The Ka

by Mary Deal

  Her own pendant opened easily. Her heart raced. Whose hair was sealed in the back of Tauret's pendant? “Leave it for now.”

  “Wait, Chione.” He refused to turn loose. “The back is sealed and there's a tiny cartouche stamped on it.”

  Chione's head reeled as she saw…

  …a jeweler sealing a lock of Pharaoh's hair inside the back of an amulet.

  Another piece of the puzzle slammed into place. Everything she suspected manifested in wave after overwhelming wave of images and thoughts. She could not withhold Tauret's secrets from Aaron any longer. She lived fragments of Tauret's life. Aaron experienced portions of Pharaoh's life. Now was the time to reveal Tauret's secret. “Do you believe in reincarnation?” she asked as she slipped the pendant away from him.

  “I'm not sure,” he said, looking surprised by the question. “From all we've been through, I'm beginning to believe in past life memory.”

  “Because you've experienced being Pharaoh?”

  “Of course, and because I'm still me, not having gone whacko—yet.”

  His willingness to laugh at himself helped her relax. “How often do you see me as Tauret?”

  His expression said he would rather not admit the truth. “Quite often,” he said after hesitating. “Especially after you styled your hair like hers.”

  “Do you share Tut's feelings for her?”

  “Where are you going with this?” He went to the dresser and lit one of her incense cones. He looked perfectly natural doing so.

  “Many times I see you as Pharaoh. I feel Tauret's feelings. All these emotions, they're new to me. If the Ancients believed they thought with their hearts, then these emotions must be Tauret's.”

  “So the emotions you feel are not for me?” He sat beside her on the bed.

  “That's just it. I do feel them, even when you're not Pharaoh.” She reached for him….

  …inside the mashrabia paneled room.

  “For me? You feel them for me?”

  “We're us, Aaron.”

  A groan escaped his throat. They rolled together. Their passions flared. “Umayma,” he said in that other voice.

  “Oba,” she said, whispering, feeling like Tauret.

  Sparkling energy burst around them and flickered in the air. Just as he called her Umayma again, suddenly he pulled away. “Wait!” Umayma means little mother. Chione, Tauret was pregnant.” He stood then and paced. “We can't be doing this. We're captivated by these people's lives. We can't act them out, carry on from where they were cut short.”

  “I want to. I need to.”

  “Wha-at?”

  “You'd better sit down again. “I've got something to tell you.”

  Their eyes met. He sat but looked ready to spring again. “I don't want play-acting someone else's lives to bring us together.”

  She sat up cross-legged and buttoned her blouse. “Unless we're living out our own?” The lights went on behind Aaron's eyes and then dimmed again. “Remember the confirmation we found among Umi's scratchings?”

  “Yeah, he wrote of an order given by Aye that anyone who worshipped the Aten was to be done away with,” Aaron said. “Blood relatives of Akhenaten were to be extinguished. Umi and Meskhenet worshipped the Amon, but chose to die with their daughter, who was killed for carrying the heir of an Aten worshiper before the religious conversion began.”

  “Umi confirmed Tauret cast a spell that Tutankhamon's baby would one day be born, if it took `till all of time has passed'. She wasn't mummified with her innards ripped out. It was her last wish and Meskhenet and Umi sacrificed their lives to make sure the spell wasn't broken.”

  “No one among the Ancients ever put that much value into living,” he said. “They lived to die and all their lives prepared for burial.”

  “But Tauret was a nonconformist. She wanted to give her child a life, a purpose that it, too, could carry into the Afterlife. It would have to live first.” She moved closer to him on the bed.

  “How does that affect us?”

  “When I stood beside Tauret's opened coffin,” she said. “Pharaoh stood in front of me, touching this scarab that hangs around my neck.”

  “That chain, the scarab with Rita's stuff in it?”

  She held the scarab in her fist. “This isn't Rita's. I gave my necklace to Clifford.”

  “Where did that one come from?” He could no longer push away the reality of the situation.

  “From under the lapis scarab over Tauret's heart. She made me promise to take it.”

