The Book of the Dead by Gail Carriger, Will Hill, Jesse Bullington, Paul Cornell, Maria Dahvana Headley, Molly Tanzer Page B
Authors: Gail Carriger, Will Hill, Jesse Bullington, Paul Cornell, Maria Dahvana Headley, Molly Tanzer
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withdrawing again. I don’t want to, didn’t mean to, but I have to. She gets her phone out again, checks her messages. Thinking about “Babe,” and about getting back on a train.
My heart is leaden.
I’m going north to prepare. The body has to lie in its tomb, to re-enact His descent into Duat. Certain spells have to be set around the body, and the canopic jars have to be present. It doesn’t have to be the same tomb as I was first buried in; it felt like taking a terrible chance, first time I tried that, but Meryetamun insisted she’d moved, and it had done her no harm. It came as a great relief to all of us, especially the way well-meaning academics kept pulling our resting bodies out of the ground. I’ve seen Tutankhamun’s body, reinterred in his tomb, too late for the boy to make the return. We all loved him; he was beautiful, and always happy.
This time I’m using a lockup in Leeds, bought outright, with the best security and climate control money can buy. A couple of the others will be checking in on me every now and again.
The ushabti aren’t necessary either, although they make life a little more comfortable in the underworld. I’ve left most of my old ones in Abdju, but I have a small box of them in my improvised tomb: a few servants, some tools and luxuries. Meryetamun went to bed with a crate of teddy bears, last time she went down. I’ve heard they snuffled about in Duat for a year or two, quite useless as servants, but caused something of a stir.
Aside from my tomb, I need to arrange for my current identity to “die” and for my disappearance to be explained. I need to create my new identity, have funds moved and documents created. I have the resources for all of this – I’ve become practised – but the wheels have to be set in motion.
Using the internet on her phone, she’s confirmed that there’s a bus service to get us both on our way again. We’ve a short wait. She’s become brusque, cold. She orders another coffee and another tea, smiles breezily, starts talking about a film she’s seen recently.
I miss her. Not just Phoebe, but already I miss her in herself, this proud, bold, warm, loving woman I met on the platform today. Sitting next to me, the scarf around her neck now, less tangible armour up around that, blowing on her latte and sipping it, and regarding me over the lip of the cup with bright, brittle eyes.
Blue eyes. Clear and open. Phoebe’s had been dark. I actually think I like these more.
She’s hurt, and she’s not sure why. That I’m rejecting her, of course; that we’ve touched each other so and I’m closing up again. But she can’t see why this stranger, this man she’s just met, by chance, one autumn afternoon in a train station in the middle of nowhere, can have such a hold over her. She’s angry with herself for caring that I’m leaving.
We talk for another fifteen minutes or so, on trivialities. The sky’s turned nearly black, now, and the first few stars are coming out. By the time I stand to go – she’ll catch the next one, she says; she wants to work on some poetry before she heads on – she’s entirely fenced in again, as though nothing had happened. A rock has settled in my belly.
I shake her hand, smile mechanically, say goodbye. I use the name on the sheet of paper in my pocket, but my heart screams at her, Phoebe . She uses the name I gave her, the name of the identity I will kill in Leeds. On an impulse, I bend over and kiss her on the cheek before I turn to go.
Her Heartbeat,
an Echo
Lou Morgan
She arrived on a Tuesday morning: the grey drizzly weather doing nothing to deter the crowds or the photographers gathered around the entrance and hoping to catch a glimpse of her, however brief. From a small, square window on the fifth floor of the Sutherland wing, a security guard looked down on the little circus and unclipped a walkie-talkie from his belt.
“Mike? It’s Russ. I know. I know. I see it. Send someone out to help the
My heart is leaden.
I’m going north to prepare. The body has to lie in its tomb, to re-enact His descent into Duat. Certain spells have to be set around the body, and the canopic jars have to be present. It doesn’t have to be the same tomb as I was first buried in; it felt like taking a terrible chance, first time I tried that, but Meryetamun insisted she’d moved, and it had done her no harm. It came as a great relief to all of us, especially the way well-meaning academics kept pulling our resting bodies out of the ground. I’ve seen Tutankhamun’s body, reinterred in his tomb, too late for the boy to make the return. We all loved him; he was beautiful, and always happy.
This time I’m using a lockup in Leeds, bought outright, with the best security and climate control money can buy. A couple of the others will be checking in on me every now and again.
The ushabti aren’t necessary either, although they make life a little more comfortable in the underworld. I’ve left most of my old ones in Abdju, but I have a small box of them in my improvised tomb: a few servants, some tools and luxuries. Meryetamun went to bed with a crate of teddy bears, last time she went down. I’ve heard they snuffled about in Duat for a year or two, quite useless as servants, but caused something of a stir.
Aside from my tomb, I need to arrange for my current identity to “die” and for my disappearance to be explained. I need to create my new identity, have funds moved and documents created. I have the resources for all of this – I’ve become practised – but the wheels have to be set in motion.
Using the internet on her phone, she’s confirmed that there’s a bus service to get us both on our way again. We’ve a short wait. She’s become brusque, cold. She orders another coffee and another tea, smiles breezily, starts talking about a film she’s seen recently.
I miss her. Not just Phoebe, but already I miss her in herself, this proud, bold, warm, loving woman I met on the platform today. Sitting next to me, the scarf around her neck now, less tangible armour up around that, blowing on her latte and sipping it, and regarding me over the lip of the cup with bright, brittle eyes.
Blue eyes. Clear and open. Phoebe’s had been dark. I actually think I like these more.
She’s hurt, and she’s not sure why. That I’m rejecting her, of course; that we’ve touched each other so and I’m closing up again. But she can’t see why this stranger, this man she’s just met, by chance, one autumn afternoon in a train station in the middle of nowhere, can have such a hold over her. She’s angry with herself for caring that I’m leaving.
We talk for another fifteen minutes or so, on trivialities. The sky’s turned nearly black, now, and the first few stars are coming out. By the time I stand to go – she’ll catch the next one, she says; she wants to work on some poetry before she heads on – she’s entirely fenced in again, as though nothing had happened. A rock has settled in my belly.
I shake her hand, smile mechanically, say goodbye. I use the name on the sheet of paper in my pocket, but my heart screams at her, Phoebe . She uses the name I gave her, the name of the identity I will kill in Leeds. On an impulse, I bend over and kiss her on the cheek before I turn to go.
Her Heartbeat,
an Echo
Lou Morgan
She arrived on a Tuesday morning: the grey drizzly weather doing nothing to deter the crowds or the photographers gathered around the entrance and hoping to catch a glimpse of her, however brief. From a small, square window on the fifth floor of the Sutherland wing, a security guard looked down on the little circus and unclipped a walkie-talkie from his belt.
“Mike? It’s Russ. I know. I know. I see it. Send someone out to help the
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