He turned the parchment around so Nana could look. She put on her reading glasses and peered at the place he pointed out. “Are those her special spear-knives?”
“I believe so.” Oscar tapped his lip, considering the image. “The goddess mentioned sirens. They also sing to trap men. Perhaps Lily’s song is what will be used to trap Seth.”
“We do not sing,” Tia remarked with a snort.
“Singing does have to mean something musical. It can be a chant or something like a spell.”
“We do have the power of the names.” Ashleigh popped up, taking over my body. Even though she used my body to speak, my voice sounded different. There was a pronounced lilting accent.
Nana smiled. “You must be the fairy.”
“Ashleigh,” she said. “Pleased to meet you.”
“Can you tell us more about the names, Ashleigh?” Nana asked, pen poised.
“We figure out the true names of things. It gives us power over them.”
“Names, names…Yes, here is a section that speaks of the power of naming. It says, she who possesses the eyes to see, the heart to feel, and the soul to reach, shall have the power to discern all things. She, and she alone, will possess the power to name and defeat Chaos.” Oscar’s brows peaked as he sat back. “Can it be that simple?”
Nana thumbed her lip. “Nothing’s as simple as it appears on the surface. What about this section?”
“This piece refers to the goddess Hecate.”
“Is she Greek?” Nana asked.
“Yes. She is also a triple goddess. In this drawing, she holds a key.” He paused. “Interesting. This is the second time a key is mentioned.” He continued. “She is guardian of crossroads and is commonly thought of as one who guides ghosts down the right path. It says her destiny is to fight the Titans. She is honored by the deathless gods who will become her adoring kings. Her token animal is the dog, and she is often depicted with them.”
“Dogs.” Tia snorted. “We have no use for them.”
“Unless it refers to the hellhounds in the netherworld. They became our servants after we named them,” Ashleigh added.
Oscar lifted his head. “Do you remember any of their names?”
“Of course.” Ashleigh laughed. “Who could forget He Who Voids His Bladder in the Wind? That’s a name I’ll never forget.”
“Can you call him?” Oscar asked.
“Call the hellhound?” Tia repeated. “We can try.” She closed our eyes and shouted, “Come to us, He Who Voids His Bladder in the Wind!” Air rushed around us and we heard a whine preceded by a growl.
You must help us, Lily.
I don’t know what to do.
Join your mind to ours, Ashleigh encouraged.
I had no idea what they wanted from me, but at their prompting I attempted to do what they asked.
Tia took a centering breath and something inside me shifted. It was almost like folding my arms across my chest and falling backward, trusting Tia and Ashleigh to catch me. They locked me into an embrace so tight, I couldn’t tell where I ended and they began. With one voice, we chanted, “Come to us, He Who Voids His Bladder in the Wind!”
The rushing of air whirled through the kitchen. I felt darkness draw near in the same way I could feel the approach of a storm. There was a bite in the air. The smell of sulfur, burned coal, and ozone. It was the scent of an enemy. A dark shadow materialized, jaws snapping as a breathy voice hissed, “What do you wish?”
Nana gasped, and Oscar wrapped an arm around her, pulling her back. He stepped in front of her.
I couldn’t remember what this creature did to us, but I remembered the taste of his evil, and the coppery tang of the blood he spilled.
“Do you serve us?” we demanded.
“I have no choice but to do as you ask.”
“Have you seen your former mistress?” we asked.
“Not since both of you disappeared.” The creature’s head turned to smoke and then solidified at a new angle, his eyes turned to the side.
“What is it? Tell me what you know.”
“The queen is alive. She fights with the Dark One.”
“The Devourer has joined him, then?”
“Yessss.” The word was drawn out in a sibilant hiss.
“Do you know their plans?”
“Only the rumors.”
“And those are?”
“That the two of them hunt you. They will seek to find you by hurting those you love,” he replied.
My mind fragmented. “Asten!” Tia cried.
The shadowy creature laughed. “Farewell, goddess.”
