Jagger Jones and the Mummy's Ankh

by Malayna Evans

  Jagger watched his sister as they rode the carriage toward the limestone cliffs. She chewed her hair, staring into the brilliant, night sky. It looked like diamonds scattered across black silk. “I …” He paused. “Um, I love you, lil’ sis.”

  Aria looked at him and sighed. “I love you too. But do we have to admit it? I’m fine. We can go back to normal now. All this niceness is creeping me out.”

  He smiled and fell silent. Only the sound of the horse’s hoofs punctured the silence of the night. Mut was waiting for them in the tomb, and Tatia sat next to Aria with her eyes shut, emanating a calm Jagger could only dream of. It must be comforting to know you’d see your love ones again, even when they died. People in his time always said the dead were in a better place, but the princess knew it.

  Fifteen minutes later, the carriage stopped near the limestone cliffs, and Tatia magically maneuvered the large, silver dish that held Jagger’s watery likeness toward the tomb. Jagger followed her, clutching the long, papyrus and leather tube, stuffed with pennies and makeup and date slices to his chest, like the fragile treasure it was.

  He paused at the top of the same stairs Tatia’s voice had led him to in his time. They were clean and tidy now, leading into the desert floor invitingly. The princess walked gracefully down them, followed by Aria, then Jagger. He freed a hand to pat his phone, stuck deep in his pocket, wishing he had more battery to spare so he could light their way. Before he could dismiss the thought, Tatia uttered a word, and a soft light lit the tomb, illuminating the colorful wall art, so faded in their time but brilliant now, even with the dim lighting. A memory struck him, and Jagger moaned, “The light …”

  “It’s a simple spell.” Tatia shrugged. “All magicians learn it early.”

  Aria rolled her eyes. She was thinking the same thing he was: Herihor could have lit their way anytime. The priest had been working against them in so many ways, and they only trusted him because they were too ignorant to recognize the deceit.

  He tried to shake off the sudden anger as he followed his sister through the hallway. She wore her old, leopard striped leggings and pink sneakers. She’d lost the makeup. Her loose curls bounced as she walked, looking like an average, American kid again. But Jagger knew she wasn’t the same girl who’d fallen into this tomb a week ago. She’d always been brave, but he’d never considered her wise. Isis’s words ran through his head. Had he been wrong about that all along? Or was it new?

  He ran his hand over his head, missing his hair more, now that they were headed home. He’d grown used to his head feeling light, but he wasn’t sure when the rest of him started feeling lighter too. Maybe acknowledging the anger he’d carted around—anger over his mom’s lifestyle choices, his dad’s lameness, and his sister’s neediness—had set him free.

  “Think Mom will be mad?” Aria glanced back at him.

  He grimaced. “If she knows we were gone, she’s probably been worried sick. She’ll just be happy we’re okay.” His lips shifted into a grin. “Then she’ll be mad.” He was anxious to see her. He should be used to long stretches away from Mom by now, but this was different—this time he had to worry about her, not just Aria and his grandparents.

  Aria stopped and looked back at him. “It’s weird how all the travelling we do together made this whole thing easier, huh? It’s kinda like we practiced for this.” She rushed to catch up to Tatia, leaving Jagger looking after her. Wisdom!

  “It’s ready.” Mut stood in the door to the tomb chamber where the boulder had been when they fell into the tomb. She was dressed in a linen shift studded with gems around the collar and a black wig with blunt bangs, the sides pulled back to reveal large, gold earrings.

  “Hemet and Mutef moved that rock,” he muttered as the thought struck him.

  Aria nodded. “Yeah! Right?”

  Mut tilted her head to the side, confused, before shrugging and waving them into the burial chamber.

  Jagger’s skin felt hot as he walked toward Mek in her sarcophagus, lying with the ankh on her belly.

  “I’ll miss you, Jagger Jones.” Tatia put a hand on his shoulder. The other hand sneaked out and pulled Aria close. “And you. But I’m pleased your brother found a way to take you home.”

  Aria hugged her, one eye on Mek. A wave of sadness hit him as he looked at the younger princess. She wasn’t wrapped in her mummy wrappings yet. If he didn’t know better, he’d think she was sleeping. The black marks under her eyes had disappeared. The ankh sitting on her belly was covered in gemstones that sparkled like trapped fireflies scurried around inside them.

