Tut

by P. J. Hoover

  I gave her a half hug back. “It’s been a long time, um, Auntie Isis.”

  Isis had come to visit us once, when Horus and I had first moved into the town house ninety years ago. She’d nitpicked every single thing, from the color of the walls to the arrangement of the furniture, spouting some nonsense about feng shui. Horus had done everything she requested, moving coffee tables and pictures and carpets. Or at least I’d done the moving while Horus watched. But no sooner was she out that door than we’d moved everything back. And seeing as how Isis hadn’t been back to visit since, we’d kept things the way we wanted. Now she looked at me like she knew what we’d done.

  “Too long,” Isis said. “That rotten son of mine has kept you away, no doubt.”

  “No doubt,” I said. Horus would spit up hairballs if he heard that. It was a good thing he wasn’t here. “This is Henry, by the way.”

  Henry was not to be spared. Isis hugged him so hard I thought Henry might throw up. Given all the dead bodies around, he was handling it pretty well.

  “It’s so nice to have visitors,” Isis said once she let go. “At least ones that are alive. All these corpses. They never stop coming.”

  “Maybe you should get into a different business if it bothers you,” I said. After all, didn’t mummification go out of style about the same time as the fall of the Roman Empire?

  “Oh, I couldn’t do that,” Isis said. “If I gave up the art of mummification, it could be forgotten forever.”

  “And that would be a bad thing, why?” I asked. The memories of her trying to remove the piece of my brains came back full force. The world would be a much happier place with no more mummification.

  Isis trilled as she laughed, like she was singing a song. “You’ve always had such a good sense of humor. Now to what do I owe the pleasure of your visit?”

  Yes, I was here about the knife, but first …

  “What was that girl Tia doing here?” I asked. “How do you know her?”

  Please don’t let Isis say the knife.

  Isis tsked in disapproval. “I don’t think you received a proper invitation to that conversation, now did you?”

  Right. Crazy and well-mannered. That was Auntie Isis.

  “Was it about the knife?” I asked.

  Isis’s entire façade fell. Her skin drained of color, and the smile that had been plastered on her powdered face turned into shock and displeasure.

  “The knife?” she whispered.

  I nodded. I had to force myself not to take a step backward and run out of this place.

  “Do you know which one I’m talking about?” I asked.

  “Oh dear,” Isis said. “I’ve tried for so long not to think about it.”

  “Why not?” Henry stopped chewing his cookie, and the already cold air filled us with a chill.

  I guess this is where maybe I should have given this whole meeting a little more thought. Because this was the knife that had killed Isis’s husband, Osiris, after all.

  “Do you know what Set did with the knife?” Isis asked. Her eyes glazed over, almost as if she were talking to herself.

  I nodded, but it didn’t stop her from continuing.

  “He crafted it from pure gold and imbued it with spells that he claimed would bring glorious times to the world. Somehow he managed to have each one of the gods, myself included, bless it. He tricked us. And it became the most powerful weapon in existence. And then, when my husband, Osiris, was celebrating the peace of the world, Set deceived him, using the knife to cut him into fourteen pieces and scattering them around the world.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. Isis’s eyes filled with tears. I remembered how I’d felt when I’d found out my father had died. In that moment I would have done anything to bring him back from the dead. Isis was no different.

  “I found the pieces,” Isis went on. “And I bandaged them together, giving my husband a proper burial.”

  Osiris had been the first mummy ever. The whole mummification craze started with him.

  “And then I found the knife and swore revenge,” Isis said, wiping her tears as her eyes filled with fire.

  “But you never got revenge. Why not? If you’ve had the knife this long, how have you never found a way to use it against Set?” It’s not like I was trying to be critical, but we were talking about thousands of years here. I was going to kill Horemheb within the week.

  Isis’s face hardened. “Because Ra sided against me. He said the violence had to end.”

  Ra was arguably the most powerful of the Egyptian gods.

  “But you had the knife,” I said.

  “Ra said I was crazy. Me! Can you believe it?”

  Yes, I could believe it. Next to me, Henry cleared his throat.

