On the other side of the portal, we found ourselves at the beach by the Lake of Fire. Bast was waiting, tossing a ball of yarn from hand to hand. Her pure black bodysuit matched her hair. Her feline eyes danced in the red light of the waves.
“They’re waiting for you.” She pointed up the steps to the House of Rest. “We’ll talk when you come back down.”
I didn’t need to ask why she wasn’t coming. I heard the melancholy in her voice. She and Tawaret had never got along because of Bes. Obviously, Bast wanted to give the hippo goddess some space. But also, I wondered if my old friend was starting to realize that she’d let a good man get away.
I kissed her on the cheek. Then Carter and I climbed the stairs.
Inside the nursing home, the atmosphere was festive. Fresh flowers decorated the nurses’ station. Heket the frog goddess walked upside down along the ceiling, hanging party streamers, while a group of elderly dog-headed gods danced and sang the hokey-pokey—a very slow version, but still impressive. You put your walker in / you put your IV out—and so forth. The ancient lion-headed goddess Mekhit was slow-dancing with a tall male god. She purred loudly with her head on his shoulder.
“Carter, look,” I said. “Is that—?”
“Onuris!” Tawaret answered, trotting over in her nurse’s outfit. “Mekhit’s husband! Isn’t it wonderful? We were sure he’d faded ages ago, but when Bes called the old gods to war, Onuris came tottering out of a supply closet. Many others appeared too. They were finally needed, you see! The war gave them a reason to exist.”
The hippo goddess crushed us in an enthusiastic hug. “Oh, my dears! Just look how happy everyone is! You’ve given them new life.”
“I don’t see as many as before,” Carter noticed.
“Some went back to the heavens,” Tawaret said. “Or off to their old temples and palaces. And, of course, your dear father, Osiris, took the judgment gods back to his throne room.”
Seeing the old gods so happy warmed my heart, but I still felt a twinge of worry. “Will they stay this way? I mean, they won’t fade again?”
Tawaret spread her stubby hands. “I suppose that depends on you mortals. If you remember them and make them feel important, they should be fine. But come, you’ll want to see Bes!”
He sat in his usual chair, staring blankly out the window at the Lake of Fire. The scene was so familiar, I feared he’d lost his ren again.
“Is he all right?” I cried, running up to him. “What’s wrong with him?”
Bes turned, looking startled. “Besides being ugly? Nothing, kid. I was just thinking—sorry.”
He rose (as much as a dwarf can rise) and hugged us bo
th.
“Glad you kids could make it,” Bes said. “You know Tawaret and I are going to build a home on the lakeside. I’ve gotten used to this view. She’ll keep working at the House of Rest. I’ll be a house dwarf for a while. Who knows? Maybe I’ll get some little dwarf hippo babies to look after!”
“Oh, Bes!” Tawaret blushed fiercely and batted her hippo eyelids.
The dwarf god chuckled. “Yeah, life is good. But if you kids need me, just holler. I’ve always had more luck coming to the mortal world than most gods.”
Carter scowled fretfully. “Do you think we’ll need you a lot? I mean, of course we want to see you! I just wondered—”
Bes grunted. “Hey, I’m an ugly dwarf. I’ve got a sweet car, an excellent wardrobe, and amazing powers. Why wouldn’t you need me?”
“Good point,” Carter agreed.
“But, uh, don’t call too often,” Bes said. “After all, my honeycakes and I got a few millennia of quality time to catch up on.”
He took Tawaret’s hand, and for once I didn’t find the name of this place—Sunny Acres—quite so depressing.
“Thank you for everything, Bes,” I said.
“Are you kidding?” he said. “You gave me my life back, and I don’t just mean my shadow.”
I got the distinct feeling the two gods wanted some time by themselves, so we said our good-byes and headed down the steps to the lake.
The white sand portal was still swirling. Bast stood next to it, engrossed in her ball of yarn. She laced it between her fingers to make a rectangle like a cat’s cradle. (No, I didn’t mean that as a pun, but it did seem appropriate.)
“Having fun?” I asked.