“I…I command you to stay!” Tia called out.
“You’ve let go of the leash,” he said with snap of his jaws. “Run, little goddess, for I assure you that my bite is much worse than my bark.”
The creature swiped at me with its sharp claws, but we swatted it back. Mentally, Ashleigh took hold of Tia and wrestled her back into place. We locked together again, and with a united voice, commanded the hellhound to depart. He vanished in a wisp of smoke just as the beast lunged toward Oscar, jaws gaping wide.
“Well, that was certainly interesting,” Nana said as the mental hold I had with the other two slowly unlocked.
“If by interesting you mean deadly, then yes, that was interesting,” Oscar said. “It would appear that Ashleigh was correct. There is something to this naming business.”
“It would appear so,” Nana added. “Is there more?”
“There is the mention of Valkyries,” he said and then began to read, “They cross the airy sea. Three girls enter, but one rides ahead, white-skinned under her helmet, sunlight glinting from her spears. The horses tremble, and from their manes, dew falls blood red into the deep valleys.” He looked up. “It appears as if they ride winged horses through the clouds and enter battle choosing who will live and who will die.”
“Perhaps you speak of the unicorns,” Tia said.
“Unicorns?” Nana asked, her jaw falling open. “Can this get any more bizarre?”
“I’m afraid it can,” Oscar said. “There is a reference here to Shakespeare’s three weyward sisters found in the play Macbeth. Specifically, the line ‘Fair is foul and foul is fair’ is mentioned.”
My memory suddenly flashed back to the day I’d had lunch with the girls on my committee. I’d called them the Weird Sisters. Funny. Turns out I was the one who was weird all along. There was a mental block, almost like static that shrouded the memory. For some reason I’d been flustered during the meeting, I’d been in the museum that day trying to pick a college. Something had interrupted the meeting, and I’d had to go outside. That’s where the memory stops. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t access the piece that was missing.
I cannot help you, Tia said. I can only share the things you’ve told me and the memories we have together. However, I suspect that the thing you cannot see is Amon.
You mean the mummy?
Yes. You love him, Tia said matter-of-factly in my mind.
Love?
Was it possible? Had I fallen in love with this guy I kept on saving? I couldn’t imagine any guy I’d risk my life for. Especially one who moonlighted as a mummy. It was a disturbing thought.
“So all will not be as it appears on the surface,” Nana said, interrupting my thoughts.
“That much should be self-evident,” Oscar said.
“Then what should be our first move?” Nana asked.
Oscar pressed his lips together and squinted at me as if considering the merits of an aspiring apprentice. “There is nothing we can do about Lily’s memory except give her time. Until she recovers, I’d suggest we train the girls to use their naming ability and practice their various skills. When she’s ready, she can summon the brothers, calling them forth like she did the hellhound. Without the Eye of Horus, there’s no way for us to raise them ourselves, and Amon won’t have the ability for another millennium.”
“Can we not just retrieve them from th
e afterlife?” Tia asked.
Oscar shook his head. “Until their bodies and souls are united, they cannot leave that realm. But you called the hellhound, and he had physical form beneath all that smoke. I’m certain that you will be able to raise them.”
And what if we can’t? I thought.
“Lily doubts our ability to do so,” Tia explained.
Leaning forward, Oscar spoke with conviction. “I am confident that if we can somehow help the furies within you rise, then we will discover the key to unlock that particular door.”
Perhaps the key he spoke of would unlock my memories as well. But, as much as I wanted to remember, a part of me was frightened. What if I couldn’t do all that they expected? What if I wasn’t ready? What if I caused the destruction of the world? What if the enemy pacing outside the gates, the one I could feel as surely as I felt the presence of Tia and Ashleigh, managed to find us? Now not even my grandmother’s farm was safe.
