That afternoon, Delia tidied her desk with movements more hesitant than usual.
Her mind was already at the apartment, more precisely, already constructing and deconstructing the opening sentence she would use to interrogate Alexander.
“Hey, Alex, your name appears in the records of a black witch whose mummy is in the museum where I work.
Anything you want to tell me?” Too casual.
“Alexander, I need you to be honest about how much you knew before all this happened.” Better.
But still a little…
“Delia?!” The voice came from the lobby direction.
Delia turned.
At the museum entrance, with a large backpack on her back, a denim jacket Delia recognized from third semester, and an expression of someone who could not believe who she had just spotted, stood a girl with shoulder-length hair dyed reddish-brown at the tips, eyes that always seemed to be thinking of something funny but had not decided whether to say it out loud.
Delia froze.
“Gisel?!” The girl immediately grinned wide, the exact same smile Delia remembered from three years of sitting in the same classes, from group assignments that always ended with more laughter than work, from exam nights surviving on coffee and solidarity.
“Oh my God, Del!
You work here?!” Gisel walked quickly toward her, hugging her without hesitation with her characteristic full enthusiasm.
“Crazy, the world is so small!” Delia returned the hug, and for a split second, all the fifth scroll and the name Aleksander and the bond that could not be broken by death were pushed to the back of her mind by the very simple warmth of meeting a familiar face in an unexpected place.
“What are you doing here?” Delia asked, releasing the hug and looking at Gisel’s face, which had not changed much since they last met at graduation.
“Postgraduate research.” Gisel shrugged, grinning.
“I’m doing an MA in Cultural History, Del.
My professor told me to find Middle Eastern antique references for my thesis.” Her eyes swept the museum’s interior with the expression of a researcher who had just entered paradise.
“And it turns out this museum has a collection that…” she paused, her head tilting to one side.
“Hey!
What’s that jar in the inner room?
The one visible from here, the gold one!” Delia followed Gisel’s gaze.
From their position in the lobby, through the research room door Delia had forgotten to close properly, Hassan’s Jar was indeed visible, its gleaming gold section catching the spotlight’s light in an almost impossibly beautiful way.
“That’s…” Delia began her sentence, and stopped.
Because among the flashes of dark blue gemstones adorning the jar’s shoulder, from this distance, with light that should not have been enough to capture such a small detail, Delia saw it.
Glowing.
Very faintly.
Only briefly.
But its direction was not toward Delia.
Its direction was toward Gisel.
Oh no!
* Robin did not need much convincing.
As soon as Delia introduced Gisel, an MA student in Cultural History, thesis research, Middle Eastern antique references, the old man immediately grinned in a way that reminded Delia of someone who had just found the answer to an exam question they did not know how to solve.
“Of course, of course!
It’s actually great to have someone to discuss the historical context directly,” Robin said, waving toward the research room.
“Delia, accompany your friend.
I have a meeting with the museum head until four.” His office door closed.
Delia looked at Gisel.
Gisel looked back with a full, enthusiastic expression that knew nothing.
“Okay,” Delia thought.
“Nothing to worry about.
This is just an antique jar.
Gisel is just an old friend.
The gemstone’s glow earlier was probably just an ordinary light reflection that happens often.
I’m too paranoid for normal reading.” Maybe…
The research room welcomed them with its familiar atmosphere, cold, silent, the smell of resin and old dust Delia knew like her own home perfume.
The white spotlight hung from the ceiling, illuminating the long steel table where Hassan’s Jar stood in all its undeniable splendor.
Gisel stopped right at the threshold.
For three seconds, she did not move.
Delia watched her from the side, observing how Gisel’s eyes swept the jar from bottom to top, from the geometrically carved base to the gemstone-studded shoulder to the slender neck to the mouth sealed with dark red wax.
Delia observed how Gisel’s expression shifted from a researcher’s enthusiasm to something calmer, more focused, like someone who had just seen something that had long existed in her mind but could never name.
“This…” Gisel stepped in slowly.
“This is extraordinary, Del!” “Yeah,” Delia answered in a tone that tried to sound ordinary.
“Real gold?” “Real.” “The gemstones?” Gisel approached, her head tilting left, observing the dark blue gemstone on the jar’s shoulder from about half a meter away.
“Sapphire?
But the color is too extraordinary for ordinary sapphire.
More like…” The gemstone glowed.
Not a flash like what Delia had seen from the lobby earlier.
This was longer, warmer, more like something responding rather than just reflecting light.
Gisel did not step back.
Her head tilted even further.
“Weird!
Earlier it looked like something…” “The light fixture is a bit unstable,” Delia cut in quickly.
“Mr.
Robin said he’s calling a technician to check it next week.” Gisel stared at her.
“Are you okay?
Your face looks strange.” “I’m fine.” “Your face says otherwise.” “My face doesn’t say anything.” Gisel laughed, a short laugh, characteristic laugh that Delia remembered from three years of sitting in the same classes.
“Del, I’ve known you since first semester.
Your face is an open book in all capital letters.” Delia sighed.
Sat down in her research chair.
Considered how much she could tell Gisel without sounding like someone who needed a referral to a mental health professional.
The answer is…
NOT MUCH!
“This jar,” Delia finally said, choosing her words carefully, “is a research object that’s…
unusual.
There’s something about the seal’s condition that makes me a little extra cautious.
That’s all.” Gisel nodded with the expression of someone accepting that explanation as a temporary one while saving her follow-up questions for later.
Then she returned to Hassan’s Jar.
And this time, she sat in the chair Robin usually occupied in the corner of the room, positioned directly facing the jar, about a meter and a half away, took out her own notebook, and began sketching.
Delia watched her.
Gisel was always like this, entering research mode in a total, undisturbed way, her entire attention narrowing to the object she was working on, the surrounding world reduced to very low volume.
Her pencil moved across the paper in a steady rhythm.
Occasionally Gisel looked up to check details, then returned to her sketch.
Hassan’s Jar stood motionless under the spotlight.
Too motionless.
Delia noticed it twenty minutes later.
Not glowing again.
This was different, more like a very subtle shift in the quality of the air around the jar.
The desert scent Delia had memorized over the past few days emerged stronger than usual, but not in a suffocating way.
More like present.
More aware.
More directed.
Directed toward Gisel.
And the red wax seal on the jar’s mouth…
KRAK!!