  Aaron's mouth flew open. “You moved it? You're the one!”

  “It's a gift from Pharaoh. The day before Christmas I put the necklace on when all of you were out of the Burial Chamber. Pharaoh appeared in a burst of shimmering energy. I thought I was Tauret. He thanked me for carrying his heir.” She felt relieved at having disclosed her extraordinary secrets and surprised she was not pulled into a trance in order to keep from divulging all she knew. Tell no one who is not Pharaoh. The mysterious bond that developed between her and Aaron seemed cemented. Aaron looked even more like Pharaoh. The sparkling energy around them persisted.

  He stood, paced again and then turned to face her. “It's not the scarab that's made you sick.” He paused again, thinking, his gaze penetrating.

  She turned the amulet over. “The hair sealed inside this beetle is thirty-five hundred years old.”

  “A gift from Pharaoh?” he asked from the foot of the bed. “Pharaoh's hair is in that scarab?” He shook his head. The intensity of his expression said he had just come to grips with what she was trying to relate. “Pharaoh gave you a gift? Were you Tauret or were you Chione?”

  “I was myself,” she said quietly.

  “Why would he give you, Chione, an amulet?”

  “For carrying his baby.” She hesitated as their eyes met, then slowly said, “I'm pregnant, Aaron.”

  He grabbed hold of the bedpost as he wrestled with the words. “You're carrying Pharaoh's… the spells… are true? You're carrying Pharaoh's baby… for Tauret?”

  “I just tested in the bathroom.”

  “Could the test be wrong? We have a job to do at the tomb site. He seemed to have slipped into a self-protective state. “How are you going to justify this to the others?”

  She shook her head. “I don't have all the answers,” she said. “But if slipping in and out of trances with Tauret and Tut is the only way I can have a child, I'll take it.” She sighed, worried. “I'll manage somehow.”

  Aaron still paced and studied her. “You mean it? You'd accept it and go on?”

  “I have no choice, Aaron. I'm pregnant.” Regardless of the dilemma, she felt elation.

  He went to the window and looked out. The sun had set. Ramadan had ended for the day. Lights flickered on from the street below and cast an eerie glow into the room. People boisterously greeted one another. By now their language sounded second nature.

  “I have an idea,” he said after a while.

  “You're not obligated in any way.”

  “But I am. I've just made my decision.”

  “I didn't know you had one to make.”

  “Yes, I do. He sat down and took her hands. “Jibade took me to get a psychic reading.”

  She already knew.

  “I went because he's your father. He dragged me down to that camp.”

  “When did you go?” she asked, playing innocent.

  “Doesn't matter,” he said, waving a hand. “That woman told me I'd have to make a crucial decision the moment I learned the meaning of the spells.”

  Tarik earlier having quoted to her in confidence what was said, she could only hear Aaron out. “And?”

  “She insisted when the spell would be brought to light, I had to make a decision immediately and that I would know when the time was at hand.”

  “What did you glean from a message like that?”

  “The time is at hand, Chione. If you're really pregnant, the spell is being carried out. The time has arrived for me
to make that decision.” He spoke as a person who meant to carry through.

  “You understand what the psychic implied?”

  “Oh, yes,” he said, nodding. “And my decision is not to abandon you. I have a plan.”

  “A plan?”

  “Listen, despite experiencing ourselves as Tauret and Tut, you and I have discovered new feelings for one another, haven't we?” He looked as if his heart might break should he hear anything but an agreement.

  “Yes, strangely, we have.” At that moment she had great difficulty deciphering whether she was herself or Tauret. She decided the only way to deal with it would be to leave her feelings alone and see what developed. It was a matter of faith.

  Truth was, they would have to explain this pregnancy to everyone and that presented a huge dilemma. She and Aaron were experiencing Tauret's and Pharaoh's lives for the sake of the child. The child was as much hers and Aaron's. Something else that mattered was that she and Aaron had never consummated a relationship. Despite knowing their peers thought differently, she had always told the truth.

