Asha in Time
Copyright 2010 by Mandy Nachampassack-Maloney
Smashwords Edition
Asha in Time. Narrative owned and administered by Mandy Nachampassack-Maloney. No part of this book or the fictional account represented on its pages in any version may be used or replicated in the least or at all without written consent from the author apart from the case of succinct quotations in articles or reviews. For information, get in touch with the author at www.marrymemandy.com.
Quotation by Alecia Moore, aka the artist known as Pink.
Cover design by Sandy Yu.
Acknowledgements
This book and the fictional story within could not have happened, first and foremost without my husband, who is my first fan, first editor, and my first critic. The poor man had to live with me throughout the writing and polishing processes, which is no easy task. Thank you for working a nine to five while I explore my dreams. Thank you for telling me I can do it when I so often feel that I cannot. Someday, I truly hope to return this greatest of favors.
Thanks and thanks again are due to my parents. A special credit must be given to my father who has shared with me his love of reading and so often shared his beloved books as well, even though I harbor the terrible habit of falling equally in love with them and refusing to return them. Recognition must also be paid to my mother for every bedtime story read to me as a child and every new world opened to me by her voice as it read aloud. If not for them, this journey would never have begun.
A professional acknowledgement is due to Sandy Yu, the design artist responsible for the stunning cover of this book. Soon, when Sandy is a known master graphic artist, I will be proud to say that this project was one of the first to grace her resume. Sandy, every time I look at the cover I fall more in love with the art and the way it represents the story I spent so much time with. Thank you.
Though they are not alive to bear witness to this acknowledgement, I must offer my gratitude to the real Isetnofret and Nefertari whose lives were almost certainly nothing like what I imagined them to be within these pages. Yet they lived and breathed, and I bet they whispered into Ramses’ ear at the most turbulent times in his long reign. Women are so often the hidden but calculating and driving force behind influential men, so a thank you is suitable to these two women who lived, loved, and continue to inspire people like me down the ages.
I would also like to give a great thanks to those women who are, as Maya Angelou would say, my literary “she-roes.” Thank you, J.K. Rowling, for the first book that ever took me over so completely. Thank you, India Edghill, for showing me a female character so unique and so comfortable with power. Thank you, Kathleen McGowan, for opening up the pre-Christian world and the “greatest story never told” to me. Thank you, Jo Graham, for speaking to me through your distinctive writing, about unconventional but potent love stories. Thank you, Maria V. Snyder, for Yelena, who moves me with her fragile command every time I pick up your book. Though I do not know these women, and most likely never will, they have served as an inspiration to my writing and my very perspective on human nature.
Other Works by Mandy
Autumnal Dancer
“I can’t say this without sounding unusual, but I signed up for this life before I was born.”- adapted from Alecia Moore, otherwise known as Pink
Preface I
She hates wearing earrings. They make her ears itch. They are so pretty, though. She especially can’t help putting on her biggest, gaudiest rhinestones to let them flash around her face when they go out in public. She can ignore the itching, burning sensation in her lobes just so everyone will admire her glimmering jewels. Then, when she and her husband come home, she can toss aside the earrings and have a good excuse to ask her husband to massage her tender ears. She loves when he touches her face and ears with his wide calloused hands.
She is putting on a pair of hoops, securing the fasteners behind her lobes. She’s already pulling at them time and again, trying to relieve the discomfort that is building. Her husband, Fisher, walks in the room and flashes her a half irritated smile.
“Why do you wear those,” he asks her humorously, “when you know they bother you so much? Who are you trying to impress in my family?”
She grins at him because he knows her so well. She takes one last, long look at herself in the mirror, finally satisfied with her appearance. As she takes her dark jeans, fitted hooded zip up, and kitschy silver hoops in, she sighs audibly. She doesn’t want to go to her husband’s cousin’s wedding shower. She has never liked this cousin who is a few years older than her and has a mouth on her she’d like to slap silly. That cousin is one of the many reasons her relationship with her husband almost didn’t work out at first. Now the cousin doesn’t talk to her Fisher anymore; not since he married her. Stupid cousin. Why does she have to go to the wedding shower at all? She answers her own question; because Fisher is a peacemaker. It’s one of the things she loves about him most.
They hop into his car together, holding their breaths as they wait to see if the car starts on the first try. It does. They drive into the next town over listening to cheap and meaningless pop music on the radio. It’s not her favorite music, or his either, but it’s music they both know. Plus, it’s one of the only two radio stations his broken and bent antenna will receive. Still, she doesn’t mind. It’s one of those late summer nights that feel free and simple. With the windows down, her hair blows away from her face, and she feels like she’s seventeen again and on her first date with the man that will become her husband.
