kids and grandkids, Nana’s proud displaying of her newly graduated granddaughter, and the exchange of various seedlings and return of a few salad bowls, we were finally on our way home.
When I asked Nana if she wanted to go directly to Grandfather’s grave, which was close enough to the house on horseback, she shook her head. “He likes it when I get dolled up,” she said.
We headed home and returned the horses to their stalls and since it had been a hot, sweaty, dog-bathing kind of day, I headed to the shower when I got back, too.
After saying my hellos to Grandpa and replacing the dead blooms with the new ones we’d cut that day, I left her alone and stood under the shade of a nearby tree to wait. Once in a while I caught the sound of her quiet voice in the breeze as she spoke with her late husband. I wondered what she was talking to him about. Was she sharing what had happened in her life since she last visited? Was she telling him how much she missed him? Or just that she loved him?
I ran through the things I’d said to Amon and regretted that he hadn’t heard me say I loved him. He should have. It should have been the first thing I’d said. Instead I’d just asked if what I was seeing was real. What a waste. I’d squandered an opportunity to really talk to him and instead I’d just pestered him with questions. What was happening and why it was happening wasn’t as important as telling him how I felt. Next time, if there ever was a next time, I’d tell him I loved him first.
As I climbed into bed, I knew that Nana was right. Living your life as best you can and working hard could help numb the sting of losing a loved one. I dug the heart scarab Amon left me out from my bag and rubbed my fingertips over it. The green stone twinkled as the light from my lamp reflected off it. It was warm and there was a slight pulse, like the faint beat of a heart, emanating from within. I pressed my lips against the stone, wishing it were Amon’s golden skin instead, and then placed it over my heart, the position Anubis would have left it on when preparing Amon’s mummy.
Yanking the covers up to my chin, the bottom tucked in tight, I folded both arms across my chest, palm over the precious jeweled piece, and wondered if this is what it felt like to be mummified. Despite my morbid thinking, it wasn’t long before I drifted asleep, fingers clutching the scarab, but instead of meeting Amon in my dreams as I hoped, I was startled awake by a bright light and a deep, resonating voice. “It is time for you to arise, Lilliana Young.”
Jerking awake, the scarab still clenched in my fingers, I scooted all the way back against the headboard and scanned the room. With the blackout curtains drawn, it was darker than the inside of a sarcophagus. I couldn’t see the intruder but I felt his presence as surely as I felt my heart slamming inside my rib cage.
“Who’s there?” I hissed in an alarmed whisper, knocking the book I’d been reading before bed off the nightstand.
“Have you forgotten me already?” The man chuckled quietly.
As I groped for the light switch, I heard a dog’s whine and froze. If I hadn’t already guessed who was in my room, the dog would have given him away. Winston did not sound at all like this dog. Actually, there was only one dog I’d ever met who had a reverberating sort of power behind his woof.
My trembling fingers finally managed to switch on the light, and there, standing before me in all his godlike glory, yet still looking like he fit in at a farmhouse in Iowa, was the Egyptian god of mummification, Anubis. In the museum, he’d worn a modern business suit. This time he was dressed in a fitted pair of jeans, a white button-down shirt that was perfectly tailored to his broad shoulders, a pair of dark cowboy boots, and a denim jacket.
He looked like GQ gone country. He even had a very appealing dark shadow of stubble on his face. Anubis appeared to be a man’s man who could toss a bale of hay, ride a bucking bronco, hang with the guys at a grill, and still knock every farm