The Oracle (Fargo Adventures 11)

“Amal tells me there’s supposed to be a curse tied into all of this,” Remi said.

Yesmine laughed. “I’m not so sure about that. Like Amal, my mother was a bit of a storyteller herself. But yes, supposedly a curse that kept others from finding the ancient scroll buried by one of the Vandal kings.” Her eyes sparkled as she looked at the artifact, then at Remi and Sam. “The curse will bring death to any who try to take the scroll for their own. If I remember, it’s only one of royal blood who can return it without invoking the curse.”

“Which,” Amal said, “I’ve never understood. It can’t just be a Good Samaritan, it has to be a royal Good Samaritan.”

“Were your grandmother still here, she’d tell you that there was always a reason for those oddities in the old tales, even though it might not be obvious to the storyteller.”

“I miss her,” Amal replied as someone knocked at the front door. She walked over to answer it.

“As do I,” Yesmine said as Renee, Hank, José, and Osmond walked in. “My mother had much to do with nurturing Amal’s love of archeology.”

Renee laughed. “Thank goodness or we’d all be out of a job.”

Osmond, his face beaming, handed a bouquet of flowers to Amal.

She thanked him and turned to her mother, saying, “How sweet. Osmond brought you flowers again.”

“Again?” Remi whispered to Sam.

Poor Osmond appeared crestfallen. Nasha tapped Amal on the arm, looking as if she was about to correct her as to who the bouquet was for. But Renee held up two bottles of chilled sparkling water, since neither Amal nor her mother drank alcohol. “We need something to toast with.”

“Perfect,” Yesmine said. “This way. It’s such a nice evening, I thought we’d eat outside.”

Twinkling lights strung across the branches of the nearest olive trees cast a festive glow across the picnic table draped with a white cloth. Amal and her mother brought out plates stack

ed high with the deep-fried brik triangles, followed by bowls of couscous, spicy chicken, and other Tunisian dishes.

When everyone took a seat, Nasha slipping in between Remi and Amal, Amal’s mother raised her water glass. “To good friends, old and new.”

Sam and Remi raised their glasses. “To good friends,” they said.

Renee raised hers, saying, “To the best graduate students a professor could ever hope for.”

Amal smiled and cocked her head, down the hill and through the dark grove, toward the house Renee rented for their crew. “Here’s to hoping this dig lasts for a long time. No long bus rides for me.”

José laughed, saying, “Hear! Hear!”

“‘Hear! Hear!’ What does that mean?” Nasha asked Amal.

“A short way of saying that’s exactly what we want to hear.”

Hank gave the final toast. “To good food. I vote we eat before it all gets cold.”

“Hear! Hear!” Nasha said. Everyone laughed. And, with that, they passed the dishes.

Remi was surprised when Yesmine handed her the plate of brik, saying, “Amal tells me this is a favorite of yours?”

“My memory of it, it’s been years.” Remi took two and passed the dish to Sam, then Lazlo. “Not since I was here with Renee back in college.” She took a bite and closed her eyes, savoring the explosion of flavors and tang of goat cheese. “Even better than I remembered.”

At one point during the dinner, Nasha elbowed Remi, grinning. She apparently had noticed the same thing that Remi had. Osmond spent almost the entire time stealing glances at Amal. It was clear he was smitten with her.

Amal seemed totally unaware of his attention.

Well into their meal, the conversation turned toward the new fragments the graduate students were uncovering. “Unfortunately,” Amal said, “it’s nothing as wonderful as the Sator Square my grandmother found. I’m not that lucky.”

“Nonsense,” Renee said. “If not for you walking into my class that day, then writing your thesis, we’d never have found that subterranean chamber to begin with.”

“You got that right,” Hank said. “LaBelle would still be digging in exactly the wrong spot on the exact opposite side of the archeological park if not for you. It’s a shame that Warren almost ruined it for the rest of us.”