  “Are you ready?” Mut touched Jagger gently on the shoulder.

  He looked at Aria, who gave him a nod, then turned and threw her arms around the princess’s neck again. Mut pulled him into them for a group hug.

  When he stepped back, Tatia leaned toward him. “Find your faith, Jagger Jones. Not just faith in yourself, but faith in those you love as well, your sister above all. You’ve accomplished great deeds here. Take them with you, and push to do more. Start believing. And never stop.”

  He hung his head, unsure how to respond. He was surprised to realize he’d miss Tatia and Mut. And Babi. Even more surprising, he appreciated this entire adventure. He never thought he’d value being pulled out of his own time and sent on a dangerous trek that almost killed his sister. But the surprising truth was, he did.

  “Well,” Mut said with an amused gleam in her eye. “Let’s get you home.”

  Tatia joined Mut in front of the sarcophagus. “We need your magic now, Jagger Jones.”

  He tugged his phone out of his pocket and held his breath as he flipped it on. It worked. He flicked to his camera roll and found an image of Aria. It was one of his favorites, taken on her tenth birthday. They’d gone on a dessert crawl through their favorite South Side restaurants with Mom, Grams, and Gramps, hopping from diner to café to bistro in search of the best dessert on Chicago’s South Side. Jagger had snapped the shot just after Aria declared the winner, an especially good tiramisu from one of Chicago’s best, Italian restaurants. His sister flashed him a quick grin as he laid his phone down next to his own bizarre likeness.

  Mut’s eyes pulsed when she saw it. Jagger stood a little taller. He felt proud of impressing these two powerful magicians with his own brand of magic.

  “Now what?” he asked, trying to play it cool.

  “Stand there.” Mut pushed Jagger toward the short end of the painted, cedar chest his image-infused bowl sat on, then directed Aria to the other end of the chest, closer to Jagger’s phone.

  “You need to hurry,” Jagger reminded them. “The charge won’t last.”

  Tatia nodded as she and Mut stood on the opposite sides of the chest with their hands joined over it.

  “Hear us, Isis,” Tatia began.

  “Heed us, Osiris,” Mut added.

  The wind rose, and the smell of fresh herbs and lotus filled the air. Lights erupted from the sarcophagus, as if the ankh had released all its fireflies simultaneously.

  “Come to us, Horus,” the princess continued.

  “Help us, Princess,” Mut finished.

  “Meseneh Rek,” they chanted together. “Turn back time.”

  Mut pulled a papyrus scroll from her robe, unrolling it and handing it to Tatia. The princess’s braids whipped in the wind as she pulled out a reed pen and drew two horizontal lines, connected at the ends. It was a simple representation of a mouth, the hieroglyphic version of the letter R. The princess passed the papyrus and reed to Mut, who added a circle with several horizontal lines intersecting it under the mouth. The princess then added a long, vertical rectangle to the right of the other two letters, with a small tie on one side, representing a papyrus role.

  “Rek,” Tatia chanted as she handed the papyrus to Mut, who tied a simple string around it as she added her own “rek.” With his newfound understanding of ancient Egyptian, Jagger knew the word could mean “time” or “knowledge” or “wi
sdom.”

  Tatia smiled at Jagger and Aria, then laid the papyrus on the chest so that it was touching both the bowl of Jagger-looking water and his phone, with Aria’s face staring happily up. The wind whipped harder as Jagger looked at Aria across the chest. She was pale. Jagger wondered if she was as nervous as he was. What if something went wrong? What if they didn’t make it home after all? Tatia had said something about danger …

  The papyrus burst into flames, and Jagger recoiled. The two magicians didn’t react. They kept chanting a string of gods’ names and titles. The scents and sounds escalated. The wind organized itself, creating a kind of tunnel that sent the lights blowing in the same circular direction. It was like a sparkly whirlwind choreographed to the sounds of the mantra.

  Jagger began to feel insubstantial, as if his body wasn’t quite real. Instinctively, he reached out for Aria, who must have been experiencing a similar sensation. She reached back.

