She unfolded the pages within.
Her breath left her in a long startled hiss and she found herself sinking to the foot of the bed as she read.
The headline screamed MYSTERIOUS EGYPTIAN CLEARED IN CONNECTION WITH MUMMY THEFT AND GRISLY MUSEUM MURDER.
Beneath it was an ink drawing of the handsome man she had seen in her nightmare.
He stood beside a camel, the camel driver off to his left. The pretty woman in the drawing with him--she was either American or English, Sibyl couldn't tell--was not identified, but the print just below read "Valley of the Kings." Proud, handsome, and gentlemanly in his trousers and white silk coat, the man showed none of the terror he'd given off in her dream as she'd reached for him with a skeleton's hands.
But it was him; she was sure of it. His remarkable eyes and sculpted chin. His regal bearing.
It felt as if a great weight were sitting on her chest. Her hands shook.
She forced herself to read.
Someone had stolen a mummy from the Cairo Museum and murdered a museum maid in the process. The mummy in question had been the perfectly preserved remains of a woman from the Ptolemaic period who had spent centuries entombed in the mud of the Nile delta before she was discovered and transported to the museum. For a time, the police had suspected Mr. Ramsey, a "mysterious Egyptian" who had been on holiday in Egypt with members of the Stratford Shipping family. Now that he had been cleared of suspicion, Ramsey had been permitted to return to London with his traveling companions.
And that was that and everyone was supposed to be satisfied.
But the amateur detective in her could sense the holes in the story. She'd seen what families of influence and wealth could do. The fingerprints of one were all over these articles.
If Mr. Ramsey had been cleared, then who now was the primary suspect? And what of the whereabouts of this mysterious stolen mummy from the Ptolemaic period?
She was distracting herself with this little game of detective, distracting herself from a new sensation that filled her limbs. A tingling that suggested shortness of breath. But also another feeling that was harder to explain.
Excitement. A thundering, almost incomprehensible sense of excitement.
Her nightmares had become so vivid and wretched this past month, the fear that she was losing her mind had become as steady and persistent as her heartbeat. But now, the suggestion of a more miraculous explanation had quite literally arrived on her doorstep, an explanation that spared her sanity, an explanation that suggested there was as much true magic and wonder in the world as she had tried to write into it with her little stories.
The man in my dream exists, she thought. We are connected somehow. And if I follow that connection as far as it goes, perhaps my nightmares will come to an end!
Quickly she removed several sheets of her best stationery from the desk drawer and began to write. The letter was to her London publisher.
"I have reconsidered your many invitations and now agree with you that it is an excellent idea for me to visit London, and accept any invitations you might recommend for speaking engagements or appearances...."
As soon as the sun rose, she'd call her New York agent.
*
At breakfast Sibyl dropped two aspirin tablets in front of both her brothers, neither of whom looked up from his half-eaten swirls of scrambled eggs, neither of whom seemed to care in the slightest that it was almost noon on a Monday and he'd made no attempt to get started on the week's business.
"I'm leaving," she said.
It took Gregory several seconds to pick up his aspirin. He swallowed them with a sip of water small enough so as not to upset his tortured stomach.
Ethan stopped massaging his temples, opened one
bloodshot eye, and did his best to look at her with it.
"Another stroll through the Lincoln Park Conservatory?" he grumbled. "So you can pretend like you're an ancient lady in one of those gloomy novels you love?"
"Further than the park, actually."
Gregory looked up from his plate and saw that she was dressed in her traveling costume. A tailored jacket checkered in squares of white and blue, the outward-facing flaps of the collar lined in blue satin. The band on her otherwise plain hat was also a matching shade of blue. She'd never been one to wear her corsets like something out of an illustration by Charles Dana Gibson, but Lucy's nervous hands that morning had left her with a particularly tight fit. And that made sense, she thought. It made her feel as streamlined as the prow of the ship she planned to soon board.
"How much further?" Ethan whined. "You've got writing to do."
"Yes, and I'm not sure if you've heard, but it's only possible to write in the city of Chicago now. President Wilson just signed it into law."