06.21.02

Ginny knows Egypt isn't a nation of sands. The cities along the Nile are modern, and there are gasoline-driven wells even in the Valley of the Kings, but still, time doesn't move in the Valley of Osiris. There, it's as still and burning as the midday sun, as Bill's tongue on her skin and sliding up her legs. He takes the sandals off her feet, pours the sand out of them, then licks his way up her dust-dirty calves, in the hollow of her knees. Ginny is thirteen and still only has the barest buds of breasts -- mostly soft nipples, actually, so her legs are still baby-smooth without a razor. Bill hoists her down from the rock, puts his palms flat against that flatter chest underneath her shirt, then slides into her, easy as easy.

It's her youth which is so appealing. This is the valley of priests who died old and glorified: there is nothing young about this place, not the sand, not the rocks or the wind that blows in every morning. It's danced around this rocky cleft in the mountains for a millenia, and every morning, before he leaves for the dig, Bill slides a callused finger against those silky labial lips and kisses he smooth mons pubis through her shorts.

She's come out by herself. Won a prize at Hogwarts usually given to fifth years for independent travel abroad, and she's decided to study at the Museum at Cairo because she's interested in ancient writing systems and they've got some really rare scrolls and things there. She studied there for three, four weeks, then came out to the Valley, ostensibly to look at some heiroglyphics they'd unearthed at a newly de-cursed tomb, but Bill doesn't understand why she's come out to his. There are other, more exciting ones, though his heart gave a sudden strange surge when she came floating in, sitting on the top of the water truck that was lumbering down the mountains.

They don't dare dig wells here: every square meter underfoot is a grave. Who knows what curses you'll unearth by just moving a few pounds of rock? Even the tents aren't staked into the earth: the canvas is weighted down and propped up in the middle. Also, no matter how you stake something, there're always going to be holes where snakes and scorpions can slide in. There are king cobras in this valley, in surprising abundance and amazing size and boldness. The guardians of the dead, they sun themselves on tombs. Scorpions are underfoot; the sun is above your head. It's a deadly land, even for a canny thirteen year old girl who's turned out to be some kind of genius at ancient languages.

One morning, Bill awakes from his cot. No Ginny. The flap to the tent is pinned open: she must have slipped out. She's grown stranger and stranger with every day that she's stayed in the Valley: at first, she was talkative and bubbly and quite the Ginny of the Burrow, but she's grown stranger and stranger, quieter and quieter, and she picks her way along the cliffs nimble as a goat. Bare-armed and with short shorts cut even higher and the wand tucked into the band. She knows better than to go digging or walk into dark caves, and she knows the Compass Spell, so she'll be all-right.

Bill doesn't see her, though, until almost evening. The day's digging is done, and he's got a nasty scrape on his knee from tripping over some Shifting Floorstones in the tomb they're excavating, but they got down to the bottom and are heading back out for the night when Bill sees her. He's been looking for her since lunch, and the mess cooks haven't seen her -- but then, he just happens to turn around and cast a look at Pharoah's Rock, and there she is. She's standing on that rocky crag above camp with the sun behind her, and Bill's about to wave to her and tell her to come down when the wind starts to pick up, blowing grit into his eyes. It gets stronger; he hears the men yelling to batten things down, hears a trash can, a desk, a tent blowing away.

And squinting through the dust, Bill suddenly realizes that she's got her arms crossed over her chest: rising behind her is a cobra large enough to blot out the setting sun. He stands there, in the growing sandstorm, old rumors of Parseltongues and possession, of secret chambers and curses rising in his mind. rhoddlet@hotmail.com