Original Fic
This is my third entry for brigits_flame. The prompt was "Happiness is...". This is my take on it.
-
Claudia ripped open the letter, grasping the small white card inside. Rushing back over to her desk, she switched the desk light on and carefully read what was written.
”Happiness is the key."
Turning the card around in her hands, she searched for the rest of the message, but there was none. Those were the only four words her old friend had sent her to help with her research.
Professor Hillson was obviously becoming senile, Claudia thought, sitting back down in her office chair. How could that short message possibly help her - it just didn’t make any sense.
Tossing the card away, she looked down again at the scrolls of parchment carefully spread across her desk covered with sheets of white paper torn out from her notebook and scribbled all over. It had been three weeks already - three weeks since she had been given these scrolls by her friend, Thomas Brockmann, notable archaeologist for the prestigious Institute of Oriental Studies in Vienna. He had led an archaeological dig in the Sinai desert hoping to discover evidence of an ancient small settlement by the shore and instead had discovered several scrolls within a nearby rock-cut tomb, hidden within the mountain range and dating back to the Old Kingdom.
No one had expected any texts or scrolls to have survived from that period, after all the Old Kingdom was dated back to nearly 4,000 years ago. Yet there they were, sitting on Claudia’s desk after spending several weeks in a conservation lab.
“If only I could figure out what they mean,” Claudia said to herself out loud, looking through her notes again, slowly this time, as if something important might jump out at her.
The scrolls were covered from top to bottom in ancient hieroglyphs, yet nothing like anyone had ever seen before. Well-known Egyptologists had tried to decipher the hieroglyphs straight away, all impatient to discover the secrets it kept, but none had been able to make sense of it. The text seemed to be encoded - something that had never been seen before and that was why the scrolls had been sent to Claudia, cryptographer, at the University of Luxembourg and amateur archaeologist.
Sighing in frustration, Claudia stood up again, heading towards the small coffee machine outside of her office and poured herself another cup. She glanced down at her watch and cursed as she realised how late it was already. Her date with Adrien would have to wait.
Of all the ancient Egyptian epigraphers in the world, Professor Hillson was the only one who could help. He was the only one with any knowledge of cryptography and had spent his life searching for the legendary encoded ancient Egyptian texts, mentioned in several contemporary papyri. The encoded texts were supposed to hide the best kept secrets of the Egyptian state, but Hillson had never found even the slightest proof of their existence. The professor was much too old now to be part of the official investigation of the eight scrolls found in the Sinai, but Claudia had still sent him photocopies of the text, proof that he had been right all along, and also secretly hoped that he might help her decode them.
The phone suddenly rang and Claudia jumped in her seat, suddenly brought back to reality. She hesitated slightly before picking up the receiver.
“Hello?” a deep voice greeted her. “Claudia, is that you?”
Claudia smiled as she recognised the voice. “Hello, Thomas.”
“I wasn’t sure if you’d still be at your office at this hour,” he admitted, sounding pleased to have found her. “So, any word yet from the old man?”
“He has a name, Thomas,” Claudia said, with a hint of exasperation in her voice. “I received a note from him earlier this evening. ‘Happiness is the key’, does that mean anything to you?”
“No. Is that all it said?”
“Yes, there was nothing else. ‘Happiness is the key.’ That was it.”
“Sounds like something my shrink would say,” Thomas mused.
“No need for a therapist to know what’s wrong with your marriage,” Claudia told him with brutal honesty. “I mean what are you doing calling me at this hour? You’re supposed to be spending less time working and more time with your wife.”
“Working’s more fun,” Thomas mumbled down the phone and Claudia couldn’t help but smile at his words.
“By the way,” he suddenly added, his tone turning more serious. “Have you ever heard of something called the LeBeau foundation?”
Claudia froze at his words. “They’ve called you too.”
“Yeah.”
“I’ve never heard of them before, have you?”
“No. And I don’t like it,” Thomas said in a low voice. “Did they ask about the scrolls?”
“Yes,” Claudia admitted, picking up the small white card again in her hand and twirling it in her fingers. “They asked if they could see them and were pretty adamant about it, but I told them they couldn’t and didn’t tell them anything else. There’s nothing to say anyway, I simply can’t seem to decipher the texts and I was hoping Hillson would help but the card he sent me is just silly. How on earth could happiness be the -”
However, she stopped. The small card froze in her hand and she suddenly peered at the words again very closely.
“Happinness is the key.”
Claudia hadn’t seen it before but it was quite clear now; the word happiness had been misspelt - ‘happinness’. She hadn’t realised it before because of Hillson’s scrawny hand-writing, but now she was quite sure of it - the word had deliberately been misspelt. It simply couldn’t have been a mistake, after all Hillson was British and had been a professor at Cambridge University. Even in his old age, he would never make any spelling mistakes.
