“Well . . . ah . . . not in the way you are hoping. Two were murdered outright, days after they disappeared. The most recent girl was found a year ago. Helen Gilmore. She was another senior here at Setemple High School. I didn’t know her well, but they always said she was nice, and of course, beautiful. One day, she just disappeared.” Wanda lowered her voice and pushed back her hair. “Her body was found three days later, dumped on the side of the road somewhere in the desert. And they never found out who did it.”
“That’s not very comforting,” Natti whispered. At least she might be able to rule out herself and the locket as a possible cause for Mandy’s disappearance and Ashley’s death. She chewed on her lower lip, nervous.
“Well, I’m sure it’s not the same for Mandy’s case. At least, I hope not.” Wanda stopped in front of her locker and began to sort her things. Natti leaned on the wall, thinking about what Wanda had said: a small town riddled with several unsolved murders and disappearances. It was just a bit too freaky. One would have thought the police would have found some clue, anything that could link a suspect to these cases.
Natti’s attention was abruptly drawn away from her thoughts when she caught sight of Seth. He was leaning his weary head on his arm, staring into the open locker before him with mournful eyes. Obviously, he had heard the news.
“Personally,” Wanda continued while she rifled behind her locker door, “I just think a lot of the runaways around here are girls that are tired of small town living. They probably tried to make their way to Hollywood or Las Vegas. Unfortunately, some of them met bad people along the way.”
Wanda’s conversation drifted into the background noise while Natti’s thoughts became lost on Seth and his appearance. He looked more disheveled than usual. His gray polo shirt was wrinkled, half tucked into his pants. His hair looked as if he forgot to run a comb through it. His eyes bore thick, dark circles underneath them, giving his charming face the look of a zombie. And even from a distance, Natti could sense the weight pulling on his heart. It was clearly tormenting him, a darkness swirling with hatred and frustration.
However, he quickly changed his attitude when Q and Ky approached him wearing Cheshire Cat grins. Ky slammed his hand into Seth’s back in greeting and pulled his friends into some amusing story. The boys laughed, then Q caught Natti’s gaze. With a wicked smile, he jerked his head in her direction and whispered something to Seth. Seth spun around, his eyes locking on her in seconds.
Brilliant! Feeling uncomfortable from his stare, Natti nervously tucked her hair behind her ear and focused on the vinyl floor. She wasn’t sure what to do now that he caught her watching: tear down all her walls and build a new rapport with him or ignore him and pretend to still be angry about last week’s tennis game. The last option was hardest to accept, especially when she knew what it was like to lose someone close.
Just when she was about to walk over, Natti heard the slamming of a locker door echo down the hall. She looked up to find Seth marching away from her, his friends shrugging before they followed him. She couldn’t believe it. She had completely missed her chance, and her heart sunk.
“Earth to Natti.” Wanda snapped her fingers. “Come in, Natti. Do you read me? Over.”
“What?” Natti refocused her attention on Wanda’s fingers waving in front of her face.
“You like totally zoned out on me,” Wanda whined. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, fine.” Natti glanced one last time at Seth’s back. “Just a little unnerved by everything, I guess.”
Natti and Wanda started up the stairs together. “Well, on another note,” Wanda broke the eerie silence between them, “the Pharaoh’s Festival is this weekend! You want to come with Kevin, Jen, and me?”
Natti cringed. “This town has a Pharaoh’s Festival?” Of course it does, she thought to herself. What a stupid question.
“Yeah!” Wanda grabbed the paper from Natti, flipped to the second to last page, and pointed to an ad with the death mask of King Tut displayed on it. “Every year on the first weekend of October, the town throws this festival. It’s much like a state fair really, only smaller.”
Grimacing, Natti nervously shifted her backpack. Fear creeping inside her gut. “Why does it have to be the Pharaoh’s Festival?”
“Because that’s what it’s always been. It’s kinda the town’s major attraction. And maybe because ten percent of the profits fund the school.”
Natti glanced at the advertisement.
Come to the Pharaoh’s Festival at Setemple’s Town Hall! Eat, drink, and have fun with the ancients. Admire the work of artisans. Impress the girls by showing off your fighting skills, or enjoy a day raiding Cleopatra’s closet. Ride the Eye in the Sky, and face the demon Apep.
Her stomach dropped, thinking about the building next to the pyramid. Her mind spun. A Pharaoh Festival under a pyramid’s shadow. “Wanda, I’m sorry,” Natti’s voice just cracked a bit. “This really doesn’t sound like my kind of thing. I’m not fond of ancient Egyptian culture—”