He shakes his head. Sagely, but it’s still a shake of the head.
‘Not at present,’ he says, suddenly giving me hope, hope that there might be a solution in the future. ‘This will help you later,’ he says, leaning through the frame of the mirror and holding out the djed staff towards me.
I instinctively duck, expecting him to unexpectedly strike me with the staff.
Unexpectedly, he doesn’t.
I take the staff gratefully.
‘There is much that still needs to be explained to you,’ he says, returning to his rigidly straight pose. ‘I offer you my daughter to act as your escort.’
I nod gratefully once more.
And then it dawns on me.
Ptah’s daughter is Sekhmet, the lioness.
It’s another trap after all!
*
As Ptah turns away from the mirror, his daughter Sekhmet appears in his place, already undergoing her transformation into a complete lioness.
She gracefully bounds through the frame into my world, in absolutely no rush to attack me. Like all the other goddess and gods, she has complete confidence in her powers and abilities.
This time, I’m not running.
What Ptah said about leopards? I’m still not sure what he means.
But, with hardly a conscious thought about it, I transform into a leopard.
*
Chapter 25
I snarl at the languidly approaching Sekhmet; a warning that this time we’re more equally matched.
Her eyebrows rise, like she’s surprised. Surprised at my arrogant snarl? Or that I’ve become a leopard?
I’m not really sure.
She snarls back, yet there seems little emotion in it, no real threat. As if she’s tired of all this.
Perhaps she knows it’s no real contest.
She’s the personification of Strength. The pharaohs would have their heads carved atop her body, a means of displaying their own power and strength.
She lashes out, bats me brutally hard around the shoulder. It knocks me aside.
Yet it’s not a real strike. She kept her claws drawn.
It’s a cuff to her, nothing more. An animal’s irritated slapping of a cub.
Behave, it’s saying.
Nothing more.
I growl, but it’s more half-hearted than my original snarl.
I’m not really sure what’s going on anymore. Not sure if she really wants to fight or not.
I make a threatened leap, roaring at the same time. She holds her ground, roaring back even more terribly than I could manage; but she doesn’t attack me.
Perhaps Ptah was being true to his word after all. Perhaps his daughter really is just here to escort me somewhere.
Yet where?
There’s a sudden rumbling of wheels, a thundering of the hooves of charging horses.
The walls to my room have vanished, and we’re now standing opposite each other on a vast desert plain.
The noise is that of chariots, wildly hurtling towards us.
Sekhmet’s head whirls, glancing over her shoulder towards the swiftly oncoming chariots. As the head turns back to face me, the head transforms back into that of a beautiful woman.
‘Run!’ she says.
*
As we run, our movements almost effortless in their ease, I also let my head become human once more.
‘Who are they?’ I ask.
‘Priests,’ Sekhmet replies casually. ‘Those of Horus and Anubis.’
Now I recognise the scene. It’s one I’ve painted, one taken from the temple’s illustrations.
Four priests of Horus, four of Anubis, jackal-headed god of the dead. They drag two sphinxes before a shrine.
It’s the Chariot, a card promising a movement into the next phase of life.
If the scene plays out as the card is painted, we’re going to be captured.
*
Chapter 26
At first, we’re easily outpacing the horses pulling the chariots. But our short burst of speed, no matter how impressive, can’t match the relentless pace of the well trained, well fed horses.
They’re gaining on us, the chariots already manoeuvring to draw alongside us.
It seems the Chariot’s depiction is about to come true.
Yet why?
Tarot cards aren’t supposed to work in this way, where whatever’s portrayed on there comes to pass. Still less is a whole spread of cards supposed to be played out one by one, as seems to be gradually happening to me.
The priests don’t bother with spears or arrows. They each have some form of lasso, expertly handled.
The loops curl through the air, land around our necks, ropes coming from every direction. They bring us down quickly, lassos looping and being pulled tight around our hind legs, an abrupt jerk bringing us immediately and painfully to the ground.
Slewing their chariots to a halt around us, the priests deftly set to work binding us with other, stronger ropes, refusing to cut those binding our legs until they’re sure we’re completely secured.
‘It seems,’ Sekhmet observes drily, ‘they don’t want you to come of your own accord, as my father hoped they’d allow; they’d still prefer to take you prisoner.’
‘Who, who wants to take me prisoner?’
‘The royal court, of course? Who else?’
*
The World.
Geb, the god of Earth, with a goose-like body spouting plants. Completely arching over him is his wife Nut, goddess of the Night Sky, She who Dwells in the Endless Waters of Nu, wearing a dress of stars.
They’re parents to Osiris, Isis, Set, and Nephthys. Their own father, Shu, god of air, of space, lies between them, holding up his daughter and separating them, ensuring that there is a place where life can be created.
It’s here where Mandjet the morning boat, the Boat of Millions of Years, sails.
On board with Ra are Heka, Sia and Hu – respectively Magic Power, Perception, and Command.
