The Chaos of Stars

bsp; When my first baby tooth falls out as we eat lunch in the ruins of the temple, my mother holds it in the middle of her unlined palm and smiles; her eyes shine with tears, and I worry I’ve done something wrong.

“It’s so small,” she says, tucking it carefully into her bag. “When it came in, it looked so big, sitting alone in your tiny pink gums. And it was very, very sharp.” She reaches over to deftly twist my long hair in a braid so the wind will quit blowing it into my face.

My tongue darts in and out of the hole that tastes faintly of blood, and I’m fascinated by the new landscape of my mouth, proud that I’m shedding my baby teeth.

“Finish eating quickly, Little Heart. We have to help someone today.”

“Why?” I ask, though I know the answer. The repetition is our little game.

“Because it is my job, and you are my special helper. We are defined by what we do for others, so . . .” She taps my nose and raises her eyebrows expectantly.

“So we must have happy, helping hands, and then we’ll have happy, helping hearts!”

She beams at me, and the sun shines brighter around us in response, warming me through. “That’s my beautiful little girl. If you always let yourself love others, you’ll get back more than you give. And that is why I am the happiest mother alive.”

“Because you love me.” I stand and brush my hands against my bare, knobby knees.

“Because I love you.” She kisses my forehead and starts walking toward the dirt road that leads to Abydos’s neighborhoods. “There is a woman with a very sick child. We’re going to fix both of them. And when we get home, you can help me with some magic before you go see Father.”

She’s walking quickly and I run to catch up, but my short legs won’t cooperate and she’s getting farther ahead. And then I remember that my legs aren’t short anymore, they’re long long long, and I’m not six, and this already happened. But still I can’t run, my muscles won’t cooperate, and the horizons at the edge of my vision are blurring into black, black that is swirling and eating its way toward my mother, beautiful and oblivious to the danger. She will be swallowed, and I can’t let that happen.

The black seems to laugh at me as it curls past, making me complicit in its work, my inaction enabling its destruction. I am an accomplice and it knows it can count on me to simply watch as my mother is destroyed.

I cannot move.

Chapter 2

There are as many versions of the myths as there are gods of ancient Egypt.

Amun-Re, king of the gods, had reached his limit with the impudence of humans. Pushed into rage, he called on his Eye to destroy all of humanity. Who was this Eye, capable of ending an entire race? None other than Hathor, who was also Sekhmet, vicious and bloodthirsty goddess of destruction. She killed everything in sight until Amun-Re repented of his wrath. But Hathor-as-Sekhmet could not be stopped. So Amun-Re gathered all the beer in the land and dyed it red, placing it where he knew she’d find it. She was tricked into thinking she’d sated herself on the blood of all the living and fell into a drunken, peaceful stupor.

This is much more like the Hathor I know.

However, this isn’t one of the stories I was raised on. My mother taught me the important ones. Meaning the ones she starred in.

I GROAN, THE SOOTHING FINGERS AT MY temple not soothing in the slightest at this hour. “What time is it?”

“Nearly dawn. I need you to help me with some protection amulets. Get up! Quick as a bunny, Little Heart.”

Quick as a bunny. I’d like to find the bunny that inspired my mother’s favorite saying and skin it alive. I flop over onto my back. My heart settles as I see the constellations mapped out on my ceiling. A few years ago I painted it shimmering black, with twinkle-lit crystals mapping out a chart of the stars on the night I was born. Orion has always been my favorite, right over my bed, watching and protecting me. Sometimes I try to write myself into a constellation, imagine what it would be like to be forever painted across the sky.

I’d be right next to Orion. I smile. I’ve never called him by the Egyptian name for the constellation. It’s one of my few successful rebellions—mostly because my mother doesn’t know about it.

“Isadora . . .” Her voice comes out like a song but my muscles start twitching, trying their hardest to obey her against my will. With a final sigh, I throw back my silver comforter and stumble after Isis.

“Did you have any dreams I should know about?” Her face is clouded with worry, distracted as we wind our way to her wing of the house.

A chill rushes over me as I remember my disturbing dream. I had forgotten the memory of losing that tooth. But it’s better not to feed her groundless paranoia. “This time the purple hippos had wings.”

“Hmmm. Were you frightened of them?”

“Only when they told me an evil woman would wake me up before dawn.”

She looks sharply at me. “Really? You saw what would happen?”

I roll my eyes. “No. It’s a joke. Sometimes people tell them to each other.”

“Dreams are not a joking matter, Isadora.”