Ghostwriting Commercial Fiction Sample

 

The following text is from Chapter One of a commercial novel about astrological symbolism.

Chapter One

The stars were brilliant. Above the crumbling, ancient Temple of Seti I, they burned like white spotlights above a great, dusty stage on which a drama of immense significance was about to unfold. But although they winked and shimmered and cast misty, silver halos around themselves in the blue-black sky, they did little to light up the dark, dusty ground below where Reion and San followed a pale-yellow circle of torch light along the sandy path.

‘I just can’t believe it, can you?’ said Reion, gazing at the flat slab of stone on the horizon. ‘It’s just the most amazing thing. Look at it. Amazing. Look at those pillars.’ He was taking in every distant mottled corner and pillar of the temple as they approached and smiling away, his slightly crooked white teeth flashing at the ground, the sky – everything – as if each rock or star in this dusty corner of Egypt were his best friend. ‘Can you… shall we walk a bit quicker? Would you mind? I don’t want to tire you out, but… just look at it.’

San did her best to catch up, her feet falling heavily in their worn-out flip flops, scattering grit and dust with every step. She was eight months pregnant and feeling the heat, her long brown hair doubled over and tied up with the elastic part of an old sock. The loose few strands that fell around her face stuck to her cheeks and forehead.

As the temple grew bigger, Reion thought how curiously square the great yellow-stone pillars looked from a distance, all nine of them lined up like faceless guards to form the front of the temple. Between the middle two pillars there was a dark gaping hole of an entrance, so much darker than the sky above; it almost seemed to be sucking in darkness, washing the night and leaving it a less-than-black midnight blue. Although the temple was tall – three times the height of a man – its width, coupled with the absence of any other buildings in the vicinity, gave it a flat appearance, like a huge stone domino laid on the horizon.

Reion turned to San, his dishevelled, badly cut flop of hair looking frizzy and anarchic in the moist evening air. He was a tall man, with a wiry body that didn’t quite match his young-looking face, and thin arms that jumped and jerked around when he explained something he found exciting, which was often, and they moved wildly now as he spoke.

‘Look. Just look at it. Unbelievable. I feel like we’re in a dream. Honestly. Like we’re dreaming. Here we are.’ He took a theatrical intake of breath. ‘This is where we’ll see them. Right here.’

‘We should be in bed.’ San gave an unapologetic yawn, letting her shoulders sag as she trudged forwards. ‘That’s why you think we’re dreaming.’ Her bare arms dangled by her sides as she walked, the momentum of her half-amble/half-stagger rocking then forward and back like metronomes.

It was a cool night. The warmth of the day had given way to a late-evening chill and feverish dampness, and with nothing but the ancient temple on the horizon to absorb the heat of the daytime sun, cool air hung like ghostly breath all around. It was quiet, eerily so, as if the desert itself was waiting for something. The only sounds were the gentle taps and swishes of Reion and San’s footsteps as they crunched along the flat sandy path,

‘Oh, that’s so much better,’ said San, sounding genuinely relieved as the dusty path gave way to a hard wide layer of stone beneath their feet. ‘It makes such a difference walking on a flat surface.’ She gave an almighty yawn. ‘If someone told me eight months ago I’d be saying all this old lady stuff. Do you remember when we got on the coach? Thank heavens for these big seats… and, do you remember? What I’d give for a proper cup of tea… I sound like a mum already. This path is nice, though.’

But the stone road soon transformed again, this time into shallow, wide steps, chipped and weathered by the ravages of time and tourists. San began to breathe heavily, taking big lungfuls of palm-leaf perfume and quarry dust. More flat path, more steps. Reion linked his strong arm through San’s skinny one, and she leant into him as they ascended the last few steps and reached the foot of the temple.

‘Amazing, isn’t it?’ Reion let the torch flow over the pillars and the gloomy doorway, the acid-yellow circle of light looking small and lost against the vast, grey-yellow building coloured by moonlight and stars. ‘Just look at the size of it. How many days, no years, it must have taken years to build. What did they have? Ropes and wheels? It just absolutely blows my mind, this sort of thing. And so many years ago… it’s just…’ He couldn’t finish the sentence. There were no words to describe just how astonishing he found all this.

‘I ‘spose it is pretty amazing,’ said San, resting her hands on the soft-cotton t-shirt covering her baby bump and looking along the ever-so-straight flat roof, and then down to those big pillars that up close were actually curved-hourglass shapes, rather than blunt rectangles, like nine giant carved legs propping up a flat stone table. ‘Weird, isn’t it? To think they had all that knowledge back then. Maybe it’s all made up for the tourists. They probably built this thing fifty years ago, and they’re having a good laugh at us for coming all the way out here in the dead of night…’

‘Come on San. It’s amazing. Just look at it.’ Reion shone the torch over the low stacks of stone cubes placed around the foreground of the temple like ancient stage props. ‘I’d be happy, honestly, if I died right now. Just seeing all this stuff is incredible. Absolutely incredible…’

‘I hate you saying things like that,’ said San. ‘I wish you wouldn’t.’ She took a massive breath and let it out as a long, low sigh. ‘Amjad and his ghost stories… it’s so creepy here. I don’t want to stay all that long – please don’t spend hours staring at walls while I stand around waiting for you.’

‘Do you want to…’

‘No, no.’ San dismissed Reion with a flap of her hand. ‘I’m fine. I’m pregnant, I’m not ill. I don’t need to go back.’

Reion felt a familiar surge of protectiveness, seeing San so fragile and small next to this huge ancient building with its cold, pitch-black entrance that felt so unwelcoming and, in a strange way, almost predatory. It was watching them, waiting for them to cross the boundary into the dangers of its stone-lined throat. They shouldn’t be here at this hour; their guide, Amjad, had warned them over and over again on the bumpy bus drive through the cold, dark desert that ancient temples weren’t to be visited at night time, especially this temple, in Abydos, home of Osiris, the Egyptian ruler of the underworld, where it was said at night you could hear the spirits congregating to pay homage to the shadowy god on their journey to the afterlife.

‘We won’t be able to see much when we’re in there,’ Reion explained, half to himself since San was staring transfixed at the dark tunnel in front of them. ‘It’s going to be pretty dark – a few spots of moonlight, perhaps, if we’re lucky.’

‘I can’t tell you how happy I am about that.’ San’s voice, usually so crisp and forthright, became low and whispered all of a sudden. ‘Thank goodness you brought this brilliant torch – it’ll light up the whole place.’

‘You’ll enjoy it once we get in there. I can’t believe we’re here, I just can’t believe it. Aren’t you just dying to see it? The real thing?’

Above them, strands of grey cobweb-like cloud appeared out of nowhere and drifted across the moon, casting heavy grey shadows all around. The torchlight seemed to glow brighter then, and inside the dark entrance traces of stone wall appeared, marked with wavy grooves like ghostly finger lines drawn into wet sand.