Who Is She? | Jaz Anderson

• twenty-six •

Ayden giggled next to Jaz, covering her face as the blonde in question told her about the time when she went on a date with the captain of the football team in Nashville. He'd taken her to a local KFC and tried to flirt with her terribly. The food had come out really slow and it was right after a game and they'd lost.

Then a swirling sand portal opened on the terrace, just as their mother had promised.

"That's for us," Sadie said, getting up from the dinner table.

"Come on, brother," Ayden teased.

On the other side of the portal, we found themselves at the beach by the Lake of Fire. Bast was waiting, tossing a ball of yarn from hand to hand. Her pure black bodysuit matched her hair. Her feline eyes danced in the red light of the waves.

"They're waiting for you." She pointed up the steps to the House of Rest. "We'll talk when you come back down."

Ayden didn't need to ask why she wasn't coming. She heard the melancholy in her voice. She and Tawaret had never got along because of Bes. Obviously, Bast wanted to give the hippo goddess some space. But also, Ayden wondered if their old friend was starting to realize that she'd let a good man get away.

Sadie kissed her on the cheek. Then the three siblings climbed the stairs.

Inside the nursing home, the atmosphere was festive. Fresh flowers decorated the nurses station. Heket the frog goddess walked upside down along the ceiling, hanging party streamers, while a group of elderly dog headed gods danced and sang the hokey-pokey — a very slow version, but still impressive. You put your walker in / you put your IV out and so forth. The ancient lion-headed goddess Mekhit was slow-dancing with a tall male god. She purred loudly with her head on his shoulder.

"Carter, Ayden, look," Sadie said. "Is that —?"

"Onuris!" Tawaret answered, trotting over in her nurse's outfit. "Mekhit's husband! Isn't it wonderful? We were sure he'd faded ages ago, but when Bes called the old gods to war, Onuris came tottering out of a supply closet. Many others appeared too. They were finally needed, you see! The war gave them a reason to exist."

The hippo goddess crushed them in an enthusiastic hug. "Oh, my dears! Just look how happy everyone is! You've given them new life."

"I don't see as many as before." Carter noticed.

"Some went back to the heavens," Tawaret said. "Or off to their old temples and palaces. And, of course, your dear father, Osiris, took the judgment gods back to his throne room."

Seeing the old gods so happy warmed Ayden's heart, but she still felt a twinge of worry. "Will they stay this way? I mean, they won't fade again?"

Tawaret spread her stubby hands. "I suppose that depends on you mortals. If you remember them and make them feel important, they should be fine. But come, you'll want to see Bes!"

He sat in his usual chair, staring blankly out the window at the Lake of Fire. The scene was so familiar, Ayden feared he'd lost his ren again.

"Is he all right?" Sadie cried, running up to him. "What's wrong with him?"

Bes turned, looking startled. "Besides being ugly? Nothing, kid. I was just thinking — sorry."

He rose (as much as a dwarf can rise) and hugged them all.

"Glad you kids could make it," Bes said. "You know Tawaret and I are going to build a home on the lakeside. I've gotten used to this view. She'll keep working at the House of Rest. I'll be a house dwarf for a while. Who knows? Maybe I'll get some little dwarf-hippo babies to look after!"