You should have known better than to dress so immodestly, Mumma said. None of this would have happened if you’d just stayed home, where you belong.

It doesn’t matter, Mildred told me. You’ll probably never see those people again. Just wear that nice silk cardigan when you go out. Or the navy linen jacket—that goes with everything.

Exhaustion eventually claimed me, but during that first night, my sleep was disturbed, perhaps by some unfamiliar sound outside. I rolled over in bed and saw—silhouetted by moonlight—a man standing calmly in my room.

Frightened out of my wits, I screamed and sat up, clutching at the covers, and struggled to turn on the bedside light.

By the time I found the switch, the intruder had disappeared into the darkness. With my heart beating violently, I expected help to arrive at any moment. But the minutes passed. No one came, and this upset me more than the initial fright. I had screamed for help! And no one came!

“Why doesn’t anyone ever come?” I wailed aloud.

Rosie awoke at the sound of my voice, and only then did I realize that she’d been fast asleep. How on earth could she have slept through the shriek that still echoed in my own ears?

Still terrified, I lay back, torn between the utterly convincing nature of my experience and indisputable facts: neither hotel staff nor other guests had arrived to investigate my loud distress, and Rosie had missed the entire drama, if drama it had been.

My pulse slowed. Reason reclaimed me. I eased out of bed, pulled on my robe, went outside to the balcony. Serene starlight revealed nothing of note in the blue-shadowed world beyond. I quietly closed the French doors against a chill that had crept across the desert and traveled along the Nile. Rosie watched me curiously from beneath a fold of sheeting.

This is an ancient place, I thought, getting back into bed. There are souls here who cannot find their way.