Counted With the Stars (11 page)

If Shira were here, I could ask her more about this destructive god of hers. I missed her, but I hoped she was safe with her family. I was desperate for my own.

If I die now, will Osiris even greet me on the other side?
I shook the strange thought out of my head. I would not die. I refused to let my mother or my brother die. I would do anything necessary to protect the only light left in my life.

6
TH
D
AY
OF
S
HEMU
S
EASON
OF
H
ARVEST
1446 BC

B
lackness consumed everything. I blinked my eyes and swallowed hard against the fear that wrapped its tentacles around my throat, squeezing tighter with every moment my sight betrayed me. I could not see my own hand in front of my face.

How many days had it been? Without even a hint of light anywhere, there was no way to tell. Each time I fell into the depths of sleep I awoke with a start, dizzy and disoriented, locked in a frigid, timeless, endless night.

Darkness clung to me, wrapping me in a shroud of confusion. The air pressed thick on every side, as if I were trapped under the dark waters of the Nile. No candle would burn, no lamp would light, for the flames could not catch a breath.

How much longer would we endure this torture? Would the sun ever rise again?

Tekurah stirred on her bed and ordered that I bring more food and water. No matter that I had stumbled my way to the kitchen
four times before in this blackness, the terror of venturing into the hallway seized me once again. I forced myself to inhale with long, slow breaths until the rushing pulse in my ears quieted.

I rose from the prison of my pallet, wrapped my woolen blanket around my body, and shuffled across the room, hands outstretched and feet cautious. Although my mistress was bound to her bed, she insisted that I continue serving her in the dark. Bruises covered my shins and hips from other excursions, unseen yet tender and layering one upon another after each unfortunate collision with furnishings. The temptation to refuse her demands grew stronger with each black minute, and I was glad she could not see the rebellion upon my face.

My fear of the dark had lingered with me from earliest childhood. Older children had spun stories of spirits of the dead who wandered the world with their heads on backward, amplifying my night terrors. Now, enveloped by the object of my greatest fears, my mind conjured horrors.

Visions of lights flashed and then were gone. Images of the idols that inhabited the alcoves along this corridor flashed through my mind, their sightless eyes staring at me as they uttered wordless curses. I squeezed my eyes tight, but the silent whispers continued. Glowing red eyes leered; slithering serpents and icy, grasping claws ripped at my imagination.

My fingers and toes were numb. The useless braziers lining this hall refused to ignite. My teeth chattered from fear and a deep, bone-aching cold.

The scuffle of sandaled feet on the tiles startled me and I turned, frustrated that my eyes could not discern even a shape nearby.

“Who is there?” I whispered over the pounding of my heart.

“Latikah. Is that Kiya?” The fear in her voice surprised me.

“Yes. Where are you going?”

She did not answer. Perhaps she had walked away. I took
a couple of steps, my hand on the wall guiding my slow trek toward the kitchen.

“I cannot take one more minute of this blackness. I can't. I can't. I'm losing my mind.” The rush of her words told me she was close to letting go of her precarious hold on sanity.

I understood. I was straining to clutch that lifeline as well. But Latikah had betrayed me and sold Shira for trinkets.

My instinct was to continue down the hallway, leave her to be swallowed up in her fears. However, the image of Shira pushing to stand in front of me and taking my punishment upon herself overruled my inclination toward vengeance. Yielding, I exhaled and moved toward Latikah's voice.

“I am coming toward you. Reach out your hand.”

“Where are you?” Her voice trembled.

Our fingers collided, and she grabbed ahold of my arm, yanking it as if she were drowning. “I'm so scared, Kiya. I have to go. I need to get out of this house.”

“There is nowhere to go. Outside is just as dark as in here.” Each time I ventured to the kitchen courtyard, I expected to see some light, any light, but the void outside was as heavy as inside the house—as though all the good in the entire land had been extinguished along with the light. No stars pierced the night. No torches lit the courtyard. The air hung thick with a menacing silence broken only by the moans and shrieks of terrified men, women, and children begging Ra to return from the underworld.

Latikah began to whimper, and her hand shook. “I have to go. I have to. I can't breathe. The walls are closing in on me, but I can't see them.” She gasped again and again, short and shallow, as if she truly could not draw enough air.

Anxious to complete my task, I told her to sit with her back against the wall and wait for me to return with some water. She complied, but her rapid pants echoed behind me as I clung to
the wall, groping past woven tapestries on my way toward the kitchen courtyard.

