The heart, evil or pure, must endure... the feather of Ma’at.
So, prepare your soul... with the goal... of survival.
Chasten the way... of the eye... for this is your trial:
become a child again... so your heart is light...
and your death be blessed under Horus’ sight.
~extracted prayer of Anubis’ worshippers.
(From the Book of Dead Men, circa 2,342 BCE)
My mother was quiet.
The usually stoic Asenath Badran sat, hunched, on the steps of the Sweeping Reeds Funeral Home.
A cigarette smoldered between her nicotine-stained fingers and she took a slow, shaky drag.
Her slender throat worked as she exhaled, with smoke curling into the night like translucent tendrils of her soul.
“You say your night terrors are currently possessing our caravan?” she asked.
I nodded.
My knees bumped hers as I leaned forward on the steps, fidgeting with the straps of my helmet. My bicycle was discarded near hers in the parking lot.
“The chants changed tonight,” I whispered, my gaze focused on the bikes. “They talked to me, and they mentioned... dad.”
My mother stiffened a moment before tapping ash off the tip of her cigarette.
“And?” she prompted. “What did they say?”
I took a shaky breath.
“Something about me being a ‘daughter of death’...” I tugged at the helmet strap again. “It sounded like they’re waiting for something, though.”
“Time," she said. "They’re waiting for an hour when the barriers are thinner.”
Smoke streamed out of her nose as she glanced to the East. To the coming sunrise offering spiritual protection. To Cairo where dad had disappeared.
My mother bit her cigarette. “I prayed that we would have more years, qalbī. I did.”
Qalbī: her heart.
She didn’t call me that often.
Something was wrong. Very wrong.
“More years?” I asked, studying her expression.
She didn’t seem to hear me.
“A thinned hour like 3:42…” My mother’s gaze was distant, her mortician’s mind working. “A time when souls confess sins before Ma’at, the feather of Truth.”
Her cigarette hissed as she extinguished it on the concrete step. “I’m not ready,”
“Ready?” I reached for her trembling hand. “For what?”
“For you to die,” she said, avoiding my eyes. “And for your father to weigh your life on the scales.”
3:30 AM
“We don’t have much time I must prepare the ritual. Anubis’ amulet can only protect you for so long,” my mother said, gripping my hand. “We need to ask your father to delay your testing, and shield you from your night terrors.”
“Ritual?” I said, pulling away. “First, you say I’m going to die and that dad’s weighing my life. Now you mention—“
A puppy whined.
We froze, turning to the stray dog. It sniffed the wheels of our bikes, lifting a thin paw as it wagged its tail slowly.
A second ‘yip’ from the left drew my attention. An older canine.
The mutt sat near the concrete ramp crossing with the steps. It lowered its flea-bitten snout, its eyes glinting yellow under the waning moon.
My mother’s eyes widened. “It’s starting. You need to be purified.”
“I— What?”
“Trust me!” she hissed, pulling me into the funeral home.
She shut the glass door and fumbled for the key in her pocket.
At the turn of the lock, a third dog trotted closer.
It inhaled slowly, circling where I had sat moments before, before meeting my gaze with milky-blind eyes.
It was as if the dog was studying my soul.
Goosebumps pricked the nape of my neck and I stepped backwards, disappearing into the shadows of the funeral home.
“Mom, what is going on?”
“The strays are your father’s avatars.” She said before pausing, as if to choose her words carefully. “They come to guide the dead.”
My head snapped in her direction, eyebrows raising. “You can’t be serious.”
She didn’t bother replying.
My mom flicked her wrist, reading the time off her watch. “It’s 3:32. We’ve got 10 minutes.”
I crossed my arms, preparing to argue and demand an explanation, when she cut me off.
“Heba, grab clean linen from the storage room. I’ll get olive oil and table salt from the staff kitchen; it’ll have to suffice instead of natron.”
“Natron? The stuff they use on mummies?” I said deadpan.
My mother gave me a flat look. The one she reserved for when I flunked physics or got into school fights.
I sighed, rolling my eyes. “Okay, fine. I’m going.”
