Another Pan

by Daniel Nayeri

  Simon ignored her.

  “Well, we’d better get to work,” said Wendy. “I want to clock in a few hours before dark. Daddy, can you sign my time card?”

  Professor Darling nodded proudly.

  She turned to Simon, deciding to ignore his protests and pretend that she was the boss. As her father always said, Do the job you want, not the job you have. Or, as John would put it, Fake it till you make it. “Follow me. The three of us are supposed to start cataloging the artifacts in the basement.”

  “Dr. Darling”— Simon’s Brit accent seemed to intensify just then —“I suppose I’ll need the keys, cataloging papers, et cetera.” He held out his hand.

  “Wendy already has all that,” said the professor, already busying his mind with other things. He sat behind his desk and was opening research files before Simon had even withdrawn his hand.

  Wendy smiled at Simon, who glared back. “Yes, well,” he said, “you’ll have to turn over at least the paperwork. We wouldn’t want any liability issues . . . as a result of mishandling. I’m sure you understand, Wendy.”

  “We’ll see if I can find them,” said Wendy sarcastically. “Teenagers tend to be so flighty when it comes to misplacing things. Can we get to work now?” She picked up a couple of clipboards and walked toward the Marlowe basement. The whole way, John examined Simon’s multi-watch, holding up Simon’s limp wrist to his face. He rapid-fired questions, and Simon answered indifferently with line after line from the owner’s manual. John didn’t seem to notice the irritation in Simon’s voice. Wendy hoped desperately that John wasn’t finding a new role model in this guy. Those spoiled dorm felons were bad enough. Why couldn’t he just hang out with Connor?

  The basement was a huge open space that extended under most of Marlowe. The room was piled high with mounds of trophies, old equipment, and textbooks. The stacks were so tall that they formed a maze. One could see that the janitor had tried to create a path winding around each stack. Along the walls of the room, doors webbed out in each direction, leading to broom closets, boiler rooms, and other utility outlets. It seemed that over the summer, the basement had gone into disrepair — full of mold, dirty rags, and discarded paint buckets. Wendy was shocked to see so many colonies of moths and flies in the corners of walls, in the cracks of doors, and nesting in every nook and on every box. “Gross,” she said.

  John and Simon immediately headed to the pile of old computers, pulling out scrap parts. As far as computer nerdery was concerned, Simon seemed like a thirty-year-old version of John. This worried Wendy because in the few minutes that she had known him, Simon had already won the prize for the most socially stunted man-child she’d ever met.

  Wendy let the boys pick through the electronic rubble and went over to the artifacts. Professor Darling had already opened the crates. Packing materials were strewn all around the pieces, like colorful paper on Christmas morning. Wendy had to admit, even though this job cut into her time with Connor and her friends (unlike the café, where they would have been able to hang out), the ancient relics filled her with excitement. She had grown up hearing the stories of Cleopatra and Hatshepsut, the most powerful women of their time.

  Wendy picked up the inventory list and began organizing the timeworn vases, placing them in groups chronologically, using her best guesses to date the items. A statue of an ibis bird was astonishingly intact. Its impossibly long thin neck had endured centuries of jostling without snapping in half. A few small statues looked like pieces of a child’s game. She placed them with the other Middle Kingdom artifacts. Wendy paid close attention to the papyrus scrolls, which were delicate and discolored. One especially rare item was a book, bound in the European style but obviously containing pages made of ancient papyri. Maybe it was the copy of the Book of Gates that her father had mentioned. She laughed as she remembered her father’s high hopes for it. Wendy had no idea what to do with it, and John was too busy shirking work to read the hieroglyphs. The book seemed ageless. There was no category for it. Brown and brittle pages showed images Wendy had seen before in her father’s notebooks. She set it aside to show John when he was done goofing around.

