Final Words

In many ways, the mission to explore the Tomb of Tjay was a standard ordeal. Robert Stanson had been an archaeologist for many decades by the time he was called in to analyze the colorful images that adorned the walls of the main chamber, and he was well familiar with the scents of dank musk and moss that lingered about the dim, torch-lit rooms where he worked. The find was incredible, of course - the remains of the ancient scribe had the potential to reveal boundless information about the lives of the ancient Egyptians and their God-like Pharaohs - but for Dr. Stanson, the tomb was merely par for the course. He never expected the site to remain in his thoughts until he met his deathbed.

He never thought he himself would be haunted by the legacy of Tjay.

“Haunted? How?” Lucy gripped her grandfather’s hand and leaned close to the frail man before her. Lying in a sterile white bed, hooked up to beeping machines and bags of UV fluid, Robert Stanson hardly resembled the dashing archaeologist he’d once been. Time and illness had robbed him of such allure. His stories remained as alive as ever, though, even as they were retold in his hoarse, cracking voice for what was to be the final time.

In response to his granddaughter's eager questioning, Dr. Stanson just raised a shaky hand, pointing to a leather satchel in the corner of the room. He didn’t have the strength for lengthy explanations anymore. Fortunately, his bag was never far from his side, not even now, and held within it the heart to his work’s legacy. With a furrowed brow, Lucy retrieved the worn satchel, obedient as always, and passed it to her grandfather. Slowly, he reached into a lone pocket on the front.

“I was just leaving the tomb late one night,” he recalled as he fished out a battered and bent photograph. “Outside the door, just by the front entrance, I found a stunning tablet.”

The colorful painted stone depicted the photo he passed on was no doubt striking, and Lucy found herself breathless as she gazed upon the ancient artwork. But Dr. Stanson was not finished yet, not by a long-shot, and time was running short. “As beautiful as the work might be, what truly astounded me was what was written on it’s back.” He dropped the photo and grabbed a second from his satchel at once. “These glyphs… It seems to be a code, does it not?”

Gently, Lucy took the second image and squinted at the writing. A series of crescents and half-circles patterned the stone pictured, ordered in some seemingly random order that she couldn’t make heads or tails of. The symbols could well have been a code as her grandfather suggested. What they might mean, though, was anyone’s guess. “Are they hieroglyphics, maybe? Something to do with… I don’t know, the sun and moon?”

Dr. Stanson chuckled, and almost instantly the laughs brought on a painful coughing fit. Lucy winced as she watched her grandfather suffer. He hated pity, and he would never accept her sympathy now. Still, she wished she could ease his pain.

Once the coughs subsided, Dr. Stanson gestured to the image once again. “Please, Lucy,” he wheezed, his voice weaker than ever before. “I’ve studied these symbols for more than a decade. It’s no known language, no code that I could decipher… This could be the find of the century. Don’t let my effort be for nothing.”

Tears were beginning to prick at the corners of Lucy’s eyes, but solemnly, she nodded. “I’ll decode it, grandpa. I promise.”

“Atta girl, Lucy. You make me proud.”

…

Not long after showing his granddaughter the photos from his satchel, Robert Stanson fell into a deep sleep from which he wouldn’t be awakened. A few hopeless days went by. Then, after another week, at the urging of the doctors and nurses that passed in and out of his room, checking his vitals and replacing the UV bags, his family eventually allowed him to be removed from the numerous machines. Soon after that, Robert Stanson was pronounced dead.

The death was hard, even if it had been one several months in the making. Even after hearing each at least a dozen times in his final days, Lucy missed listening to her grandfather’s stories of exotic locations and lost relics. Dr. Stanson likened himself to some sort of Indiana Jones in his tales, and while his most dramatic adventures may well have been exaggerations, Lucy liked to believe that he was the hero he painted. The hero that she already knew him to be.

There was no time for mourning, though. It was time she took on a mission of her own. Lucy had made a promise to her grandfather, and she was determined to see it through to the end, wherever it might hide. Her initial search of hieroglyphics online revealed just what Dr. Stanson had said - the symbols were not traditional Egyptian etchings, nor did they have any obvious point of origin. It was as though the message had never existed to begin with.

It was a frustrating ordeal to be sure, meeting dead end after dead end as she Googled ciphers, cryptograms, and codes of all sorts. She could understand her grandfather’s fixation with the symbols, though - with ever false lead and red herring, her curiosity only continued to grow.

But she’d gone as far as she could on her own. Lucy was forced to call for help.

A professor of cryptography at her university, a man by the name of Alan Tate, was renowned around the world for his work on mysteries of all shapes and sizes. She didn’t know him personally, but she had it on good authority that he couldn’t resist a good puzzle, and that he wouldn’t walk away from one until he reached its conclusion. Surely, if anyone could solve the code, it was him. 

