Star Angels. The New World. Viktor Khorunzhy

wonders Alice had been jingling about.

      “A book with hieroglyphs? Well, we can take her to our trip.”

      “What trip?” Alice gaped.

      “What, haven’t you opened the second envelope yet?” Michael startled in his turn.

      “Oh… I have completely forgotten about it!” Alice yelled, running upstairs like hell. Some couple of seconds later her room burst into enthusiastic shrieks and hoots of joy. “We! Are going! To Egypt!” she was shouting and swishing the colourful hand-outs, dragged out of the envelope. “On a guided tour! For three days!”

      Katy’s heart gave a leap. Her memories brought out Egyptian khopesh sword, a cat posing sphinx, and the Book in Egyptian writings… And now was that trip to Egypt… Could it be just a coincidence?

      “When are we leaving?” Katy wondered.

      “The day after tomorrow,” Michael gave her a smile.

      “Hooray to the day after tomorrow!” Alice began spinning. She was still shining. “Will we be swimming in the sea? Well, of course we will – to visit Egypt and not to dabble in sea waves… Where is my swimming suit? Now where in the world could I have tucked it?”

      She rushed off to her room, to rummage for her clothes now. Katy couldn’t help smiling to Alice’s flow of spirit. “She’s the one not to be tormented by any doubts,” Katy thought. “Alice takes everything for granted. She doesn’t go wondering about all that.”

      Katy stood still in a brown study. “I’ve got too many questions,” she gave a sigh. “But so far it all leads to one thing. And the thing is Egypt. Perhaps, I will find my answers there…”

* * *

      “Alice, doesn’t it seem an odd turn of events to you?” Katy asked when they had already settled themselves into their beds and turned off the lights. Owing to their experiences of the day, the slumber wasn’t exactly hasting to capture them.

      “What do you mean?” Alice wondered.

      “Well… that weird Ancient Egyptian Book with the symbol matching our ones. And now that trip, to Egypt as well…”

      “Yeah, and there’s my report on the History of Cultures – it’s about Egypt either,” Alice snickered. “Nah, it’s just a coincidence. We’ve found the Book while studying for our classes. And Michael has booked the tickets at the travel agency in advance; we simply didn’t know it.”

      “And how about the Book glowing – is there nothing unusual at all?”

      “I’ve given it a thought and seem to figure the thing out,” Alice replied not without some pride in her voice, as if she had just been waiting for the question. It was she now – not Katy – to find a logical explanation to weird occasions. “Do you recall us flipping a couple of coins to offering boxes before Christmas? And how the nuns gave us beads instead? And how did it give us a fright when they had started glowing green at night?…”

      “Yeah, I recall those beads with phosphorus,” Katy nodded. “I was so scared then… Do you think that drawing on the cover also has some chemical additives, just for appearance?”

      The girls had even troubled themselves to slip out of the bed to take the Book off the shelf. The symbol was hardly glowing, but yet still quite notable.

      “It doesn’t seem to glow that much,” Katy sighed.

      “It must’ve got some kind of battery ran out,” Alice yawned, turning herself to the wall. “Let’s have some sleep for tomorrow to come faster. And then the day after tomorrow…”

      Katy had nothing left but to follow her sister’s advice. However her eyes had been kept open for a long time, though Alice’s peaceful wheezing became audible from her bed soon enough.

      “That’s the one to sleep like a baby,” Katy thought, feeling slightly envious, straining ears for her smooth breathing. She herself was unable to fall asleep that readily, being overcome by anxiety. Katy understood her sister’s attempts to find rational explanation to the latest events as quite faint. Besides, that intangible uneasiness wouldn’t let her relax. The weird apprehension of queer and inescapable things, having nested in her heart several days ago, had only grown stronger the moment she laid her hands on that odd Book.

      She was thinking about Michael as well. Their father had made Alice a present of this splendor, but he never seemed to be glad about that. As if he was getting himself ready for something too and didn’t want to talk about it. And then there was the weird letter…

      That way, thinking, Katy didn’t notice her falling asleep…

* * *

      The next day turned out to be a complete turmoil. Alice couldn’t wait till the end of classes, looking forward to finishing her packing up. She turned deaf ear to teachers’ words, they might as well have talked to a brick wall. All her thoughts had already been lost somewhere in warm sands. It was so cool to get a sudden break away from all the daily routine, to dive out of the chill of autumn and into summer heat! And to see with her own eyes everything she had only been reading about. Now that would be the kind of material for the report!

      When girls had told Mr. Blake about their forthcoming tour, he pardoned their unfulfilled assignment in exchange for a promise of bringing him some shots of pyramids and a report on the trip.

      Alice was filled with joyful energy. There had been one single thing distressing her; both her father and her sister weren’t like themselves. A deep crease settled in Michael’s forehead, as if he had constantly been thinking intensely of something, and Katy had been enfolded in silence as if waiting for something – moreover, not the best something in her life. Well, that was nothing; they would melt in the African sun at once!

      They packed bare essentials into their backpacks back as early as yesterday. The Book from the library had been packed up as well. Katy went to Mrs. Thompson to ask her to take care of their cat Boniface, while they were away.

      And if the previous day had seemed unbearably long to Alice, the departure day itself passed so slowly as if dragged by snails. They had been travelling a lot with Michael, just to take their movements along. But that had been trips by car, by bus either by train. The forthcoming flight and Africa itself seemed something highly exotic to them.

      At about lunchtime, their entire family set off for the airport…

* * *

      “Wow, Katy, what a beauty!” Having stuck herself closely to the illuminator, Alice watched the town magnificent pattern leaving somewhere far downwards.

      But Katy was far from admiring the town’s incredible view. Her head was full of quite different kinds of thoughts. Katy’s rational creeds had got quite reeled for the past few days. The set of inexplicable events had only one name for themselves – miracles. But there was no such thing! Or was there? Katy had almost been willing to believe in a miracle – maybe, she even wanted to. But her senses were still resisting, clambering to her logical conclusions and knowledge, had read out of books.

      “Be as it may,” she thought eventually, having regained her temper and cheered up at once. “I’ll deal with the problems as they’re coming… At least now I’m prepared for anything.”

      “Egypt is on the way!” Alice smiled. “The Sea, we’re coming!”

      “Yeah, Egypt is on the way!” Katy uttered, setting quite a different meaning to these words.

      The plane was coming for landing, having smoothly landed at a large airport. Dry and warm air filled with completely new fragrances surrounded Alice and Katy all around.

      The customs control didn’t take much time, so soon they had already been standing next to their bus. Their smiley guide was setting his admired eyes on fair-haired Alice over and over again.

      Ages ago Katy got used to becoming invisible for guys whenever next to her sister. They were always captivated by bright and cheerful Alice. Katy had stayed in the background. But it wasn’t one bit upsetting for her: Alice paid little to no attention to all the guys surrounding her. And so far they hadn’t met one guy