As I considered the help I knew I’d need, I tightened my hands into fists, digging my fingernails into my palms. When I straightened them, I saw little fleshy crescent-moon smiles that mocked me. The idea of raising the brothers made my heart feel tight and my scalp tingle. I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing, but there was one thing that was certain: my life was about to change forever. I was so wrought with worry, I didn’t even notice that Tia hadn’t been the one to clench my fists.
A week passed and my memory still had not returned. At least, not the memory they all wanted me to have. And everything seemed to hinge on me regaining it.
Hassan was reluctant in guiding me to raise the mummies until I knew what I was doing. Apparently, calling them forth was different from summoning the hellhound. I had to know them—like, really know them—before he would risk it. He worried that if I screwed up the spell, I’d resign them to the afterlife permanently, and that wouldn’t do us any good. He didn’t seem to believe I was strong enough to defeat Dr. Evil What’s-His-Name without their help. Suffice it to say, he didn’t want me—or, I guess, us—going off half-cocked.
Something was wrong with my—our—power. Well, according to them.
The thing was, nothing they seemed to do, no monotonous exercise or regaling of my supposed past deeds, triggered my memory. I remembered my parents, graduating from high school, getting accepted to college, Nana, even the museum. It was just all the weird Egypt stuff I didn’t know, and truthfully, if I didn’t have crazy lioness girl, who spent hours telling me all about the weirdness of how we came to inhabit the same body, and even crazier fairy girl keeping me constant company, I think I would have hidden in my room with my blanket over my head.
It pretty much stank having a peanut gallery in my brain. Even for mundane, everyday chores, they had to share their opinions. The two of them would argue about practically everything. Eventually, they settled into roles. Ashleigh gathered the eggs, helped Nana in the kitchen, kept notes for Hassan, and took over the showering and dressing of my body. While she’d get us ready, I’d wince, not recognizing who I was in the mirror. It was creepy looking at yourself and not seeing your eyes looking back. Oh, they were my eyes, but the light behind them wasn’t me. Also the facial expressions were all wrong. It wasn’t a horror-movie type of possession, but it was possession all the same.
I retreated further. Sometimes hours passed, and I had no recollection of how I came to be in the barn or on the training field. When it was Tia’s turn, I wasn’t remotely interested in what was going on. She was in charge during physical training, eating (which she did with gusto), and, oddly, milking Bossy.
Not only was I losing myself, I was losing my own grandmother to my two mental passengers. She seemed to like them a lot more than she did her own granddaughter, which stung more than anything else. Nana gave me lots of sympathetic looks, but I could tell that even she was disappointed in me. The more Nana addressed them first, the more I moved further away.
Then there were the times when we entered the room and caught Nana sitting close to Hassan and whispering. When she noticed us, she’d suddenly sit up and move away, wipe her hands on her apron, and head to the kitchen. Tia thought nothing of it. But Ashleigh was delighted over the idea that Nana and Hassan might be beginning a budding romance. Hassan making goo-goo eyes at my nana was just the icing on the incredibly inedible dump cake that my life had become.
Practicing my abilities seemed to be Hassan’s main focus. I just hung out in the background and morosely watched Tia at work. When it came to attacking scarecrows or stalking the chickens, apparently I—we (stupid pronouns) were experts. We could sink an arrow into a bull’s-eye from great distances and throw the spear-knives with deadly accuracy. But each time Hassan asked us to practice merging our minds or summoning the hellhound again, I balked.
I tried, at least on the surface, but something inside me froze. Tia blamed me. Ashleigh kept plaguing me with a litany of bubbly motivational sayings like “He who is not strong must be clever” and “A raggy colt can turn into a powerful racehorse” and then, my favorite, the one that made me feel guilty: “Forgettin’ a debt doesna mean it’s paid.”
Even at night I couldn’t rest. They were always there, the two of them. When it was quiet in the house, and everyone was asleep, there they were, in the back of my mind, their thoughts like white noise. Finally, after a week of restless nights, exhaustion won out, and I fell into a deep sleep.