  “And he took it away,” Isis said.

  Wait, what? Isis didn’t have the knife?

  “So Ra has it?” My body sagged. Here I was, so close to revenge. And now it was all going to fall apart. Finding Ra would be impossible. Nobody knew where he was or if he even still existed.

  “No, dear Tut. Ra doesn’t have it.”

  “Then where is it?” I asked, and a sliver of hope returned.

  “Ra gave it to a protector,” Isis said.

  “What protector?” I asked. What god could be trusted with the weapon? They all rated on the crazy scale.

  Isis took out a tube of lipstick from the pocket in her apron and reapplied it. And then she smoothed her poufy hair.

  “What protector?” I repeated. “Who has the knife, Auntie Isis?”

  “Gilgamesh,” Isis said. “He’s had it for ages.”

  12

  WHERE I SUMMON SWARMS OF INSECTS

  “Gil has the knife?”

  I couldn’t believe it. That was impossible. He wouldn’t lie to me. Not for all these years. Sure, he was overprotective, but he wouldn’t take it this far.

  “Of course,” Isis said. “Gilgamesh is the perfect protector.”

  I tried to clear my head, but it was futile. This just couldn’t be real.

  “Please tell me this is a joke.” I leaned against the wall, wishing I could snap my fingers and make this whole week start again. The field trip had kicked off one disaster after another in an unending chain. My five shabtis formed their protective stance around me as Isis’s words sunk in.

  “It’s no joke,” Isis said. “Gilgamesh has the knife.”

  “I knew the heathen was trouble.” Colonel Cody paced from one of my feet to the other. “We should kick him out of the town house.”

  “We’re not kicking him out,” I said. “And he’s not a heathen.” Though he was a liar.

  “Who’s Gilgamesh?” Henry asked.

  “Where does he keep it?” I asked Isis, ignoring Henry. I’d been living with Gil for nearly three thousand years. He’d never mentioned anything about being the protector of some sacred knife, and I sure hadn’t seen it around our town house.

  Isis’s lips twisted in a big, red-lipsticked scowl. “Sadly, I wasn’t told. But if you find it and want to lend it out…”

  “You’re kidding, right?” Isis seriously wanted me to get the knife for her? I was going to get the knife for myself and kill Horemheb. That’s what I was going to do. I didn’t want any part of the gods’ scheming and games. That could only end up bad.

  “I promise to give you a proper mummification upon your death,” Isis said.

  That was not motivation. Not only did I not want to die, I didn’t want to be mummified, either.

  “Forget it, Auntie Isis,” I said.

  “But I need the knife,” Isis said. She opened her eyes so wide, I worried her eyeballs might fall out. They pleaded with me. Masked in her eyes, I saw the same emotion that I had in mine—thousands of years of revenge, waiting to be unleashed. I wanted to kill Horemheb. Isis wanted to kill Set. We needed to do it to make things right.

  “Maybe once I’m done with it,” I said.

  Isis patted my head. “I always knew you were a good boy. I told Horus
, even though he claimed you were a pain in the—”

  I grabbed Henry before she could finish. “We need to go.”

  “What about a demonstration first?” Isis said. She snapped her fingers. “Hapi…”

  Hapi jogged over with two knives and a roll of bandages in his hands.

  “In mummification?” Henry asked, taking a step backward, tripping on his shoelace, which was still untied from earlier.

  “We’ve got some great new preservation techniques,” Hapi said. “Check it out.” He pulled something from his apron pocket that might have been an apple at one point but now looked more like a shriveled old-lady face. “See how the likeness is preserved?”

  Maybe it was a shriveled old-lady face.

  “No!” I said. “And just for the record, if I ever do die, don’t pull my guts out.”

  “Ah, silly boy,” Isis said, wrapping me in a hug. “We’ll take wonderful care of you.”

  I decided not to push it. I had no intention of dying. My looming mummification wasn’t even an issue.

  “In case you change your mind,” Hapi said, and he handed us each a card that read “DYNASTY FUNERAL HOMES: CALL US WHEN YOU FEEL LIKE YOU’RE ON DEATH’S DOORSTEP.”