No, this specific word obviously meant something.
“Claudia?” Thomas called out from the other line. “Claudia? Are you still there?”
“Thomas, I’ll call you back,” she told him, her mind already reeling through the innumerable meanings to the word ‘happinness’. She hung up the phone before he could protest and quickly grabbed the notebook and pen again as she let her mind work out the rest.
Happinness: consonant - vowel - double consonant - vowel - double consonant - vowel - double consonant.
It was a code. Perhaps another code to break the first one, but she couldn’t be sure yet. Pulling the scrolls towards her whilst discarding all the other sheets of paper - her previous attempts at cracking the code - she began to work on the new code, trying to make sense of it among all the different hieroglyphs.
--
It was only when the sun had started creeping through the small windows of her office, several hours later, that Claudia stopped and put her pen down. Hillson’s word had not only helped her crack the ancient Egyptian code, but it was also a reference the ancient Egyptian god Hapy, personification of the Nile flood, bringer of all things good, and whose hieroglyphic name was numerously featured within the scrolls. Claudia had successfully managed to decipher the eight scrolls laid out in front of her and in time, with the help of the hierogylphs forming the deity’s name, Hapy, she had copied down the right hieroglyphs hidden within the multitude of others.
Switching off the desk light and leaning back against her chair, she picked up her notepad and began translating the text she had neatly copied down. Hieroglyphics were not her forté, but she was too excited to stop now and with the help of an old grammar book, she kept on going.
The text seemed to be a list. There were dates followed by events and as Claudia read through them, one by one, she suddenly realised that these were not just events - they were key historical facts. And not just from the Old Kingdom - the scrolls spoke of historical facts that stretched out to the Fall of the Roman Empire!
And that was only the first page.
Hastily flipping the notebook page over, Claudia glanced through the rest of the text, her strained eyes picking a random line within the next few pages. She translated it quickly and her face blanched.
It spoke of war - of a World War - the First one, to be exact.
Dropping the notebook on her desk as if it had burned her hand, Claudia caught her breath and turned to her office phone, quickly dialling Thomas Brockmann’s number.
“Thomas!” she cried out, realising the insanity of the situation. “Oh God, Thomas, you’re never going to believe this!”
-
-
Claudia ripped open the letter, grasping the small white card inside. Rushing back over to her desk, she switched the desk light on and carefully read what was written.
”Happiness is the key."
Turning the card around in her hands, she searched for the rest of the message, but there was none. Those were the only four words her old friend had sent her to help with her research.
Professor Hillson was obviously becoming senile, Claudia thought, sitting back down in her office chair. How could that short message possibly help her - it just didn’t make any sense.
Tossing the card away, she looked down again at the scrolls of parchment carefully spread across her desk covered with sheets of white paper torn out from her notebook and scribbled all over. It had been three weeks already - three weeks since she had been given these scrolls by her friend, Thomas Brockmann, notable archaeologist for the prestigious Institute of Oriental Studies in Vienna. He had led an archaeological dig in the Sinai desert hoping to discover evidence of an ancient small settlement by the shore and instead had discovered several scrolls within a nearby rock-cut tomb, hidden within the mountain range and dating back to the Old Kingdom.
No one had expected any texts or scrolls to have survived from that period, after all the Old Kingdom was dated back to nearly 4,000 years ago. Yet there they were, sitting on Claudia’s desk after spending several weeks in a conservation lab.
“If only I could figure out what they mean,” Claudia said to herself out loud, looking through her notes again, slowly this time, as if something important might jump out at her.
The scrolls were covered from top to bottom in ancient hieroglyphs, yet nothing like anyone had ever seen before. Well-known Egyptologists had tried to decipher the hieroglyphs straight away, all impatient to discover the secrets it kept, but none had been able to make sense of it. The text seemed to be encoded - something that had never been seen before and that was why the scrolls had been sent to Claudia, cryptographer, at the University of Luxembourg and amateur archaeologist.
Sighing in frustration, Claudia stood up again, heading towards the small coffee machine outside of her office and poured herself another cup. She glanced down at her watch and cursed as she realised how late it was already. Her date with Adrien would have to wait.
Of all the ancient Egyptian epigraphers in the world, Professor Hillson was the only one who could help. He was the only one with any knowledge of cryptography and had spent his life searching for the legendary encoded ancient Egyptian texts, mentioned in several contemporary papyri. The encoded texts were supposed to hide the best kept secrets of the Egyptian state, but Hillson had never found even the slightest proof of their existence. The professor was much too old now to be part of the official investigation of the eight scrolls found in the Sinai, but Claudia had still sent him photocopies of the text, proof that he had been right all along, and also secretly hoped that he might help her decode them.
