How it Ends ▸ House of Anubis [4]

chapter four. house of darkness

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            For the rest of our time at the museum, I decided to pair up again with Fabian following the whole getting-locked-in-a-broom-closet fiasco. It gave me a chance to look at the rest of the exhibits without being distracted by my insanely distracting boyfriend, so I happily welcomed Fabian dragging me around the exhibition, taking more photographs of each other. But near the end of our field trip, my attention was grabbed by three people—Eddie, Sophia, and Dexter—exiting a room that the museum's director (Cornelian) subsequently locked.

            Naturally, that piqued my interest, so I mentioned it to Fabian. But before we got a chance to look through the small barred window in the door inside the room (which had a sign on it that said off-limits, but it seems Eddie didn't care about that—not surprising), Victor called for us to round up so we can go back to the house.

            Eddie appears almost out of nowhere, stepping in the space between Fabian and me as he puts his arms around us. In a lowered voice, he tells, "I have to tell you guys something."

            I nod back to the locked room as Victor counts the number of heads present to make sure it adds up with how many left. "Anything to do with that room Cornelian just locked everyone out of?" Eddie nods. "I beg of you to tell me there's not something cursed in there."

            "I just thought the two of you might be interested in what's in there," he says, but he doesn't elaborate until we pile onto the bus. The three of us choose to go all the way to the back of the bus, far away from the prying ears of our housemates, and Eddie explains. "So, Sophia and I went into this room that's closed off to the public—which was weird considering the door was open even though there was a sign that said, you know, off-limits. Dexter was there, too, something about taking a nap, I don't know. But there was this... tiny little pyramid in there in a glass case."

            Fabian's mouth drops. "Really? How little?"

            "Uh, yea high," Eddie demonstrates. About half a foot, I'd wager. Little less, maybe. "So I thought that was a little weird, you know, since you think ancient Egypt and your first thought is pyramids. And mummies."

            "Yeah, you'd think they'd have it in the middle of the exhibition, like a centerpiece."

            "Yeah. So anyway, Cornelian catches us," he explains, "and Dexter asked him what the pyramid is. Apparently, it's something called the Touchstone of Ra, and it's one of five pieces that builds the Pyramid of Ra. He said it just arrived a week ago after being sent away by a 'local collector' decades ago."

            The Pyramid of Ra, I repeat in my head, my mind making unwelcome conclusions. Pyramid. Ra. Just like in the hieroglyphs we've been translating in Lily's diary. I share a nervous glance with Fabian, attempting to shrug it off. "It's a coincidence."