“Seth locked and sealed the chest, then sent it down the Nile River. It landed on the shore of Phoenicia near the city of Byblos. He had killed Osiris. The kingdom of Earth was now his. But Gods could not die; Osiris was sent to the underworld, where he was unable to stop Seth.
“Isis wandered back and forth over the land of Egypt, but never could she find a trace of the chest in which Osiris’s body lay. She asked all whom she met, but no one saw it and she couldn’t use her magick to find it.
“Finally she came across a child who was playing by the riverside. She asked if he saw the chest and he replied yes, toward the Great Green Sea. And because of this, Isis blessed the child and decreed that ever afterwards this child should speak words of wisdom and sometimes tell of things to come. The name of the child playing by the riverside was Imhotep.
“Isis searched for Osiris’s remains until she found the chest embedded in a tree trunk, which was holding up the roof of a palace in Byblos on the Phoenician coast. She managed to remove the coffin and open it, but Osiris had already passed on. She used a spell she learned from Thoth and brought him back to life so he could impregnate her. Afterwards, his spirit returned to the underworld and she hid his body in the desert. Months later, she gave birth to Horus.
“Seth came across Osiris’s body while hunting one night; enraged, he tore the body into fourteen pieces and scattered them throughout the land.
“Now, Isis had to begin her search once more, but this time her sister, Nephthys, helped. She left her husband after discovering he killed their brother and was responsible for the chaos of the world.
“Slowly, piece by piece, Isis recovered the fragments of Osiris. Wherever she did so, she formed by magic the likeness of his whole body and caused the priests to build a shrine and perform his funeral rites. And so there were thirteen places in Egypt that claimed to be the burial place of Osiris. In this way, she also made it harder for Seth to meddle further with the body of the dead god.
“The one piece she did not recover was his life-giving phallus, and it is said that upon this piece grew the Tree of Life. She gathered the pieces together, rejoined them by magic and made a likeness of the missing member so that Osiris was complete. She then instructed that the body be embalmed and hidden away in a place of which she alone knew. After this, the spirit of Osiris remained in the underworld to rule over the dead until the last great battle, when Horus should slay Seth and Osiris would return to Earth once more.
“As Horus grew in this world, the spirit of Osiris visited him often and taught him all that a great warrior should know. He told him that he would be the one to fight against Seth, both in the body and in the spirit. And finally, Osiris informed his son when the time came for Horus to fight. Horus declared war on Seth. Osiris instructed him to form a great army and sail up the Nile to attack him in the deserts of the south. Horus gathered his forces and prepared to begin the war. Ra himself, the shining father of the gods, came to his aid in his own divine boat that sailed across the heavens and through the dangers of the underworld.
“Before they set sail, Ra drew Horus aside so as to gaze into his blue eyes, because whoever looked into them—gods or men—saw the future reflected there. As he gazed into the future, he saw Seth just as he was attacking in the present. Seth had his own methods of telling the future and saw that Horus was set to attack him. It was already too late; Seth aimed a blow of fire at the eyes of Horus.
“Horus was taken to receive aid, but had already lost an eye. Ra waited for him to recover before returning to the sky. He told Isis his secret name so she may give Horus a more powerful eye—one that could destroy Seth and rebuild Earth, restoring order among men. Horus would not only be able to see the future, but he would also be able to change it. Knowing the secret name of Ra was the most ancient and powerful source of power.
“Once Isis rebuilt the eye of her son and created an entity called Wadjet to protect it from any harm, she wrote the name of Ra down on papyrus and buried it where no one would find it. She continued this tradition whenever she discovered new magic she felt no one else should know or was too powerful to use. She had a Sphinx constructed over the secrets to keep them safe.
“Horus was now ready to wage a true war against Seth. There were many battles in that war, but the last and greatest was at Edfu, where the great temple of Horus stands to this day in memory of it. The forces of Seth and Horus drew near to one another among the islands and the rapids of the First Cataract of the Nile. Horus, with his strengthened Wadjet Eye, was able to defeat Seth.
“He became the ruler of Earth. He spent his rule attempting to restore the order and peace that Osiris created and dispel the chaos that Seth brought upon man. He tried to pass on the messages of his father, but the humans were no longer receptive. There were only a chosen few. Horus appointed them as teachers of man to spread the word and to one day bring the world back to order.
“But when Horus passed from Earth and reigned no more as the God King, he appeared before the assembly of the gods. Seth also came in the spirit and contended in words for the rule of the world. They are still struggling for power, for the souls of men, and for the rule of the world. Order versus Chaos on Earth. The Egyptians believed that the Last Battle was still to come and that Horus would defeat Seth in this as well. And when Seth was destroyed forever, Osiris would rise from the dead and return to Earth, bringing with him all those who had been his own faithful followers.
“And for this reason, the Egyptians embalmed their dead and set the bodies away beneath towering pyramids of stone, and deep in the tomb chambers of western Thebes, so the blessed souls returning from the underworld should find them ready to enter again and live forever on Earth under the good god Osiris, his queen Isis, and their son Horus.