My footsteps echoed down the cold hall and I retrieved the pressed linen before entering the kitchen.
My mother was washing her hands with salt, motioning with her head to a drawer under the sink.
“Scissors,” she said, “Cut the linen. I need strips for bandages.”
I opened the drawer—
“Fighting against us, are you, Little Jackal?” A murmur of voices asked. Their phantom breath was corpse-cold against my ear.
My breath hitched. My night terrors. They were back.
My mother’s hands stilled under the rushing tap water. “Heba?”
“It’s them,” I said quietly.
My grip tightened around the drawer’s handle as pressure built behind my eyes and a thick red tear welled in the corner of my vision.
It rolled down my cheek and traced the seam of my lip, tasting of iron and salt.
My mother brushed away the drop of blood.
“Keep resisting, qalbī,” She said, her voice softening. “You’re stronger than you feel, and soon you’ll see, stronger than you know.”
My mother had to purify her hands after touching me.
I grabbed the scissors and started to tear through the white cloth, my gaze darting to the stray dogs gathering outside.
One of the new ones yapped, jumping up against the door while another pawed at the glass.
The blind dog snarled at the newcomers, snapping at them to quiet.
It was as if it was waiting for something. Or someone.
My night terrors chuckled. “We will find you soon, Little One. Your heart is heavy with darkness.”
The scissors trembled In my hand as another tear bled from my eye, dripping onto the linen and blossoming like a wound in snow.
My mother gently withdrew them from me and finished the strips herself.
She wrapped my eyes with the make-shift bandages, her voice lilting around ancient Egyptian syllables.
“Purify the eyes that light your daughter’s path...” She prayed, “Let her heart found worthy of balance on your scales...”
In a single, smooth motion, she traced oil down my forehead to my collarbone.
The earthy scent of olives choked my senses, and I took a shallow breath as she anointed my ears.
“Let her hearing be sealed for your task,” My mother whispered. “Please, accept your daughter, Anubis...”
Anubis never answered. Never came.
And yet, the stray hounds remained outside the Sweeping Reeds Funeral Home.
Waiting while my mother continued murmuring ancient Egyptian prayers.
I swallowed hard as her thumbs pressed against the shells of my ears.
The sickly-thick olive oil dripped from her hands down my auricles and trickled into my canals.
The night terrors hushed.
But the blood-tears continued.
The viscoid liquid clotted my lashes and darkened the bandages wrapped over my eyes.
“Keep them closed,” she instructed, removing the dirty strips and replacing them with salt-soaked linen. I took a deep breath as the pressure behind my eyes sharpened like a surgeon’s scalpel, lacerating the veins of my sight.
The pain clawed a cold sweat from my bones and I dropped to my knees on the cracked kitchen tiles.
“Mom...” I said, my voice cracking. “Am I really dying?”
My mother’s chants stuttered, her voice quieting as she tightened my bandages.
“Yes, my love.”
She kneeled next to me and pulled me into her arms, rocking me slowly. “Are you still hearing voices?”
I shook my head and she sighed, relieved.
“Good.” She murmured, “Then he’s protecting you, at least.”
“Anubis?” I asked.
My mind was reeling from the idea that the Egyptian god of death was my father.
“Yes.” she replied and kissed my forehead.
She sounded so… calm. So certain.
And for a moment, it was just us breathing quietly in the funeral home’s stuffy kitchen.
“Heba,” my mom hesitated. “When your soul slips into the underworld, into Duat, promise me that you will be brave.”
She pressed me against her heart and my bandages smeared her neck in a thin sheen of blood. Her pulse thrummed strongly against my weakening breath.
“Your father will measure you against truth and order. ,” she continued. “The feather of Ma’at will discern if your heart is worthy of resurrection... and carrying divine blood that judges the dead.”
She sounded insane, but I was too weak to argue.
“I don’t want to go,” I said, my chest rising slower. My clammy hands slipped against her funerary scrubs. “I want to stay here with you.”
“You’ll come back soon,” she said before whispering to herself. “You have to.”