Living in Threes

by Judith Tarr

  It fell open to the chapter on the Valley of the Kings. I used to imagine myself standing on that red sand, looking across the desert to the blue, blue sky. The green country—the Black Land, the old Egyptians called it, because the soil was so rich and dark—was behind me. I could feel the harsh dry heat and smell the sharp dry smell that hadn’t changed in five thousand years.

  A wave of sleep hit me so hard I almost fell over. I left the book where it was and dropped into bed.

  I understood something then, just on the edge of sleep, but when I woke up, I couldn’t remember. All I took with me was the memory of the sand and the sun, and a voice saying words in a language I couldn’t understand.

  Except that, somehow, I could. It’s all one, the voice said.

  I had no idea what it meant. And I didn’t care. I just knew it was right.

  Chapter 4

  A hawk hung on the pinnacle of heaven. From the temple far below, it looked like a bird of metal suspended in the sky.

  The sun’s heat was fierce, but Meritre shivered. The choir was so much smaller than it had been a year ago: so many lost, so many voices silenced. Of those whom the plague had left, too many were thin and pale, and their singing barely rippled the air above the courtyard.

  They would be strong again. New voices would join the chorus. Pharaoh had promised, swearing that the promise came from the great god Amon himself.

  Today, there were only twelve singers, and somehow they had to sing as if there were three times that many. The plague was gone at last. In just nine days there would be a royal rite of celebration, and the choir would sing the responses.

  The mistress of the chorus struck the stone paving with her rod. “Again,” she said. “Clearer, louder, stronger. The king will be here, and the king’s daughter. Give them a hymn worthy of the god himself.”

  Meritre filled her heart and head and throat with the song and poured it out with all the strength she had. Eleven voices joined with hers, swelling until they filled the great court with its brilliantly painted columns and its ranks of statues both royal and divine. Even the blue vault of heaven and the hawk of Horus hovering in it seemed to pause, struck motionless by the sound.

  One voice faltered, lost its power and swiftly died. It was the one of them all that Meritre knew best, the purest and until now the strongest.

  She turned in time to see her mother fall. The singers on either side leaped to catch her, but Meritre was there first. Her knees were bruised from the pavement; her mother was a dead weight in her arms.

  Aweret still breathed, though shallowly. Her skin was damp and unnaturally cold.

  The plague came with a cough and a burning fever. These chills must be something else, something less deadly—from the heat, maybe. It was terribly hot in the courtyard, and they had been rehearsing since the early morning. It was a miracle that no one else had fainted.

  One of the temple servants brought a cup full of barley water. Meritre held it to her mother’s lips. Aweret drank a sip or two, then turned her head away.

  The mistress of the chorus was a sharp and irritable woman, but her heart was kind. She insisted on sending Aweret home in a chair like one of the priests. Aweret was weak enough not to object—and that frightened Meritre all over again.

  She held herself together well enough to make her way home, though she hardly remembered the streets between. Those were much less crowded than they used to be, and the markets were almost empty.

  The servants from the temple helped her carry Aweret up to the roof where there was a fan and a shade and as much coolness as anyone could find in this season. No one else was in the house. Father and the boys were in the king’s workshop, carving statues as they did every day except festival days.

  Meritre dampened the shade in the jar of water that she always kept filled, and hung it up to catch the wind. It cooled the air where Aweret lay. She sighed, and Meritre thought she looked a little less pale.

  The cat who had chosen to live in this house came gliding out of air as cats could do. It sprang up onto the cot and curled in the curve of Aweret’s hip.

  Aweret was well guarded now. Meritre wanted to stay beside her, too, but there was too much to do: bread to bake, beer to brew, dinner to get ready for the others when they came home in the evening. She stooped to kiss Aweret’s forehead and smooth her hair.

  Aweret’s eyes were open, and they were clear. Meritre never meant to burst into tears.

  Aweret caught Meritre’s hand before she could spin away, and said, “I’m well. I’m not sick or dying.”

  “Then what?” Meritre tried, but she could not keep the anger out of her voice. “You scared half my souls out of me.”