She reaches over and puts a firm hand on his upper thigh. He gives her that smile that he’s always given her; the one she likes so much, that feels like an invitation. Although she wants to slide her hand farther up that thigh and maybe pull over for a second or two, she doesn’t. She knows it won’t stop him from wanting to get to his cousin’s shower on time. Stupid cousin. Stupid wedding shower.
Once they arrive at the wedding shower, she holds her breath in for a second.
He looks over at her and says soothingly, “Just be yourself and don’t worry about it.”
She nods, because it’s all she can do. She’d so rather be at home cuddling together on the couch and watching TV reruns of old cop shows, like they used to when they were teenagers. Yet, she acknowledges that they are no longer teenagers and have obligations to work and family that they’d never even considered. She still looks like the teenager she was but doesn’t feel like one anymore. She guesses that’s a good thing.
He helps her out of the car like he always does, because Fisher loves her like very few men ever love the women in their lives. She knows he loves her. It’s one of the reasons she’s so willing to do things she doesn’t really want to, to make him happy. He loves her for everything she is and is not. She’s old enough to appreciate that.
They walk together up the driveway that leads to the middle class, blue house. It’s his cousin’s parent’s house. He holds both her hand and that wedding present hastily bought at a discount store. It wasn’t on the registry the cousin bride had sent out. Stupid registry. She never buys items off those things. Instead, she gives whatever it suits her to give and doesn’t care a whole lot if the couple likes it or not. Fisher doesn’t care either; a gift is a gift.
Suddenly they are over the threshold of the front door and surrounded by gossiping, laughing people who are nearly all related to Fisher. He is getting kissed and teased as the present balanced in his hand is hastily hauled away. She steps to the side, watching her husband’s warm reception. That welcome is for him alone, since most of them treat her like his hapless hanger on. She can deal with it, though. She certainly does not want them to kiss and hug her like that. She likes her private space to remain relative-free. To those that do give her a half-hearted hello, she smiles and nods at them. She knows they don’t understand her. It’s okay; Fisher does.
Food is served. Cake is cut. Flashes from cameras are erupting from each side as people exclaim over gifts and trinkets, all somehow necessary before a wedding. She takes part as best she can, even though she is no friend of the bride to be. She does her best to smile and be happy, even though she’s thinking not about the pending nuptials of a cousin in law but instead about the book she’s reading at home. It’s a book that takes place in ancient Rhodes, of course. She loves ancient societies. They make for great reading.
Eventually she finds herself standing outside, slightly away from a group of Fisher’s younger siblings. She’s leaning on the railing of a porch, glad to be away from the hubbub inside. Fisher’s still in there, but she doesn’t mind being on her own for a moment. The warm, late summer quiet is much preferable to the chattering of drunken aunts and scheming cousins. A movement in the right side yard next to the house catches her eye. A large shadow is looming there, moving ever closer and closer. She pays little attention to it, guessing that it’s the family’s dog who is as eager to find some privacy as she. As the figure shows itself, she realizes it’s not a large dog.
It’s a man; one like she’s never seen before. His skin is golden brown and marred with lighter colored scars. His long and shining black hair is done in a single braid that is looped at the back like an ancient soldier’s. His chest is bare except for a single gold amulet that is hung from a leather thong. The glint of that amulet attracts her eye. She knows what that weird cross is. It’s an ankh, the Egyptian sign for life everlasting. She looks from the amulet to his waist, clad in heavy linen with bold pleats. His skirt is short, leaving his legs free to move although he does wear protective material on his shins, like grieves. That same material is duplicated on his forearms. His tawny face is set in rigid stone lines.
She is afraid of him, terrified even. Somehow, she knows he is here for her. Her panic builds to levels previously untouched as she sees that this hardened soldier carries a newborn swaddled in soft linen in the crook of his arm.
As she dashes away madly, she looks back in time to see a man from the shower approach the intruder angrily. The man, clearly no match for this ancient warrior, is sliced down where he stands by a flashing sword the stranger carries. Her mind takes the time to notice that the sword’s silvery glow is not bronze, so it must be iron. This is a warrior from the Iron Age. How the hell did he manage to get here?
She flees, rushes to the front yard before her breath gets caught in her chest and she must stop. Others smoking and laughing in the front yard give her quizzical looks, but she’s panting so hard she cannot warn them like she wants to. She can only clutch at her chest and watch with panicked eyes for the man that is here for her.
