Mark finished his portrait, and Adaline was checking it. "Pretty, but why does she look shocked?" he shrugged his shoulders and told her that the girl's face suddenly popped into his head suddenly.
Adaline handed the sketch to Liam to see, his face turned yellow, and said, "Bloody hell!" — Mark looked surprised at Liam's reaction — "it's Camellia!" Liam pointed at the sketch. "It's identical to my friend Camellia! you never meet her before... how could you draw her that well?"
"Maybe you showed me a picture of her." Mark rested on his back and took a sip of his wine.
"I never did."
"What is her name again?" Mark said, narrowing his eyes and resting his elbows on the table. Liam answered him. "It sounds familiar" —Mark looked at the sketch — "I don't know why I drew this girl... her face is stuck in my head for some reason."
"What do you mean?"
"Only her face with that scared reaction and the necklace she's wearing; her image feels like a memory... like a Déjà vu."
Camellia's voice was clear in Liam's ears — Is your father, okay? — Liam had an unreasonable feeling that something was not right.
"You've always had this kind of inspiration," Adaline remarked.
"You drew Camellia before!"
"I don't know if this girl is your friend or not," Mark replied with a shrug, "but yeah—I tend to draw faces that get stuck in my head. I don't know, honey, maybe it's just my creative soul... or maybe it's a past life haunting me." He laughed softly, sipping from his glass of water.
Liam sat quietly, still confused, eyes shifting between them.
Mark nudged him gently. "Check the earlier pages," he said, gesturing to his thick leather-bound.
Liam flipped through it slowly. The drawings followed a rhythm—a series of ancient, gold-tinged sketches. A girl with dark, halo-like shadows behind her. Flowing black hair. A silk dress that shimmered even in graphite. Page after page devoted to her bright smile and haunting eyes.
No way... Liam froze, heart racing as he finally recognized the mysterious girl.
...
Aswan, Egypt, December 19, 2009, 12:10 am.
As they walked down the hallway to their room at Sofitel cataract hotel, Nadine's thoughts swirled in her mind. A foreign feeling ran through her body. She didn't feel like herself. She was turning into something familiar and nostalgic.
Camellia was looking down and breathing in a fast rhythm. That day, tiredness came in both forms, physical and mental. Nadine slumped over the bed the moment they entered their room and went right into sleep. Camellia rested on the other bed; she couldn't calm the loud voices inside her head, and all the energy to think drained out of her.
She looked at Nadine's sleeping body and then glimpsed the balcony door. She went out, the view was breathtaking; the moonlight splashed down white silver glow across the Nile. She stepped inside it taking a deep long breath. The weather was warm and comfortable, with gentle breezes filled with night-blooming jasmine.
A few minutes later she went inside to see Nadine sleeping on her back, one leg on the bed the other one on the floor, her arms were wide open, some of her hair was covering her face, her mouth was slightly open, and she was snoring. Her over-sized black sweatshirt was only covering half of her body. Camellia sighed and walked toward the bathroom.
The next day.
Nadine was talking on the phone with Lena while walking back and forth. She told her to cancel all her meetings even after she told her how her father was furious that she had suddenly left Alexandria.
A loud knock on the room door startled Nadine a little. At first, she called for Camellia to open, not even realizing she was alone.
She called her name again and checked the bathroom and the balcony. "Where is she?" she ended the call with Lena, and the door knocked again. "Yes! Coming." She opened the door fast and looked at the person standing before her. He smiled weirdly at her.
"Good morning, miss Camellia told us to inform you she is waiting for you at this address," he said and gave her a piece of paper with the address of the famous guest house in Aswan.
Nadine looked at the paper. "Did she tell you anything—" she raised her eyes; the man was gone. "—else... what?" she looked around; the long hall was empty.
She put the paper in her pocket and closed the door, then called Camellia's phone while putting on her sneakers. Camellia didn't pick up. It was odd, yet Nadine went to the address either way.
The address was close to the hotel. Nadine walked to get there. She asked someone walking beside her if she was going in the right direction; he told her that the guest house was at the end of the road they were in. She thanked him and kept walking.
She stopped across one of the finest buildings in the entire city, the famous guest house El-Karam. It was enormous and colorful, an accurate representation of the richness of the Nubian culture. A traditional café beside the house; was built with the same design. Nadine went to the café first and called for the waiter. Everyone eyed her, suddenly freaking her out a bit.
"I'm... looking for Camellia," she said to the waiter, who eyed her as well.
He told her to have a seat and went outside for a moment before coming back to her and told her she must go to the guest house, she tried to ask him why, but he only said, "You should go now, miss."
Nadine felt uneasy yet her body moved on its own and walked to the guest house's main door. The house seemed quiet and lifeless encounter with its colorful walls and joyful graffiti.
She got hesitant to go inside, but did, anyway. She opened the house's main door; painted bright pink with a blue-colored door handle. Despite that, the weather was hot; inside the house was filled with cold refreshing breezes and a freshly made coffee smell.
"Hello..." no one replied. Footsteps sounded, she followed it, and the more steps she took the more the coffee smell became stronger. The smell led her to the main balcony. She stepped inside and stood alone on the balcony, confused. She tried to call Camellia's phone again, but she didn't answer.
She went inside to look for anyone in every room. "Where is she?" Nadine said to herself. She shouted Camellia's name a lot with no answer. She kept walking in the house and found a big brown door at the end of the second-floor hall.
The door looked completely different from any other door in the house. It looked like it was from another era, a vintage mahogany brown door with many engraved hieroglyphic writings.
Nadine put her hand on it; she felt a little spark. She moved her hand away swiftly, then looked at her palm, frowning to find it glowing slightly with minor blue strings. She shook her hand, then grabbed the handle to open the mystery door.
It slowly opened to reveal a gigantic library filled with thousands of books. Row after row neatly lined up with their spines facing outward. The door opened to a metal railing and stairs; she went down and took a deep look at the enormous room.
A fresh coffee smell filled the room. It had one door under the stairs with a burgundy couch across from it. The center wall was a glass one that showed the view of the Nile. Across the wall were two burgundy Barcelona chairs.
She looked at the door beneath the stairs; a powerful light came from beneath it. She took a couple of steps toward it. She tried to open the door; it made a strong creak sound and cracked. She tried to open it fully but stopped when she heard the soothing sound of a woman murmuring a familiar melody to her.
She looked through the open part; the strong bright light hit her eyes and made her cringe hard. She couldn't see anything. She attempted to open the door to find out exactly what was behind it, but a sudden shouting stopped her; it was the waiter shouting in fear.
She left the door, and it closed right after she went running to see what was going on. She went outside the house to find four police vehicles and two police officers talking to the waiter. "That's her!" the waiter pointed at Nadine in fear.
"Get her," one officer told the soldier to get Nadine into the vehicle. Nadine tried to talk to the officer to understand what was going on, but he refused. The soldier dragged her without letting her look back or even talk.