  “There is one other thing I wanted to ask,” Henry said.

  Isis cocked her head in interest. “Yes, my child.”

  Just the way she said it made me shudder. But Henry was determined.

  “There’s this project we’re working on,” he said. “If we could just ask you a few questions.” He pulled his notebook and a red pen out.

  “Not now,” I said, grabbing his arm.

  Henry shrugged me off. “But this is the perfect opportunity.”

  “I love projects,” Isis said, clapping her hands together in front of her. “Ask me anything.”

  “Come on, Henry.”

  He ignored me and poised his pen over the notebook. “One question. Tell me, Auntie Isis, how do you feel when you look at the Canopic jars? I think if we can get more of the emotions behind this death box thing, we’ll get a way better grade.”

  I could tell him how I felt: disgusted. But he hadn’t asked me.

  Isis picked up a nearby Canopic jar and caressed it. It was the extra one, not one of the normal four. I didn’t want to imagine what she stuffed in there.

  “When I behold the beauty that is the world after death, I stand in awe of those gods who came before me. Of the empire they created. And the afterworld. Do you know what it takes to get into the afterworld, dear boy?”

  Henry shook his head while jotting down her words in his notebook. “What?”

  She lifted the lid from the jar and placed it on a table. From inside, she pulled out a human heart. She squeezed it so hard with her pointy red fingernails that it almost looked like it was beating.

  “The heart is weighed before the gods,” Isis said. “If it is found unworthy, the soul will be devoured by the crocodile goddess, Ammut.”

  “Good, good,” Henry said, still writing. “And if it is found worthy?”

  “A worthy heart gains access to the Fields of the Blessed. Eternal paradise.” She stuffed the heart back in the jar and replaced the lid. Hapi took the jar from her, freeing Isis’s hands so she could wipe the tears from her eyes.

  “That’s perfect,” Henry said, closing his notebook.

  “And now we’re leaving,” I said, dragging Henry along with me. “Bye, Auntie Isis. Bye Hapi.”

  “Come again,” she called.

  We climbed the steps back to ground level, leaving Isis and Hapi down in their basement torture chamber.

  “So that was fun,” Henry said. “We can totally use that in our project.”

  My mind was far from the project. “I can’t believe Gil has it.”

  “Wait,” Henry said. “We’re talking about your brother here?”

  “I can’t believe it, either,” I said. “As if my own uncle killing my family wasn’t bad enough, now Gil’s been lying to me for thousands of years?”

  “I’m sorry, Tut,” Henry said. And I could tell that he really meant it. Except I didn’t want his pity. I wanted to find out where the knife was.

  “Thanks. Maybe it’s just some stupid misunderstanding.”

  “Maybe,” Henry said, but neither of us sounded convincing.

  “I need to talk to him.” I pulled out my phone.

  can you meet? I texted.

  Gil didn’t respond. So I texted again, this time with a direct message.

  Just talked to Isis. Found out your secret.

  I was sure Gil had more than one secret, but this ought to be enough to pique his interest.

  what r u talking about? he texted back seconds later.

  meet me by the merry-go-round.

  * * *

  Henry and I got there first. Colonel Cody insisted I stay back while the shabtis scoured the area, looking for possible threats. Given that an obelisk had blown up two feet away from me, I saw their logic. Only after they declared the merry-go-round safe did we move ahead.

  Henry sat on a bench, but I was too mad to sit. I couldn’t believe Gil had kept me in the dark. What else wasn’t he telling me? When he came into sight, I lost all control of my powers. Bugs pulled up out of the ground—worms and beetles and gods knew what else—crawling over our shoes. Flies and bees and locusts descended on us.

  Gil stopped walking. “Something wrong?”

  Great Amun, yes. Something was wrong.

  “So Henry and I went to visit Isis—”

  “You know about Isis?” Gil asked Henry.

  “I just found out,” Henry said. “There was this whole incident with these snakes and some scrolls Tut pulled some mumbo jumbo out of—”

  Gil’s eyebrows pulled together. “You used the Book of the Dead, Tut?”

