The Chaos of Stars Read online

  I play with the remaining syrup on my plate, stirring it around with my fork. “So what? I’ll get a real job. I’m not afraid to work.” I don’t care what it is. Anything’s better than what she wants me to do.

  Deena looks up from her phone with an apologetic frown. “You can’t get a job, not legally anyway. You don’t have the right type of visa. And while there are a lot of jobs for illegals here, I really doubt you want to stand on a corner at Home Depot and get picked up for daily construction work.”

  I frown, torn. I am pretty strong. Maybe I could. . . .

  “Don’t tell her that’s an option,” Sirus whispers, doing the kill motion across his throat.

  “If you violate your visa,” Deena continues hurriedly, “you risk getting kicked out of the country permanently. Plus Sirus and I would be breaking the law if we helped you work illegally, which frankly wouldn’t look good on my record.”

  I throw my hands in the air. “Then how is it okay for me to work at the museum?”

  Sirus shrugs. “Because they aren’t technically employing you. You’re a volunteer. With regularly scheduled hours. And mandatory attendance that will be reported directly to Mom.”

  “And that’s the only way I have access to any money at all.”

  “Sorry, kiddo. We’d support you, but—”

  “No, I don’t want that.” I scowl and trace the grain of the wood on the table. “I don’t want to be any sort of burden on you. I’ll do the stupid job.” I stand, and I can see the mixture of relief and regret on Sirus’s face. “But seriously? I am going to burn this table. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to get some air.” It’s hard to breathe with my mother’s tentacles reaching out to strangle me from across the world, after all.

  I stare at the mural of my parents’ creation, Grandma Nut arching across the sky. I reach up, standing on my tiptoes, to trace my finger along her length. I don’t understand why I can’t visit her, can’t see her like I can so many aunts and uncles.

  I turn to go back to my room when I run into a pair of legs and look up to see Set. I freeze, terrified as always.

  “Hello, child,” he says, and his voice is soft and calm as he bends down to be eye level with me. He looks so much like my father, except Set’s skin is healthy brown, not corpse black like Osiris’s.

  I swallow and stammer hello, which embarrasses me because I’m nearly nine and I don’t stutter now.

  “Why are you sad?” he asks.

  I’m not sad, not anymore. Now I’m scared. But I answer, “Because Grandma Nut isn’t here and I can’t see her. I don’t understand why.” I scowl, try to stand taller in defiance. It’s not fair. “Why are you still here, but she isn’t?”

  Set’s smile is in his eyes. “Do you understand that only the gods who are remembered or worshipped—even inadvertently—are strong enough to remain in physical form?”

  I nod, but I don’t know what inadvertently means.

  “You should study current events,” he says, standing tall again. “Then you will know why the god of chaos still walks the earth and never needs fear oblivion.” He smiles again, and it frightens me.

  I turn to run down the hall to where my mother is, but it’s blank, an empty black space, and I know she won’t be there. I back slowly away, past Set, past the mural, where my mother’s image has been erased.

  Everything is wrong. This is all wrong.

  Chapter 4

  Set was not well pleased with his brother’s ascension to god-king of Egypt.

  “A game,” Set declared, bringing out a beautiful chest. “We will see who fits the best.”

  Osiris was a perfect fit. Unsurprising, because it was a coffin specially made for him. Set seized it, sealed it, and condemned Osiris to a slow death. He dumped the coffin into the Nile, surrendering it to the depths and denying Osiris a proper burial and entry into the afterlife.

  Isis would not allow this. She searched the river and the sea until she found the coffin and brought it back to Egypt to prepare for burial. But clever, vengeful Set found where she had hidden it and chopped his brother’s body into fourteen pieces.

  Ever faithful, Isis and her sister Nephthys searched all of Egypt and found . . . thirteen pieces. The fourteenth, Osiris’s penis, had been eaten by a fish. Industrious and undeterred, Isis just made him a new one. That magical penis went on to sire Horus, who carried on the good fight against Set and chaos. It also made Anubis.

  It also made me, but let’s not think about that.