  “I am sorry,” Aweret said. “I wasn’t sure, you see, and I didn’t want to tell anyone, even your father, for fear it wouldn’t be true. But while we were singing, while the rays of the god were bathing my face, I knew. I’m afraid it overwhelmed me.”

  “You are sick,” Meritre said, “or the sun has driven you insane.”

  “Oh, no,” Aweret said, laughing. “Here. It’s here.” She laid Meritre’s hand on her middle, where it was always gently rounded, but maybe, now, just a little more.

  Meritre stared. Aweret nodded. Her eyes were full of joy. “It’s an omen,” she said. “The terrible times truly are gone. This child brings blessing to us all.”

  “Gods willing,” Meritre said.

  She was glad—really, she was. But more than that, she was terrified.

  The plague had been kind to her family. It had only killed the baby, little Iry; it had left the rest of them alone.

  Babies were so fragile. Any smallest thing could sweep them away. That had been true of every human life in the plague, but a new one, so young it had just begun to wake to the world, was most vulnerable of all.

  Meritre did not know if she dared to love another sister or brother as she had loved Iry. A part of her had gone away when her sister died, and still had not come back.

  She set another kiss on her mother’s belly where her hand had been. A thought was growing in her, but she needed time to let it take root. “You rest,” she said. “The others will be home soon. I won’t tell them. Unless...?”

  Aweret laid a finger on Meritre’s lips. “It will be our secret for a while.”

  “Not too long,” Meritre said.

  “Oh, no,” said Aweret. “Even a man will notice eventually—and your father has a sharper eye than most.”

  “That’s the sculptor in him,” Meritre said. She claimed back her hand and made herself stand up straight. “Now I really have to go, or dinner will be late, and they’ll all ask too many questions.”

  Aweret’s secret was heavy inside Meritre, as if she had a baby in her, too, but one made of stone. While her mother slept on the other side of the roof, Meritre retreated behind the screen to the kitchen. She ground the barley into flour, made the bread and stirred up the stew of lentils and onions and salt fish. It was familiar work, and welcome, but her mind kept on spinning through it.

  Just after the bread was done, she heard the commotion coming down the street, a boisterous male noise that made her smile in spite of herself.

  The smile died. One of them was coughing. The deep, hacking sound brought back every memory and every nightmare of the plague: people coughing up blood, their faces turning black, their eyes rolling up in their heads as they wheezed and gagged and died.

  Meritre staggered and almost fell into the cooking fire. Sheer stubbornness saved her. She would not faint. There had been enough of that today.

  Her brothers tumbled up onto the roof, with her father bringing up the rear. He was still coughing, but not so hard now.

  “Stone dust,” he said when Meritre leaped toward him. She must have looked as panicked as she felt: he hugged her tight and kissed her, and stroked her as if she had been the cat. “There now. We’ve started the new statue, and the dust has been worse than usual. A jar or two of beer and I’ll be as good as new.”<
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  She wanted to believe it. She needed to. She brought him his beer and tried not to hover while he drank it.

  The boys were starving, loudly. While she fed them, she could stop thinking about her mother having a baby and her father coming home with a cough.

  It was going to be well. The plague had taken all the lives it meant to take. Meritre promised herself that.

  Whatever she had to do to make it so, she would do. She promised that, too, deep in her heart, where only the gods could hear.

  Chapter 5

  The sun wasn’t even up when Kristen pulled into the driveway. I was ready and waiting for her, with my head still full of heat and sand and somebody else’s gut-grinding worry.

  That was the second dream I’d ever had that I not only hadn’t forgotten, I couldn’t get it out of my head. It made more sense, sort of. I’d gone to sleep with the Valley of the Kings in my head. But the whole thing was weird.

  Too weird for that hour of the morning. I almost forgot my phone—had to run back in and get it—but Kristen was too full of last night’s date to mind.

  She started talking as soon as I got the door shut and the seat belt fastened. Devon this and Devon that and Devon everything else.