She hears a commotion getting louder and louder, coming from behind her in the night’s veiling dark. Voices are raised and then screaming begins. Another modern man gets cut down where he stands. This warrior doesn’t even take the time to look offended or maniacal. He just keeps moving towards her, his eyes seeking her out. She takes more steps away, her mind blank and adrenaline pounding through her rapidly beating heart. She looks up into the windows and sees that the party-goers inside have just realized that there’s a disturbance. She hopes that Fisher doesn’t come outside. She couldn’t stand to lose him.
Eventually, the ancient man finds her. She can’t run anymore. She’s not in good enough shape to outrun this heavily muscled warrior. She just looks at him, her heart pounding in her throat, her stomach clenched like she’s about to vomit all over his white linen skirt as he steps closer and closer, and no one tries to come to her rescue anymore. He steps up to her, and she’s sure that this is the moment she’s going to die, die by the hand of some eons old man who is here on a mission to kill her.
Then, silently, he hands over the infant wrapped and sleeping from his arms to hers. She takes the slumbering child without thought, a natural reaction. The soldier looks deeply into her eyes for the briefest moment, and she recognizes sadness there. It’s a profound sadness that almost makes her heart hurt for this soldier man; almost as if he hadn’t just scared the shit out of her. Then, he turns and is gone.
The melee that follows is full of hysterically crying women, cops, and paramedics who are loading the injured men into the back of screaming ambulances. No one mentions her or the baby, as if they had not seen the inexplicable exchange between modern and ancient. She can’t wrap her mind around it, and the baby in her arms sleeps on undisturbed by the howling sirens and raised voices. Finally, Fisher finds her standing huddled against the child in the very back corner of the backyard.
“What the…” he asks her as he stares at the cradled infant.
She shakes her head at him, her hoops flying in the resultant wind.
“We need to get home,” she says to him with urgency in her shaking voice, “We need to get home right now.”
Her eyes travel to the tree line in the back of the suburban yard and the couple walks very slowly until they melt unseen through the yard and out onto the street. It was a trick they had honed when they were teenagers, getting drunk together at random house parties and then slipping away quietly whenever the local P.D. showed up to wreck the fun. In all their years together before reaching their majority, they’d only been caught once. Who knew that their cop-avoiding skills would come in handy like this?
Away from the chaos, she takes the time to spare a glance at Fisher. She is grateful he just followed her lead, grateful that he feels no need to ask questions at the moment. Their trust runs so deep that she knows he would go anywhere with her. She also knows she has no idea how to explain what just happened.
They stalk inaudibly back towards his car in the dark, and once inside he starts the engine purposefully. She keeps the baby cradled against the warmth of her chest. For a few passing minutes, the car is silent. No radio, no wind perceptible outside the closed windows, just the pressing silence as if her whole world is holding its breath.
Fisher moves the car into the road and heads for home. The child picks its head up gingerly then loses control and rests its face against her chest peacefully. She looks down at the child, clearly no more than a brand new infant, and feels the pulse of mother love jump in her throat.
“Solada,” Fisher asks her quietly, “what are we going to do?”
Solada, it means ‘the listener’ in her father’s language. She takes a moment to close her eyes and listen to the world around her. She hears the baby’s soft breath, feels its warmth against her skin. She knows this baby was sent for her, to be hers. She can’t explain how she knows this, but she does.
“It’s ours,” she explains softly, trying not to jostle the infant as she adjusts it to lie in the crook of her arm. “I can’t say how or why, Fisher, but I know it’s meant to be ours. That man, he was looking for me. He knew exactly who he wanted to give this child to.”
Fisher steals a sideways glance at her and the nestled child before he asks, “Did you know him? Had you ever seen him before?”
She shakes her head. “No,” she says certainly, “I’ve never seen him before in my life.”
The rest of the drive home is silent. It’s a different kind of silence than Solada and Fisher are used to. Normally, their silences are pleasant and calm. This silence is threatening and tense. It seems to expand in the vehicle and swallow the two adults whole. It’s the silence that waits at the brink of a huge argument.
Once their tiny condo comes into view, Solada’s brain starts to whirl. She doesn’t know what she’s doing or why she feels like this baby belongs to her. She only knows that she can’t give it up, can’t turn it over to the police so that they can place it in some forgotten foster home. She couldn’t do that to an innocent baby.
She goes from the garage to the condo with the child still wrapped in its soft linens. Once inside, she sits on the worn and faded couch that was a hand-me-down from her father’s college days. It still smells like the favorite hangout of inebriated frat boys even though she has nearly drowned it in fabric spray multiple times. Stupid couch.