Knowing I was in the main vestibule, I was forced to let go of the safety of my wall and brave the open space to reach the other side of the room. I counted my steps, remembering it took only ten before—I slammed into the table in the center of the room, having misjudged or miscounted the space, and a horrific crash echoed down the hallways. I must have toppled the water clock that stood on that tabletop. Startled by the sound, a cat hissed close to my feet, and a tail grazed my shin. The animal did not go far but stayed nearby, yowling at me. Even animals were helpless in this pitch-black, their mournful cries constant since the plague had begun.

There was nothing I could do about the disaster I had caused. Getting on my hands and knees would be useless. I could not see to clean the mess. I continued my blind journey to the kitchen, where Hashma had left jars of water and the last of the food she had scavenged on a table near the door. The ovens would not light, so the only bread left was stale, but it would soothe the bite of hunger for awhile at least.

After I groped my way back to Tekurah's room, Latikah did not answer my call. She must have calmed down enough to return to the servants' quarters at the back of the house. Although I felt no friendship with her after what she had done, hearing my own fears echoed in her voice tugged at my compassion. I lay back on my mat, once again happily fettered to my bed, nested in my blankets and waiting for oblivion to take me under its wing. Yet I was unable to forget the desperate panic in Latikah's voice as she clung to me. Perhaps I should have stayed with her until she calmed.

What mysterious force held the sun-god captive in the underworld for so long? Certainly something stronger than Ra, the Almighty, should be feared. Perhaps Shira's god did wield more
power than all the gods in Egypt, as she had insisted. He'd bested the gods of the Nile, the gods of the land, the gods of the sky. Perhaps this god-of-slaves would deliver the Hebrews after all. If he had more authority than all the gods of Egypt, did that mean he was superior to Pharaoh? The Morning Sun, Incarnation of Horus, Son of Osiris? Perhaps Yahweh was even supreme to Osiris, the Lord of the Afterlife himself?

Did he have authority over death, too?

A
fter the fearful dark of those eternal three days, without even a pinprick of light in the sky, I yearned for the stars. Desperate to reassure myself that the oppressive blackness had not returned, I had stolen outside each night for a week as soon as Tekurah's breathing slowed. A compulsion to study the swirling patterns in the sky and the dance of the gods in the heavens each night gripped me.

Tonight, I wandered around the barren ground that no longer resembled a garden, bereft of all its blossoms, vines, and palm branches. What a waste. Once the jewel of my master's villa, its smell intoxicating and its colors dazzling, the garden was now an empty courtyard with a brackish pool at the center.

Latikah's body had been found there the first morning the sun had risen, floating facedown in the icy green water. She must have given in to the torment, tried to escape, and ended up falling into the pool. Unable to see and tangled in lily pads, most likely disoriented, she had drowned.

I shivered and looked away from the image the pool conjured in my mind. Poor girl. No matter what she had done to me or Shira, no one deserved that sort of lonely death. Why had I
not stayed with her that night? Perhaps I could have prevented her sad demise.

A warm breeze caressed my face, promising a welcome change in the season, yet my bones seemed to ache with a cold that refused to go away.

Perching cross-legged on the cool stone ledge surrounding the pool, I leaned back on my arms to distract myself by looking at the stars. The glittering sky stretched over me, whispering of the grandeur of the universe and my smallness, my insignificance. Loneliness, for my mother, my brother, even Shira, swelled in me. If only I could speak to her, or Eben, to hear more about what was happening with Mosheh and Pharaoh. But now that Shira was free, Eben would have no more to do with me.

Since the morning he had turned away from me, I had done my best to expel him from my mind. But tonight, with a heart battered by despair and the sky filled with stars, I allowed my thoughts to linger on his face and the enigma in his expressions.

Although he was just another Hebrew slave, his bitterness affected me, and when he had drawn close, his stormy green eyes locked on mine, I must admit, I'd wished him closer. Disappointment had spiked through me when he stepped away.

“What do you see up there?” said a voice in the darkness.

I stood, scraping my leg on the sharp ledge as I did so. My quick intake of breath was as much from the injury as the realization of who stood in the garden. I could not see him in the shadows, but there was no mistaking his voice.

No words would form. I stood with my mouth agape as Akhum drew closer through the night. Blood rushed so loudly in my ears that I strained to understand his words.

“I could not stay away any longer.” Akhum reached for my hand and pulled me toward him.

