The Chaos of Stars
Page 7

“I hope it’s best. But you should go ask your father first, just in case.”
And the part of my brain that is still jumping on the bed screaming in triumph trips and face-plants into the floor. Because now the only thing standing between me and the freedom I’ve been dreaming of for the last three years is a quick trip to the underworld.
I nearly bump into old Thoth in the hallway. He’s here often, in a quiet, slightly senile old geezer capacity, and he’s always been my favorite. “You look sad,” Thoth says in his wobbly, soft voice. His neck is cricked in the middle, bringing to mind the ibis he was often drawn as. He winks one small, deep-set eye at me, bringing a hand up and turning it into a bird head, which also winks at me. He used to do puppet shows with his hands, having the “birdies” tell me the stories of my heritage, like the time the Earth knocked up the Sky and my parents were born. I loved it. When I was eight. I roll my eyes but try to force a halfhearted smile for his effort.
“Gotta go see Osiris,” I say, and Thoth steps aside with a quiet shuffle. I hesitate at the top of the worn stone steps. I haven’t been here for so long. There’s a special scent to this place—not terrible, not even unpleasant, but distinct. No rotting, just age. Weight. The passage of centuries and millennia marches unmeasured beneath the earth. The Sun comes and goes in his eternal cycle, but the dust and air and stones here take no notice.
I reach up a hand to trail along the rough stone at the bottom of the stairs. It shocks me how . . . small it feels. Now I’m less than half a meter beneath the ceiling.
Two more turns and straight past the room where I spent so much of my childhood. I don’t look in, but my chest tightens as I leave it behind. Finally the end of the passage. The great room, high ceilinged, with murals in blacks and reds and blues telling the stories of Egypt. I thought they were my stories, but I’m not even a footnote.
My dad sits ramrod straight on his low-backed, elaborately carved throne. He holds two staffs, his white atef crown towering over his head, and observes his kingdom with eyes that can’t see me right now. I shiver, wondering if anyone’s actually here on their journey into the afterlife. I stick to the side of the room just in case. And to avoid Ammit, sitting in the middle of the room looking for all the world like a bizarre statue—head of a crocodile, front legs of a lion, and rear half of a hippo. She is silent and still, jaws awaiting the hearts of the unjust dead.
I stand in front of Osiris, who doesn’t respond. I clear my throat.
“Father? Father!”
Nothing changes. Anger flares up in my chest, and I’m tempted to grab one of his silly staffs and knock off his stupid crown with it. But I don’t want to touch him, not when he’s like this, so far removed from me. So . . . dead.
“OSIRIS.”
Finally he blinks, eyes slowly focusing on me. “Child. You’ve come back?”
Ah, floods, he thinks I’m here to work on my tomb. I straighten my shoulders. “I’m leaving. Going to live with Sirus because Isis thinks it’s not safe here for me until after she has the baby.” I pause, but he doesn’t react. He could still blow this whole thing for me. “Er, if it’s okay with you.”
I think for a minute that there’s a trace of sadness in his eyes, but then again, he always looks serious and mournful. He nods slowly. “If that is the path your mother feels is best. But you will return home when the time comes?”
It’s physically painful to hold back my eye roll, but I can control my attitude long enough to get out of here. “Yup, sure, I’ll be back.”
He nods, satisfied. “Go well, little one.”
That’s it? I just told him I’m leaving to live somewhere else, and all I get is a go well? I thought I’d be elated, but instead I’m disappointed. “Are you going to miss me at all?”
He smiles, his stiff features resisting the movement. “We will have eternity. I can let you go for these few heartbeats.”
No. Once I step out that door, I’m gone forever.
A small, aching part of me is sure my parents won’t care either way. They won’t notice that I never come back. They’ll probably forget my name. Maybe my father already has.
I turn around and leave, glancing back and hating myself for it. His eyes have gone blank, seeing only his real home, the real world he loves. Chaos take him. I’m done.
I play in the sand on the banks of the Nile, scratching out the glyphs I’m just barely learning while my mother searches for the best reeds and dirt for our spells that day. A shadow blocks the sun and I look up to see tall, tall Anubis.
“Hello, whelp of Isis,” he says, and I admire his teeth and wish mine were sharper. My new front ones are starting to grow in, but they’re just big and bumpy.
“Hi.”
“Do you know how to swim?” he asks.
“No.”
“Time to learn!” He picks me up, lifting me high, so high in the air, and then throws me straight out into the middle of the river before I can even process what is happening.
I sink. I’ve never been in the water without my mother before, and she isn’t here, and I don’t know what to do without her. I look wildly around, the water murky and stinging my eyes, but I know if I wait, my mother will come for me.
She has to. She always comes for me.
When my chest hurts so much I want to cry and I can’t hold my breath any longer, the water turns inky, creeping black.