Ancient Spirits (Daisy Gumm Majesty Books) by Alice Duncan Page A

faint. She allowed her hand to carry her fork the rest of the way to her mouth. That night it had stabbed a bite of cold roast pork.
    Vi had turned the leftover mashed potatoes into potato patties, fried them in butter, and served the pork and potatoes with a nice green salad. And I still could barely tolerate the idea of food, much less eat more than one or two mouthfuls of it.
    “That’s . . . amazing,” said Vi. “Um, why did he decide to take you to Egypt?”
    I shrugged. “He says he remembered that Billy always wanted to visit Egypt, and that his mother and Mister Pinkerton enjoyed their visit down the Nile. Or is it up the Nile? I can’t remember. Billy would have known.” Harold had also said he wanted to see me ride a camel, but I decided not to tell my folks that.
    After a deal of thought, Vi said, “I bet you anything this is a thank-you for helping his mother see the light about that daughter of hers.”
    “Maybe.” I nodded, although I doubted Vi’s scenario. I’d believed Harold when he’d told me he was going to whisk me away to foreign ports in a mission to heal my heart. The scenario he’d presented at lunch didn’t make a lick of sense to me, but I supposed it might be interesting to be sick of food in England, where we’d land first, and then in Egypt. Heck, maybe I could be sick of food in France and Turkey, too, along the way. But our main destination, according to Harold, was Egypt.
    “When is this trip supposed to take place?” asked Pa, looking as befuddled as everyone else.
    “Next month.”
    “In August?”
    “Well . . . yes. Next month is August.”
    Pa shook his head and shoveled in another bite of potatoes and gravy. “It’s going to be hotter than heck in Egypt in August.”
    “Mercy, yes,” said Ma. “Don’t most expeditions to Egypt take place during the winter months?”
    “Yes, they do,” said Pa, who used to enjoy the same articles in National Geographic that Billy had. Well, he still would. Until Billy’s subscription ran out. I shook my head, not wanting to think about that.
    “Hmm,” said Vi. “But it’s hot in Pasadena during the summer months, too. Why, it gets to be over a hundred degrees here quite often.”
    “That’s so,” said Ma thoughtfully. “Egypt probably won’t be so bad. And you can always take summery clothes with you. Knowing Harold Kincaid, he’ll demand the very best of accommodations, so even if it’s hot, you probably won’t suffer from heatstroke or anything like that.”
    “That’s true,” said Vi. “Harold is quite a wealthy man.”
    “I guess so, but it doesn’t matter. I told him I wouldn’t let him do it.”
    “You what?”
    Ma again, this time with a piece of lettuce spiked on her frozen fork.
    “I can’t let him spend all that money to take me to Egypt, Ma. It wouldn’t be fair to him. I mean, it was very nice of him to offer, but . . . well, I just can’t accept.”
    “Don’t know why,” said Pa after he’d swallowed a bite of whatever he’d forked up. “He’s got all the money in the world, you and he have always been great friends, and it would give you a chance to see the world. The good Lord knows you’ll never be able to see it any other way. We Gumms aren’t the traveling kind.”
    What he meant, of course, was that we Gumms—and me, as a Majesty—were hardworking peons who couldn’t afford to do any traveling.
    “I think your father’s right, Daisy,” said Vi after giving the matter some thought. “Harold is a good man, and he has your best interests at heart. Besides, I think he might well be right. His mother will probably agree, too. In fact, she’ll probably start telephoning here and bothering you about taking the trip with her son as soon as she hears about it. All you’re doing here is moping around and missing Billy. You need to expand your horizons.”
    There had been a time in the recent past when I’d have joked that my horizons had expanded plenty enough already, thank