I could not speak. His dark eyes reflected the moonlight. Although the moon waxed less than full, it illuminated the garden.

I swallowed and managed to rasp, “Why are you here?”

“I told you I'd find a way.”

“A way?”

“For us to be together. All of these strange things happening in our country, all the suffering around me, all I could think of . . . was you.”

I blinked for a moment, my mind chasing thoughts that refused to bind together. “But . . . you are married.”

“Kiya, I want you. I need you close to me.” A sultry edge pressed through his voice.

“How . . . ? You . . . What do you mean?”

He drew me close and wrapped his arm around my waist. The sweet, warm-spice smell of him enticed several intimate memories to surface.

“I have more than enough to purchase your contract. I have a house in Thebes waiting for you.”

A thousand questions buzzed in my brain. He wanted me? Away from Tekurah? A house? What of his wife? His father? Eben?

The most important question bubbled over first. “What about my family?”

“They are welcome to come with you.” His lips brushed my ear, sending heat surging through my skin.

“All of them?”

“Well, your father travels now most of the time, correct? And your mother can trade her wares in any market.”

I nodded.

“Listen, I will provide all you need. I just want you. I need you near me.”

He brushed the backs of his silken fingers down my jawline and then traced my lips with his thumb. A shudder swept through me, and my questions floated away.

He grinned.

After all the dreams of Akhum, the impossible fantasies I'd entertained, here he stood, offering my life back. My thoughts spun wildly—a home, my family close, food and clothes, freed from the yoke of menial labor,
and
a new life with Akhum. Dizziness overtook me, and I swayed.

He kissed me.

I didn't care if Tekurah or Shefu or Pharaoh came into the courtyard. Akhum loved me and was going to buy my freedom.

Or was he? I pulled back. “You are going to purchase my contract?”

“Yes.” And his lips again claimed mine.

I pulled away. “And I will be free?”

He winced.

“I won't be free?” I slid from his grasp.

His voice dropped low. “The only way my father agreed to let me have you is as my concubine.”

“Concubine? You want me to be your slave?” The blood rushed in my head again, but this time it throbbed, blurring my vision.

“Lower your voice.” He glanced around the garden. “I bribed the guard at the gate to turn a blind eye, but if Shefu finds us here . . .”

He came forward again and smoothed my hair. “Don't be angry, little Kiya. My sweet. My darling.”

This man who once paid an exorbitant bride-price for me, who had prized me so highly, now wanted me to serve him? I had wasted almost two years of my life enslaved to Tekurah, serving her hand and foot, and now Akhum wanted me to do the same for him, but worse. Menial labor was not all I would endure. My body would not be my own as a concubine, not a wife of equal standing. I would be used and cast aside at his pleasure.

“No.” I shook my head vehemently.

“What do you mean, no?”

“I won't let you own my body.”

“I already own your body. You gave it to me . . . willingly, I might add.” He narrowed his eyes and flashed a crooked smile.

I winced at the reminder, surprised at the whispered guilt those memories raised in my mind, yet somehow the arrogance in his tone fractured his hold over me.

“Yes, I did. But . . . I don't know how to explain so you will understand.” I pulled farther away, folding my arms across my middle. “I have no freedom. Every movement is dictated, and if all I have left is my body, then I will not let anyone, not even you, take that from me.”

Anger flashed across his face, something I had never seen before.

“You would turn me down? After all I have done to convince my father?”

I put my hand on his arm. “Forgive me, Akhum. I don't mean to hurt you. But . . . my perspective has changed.”

He shook me off. “You ungrateful slave. Why have I wasted my time? My money?”

I jerked back, shocked at his fury and hateful words.

“How can you say that to me? I was almost your wife.”

He snorted. “Well, you are only a slave now.”

“Perhaps I am, but I am a slave who will keep her heart intact.”

He sneered. “No one else will want your precious heart. You are only fit as a concubine now . . . if that.”

Eben's face flashed again through my mind. Akhum was right; no one could ever see me as pure.

“It doesn't matter, Akhum. I won't sell my body to you or anyone else.”

A cruel smile spread across his beautiful face. “I can still
purchase the contract, you know. And then I can do whatever I want with you.”

“Shefu won't sell me.” At least I hoped for my mother's sake he wouldn't. “But go ahead and try.” I turned around, pushing my feet toward the villa door, my heart still pounding in my ears.

A low curse knifed my back as I stepped inside, drawing as much blood as he'd intended.