Alongside the aging Ra, his golden flesh now hiding silvered bones, is Nefertem, his sacred lotus now the only thing capable of easing the Sun God’s suffering.
Isis, the High Priestess, also holds a lotus, as she does on my card. There she stood between two pillars, the lotus and papyrus plants. Here there are no pillars, only the sky stretching out behind her as she sits upon a throne placed upon the great ship’s deck. She is, however, wearing upon her head the full and crescent moon, as she also wears within my rendering. Like that rendering, too, she is veiled.
She doesn’t want me to see her face. To see the emotions crossing it.
I am about to be placed on trial.
For killing Dean.
*
Chapter 27
‘I didn’t kill Dean. I loved him!’
I have made this protest countless times, yet no one seems to be listening.
‘The cobra killed him,’ she answers.
‘Then why am I here if you know that?’
‘The cobra was following your instructions.’
This is another voice, a man, who has just come up onto the deck. A man with the head of an Ibis.
Thoth, god of wisdom and writing.
On my Judgement card, he leads the judged away after the Weighing of the Heart in the Hall of Two Truths. There the heart has been found to be as light as a feather, and therefore true and just. A heavier heart, one unlightened by good deeds, is devoured by the crocodile-headed Ammut, leaving the soul forever restless.
Can I hope that the scene on this card plays out as I’ve illustrated it?
Somehow, I don’t think it will.
Here, it seems, everyone takes it you’re guilty until proven innocent.
And nobody holds out much hope of that, I think, going by the sour faces aimed in my direction.
‘Why would I instruct it to kill someone I loved? I didn’t know how to instruct it! It just appeared, out of nowhere!’
‘You conjured it up!’
> ‘Okay, okay; so we were meddling in things we should’ve left alone and–’
‘Meddling? You call it meddling?’
The veil of Isis breathes in and out, failing to hide her barely controlled anger.
‘The instructions were plain,’ Thoth adds. ‘To protect you against your enemies!’
‘Dean wasn’t my enemy! I loved him!’
Like the Mandjet, we just seem to be going round in vast, endless circles.
‘And the stillborn girl? Did you love her?’
It’s Isis again. I’ve no idea what she means.
She reads the confusion on my face.
‘The stillborn girl you took over?’
‘I don’t know of any stillborn girl! I’ve no idea what you’re talking about! I’ve no idea why I’ve ended up in this crazy court! It’s all madness!’
There! Well done Grace! That little tantrum won’t help you one bit!
‘You don’t know of any stillborn girl? Yet her you are, standing in front of us!’
‘What better proof could there be that you are guilty,’ Thoth says, ‘than your own presence here, as Grace Lowry?’
‘Grace Lowry?’ I grimace, more perplexed than ever. ‘Well, of course I’m here as Grace Lowry; that’s me! I am Grace Lowry!’
Isis stands, her voice venomous.
‘Grace Lowry was stillborn fourteen years ago!’
*
What?
Stillborn?
But that’s impossible!
Here I am!
I am Grace Lowry!
Aren’t I?
*
Chapter 28
‘You have hidden yourself well. Even from yourself.’
Thoth approaches me, inspects me closely, admiringly.
‘Naturally,’ Isis is calm, seated once more. ‘If she had been aware of who she really was, she would have given herself away long ago! She hoped she could hide away long enough for our searchers to pass her over, missing her.’
‘I’ve no idea what you’re talking about; honestly,’ I protest.
‘And yet here is more proof.’
Thoth displays the cards I had dropped earlier.
He shows them to me, not to Isis or Ra.
It’s like he’s waiting for me to admit my guilt.
They know I’m guilty, he’s saying. Here’s all the proof – Why can’t you accept this?
‘It’s the side of you you couldn’t fully keep hidden,’ he explains. ‘Because as soon as you chose Earth over the Celestial Waters, you at last placed yourself in the hands of fate.’
Choosing Earth over the Celestial Waters?
What does that remind me of?
The leopard skin; patterned like the stars.
The two cobras.
The knotted cord.
The heavenly music; the music of the stars.
The Star!
*
The priestess has two bowls.
One of Earth.
One of Celestial Waters, containing the Bennu bird who flew over the Great Waters of Nu.
The priestess presents the two bowls to Seshat.
Seshat, with her skin of leopard-patterned stars, her headdress of two cobras facing each other; her crown of a star. The Divine Measurer, she holds the knotted cords with which she ensures sacred alignment, the palm stem she notches to record the passage of time.
It’s all there in my card, the Star; all pointing to who I really am.
Not Grace ‘lowfife’ Lowry, after all; but Seshat, goddess of astrology, wisdom, knowledge, mathematics, astronomy, architecture, and the creator of writing – until my father Thoth began to be given credit for all I had created!
And now it’s Thoth who stands here passing judgement on me.
*
Chapter 29
The Star: a major wish card.
For whatever you wish for, you will receive. It is the reception, too, of sacred knowledge about the world, yourself, magic.
Yet reversed, it’s a symbol of insecurity, a feeling that you are not worthy to follow your heart.