Fisher begins pacing, acting as if the police are right on their tails. It’s not true. She didn’t notice a single cop follow them away from the wedding shower.
Finally he speaks up and says, “Solada, you can’t just keep a baby. It’s not a stray dog or something.”
She looks at her husband’s fretful face and replies, “It’s not lost or a stray. It was given to me.”
“No,” he replies, “that could be someone’s child. It could have been kidnapped by that maniac. Are you really going to divest a grieving mother of her baby?”
Tears start to form, hot and itchy, at the corner of her eyes. She does not want a mother out there searching for a baby she will never find. She looks down at the cradled infant as if she could just ask, “Do you have a mommy?”
There, glittering around the child’s neck is the same amulet the man had been sporting. It’s far too big for the miniature infant, and it hangs down to the baby’s naval. As soon as she gathers the golden symbol in her hand, the baby’s eyes shoot open and lock onto hers. She lets the amulet fall tenderly from her fingers back to rest against the baby who instantly relaxes into sleep again.
“Fisher,” she says to her husband quietly, “I don’t think anyone is missing this baby. This necklace-thingy it’s wearing. It’s the same one the guy that gave it to me had on.”
“So?” Fisher asks in frustration.
“So, the two of them are connected somehow. He left her with something,” she says. Fisher shakes his head then marches off to the bedroom to find some baby-free space to think.
Angry at Fisher’s obvious dismissal of her, Solada walks into the bedroom he is trying to find refuge in. She places the sleeping baby down in the bed next to him, heads for the living room, and picks her keys up from the makeshift desk that’s there. Before he can even ask where she thinks she’s going, she’s out the door and in her car.
At the grocery store, she has no idea what she’s doing. She doesn’t know what babies need, what formula is good for their sensitive bellies, what size diapers will fit around their tender behinds. She doesn’t even know the age of the baby in question. It’s so overwhelming for her. Stupid baby supplies. Finally, she wrangles a grey-haired female store employee into helping her.
“First time mom?” the woman questions kindly with the light of understanding in her eyes.
“Yeah,” Solada agrees eagerly, “baby came earlier than expected. We weren’t prepared at all.”
The gray haired lady puts a comforting hand on Solada’s shoulder and pilots her over to the newborn aisle.
“I know what that’s like,” the woman tells her, “two of my own were preemies. One of them only weighed four pounds. It’s always hard at the beginning, but you’ll settle into it.”
Solada nods, trying her best to look like what she thinks a beleaguered new mother would look like. The woman piles her arms high with canisters of formula, bottles, clear nipples, burp clothes, baby blankets, onesies, diapers, wipes, shampoo, and a little nozzle meant to stick in to unspeakable places and remove unspeakable liquids. The only things she doesn’t put on the pile are a crib and car seat. Mostly, it’s because the grocery store doesn’t carry furniture items. Finally, she hands Solada a few rattles and a polka dotted baby bag to put all her new things in. Solada thanks the woman over and over, convinced she could never have figured this out all on her own.
The woman gives her a parting pat on the back and says, “Good luck with your new addition.” If only she knew.
Solada drags her multiple bags filled with baby stuff into the condo and heads to the bedroom, expecting to find Fisher and the baby both where she left them, possibly staring at each other in animosity. She’s shocked when she sees Fisher cuddling the child against him, much the way she had been doing on their trip home from the shower. He’s cooing at the baby softly who’s blinking rapidly at him as if it’d like to laugh if it only could figure out how. He rubs his cheek against the child’s downy head and laughs as it reaches a tiny hand up to touch his whiskered face. She smiles as she sees this playful interaction and knows that she’s got him hooked. He’ll never ask her to send the child away now. Who could?
During the night, the child sleeps beside their bed in a wicker laundry basket cushioned with the whole host of blankets Solada had purchased at the grocery store. She thinks the laundry basket looks funny with its patchwork of yellow, green, and daisy patterned blankets. The child sleeping amidst the humorous hodgepodge doesn’t seem to mind.
It’s a girl. Solada finds that out as soon as the baby wakes up and cries in the middle of the night with a full and bulging linen diaper. It’s leaking and it’s saturated all the way up to its knots tied tightly over the child’s legs. Fighting back her vicious gag reflex, Solada changes the child’s diaper and feeds it. She watches with wide eyes as the child sucks down the formula from one of its new bottles and then wriggles uncontrollably until it finds a comfortable position in which to fall back asleep.