  I never had got around to asking Cat who Kristen’s date was. Finally I got a word in sideways. “Devon? Devon Mackey?”

  She came down to earth for a second. “Of course Devon Mackey. Who did you think it was?”

  I hadn’t been thinking at all. At least not about that.

  “I know he’s captain of the wrestling team,” Kristen said. “He can’t help it if he’s built like that, really, can he? He’s got it. He might as well use it. He’s thinking about applying to M.I.T. His dad wants him to go to Stanford, but he likes Boston. Besides, can you imagine? A wrestling scholarship to M.I.T. Heads will explode.”

  My head was thinking about exploding, but not because of Devon Mackey, wrestling star and future rocket scientist.

  Kristen kept on talking about the amazing, incredible, fantastic Devon and the fantastic, incredible, amazing date. I sneaked a look at my phone. You Have No New Messages.

  Well, not on the phone. In my head…

  Two dreams so real they were like living two whole new and completely different lives, worrying about mothers. I got it. I did.

  I sucked it up enough to pop off a text to my mom. Vet @930. Don’t forget.

  I didn’t expect an answer. Didn’t get one.

  With Kristen’s voice rising and falling in my ear, I watched the road unroll. Mom and I lived on a narrow sandspit between the ocean and the river. Kristen turned off it onto the causeway, up and over and into the sand and the palmettos and the long empty roads that the developers hadn’t raped and pillaged yet.

  Mangrove Farm used to be out in the middle of nowhere, but an RV park and a Seven-Eleven had popped up at the intersection, and there was a sign threatening a new condo development. COMING SOON! it screamed.

  It had been screaming at us for the past three years. Maybe we’d get lucky and soon would never come at all.

  Kristen shut up when we left the pavement and got onto the dirt road. You had to pay attention to where the ruts were to keep from bouncing off into the palmettos.

  “It helps to drive a little bit fast,” I said. “Skim the ruts.”

  “Thank you for your expert advice,” Kristen said through clenched teeth. Her knuckles were white where she gripped the steering wheel.

  My phone whinnied. Text from Mom.

  Honey, I’m sorry. I got called in to work. The lawyers want to settle, and the meeting is at 9. I’ll come as soon after that as I can. Give Bonnie a smooch from me.

  Speaking of soon, and never happening. Maybe the vet would never show up, either. Maybe Bonnie wasn’t pregnant at all.

  The car lurched. Kristen swore. She almost overshot the farm gate, but swerved just in time.

  After that much adventure, poop-scooping was restful. Hardly anybody was there yet, but Cat came stumbling in while I was halfway through my third stall. She had a serious case of bed head, half of the short spiky neopunk crop standing straight up and half mashed flat. She’d touched up the purple: it was the exact shade I get when I leave the bluing in Bonnie’s mane too long after a bath.

  Rick was already out in the arena, schooling over jumps before the heat came up. I stopped to watch him clear an in-and-out, collect into a beautiful almost-pirouette, and aim at the Wall of Death, which was set at five feet. For Rick that was just a pop-over.

  Rick’s not my type and I’m definitely not his, but Rick on a horse is a thing of beauty. He’s a middle-sized guy, mostly legs—on foot he’s kind of ordinary, you know, brown floppy hair, geek glasses. But get him in a saddle and you can’t tell where the horse starts and he leaves off.

  I stopped to give him the admiration he deserved, and to crunch down on the jealous part. You’d never catch me dead jumping five feet, let alone six. I’d probably be dead if I tried.

  It was all perfectly peaceful and ordinary. The part that wasn’t was me holding off on visiting Bonnie in the pasture. I could see her out there, a stocky white shape in the middle of all the big leggy brown ones.

  She could see me, too, but she was busy being queen. Bonnie ruled the mare pasture with an iron hoof.

  Bonnie’s registered name is Bonamia. Most people think she’s some kind of fat white pony, because she’s short and she’s built like a brick and she’s got serious—I mean serious—opinions about how the world is supposed to work.

  Then she moves, and you know there’s something more going on. Bonnie in motion is pure magic. Then you can see she was born to dance in front of kings.

