The Chaos of Stars
Page 5
A soft noise, so quiet I almost miss it, sounds behind us and I turn to find my aunt Nephthys, half hidden by the doorframe.
“Come in,” my mother says, barely looking at her sister. “Isadora can help with anything you need. Horus asked me to make breakfast.” She smiles as she swishes out of the room.
Nephthys hovers over my mother’s workroom table, flitting from stone jars to ceramic containers of herbs, spices, dungs, her hands dancing nervously like two wounded birds. She nods to herself sometimes, but doesn’t ask me what anything is for. She’s helped my mother a lot, kind of an assistant through the ages. Lucky me, I inherited that role as soon as I was old enough.
I lean against the wall, wishing I were back in bed.
Then she surprises me. “How are you?” she asks. I hardly even know what her voice sounds like. She’s always been on the edges, there my whole life, but never really connecting. Just there.
“Umm, tired?”
“You seem unhappy.” Her voice is barely above a whisper, as tentative as her trembling hands when she twists a fingertip through the thick, golden honey. “Do you help your mother in here often?”
“Yeah, all the time.”
“Can you decipher her handwriting?” She lifts the corner of one of my mother’s papyruses, the cramped and flowing glyphs there a language in and of themselves. Since it’s a written language of my mother’s own making, though, the gift of tongues does not apply.
I give a halfhearted shrug. “Yeah. Took me a long time to learn, but I can read anything she writes. Very useful life skill, there.”
“Hmmm.” She licks the honey off her finger. If Hathor did it, it’d be like something from a music video, all tongue and sexy eyes. But Nephthys darts her tongue out like the honey will burn her, sucks her finger like it’s bleeding. “I don’t think your mother understands you.” She offers me a thin smile, her eyes watery.
I’m shocked. No one notices me enough to get that I’m not happy, and my mom is oblivious. “No,” I say, “she doesn’t.”
Nephthys nods, looking into a corner along the ceiling. “Time and distance, I think, might be good.”
Her words stun me. Is she on my side? Could she talk my mom into sending me away early? I need to get out, now more than ever.
“I couldn’t agree more.” I bite my lip, then go for it. “It’d help if someone else convinced my mom of the same thing.”
“Oh. Oh. Well. I don’t . . . Isis is so . . . Perhaps I could say something? Soon. Maybe when the baby comes. Or after. It’s not my place, and . . . I will try to say something. Soon.”
I slouch, deflated. I can’t pin any hopes on this timid shell of a god. Compared to my mother, Nephthys is a shadow.
Leaving her alone, I walk out into the still-dark hall. Maybe with precious Whore-us here I can get a few more hours of sleep in before my mother realizes I am being lazy and gives me something productive to do.
Or maybe I’ll use this free time to plot how to escape. I’m lost in thoughts of sneaking out while my mom gives birth when something muffled and strange, a noise that doesn’t belong, comes from the other direction and I whip around.
There are two people tangled together. The sound is . . . oh, idiot gods, it’s their mouths slurping at each other. Thank you, Hathor and Whore-us. I’m about to run and bleach my eyeballs when I realize—those pointy features? The face that still carries a hint of predator? That is not the falcon-proud face of my brother.
That is the jackal-mean face of Anubis. Who has been banned from the main house since I was a kid. And who is now sucking face with Whore-us’s wife.
I try to sneak down the hall unnoticed but freeze when a voice I thought I’d forgotten hits a spot between my shoulder blades, making me tense up. A memory tickles, something about why he was banished from our house, but I cannot for the life of me remember. “Good morning, little one.” I turn to find Anubis right behind me, looming and leering. “Not so little anymore, though.”
I back up a step. Anubis is handsome, his features all sharp cunning, with a hint of cruelty to his eyes and the twist of his mouth. His ears are high and almost pointed.
“Oh, uh, hey. What are you doing here?”
“Visiting my domain, as is my right.”
My nose stings this close to him. Being the god of embalming doesn’t make you smell very nice. “Yeah, cool. Well, you know where to find my father.”
“Our father.” His teeth snap on the words, and he leans in, his eyes focused in the region lower than my face. “You are definitely not so little anymore.”
Floods, is Anubis hitting on me?
For once the sound of my mother’s shriek is music to my ears. “What are you doing here? You are not welcome.”
Nephthys comes into the hall from the workroom. Her eyes go wide when she sees her son, and she squeaks with panic.
“Did you bring him?” my mother demands, and I have a headache from the aftershock of her voice.
“No! No, I—no!” Nephthys backs away, not looking at any of us.
Hathor giggles from the dim back corner of the long hall, then sways her h*ps as she walks toward us. “Relax. He’s family, right?” From my vantage point I see Hathor trace a finger along Anubis’s arm.
But his hungry black eyes are still on me.