Eat, sleep, poop, burp, and wiggle; that’s the pattern of life for the next few days. Solada and Fisher decide on a plan, one that involves them moving a long ways away from either of their families. It’s the only way they can imagine that doesn’t involve explaining this sudden acquisition to their families and law enforcement. They also continue to watch the news. Solada is convinced that no one is searching for the petite, beautiful baby girl but has agreed with Fisher that if any missing baby reports are heard, she’ll turn the infant in. She does not hear any likely reports.
Fisher applies for a job transfer. She begins packing boxes and lets her employer know that she’s moving. Fisher’s transfer is accepted and the little family is off, traveling across the country to a newly rented condo they found and put first month’s rent down on via the internet. By now, the little one has learned to laugh, and each time she does so both Fisher and Solada light up with mirth. Her tiny features are so perfect, so unblemished, that sometimes she looks like a golden-skinned porcelain doll. Only when she laughs and her toothless grin broadens her face does she look like a real creature. Solada looks down at the mewling infant tucked in a car seat in the moving van and thinks, “She’s going to be a beautiful woman someday”.
Preface II
At the new condo, dishes are unpacked, furniture is removed from the moving van piece by piece, and the long process of making the place a home is started. Both Fisher and Solada call their parents to tell them that Solada is pregnant. It’s not the best or cleverest of lies, but in nine months they’ll be able to tell their families about the child’s existence. Fisher and Solada are betting that by the time their families meet the little one, it’ll be difficult to tell her age for certain.
As the two of them lie in bed that first night in the new place, Solada says, “You know, we still need to name her. We’ve been running around like crazy lately trying to keep her safe, and we haven’t really thought about what we should call her. Got any ideas?”
Fisher picks his head up off the pillow and puts it in Solada’s lap. He’s not used to not getting all of her attention, and with the baby sleeping he’s ready to get his sexy, energetic wife to give him that attention. She runs her fingers through his hair, moving her nails along his scalp just the way he likes.
“Hmm,” he murmurs, trying to think of a decent girl’s name, “how about Svana?”
Solada considers that. She knows it is a name that means ‘swan’. She agrees with Fisher that it’s a good name and hopes that the already lovely child will someday grow into it.
She does grow into it. As each year passes, the child becomes taller, slimmer, and suppler. She sits through homeschooling with Solada each day, but her real passions are music and dance. At five, she is learning to play the harp with fingers that fly over the strings with grace and perfect timing. At six, she’s starting ballet with pointed toes and a regal bearing. Her sable hair grows straight and is as dark as the darkest of nights. Her eyes are perfectly almond shaped and as brilliantly shiny as amber eyes can be. Her coppery skin is sometimes streaked with dirt or sparkle paste, which leaves her adoptive mother smiling.
One day, Solada sits across from seven year old Svana at the kitchen table. They’re reading a book, one that’s supposed to be at Svana’s comprehension level. Yet, Svana looks as if she hasn’t heard or read for herself a single word in the short story. Solada finally closes the book and watches as Svana gives no attitude of protest. The child clearly hasn’t even noticed that the book she was supposed to be giving her utmost attention to is shut.
“My swan,” Solada says, “come here for a second.”
The tall, elegant child comes around the table and climbs into her mother’s lap with poise.
“Don’t you want to learn to read this? Don’t you want to be a lawyer or a teacher or an army sergeant one day? You have to be able to read quickly and efficiently for each of those careers,” Solada chides her leggy daughter.
Svana looks at her mother with the most sincere, candid expression her little face can manage and says, “I don’t want to have a career. I want to be a dancer.”
“That is a career, honey,” Solada tells her little dark skinned girl, “and you’ll still need to read and write and do math.”
“No, I won’t. All I’ll need is music,” Svana says dreamily as she closes her eyes.
Solada knows that the girl is lost to the musical scores in her head and watches as Svana’s fingers play an imaginary harp. Sometimes this little headstrong girl is impossible to corral. Oftentimes, Solada questions why she ever chose to home school. Stupid home school. Then, always, she remembers why. It is the only way their daughter can be enrolled in school without having to present an inexistent birth certificate. Solada does her best.
Two days later Fisher and Solada are sitting in a packed theatre waiting for Svana’s dance recital to begin. Although she’s been dancing for an entire year, this is the recital in which she will have her first solo. Solada’s palms are sweaty with worry and anxiety. She only wants her little girl to succeed. She wouldn’t be able to stand it if Svana fell down or did not perform at the best of her ability. She wants her little swan to shine like the princess she is.