  Then Wendy came across something strange. It was a set of canopic statues, which were really jars containing a mummy’s liver, lungs, stomach, and intestines. Usually, there were four jars with four different heads (man, baboon, jackal, falcon) to represent the four sons of Horus, the gatekeeper god. The idea was that the mummy would need all those organs in the afterlife, so they’d put them in the jars for safekeeping. But these jars were all carved to represent the death god, the jackal-headed Anubis. But were these really Anubis? The jars were jackal-headed, with sharp listening ears, ravenous long jowls, and piercing eyes, but their bodies . . . they seemed almost female — as if someone had tried to combine Anubis with someone, or something, else entirely.

  The strange thing was that one of the statues was missing. The inventory list expressly stated that there were four alabaster statues, but all Wendy could see were three. Three jackals. She wondered if anyone had been down there. What was even more odd was that next to the three statues Wendy found an alabaster ball. It looked like one of the eyes of the jackal god. It must have dropped from the missing statue. Professor Darling would be appalled if he knew. Wendy stared at the globe, wondering what it had seen, where its body had gone. But she was overcome with an uncomfortable feeling, as though the eye was staring back at her. And the creepiest part was that the eye didn’t seem vicious, the way she imagined the death god would be, but scared, as though it had seen something truly terrible.

  “How’s it going?”

  Wendy jumped at the noise. It was John. He and Simon were holding a few scrap pieces they had found.

  “Are you OK? Did we scare you?” said John.

  “No,” said Wendy. “You two should be helping.”

  “But look what we found,” said John, holding up his scraps. “Simon showed me all kinds of stuff.”

  Simon stood to the side, taking the compliments like tributes laid at the feet of a pharaoh.

  Wendy wasn’t in the mood. She had been doing all the work by herself, and the afternoon was wasting away.

  “You guys can start over there,” she said. She reached out to hand Simon the inventory list, but Simon didn’t reach out to take it.

  “You two go ahead and finish up here,” said Simon, changing tack from his previous attempts to get his hands on all the paperwork. “It looks like you’ve got it under control.”

  It seemed that now his game was to play boss by not doing work.

  A flare went off behind Wendy’s eyes. “What? You’re supposed to help.”

  “I’m supposed to make sure that you children don’t harm the artifacts,” said Simon. “I’ve monitored the quality of your work, and I’m willing to let it slide.”

  “You weren’t monitoring anything. You were playing with that pile of electronic junk and your stupid watch,” said Wendy.

  “Adults can do two things at once,” said Simon. “I’ve been tested and can do five.”

  Simon turned and marched out of the basement as Wendy tried to control the anger rising up from her chest. What a total prick! Did he really think that kind of crap would work? She was sixteen, not twelve. And she could see right through this guy. Just another résumé-padding loser who thought that if he ordered people around with enough condescension, they’d just blindly do everything he wanted. Wendy let out a frustrated groan. She went back to the daunting task of organizing the exhibition by herself. John put down his scraps and knelt by her side. Wendy was too angry to give him any instructions at the moment. So he hovered, waiting for an opportunity to make himself useful. Wendy worked in silence. A few times, she reached for something and John jumped up to get it and hand it to her.

  When she placed a limestone vase in the Thirteenth Dynasty section, John made a little coughing sound to catch her attention. Then he nodded at the Fourteenth Dynasty artifacts, and Wendy realized he was right. She p
laced the vase in the right pile and smiled at her little brother. John grinned. “Thanks,” said Wendy.

  “No problem,” said John.

  They were silent for a little longer, until John said, “Wendy?”

  “Yeah?” said Wendy.

  “You know, you probably shouldn’t have insulted the multi-watch.”

  “Shut up, John.”

  As they sat cross-legged in the semidarkness, sorting statues and scrolls into piles, the thick walls of the Marlowe basement ricocheted the sound of their laughter.

