I woke up the next morning, furious. My uncle had effectively cut me off, had reduced me to begging. My mother was going to get away with murder, and one day soon, I’d have to face my aunt and explain to her how it was all my fault. I stared at my wan face in the mirror hanging above the basin in the water closet. Mamá’s scarf with its brightly woven flowers seemed to mock me. I had kept it as a reminder for what she had done to me. It was around my neck as a battle flag and I would not take it off until I found her.
I tore my gaze away, anger simmering in my veins, as I slammed the door to the water closet behind me. Without ceremony, I opened my luggage and began throwing everything I had into it. Trust my uncle to book me passage for the first boat leaving Egypt and heading straight to Argentina.
A sudden knock disrupted my furious thoughts.
I crossed the room and opened the door. “It’s you.”
“Well observed.” Whit sagged against the doorframe at the sight of me. Until I saw his face, I hadn’t realized that I was waiting for him. We hadn’t spoken about our time in the cave, and what it meant.
“Can I come in?”
I opened the door wider to let him pass. He brushed past, his familiar scent wrapping around me, but mixed with something else. My nose wrinkled as the smell of whiskey wafted in the air. It clung to him like a second skin.
“You’ve been drinking.”
He let out a bark of laughter. It didn’t sound remotely friendly. “You’re absolutely brilliant this morning, Olivera.”
Disappointment pressed down onto my shoulders. His walls were up, and I didn’t understand why, and my confusion only made my eyes burn. In no world would this Whit call me sweetheart. I averted my gaze, not wanting him to see how his behavior was affecting me. Tension crackled between us.
“Inez,” he said softly. “Look at me.”
I had to force myself to lift my chin. We stared at each other from across the living space, his hands tucked deep into his pockets.
“Why are you standing all the way over there?” I asked.
Whit visibly weighed his response, his attention flickering across my trunk, and asked carefully, “What are you doing?”
I didn’t like the stone-like quality to his face. Closed off and remote. It reminded me of a fortress. The person who had held me in the darkness was long gone. That person who had comforted me, kissed me desperately, saved my life.
This person before me was a stranger.
Perhaps that was his point. My words came out stiff. “What does it look like I’m doing? I’m packing. My uncle is sending me away.”
“You’re just going to give up,” he said flatly. “After what your mother has done to Elvira, your father. After what she stole from Abdullah and your uncle?”
His questions grated against my skin. Guilt and shame washed over me.
“Didn’t you hear him?” I asked, not bothering to cover up the bitter taste coating my tongue. “I have no money. None until I wed. What else can I do but go home? I have to see my aunt anyway. And I suppose I could find someone to marry. The son of the consul. Ernesto.” I let out a harsh laugh, wanting to hurt him in the same way he was clearly trying to hurt me. “My mother would approve.”
“Is that what you want to do?” he demanded.
“What else can I do?”
“You can’t marry him.” He lifted his hand and rubbed his eyes. They were bloodshot, tired, and red-rimmed. But when he focused on me again, his blue gaze seared.
“Why not?”
“Because,” he said in a husky whisper. “He won’t kiss you the way I will.”
The ground seemed to shift under my feet. I didn’t understand how he could say something like that to me, but stand so far away. As if that moment in the cave had never happened. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying,” Whit said in that same husky whisper. It drew goosebumps up and down my arms. He walked forward, every step seeming to roar in my ears. He bent his arm and reached for my waist, pulling me flush against the long line of his body. A soft gasp worked its way out of my mouth. Whit dipped his chin, his lips an inch from mine. His breath whispered against my cheek, the smoky scent of whiskey between us.
“Marry me instead.”
Epilogue
Porter looked out onto the Mediterranean Sea, the telegram clenched in his hand. The paper was creased from frequent reading, but still he held on to it as if it were a lifeline. He supposed that it was. His fellow passengers were crowding the deck, every one of them eager for the first sight of Alexandria’s port. He read the short message for the hundredth time.
INEZ FELL FOR IT.
It had been an abysmal crossing. But it didn’t matter anymore.
Whit had kept his word.
And now it was time to collect.
Author’s Note
My first glimpse of this story, the first spark, was of a young woman, sailing to Egypt—but not for tourism. I sensed she had a story to tell, and I was particularly interested in exploring a young woman in a position of relative privilege who decides to boldly stand for something against the common ideals of the time period. Inez knows that she can’t—and shouldn’t—take on the governing forces in Egypt, but she can fight in her own corner, even if that means against her own mother.
While What the River Knows is a historical fantasy, I wanted to ground it with as many details from the late 1800s as possible. Egypt saw a sharp increase in tourists from all over the world and Cairo became a metropolitan city, with new hotels springing up every decade, welcoming royalty, dignitaries, explorers, entrepreneurs, missionaries, and countless people from all over the globe looking for work and a new start. It was a time of colonial expansion, imperial rule, and also a pivotal moment in archaeology.
After Britain bombarded Alexandria, many Egyptians lost their government jobs to foreigners, and they were also disallowed from studying their own heritage and ancestry. It would take decades before Egyptians took their place in the pursuit of archaeology, and meanwhile unrestricted tourism often resulted in the desecration and pillage of temples, monuments, and tombs. Statues became lawn ornaments for stately homes. Millions of artifacts disappeared, the majority of which Egypt has never seen again.