Seven Ancient Wonders - Matthew Reilly [39]
Lily loved his study.
It had lots of cool stuff arrayed around its walls: sandstone tablets, a crocodile skull, the skeleton of some ape-like creature Lily couldn’t recognise, and hidden in one corner, a glass jar filled with a very strange kind of rusty-red sand. On a secret mission of her own late one night, she discovered that the jar’s lid was sealed tight, too tightly for her to open. It remained a mystery.
There was also a medium-sized whiteboard attached to the far wall, on which West had scribbled all sorts of notes and pictures. Things like:
HOWARD CARTER (1874-1939):
Found Tutankhamen’s tomb; also discovered Queen Hatshepsut’s unused tomb (KV20) in Valley of the Kings in 1903. Empty tomb, never used. Unfinished carving on tomb’s east wall is only known picture of Capstone atop Great Pyramid receiving vertical shaft of sunlight:
After this West had noted: ‘Queen Hatshepsut: only female pharaoh, prolific obelisk builder’.
One note on the board, however, caught Lily’s eye.
It was at the very bottom corner of the whiteboard, under all the others, almost deliberately out of the way. It read simply: ‘4 MISSING DAYS OF MY LIFE—CORONADO?’
Once, late at night, she had seen West staring at those words, tapping his pencil against his teeth, lost in thought.
Whenever West worked in his study, his falcon always sat loyally on his shoulder—alerting him with a squawk when anyone approached.
Lily was intrigued by Horus.
She was an absolutely stunning bird, proud in her bearing and laserlike in her intensity. She didn’t play with Lily—despite Lily’s continued efforts to coax her.
Bouncing balls, fake mice, nothing Lily used could draw the falcon out into play. No, whatever silly thing Lily did to get her attention, Horus would just stare back at her with total disdain.
Horus, it seemed, cared for only one person.
Jack West.
This was a fact Lily would confirm through experimentation. One day, when once again Horus would not be drawn from West’s shoulder, Lily threw her rubber mouse at West.
The falcon moved with striking speed.
She intercepted the tossed mouse easily—in mid-air halfway between Lily and West—her talons clutching the toy rodent in twin vice-like grips.
Dead mouse.
Lesson learned.
But research was not the only thing West did.
It didn’t escape Lily’s notice that while she was busy studying in her classroom, Huntsman would often disappear into the old abandoned mine in the hills beyond the western paddock, not far from the aeroplane hangar. Strangely, he would wear an odd uniform: a fireman’s helmet and his canvas jacket. And Horus always went with him.
Lily was strictly forbidden from going into those caves.
Apparently, Wizard had built a series of traps in the mine tunnels—traps based on those in the ancient books that he and West studied—and Huntsman would go in there to test himself against the traps.
Lily found Jack West Jr to be a bit of a mystery.
And she wondered at times, as children do, if he even liked her at all.
But one thing Lily didn’t know was just how closely she herself was being observed.
Her progress with languages was being carefully monitored.
‘She continues to excel,’ Wizard reported, just after she turned nine. ‘Her transliteration skills are like nothing I have ever seen. And she doesn’t even know how good she is. She plays with languages the way Serena Williams plays with spin on a tennis ball—she can do things with it, twist it this way and that, in ways you or I can’t even begin to imagine.’
Big Ears reported, ‘She’s physically fit, good endurance. If it ever becomes necessary, she can run six miles without breaking a sweat.’
‘And she knows every inch of my study,’ West said. ‘She sneaks in there once a week.’
Zoe said, ‘I know it isn’t mission-related, but she’s actually becoming quite good at something else: ballet. Watches it on cable. Now I know lots of little girls dream of becoming prima ballerinas, but Lily is actually very good at it, especially considering she’s self-taught. She can hold a toe-pose unaided for close to twenty seconds—which