Svana is in many numbers before it’s time for her solo. She excels in each number and performs jazz, tap, ballroom, and ballet routines as if she had been born for dancing. The makeup on her narrow, sharp face makes her look older and yet more stunning. It is a teaser for what the girl may someday become. Fisher says he’s never seen a more beautiful girl. He’s as proud as Solada, as eager to see his daughter succeed. She’s the apple of her parents’ eyes, which is probably why they’ve never added to their family.
The piano music for her solo number begins, and Svana steps out into the spotlight on her long, muscled legs. The child is built for sprinting and track running with her thin limbs and polished demeanor. Yet, nothing but dance and music lessons can hold her constantly wandering attention. She twirls in the blue stage lights, and her sparkling costume and perfect technique draw every eye in the house. Her face is carved into the unemotional and artistic mask of the dancer at work. She leaps and raises her head to the ceiling above. There’s rebellion in her eyes, as if she knows that these jumps and turns are meant for a body older and stronger than her own. She executes to perfection, and when the crowd comes to its feet at the end of her number, she bows demurely at the waist leaving all in the audience in awe at her innocent smile and impeccable balance.
A woman, another mother, standing beside Solada, leans over and whispers a compliment saying, “You have quite a little queen there. I’ve never seen anything like her.”
A few weeks later Solada and Svana are again at the kitchen table, pouring over a history book with bright pictures and long boring descriptions. As usual, Svana’s attention is itinerant. That is until she spies a picture of what the palace at Thebes would have possibly looked like.
“That’s wrong,” she says angrily, ripping the book away from her mother. “That’s totally wrong. Where are the paintings on the walls and the glazed tiles on the floors? Where are the columned porticos and the palace gardens? I can’t believe this!”
“What the hell is a portico?” Solada asks.
Svana blinks rapidly for a second, as if she’s terribly confused. “I… I have no idea,” she tells her mother vacantly.
The years fly by in the obnoxious, yet obscure, way that is inherent to the passing of time. The little girl grows like a tree, constantly reaching her limbs skyward. The little family goes from condo living to home buying. Their house is constantly filled with laughing girls, sleepovers, dancing, and music. At ten, Svana adds belly dancing to her repertoire. At eleven years of age, her mother opens her own homeschooling business, and Svana adds five other schoolmates to her class. At twelve, she begins to play both the guitar and the flute along with her harp. Her ability to understand and express herself through music baffles her two parents who cannot read it.
One thing that remains unchanged is the golden ankh that Svana has finally grown into. It rests against her chest always as she dances, plays, and sleeps. If it doesn’t match her dance costumes, she tapes it down underneath. If it doesn’t go with her outfit, she doesn’t care. Her parents have always been honest with her about how she became part of their family, and she feels connected with her past somehow through the little golden and leather amulet. Neither parent begrudges her that.
Svana’s thirteenth birthday seems to sneak up on all of them. The years have flown by. Fisher has his first grey hairs, which Solada loves to tease him about as she lies in his arms at night. Solada’s business is booming in a way she has never imagined. Her six students challenge and socialize with one another. Her parents have come to love their ‘grandchild’ who was born and raised so far away from them. Suburban domestic life has settled comfortably around the family of three, and both Solada and Fisher can’t believe that thirteen years ago to the day is when the strange man first put Svana in their arms.
Fisher hasn’t thought about the man very often in the thirteen years after the attack at the wedding shower. Solada has reflected on him and his sudden appearance every day of their lives. Always, in the back of her mind, she fears that he may return and steal her daughter away from her. Constantly, she wonders why he gave her the beautiful baby that has grown into such a graceful, swanlike young woman. Strangely, Svana never seems to wonder about him like her mother does. She simply accepts that she will never see the man again.
Svana is standing in the middle of the living room, watching as her parents put up the decorations for her thirteenth birthday party. Her friends are due over any minute, and she’s primped and poised to be the center of attention.
Her mother, who’s hanging streamers from the peaks of the ceiling asks her, “Svana, are these ribbons even?”
Svana tilts her head, trying to decide if she thinks the streamer on the left should be moved up or not, when suddenly a look of anguish crosses her face.
“What is it?” Solada asks loudly, concern making her voice thunderous.
“Mom!” Svana screams in a high pitched tortured squeal, “Mom it burns. Get it off me! Get it off!”
Suddenly, she’s struggling with the gold of her necklace, trying to pull it off but failing each time it burns one of her fingers. Fisher and Solada run to her aid and try to snatch the amulet away from her skin but both fail time and again. Finally, Solada grabs Svana to hold her still as Fisher reaches in and clasps his hands about the ankh.