  This was it. He wasn’t sure they were going to make it home, but they were about to leave this place. His fingers squeezed Aria’s as he searched for Tatia’s eyes, hoping for one last goodbye before leaving her behind forever. She was looking over her shoulder, brows furrowed.

  Following her gaze, Jagger saw the small, blue shabti girl who’d tried to feed Herihor a miniscule fish when they last saw the evil priest in the tomb. She looked … chipped was the word that came to Jagger’s mind. A menacing, black smoke whirled behind her, slinking into the room and filling the space, suffocating the dancing lights.

  A scream exploded in the room just as Jagger and Aria fell.

  Whose scream was it?

  Jagger and Aria clung to each other. This time it felt like they were falling up. His phone whizzed past him, and he reached out and grabbed it. The lights still surrounded them, but the black smoke slunk in, tainting the air. The deafening silence they had experienced the first time they fell returned, but it lasted only a moment.

  They landed in darkness. The lights vanished the second they hit dirt, and the sound of the wind went with them. Aria’s breath boomed through the tomb. Jagger’s heart was pounding in his chest.

  Jagger clicked on his phone. “The light won’t last long.”

  He looked around. The hiss of Aria’s inhaler was loud. They were back where they started, in the tomb, sitting on the ground in front of the sarcophagus, next to the feet of Hemet and Mutef, who were gazing down on them, lit by his phone’s dim light. The tomb was dingy and stale again.

  “Who screamed?” Aria asked, echoing Jagger’s thoughts.

  “I don’t know.” Jagger reached out and touched the cold, gold hand of Hemet, or Mutef perhaps, his mind whirling.

  “We have to go back!” Aria tugged at his shirt, as if she could pull him back three thousand years by sheer will alone.

  “We can’t go back. Not unless they manage to call us again.” Jagger took a deep breath, hearing Mom’s mantra in his head. “Breathe.” Realizing he’d said it out loud, he gave Aria an I’m-sorry-eye-roll. “Think, lil’ sis. We’re home, just where we wanted to be, just where we worked to get. We can’t do anything for them. As close as they feel, the fact is, they lived, and died, thousands of years ago. Right now, we need to find Mom.”

  Aria scrambled up and tried talking to Hemet and Mutef. They stood silent. Jagger struggled to find some clue in their metallic eyes. Nothing. They simply stared down at him, as if they truly were lifeless.

  Aria twirled and leaned over the sarcophagus, rummaging around the mummy.

  “Aria!” Jagger wasn’t sure why he found her actions so shocking. But now that he knew Mek, or her family at least, it seemed like her mummy should be treated with more respect.

  “Got it!” She held the ankh up. It was still lit up like a Christmas tree, magical lights sparkling in the dim tomb.

  Instinctively, Jagger’s hand went to his throat. The Isis Knot amulet was still there. It hadn’t crossed his mind to return it to the princess. Clutching it, he thought of Mom.

  “She’s here,” he breathed, surprised the magic still worked. “Mom’s close.”

  “I know,” Aria replied with a grin.

  Worried as he and Aria both were about their friends, and whatever catastrophe they’d left them in, he could tell she was as excited to see Mom as he was.

  Glancing around the tomb one last time, Aria looked at Hemet and Mutef. “We’ll be back,” she promised, as she tugged Jagger’s arm and pulled him toward the exit, sticking the amulet in her purse as she ran toward their mother.