  SIRUS DRIVES UP THE MIDDLE OF THE CITY, which is built on a series of hills looking out over the harbor. Most of the skyscrapers are farther south, but I love the mixture of tall buildings and turn-of-the-century homes preserved in the middle. Everything is bright, and there’s so much metal and so many signs. I wonder how anyone finds anything here. Yesterday I went into a grocery store and was so overwhelmed I turned around and walked right back out. They have everything there in the same place. Once you started, how would you ever leave?

  I thought watching the occasional American film and television series would prepare me to live here. I was wrong. And it sucks. But I refuse to be homesick. I will make wherever I am my home. Or I’ll have no home at all. Either is better than living in a past and future where I don’t belong.

  “How did you keep Deena a secret from Mother?” I ask as we wait at a light.

  “Hmm? Oh, Mom knows about her. She wasn’t thrilled about me starting my family here instead of Egypt, but we’ve had that fight so many times over the years, I think I’ve finally worn her down.”

  I frown. This doesn’t make any sense. I was under the impression that Sirus didn’t have any contact with Isis at all. Maybe his lack of video chatting has more to do with his painful tech unsavviness than actually avoiding talking to her. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  He shrugs, looking uncomfortable. “I thought it was more important that you talk to me about the things you needed to when you called. I just kind of never got around to it.”

  That’s a crap excuse if I’ve ever heard one. What he’s saying is he’s been pretending to understand me all these years, while secretly talking to our mother even though he doesn’t have to, and sneaking around behind my back, getting married and starting a family. Parenthood is selfish. There’s no reason to bring a child into the world other than that you want one for your own self-centered reasons. His can’t be as bad as our parents’, but still.

  “And Mother’s okay with Deena? Even with the whole working thing?”

  “Yeah, of course. I mean, she’s a little concerned that Deena isn’t going to quit after the baby comes, but she trusts us to figure it out.”

  “Are we talking about the same woman?”

  Sirus laughs. “You know, she’s not nearly as crazy and controlling as you act like she is.”

  “You say, driving me to a job I didn’t ask for and don’t want but am being forced to do.” I scowl out the window. Whose side is he on?

  We cross an intersection into a grassy park area and then over a bridge to another world. It’s as though they’ve built a city within the city—the buildings aren’t tall, but they’re all beautiful, things from another time and place. Elaborate sculptures are carved right into the walls, and we drive through onto a cobbled street, the buildings themselves arching over the entrance.

  “That’s your museum,” Sirus says, pointing to the first building. I have time to see huge, blue doors, intricately carved and surrounded by concrete stairs, before we’re through another underpass and into a roundabout. “I have a bit of an emergency this morning—not enough drivers—so is it okay if I drop you off here?” He pulls over into a handicapped parking area.

  Suddenly I’m nervous, which I hate. I have nothing to be nervous about. I didn’t ask for this, and I don’t care what they think of me. I have half a mind to “accidentally” knock over a bust of my mother.

  And then dance on the shards.

  Still, my stomach flutters. “They’re expe
cting me, right?”

  Sirus grins. “Like Mom would forget to follow up. I’ll be back at four. Chin up, kiddo. It’ll be fun.”

  “Party,” I mutter, and climb out. The road weaves away past an outdoor amphitheater in the same pale stonework as most of the buildings. Everything is surrounded by green, bright explosions of flowers, and the odd fountain. There doesn’t appear to be much sense to the buildings, but a broad, pedestrian-only street leads the opposite direction of my museum. I’ll have to explore later. I like how this place is sheltered from the crush of cars and the endless rows of houses and buildings.

  Though there are still crowds wandering around. I feel claustrophobic. Who knew that living in the real world included so many people?

  I walk down the covered sidewalk, past some bizarre modern sculptures in a garden, craning my neck when the roof opens up to see the domed tower atop the museum, accented with blue and yellow tile. A bell chimes the time. Almost late.

  I walk slower.

  But not slow enough, and even dragging my feet up the stairs brings me to the doors just as they open. A tiny, energetic brunette flashes me a brilliant smile. Her eyes are about even with my chest. My relative height here keeps surprising me, too. Even after my painful growth spurt, I was always the shortest, other than stooped Thoth.