  Aaron tapped fingertips together thinking, the way he always did when demanding answers from within. Then he said, “Chione, I need to get a little personal. Do you mind?”

  “Well… no.” They could keep secrets no longer.

  “Once in the Pillared Hall, you told me you've never made love with anyone.”

  His candor startled her. “So?”

  “The spell,” he said, excited again. “The psychic said a certain level of purity had to be maintained in order for the spell to be carried out. You were meant to live without a man or a child in your life.”

  All that was happening was meant to be. They were beginning to see the reality of it. “Remember?” Chione asked as another revelation hit. “Tauret was a virgin when Pharaoh took her!” Surely Aaron knew she had gotten that from one of her visions.

  “How does this sound?” he asked. “Aaron Kheperu Ashby.”

  She was nearly speechless. Did he really love her that much? He was claiming the child as his. “Your name?”

  He prefaced what he was about to say by looking humble. “If only for the sake of the baby. Marry me, Chione.”

  She did not know what to say. “For the sake of the baby?”

  Aaron went on to explain that if she carried Pharaoh's child, they needed to make the truth known. “We could get on with the deeper aspects of the spell, the hidden mystery that's coming to light here.”

  “Marriage?”

  He looked saddened. “Not in the fullest sense as man and wife. Not if you don't want that much. But think of the child.”

  “I am thinking of the child.”

  One thing he said was right. What worried her as soon as she saw the results of the pregnancy test was how she would explain the situation. She would not tolerate people thinking she had become pregnant from hers and Aaron's supposed tête-à-têtes in the Pillared Hall. Then refuse to marry him? Yet, only the right decision could to be made for this unique child, regardless what their colleagues wanted to believe.

  Perhaps if they were reliving moments of Tauret and Pharaoh's lives, marriage would provide a safe haven. As Tauret and Tut, how would they manage life apart? She began to yearn again for Aaron because of Tauret's love for Pharaoh. Now she was deeply in love with Aaron.

  He touched her shoulder and let his hand run down her sleeve. “My decision is that I want to protect you and this special child.”

  “Is marriage the answer?”

  “Chione, I've always loved you.”

  “Are you willing to accept that we're two unique people given the chance to live two exciting lives simultaneously?” The concept was mind-boggling, but the dichotomy seemed strangely natural. “Marrying would bring Tauret and Tut together finally.”

  “Are you saying that you as Chione, care for me only when you're Tauret?” He seemed on the verge of complete dismay.

  “Oh, no! I-I want you in my life, Aaron.”

  “Then all I need to hear is that you'll marry me.”

  She smiled warmly. She loved his face and his pure heart. “What do you think of the name Nefertauret Ashby?”

  Aaron looked proud. “Beautiful Tauret,” he said, but shook his head. “Save it for the next one. We already know this one's a boy.”

  48

  They broke the news to Jibade. He accepted it like one who had already read the book and waited for the others to catch up at the ending. Helen's reaction was calm because Jibade first prepared her by taking her on a sightseeing tour during which time he explained. Helen always felt a deep connection to Egypt. She had, after all, given her daughter an Egyptian name. Maybe Jibade's preparing her had nothing to do with her acceptance. Now she clung to Chione and Aaron like a mother hen protecting her brood. Her attitude clearly reflected that she had grieved over Chione's disparaging first news of being unable to bear children. Now it seemed she intended to do whatever necessary for the adopted daughter she loved as her own.

  During the week following New Year's, Helen and Jibade's host family located a minister willing to perform a simple marriage ceremony during Ramadan. After sunset, one of the biggest celebrations of the season took place among the small group of Egyptian friends.

  They arrived back at their hotel room very late. Chione went to light an incense cone and said, “I'm not feeling sick anymore.”

  “I'm glad about that.” Aaron opened the window a little to allow the draft to spread the fragrance through the room.

  Early morning greetings among jovial friends drifted through the opened window from the street below. Aaron looked at the chaise where he would sleep and frowned.

