Cleopatra Occult Read Free Page B

a guard dog.”
    Cleopatra doubted. “I was being chased by death? Or protected in death by Anubis?” She held up her hand and wiggled her fingers. “But I’m not dead...”
    Iset asked, “Who is the hare?”
    “It felt like it was me. I woke up so terrified that night.”
    “Did the wolf capture the hare in your dream?”
    Cleopatra winced. “I awoke when they were still running. I awoke because I was afraid of being caught. And forthwith I was obviously caught. And I lost my throne.”
    Iset explained, “The hare is often a sacred messenger. The hare is the goddess of the otherworld.”
    “ Under world?”
    Iset looked off in thought. Her eyes went wide. “No. That is rather ordinary. The other world, a place in the desert between life and death, and it’s neither life or death.”
    Cleopatra surmised, “The undead?”
    Iset glanced up. “This temple is under the shifting blowing sands of desert where the living and dead meet. It’s always unsettled. Valleys are exalted and hills are made low. The natural order is chaos. Things are always indirect. To ever leave this place again you must go through that otherworld. To find the green gardens of the living again you must follow the locust swarms.”
    Cleopatra assured her, “I know how to use the sun to find my direction. I can navigate any desert.”
    “The sun does not move in the otherworld. You must follow the locusts from dune to dune or you will go in circles. Then the devils will come to you… all that has been born and has flesh sings of death.”
    “That’s nonsense.” Cleopatra impatiently sat at the table and imperiously flicked aside a thin red snake. Other snakes scrambled. “You know that my dreams have nothing to do with afterlife preparations. What are you keeping from me? I’m not ready for the otherworld yet, or the underworld. I’m getting my throne back in this world! Everything I do is for the throne of Egypt.”
    Iset didn’t answer but began to sing as she stirred the gruel, “ Follow the locusts. Follow them to the gardens of life. Make barren all that was green .” 
    Cleopatra lost patience. “I’m running out of time and you’re making a breakfast and I’m not even hungry. I’m sitting in a kitchen and kitchens are not for queens.”
    Iset feigned surprised. “You’ve never been in one before?”
    “No! The closest thing would be my laboratory at the palace.”
    Iset looked at her pot. “I am stirring in a spiral. A careful spiral. A path isn’t a straight line. A spiral lets you continually come back to the same place, through time, and see deeper truths.”
    Cleopatra stood as she huffed with impatience. “You’re doing magic now? Here? But this is a kitchen. I’m a queen!”
    Iset ignored Cleopatra’s emotions. “The kitchen is the best place to begin a magic spell. The kitchen is the best place to end a magic spell. The strongest magic has its roots, seeds, flowers and straw in the kitchen.”
    Cleopatra looked at the room in condescension. “But it’s all so mundane.”
    “So.”
    “So?” Cleopatra insisted, “Magic is supposed to be occult … hidden ! Magic is supposed to be for queens, priestesses and witches… not the common maidservant.”
    Iset smiled at the fire. “Long before the first temple was ever built, the hearth was the sacred altar to all the gods where every prayer was made. Many witches are now the maidservants in the shadows. Their dark smoky kitchens give them great power.”
    “What I want is what I need. I’ll never need a kitchen. I want my throne!”
    Iset swirled her wooden spoon in the air. “It is now lost in the spiral and labyrinth of the Minotaur. To slay that beast you must first jump back into the game.”
    Cleopatra insisted again that kitchens weren’t for queens, and left the room to pray at the large red statue of the seven headed snake.
    Alone, Iset opened a clay jar and pulled out a living baby rabbit. She swallowed it down whole.  
     
     
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