  Here I am tall. Really tall. Of course, my spike heels propelling me well past my 1.8 meters probably help. I enjoy it, though. I feel like I can breathe better.

  “You must be Isadora!”

  I hold my hands out in a silent ta-da motion.

  “I’m Michelle! We’re so excited that you’ll be with us this summer. Museum traffic swings up so much—especially once schools go on break in the next couple of weeks. It’s always nice to have extra hands, and with your background, well! It’s going to be great. And I can’t even begin to tell you how thrilled we are about your parents’ incredible donation of their traveling exhibit.” She’s practically bouncing up and down. I see why my mother picked her—she’s even wearing an ankh necklace under her nice white button-down blouse.

  I’m dressed in a black pencil skirt and a cherry-red top, my hair down, stick straight, my thick bangs so long they almost cover my eyes. I debated this morning whether or not to show up in jeans and a tee, torn between rebelliously refusing to adhere to the dress code and being nice. But it isn’t the museum’s fault my mother’s a control freak.

  I’m entertained by the way Michelle chops her hands through the air as she’s explaining the plan for a separate wing when the exhibit arrives, and how she prefaces many of her sentences with, “I mean, look.” Unfortunately, if I cave and like anything about this (including Michelle), my mother wins.

  Conundrums.

  We walk past a circular lobby with double desks and into a massive main room, the ceiling open to the top of the building. The second-floor balcony wraps all the way around and lets in natural light from huge, round-top windows, and the middle of the floor down here showcases massive carved stone pillars. Michelle cheerily tells me about this exhibit on ancient Mesoamericans, its history, how long it’ll stay up. I’ve never heard anyone talk so fast in my entire life. She packs more words into a single breath than most people do in five.

  We head up the stairs, past some exhibit on the origins of humankind, and over to the Egyptian room. The entrance is deep purple and green, with gold lettering. The colors are all wrong, really. I appreciate the effort to make it look regal, but I’d have done it differently.

  The actual exhibit is shockingly small—a single room, with cases on the sides and in the middle. I’m greeted by a cartoon version of my creepy, lecherous half brother Anubis, which makes me giggle.

  Michelle turns to me midsentence. “What?”

  I shake my head. “Oh, nothing. Sorry. Go on.” Cartoon Anubis is pointing to the centerpiece of the room—a headless mummy. We have better in our tombs at home. But it’s a decent collection for such a small museum. And there’s a whole case of things from Abydos, one of which is allegedly from the tomb of Osiris. It’s kind of adorable they think someone could find the tomb of a god.

  “The Children’s Discovery Room is through those doors,” Michelle says, pointing to a set of double doors with a sign across declaring the exhibit closed. “It’ll open up later, and is one of our most popular rooms. There’s a video presentation on the mummification process narrated by Anubis. You’ll love it!”

  “I’m sure I will.” I can see it now: Anubis leering and smirking, sharp eyes and sharp teeth with a smile curled around them. Because he’s totally the most kid friendly of the gods. I know the jackal-headed jerk is the god of embalming, but really, for children? They should have Thoth with his birdie hands.

  “If you’ll familiarize yourself with the room, I’m going to give you some extra reading to do so you can answer any questions that people might have, but I’m guessing that, with your parents, you’re already something of an expert.” She pauses, looking at me with a cocked head. “You know, put on a headdress and a white tunic, and I’d swear you walked straight out of one of these exhibits!”

  “Which is why I make a policy of never wearing headdresses.”

  Michelle laughs, shaking her head. “I’ll stay here with you for most of the morning, and then you can take over. Really your job until we get your mom’s shipment and fit out the special exhibits room is to be accessible and help people have the best possible experience here you can. We have security on-site, so if there are ever any problems, you just call it in right away.”

  “Got it.”

  She fits me with a temporary name badge and a radio, and I hang out and try not to show how incredibly bored I am with the few dozen patrons who visit in the next two hours. I’m relieved when her radio buzzes and she leaves me with a smile and thumbs-up. It was starting to feel really pointless, standing in the corner.