  We walked through the museum gardens my colleague Russell had been cultivating for months. Pink cherry blossoms like big clouds right above us. I had my research assistant set up a picnic on the grass, and when we sat down, I think she thought that I was going to ask her right then. But I didn’t. We had Brie and olives, and the whole time she kept interrupting her own sentences to look at me. She was trying to figure out when I’d ask, but I never did. I couldn’t help grinning like a fool, but I talked about Russell’s trees, and my newest exhibit, and how we’d tried to harmonize the museum and the grounds. And when we’d finished, she was obviously disappointed. Then I took her into the exhibit — Old Kingdom artifacts — and I prattled on about a set of combs under the glass case. In the reflection I could see that she was uninterested. I pointed out an emerald necklace. Then we passed the ring — even Cleopatra would have drooled over this one. I said, “You know what? Let’s just take that one out.” I opened the glass case. She was shocked. I pulled out the ring and gave it to her. She cried. She’d never seen anything like it.

  “Can you believe we’re allowed to do this?” John asked Wendy as he carefully swirled a Q-tip in one of the cracks of an old statue. He came up with a clump of grayish grime.

  “You mean can I believe our nerd-core dad subjected us to a childhood of learning to restore priceless antiques at museum quality only to force us into his lame-sauce career?”

  “Yes!” exclaimed John.

  “Yes,” mumbled Wendy.

  “Did you know that the Book of Gates used to be called the Book of the Netherworld?”

  “How do you know that?” said Wendy. She was dusting a papyrus scroll and sorting through a stack of placards — wishing that there was just one other person at Marlowe qualified to take this job. She glanced at a clock. 3:10 p.m. They’d been working for only ten minutes, but it already felt like hours. Outside, she heard her friends laughing and making weekend plans. She felt a momentary hint of jealousy — that they were born into a particular family and so had license to do whatever they wanted with their free time. No need to work. No need for money. But, hey, some of them had really overbearing parents, always pushing them to get ahead. Get into this school. Get into that club. At least her father didn’t do that. And after finally meeting Connor’s mother a few days ago, she was starting to think that she was lucky not to have one around.

  “It was in Dad’s notes,” John answered. “The gates apparently open the way to the world of the dead. That’s why they’re called gates, see? They lead to the other side.” John flicked the Q-tip aside and pulled out another.

  “Creepy. Do you have the death god placard?” Wendy turned in place a few times, scanning the room for the missing placard, then got on her knees and started peeking under the display tables.

  “Just make another one,” said John. He was now elbow deep in a vase, cleaning out the bottom with a dry sponge. “Hey, you know what else I found in his notes? The ancient Egyptians used to divide the day into twelve hours and the night into twelve hours. So during the summer, when the night was short, the night hours were shorter. But there were always exactly twelve between sunset and sunrise.”

  “Huh,” said Wendy. “You shouldn’t be snooping around in Dad’s notes.”

  “He left them out on the coffee table. What’s he expect? So anyway, in the underworld, there are gates that lead to the afterlife, each with its own guardian, which, by the way, are supposed to be the worst kind of monsters. So the book is all about the journey of the dead soul through the night when he is carried to the afterlife, passing through each gate one by one. Cool, huh?”

  “I thought the book was about the five legends.”

  “That’s not all there is, Wen. It’s a big book. Geez.”

  “And what’re the guardians for?” Wendy asked.

  “To protect the gates to the afterlife!” said John in his most irritated this-is-obvious voice. “Come on, Wen!”

  Wendy laughed at John’s enthusiasm — a quality he showed only to her. She wished he would be this happy, eager John more often instead of the John that came out in public. “Don’t scrub that one so hard.” Wendy cocked her head, and her hair tumbled past her shoulder like a strawberry-blond waterfall.

  Wendy was about to return to her search for the missing placard when a strange ticking caught their attention. Tick-tock. Tick-tock.

  “There’s that cretin”— Wendy rolled her eyes —“with his lame-ass scuba watch.”

  “Don’t be a hater,” said John. “Me and Simon are bros. You’re just mad because he’s way smarter than you.”

  “Everyone keeping busy? Keeping on task?” Simon’s eyes flitted this way and that as he walked down the steps to the basement. He glanced at the exhibit items and gave a cursory examination to each without bothering to properly inspect it. “Things look shipshape here,” he said, pointing to John’s vase. “Wendy, get busy on those placards. Chop-chop.”