I wasn’t alone in the dreamworld my consciousness escaped to, which wasn’t surprising at all, but the minds I sensed nearby were unfamiliar to me, which was a surprise. I stood on top of a sand dune, an ocean of desert waves spreading out around me in every direction. The grains of sand shifted, hiding frightening things, like a dusting of snow covering bleached bones.
Then the whisper of a night breeze kissed my face. I looked up at the brilliant stars overhead; I could almost hear them speaking. The bones underfoot were forgotten as voices like the tinkling of bells murmured, overlapping each other as they passed their messages back and forth. It was confusing and chaotic.
One star burned brighter than the others, bathing me in sparkling light. A white bird flew overhead, obscuring all the stars but the bright one before disappearing into the night sky. My senses sharpened. It felt as if I were standing in the eye of an unseen storm and was being watched over, protected.
A man’s laughter fell over me like a warm waterfall. I wanted to sink into it and float away. A zephyr wind caressed my cheek, and I spun, touching my fingertips to my face, but no one was there.
The moon rose like a silver phoenix, and the star I’d been so fascinated by gave way to its light and retreated, fading into the background. I lifted my chin to let the glow trace its fingers over my face and closed my eyes. As it marked its path across the sky, I turned my body so I was always looking toward it. I felt caught in its heavy gaze, and the space between us felt full of secrets, longing, and unfulfilled wishes.
The feeling of someone’s gentle lips pressed against my forehead, but again no one was there. When I looked up again at the pearly orb of the moon, the silver light reflected two stormy eyes, wild as a hunting wolf. They blinked at me from its surface and then disappeared.
The moon set, kissing my face with its beautiful light one last time before it melted into the horizon. I mourned its passing and expected my star to return then, but it didn’t. The loss of the friendly star and the earnest moon sharpened into a knifepoint that twisted in my stomach.
Soon, the darkness surrounding me thickened. It tickled the back of my neck with cold, ghostlike fingers. Almost delicately, it traced a path down my spine. I waited, breathless, for the icy points to tear through the thin fabric of my dress and sink into my flesh like daggers.
Wind whipped around my body, and I lifted my nose to the air. A storm was coming. Or, perhaps, with my protectors gone, the storm could finally unleash its fury upon me. I heard a laugh, cruel and sharp as lightning, the scream of horses, the bellow of a colossal beast, a
nd the cries of tortured men. When I blinked, the desert sand shifted, finally revealing what lay beneath the gritty surface. The land was covered in a vanquished army.
Death littered the ground. The rotted corpses of men mingled with the bodies of fallen beasts. I pressed a hand to my mouth to stifle the scream, and sank to my knees as tears filled my eyes.
Despite the lack of light, the bones took on a sheen of their own, glowing with an inner luminescence that highlighted the empty eye sockets and the hollow rib cages. It was me who had caused this. I knew it. I was to blame. “I’m, I’m so sorry,” I whispered. My voice, though soft, carried across the sand. “I didn’t mean for this to happen.”
Just then, the earth’s rim exploded in brilliant flame. Dawn broke over the horizon, tingeing the world gold. The bright sun stretched out its arms, reaching toward me. When the light fell upon the bodies, they disappeared. When it reached me, I was wrapped in an embrace so full of warmth and love that all thoughts of sorrow fled as quickly as the darkness.
Everything stilled and, once more, I existed in a bubble of protection. The dust and the sand, which had been so easily stirred by the breeze, didn’t dare show a transient state or reveal their morbid secrets in the face of something so powerful. I closed my eyes.
The rays of the sun traced over my face, instantly drying my tears and leaving behind a pulsing glow. I had thought the light of the gleaming star and the lustrous moon were beautiful, but they were nothing compared to the power of the sun.
I absorbed the warmth. Basked in it. I was like a bee stuck in a comb overflowing with honey. Fulfillment and purpose and destiny and sweetness and summer were all wrapped up in that single embrace. If I could have chosen to remain in that spot forever, even to die in it, I would have.
Slowly, the light withdrew, and I whimpered, “Please don’t leave me.”