  “That’s not the point,” I said. “Henry knows everything.”

  “How did you use the Book of the Dead? You don’t have that ability.”

  Horus would disembowel me if I dragged him into this.

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “It was Horus, wasn’t it,” Gil said. “I am going to take that cat and—”

  “I don’t want to talk about Horus,” I said. “I want to talk about something Isis told me.”

  “Which was?” Gil said.

  “The knife. Isis said you have it.”

  Gil’s face didn’t even change. “So what?”

  My head pounded as blood rushed through my body. “Why didn’t you tell me about it?”

  “Because I’m the protector of the knife, not some kind of herald of doom,” Gil said.

  “But you lied to me. For thousands of years.” I still couldn’t believe it, even when I heard myself say it.

  “I had to,” Gil said. “I’m not going to just run around telling people where it is.”

  “Which is where?” I said.

  “I’m not telling you,” Gil said.

  The energy from the last Book of the Dead spell sat at the edges of my skin, begging to be freed. “Why not? This is the perfect way to kill Horemheb.”

  “And kill you,” Gil said. “Don’t you get that? It’s why the gods gave me the knife in the first place. It’s too dangerous for anyone to possess.”

  “But I need it,” I said. “Horemheb has to die.”

  “No, Tut,” Gil said. “Not this way.”

  Waves of immortal energy pulsed in the air between us. I wanted to tear Gil’s throat out. I wanted to make him give me the knife. I clenched my hands into fists at my sides.

  “Why did your uncle kill your family in the first place?” Henry asked, breaking the invisible battle between Gil and me.

  “Religion.” Gil spat on the ground as if the whole subject disgusted him. “It always comes down to religion. General Horemheb was trying to wipe Tut’s father’s religion off the face of Egypt and instill Set as the primary god.”

  I tried to settle the energy inside me and focus my thoughts. There had to be some way to
convince Gil to give me the knife.

  Henry narrowed his eyes at Gil. “So why give you the knife? Were you a pharaoh?”

  “Good question,” I said. “Why you, Gil?”

  Gil crossed his arms. “Because the gods chose me. That’s why.”

  Which was no answer at all.

  “The same way they chose you to protect me?” After all, that’s how Gil had phrased it all those years ago.

  “I swore an oath to protect you,” Gil said.

  For all the emotion he used, Gil might as well have said, “I’ve been stuck in eternal hell fixing every screwup you get yourself into.”

  “I don’t need you babysitting me.”

  “Tut, the messes you get into amaze me every day,” Gil said. “And just like with you, I swore an oath to protect the knife. Which is why I’ll never tell you where it is. I keep my oaths.”

  “But why?” I said. “We could use it to our advantage. We could use it to wipe out Horemheb and the entire Cult of Set.”

  “Just stop, Tut,” Gil said. “We’re not going to wipe out the Cult of Set.”

  “There’s a cult dedicated to Set?” Henry looked at us like we’d just told him the pyramids had been built by aliens. No, scratch that—some people did believe the pyramids had been built by aliens. But Henry actually pulled his notebook out and started writing. I grabbed his pencil and snapped it in half.

  “Most gods have cults,” Gil said. “Even Horus has a cult, not that he does anything to deserve it besides be an annoying, smelly cat. It’s just that the Cult of Set’s been really active in the last century.”

  “Since my tomb was opened,” I said. “And now that Horemheb is back in the picture, you know he’s going to want this knife, too.”

  “I’ve already thought of that,” Gil said.

  “We should make sure it’s safe,” I said.

  “It’s safe.”

  “How do you know?” Henry asked, backing me up.

  Gil might not tell me where the knife was, but if he got worried enough about it, he would check on it.

  “I just know. Everything is going to be fine.” Gil stood up and brushed off his pants.

  “I’m not reassured,” I said.

  “I’ll take care of it,” Gil said. “And we’ll talk more about this later.” But worry sat on the edge of his face. He was thinking about the safety of the knife.