Eye of the Moon Read Free

bidding farewell? There was no need for him to go. He could have learned the art of embalming from me.”
    I gave my father a dark look. “Am I not your helper? Is my work not good enough? Katep was never interested in learning to embalm. Besides, it’s not his fault he had to leave. It’s the fault of a crocodile!”
    â€œHush! Hold your tongue! To be eaten by themost sacred crocodile, Sobek, is the greatest honor.”
    â€œI’d rather die without honor.”
    He shook his head. “Kara! Kara! You’re too headstrong. It’ll get you into trouble yet. You need a mother to groom you in the ways of women. You must learn to think before you speak.”
    â€œBut—!”
    â€œEnough!”
    I understood my father’s anger and hurt. We both missed Katep more than we could say. The house was quieter with him gone. Our meals were taken in silence opposite his empty place. The day Katep left, my father inscribed these words above the arch that led to the crocodile pit:
    To be devoured by the crocodile god, Sobek, is to be possessed forever by divinity.
    Now, as I passed under those words, shivery bumps came up on my arms. They weren’t a comfort. I had no desire to be eaten by a crocodile.
    I stood ready to heave the goat into the pit when I suddenly realized that when Katep had left, he’d snapped the thread between us—the thread that I thought could never be broken.

    2    
DAZZLING ATEN
    I woke before the water of the Great River stole blue from the sky. Out on the roof terrace, the stars were turning pale in the east. The chilly air brought goose bumps to my arms. I touched the moonstone of the amulet at my throat—three times for good luck—then felt for the seven knots tied in my plaited papyrus bangle and whispered the prayers that would invoke each knot to tie up any evil that might be lurking and keep Katep safe.
    My hands moved from amulet to knots without thinking. They were rituals done as easily as breathing or brushing a fly from my face.
    The embers in the clay oven were still warm enough to stir into life. I lay down two loaves that had been proving overnight and dragged the embers around them. Soon the smell of warm barley dough rose up into the air.
    Then I crept downstairs past my father’s sleeping chamber and past Katep’s empty corner and stepped outside into the courtyard. It was shadowy and silent. Even the fish in the reflecting pool still slept. The air was heavy with the perfume of figs and ripening dates. I slipped two figs into my girdle bag and then began sweeping the entrance to the courtyard with a mimosa branch to ward off plagues from entering our home that day.
    I took two leather buckets and strode down to the river to fetch my father’s bathing water. The water buffalo were moving restlessly in their byre, pushing and nosing one another in their eagerness to get at the fresh clumps of sedge. Their horns stood out like dark lyres against the pale sky.
    Some mornings a warm desert wind played musicon those lyres. A strange, enchanting song that came from a far-distant place. A sound that made my feet want to dance and swirl away over the sand dunes. Today there was no wind. Just an early chill that made the skin of the buckets stiff as I carried them down to the river’s edge.
    The floods were coming. I could tell. Every day the water was pushing higher and higher and the small islands were disappearing. Thoth, the god of wisdom and truth, was weighing sunshine and darkness. Soon the day would come when they would balance equally on the scales. And then sunshine would tip heavier.
    Each morning as the light crept in from the east, I searched for the tiny sliver of the First Moon. Now this morning it was there—floating just above the edge of the earth. A transparent shaving, as fine as a single thread of spun flax. Finer than a nail paring. I touched the moonstone amulet and invoked