“The final battle of good versus evil has not yet taken place. Horus will be victorious on that day Osiris and the rest of the Gods will return to the Earth, and there will be peace and order, not chaos.”
Memphis recalled reading about the theory that right now we lived in a deterministic chaos—that there was still order, but it was below the surface. She actually felt sympathy for Seth. He wasn’t always evil; his jealousy and thirst for power were his downfall. She couldn’t imagine having a sibling she was jealous of or hated that much. She couldn’t imagine having a family she didn’t love.
Chapter 8
In New York, when a woman finds her life crumbling around her, she does not go crazy. She goes to yoga. That was what Memphis spent the rest of the week doing—that, and of course job searching. She needed a position that would fit in with her class schedule. She wanted to file a complaint against Jonathan with the university, but she worried that if he had enough pull to get her a fellowship without her applying, he probably enough pull to get her thrown out of the entire program. She reevaluated her career path. Academia wasn’t for her; she wanted to make money rather than a name for herself. She would look into space exploration or maybe computer science—fields that would keep her far from the reach of Jonathan’s tentacles.
Watching The Universe Now had given her ideas for the type of research she wanted to do. She sent Virgil White another e-mail to check on the status of her natal chart request and to inquire if they could discuss research in the field of archeoastrology, but he hadn’t responded yet. She texted Jill to check in on the case of the mysterious horoscopes. This morning, she received one that warned her that someone close to her would have a brush with death and it would be up to her to save them. Talk about pressure.
This last missive frightened her; if this was a joke, it was no longer funny. Hopefully, her urgent message and the fact that it could possibly be Jill herself, since she was practically the only person she saw as close, who could die would push her to put more pressure on their source in IT. In the meantime, she needed to remain in child’s pose or she would jump out of a window.
Memphis took the stairs rather than waiting for the elevator to the fourth floor where the class was
held. Her yogi, Martha, would be proud. Martha was fifty-five years old with the body of someone well under half her age. She rolled out her mat in her usual corner of the room; she wasn’t at hand-standing levels yet.
Unlike some people, she thought while looking in the direction of another classmate, Whitney the show-off. She gave her a dirty look before sitting down, though she was well on the way to becoming an exceptional student herself.
Martha led the class through breathing exercises before they went through various positions. It felt so good to stretch her muscles; she reached to worship the sun, moving smoothly into child. The class was over before she knew it. They were soon in corpse pose, with Martha walking around them, dabbing scented oil on the center of their foreheads—their Third Eyes. It reminded Memphis of that poor teacher who went to Brooklyn never to return. She shook the thoughts from her mind and tried to focus on Martha’s voice. Martha was such a lovely, wonderful person. She could picture her in her mind; her smile lines were the only indication of her age. She had a daughter Memphis’s age; she was probably the perfect mother.
The warm thoughts of Martha were suddenly replaced with a vision of her falling down the flight of stairs right outside the classroom.
She sat up in horror. “Martha!” she shouted.
“Yes, dear. Are you all right?” Martha had come to her side, concerned.
“Oh, it was just a muscle spasm.”
“Where it is? I’ll rub it down for you,” she offered.
“It’s gone now. If it’s okay, I’m just going to head to the showers a bit early today.”
“Yes, dear, of course it is. Use the last stall; it has the best showerhead.” She gave her a warm smile and went on to anoint the rest of the class.
Memphis padded over to the changing rooms to grab her shower supplies. The water was nice and hot as she stepped in the shower. She tried to let the water wash away the negative image of Martha falling, but she suddenly felt a sense of urgency. She had to get out of the shower and get dressed. She ran out of the bathroom, hair still wet, and saw Martha walking backwards toward the stairs. No one saw the errant yoga mat behind her. Memphis called out to warn her, but it was too late.
No! She thought as she saw Martha begin to fall.
Everyone seemed frozen in shock. They watched in horror as their teacher fell, her hands reaching out to grab something to stop her descent. Memphis reached out to grab Martha’s hand and felt her soft grip. She and Martha looked down at their hands in surprise before Memphis pulled her up to the landing.
“Memphis, my dear, thank you!” Martha exclaimed breathlessly.
Everyone gathered around them, asking Martha if she was all right and patting Memphis on the back for her rapid reflexes. Everyone was so relieved that Martha was all right that they didn’t seem to notice or care to ask Memphis how she was able to get from the bathrooms to the landing so fast. Memphis decided to leave before they could think to ask any questions.
She grabbed her bags and checked her phone. She had a voice message from Jill. The IT guy was able to trace the astrogirl88 e-mail account’s owner, but they were very confused when they found out who it was.
“It said it belonged to you, Memphis. Give me a call when you get this.”
She immediately returned Jill’s phone call. Jill was on Madison Avenue at Vera Wang’s store, trying on gowns. She invited Memphis to meet her and they would discuss the e-mails while she provided input on the gowns. Jill didn’t sound as lively as usual. She hoped she wasn’t angry with her for using her resources to find out about Astrogirl.
She opted to take a cab instead of the subway from the yoga studio. Budget be damned, she deserved it—she just saved a woman’s life. It dawned on her that she was somewhat of a hero. Maybe she was Astrogirl. Not the gross pornographic one, but a nice one who saved well-toned older ladies from death.