  “I want to be in Egypt when the baby arrives,” she said. She held her hands on her belly. She had begun to feel tiny movements.

  “That sounds right,” Aaron said. He didn't look a bit comfortable on the chaise. He sat gripping the edge and leaning slightly forward.

  “I wonder if Randy found enough cells for DNA prints for the Madu's archives,” she said.

  “I have a feeling Randy is being guided like the rest of us.” He stared at the floor and did not speak for a few moments. Finally he asked, “What's to become of us? Is there another reason this special child is to be born?”

  “I don't know,” Chione said. “How will Pharaoh's son fare in today's world and modern society? Shouldn't he be allowed to grow up in Egypt?”

  Aaron stood and went to look out the window. “More than that, what kind of life might Tauret have willed for the boy through spells in order that he later take something of value into the Afterlife?”

  Chione paced, deep in thought. “Why were we chosen specifically? Why did millenniums have to pass? Tauret couldn't have known how much life would have changed in all that time.”

  “I wondered too,” Aaron said, leaning against the windowsill. “Do you think that people in Tauret's time knew something about the paranormal that the rest of humanity is only now catching up to?”

  “I'll need to re-examine the hieroglyphs for secreted formulae,” Chione said, joining him to look out over the view. Aaron seemed to melt when she wrapped an arm around his waist. “Umi wrote that Ankhesenpa was insanely jealous of Tauret and may have been responsible for both Tauret's and Tut's deaths. Suspecting danger, Tauret cast a spell that Ankhesenpa's reprehensible deeds turn back on herself.”

  Voices floated up from the street below. Not a lot of business noise typical of industrious Cairo. Daytime was fairly quiet during the month-long fast.

  “Did you find a spell like that in her writings?” Aaron slipped an arm around her shoulders.

  “No, but it's already known that Ankhesenpa's plan after Tut's demise backfired.”

  Ankhesenpa had asked a Hittite prince to marry her and become Pharaoh so that she could retain her own royal status.

  “That's right,” Aaron said. “Historians suspect Aye had the prince killed when he arrived in Egypt. Ankhesenpa had no choice other than to marry Aye, her gr
andfather.”

  “After which she and her younger sisters were not heard from again.”

  “Makes you wonder what kind of life Tauret might have willed for her son,” he said. “I remember something else. Back in California, you said history might be changed. If we're the only two to know about our child, history will not have been changed as far as anyone else is concerned.”

  “It's already been. The hieroglyphs clearly add Tauret as part of Tutankhamon's history. Plus, the child hasn't yet been born.” She placed a hand on her belly again and smiled. “He may have a few surprises for us all.”

  “Have we missed some of Tauret's messages?” He looked tired and began to unbutton his shirt.

  “I'm sure a lot more is encrypted in the hieroglyphs, especially Umi's.” One thing was certain. If anyone else tried to decipher the glyphs, only the people whom Tauret wished to know her secrets would receive the true messages.

  “Get our historian involved,” Aaron said. “Bebe's participation will help authenticate the findings, no matter how peculiar they turn out to be.”

  Chione checked the incense cone and went to sit on the edge of the bed. “We're married now,” she said.

  “Uh-huh,” he said, sounding uncertain.

  Evidently Aaron was having difficulty accepting she was finally his wife. She patted the bed again, inviting.

  Aaron approached slowly and sat, keeping his distance. He was a man of integrity. They married for the sake of the child, despite him wanting marriage for reasons of love. Now he would suffer that love, rather than pounce upon the mattress like a newlywed. He would not be the one making any first moves.

  Her love for him clutched at her heart. She wanted him more than ever.

  “We've been up all night. Let's talk after you rest.”

  The sparkling energy began to surround them again. Chione felt her consciousness slipping. She crawled on her knees across the bed reaching Aaron and kissing him. He returned the kiss but still held himself in check. “I'm not tired,” she said suggestively. They kissed again, passionately. Though Aaron still withheld, she sensed him beginning to succumb to a tide welling up like an approaching Khamsin wind. She took his hand and gently placed it on her belly.