My mother must notice, too, because without looking at me she says, “Isadora. Go to your room. Now.”
“Come in,” my mother says, barely looking at her sister. “Isadora can help with anything you need. Horus asked me to make breakfast.” She smiles as she swishes out of the room.
Nephthys hovers over my mother’s workroom table, flitting from stone jars to ceramic containers of herbs, spices, dungs, her hands dancing nervously like two wounded birds. She nods to herself sometimes, but doesn’t ask me what anything is for. She’s helped my mother a lot, kind of an assistant through the ages. Lucky me, I inherited that role as soon as I was old enough.
I lean against the wall, wishing I were back in bed.
Then she surprises me. “How are you?” she asks. I hardly even know what her voice sounds like. She’s always been on the edges, there my whole life, but never really connecting. Just there.
“Umm, tired?”
“You seem unhappy.” Her voice is barely above a whisper, as tentative as her trembling hands when she twists a fingertip through the thick, golden honey. “Do you help your mother in here often?”
“Yeah, all the time.”
“Can you decipher her handwriting?” She lifts the corner of one of my mother’s papyruses, the cramped and flowing glyphs there a language in and of themselves. Since it’s a written language of my mother’s own making, though, the gift of tongues does not apply.
I give a halfhearted shrug. “Yeah. Took me a long time to learn, but I can read anything she writes. Very useful life skill, there.”
“Hmmm.” She licks the honey off her finger. If Hathor did it, it’d be like something from a music video, all tongue and sexy eyes. But Nephthys darts her tongue out like the honey will burn her, sucks her finger like it’s bleeding. “I don’t think your mother understands you.” She offers me a thin smile, her eyes watery.
I’m shocked. No one notices me enough to get that I’m not happy, and my mom is oblivious. “No,” I say, “she doesn’t.”
Nephthys nods, looking into a corner along the ceiling. “Time and distance, I think, might be good.”
Her words stun me. Is she on my side? Could she talk my mom into sending me away early? I need to get out, now more than ever.
“I couldn’t agree more.” I bite my lip, then go for it. “It’d help if someone else convinced my mom of the same thing.”
“Oh. Oh. Well. I don’t . . . Isis is so . . . Perhaps I could say something? Soon. Maybe when the baby comes. Or after. It’s not my place, and . . . I will try to say something. Soon.”
I slouch, deflated. I can’t pin any hopes on this timid shell of a god. Compared to my mother, Nephthys is a shadow.
Leaving her alone, I walk out into the still-dark hall. Maybe with precious Whore-us here I can get a few more hours of sleep in before my mother realizes I am being lazy and gives me something productive to do.
Or maybe I’ll use this free time to plot how to escape. I’m lost in thoughts of sneaking out while my mom gives birth when something muffled and strange, a noise that doesn’t belong, comes from the other direction and I whip around.
There are two people tangled together. The sound is . . . oh, idiot gods, it’s their mouths slurping at each other. Thank you, Hathor and Whore-us. I’m about to run and bleach my eyeballs when I realize—those pointy features? The face that still carries a hint of predator? That is not the falcon-proud face of my brother.
That is the jackal-mean face of Anubis. Who has been banned from the main house since I was a kid. And who is now sucking face with Whore-us’s wife.
I try to sneak down the hall unnoticed but freeze when a voice I thought I’d forgotten hits a spot between my shoulder blades, making me tense up. A memory tickles, something about why he was banished from our house, but I cannot for the life of me remember. “Good morning, little one.” I turn to find Anubis right behind me, looming and leering. “Not so little anymore, though.”
I back up a step. Anubis is handsome, his features all sharp cunning, with a hint of cruelty to his eyes and the twist of his mouth. His ears are high and almost pointed.
“Oh, uh, hey. What are you doing here?”
“Visiting my domain, as is my right.”
My nose stings this close to him. Being the god of embalming doesn’t make you smell very nice. “Yeah, cool. Well, you know where to find my father.”
“Our father.” His teeth snap on the words, and he leans in, his eyes focused in the region lower than my face. “You are definitely not so little anymore.”
Floods, is Anubis hitting on me?
For once the sound of my mother’s shriek is music to my ears. “What are you doing here? You are not welcome.”
Nephthys comes into the hall from the workroom. Her eyes go wide when she sees her son, and she squeaks with panic.
“Did you bring him?” my mother demands, and I have a headache from the aftershock of her voice.
“No! No, I—no!” Nephthys backs away, not looking at any of us.
Hathor giggles from the dim back corner of the long hall, then sways her h*ps as she walks toward us. “Relax. He’s family, right?” From my vantage point I see Hathor trace a finger along Anubis’s arm.
But his hungry black eyes are still on me.
My mother must notice, too, because without looking at me she says, “Isadora. Go to your room. Now.”