She smiled to herself and accidently caught the cab driver’s eye. She immediately stopped when he gave her a suspicious look; no one smiled in a New York City cab unless they were up to no good. Fortunately they were already near the store or he would have probably stopped the cab and told her to get out. She paid him and exited right in front of the store. She suddenly became aware of her wet hair and shabby post-yoga outfit as she walked into the store’s polished interior.
“Hello, may I help you?” A consultant approached her with the enthusiasm of a first time lion tamer.
“Why, yes. I’m here to meet a dear friend of mine. Jill Walden?” Memphis replied in a British accent. Whenever she felt underdressed or underclass, her nerves forced her to go into Bridget Jones mode. Everyone looked better when they spoke with a British accent. She was sure she read somewhere— possibly in Vogue—that it had been clinically proven..
The bridal consultant must have taken part in such a trial because she instantly lit up at the sound of her voice. “Of course. Miss Walden is already in a gown; I’ll take you to meet her. Right this way.”
Memphis followed her to the back of the store.
“So where are you from?” the consultant asked, attempting to make small talk.
“I’m from London,” Memphis replied. Duh. Accent.
“I love London. Which part?”
“The main area, where most of the action is.”
“Oh. Kensington? Earls Court? Piccadilly?”
“Yes,” was all Memphis said.
“Piccadilly! I love the area, but how could you stand all the noise?”
“Earplugs.”
“Ha! Yes, those would help. Did you ever go to that Indian restaurant on the corner? I can’t remember the name.” She looked up, hoping to find the answer near her eyebrows.
“Looks as if we’ve arrived,” Memphis said abruptly.
“Jill, honey, I’m here,” Memphis called out. She heard a huge sob. She and the consultant looked at each other in confusion. “Jill?”
“Yes, I’m in here!” she called out between sobs.
“Miss Walden, can I get you anything?” the consultant asked, and Memphis told her to get some tissues and water. The consultant nodded her head and went to procure the items. When she was gone, Memphis knocked on the dressing room door and entered when Jill gave her permission.
Memphis found her on the beautiful ivory carpet, wearing a gorgeous white dress. Ugly black tears covered her face.
“Jill, what happened? What’s wrong?” Memphis kneeled in front her and completely lost her fake accent. This was the scene that she envisioned the day Jill announced that she was engaged. She couldn’t believe this was actually happening. Why was she seeing all of these awful events before they took place?
“Hese a maddic,” Jill mumbled.
“What?” Memphis moved closer to hear her.
“He’s a sex addict.”
“Who is?”
“Wesley. He’s addicted to pornography and prostitutes.”
Jill tearfully explained what happened. Memphis’s horoscopes got her thinking, specifically the one about a friend and bad news. “It had to be about her!” She exclaimed. Seeing that she was Memphis’s only friend. Memphis let that slight go, even though it was true. She had her IT contact take a look at Wesley’s laptop and internet history. It was filled with porn sites, and he found e-mail correspondence between Wesley and a transvestite escort/car service.
“A transvestite hooker service? How can I compete, Memphis?”
Memphis knew too well how she felt. The consultant knocked and handed Memphis the tissues and water. She wiped away some of Jill’s tears. Poor Jilly Bean. She hadn’t wanted her vision to come true.
“Jill, I saw this coming.”
“You did? I know—I should have seen it, too. With those trips to Thailand.”
“No, I meant I had a vision of all this happening. You on the carpeted floor, crying in your wedding dress. But I didn’t know why you were crying. I never imagined it to be about a transvestite car service.”
“It’s an escort-slash-car service, and w
hat do you mean you saw me?”
Memphis explained what happened with the ring during their lunch.
“Why didn’t you say something?” Jill asked, getting up from the floor.
“I didn’t know what it meant, just like I didn’t know that I was sending myself horoscopes. How can you guys be sure it was me? Maybe someone used my name to register that e-mail account.”
“No, he matched it your IP address. Unless someone is sneaking into your apartment to send you e-mails at 4 a.m., then it’s you, hun. Help me unzip this.”
“It couldn’t be Gemma; she’s been out of town. I guess it has to be me. I used to sleepwalk as a child; maybe it’s progressed to sleep typing. Oh Jill, this dress is gorgeous. What are you going to do?”
“I’m calling off the wedding, of course. We haven’t announced it; we were going to tell everyone tomorrow at the party. Now we’ll just be a regular group of friends dancing and drinking in masks.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. I should actually thank you—better yet, hire you!”
“Hire me? For what?”
“To write horoscopes for the newspaper. Your horoscope helped me discover that Wesley was a lying and disgusting sexual deviant. You have to help others. Now that you’re a free agent, you can work for me. It will fit in with your class schedule, and we’ll have so much fun. Please say yes.”
Memphis looked at Jill’s hopeful face; this would make her day. She reluctantly accepted. Jill wrapped her arms around her and gripped her tightly. Her world was just turned upside down and Memphis’ coming on board would be the silver lining. Memphis wished she could have a vision of what this decision would bring.
Written in the Sky* Rise of the Wadjet Witch Page 6