The phone suddenly rang and Claudia jumped in her seat, suddenly brought back to reality. She hesitated slightly before picking up the receiver.
“Hello?” a deep voice greeted her. “Claudia, is that you?”
Claudia smiled as she recognised the voice. “Hello, Thomas.”
“I wasn’t sure if you’d still be at your office at this hour,” he admitted, sounding pleased to have found her. “So, any word yet from the old man?”
“He has a name, Thomas,” Claudia said, with a hint of exasperation in her voice. “I received a note from him earlier this evening. ‘Happiness is the key’, does that mean anything to you?”
“No. Is that all it said?”
“Yes, there was nothing else. ‘Happiness is the key.’ That was it.”
“Sounds like something my shrink would say,” Thomas mused.
“No need for a therapist to know what’s wrong with your marriage,” Claudia told him with brutal honesty. “I mean what are you doing calling me at this hour? You’re supposed to be spending less time working and more time with your wife.”
“Working’s more fun,” Thomas mumbled down the phone and Claudia couldn’t help but smile at his words.
“By the way,” he suddenly added, his tone turning more serious. “Have you ever heard of something called the LeBeau foundation?”
Claudia froze at his words. “They’ve called you too.”
“Yeah.”
“I’ve never heard of them before, have you?”
“No. And I don’t like it,” Thomas said in a low voice. “Did they ask about the scrolls?”
“Yes,” Claudia admitted, picking up the small white card again in her hand and twirling it in her fingers. “They asked if they could see them and were pretty adamant about it, but I told them they couldn’t and didn’t tell them anything else. There’s nothing to say anyway, I simply can’t seem to decipher the texts and I was hoping Hillson would help but the card he sent me is just silly. How on earth could happiness be the -”
However, she stopped. The small card froze in her hand and she suddenly peered at the words again very closely.
“Happinness is the key.”
Claudia hadn’t seen it before but it was quite clear now; the word happiness had been misspelt - ‘happinness’. She hadn’t realised it before because of Hillson’s scrawny hand-writing, but now she was quite sure of it - the word had deliberately been misspelt. It simply couldn’t have been a mistake, after all Hillson was British and had been a professor at Cambridge University. Even in his old age, he would never make any spelling mistakes.
No, this specific word obviously meant something.
“Claudia?” Thomas called out from the other line. “Claudia? Are you still there?”
“Thomas, I’ll call you back,” she told him, her mind already reeling through the innumerable meanings to the word ‘happinness’. She hung up the phone before he could protest and quickly grabbed the notebook and pen again as she let her mind work out the rest.
Happinness: consonant - vowel - double consonant - vowel - double consonant - vowel - double consonant.
It was a code. Perhaps another code to break the first one, but she couldn’t be sure yet. Pulling the scrolls towards her whilst discarding all the other sheets of paper - her previous attempts at cracking the code - she began to work on the new code, trying to make sense of it among all the different hieroglyphs.
--
It was only when the sun had started creeping through the small windows of her office, several hours later, that Claudia stopped and put her pen down. Hillson’s word had not only helped her crack the ancient Egyptian code, but it was also a reference the ancient Egyptian god Hapy, personification of the Nile flood, bringer of all things good, and whose hieroglyphic name was numerously featured within the scrolls. Claudia had successfully managed to decipher the eight scrolls laid out in front of her and in time, with the help of the hierogylphs forming the deity’s name, Hapy, she had copied down the right hieroglyphs hidden within the multitude of others.
Switching off the desk light and leaning back against her chair, she picked up her notepad and began translating the text she had neatly copied down. Hieroglyphics were not her forté, but she was too excited to stop now and with the help of an old grammar book, she kept on going.
The text seemed to be a list. There were dates followed by events and as Claudia read through them, one by one, she suddenly realised that these were not just events - they were key historical facts. And not just from the Old Kingdom - the scrolls spoke of historical facts that stretched out to the Fall of the Roman Empire!
And that was only the first page.
Hastily flipping the notebook page over, Claudia glanced through the rest of the text, her strained eyes picking a random line within the next few pages. She translated it quickly and her face blanched.
It spoke of war - of a World War - the First one, to be exact.
Dropping the notebook on her desk as if it had burned her hand, Claudia caught her breath and turned to her office phone, quickly dialling Thomas Brockmann’s number.
“Thomas!” she cried out, realising the insanity of the situation. “Oh God, Thomas, you’re never going to believe this!”
-