Passage to Queen Mesentia Read Free Page A

It’s over. This, us… over.”
    Wade’s long silence told her that her words had cut him. Even though she hadn’t meant to blurt it out, it needed to be said, so she couldn’t take it back.  She closed her eyes, trying to keep from bursting into tears again and waited for him to get out of the car.
    It took him a moment to open the door, and before he got out he said, “I love you, Lilly, and that will never change.”
    “Uhhh.” Lilly fought the urge to lie right down on the seat and cry all night. Why did he have to make it about him? Why couldn’t he give her a little room? Following her around, barking out orders…
    She pulled out of the parking lot onto the road and drove with one hand and wiped tears with the other. Her conversation with the man became all tangled up with the conversation with Wade. Wade the caveman; “Must protect my woman.” She wasn’t his woman any longer. Really no longer. It hadn’t happened the way she had wanted it to happen, but it was over. She had just told him, and she was glad. Right? And how dare he pretend to be interested in who murdered her parents? He never liked them. Every time he got around them, he got all snappy, like that night… Lilly suddenly stopped her mental raving, becoming aware of her surroundings. She turned into her parent’s neighborhood. In her despair, she must have subconsciously chosen to drive there.
    Lilly hadn’t been able to bring herself to go inside since their deaths, but she did drive past their house every day after work on her way home. Was she really considering going inside to search for the statuette for that man? Was she really up to going through her parent’s things, tonight? Maybe this was what she needed; a little push to get her over the hump, over the threshold, and into the house. She was afraid that if she went home and slept on it, she would never do it.
    She drove up the drive-way, turned off the motor, and stepped out of the car, staring at the dark house she hadn’t called home in many years. Memories began to overshadow the fear as she remembered her childhood and how difficult it had been being so introverted but having parents who were so adventurous. They had pushed her, like they thought her courageous genes would come out of hiding. Yet, the more they pressed, the more Lilly withdrew inside herself. That is, until she met Wade. She was pretty sure the decision not to marry Grant had been the first decision she had ever made by herself.
    With shaky hands, she opened the front door to the strong scent of bleach and ammonia. She stood there, actually proud of herself for getting that far, and tried to block the horrible heavy feelings. “Stop it,” she told herself and gritted her teeth as she walked inside. 
    Lilly went through the downstairs and snapped on all the lights. She’d had it cleaned, but the memory of the mess seemed to pop in front of her eyes. She quickly searched the front area of the house. Even though she had failed to ask for a description, she knew a pyramidion was the top part of a pyramid, and he had called it a statuette, so it was going to be small. So she would look for a small pyramid.
    She only glanced in the kitchen, the place where they had found Constance, her parents’ personal cook and family friend, dead on the floor, a burnt bird in the oven and her famous mashed potatoes on the stove. Unfortunately, Lilly knew where she really needed to go. If her parents had brought something back from Egypt, most likely it would still be with their things. And their things would be upstairs in the dark, in their room… where they had been.
    Lilly made it up the stairs and into the master bedroom, but once the tears started flowing, they wouldn’t stop. She avoided the mattress-less bed, where her parents had been. She couldn’t actually recall them lying there, and didn’t try to remember—which she knew was best—but stayed at the surface of her mind. She only remembered what the