  Wendy was about to mention, for the fourteenth time, that he wasn’t doing his share of the work, but Simon had already turned to leave. He walked distractedly toward the stairs, knocking old, discarded items out of his way as he went. Just as they were going back to work, Wendy and John heard a sloshing sound followed by a frenzy of curses. Simon had stepped into the large puddle near the steps, the result of a recent leak, that both Wendy and John had known to avoid. There were electric cords all around the puddle, and Wendy had seen a spark or two flying from exposed wires touching the water. She had called the maintenance crew, but they were backed up till tomorrow.

  “Careful, there,” said Wendy. “You don’t want to get fried.”

  “This place is a disgrace,” said Simon bitterly. He waved a hand on his way out, like a king dismissing his subjects. “Put a towel on that,” he said. “I’ll be doing important research in Darling’s office. Don’t disturb me unless it’s life or death.”

  “No problem, Simon!” John shouted after him.

  “No problem, Simon,” Wendy mimicked in a squeaky, mocking voice. “How can you kiss his butt like that?”

  “If you cared at all about this stuff,” he said, pointing at the artifacts, “you’d understand how important the guy is. The British Museum sent him to protect them.” He said the words British Museum with extra emphasis, as though the entire question would be settled on the strength of the museum’s credentials.

  “John, can’t you see that the guy doesn’t actually care about this stuff? You and I know more than he does. Who cares about his title?”

  John ambled back toward the vase, and Wendy began cataloging items again.

  “Dad thinks he has an early version of the Book of Gates somewhere in here,” said John.

  Wendy, who was thumbing through a stack of papyri, looked up. “Oh, right,” she said. “I was gonna show you the other day. There’s an old book in here that I figured was the one Dad was talking about. I put it over there.” She pointed to a far table where she had laid the book, but before she had put her arm down, John was across the room.

  “It’s probably not the original, John,” she said. “Back then they used scrolls.”

  John picked up the book, which was hidden behind a statuette. He flipped through the pages carefully, lowering himself to a sitting position on the floor. “You don’t know anything, Wen. It was a scroll, but a million people have been searching for it over the years. Everyone knows it was cut up into pages and made into a book to disguise it.”


  Wendy got up and walked toward him. She said in a teasing tone, “Riiiight . . . so, Professor, what’s your expert opinion? Is that the original?”

  “Well, obviously I don’t know, Wen,” John snapped, insulted. But they were alone now, so he didn’t go into his usual brooding silent treatment. Instead, he turned the book over in his hands. “But it’s definitely a copy of the Book of Gates. Who knows if it’s the first copy or the thousandth or what . . . ?”

  John spoke with confidence, and Wendy was amused by how much he knew about this subject — much more than she did.

  Wendy took a seat beside her brother, and they carefully lifted each page, examining the pictures and hieroglyphs. Many of the pages were empty, and everything else was in ancient Egyptian — besides being worn-out and just barely visible.

  “These must be the guardians.” John pointed to a picture of a long snakelike creature and another one that seemed nothing more than a blur of ink. “And look, you can tell where each hour starts.” John pointed to each of the sections as Wendy leaned over to get a better look. The book was ancient, the pages so crinkly and delicate that any sharp move would have snapped them. When John turned the pages, they crackled like dry leaves. The color had worn to a sort of pale yellow, and the edges were frayed, sometimes torn. On each page, color pictures of mummies and jackals and serpents gave hints about the contents of that hour.

  “I can’t believe they let us have this at Marlowe,” said John with obvious awe.

  Wendy chuckled. “It was a political thing.” She decided to let her little brother in on what she knew. “I heard Dad on the phone. The museum director called Dad a loon in some magazine and one of Dad’s big-shot fans was offended. This was payback. Besides, Dad’s the only one who believes in five legends lore, so they probably think it’s safer with him.”

  “Maybe we shouldn’t be touching it,” said John, his tone blasé, as if he didn’t really want what he was suggesting. “Dad was really clear about how to handle the artifacts.”