Ancient History by Sophie Penhaligon

Author:Sophie Penhaligon
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: international, suspense, adventure, travel, archeology, paris, egypt, oxford
Publisher: Sophie Penhaligon
Published: 2021-07-01T00:00:00+00:00

14

It was Saturday morning, and Athena was grateful at the opportunity to stay in bed. She felt like her feet hadn’t touched the ground since she’d returned from Paris, and she was looking forward to a day of not doing very much before heading out with Juan and Mallory that night. She lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, trying to piece together the events of the previous evening.

It vexed her that Jack hadn’t made a move on her. They had seemed incredibly close, but then nothing. She reflected that Jack was so different than Patrice. He struck her as an honourable man with high ideals. Maybe a bit too honourable, she thought.

She smiled ruefully to herself. Before Paris, she’d gone out of her way to avoid sexual confrontations with men. Now she had turned into a nymphomaniac. Whatever Patrice had switched on in her, she definitely wasn’t able to find the off switch, particularly where Jack was concerned.

After breakfast, she went to her spare bedroom, which was really just a dumping ground for stuff that had no home. Spying the box she wanted, she picked her way through the chaos and hauled it out, trying not to fall over anything.

Placing the box on the floor, she removed her father’s journals that she had packed away all those months ago. She was amazed that for someone so disorganized, her father had been fastidious about his journal keeping. He liked to write everything in the same type of book, with a hard cardboard binding and a marbled interior. They were quite expensive, and he bought them from a specialist shop in Oxford. He always bought several at once, so he would never be without one.

The journals had been carefully dated and they spanned a period of almost thirty years. She touched them reverently, realizing that these books represented his life’s work, and now they were entrusted to her. It was quite a responsibility, and she wanted to ensure that whatever she wrote did justice to the kind of man he was and his vision for archeology.

She realized he would never again be able to share the stories behind these artifacts, and that saddened her immensely. She only hoped that he had left enough details in her journals to document their journey. Of course, in more recent years she had been present for many of the finds, so they would be easier for her to write about.

Hamish had been quite the artist, and he had illustrated his journals with drawings of the artifacts he had found, as well as some personal drawings. Picking up a journal that would have been written when she was about three years old, she was stunned to find a pencil drawing of a small child wearing a large sunhat, digging in the sand. Under the picture her father had written, “my wee bairn,” and she realized it must have been a drawing he had made of her when they were on one of their summer digs.

Her childhood had been so unique, and up to this point she hadn’t appreciated what a gift it had been.

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