‘I’m Seshat,’ I say calmly, accepting who I really am.
Their accusations against me are true, I realise.
As Seshat, I must have created a life for myself on earth, letting my spirit enter that of a stillborn child who would otherwise have died.
That can’t be too bad, you might think; granting life to a child who would have died. Yet it alters the lives of so many others, a complete disruption of the required order of things.
Chaos, in other words. The complete opposite of the health, order and justice of Ma’at.
And Dean?
Yes, I killed him too.
The cobras had been called up by me, to protect me against any enemies. In the midst of a ferocious battle, there’s confusion – chaos – and the cobra would have falsely assumed I was being threatened by Dean.
‘I’m guilty of all the charges,’ I pronounce sadly.
And Thoth smiles.
*
It’s too late in the day to pass judgement upon me.
Even though he is now so aged, Ra is already mounting his fiery chariot. As we prepare to dip below the horizon, he urges his horses on, rushes along the deck – and flies off into the air, blazing a flame red, a glorious orange, lighting up the evening sky.
Apep – for, of course, he can never, ever, be really killed, only briefly thwarted – rises up to greet him, soaring up from his lair behind the western mountains.
As Sun and Serpent fight once more, the boat is transforming into the evening boat Mesektet.
The court around me also changes, Ra requiring other people to serve him as he travels through the underworld of Duat.
Now it is Mehen who is there, to defend the Mesektet against the attacks of the monsters of the underworld.
Even Isis has gone. Now, in her place, there sits her sister Nephthys, the Empress of her domain of darkness, suckling the baby Horus.
On my card, she has a bowl on her head, the signs for the sacred temple enclosure, hwt.
She’s the goddess of women, of divine assistance and protective guardianship; possibly granting us the power to see that which is hidden by moonlight.
Similarly, even when a finally victorious Ra returns to the Mesektet, he now appears in his ram-headed form as Khnemu, god of the Nile, whom I used as my Magician: one hand pointed towards the sky, the other towards Earth, the beginnings of the flow of consciousness.
It’s only a brief appearance, of course. Almost immediately, he becomes Osiris, ruler of the dead; the Emperor holding both the flail and the staff of strength, the was featuring the head and tail of Set, surmounted with a disk representing Osiris's triumph over him.
Everything has changed.
Perhaps there is a chance for me after all.
‘My lady Nephthys,’ I say demurely, sufficiently subserviently, ‘I beg for your assistance; what is being hidden from me here in the moonlight that might help me?’
My husband, Thoth, is god of the Moon.
Isis is goddess of the Moon, from which her tears fall to irrigate the land.
I know this because they appear on my card of the Moon, a card promising the support of those who really care for you.
For there is another god of the Moon, the Moon over water, Khonsu the Merciful.
Nephthys smiles, pleased no doubt that I have called on her help. That I have dared to point out that my trial is not entirely just.
Khonsu appears beside her. He leans towards her, whispers in her ear.
She briefly glances my way, nods as if understanding or agreeing with what she’s being told.
As Khonsu vanishes once more, she looks towards me once more.
‘It seems, Seshat, that you’re right about things being kept from you. Perhaps you should be calling on me as a friend of the dead?’ she suggests.
The dead?
She’s trying to help me; yet I’m not sure how this is suppo
sed to help me.
Who do I know who is dead?
Why, Dean of course.
But how can he possibly help me?
Does it matter?
Don’t I want to see him again anyway?
Even though I was the one responsible for his death.
*
Chapter 30
Nephthys has already called on Dean to appear before us.
He looks no different here to how he did on Earth.
Naturally, it’s an illusion.
He cannot possibly look like this here.
Yet it’s strange – wonderful – to see him again; as if he’s alive once more.
He smiles. Yet it’s a strange smile.
An ashamed one.
Surely, I’m the one who should be ashamed?
‘I’m sorry,’ he says. ‘I’ve been such a fool.’
*
The Fool.
The right way up, it’s an innocent optimism. A leap into the unknown, an initiate taking the first steps on his journey to a transformation of consciousness.
Reversed, it’s carelessness and naiveté.
On my card, the Fool is human, yet also a potential falcon-headed Horus, son of Isis; for she is the Mother of Mysteries, from whose dark womb initiates are born into a second or philosophic birth.
‘I was asked to ensure your return,’ Dean admits.
So everything we went through was a means to ensure my capture. My trial.
Dean betrayed me.
And that is why my cobra killed him.
‘You cannot be held responsible for my death,’ Dean adds, as if aware of my own thinking. ‘Your cobras were only protecting you.’
‘I forgive you, Dean,’ I say, even though my heart is heavy with the hurt of his betrayal, the false love he showed for me in my new form as Grace Lowry. ‘You were unfairly fooled into believing this was an essential part of your initiation, when it was only a distraction.’
‘I agree,’ Nephthys says. ‘He was placed in harm’s way by those who seek to try you. You are not responsible for his death.’