  Bonnie is a Lipizzaner. Yes, real people can own one of those. Lipizzaners are really rare, though not nearly as expensive as you might think, and it was our duty to posterity, Mom said, to make sure Bonnie made another one. It was Mom’s idea to do it this year. She’d let me pick the stallion, but she drew up the list I picked him from.

  This was supposed to be our family project. She hadn’t been there for the breeding, either—vet, turkey baster, boy-in-a-box shipped all the way from Arizona. Work again.

  Egypt I was mad about. This just made me tired.

  I finished my stalls, and Cat and I got the water buckets filled. By then Kristen had started her dressage lesson and Rick was on to jump school number two. Her blonde ponytail and his screaming-flames helmet took turns bobbing around the dressage and jumping rings.

  It was almost time for the vet—though vet time is like Dad time: it takes as long as it takes.

  Cat went down with me to the pasture. Her big bay mare was Bonnie’s BFF; the two of them were waiting at the gate when we got there, with the rest of the ladies-in-waiting hanging back respectfully and the south-pasture geldings keeping a wary distance. Nobody messed with Bonnie and Dora.

  As soon as I saw my fat white pony, I forgot everything else but her. I wasn’t making any hopes or plans yet, but she looked even whiter and shinier than usual. There was a glow on her.

  She pushed her nose into the halter and I buckled it, and then stood for a long time with my face in her mane, breathing the smell of clean horse. She didn’t pull away as quickly as she usually did. I thanked her for that when I finally stepped back and took a deep breath and looked up to see the vet’s truck pulling in by the nearer barn.

  I could say I felt something building around me. I could say Bonnie farts rainbows, too. I wasn’t feeling anything right then but annoyance with Mom and excitement about the vet.

  Bonnie danced a little on the way up from the pasture to the wash rack, as if she knew something big was about to happen. Dr. Kay was waiting for us with her laptop that was, among other things, an ultrasound machine. She smiled at me and said to Bonnie, “Well, your majesty. Ready to show us what you’ve got in there?”

  Bonnie snorted and pulled ahead of me toward the wash rack. Cat laughed behind me. Maybe Dora did, too. “She knows,” Cat said.
r />   “Now the rest of us get to find out,” said Dr. Kay.

  I led Bonnie into the wash rack, which did double duty as a breeding stanchion. Dr. Kay fastened the butt bar and plugged in the ultrasound probe.

  Bonnie knew the drill from her breeding exams and her date with the boy-in-a-box. She didn’t exactly like it—would you like having somebody’s arm shoved all the way up where the sun don’t shine? But she’d been on board with this from the start, and she wasn’t changing her mind now.

  Bonnie is a whole lot smarter than your average horse. On her end of the horse-brains scale, weird is perfectly normal.

  I had Bonnie’s leadrope to manage, but while Dr. Kay probed and stretched and peered at the laptop screen, I angled around till I could get a glimpse of Bonnie’s grainy, blurry insides.

  The image stopped shifting and turning and zeroed in. There was something in the middle: a perfect black circle with a white dot at the top.

  Dr. Kay lit up with a grin. “There’s your baby,” she said.

  I burst into tears. It was totally embarrassing, and of course the whole world was there, from Barb the barn owner to Kristen with her Warmblood and Rick with big red Stupid, and Cat and Dora looking as if they’d put on the whole show. The humans were all grinning and clapping and cheering and kindly not noticing that my eyes were running over.

  Bonnie got cookies and carrots and a proud pat from Dr. Kay. Nobody said anything about the person who wasn’t there—who should have been. I aimed my phone at the ultrasound screen, which Dr. Kay had frozen and saved, and sent the picture to Mom.

  She’d get it when she got it. I told myself I didn’t care.

  It was Cat who asked the question I couldn’t get it together to ask. “So now what? Anything special we should do?”

  “Not much,” Dr. Kay answered. “Keep on riding and exercising her, and don’t change her feed for now. We’ll check her again in a month, make sure everything’s where it belongs. Then it’s hurry up and wait.”