  But now I’m alone in a room with artifacts from my parents’ heyday and a dead body that my father probably ushered into the afterlife. In the middle of San Diego, in America, where I was supposed to escape my history.

  This is just phenomenally weird. I’m glad it’s slow and no one has come through since Michelle left. I still can’t stop smirking about kid-friendly Anubis. If they only knew.

  “Hey!”

  I about jump out of my skin and turn to see a lanky white girl grinning at me. She’s nearly as tall as I am, with rectangle glasses and hair pulled back into a ponytail. Her button-down shirt and pin-striped black pants fit her awkwardly, pulled too tight across her shoulders and hips, like they weren’t meant for her body. What if she has questions? I’m not going to pretend like Anubis is awesome, or try to get excited over the amazing stone-knife display. My mom’s requirement is that I show up. I’ve done that.

  “You’re the new girl! Isadora, right? Michelle wasn’t kidding—you look like you stepped out of one of the murals! Wow. That’s so cool that you’re actually Egyptian.”

  I paste a smile on my face. “Cool is one word for it.”

  “I’d kill for some sort of actual ethnic heritage. I’m a glorified mutt, really.”

  I frown. “Belonging to a specific race isn’t the only way to have a culture. And being Egyptian doesn’t make me an Egyptian.”

  She laughs, a sharp, barking laugh that explodes out of her stomach. I have never heard a laugh like it before. It’s both alarming and disarming. “Yeah, gosh, you’re right. Sorry, I’m Tyler.” She sticks out a hand that’s narrow and bony. I shake it awkwardly because I know I’m supposed to. I still don’t understand shaking hands.

  “I’m working here over the summer for my aunt,” she says.

  “Who is your aunt?”

  “Michelle.”

  I compare Tyler—pale, blond, lanky, tall Tyler—with tiny brunette Michelle. “Are you sure?”

  “That’s what my parents tell me. So, you wanna go get some lunch? I know an awesome taco stand a few blocks away. We may die of food poisoning, but it’ll be a happy deat
h.”

  “Are we allowed to leave?”

  She waves a hand dismissively. “Yeah, no worries. I told Auntie Michelle.”

  I follow her out into the cloud-dimmed sunlight. She has a long, loping walk, her shoulders thrust forward and down, with her hands shoved into her pockets. Everything about her seems just off, just this side of awkward.

  I officially give myself permission to like Tyler. She’s been pressed into working for the museum, too. Liking her isn’t giving my mother a victory. Besides, I can already tell it’s going to be impossible not to like Tyler.

  We walk under the arch and onto the bridge. I plan on spending future lunch breaks wandering around the park, getting to know the trees. There is a wealth of foliage, and I’m shocked that everyone here doesn’t have a permanent neck injury from craning to look at the trees at every possible chance. It boggles my mind how so much can grow. I thought this area was a desert, but it’s nothing like the one I grew up in.

  “This is great,” I say, pausing to look over the side of the bridge and down into a shallow but steep-sided canyon. I’m nervous—I’ve never had to buy anything here, and though Sirus assures me that my plastic debit card is the same as money, I have no idea if it’ll actually work. What if it doesn’t? Then again, I need to figure the system out. The beginnings of a plot to drain my account of cash have been stirring in my head. If I have all the money out of the bank, Isis can’t deny me access to it.

  “Oh, sure. Nature is awesome.” Tyler waves dismissively, leaning next to me to look down. Her face lights up. “Hey! HEY!”

  I turn to stare at her, wondering why she’s screaming. She waves her arms over her head. “HEY! RY! UP HERE!”

  I follow her line of sight to a guy sitting in the curved hollow where two tree trunks meet, furiously scribbling in a black notebook. His hair is one shade away from midnight, worn a little long so that it curls just above his eyes. He’s wearing khaki pants and a pale blue button-up short-sleeved shirt, showing off some seriously beautiful olive-toned arms. Wires dangle from earbuds and he hasn’t looked up to see us yet.