmed?

To her left, a black jackal was offering something to an Egyptian queen person. It must be Nefertari. Irina didn't know anything about Egyptian art, but somehow she knew this: The beautiful queen was being welcomed to the underworld. She would leave behind her life. Sunshine, river, palace, husband, child. All would be taken from her.

She stepped inside the burial chamber. Here the queen had been laid, between the pillars. Those flat figures, all the same, like cartoons, with their black hair and their opaque eyes. She'd never realized before ...

How beautiful they are!

These paintings ... she imagined artists here, dipping their brushes into pots of gold and green and blue. They weren't just painting the story of one queen's death. They were painting every life. Every death. Every joy, every loss.

Dazzled, Irina slowly revolved, drinking it all in.

She felt something odd on her face, something so foreign she didn't recognize it at first. She felt it like a draft, a coolness in this stale air. A tear.

What was happening?

Grace, what are you doing to me?

Because she felt her, she felt Grace suddenly, her presence, right here. Her briskness, her intellect, her impatience... her kindness.

You were kind to me, she told Grace.

When you told me I was a fool, there was no harshness in your tone. There was kindness in your eyes.

Who can't I forgive? You... or myself?

Irina stared ahead at the wall. Rebirth, she realized. This chamber wasn't about death at all. It was about rebirth.

Could that happen? After a life lived, after choice after choice after choice led you someplace small and dark ... could you... change?

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