Late on a Friday afternoon, once classes had let out for the day, Lucy gathered her nerves and entered Dr. Tate’s office, a nervous grin plastered on her face. Tentatively, she handed him the photograph. Dr. Tate adjusted the fragile pair of bifocals that sat on the end of his nose, studying the image with equal parts curiosity and fascination, unsurprised by Lucy’s unannounced visit. A grin tugged at the corners of his lips. “Goodness… What have we here?”

“My grandfather discovered this code outside the Tomb of Tjay. He was never able to decode it. I promised him I would do what he couldn’t.”

“The Tomb of Tjay… Egyptian, then? Curious.” Dr. Tate swiveled in his chair to a textbook opened on his desk. He flipped through the pages with precision, pursing his lips as he scanned through the hefty book. “It’s no standard code, I’ll tell you that much.”

A few minutes passed as Dr. Tate skimmed through his texts. Lucy glanced around the office as he worked, taking in the towering stacks of papers and mess of lengthy books that covered every surface of the cramped room. How Dr. Tate found anything among the mess, she couldn’t understand. The man was a legend, though, she reminded herself tersely, so perhaps she shouldn’t judge his system of organization quite so critically.

Dr. Tate sighed and looked up from the image, removing his bifocals. “In all honesty, dear, I am stumped. Your code is unlike any I’ve ever encountered. But you do have my interest…” He scratched his chin. “Might I borrow this photo for a few days? I’d love to study it more thoroughly, and my best resources are in my office back home.”

“That would be fine, I suppose,” Lucy shrugged. “You will call me if you figure anything out, won’t you?”

“Naturally. Thank you for this, Lucy. I do love a good mystery.”

…

Lucy didn’t hear from Dr. Tate for several weeks after meeting in his office. Life had returned to its usual tedious pace, free of mysterious codes and deathbed wishes, and as refreshing as it felt to breathe easy for a minute and focus on classwork, she couldn’t help but obsess about his progress. She wouldn’t relax until she knew she’d completed her grandfather’s request.

But she couldn’t resume her investigation until Dr. Tate returned the photo, and she was starting to fear that he’d either forgotten her entirely or made away with the image for good. In fact, she was just preparing herself to confront the man about his sudden disappearance when, out of the blue, her phone lit up with his number near 10:00 pm on a Sunday. She frowned as she answered the call. “Dr. Tate?”

“I’ve solved it, Lucy. But… I need to show you. Can you meet me in 10 minutes?”

That was all Lucy needed to hear. She threw on a crinkled set of clean-enough clothes from her bedroom floor and hurried to their meeting point, a booth in the back corner of the nearby Taco Bell where student’s flocked during final’s season. As quick as she was, Dr. Tate was already waiting when she entered the building. Judging from his pale face, messy hair, and the dark circles beneath his eyes, the man had been awaiting her arrival for quite some time.

She had hardly taken a seat across from Dr. Tate before he dropped the photo on the table alongside a haphazard collection of notes, their scribbles indecipherable to Lucy. “I’ve worked it all out, Lucy. I solved it…”

“Thank goodness…” Lucy’s fingers danced along the photo, and a warm, familiar comfort filled her chest. She’d missed the image more than she had expected. “After all this time-”

“It’s not-” Dr. Tate bit his tongue, shook his head, and started again. “You need to understand, Lucy, it’s not what we thought.”

“What do you mean?”

Sighing, Dr. Tate tapped a finger on his notes. “Your grandfather… I’m sure he was an excellent archaeologist, Lucy, but what he discovered - this isn’t Egyptian. It’s not even a code.”

Lucy’s heart dropped. “I don’t understand-”

“Have you heard of sublimation printing?” Lucy shook her head, and Dr. Tate ran a hand through his thinning brown-gray hair. “Essentially, heat can be used to transfer ink to a surface, like stone. Have you ever had dry ink stain your hand?”

“Of course, but what does-”

“I believe a modern artifact, left outside beneath a hot Egypt sun, stained the back of the ancient one. That is what we see here.”

The more Dr. Tate explained his theory, the more Lucy’s blood began to boil. “That’s absurd. My grandfather wouldn’t mistake some stain for code. He was a renowned archeologist-”

“It fooled us all, didn’t it? But compare…” Dr. Tate sorted through his pile of notes until he found the page he’d been looking for - an old stamp card with the words “Taco Bell” written across the front. On the back of the business card, a line of half-circle and crescent shaped tacos danced atop a grid for stamps. “The stamp cards were an old promotion, one run about the time when the tomb was first studied. I suspect someone accidentally left their card on the stone, and the sun took care of the rest. They likely never thought anyone would take notice”

Lucy’s mouth dropped. “You mean to say… This code that haunted my grandfather was…?”

“Tacos, yes. I’m afraid so.”

She fell back in her seat. It was as if the air had been knocked out of her, zapping her body of all strength and energy as she processed the news Dr. Tate presented. Patiently, Dr. Tate watched on, sympathetic, pained, and just the slightest bit hungry as he helped Lucy come to terms with the truth of her grandfather’s legacy.

Perhaps, with a serving of ground beef and cheese, the girl would be able to smile.