  Pronunciation Guide

  Amarna – Uh-mar-nuh

  Aten – Ah-tun

  Akhenaten – Awk-eh-nah-tun

  Meretaten – Mare-et-ah-tun

  Meketaten – Mek-et-ah-tun

  Mutbenret (primarily referred to as Mut, as in “moot point”) – Moot-ben-ret

  Mutef – Moo-tef

  Hemet – Hem-et

  Babi – Bah-bee

  Herihor – Hair-ee-hor

  Smenkare – Smen-kah-ray

  Tutankhamun – Toot-ankh-ah-moon

  Nefertiti – Nef-er-tee-tee

  Meretseger – Mare-et-say-ger

  Seshep ny Netjer (God’s Light) – Seh-shep knee net-jer

  Heqa-oo Moot (Death Spell) – Heck-a-oo Moot

  Meseneh Rek (Turning Time) – Mes-en-eh Wreck

  Iroo Herioo (Making Faces) – Ear-oo Hare-ee-oo

  Historical Note

  The Amarna period was one of the most fascinating periods in human history. Pharaoh Akhenaten truly did move the court to the middle of Egypt and build a new capital on fresh soil. Scholars believe he chose the site because the nearby cliffs mimicked the hieroglyphic symbol for the horizon, which looks like a sun disk rising over two hills. His iconography is unlike anything else in the country’s long history. And perhaps most importantly, he elevated the worship of the sun disc, displacing Egypt’s traditional gods and goddesses. In fact, Akhenaten is sometimes referred to as history’s first monotheist (although he was actually a henotheist: he didn’t deny the existence of other gods, he simply claimed the Aten was superior). His advancement of the Aten, a god known but not terribly popular prior to the Amarna period, upended generations of tradition, sending reverberations through all aspects of life including art, architecture, the economy, the military, family life, government, and more.

  Many of the characters in the book are based on real people. Akhenaten and his queen, Nefertiti, had six daughters, although I only included five in this story. Meretaten was the oldest, and is well attested, surviving in images scattered throughout museums from London to New York to Cairo. Meretaten’s fate is fuzzy, but her younger sister, the second princess, Meketaten, does seem to have died around this time. She appears to have been memorialized in a chamber of the Royal Tomb of Akhenaten. Two younger princesses may have died around this time as well, possibly from a plague. The third princess, Ankhesenpaaten, survived to marry Tutankhamun, known more widely today as King Tut and famous for his tomb, discovered by Howard Carter in 1922. Smenkare and Tutankhamun are most likely Akhenaten’s sons, although Nefertiti was not their mother. The noblewoman, Mutbenret, is similarly attested and sometimes depicted with two companions, Hemetniswernehe and Mutef-Pre (Hemet and Mutef). She’s also sometimes shown with Meretaten and Meketaten and may have been Queen Nefertiti’s sister. Jagger and Aria are loosely based on my own two, beautiful, biracial children. I’m proud to share my creative, loving little people with the world. I hope they bring my readers a dash of the joy they fill my days with.

  I’ve also included a plethora of historically-attested artifacts, places, and beliefs; indeed, the magic used in this story is inspired by spells and practices that have survived in the archeological record. This series was, in part, inspired by an ancient blessing: ankh, wedja, seneb, which means (may you have) life, prosperity, and health. In JAGGER JONES AND THE MUMMY’S ANKH, I’ve tried to contrast how we think about life, ankh, with ancien
t Egyptian notions of life; thus, the emphasis on the afterworld, a very real, concrete concern for many ancient Egyptians, some of whom, it’s worth noting, spent more time and money on the tombs designed to house them for eternity than the homes they spent their lives in. Ancient Egyptians firmly believed that death is forever, while life is fleeting.

  But while I used the knowledge I gained earning my Ph.D. in History of the Ancient Near East from the University of Chicago to craft a tale loaded with the spirit of ancient Egypt, I also empowered the storyteller in me to override the historian, which is a complicated way to admit I took liberties with the history currently known to us.

  I hope you’ve enjoyed the history and inspiration behind the adventure as much as I do.

  Discussion Questions

  This series was inspired, in part, by an ancient blessing: ankh, wedja, seneb, which means (may you have) life, prosperity, and health. Can you identify differences in how the ancient and modern characters think about “life” in the story? What sections of the story reveal uniquely ancient Egyptian notions and how do they differ from yours?

  As explored in the book, Pharaoh Akhenaten tried to elevate his favorite god, the Aten, over the many traditional gods of Egypt. Do you think that was good for his country? Can you identify sections of the book that speak to this change and how some ancient Egyptians may have felt about it?

  Jagger’s sense of responsibility is an important theme in the book. “It’s your job to take care of your sister,” his mother often told him. How does this sense of responsibility manifest itself in the book? How do you think Aria feels about it? Does Jagger change throughout the book?

  Jagger and Aria have different strengths and they use different resources to solve problems. What are some problems Jagger solved and what personal attributes helped him solve them? What problems did Aria solve and what characteristics enabled her to do so?