Chapter 1: Isetnofret
All I remember is that it hurt. My head felt like it was splitting open. I felt as if I was being strangled. My lungs were on fire. My throat and chest felt constricted as if a boa were squeezing the life out of me with the sheer size of its body. The burning that had been present on my chest, just a second before, was gone. I felt like myself and not like myself. It’s hard to explain. It’s still hard to understand.
I kept my eyes clenched shut against the pain. It took only a moment for the wave of heat and the resultant nausea to pass over me, but the moment seemed to drag on into eternity. When I finally did open my eyes, they refused to shut again, refused to be shut away from such wonder. I did not know then where I was, but I know now. I was home; home in the arms of Isis.
I tried to take everything in. Most everything was white; whitewashed walls, white stone floors, white pillars that supported the high white ceiling. White. The color of Egyptian omnipotence. The areas that weren’t white were painted with talismans of the ankh and the eye of Horus. There were also murals that looked like colorful timelines depicting a woman’s life. She was beautiful; she was heartbreaking in her sorrow; she was motherhood. She was Isis, first Queen of Egypt. I knew none of this then.
What I knew was that there were many girls bustling around me, all clad in short white sheaths. They all had on black jewelry; beaded necklaces, bracelets, and anklets. Black. A reminder that Isis is the wife of the god of the underworld, that she is the protectress of the last judge of the dead. They had hair like mine, dark as midnight. Many of them had skin like my own, too. Yet, there were lighter and darker shades mixed in as if there was a convergence of nations in that large palatial shrine. Some of the older women were wearing longer scarlet sheaths with tiara-like circlets in their hair. The circlets had a strange geometric shape centered on them, a shape that resembled a seat or an abstract throne.
My mother was standing beside me, and she too looked overcome with awe at our surroundings. She was dressed as a senior priestess with a long crimson sheath, an ornate circlet, black jewelry, and a heavy waist belt decorated with carnelian stones. She looked like a princess, and I told her so.
“How the…” she began as she looked around at the beautiful shrine.
I looked down at myself and saw that I was also dressed as a priestess. My own short sheath was white and beltless. I had multiple black bangles on both arms. I looked like every other young woman at the temple except, I am sure, for the confused and mystified expression that I wore. My feet were covered in thin papyrus sandals that flexed and bent as I moved about.
Someone approached my mother and me as we stood gawking at the shrine. She was tall, nearly taller than me, which is quite an accomplishment for a woman. Her face may have been the most beautiful female face I have ever seen. Yet, it was a beauty that was intimidating and overwhelming. It was an exquisiteness that made you want to turn and run, instead of approach. Immediately, I found her presence frightening.
“Why,” she asked in a voice like honey but sarcastic, “are the two of you just standing there?”
I realized, with her standing that close, that she was a young woman and only a few years older than me. I also noticed there were things about her that differed from the other priestesses. She was quite young, but she wore the crimson of a senior priestess. The ornamentation on her head was not the circlet with the throne symbol but a gilded cobra fashioned to look like a tiara. Her scarlet sheath had rich golden embroidery running through it, and the look on her face did not read as ‘humble’ or ‘supplicant of a goddess’. It said only one thing, ‘important’.
“That,” said another unfamiliar voice, “is not how we speak to those who give their service to the Light Giver, Henutmire.”
I turned to see a woman, bent with age, approaching. She was clad in the same ruby colored garment of every other mature woman, but something about her radiated goodness and respect. Once she had managed to hobble over to where we were standing, she placed a hand on the girl called Henutmire’s shoulder firmly.
“Your highness, please go check on the offerings,” the wizened woman suggested. I knew that this woman was not one to be ignored. Henutmire gave me a parting look full of disgust as she moved farther into the shrine.
“That’s the problem with royal daughters coming here,” the old woman told us absentmindedly, “They immediately think they’re in charge of everyone. Granted, she is studying to become the next High Priestess. Still, she’ll have to wait until I’m dead, which could take me quite a while. And that’s if I don’t send her on to Hathor’s temple! They could teach her some manners there. Isis is proud and imperial. Hathor is both mother and lover to the Black Land. Any good mother knows when to reprimand her daughters.” The old woman’s eyes seemed to come into focus suddenly, and she looked us over very closely. “Strangers,” she said, “strangers with a story to tell. So be it. Come this way, please.”
We followed her down open-air corridors that led away from the central shrine. It was clear that living quarters branched off the main passageway as did kitchens, a mess hall, and a large room for bathing. She led us, then, outside into manicured gardens with manmade pools. The pools were lovelier than anything I’d ever seen in nature. Lotuses and lilies floated atop the gently moving waters, and small animals scurried around the bright foliage. In the center of the largest pool was an effigy of Isis, carved in black, holding the newborn Horus to her breast. She looked both serene and stately cradling her son and bearing her heaviest of crowns with grace.
