"Mysterious package with a side of foreshadowing, please"

by Grace

~*~
Fortunately, there were only a few likely places someone could hide in the firehouse that might muffle their ears from the lobby hum: the guest room, the bell tower, or the storage space above the garage on the second floor. After a distinct flash of an old Murder, She Wrote episode- Grace realized her… curiosity (noun: eagerness to know about something or to get information) on pursuing the whereabouts of Sarah suddenly resembled more accurately… meddlesome (adjective: interfering unnecessarily). Perhaps the news was bad and she needs a minute to gain composure, or was good and wanted to call Daniel? In her mind the teetering scale plunged and she conceded to giving Sarah a good hour to reappear before commencing a full-scale quest.
20 minutes later the last of the course sugar was being sprinkled over the final muffin batch when Sarah surfaced - descending from the red spiral staircase of the bell tower. Anna and Kyle were working this morning, occasionally mocking flirtation by snapping a towel here or there, Grace was laughing at one of their antics when Sarah came back to the same barstool she had left. Grace's undivided attention stared through and she raised her eyebrows encouraging Sarah to commence with the deluge.
"So, you remember how Daniel was letting me borrow some of his books?" she asked almost as a formality- Grace had seen her reading them countless times – anywhere she could spare a moment.
"Right….?"Grace felt the rising drama of a good albeit torturously winding story and hoped Sarah could cut to the chase.
"He was trying to teach me Egyptian- er- I think."
"Right – you wanted to learn it and he was teach--"
Sarah interrupted- "No, I mean," her eyes fixed on Grace's and with more emphasis she added "He was trying to teach me, because he wanted me to know what he was saying"- she pulled out the book from her knapsack "in this."
"You mean… he wrote…that?" Grace's face seeping incredulity did not stiffen Sarah's defense and she immediately knew Sarah was serious. "But how? It looks ancient, did he like- age the book or something? – and why would he anyway?"
“Just read this-” Sarah opened the cover of the book carefully withdrawing the letter, just before handing it to Grace a loud clatter sounded down the bar as the kitchen antics between Kyle and Anna escalated - a Styrofoam coffee cup spilled over pooling across the bar towards the book. Sarah snatched it in her arms protectively- “how about we go upstairs?”
“Sorry-” Anna managed before giggling again- Kyle was punching her in the arm while taking the towel from the rack and catching the pooling black liquid -
“ok, we’ll stop now-” he added apologetically.
“Hey you guys- don’t forget to change the rugs, we don’t want the floor turning into an ice-skating rink…” the slight tone faintly stern to show her disapproval of their frolics. One must show who’s the boss- even though it could easily have been Sarah and me working out their stayed-up-too-late giggles.
“We’re going upstairs-” said Sarah who was already moving behind the counter to grab a quick cup. The two walked up the spiral staircase- into the large open sitting room. Hallways led off to the left and the right and there was a door with a “GARAGE” placard hanging from one nail. Although they had little time to renovate this was clearly the next big work in progress. The wall of classic pin-ups was starting to finally yield as old mottled plaster showed through in varying colors. By far the most strange part about the room was the modern furniture they had placed there. Sarah had her favorite leather arm chair- oversized in a walnut brown with ottoman and Grace had a rocking chair with a coffee table fashioned from two side-by-side steamer trunks under glass. By far it seemed unnatural because of the gorgeous Indian floor rug which sat under the cluster as though someone had just plopped it all there by accident.
Dropping into her seat, Sarah pulled Grace’s rocking chair close to the table- as if her attention were not piqued already.
“Ok, now-” Sarah watched Grace sit, the look of confusion growing deeper- “read the letter- here” she handed the folded paper over. Grace read the letter slowly, and then reread some key bits-
“So… he wanted you to translate this for him- why can’t he just do it himself?”
“Remember he’s busy with the dig, maybe he needs some help or something, he didn’t really say why-” she grabbed the letter from her and skimmed it again. “It says ‘you will understand once you have completed the translation, and I will see you soon thereafter’- it all seems a bit…”
“Formal- yeah, that’s what I was thinking. I mean, not something you’d send the girlfriend back home.” Grace realized too late she had used the “g-word” and tried to add something to cover her tracks. “-I mean, I’m sure the other scientists don’t send work home for their wives to translate- I mean-” she sighed, then she looked at Sarah and they both smiled.
“Thanks!” Sarah sarcastically replied, flipping absently through the book. One of the pages came loose and drifted across the floor. “Oh crap!” she jumped up to retrieve the missing page- as she approached it the gold leafing looked nearly new- and didn’t seem to belong with the rest of the book. Picking it up - she realized it looked more like an old English text- “What - is this doing in there?” she brought it back to the table and they examined it- it appeared to be an excerpt from a historical record of some kind.
“Ok, now I’m confused, WHY would there be an old English text in here, English has nothing in common with Egyptian!”
“Well, actually, about eight symbols from the modern alphabet can be traced back in an unbroken line to Egyptian hieroglyphs. Of course, they think that the other symbols were inspired by Egyptian glyphs or newly invented-” Sarah had been examining the paper when she glanced up at Grace who had an expression of incredulity bathed in sarcasm. “Let me guess, you read it in one of his books- never mind- you said downstairs that he wrote it- the book I mean- but its too old- right?”
“Well, I meant - I didn't mean that he had written it-" Sarah rose from her chair slowly turning the paper over in her hands. she had never seen anything like this before, even in all the books which Daniel had lent to her.
"When will he be back from Egypt?" Grace was flipping through the book now carefully fingering the pages. Sarah took her time answering, eventually she replied "-two more weeks, do you think he needs the translation done before then?"
"I don't know. I still don't understand why the scientists would send it to you I know that you have been studying Egyptian but you are by no means an expert -no offense."
"None taken, maybe we could ask Sam... do you think she'll be in today?"
"Wait..." Grace was now reading the letter from Daniel it says not to mention anything to the rest of his coworkers - do you think it's a matter of national security?"
" Well, if it is wouldn't they be more equipped to handle it?"
At that moment the doorbell jingled as an icy window swept up the stairs to where they were sitting. Sarah rushed to look down to the lobby just in time to see Samantha Carter in bundled up sherpa coat stamping off the snow from her boots.
" Sarah wait! " Grace followed as Sarah quickly descended the stairs and nearly running into Sam as she crossed the lobbying for her morning latte.
" Well, good morning Sarah. Oh, I wanted to tell you I heard from Daniel this morning it looks like his trip will run a little long..." Sam did not make eye contact as she added ", I don't know when he will be coming back yet-but I will let you know as soon as he lets me know, promise."
Sarah's bewilderment was not alleviated even after Sam left. She had not told Sam about the book- all she could think of was Danielle trapped by a Bedouin tribe who were offended by a misplaced dig into a grave site of their elders. Watching the snow beginning to fall outside, she could not help about wonder why Sam had refused to make eye contact- she had a sinking feeling that things were going terribly wrong and she was out of the loop.