returning from the underworld should find them ready to enter again and live forever on Earth under the good god Osiris, his queen Isis, and their son Horus.
“The final battle of good versus evil has not yet taken place. Horus will be victorious on that day Osiris and the rest of the Gods will return to the Earth, and there will be peace and order, not chaos.”
Memphis recalled reading about the theory that right now we lived in a deterministic chaos—that there was still order, but it was below the surface. She actually felt sympathy for Seth. He wasn’t always evil; his jealousy and thirst for power were his downfall. She couldn’t imagine having a sibling she was jealous of or hated that much. She couldn’t imagine having a family she didn’t love.
Chapter 8
In New York, when a woman finds her life crumbling around her, she does not go crazy. She goes to yoga. That was what Memphis spent the rest of the week doing—that, and of course job searching. She needed a position that would fit in with her class schedule. She wanted to file a complaint against Jonathan with the university, but she worried that if he had enough pull to get her a fellowship without her applying, he probably enough pull to get her thrown out of the entire program. She reevaluated her career path. Academia wasn’t for her; she wanted to make money rather than a name for herself. She would look into space exploration or maybe computer science—fields that would keep her far from the reach of Jonathan’s tentacles.
Watching The Universe Now had given her ideas for the type of research she wanted to do. She sent Virgil White another e-mail to check on the status of her natal chart request and to inquire if they could discuss research in the field of archeoastrology, but he hadn’t responded yet. She texted Jill to check in on the case of the mysterious horoscopes. This morning, she received one that warned her that someone close to her would have a brush with death and it would be up to her to save them. Talk about pressure.
This last missive frightened her; if this was a joke, it was no longer funny. Hopefully, her urgent message and the fact that it could possibly be Jill herself, since she was practically the only person she saw as close, who could die would push her to put more pressure on their source in IT. In the meantime, she needed to remain in child’s pose or she would jump out of a window.
Memphis took the stairs rather than waiting for the elevator to the fourth floor where the class was held. Her yogi, Martha, would be proud. Martha was fifty-five years old with the body of someone well under half her age. She rolled out her mat in her usual corner of the room; she wasn’t at hand-standing levels yet.
Unlike some people, she thought while looking in the direction of another classmate, Whitney the show-off. She gave her a dirty look before sitting down, though she was well on the way to becoming an exceptional student herself.
Martha led the class through breathing exercises before they went through various positions. It felt so good to stretch her muscles; she reached to worship the sun, moving smoothly into child. The class was over before she knew it. They were soon in corpse pose, with Martha walking around them, dabbing scented oil on the center of their foreheads—their Third Eyes. It reminded Memphis of that poor teacher who went to Brooklyn never to return. She shook the thoughts from her mind and tried to focus on Martha’s voice. Martha was such a lovely, wonderful person. She could picture her in her mind; her smile lines were the only indication of her age. She had a daughter Memphis’s age; she was probably the perfect mother.
The warm thoughts of Martha were suddenly replaced with a vision of her falling down the flight of stairs right outside the classroom.
She sat up in horror. “Martha!” she shouted.
“Yes, dear. Are you all right?” Martha had come to her side, concerned.
“Oh, it was just a muscle spasm.”
“Where it is? I’ll rub it down for you,” she offered.
“It’s gone now. If it’s okay, I’m just going to head to the showers a bit early today.”
“Yes, dear, of course it is. Use the last stall; it has the best showerhead.” She gave her a warm smile and went on to anoint the rest