Hathor's Mirror

SEVEN | PEOPLE DON'T JUST DISAPPEAR

I turn to face my captor, leaving my trapped soul in its silent cell. For once she says nothing. Doubt plays over her fine, fragile features, her skin the color of alabaster seasoned with light speckles of red. I have never seen the like. Nor have I seen anyone with green eyes or hair the color of carnelian. I am certain now. Wherever I am, she has all the power and I, the daughter of a pharaoh, for the first time in my life, have none. So long as my soul stays trapped here, I cannot leave. If I anger her, she could extinguish my soul for eternity and send me to Void. There is only one path left to me. To not anger her until I can find a way to overcome her, reclaim my soul and return home.

She holds out the bowl of round blue things to me. "Um. Would you like a blueberry?" she asks. I reach out and pluck one from the bowl. I look at it, wondering if it will poison me.

"Are you scared?" she asks. She takes one, chews, and swallows. "See?" she says with an encouraging smile. "All fine."

I hesitate a heartbeat more, then eat the bloo-barree.

It bursts in my mouth, cold, sweet, and tart. Never in my life have I experienced such an explosion of opposing flavors in one morsel of food. I take another one, and the sorceress takes one, too, in what I suspect is an attempt to gain my trust.

When we have emptied the bowl, she gestures to the opening. "I have more, in the kitchen?"

Kitchen. This is a word I know. Not that I have ever been in one, but I have heard attendants and stewards use the word enough to know what happens there. Food preparation.

I let her lead the way down a corridor, closed in by white walls stained with black scuffs and smudges, under ugly, glaring lights that hug the ceiling like massive scarabs. I weave my way along the horrible soft floor, past piles of clutter and disorder, as if someone had taken every single thing from its rightful place and put it where it should not be, and then left it there for years with more things piled on top. I feel oppressed by the chaos, the lack of harmony, and the utter disrespect for the laws of Ma'at. I force myself to distance my mind from this nightmare and focus my mind on my soul, trapped behind the clear wall in the room with the flowing water. This is all that matters now. To get my soul back and to return home. Until then, all I can do is watch, learn, and wait.

The corridor was only a taste of what was to come. The kitchen is a nightmare of chaos, more clutter, and unfamiliar objects. She starts pointing and explaining again. I force myself to listen, to pay attention despite my skin crawling with the need to run from this crowded, closed-in place, to escape from its oppressiveness.

The kitchen is already small, but with every surface covered in things I feel I cannot breathe. How could anyone live like this? Even the meanest peasants in my mother's empire keep their homes orderly and clean to prevent pests and disease. Perhaps Avril the sorceress with the carnelian hair is protected from both, although I cannot imagine how. There is nothing I can see that bestows her such power from the gods. No statues, no shrines. She does not even wear a single amulet. I wonder if her magic comes from the color of her hair and her powers are innate, that she was born with the gift of magic.

She is pointing at a tall thing set into the wall. There is a handle on it that she pulls. It opens outward and I am hit by a wall of cold air, colder than anything I have known before.

"This is a fridge," she says, waving her hand toward its innards. "We keep things like meat and milk in here to keep it fresh." I note the use of the word we while I inspect the inside of it, bright with another flameless white light stuck to its wall. Strange piles of things fill it up. Amongst stacks of jars and clear boxes of various sizes, I spot more bloo-barrees. I take them out.