Gods of Egypt - The Gods Saga-Part 1
Chapter 4 (Excerpt)
“Of course you’re scared, mon ange,” Aria told him, flinging her stark white hair behind her. Her alabaster skin glowed in the light of the moon. “I would be too if I had seen such awful tings as you have.”
Henry looked up at her as she stood in the doorway of her old, bayou mansion. “How do—do you know that?”
“Him,” she said simply.
“Tamen?”
“Papà,” she said with a thick, French accent. “Only one I ever knew.”
It was hard to believe that the one called Tamen was the foster father to Aria, who seemed old enough to be his grandmother. He shook his head as he realized that he had stepped off the road of reality and onto the one called fantasy. She backed up, allowing him room to step inside, which he did. But when the door promptly closed behind him, he realized he hadn’t touched it...and neither did she.
“You’ll be mon ange—my angel,” she said with a firm nod of her head. “You‘ll learn to speak and write French here and at school as soon as we get you enrolled in one. Spanish and Italian I’ll teach you myself. When Papà comes round he’ll teach you the old languages too, hmm?”
“What an old language be?”
“And dear God...we will rid you of that guttural English. It’ll make you sound simple if you walk around talking like that, boy. And old languages are the ones Papà spoke when he was still young like you—but a long, long time ago.”
“You believe him? That he be what he say he be?”
“Like I told you—I’ve never known anything other than what he is. But I tell you dis, he taught me to see and do things that no man or woman I know can do.”
“Like how he know what I thinkin’?”
She winked her grey eye. “That and more. I used to just see people and plants and rivers and tings how you’re supposed to. But now,” she gasped, “I see life everywhere I look! I see it in the plants and in the trees and in the grass at their feet. I never knew that air and water had a life of its own until he showed me. You coming here makes you a very fortunate boy indeed,” she told him. “I will teach you the art of the unseen, mon ange. You will see harm coming your way before you see it—with those pretty brown eyes of yours. Papá said he told you that no harm will ever come to you again, but I will see to that myself.”
She led him upstairs and into a bedroom that was twice the size of the trailer he used to call home. The room smelled and felt wet, but was tidy. The oak poster bed with a sheer netting draped over it was large enough for three adults with room to spare. The bed had been made and its covers pulled back, as if expecting him.
Aria hummed as she moved him toward the bed, where she undressed him down to his pee-stained underwear. “Up and in now,” she’d directly gently, and then snuggled the sheets up to his neck. “I soak you in a hot bath tomorrow and wash that skin of yours back white, hmm?” She kissed the top of his head and began stroking his face—temple to chin. Over and over her soft white hands caressed his face until he drifted asleep for a while. But he startled awake by the sound of whispers in the room and Aria nowhere to be found.
Like a child, he shut his eyes and went still, though the whispers only grew louder. He heard men and women...children’s voices were all around him. Some began calling his name as if they knew him. He dared a peek, but when he saw the shadows in the room peel away from the wall and ceiling and move toward him, he squeezed his eyelids together as tight as he could. Too afraid to scream for help, he bit down on his tongue until he tasted blood.
Then came footsteps patting outside of his door. When he heard it open and the creaking from the hinges echo in the room, Aria’s voice followed right after. “Alle-vous en! Go away, I say! I told all of you not tonight, didn’t I? You wait until I say come see him.” The shadows moaned in reply.
Even with Aria leaning over him and again stroking his face, it took some convincing for him to open his eyes again. When he did, he caught the last vestige of a fleeing shadow slip between a crack in the coffered ceiling, as if it had been sucked into it.
“They’re nothing to be afraid of, mon ange,” she promised. “Just some old shadows that can’t even touch you. They just got too excited seeing you here.”
“What...what are they? Ghosts?”
“Yes,” she whispered. “They used to be alive like you and me. But they’re harmless as moths. They keep me company, and I them. But they scare other people, like they did you, no?”
He shuddered. “Ghosts!”
“Mon cochon—my piggy,” she cooed. “It take some time for you to understand all of this. You don’t know about these tings yet, but you will. You going to discover that it’s what’s outside this house—not in it—that should be feared.”
