The Chaos of Stars

“Absolutely. Your brain firing off random images while you sleep is dead serious.”

“As long as we are agreed.”

We enter her workshop, the pale-yellow stone walls always cool, the room flickering from candlelight. Our entire house is underground, about a mile from the remains of a temple in Abydos that tourists still visit. Luckily my parents have enough power to keep away unwanted visitors. Even the entrance is invisible unless you belong here. Most gods barely have the mojo left to stay in physical form, but my parents manage to do some small pieces of magic.

I sigh. “Which one are we doing?”

“Luring and protection.”

I heat beeswax over one of the candle flames until it’s liquid, then carefully pour it into the vulture mold. Vultures for protection.

“And the hippo,” Isis says as she lines up the ivory amulets. “I think your dreams were correct.” She places a hand absentmindedly on her stomach.

That’s right. Female hippos for Taweret, goddess of childbirth. Floods, I should have picked a different fake dream. I set the molds to the side, grabbing the jar of golden sweet honey. Isis whispers words, the true names of the gods and goddesses that I’m not allowed to know. The wax hardens quickly, and I pop out the miniature animals, setting them up next to each other on the stone table.

I carefully tip the honey onto the figurines, letting it coat them. Sweetness to lure out evil spirits, then trap them in the protective animals.

Yup. Sure. Beeswax and honey to combat bad dreams. Just some more early-morning mother-daughter bonding time in the House of Life.

Isis finishes whispering names to the ivory pendants, then drapes one around my neck. I clench my jaw, feeling the rough leather cord on my skin, the ivory warmer than it should be. “Do I need one?”

“Of course, my heart.” She drapes another over her own neck, clutching a third in her hand. The wax figures are left where they are. “This should be sufficient. Thank you, Isadora. Don’t be afraid. The baby will be a good thing. It will give us something to do together.” Her voice is odd. Almost . . . vulnerable. And she’s avoiding my eyes.

A soft noise, so quiet I nearly 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, and 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 before my eighteenth birthday? 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