The small shriveled woman in the red sheath sighed as she sat down on a stone bench next to the pool with the effigy. She spread her bowed legs out in front of her and asked simply, “Where do you come from, guests?”
I looked at my mother who raised her shoulders slightly as if to say “I have no idea how to answer that question”. I decided that the truth was the only option. I did not tell the old woman about the future, about refrigerators or televisions, things that now I barely recall, that seem almost magical. I simply told her about my necklace and how it scorched me before I showed up here. The woman’s eyes widened and she nodded her head at me.
She leaned forward and studied my mother and me cautiously before she said, “Welcome into the shrine of Isis, child. We’ll need to get you ready.”
“Ready for what?” my mother asked, her protective nature showing itself.
“Ready for her future,” the High Priestess exclaimed, “Come what may.”
She piloted us through the maze of corridors again until we stood in front of a large room with a cedar door. She explained that each senior priestess had the right to their own room, although I could share my mother’s if I liked. She showed us to the mess hall where the priestesses took their meals, to the baths where the younger women communally bathed, and then back to the open atrium of the shrine. I was glad, after seeing the baths, that all senior priestesses had their own tubs in their private suites. I would use my mother’s area for bathing. I was still too modest to be seen in the nude by other women. I was still holding on to the trappings of the twenty-first century.
In the shrine the High Priestess told us that priestesses had a daily routine, one that was followed to the letter. All came to the altar at the head of the shrine early, before the first meal of the day, to pay obeisance to Isis and present her with all of the previous day’s offerings from her people. Oil and myrrh were spread on the feet of her statue and brief prayers were recited to invoke her pleasure. Then, the doors to the shrine would be opened, and worshippers would be welcomed in by the senior priestesses whom would take whatever offerings the people brought in exchange for prayers said to Isis. The lesser, younger priestesses would begin their day not by taking offerings and greeting pilgrims but by cleaning an assigned section of the shrine or living quarters. Cleaning was done with lemons, oil, and water with scraps of linen for rags. Then, when daily cleaning was finished, the younger women would split up to do specialized tasks.
The old woman with the scarlet sheath told us that some of the younger women were expert cooks, some mended clothing, some wrote and worked as scribes and accountants for the temple, others painted and repaired the murals around the complex, some would blend herbs and magic to perfect the art of healing, and in addition more would work around the baths making other priestesses beautiful with cosmetics and oils. The senior priestesses spent most evenings in Isis’ gardens, making sure the temple grounds were as beautiful as possible or overseeing the tasks of younger priestesses.
At this point, the decrepit lady looked to me and asked, “What do you do, child?”
For a moment, I was not sure how best to answer her. I did not do or have proficiency in any of the undertakings she had named. I was not long thirteen and seriously lacking in job skills. My mother saved me by answering, “She’s a fantastic dancer and an accomplished musician.”
“Ah,” the old woman sighed, “I should have known. We have both dancers and musicians here. If you would like to split your time up between the two pursuits, that would be entirely acceptable. Be aware that Henutmire is also a dancer though, and no one can outshine her.” Immediately, I took that as a challenge.
We ate dinner that night in the dining hall with the other priestesses. The senior priestesses sat on a raised platform together, though their numbers were small. I sat among the thirty or forty lesser priestesses below the podium. Although Henutmire shot daggers at me with her eyes, the other priestesses were kind enough. Two young women found me and sat on either side as they chattered about life at the temple. They were lighter skinned with wavy hair that was a brown that bordered blonde. They explained they were girls who had once hailed from Wilusa, that they were aboard one of the last refugee ships to escape. They were talkative sisters who had no idea what had become of their parents or how much of their original city still stood, still begged, with its unenforceable defenses, for a second and worse attack.
The one on my left, who called herself Merytasherit, looked up to the higher table at Henutmire and asked me quietly, “What have you done to incur the wrath of the princess?”
I couldn’t tell if she sympathized or not. There was a mischievous glint in her blue eyes that said that she might. “I have no idea,” I replied honestly.
Her sister on my right, Asarsit, simply said, “Just try to stay out of her way. It’s the best we all can hope for.”
Yet, as I looked around at the seated priestesses, I saw some young women who glanced up at Henutmire as if she was a goddess herself. There was a fascination with her that I could not explain. Perhaps, it was her royal blood mixed with her intimidating beauty. I have learned through the years that power can be very appealing, even beautiful to behold.